Leslie Sacks

Denmark, long the liberal, open society that welcomed immigrants, has done an about face. After being the symbolic envy of Universalists, of Socialists, of cultural liberalism, Denmark today has the strictest immigration policy in Europe.

The Muslim population in Denmark, constituting a mere 4% of the total, refuses to integrate, consumes 40% of the welfare, and constitutes a majority of the country's convicted rapists. The Danes now acknowledge that their core values of personal liberty, free speech, equality for women and tolerance of other ethnic groups are incompatible with Islam as they know it.

Muslim leaders openly advocate introducing Islamic law in Denmark. Danes at the forefront of advocating free speech and Western values are subject to fatwas and increasingly violent attacks from the Muslim population.

This haven of tolerance and openness has opted for survival and rationality. For citizenship, the country now requires of new immigrants:

- 3 years of language classes
- tests on Denmark's history, culture and language
- 7 years of residency prior to application
- proven job opportunities and commitment to work

New mosques will not be allowed to be built in Copenhagen. Assimilation will be actively promoted. The country that once courageously and righteously saved their 7,000 Jews from the Nazi death camps now is accused of racism.

America is no stranger to accusations of profiling, political incorrectness and racism. Yet Muslims worldwide still beat down our doors to gain immigration status to the U.S. - they tellingly do not do likewise to the majority of UN nations habitually accusing the U.S. of racism. When did Cuba or Russia, Syria or even Saudi Arabia, those bastions of tolerance and freedom, last receive a deluge of immigrant applications?

So we in the U.S. spend our time being sued by aggressive Imams testing nervous airlines. Open season has been declared on the West by demanding Islamist organizations hoping to force the government and our municipalities to kowtow into passive submission. We now clearly need footbaths in every university restroom. We also need two taxi lines at every airport - one for those with short skirts, dogs or alcoholic beverages and one for Shari'a-compliant Americans.

Yet little spunky Denmark is showing us and everyone the way. They opened their borders and their coffers to welcome Muslims, in a show of remarkable generosity and goodwill. Now, bruised and battered by an unappreciative, increasingly fundamentalist, and sadly uncompromising Muslim community, they are closing their doors and battening down the hatches.

It is only a matter of time before America's similar generosities and freedoms are likewise pressured. It will not be too long before our remarkable naiveté, our exquisitely refined political correctness, are replaced by realistic pragmatism and a strong commitment to our own cultural survival, to uncompromising freedoms and our non-negotiable security and liberty.

A new found taste for Danish pastries perhaps?

# #

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Leslie Sacks is an art dealer and gallerist in Los Angeles. Before that, he founded and operated Les Art International in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was active in opposing apartheid and in supporting the Johannesburg Jewish community.

As we suggested last week in this Creeping Sharia post, the origins of the policy are not new, in fact, the topic of jihadi semantics has a long history. The 'TrueSpeak' theory has been discussed in various circles including the military, scholars (Muslim and non), the Muslim Brotherhood, and by those who oppose the theory such as Stephen Coughlin, Walid Phares, and Patrick Poole (to name a few).

We'll start with Walid Phares commentary (note the date) and in upcoming posts, we'll delve further into the history of the jihad lexicon.

Preventing the West from Understanding Jihad - By Walid Phares, July 17, 2007

In the years that followed 9/11, two phenomena characterized the Western public's understanding of the terrorists' ideology. The first characteristic stemmed from the statements made by the jihadists themselves. More than ever, Islamist militants and jihadi cadres didn't waste any opportunity to declare, clarify, explain, and detail the meaning of their aqida (doctrine) and their intentions to apply Jihadism by all means possible. Unfortunately for them, though, those extremely violent means changed the international public opinion: the public now was convinced that there was an ideology of Jihadism, and that its adherents meant business worldwide.

From Ayman al Zawahiri in Arabic to Azzam al Amriki in American English, via all of the videotapes made by "martyrs" in Britain, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the public obtained all the evidence necessary. Against all the faulty academic literature of the 1990's, the statements by the jihadists themselves were very convincing.

The second phenomenon of help to the public was the surfacing of a new literature produced by alternative scholars, analysts, journalists, experts, and researchers who, from different backgrounds and countries, filled in some of the gaps is "jihadi studies." Producing books, articles, and blogs from Europe, India, the Middle East, and North America, a combination of Third World-born and Western-issued scholarship began to provide the "missing link" as to what Jihadism is all about. These factors came together to shift the debate from "Jihad is spiritual yoga" to "Why didn't we know it was something else as well?" And this triggered in response one of the last attempts to prevent jihad from being understood.

In the 1990's, apologist literature attempted to convince readers and audiences in the West that jihad was a "spiritual experience only, and not a menace." [1] That explanation has now been shattered by Bin Laden and Ahmedinijad. So in the post-9/11 age, a second strategy to delay public understanding of Jihadism and thereby gain time for its adherents to achieve their goals has evolved. It might be called the "good cop, bad cop" strategy. Over the past few years, a new story began to make inroads in Washington and the rest of the national defense apparatus. A group of academics and interest groups are circulating the idea that in reality jihad can develop in two forms: good jihad and bad jihad.

The practice of not using "Jihad" and "Jihadism" was lately defended by two academics at the National Defense University [2] who based their arguments on a study published by a Washington lobbyist, Jim Guirard.[3] On June 22, 2006, Jim Garamone, writing for the American Forces Press Service, published the study of Douglas Streusand and Harry Tunnel under the title "Loosly Interpreted Arabic terms can promote enemy ideology." Streusand told CNN that "Jihad is a term of great and positive import in Islam. It is commonly defined as striving or struggle, and can mean an internal or external struggle for faith." [4]

The article was posted under the title "Cultural Ignorance Leads to Misuse of Islamic Terms" by the US-based Islamist organization CAIR. [5] Since then the "concept" of deflecting attention away from the study of Jihadism has penetrated large segments of the defense newsletters and is omnipresent in Academia. More troubling though, is the fact that scholars who have seen the strategic threat of al Qaeda and Hezbollah have unfortunately fallen for the fallacy of the Hiraba. Professor Michael Waller of the Institute of World Politics in Washington wrote recently that "Jihad has been hijacked" as he bases his argument on Jim Guirard's lobbying pieces.[6] Satisfied with this trend taking root in the Defense intelligentsia of America, Islamist intellectuals and activists are hurrying to support this new tactic.

The good holy war is when the right religious and political authorities declare it against the correct enemy and at the right time. The bad jihad, called also Hiraba, is the wrong war, declared by bad (and irresponsible) people against the wrong enemy (for the moment), and without an appropriate authorization by the "real" Muslim leadership. According to this thesis, those Muslims who wage a Hiraba, a wrong war, are called Mufsidoon, from the Arabic word for "spoilers." The advocates of this ruse recommend that the United States and its allies stop calling the jihadists by that name and identifying the concept of Jihadism as the problem. In short, they argue that "jihad is good, but the Mufsidoon, the bad guys and the terrorists, spoiled the original legitimate sense."[7]

When researched, it turns out that this theory was produced by clerics of the Wahabi regime in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood as a plan to prevent jihad and Jihadism from being considered by the West and the international community as an illegal and therefore forbidden activity. It was then forwarded to American- and Western-based interest groups to be spread within the Untied States, particularly within the defense and security apparatus. Such a deception further confuses U.S. national security perception of the enemy and plunges democracies back into the "black hole" of the 1990's. This last attempt to blur the vision of democracies can be exposed with knowledge of the jihadi terror strategies and tactics, one of which is known as Taqiya, the doctrine on deception and deflection. [8]

First, the argument of "good jihad" raises the question of how there can be a legitimate concept of religious war in the twenty-first century to start with. Jihad historically was as "good" as any other religious war over the last 2,000 years. If a "good jihad" is the one authorized by a caliph and directed under his auspices, then other world leaders also can wage a "good crusade" at will, as long as it is licensed by the proper authority. But in fact, all religious wars are proscribed by international law, period.

Second, the authors of this lobbyist-concocted theory claim that a wrong jihad is called a Hiraba. But in Arab Muslim history, a Hiraba (unauthorized warring) was when a group of warriors launched itself against the enemy without orders from the real commander. Obviously, this implies that a "genuine" war against a real enemy does exist and that these hotheaded soldiers have simply acted without orders. Hence this cunning explanation puts "spin" on jihad but leaves the core idea of jihadism completely intact. The "spoilers" depart from the plan, attack prematurely, and cause damage to the caliphate's long-terms plans. These Mufsidoon "fail" their commanders by unleashing a war of their own, instead of waiting for orders.

This scenario fits the relations of the global jihadists, who are the regimes and international groups slowly planning to gain power against the infidels and the "hotheaded" Osama bin Laden. Thus the promoters of this theory of Hiraba and Mufsidoon are representing the views of classical Wahabis and the Muslim Brotherhood in their criticism of the "great leap forward" made by bin Laden. But by convincing Westerners that al Qaeda and its allies are not the real jihadists but some renegades, the advocates of this school would be causing the vision of Western defense to become blurred again so that more time could be gained by a larger, more powerful wave of Jihadism that is biding its time to strike when it chooses, under a coherent international leadership.

Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy. This piece was adapted from his recently published book The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy.
[1] See John Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? 3rd edition. (New York: Oxford University Press) 1999.

[2] May 23, 2006

[3] "Hiraba Versus Jihad," the American Muslim. August 2003.

[4] See Henry Shuster, "Words in War," CNN, October 19, 2006.

[5] Quoting the American Forces Press Service on June 29, 2006.

[6] Michael Waller. "Making Jihad Work for America." The Journal for International Security Affairs. Spring 2006

[7] See James Fallows, "Declaring Victory," Atlantic Monthly (September 2006).

[8] According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Taqiya: "spelled Taqiyah, Arabic Taqiyah ("self-protection"), in Islam, [is] the practice of concealing one's belief and foregoing ordinary religious duties when under threat of death or injury to oneself or one's fellow Muslims. The Qu'ran allows Muslims to profess friendship with the unbelievers (3:28) and even outwardly to deny their faith (16:106), if doing so would save them from imminent danger," on the condition that their hearts remain attached to faith. Also see Larry Stirling, "On Taqiya' and ‘Fatwas,'" San Diego Source, September 25, 2006; also Walid Phares, "al-Taqiyah: The Muslim Method of Conquest," Freeman Center for Strategic Studies, December 1997.

Halløjsa Pia: hvad med at du siger hvad du selv mener og lader os andre sige vores egen mening. Her kunne lyndemokrati være på sin plads. SMS-afstemning om lovændringer - bare sådan for at vejre stemningen i befolkningen og tage ordet ud af munden på Pia K.

Birthe Rønn har fat i den lange ende, og det er skandaløst for et demokrati at en politiker ikke kan udtale sig om et politisk emne uden at der skal gives mundkurv på. Hvem var det lige der ville af med smagsdommerne og indførte kanon for demokratiets bastion: kunsten, litteraturen og skuespillet.

Kommer der ikke snart et nyt parti igen? Hvis Birthe Rønn laver et, så har hun min stemme.

In the blockbuster action movie Independence Day, alien spacecraft hover simultaneously above strategic spots around the globe, the better to maximize chaos and destruction when they finally attack all at once.

A more mundane version of that scenario played itself out in real life this week, when three new stories appeared within 24 hours, all documenting a worldwide phenomenon that has come to be known as "sharia creep."

In Australia, Muslim students (mostly Saudi citizens) asked Melbourne universities to adjust class times to fit in with their daily prayers.[1] They also requested female-only recreational areas on campus.

One institution rejected their demands outright. "That would seriously inconvenience other people at the college and it is not institutionally viable," La Trobe University's Martin Van Run told The Australian. "We are a secular institution ... and we need to have a structured timetable."

In a surprise reaction, the Saudi Government unveiled a plan to curb radicalization among its students in Australia by ensuring they make up only one percent of the student body at any given campus.

The idea is to prevent radical students from reaching critical mass, and thereby encouraging all Saudi-born students to mingle with non-Muslims.

"The move is a marked turnaround from past initiatives by the Saudi Government," reported The Australian,[2] "including allegedly bankrolling hard line Muslim clerics, such as Canberra-based Mohammed Swaiti who openly praised jihadists; and pumping an estimated $120 million into the local Islamic community since the 1970s to influence its ideological bent."

Meanwhile, on February 26, local officials in Zwolle, Holland decided to lift a ban on Muslim women wearing so-called "burkinis" in public swimming pools.[3] The garment, also known as a hijood, leaves only the wearer's face, hands and feet exposed.

But the next day, a different municipality pledged to retain the burkini ban, because the garment doesn't meet regulations and "might scare off" other swimmers. However, the same Hanzebad public pool has already offered female Muslim swimmers separate hours for several years.

The Dutch TV newsmagazine Netwerk sent a reporter wearing a burkini to various public pools. According to one report,[4] "the fiercest reaction shown was by a Muslim man, who said the burkini was an example of oppression of women and tolerating it an example of the influence that orthodox Islam is gaining in the Netherlands."

Closer to home, Harvard University announced new women-only access times at the student gym,[5] to "accommodate religious customs that make it difficult for some students to work out in the presence of men."

This decision came one month after men were banned from the athletic center during certain times, following successful petitions from the Harvard Islamic Society as well as the Women's Center.

Harvard Islamic Society's Islamic Knowledge Committee officer Ola Aljawhary said she does not consider the women-only gym hours discriminatory against male students or a "case of minority rights trumping majority preference."

"We live together in one community, it only makes sense for everyone to compromise slightly in order for everyone to live happily," she said.

As one blogger[6] observed, "I also like how minorities have 'rights' while the majority has a 'preference.' And here I was thinking we all had exactly the same rights. How silly of me."

News stories like these have multiplied exponentially during the past few years. Hardly a day goes by without similar reports, such as Muslim nurses in the UK[7] refusing to roll up their sleeves to scrub up before surgery, claiming that sharia modesty rules trump concerns about contamination.

"IT'S ALL PART OF THE CAMPAIGN OF SOFT JIHAD," wrote Roger Kimball[8], editor of The New Criterion. "Traditional jihad is waged with scimitars and their contemporary equivalents, e.g., stolen Boeing 767s, which make handy instruments of mass homicide. Soft jihad is a quieter affair: it uses and abuses the language and the principles of democratic liberalism not to secure the institutions and attitudes that make freedom possible but, on the contrary, to undermine that freedom and pave the way for self-righteous, theocratic intolerance."

Western countries do not always go along with the plan, however. Witness the public outcry back in 2003, when some Muslims in the province of Ontario, Canada demanded they be allowed to set up sharia courts, ostensibly to arbitrate domestic disputes in the manner of pre-existing Catholic and Jewish tribunals.

Public protests in Canada, as well as abroad, led Premier Dalton McGuinty, who'd initially voiced tentative support for the new courts, to rule against the move. Unfortunately, that meant that those long established Catholic and Jewish tribunals throughout the province had to be shut down too, in the interest of "equality."

Author and expert on radical Islam Robert Spencer has been sounding the alarm about "sharia creep" for years at his website DhimmiWatch.[9] In an exclusive interview with FrontPageMag.com, Spencer reflected on whether or not his efforts to warn the public were paying off:

I think we may be getting through to a very small number of people, but Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in the U.S. are still making tremendous headway by portraying these Sharia-creep initiatives as simple matters of civil rights, and playing on fears among public officials, and the public at large, of being seen as racist and bigoted.

It is getting worse, because there is a concerted effort by the MSA's [Muslim Student Ass'n] on various campuses and other groups to push Muslim accommodation issues aggressively, but this effort is relatively new. We didn't see it on this scale ten or even five years ago. I think it is a natural outgrowth of the post-9/11 anxiety on the part of government and media not to appear 'Islamophobic.' As long as that continues to be a matter for concern, there will be continued accommodation of Muslim practices and Islamic distinctiveness, which only aids and abets the Islamic supremacist agenda.

At the same time, Spencer sees "an increasingly discussion of the creeping Sharia/stealth jihad issue by an increasing number of writers." Writers like Daniel Pipes and Diana West have devoted recent columns to the domestic front on the War on Terror. But despite the work they and others do, the "level of awareness right now is so abysmal," continued Robert Spencer, "that I think the main thing people can do is try to call attention, via letters to the editor, contacts to their elected officials, the blogsophere, etc., to the explicit campaign being undertaken here. The idea would be to awaken as many people as possible to what is going on here –– who the groups are that are pursuing this agenda, and what the agenda really is, behind all the talk of 'hate speech' and accommodation of cultural practices in the name of multiculturalism and diversity."

And that agenda seems to be everywhere –– from the big issues right down to British fish and chips. When it was revealed in late February that a popular British snack food contained traces of alcohol,[10] a Muslim Council of Britain spokesman declared, "Certainly we would find it very offensive to have eaten food with alcohol."

In turn, Richard Kimball voiced "a modest proposal, which I offer to British Food and Beverage industry free and for nothing: start putting a bit of alcohol in everything edible or potable."

"It's only a start, Kimball continued, "but from a tiny acorn the mighty oak does grow."

Footnotes

1. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/
0,,23269447-2702,00.html?from=public_rss

2. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/
0,25197,23282588-15084,00.html

3. http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/02/
swimming_pool_relents_on_burki.php

4. http://www.expatica.com/nl/articles/news/
Row-over-Muslim-swimming-costume-in-Netherlands.html

5. http://media.www.dailyfreepress.com/media/
storage/paper87/news/2008/02/25/News/To.Accommodate.Muslim.
Students.Harvard.Tries.WomenOnly.Gym.Hours-3232133.shtml

6. http://pursuingholiness.com/2008/02/25/ivy-league-dhimmitude/

7. http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/020107.php

8. http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/rogerkimball/2008/02/23/
quiet_crusading_vs_soft_jihad.php

9. http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/

10. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article3412749.ece

A blogger since 2000, Kathy Shaidle runs FiveFeetOfFury.com. Her new e-book Acoustic Ladyland has been called a "must read" by Mark Steyn.

This article appeared March 3, 2008 in Front Page Magazine
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID= C9A33CD4-88D4-4162-A1C1-6777D90821EC

Hezbollah Spy Prouty Gets $750 Fine, NO JAIL TIME; Same for Sis-in-Law, but $500 Fine Carter appointed judge no less

20th 9-11 hijacker has all charges DROPPED!

What's next? Will the Palestinian imam on trial in New Jersey for lying on his immigration application about being arrested and a member of Hamas, be allowed to stay in the U.S. and continue preaching jihadi hatred?

An unnamed panel at the National Press Club hosted by CAIR, the terrorist founded and unindicted co-conspirator to the Holy Land Foundation trial, entitled 'Separating Religion from Terror: Implications for US Policy' is evidence of such destitution. That the NPC would host a terror-related organization, despite having a code of Ethics that would readily eliminate CAIR, has come to be expected. The media, aligned with the multi-cultural, anti-American propagandists are complicit with the Islamists. Yet it is the propaganda, all too common from CAIR, spewing from such panels that influence members of groups like the Homeland Security Policy Institute that are frightening. Some quotes from this May 6th, 2008 event:

Frank Cilluffo, of the Homeland Security Policy Institute, said, “Some of our own terms don’t help. War on terrorism, to me, is the wrong metaphor. It’s not a war. It’s quite obvious we’re elevating the adversary to a status they don’t deserve.”

Appointed by President Bush, could Cilluffo and CAIR have been part of the team who wacked all forms of the word jihad from the front line vocabulary? Were 9-11, 7-7, and other events not an indication to the Homeland Security Policy Institute that Islamists are at war with the West? Are we not fucked?

All of the members of the panel agreed that Islam is the solution to terrorism and not the problem. Cilluffo asserts that long term sustained solutions have to come from within. “We need to see more Islamic scholars."

Douglas Johnston, of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, “The best antidote for bad theology is good theology."

When the Homeland Security Policy Institute believes that more Islam is the answer it seems they ignore what has happened in the Middle East where there is nothing but Islam. Islam hasn't solved any problems there, how will it solve any problems here? More Islam will result in more appeasement of Muslims, more sharia law, and less freedoms. And while Johnston suggests a good v. bad theology antidote - he fails to note that all Islamic theology comes from the same sources, primarily the Quran. So is Islam a religion of peace or is Johnston revealing that there is bad theology in the Quran?

The panel goes on to blame Americans and the media for the issues of Islamic terrorism:

...they recognized the challenges ahead. Loose knit extremist organizations without a central leader, the American lack of understanding of how Muslims view freedom and religion, and the skewed media that we are presented with has made the job of those who seek peace and understanding among all people that much more difficult.

No central leader, but a central belief in Islam, and a central text - the Quran. Had such nonsense come from a foreign group it may not be so offensive, but then again, how many CAIR officials are foreign born? But why is the council on American islamic relations discussing foreign policy issues? They are supposedly a civil rights group focused on helping minorities in America. And don't we know the Islamic view on freedom and religion? Isn't it called sharia law? Continuing on their foreign policy appeasement, CAIR went on to state this:

[Parvez] Ahmed urged that we not shun political organizations..like Hamas...or Hezbollah...but to make them part of the civic process. “To bring extremists and people who are espousing political violence as a way of conflict resolution into a civic process, we have to encourage democratic and electoral processes,” said Ahmed. He added that they need to be part of the solution.

Again not surprising for a Muslim group with terrorist beginnings, but the influence this type of rhetoric seems to have with policy makers is astonishing. This is the same rhetoric we hear from Hamas and Hizbollah themselves as well as Barack Hussein Obama advisors, past and present. Should the terrorists preferred candidate, Obama, win the presidency, you can be sure similar panels will be meeting not only with CAIR, but with Hamas, Hizbollah, and other terrorist groups already present in the U.S.

We, the people, are the last line of defense and sanity. Read it all.

A War of Words: CAIR Pushes for Removal of Islamic Terms in Anti-Terror Rhetoric

By Daniel Hayes
Muslim Link Contributing Writer

The Council on American-Islamic Relations hosted a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, May 6, 2008. As the title suggests, Separating Religion from Terror: Implications for US Policy, the goal of the discussion was to distinguish the slew of violent attacks sweeping across the geo-political field, and the radical ideologies that inspire them, from the tenets and foundations of the Islamic faith.

Two of the principle arguments touted were critical of the rhetoric used by the US administration on a semantic level.

Opposed to the declaration of a war on terror, CAIR chairman and North Florida University professor, Parvez Ahmed, claimed, “That by declaring a war, you are conferring warrior status to people who are essentially criminals.” Frank Cilluffo, of the Homeland Security Policy Institute, said, “Some of our own terms don’t help. War on terrorism, to me, is the wrong metaphor.

It’s not a war. It’s quite obvious we’re elevating the adversary to a status they don’t deserve.”
Ahmed, implicitly declaring a war on words found commonplace in American, and subsequently international, media that meld intrinsically Islam and terrorism, made clear his disdain for the association made between unwarranted violence and fundamentalism. “Extremism is a better descriptor [than fundamentalism] of this militant piety because it denotes the deviation from the normative teachings of the faith,” said Ahmed.

All of the members of the panel agreed that Islam is the solution to terrorism and not the problem. Douglas Johnston, of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, described a successful hostage negotiation he had with Taliban leaders that was mediated by a parliament style group of respected religious leaders in Afghanistan. “They sat down with open Qurans and within the first hour said, ‘when are you going to release the women,’ because it was against their religious principles.”

Cilluffo asserts that long term sustained solutions have to come from within. “We need to see more Islamic scholars. We’ve seen some positive programs overseas play a role in demonstrably showing how the extremists are taking the narrative out of context.”

Cilluffo identified the importance of having counter-narratives to contend with the radical ones of extremist organizations that use religious scriptures out of context in order to promote their own political agenda. “Once you expose the narrative itself, it will fall upon its own weight of inconsistency,” said Cilluffo. His words echoed those of Johnson who said, “The best antidote for bad theology is good theology.”

Although the panel was hopeful for reconciliation, they recognized the challenges ahead. Loose knit extremist organizations without a central leader, the American lack of understanding of how Muslims view freedom and religion, and the skewed media that we are presented with has made the job of those who seek peace and understanding among all people that much more difficult. “The media has focused disproportionately on the negative which has fostered a sense of paranoia and fear,” said Ahmed.

Muslim youth with access to the internet were identified as the most susceptible to being seduced by the inflammatory messages of radicals. Chat rooms in which beliefs are influenced and affirmed, that also offer a sense of connection for marginalized youth, were deemed more effective than web pages.

A poignant suggestion, drawn from the success of the stabilization and restructuring of Northern Ireland, was to include extremists in the political process. The world saw in 2007 the election of Protestant unionist hardliner, Ian Paisley as first minister, with Catholic Sinn Fein leader, Martin McGuiness, former Irish Republican Army member, as second minister.

Prior to the inclusion of right and left wing factions, moderates who drafted treaties without broad base support of the people would consistently be outflanked, making little to no political and social gains. The end of Britain’s 38 year occupation of Northern Ireland in 2005 helped ease tensions as well.

Ahmed urged that we not shun political organizations that legitimately win elections in their countries, like Hamas which was identified by the American government as a terrorist group, or Hezbollah which is part of the political process in Lebanon, but to make them part of the civic process. “To bring extremists and people who are espousing political violence as a way of conflict resolution into a civic process, we have to encourage democratic and electoral processes,” said Ahmed. He added that they need to be part of the solution.

Muhammad Ali Abu Raziza, a psychology professor in Mecca, was arrested by the Kingdom’s feared religious police, the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. He was accused of breaking the Islamic injunctions under the Khilwa code, which restricts the independence of women. It stipulates that women must not meet men alone, other than relatives.

However the professor has alleged police entrapment. He claimed a history of personality disputes with the arresting officers, who were once his students. In his defence, Abu Raziza had said he had called the woman to ensure she had a chaperone but despite her assurances, she was alone when he arrived. No information has emerged about the fate of the woman since the incident.

Amnesty International has urged Saudi authorities to release the professor: “Saudi Arabia should stop needlessly persecuting people like this - we want to see a complete end to people in the kingdom being punished for 'khilwa’ offences.”

Read how it transpired and how sharia creeps across America; from the request for a separate room in one mall (they got an open space), the plan to upgrade to a better space in that mall, to plans for prayer spaces in more malls. Even suggesting that the mall is losing revenue by not having an Islamic prayer space.

While this piece instructs Muslims not to wash their feet in the sink because it's a federal health violation, it does instruct them to wipe the sink with the towel they used to wash their hands and face or an extra towel. Will the sinks be used to wash dirty feet when infidels are not present? What is not mentioned is that the wudu ritual also includes rinsing the nose with water and blowing it back out three times, washing the beard, and wiping the ears and head clean.

The prayer room must also be a well communicated policy as the article instructs Muslims they can ask the information desk for directions to the prayer space. How long before the request for Islamic foot baths are initiated? How long before prayer mats, Qurans, and other Islamic items become common place in Tysons Corner? Is mall management (click for mall Contacts) aware of these possibilities? Are they prepared for large 'congregations' of Muslims praying?

Tyson's Mall: Shop Till You Have to Drop (In Sujood)

Assalamu’alykum. I wanted to pass on some important information to our community. As we all share the common concerns with performing our daily prayers while away from home, it is very important that we have musallas [prayer rooms] in different areas for us to be able to offer our prayers while nearby.

I have contacted the Tysons Corner management and spoke to the general manager Corie who has been very nice in offering us a place to pray in Tysons mall. I strongly recommend that we make great use of this opportunity so that the management understands and hopefully will upgrade us to a better location within the mall.

I have originally asked the mall management to allot us a designated room, however currently they don’t see it fit as the demand is not really there. I have conveyed to them that thousands of Muslims that visit the mall leave the mall at prayer times just to perform their prayer which takes 5-10 minutes. This actually is loss of revenue for the Mall as we cut short our shopping lists and delay our purchases. Corie has been a great help in providing us this place so that we can make use of it. I strongly recommend that we heavily utilize this opportunity while visiting the Tysons Mall, and hopefully this will be the starting point to copy this arrangement to other mall locations.

Please pass this email to whoever you deem necessary and think will benefit from it.

PRAYER AREA IN TYSONS’ MALL:

As you enter the mall area coming out from Nordstrom on the main level there is an alley to your right hand side that has signs for “Security, Elevators and Restrooms”. Go into that alley and down all the way till you see the Elevators on your right hand side. (You’ll pass the Restrooms on your right and security office on your left.) Directly across from the Elevators is an area underneath the stairs behind the glass wall where there is ample room to pray even with a small congregation. Currently there you will see some extra furniture and other small items laying around, please ignore that.

You will probably need the prayer rug or something to put there for prostration. Currently there is marble flooring and no carpet in this area.

(You may also ask the information desk as to the location of the prayer area and/or security office and they’ll provide you directions to it)

Please be considerate and not leave any trash and any other items behind which cause any problems for the cleaning crew of the mall.

Qibla Direction:

If you are behind the glass wall area and facing the Elevators. Turn to your right about 30 degrees and that is the location of the Qibla. www.qiblalocator.com

WUDU INSTRUCTIONS (prohibited acts):

There are restrooms close by the prayer area. It is very important that we DO NOT WASH OUR FEET in the sinks there. We must make Masah. Regardless of the weather (winter/summer), we must abstain from putting our feet in the sink as this is a public mall restroom and federal health regulations prohibits this act of placing feet in the sinks for any reason. We don’t want to lose this place due to our non-conformance with Federal and Mall regulations.

Some people may not understand these restrictions, in which case it becomes incumbent upon us to remind them politely if we see them violating these rules in the restroom area. It is our duty to remind the person that due to his/her actions in violating this rule, all local Muslims may suffer at his/her hands by losing the place of prayer in Tysons Mall.

It is natural to have some water spill on the sink counter while washing our arms, hence it is very important that once you wipe your face and hands with the paper-towels, please use it to clean/wipe the area around the sink. It is better to grab a few paper towels ahead of time and keep them with you while making wudu, because once you leave the sink to go get paper-towel, someone else might take your place and have a very bad impression of you. This is a courteous act in which others looking at the Muslims making wudu will have respect for our action. Please repeat this action after each person makes wudu, even if you have someone behind you who will be using the sink for the same purpose. So, the cleanest sink in that restroom should be the one you have just made wudu in because you have just wiped it down. Cleanliness is half of Iman, and all this should become second nature to us. I would also go the extra mile of wiping down someone else’s place of wudu next to us in case they forgot or didn’t pay attention to it.

This is the best form of dawa that we can have where we do it quietly demonstrating our best manners. It will only make people think twice with what they hear on the media and maybe open up a Quran just because they saw you making proper clean wudu and offering prayer in humbleness.

May Allah bless the Muslims wherever they may be. Thanks. -- Nabil Ahmed (Source: ADAMS Community Email List)

Last Tuesday (April 29) a court in Djilfa, 150 miles south of Algiers, charged the 33-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity with “printing, storing and distributing” illegal religious material. A written copy of the verdict has yet to be issued.

The Protestant, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told fellow Christians in his home city of Tiaret that police pressured him to return to Islam while in custody.

The conviction is the latest in a wave of detentions and court cases against Algeria’s Protestants and Catholics. Since January police and provincial officials have ordered the closure of up to half of the country’s 50 estimated Protestant congregations.

Officials in several instances have cited a February 2006 law governing the worship of non-Muslims. Clarified by subsequent decrees in 2007, the law restricts most religious meetings to approved places of worship and forbids any attempt to “shake the faith of a Muslim.”

On the morning of April 25, the Tiaret resident and eight-year convert to Christianity was stopped at a police roadblock in the vicinity of Djilfa while riding in a shared taxi. Officials took the convert into custody upon finding a Bible and several religious study books in his luggage.

A Christian from Tiaret told Compass that Djilfa police appeared to have previous knowledge of the Protestant’s Christian connections. Officers refused to let the convert call friends to let them know of his detention, naming a church member in Tiaret whom they claimed he would contact.

“We will call your family for you,” the officials said, according to the Christian source from Tiaret.

According to one Algerian human rights lawyer, police violated the convert’s rights by refusing him the telephone call.

“Any detained person has the right to call his family,” said the lawyer, who requested anonymity.

A leader from the Protestant Church of Algeria, an umbrella association for mainline and evangelical congregations, said that Christians remained unaware of the detainee’s location for several days.

Precarious Position

The Christian source in Tiaret said that Djilfa police verbally attacked the convert because of his faith during his five-day detention at city’s police station.

“They did not hit him, but they tried to convert him back to Islam,” he said.

Under Algerian law, police can detain a suspect up to 48 hours before bringing him before a state prosecutor, the human rights lawyer told Compass.

“It is not legal for them to hold him for five days,” said the lawyer, who clarified that any detention between 24 and 48 hours had to be approved by a state prosecutor.

After five days in Djilfa’s main police station, the Christian was brought before a state prosecutor and then a Djilfa judge. According to the convert, the judge convicted him of “printing, storing and distributing” illegal religious literature, though the charge remains uncertain until a written verdict is issued.

Before releasing him, the judge told the convert he would be given a 300 euro fine and a one-year suspended sentence.

According to the Tiaret Christian, the convert received the “printing” charge because he was traveling with a computer printer in his possession. The convert has yet to receive a written copy of the verdict, though observers said this was common in Algeria, as court verdicts are normally sent by mail following a ruling.

Because the sentence is suspended, the convert will only have to do jail time if convicted of another crime. But the Tiaret Christian said that the verdict constituted an ongoing threat to the Christian.

“A policeman could bring false accusations against him, that he gave one of them a Bible, and he would be thrown in jail,” the friend said.

Christians in Tiaret reported two separate instances in which undercover police officers pretended to be interested in Christianity and then detained Protestants for giving them Bibles.

Charges were thrown out for the first incident in March. In the second case a Tiaret court handed a Christian a two-year suspended sentence and a 100,000-dinar (US$1,540) fine on April 2. The written verdict was delivered on April 9.

At least five Christians from Tiaret have been detained or tried for Christian activities since January 2008.

According to unconfirmed reports, Tiaret police detained six more Christians today.

Christians constitute a tiny minority of Algeria’s population of 33 million. Catholics count several thousand congregants, mostly expatriates, while numbers for Protestants are less certain.

Conservative estimates place the number of Protestants at 10,000, though evangelism via satellite TV has reportedly led to a large number of isolated conversions unaccounted for in church attendance figures.

http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=lead&lang=en&length=long&idelement=&backpage=&critere=&countryname=&rowcur

If you think the report is limited to a few books or schools, fathom this. Last weekend while out for a walk, I stumbled across a folded up piece of paper in a church parking lot. Always inquisitive, I picked it up and unfolded it. Much to my dismay, among the first words I saw were "Muslim Brotherhood".

The paper was Test-Form B of Chapter 16, Unit 5 from McDougal Littell Inc. The topic was North Africa and Southwest Asia Today. The fill in the blank question, one of the few this student got correct, was, "Members of the (Muslim Brotherhood) in Egypt object to the cooperation of the Egyptian government with Israel and the United States."

Is it necessary for children to learn about the Muslim Brotherhood? And if so, only in a fashion that presents them as peaceful and anti-American? The same test had a map of the Middle East with Palestine but without Israel. Coincidentally, the chapters from the same publisher found on a teachers blog for a school named Smitha, teaches:

"when the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, the Jews no longer had their own country. They lived scattered around the world but still considered Palestine their home" (pdf)

One history class there appears to be taught be a Mr. Kemal - see his presentation of historical topics here.

Coincidence or affirmation that creeping sharia is moving at full speed? Read the WND story.

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
History textbooks promoting Islam
New report says Muslim activists 'succeeding' in expunging criticism
Posted: May 10, 2008

By Bob Unruh © 2008 WorldNetDaily

History textbooks being used by hundreds of thousands of public school students across the U.S. are blatantly promoting Islam, according to a new report by an independent organization that researches and reviews textbooks.

WND has reported several times on issues involving the promotion of Islam in public school texts, including a recent situation in which California parents complained their children were being taught that "jihad" to Muslims means "doing good works."

The new report is from the American Textbook Council, which was established in 1989 as an independent national research organization to review social studies textbooks and advance the quality of instructional materials in history.

In the two-year project, whose report was authored by Gilbert T. Sewall, the ATC reviewed five junior and five high school world and American history texts, concluding:

"Many political and religious groups try to use the textbook process to their advantage, but the deficiencies in Islam-related lessons are uniquely disturbing. History textbooks present an incomplete and confected view of Islam that misrepresents its foundations and challenges to international security."

The report finds that the texts present "disputed definitions and claims [regarding Islam] ... as established facts."

"Islamic activists use multiculturalism and ready-made American-made political movements, especially those on campus, to advance and justify the makeover of Islam-related textbook content," the report continued.

"Particular fault rests with the publishing corporations, boards of directors, and executives who decide what editorial policies their companies will pursue," the report said.

Reviewed were:

* Medieval and Early Modern Times by Jackson J. Spielvogal

* Medieval to Early Modern Times by Stanley M. Bernstein and Richard Shek

* World History: Medieval and Early Modern Times by Douglas Carnine, Carlos Cortes, Kenneth R. Curtis and Anita T. Robinson

* Medieval and Early Modern Times by Dianne Hart

* History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond by Bert Bower and Jim Lobdell

* World History: The Modern World by Elizabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Esler

* World History: Modern Times by Jackson J. Spielvogel

* America: Pathways to the Present by Andrew Cayton and others

* The American Vision: Moder Times by Joyce Appelby and others and

* The Americans: Reconstruction to the Twenty-first Century by Gerald A. Danzer

The report noted that several of the textbooks have found harsh critics among parents and others, and "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond" published by the privately held Teachers Curriculum Institute has been criticized repeatedly.

In Lodi, Calif., parents "were not objecting to a word or two that they took out of context but to a textbook long on chapters filled with adulatory lessons on Islam."

This was the same book cited by parents who contacted WND with their concerns about such indoctrination.

A parent whose child has been handed the text in a Sacramento district at that time accused the publisher of a pro-Muslim bias to the point that Islamic theology has been incorporated into the public school teachings.

"It makes an attempt to seem like an egalitarian world history book, but on closer inspection you find that seven (not all are titled so) of the chapters deal with Islam or Muslim subjects," wrote the parent, whose name was being withheld, in a letter to WND.

"The upsetting part is not only do they go into the history (which would be acceptable) but also the teaching of Islam," she said. "This book does not really go into Christianity or the teachings of Christ, nor does it address religious doctrine elsewhere to the degree it does Islam."

She said the book's one page referencing Jews "is only to convey that they were tortured by Crusaders to get them to convert to 'Christianity.' (It fails to mention that the biggest persecutors of Jews throughout history and still today are Arab Muslims). It gives four other one-liner references to the Jews being blamed for the plagues and problems in the land. It does not talk about the Jews as making a significant impact on the culture at large."

Bert Bower, founder of TCI, told WND at that time not only did his company have experts review the book, but the state of California also reviewed it, and has approved it for use in public schools.

"Keep in mind when looking at this particular book scholars from all over California (reviewed it)," he said.

One of those experts who contributed to the text, according to the ATC, which earlier released a scathing indictment of that specific project, was Ayad Al-Qazzaz.

"Al-Qazzaz is a Muslim apologist, a frequent speaker in Northern California school districts promoting Islam and Arab causes," the ATC review said. "Al-Qazzaz also co-wrote AWAIR's 'Arab World Notebook.' AWAIR stands for Arab World and Islamic Resources, an opaque, proselytizing 'non-profit organization' that conducts teacher workshops and sells supplementary materials to schools."

The newest report cited the same issue raised by parents.

"In a passage meant to explain jihad, they encountered this: 'Muslims should fulfill jihad with the heart, tongue, and hand. Muslims use the heart in their struggle to resist evil. The tongue may convince others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research. Hands may perform good works and correct wrongs,'" the new report said.

The ATC report noted a complicating factor is a ban in California, to whose standards most textbook publishers align their work, on "adverse reflection" on religion in school.

"Whatever 'adverse reflection' is, such a mandate may be conceptually at odds with historical and geopolitical actuality," the study said.

"None of this is accidental. Islamic organizations, willing to [provide] misinformation, are active in curriculum politics. These activists are eager to expunge any critical thought about Islam from textbook and all public discourse. They are succeeding, assisted by partisan scholars and associations... It is alarming that so many individuals with the power to shape the curriculum are willfully blind to or openly sympathetic to these efforts," the report said.

Regarding the TCI book, the report said its lessons contain "stilted language that seem scripted or borrowed from devotional, not historical, material." Also, the "Medieval to Early Modern Times" book features a two-page prayer to Allah "the Merciful."

"Among the textbooks examined, the editorial caution that marks coverage of Christian and Jewish beliefs vanishes in presenting Islam's foundations. With materials laden with angels, revelations, miracles, prayers, and sacred exclamations; the story of the Zamzam well; and the titles 'Messenger of God' and 'Prophet of Islam' the seventh-grade textbooks cross the line into something other than history, that is, scripture or myth."

Among the lessons public school students must learn from the various books:

* Muhammad "taught equality"

* Fasting reminds Muslims of people who struggle to get enough food

* Muhammad told his followers to make sure guests never left a table hungry

* Arab traditions include being kind to strangers and helping needy

"These effusive formulations stop just short of invention and raise questions about the sources of information," the report said.

The books' praises of Islam continues, the report said. "TCI devotes 13 text-heavy pages to textiles, calligraphy, design, books, city building, architecture, mathematics, medicine, polo, and chess, some of it spun like cotton candy," the report said.

For example, the book reports: "Singing was an essential part of Muslim Spain's musical culture. ... Although this music is lost today, it undoubtedly influenced later musical forms in Europe and North Africa."

"Undoubtedly, the TCI volume declares. Yet the book acknowledges the music is lost and the claims are speculative. Empty text dilates Islamic achievements," the report said.

Glossing over the actual physical conquering of some peoples, the "World History: Medieval and Early Modern Times" says people were converted to Islam because they were "attracted by Islam's message of equality and hope for salvation," the report said.

Another book teaches: "Q: How did the caliphs who expanded the Muslim Empire treat those they conquered? A: They treated them with tolerance."

"At a time when intolerance marks Islamic cultures worldwide and multiculturalism is a ruling idea in U.S. schools, these 'wonderland-of-tolerance' tropes constitute a major content distortion," the report said.

The books teach the Crusades were "religious wars launched against Muslims by European Christians."

"When ... Muslims groups attack Christian peoples, kill them, and take their lands, the process is referred to as 'building' an empire. Christian attempts to restore those lands are labeled as 'violent attacks' or 'massacres,'" the report said.

Some of the books are rife with other errors. In the TCI book, it says the Crusaders wore red crosses. "No. Only Templars did," said the report.

"While Christian belligerence is magnified, Islamic inequality, subjugation, and enslavement get the airbrush," said the report, which also found inaccuracies in teaching about sharia religious law, women's rights and terrorism, especially the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, which killed nearly 3,000.

"The Modern World" says, "On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, teams of terrorists hijacked four airplanes on the East Coast. Passengers challenged the hijackers on one flight, which they crashed on the way to its target. But one plane plunged into the Pentagon in Virginia, and two others slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York..."

"The flatness and brevity of this passage are dismaying. In terms of content, so much is left unanswered. Who were the teams of terrorists and what did they want to do? What were their political ends? Since 'The Modern World' avoids any hint of the connection between this unnamed terrorism and jihad, why September 11 happened is hard to understand," the report said.

The highlighted clause in the following excerpt spoils an otherwise excellent article by displaying dhimmitude in the face of an intimidation campaign.

Senator McCain frequently uses the term "Islamic" to describe our terrorist enemies. The Arizonan's media strategist Steve Schmidt says, "Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda represent a perverted strain of Islam at odds with the great many peaceful Muslims.... But the reality is, the hateful ideology which underpins bin Ladenism is properly described as radical Islamic extremism. Senator McCain refers to it that way because that is what it is."

"the hateful ideology which underpins bin Ladenism is properly described as radical Islamic extremism"

Snake feces!!!!!  The "hateful ideology"  is standard, off the shelf  ISLAM as revealed by Allah, recited by Muhammad, exemplified by Muhammad and enshrined in Sharia.  Islam is what Muhammad preached & practiced and his Caliphs emulated, not some ephemeral ideal which has been 'perverted', 'distorted', 'radicalized'  or ' hijacked' by mythical 'extremists'.

If you are inclined to believe and accept what Wes Vernon wrote, then you need to perform the following steps:

1. pull your head out
2. wipe the excrement from your eyes
3. take a clear, unbiased look at the evidence.

What must they do? Make war upon  "people of the book".  When must they do it? At least once each year.
Why is this Islamic law?

What does that mean?

What did Muhammad say?
Sahih Bukhari Volume 1, Book 8, Number 387

What did Muhammad do?

What did Allah say about terrorism?

What did Allah do about terrorism?

What did Muhammad say about terrorism?
Sahih Bukhari Volume 1, Book 7, Number 331:

Reliance of the Traveler mentions additional ayat as basis for Jihad:

A large collection of relevant ahadith, with commentary, is contained in  Riyad-us-Saliheen, Book 11, Chapter 234.
I do not ask you to take my word for it. I am not an expert. I  post links to my sources and encourage you to follow them up for verification and further exploration.  The  Qur'an & hadith links are direct;  you must search Reliance of the Traveler, which is a large text file.

I repeatedly post this and related information and pound this issue because it is a life/death & liberty/slavery issue of the highest order.  Islam's perpetual war against civilization must be priority number one.  The truth about it must be revealed, never concealed.  Unlike the professionals who get paid for writing and speaking, I will not be intimidated; I will not be silenced; I will not compromise.  I have presented the evidence, from translations of authentic Islamic sources. What will you do with it?  Will you ignore & forget it or will you share it with others?  Will it guide your decision in the voting booth? Will you call out liars when you see or hear them spreading falsehood? By God, I will!!!

It seems now that John McCain has begun citing Hamas' preference for an Obama presidency, the Obama campaign realized Malley had become a liability. Similar to Obama claiming he didn't know his church reprinted an op-ed by a Hamas leader, it has finally come to light that Obama advisor Robert Malley actually met with the Islamic terrorist group Hamas.

Robert Malley told The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza and is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama’s Middle East advisory council.

“I’ve never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people,” he added.

Did Obama know of Malley's well known stance on Hamas? Most likely, they are a matter of public record. For a more complete background on Obama's pro-Hamas advisor and his anti-Israel, pro-communist father who was expelled from France, read The Robert Malley - Arafat Connection at Camera.

While Robert Malley’s past history might seem typical for a bright young man pursuing a senior Middle East policy position in a future Democratic administration, digging a little deeper reveals something quite untypical in his past. Robert Malley grew up in France, where his Egyptian-born father, Simon Malley, and New York raised mother, Barbara (Silverstein) Malley, were radical publishers of a controversial magazine about Africa and the so-called Third World. Malley’s parents were rabidly anti-Israel and counted Yasir Arafat as a personal friend. Indeed, Arafat was among those “leaders” (for want of a better word) who intervened with the French government to readmit the Malley family to France after they had been expelled for their radical activities.

That is, while in the Clinton administration Malley dealt directly with Palestinian matters, and with Yasir Arafat himself, despite having a huge and hidden conflict of interest: close ties between his family and Yasir Arafat.

...The world in which Robert Malley grew up was one in which Yasir Arafat, Fidel Castro, Leonid Brezhnev and Todor Zhivkov were heroes, any American leader – even Jimmy Carter! – was villainous, and Israeli leaders were veritable demons.

While Malley is gone, the architect of Obama's foreign policy still remains, and he too is an advocate for discussions with Hamas. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, on Hamas:

On cutting off aid to the Palestinians for having elected Hamas, he said: "I think the American foreign policy is mindless.

"I think over time, if we are intelligent and patient, one cannot exclude the possibility of a similar evolution taking place with Hamas." [acceptance of a two-state solution]

And in response to a question from the Talk of Paris on whether Washington should talk to Hamas:

I think, basically, yes. Again, that is my personal opinion. But Hamas is a significant body of the political life of the Palestinians. We should talk to it. [Hamas]

Brzezinski visited Syria earlier this year, to meet with President Bashar Assad. As the Provocateur blog notes:

Assad is not interested in peace. He is interested in consolidating and expanding his power. He is likely involved in the death's of several Lebanese politicians, training and infiltration of terrorists into Iraq, and he may even have been behind the death of Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mugniyeh. (not to mention having Damascus as the location for the main office of such terrorist groups as Hezbollah as well as all sorts of bellicose language toward Israel)...

Shortly after Brz' trip to Syria, his former boss, Jimmy Carter, rendezvoused with Hamas and Obama refused to criticize Carter. Obama has another Brzezinski on his campaign, Mark - son of Zbig' - who also fosters a position of 'Forging ties with Iran'.

That Iran ceased work on its nuclear program several years ago is positive, as it provides an opportunity to start negotiations with Tehran without any preconditions.

Obama seems to be quite at ease with all of his Hamas connections, denouncing Hamas at home, while sending out his advisors and supporters to establish advance relations should he be elected. Unfortunately McCain probably won't take aim at Brzezinski since one of Brzezinski's son's works for McCain.

More: Both Clinton & Obama have a history of terrorist connections

Women in Islam: Suffering the Barbary of an Ideology - Frank Salvato

News spread quickly that anti-Islamofascism activist Dr. Wafa Sultan has gone into hiding, along with her family. They are in hiding because of her participation in a recent debate on Al-Jazeera in which she challenged Egyptian Islamist Talat Rheim over Dutch cartoons of Mohammed and the ideology of Islam in general. For her truthful criticisms of Islam Dr. Sultan earned a fatwa, a “religiously” decried death sentence, from an Islamic scholar. That she criticizes Islam is enough justification in the eyes of the radical Islamist to kill her. That she is a woman infuses into the fatwa an unbridled viciousness and a need for expediency.

In the al-Jazeera interview, Dr. Sultan proclaimed:

"...any belief that chops off the heads of its critics is doomed to turn into terrorism and tyranny. This has been the condition of Islam, from its inception to this day. Islam has sentenced [its critics] to prison, and whoever crosses the threshold of that prison meets his death... If you want to change the course of events, you must re-examine your terrorist teachings, you must recognize and respect the right of the other to live, you must teach your children love, peace, coexistence and productive work. When you do that, the world will respect you...”

Not long after Dr. Sultan’s remarks, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of Islam’s most respected scholars, presented his religious edict and denounced Dr. Sultan, calling for her death. Qaradawi, it should be noted, has also declared the killing of American soldiers in Iraq and suicide bombings against Israel as a religious obligation for all Muslims. Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, describes Qaradawi as, “one of the world’s pre-eminent Islamofascists.”

To date, Dr. Sultan and her family are living clandestinely, in a world of anxiety and inconvenience. She can’t work; her family cannot have contact with their friends; and they are all constantly looking over their shoulders for the jihadi threat. That we would ever know sacrifice as this brave woman does.

Incredulously, but for her notoriety, the dangers and treatment of Dr. Sultan would be unremarkable in fundamentalist Islamic culture.

A traditional Islamic saying is that, "A woman's heaven is beneath her husband's feet." In the Islamic culture, to show someone the bottom of ones shoes, to figuratively place them beneath ones feet, is an insult of the highest order.

The fact of the matter is that women in the fundamentalist Islamic world are relegated to the status of possessions. They are subjected to incredibly harsh and degrading cultural edicts where transgressions are punished – justified under Sharia Law – by whippings, beatings, stoning and death.

The penalty of death is imposed quite frequently on women in the fundamentalist Islamic culture. Offenses that warrant a death sentence under Sharia Law range from un-Islamic dress to being in the presence of an unrelated male.

The revered Islamic scholar, Abu Hamed Mohammad al-Ghazzali, who has been called 'the greatest Muslim after Muhammad,' writes that the role of a Muslim woman is to:

"...stay at home and get on with her sewing. She should not go out often, she must not be well-informed, nor must she be communicative with her neighbors. She should only visit them when absolutely necessary; she should take care of her husband...and seek to satisfy him in everything...Her sole worry should be her virtue...She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any moment."

This totalitarian screed, we will soon learn, would be the least of a woman’s concerns where life in fundamentalist Islamic culture is concerned. In fact, the litany of transgressions against female humanity at the hand of fundamentalist Islam is countless.

▪ The testimony of a woman in courts of law that use Sharia as their basis for justice recognizes the testimony of women as only half that of a man. This presents an almost impossible scenario for equity and fairness in matters of marriage termination. In fact, in countries that practice strict Sharia Law – such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt – all a man has to do is recite the verse “I divorce you” three times and under Sharia Law he is divorced.

▪ A husband has the right to beat his wife for perceived disobedience or misconduct. According to Islamic law, a husband may strike, a husband may beat his wife for any one of the following four reasons:

- If she does not attempt to make herself beautiful for him
- If she refuses to meet his sexual demands
- If she leaves the house without his permission or a "legitimate reason"
- Or if she neglects her religious duties

Any of these are also sufficient grounds for divorce.

The president of Cairo's Al-Azhar University described the proper method of wife-beating in a television interview: "It's not really beating," Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb explained, "It's more like punching.”

▪ Girls as young as nine years old are routinely sold into marriage, often to men many decades their senior. A father receives a monetary dowry in return. These young girls, prepubescent children, are treated as slaves during the day and as unwilling sexual conquests at night.

▪ Women are routinely subjected to the Islamic cultural malady known as honor killing, where a woman may be killed at the hand of a male relative for even the intimation of dishonor. These honor killings take place with no consequence for the murderer, no justice for the murdered.

▪ A disrespectful – or perhaps even an unlucky – wife can be sequesters into what are known as “wife rooms.” These are rooms within the family home in which women are confined with no food or water for a length of time determined completely by the level of tyranny possessed by her captor husband. In many cases, these rooms serve as chambers of horror where women wait between severe beatings from their husbands, their captors, to die. Many do.

Interestingly, delinquently, appallingly, women’s groups around the world, especially the progressive, pro-feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women, pay little more than lip-service to an issue that should illicit outrage of the highest order.

Columnist Jeff Jacoby, in a December 2007 article for the Boston Globe titled, The Islamist War on Muslim Women, lists an enumeration of outrages perpetrated against women at the hand of fundamentalist Islam:

In Pakistan, a tribal council ordered a woman to be gang-raped as punishment for her brother's supposed liaison with a woman from another tribe.

In San Francisco, a young Muslim woman was shot dead after she uncovered her hair and put on makeup in order to be a maid of honor at a friend's wedding.

In Tehran, a father beheaded his 7-year-old daughter because he suspected that she had been raped; he said he acted to defend his honor, fame, and dignity.

In Saudi Arabia, the Islamic police prevented schoolgirls from leaving a burning building because they were not wearing headscarves and abayas; 15 of the girls died in the inferno.

In May of 2006 in the Punjab Province of Pakistan, Ayesha, an 18 year old girl, accused of adultery by her husband of only one and a half months left the marital home to stay with her brother for fear of her life. Her husband, accompanied by his brother and under the guise of reconciliation met with her and persuaded Ayesha to return to the marital home. She agreed. Ayesha recounted from her hospital bed how when they were traveling back to the marital home the husband and his brother stopped the car in a semi-remote area and started to beat and torture her. They cut off her nose and her lips. They then left her in a field unconcerned with whether she would live or die.

Again in May of 2006, another Pakistani woman, Shamin Mai, who committed the “crime” of marrying a man of her own choosing rather than acquiescing to a pre-arranged marriage by her family, had her legs chopped off; this atrocity taking place at the hands of her brother and uncle.

Mutilations, the barbaric Islamic tradition associated with Muslim honor killings is the act of permanently scarring a woman as punishment for a transgression against the man – be it the father or the husband and whether actual or perceived. The act is acceptable behavior in fundamentalist Islam.

It has been established that when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996 that a decree was issued forbidding women to leave their homes. Prior to the Taliban’s seizing of power, women in Afghanistan held jobs in hospitals, schools and in the civil service sector. Women were doctors and teachers. They were professionals. With the Taliban’s decree employment and education for women came to a screeching halt. In fact, many would become beggars.

This tyrannical dogma extended to men who tried to help women. In 2006, years after the “liberation” of Afghanistan, a 46-year-old Afghan schoolteacher, was dragged from his family, his home, and horribly murdered – disemboweled and then dismembered – for defying orders to stop educating girls.

In Iran, two girls, identified only as Zohreh and Azar – sisters, were sentenced to death by stoning, having been convicted of adultery. Under Sharia Law death is the punishment for women who commit adultery.

The “crime” for which these two women were convicted and sentenced to death was caught on video tape. This “adultery” consisted of the two women being in the presence of other men when their husbands were absent. Let me repeat that and expound; their crime – caught on videotape – was to be in the presence of other men when their husbands were absent. There was no sexual activity, no touching. It’s hard to tell from the tape if they were even conversing. But under Sharia Law they committed “adultery” and have been sentenced to death by stoning. They also received 99 lashes for “illegal relations.”

In a stoning death, the woman's hands are tied behind her back and her body is placed in a cloth sack. Then, when she is securely "packaged" she is brought to a hole located in the center of a circle, predetermined in size, and buried up to her shoulders. After she has been affixed in the hole people start chanting "Allah hu Akbar" – or god is great – and proceed to throw palm sized stones at her head from a designated distance. The stones are thrown until she dies or until she escapes from the hole and crosses out of the circle.

These true atrocities continue around the world and even take place right here in the United States at the hands of radical Islamists, Islamic fundamentalists.

It needs to be noted here that in Wahhabist ideology – radical Islamist ideology – it is forbidden for Muslims to imitate, befriend or assist those who do not practice Islam, in any way. By Wahhabi edict, it is forbidden for fundamentalist Islamists to assimilate from the Islamic culture into any other. Further, fundamentalist Islamism instills a natural hatred for the United States because our nation is governed by legislated constitutional law rather than by tyrannical Sharia law. It is because of both, the radical Islamists’ refusal to assimilate and his contempt for our form of government, that events such as the murders of Amina and Sarah Said have taken place right here on American soil.

In Dallas, Texas, Yaser Said is said to have killed his two daughters, Sarah, 17, and Amina, 18, because he felt Western culture was corrupting the chastity of his daughters. He is currently at large. Law enforcement believes he is being harbored by the Islamic fundamentalist community in North Texas.

Similar stories have been reported in areas with large Islamic populations around the country, including in Dearborn, Michigan and the greater Herndon, Virginia area.

In addition to physical abuses that women face in the fundamentalist Islamic society the social dogma and familial hierarchy present an equally oppressive and inequitable existence.

In Islamic law – Sharia Law – those who commit adultery are to be put to death, most often by hanging, beheading or stoning. In the matter of adultery a gross inequity exists in the instances of sexual abuse and rape.

In fundamentalist Islam, the burden of avoiding non-marital sexual encounters, of any sort, is placed on the woman. Under Sharia Law, sexual assault, or rape, can only be proven if the rapist confesses or if no less than four male witnesses come forward to testify to the rape having occurred. Because women are worth less than men in fundamentalist Islamic society there are seldom, if ever, four men willing to testify against another man in support of a woman.

Women who allege they have been sexually assaulted by a man who is not their husband, women who allege they have been raped, are actually confessing to having had sex outside of their marriage. Without the benefit of four male witnesses to the attack – mind you, four men who are willing to testify to have witnessed the act – the attack itself is considered to be adultery and, as has been established, punishable by death.

Since women in fundamentalist Islam bear the burden of sexual responsibility, inequitable as it may be, the reality of the matter is that only women are executed for adultery, even if they have been the victims of what we in the West would consider a sexual assault.

There are thousands, if not millions, of stories like Zohreh & Azar’s, Sarah & Aminas and Ayesha & Shamin’s and they come from every corner of the world, some from right here in the United States. Yet the feminist community does nothing. The Progressive-Left humanitarian organizations do nothing. The United Nations does nothing. And women – girls – daughters, mothers and granddaughters die.

To be born female into the world of fundamentalist Islam is to be inferior by Quranic edict. To be born a female into the world of fundamentalist Islam, it would appear, is to understand death while one is alive.

As I continue to study Islam, its radical tenets and the threat that it poses to Western Civilization, I become more convinced everyday that it will be the women of our society that end up being the motivating factor for our definitive action. I only pray that it happens soon because today we are losing the battle.

###

Frank Salvato is a political media consultant, a freelance writer from the Midwest and the Managing Editor for www.TheRant.us . oped@therant.us

This newspaper ran an article by Muhammad Ismail Yusanto, a spokesperson of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), about sharia and the caliphate (April 23), as a reaction to an article written by Bramanto that appeared several days before. Such a discourse is very healthy. We can have different views and the readiness to appreciate other views -- although probably we do not agree at all -- and an exchange of views will be very helpful not just to promote Islam as a tolerant religion but also to enrich people's horizons.

With this strong spirit to enrich our horizons, I am interested in joining the debate on the issues of sharia and the caliphate.

HTI offers two central discourses: the establishment of a caliphate and the application of sharia law. Both seem to be inseparable; without a caliphate, the sharia application will never be totally accomplished. Therefore, both are complementary to each other. These grand themes in fact constitute the global discourse applied by most Hizbut Tahrir movements in the world and have become the main idea that links their global ideological ground and commonality.

To the HTI, the caliphate constitutes a basic Islamic political institution that will unite all Muslims in the world regardless of their ethnicity, language or culture into a single community called the ummah, which is headed by a caliph. In this view, a caliph merely serves as a God's representative on earth whose duties are to obey God's commands and realize His rules.

Consequently, it denies modern secular political thoughts such as democracy and nationalism. Democracy is seen to be contrary to God's sole sovereignty. Moreover, inconsistencies and double standards in the realization of democracy have strengthened Islamists' criticism of it. Similarly, nationalism, as a logical consequence of the emergence of nation-states, is rejected because it is a Western invention contrary to the concept of ummah.

However, if we closely examine politics in Islam, it is obvious that there is no such strict concept of political Islam like a caliphate. It is a historical creation rather than a normative concept. The power transformation from the Prophet to the subsequent four caliphs took place in different ways.

Abu Bakar became the first caliph through a public pledge of allegiance by the majority of Muslims.

Umar, the second caliph, was elected by a team comprising seven members. While Usman and Ali, the third and the fourth caliphs, reigned after being preceded by political chaos. In this period, a caliph was strictly appointed through a familial lineage. Following this pattern, there is no fixed political system in Islam. It was during the Muslim empires that the concept of caliphate took its firmest definition, formulated through the writings and work of Muslim scholars and jurists who served for the caliph.

As for sharia, with the open era and democratization in Indonesia after reformasi, several Muslim political parties and organizations wish to retrieve the seven lost sharia words -- the obligation to implement sharia for Muslims -- once incorporated in the Constitution but later deleted.

Although this effort has never been successful in the national context due to lack of a national consensus and disagreement among Muslims themselves, it works on provincial and regional levels.

Some local governments have successfully imposed sharia law in regional ordinances and bylaws. Despite its blurry and weak conception, sharia does apply in certain provinces and regencies, like Cianjur, Tasikmalaya and Garut in West Java and in Bulukumba, South Sulawesi. Each sharia ordinance has addressed different legal issues in different regions, and thus reflects the disparity and partiality of the sharia legal conception.

This has become a major critique, that the sharia application lacks fundamental conception and articulation and thus is ineffective. This reflects more the vested interests and ambitions of politicians rather than idealism. Political parties and Islamic organizations that support this issue are a minority.

Islam in Indonesia is not monolithic, but pluralistic. It consists of diverse Islamic organizations, political affiliations, languages and ethnic-cultural identities. The majority of Muslims represented by the two largest Muslim organizations in the country, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, which decline the idea of an Islamic state, remain moderate. This suggests that the majority of Muslims remain obedient to "Indonesia's diversity in unity" and are attempting to develop Islam in this pluralistic manner. Both sharia and the caliphate thus appear to be less than popular to the Muslim majority.

The writer is a lecturer at Mataram State Institute for Islamic Studies and a Fulbright scholar who is pursuing his PhD in religion at Emory University, Atlanta. He can be reached at sier1975@yahoo.com

source: www.thejakartapost.com

La corte  Sharia di Penang ha stabilito che Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah era libera di ritornare al Buddismo, in seguito alla fine del suo matrimonio conun uomo musulmano.

Malaysia  stabilisce che un non-musulmano che si sposa un musulmano deve prendere lasua fede.  La Sig.ra Siti, si convertì quando lei si sposò un uomo musulmano iraniano.

Il giuduce ha stabilito in suo favore reputando che Ella non ha mai praticato la fede dell'Islam e che anche quando era sposata continuava a pregare come una buddista.

Gli anlisti giudicano una tale decisione come molti liberale perchè in molti paesi musulmani i convertiti sono trattati come i muslamni che sono nati con la fede di Allah e cioè è loro priobito il cambiare la loro fede. Tale decisione non ha comunque funzione di precdente per le altre zone della Malaysia

More from Atlas Shrugs here on the growing trend of veil and hijab use in crimes. Rather than banning guns, which only affects those who make legal purchases, why not address the fact that these thugs were converts to Islam in prison and used muslim clothing to conceal their identities?

And from Illinois - Muslims are outraged because city officials held an emergency drill and stormed a fake mosque. Why the outrage? CAIR has done its best to claim this paints all mosques as potential terror threats. In a string of similar efforts, CAIR has challenged the NYPD and law enforcement groups in Pennsylvania to ignore the Islamist threat in the U.S. while revealing their training tactics. Be sure that similar emergency drills will be curtailed and the U.S. will fall even further behind in preparedness for the next Islamic terrorist attack. It bears repeating, CAIR is a group that was founded by convicted Islamic terrorists and is an unindicted co-conspirator to the Holy Land Foundation trial.

But what did the Illinois officials do? Bow down to Islamic supremacy, submit in fine dhimmi fashion, and apologize. Can someone explain how this was misused? He said "fake mosque" and it was a practice drill.

In response to concerns over use of the fake "mosque," Montgomery County Sheriff's Office Undersheriff Rick Robbins told the Journal-News newspaper: "I apologize for the message that was received by many. After reviewing statements made regarding the use of the word mosque, I understand the misuse of the word." Robbins helped plan the drill.

Sadly, stories like these are becoming a daily event as Muslims continue to use freedom of speech to stifle any discussion of Islam, any preparation for Islamic terrorist attacks, and conceal the non-peaceful aspects of Islam.

By JOHN LANTIGUA, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Friday, May 02, 2008

STUART - Shadi Odeh has lived 17 of his 31 years in the United States.

He is a Palestinian, transplanted at age 14 to Texas, where he was a boisterous Dallas Cowboys fan. In 1999 he moved to South Florida, where he embraced basketball's Miami Heat, which he watches on a wide-screen TV, eating chicken wings and Italian food. His favorite TV show is The Simpsons.

Of course we know that Palestinian children are indoctrinated into the jihadist ideology from a very young age; taught to hate the Jews and others in grade school. Taught that shahada, martyrdom, in the name of allah is a good thing. So does Slim Shadi believe in jihad? Does he root for Hamas/Hizbollah as boisterously as he does the Cowboys and Heat?

Odeh says he has become an American in every way but one: He has so far been denied citizenship and the right to vote. He very much wants to vote in November - for a Democrat.

"Barack Obama is a very good candidate, but it is also time to have a woman president," he says. "I would vote for one of those two."

The question is whether he will be able to register. Odeh passed his naturalization exam and citizenship interviews in 2006, but FBI name checks have delayed his swearing-in for more than two years.

Those checks, instituted after the Sept. 11 attacks, involve comparing an applicant's name with names in FBI criminal and intelligence files to see whether the person is a security threat. Even if an applicant's name matches only an acquaintance of a suspect or a witness to an event, approval can be delayed.

Those FBI procedures come on top of security checks performed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which grants or denies citizenship.

The process can take time, too much time for some would-be citizens, especially in an election year.

Odeh is one of six South Florida Muslims who in December sued the federal government, charging that their citizenship applications have been delayed "unreasonably and unlawfully" by name checks. Federal statutes, they insist, require the government to render a decision within 120 days of the interviews.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Osama Qasmieh, a Royal Palm Beach engineer originally from Jordan who has not been outside the U.S. in 20 years. His application has been delayed six years.

They also include another Jordanian, Belle Glade resident Mohammed Abdeen. A relative petitioned 20 years ago for him to be allowed into the U.S., and Abdeen arrived seven years ago. He passed his exam two years ago.

The lawsuit and another brought by five other South Florida Muslims last year are part of an avalanche of suits across the country.

"Hundreds of thousands of people nationally have been delayed," says Tania Galloni, an attorney for the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami. "In New York, it's Russians. In California, it's Chinese. In Florida, we have seen a disproportionate number of Muslims affected."

Really? And only six have filed lawsuits? How disproportionate can it be if only six filed lawsuits? Can you publish the data for us?

Being denied the right to vote is one way the plaintiffs say they have been damaged.

The delays could affect the November elections, says Altaf Ali, executive director of the South Florida Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

He says there are about 200,000 Muslims in Florida, and among those eligible to vote, turnout is traditionally high.

"This year a lot of people in our community are very interested in Barack Obama being the next president," Ali said. "I myself am a Republican, but I won't vote Republican this year." He's backing Obama.

Our community? Muslim community presumably, and what kind of Republican would vote for Barack Hussein Obama - one who shared some cultural or religious similarity.

The lawsuits have brought a response from the government. Last month it issued a statement saying extra personnel had been assigned to name checks and backlogged citizenship applications.

"The goal is to complete 98 percent of all name checks within 30 days," the statement said. Citizenship and Immigration Services "and the FBI intend to resolve the remaining 2 percent, which represent the most difficult name checks ... within 90 days or less."

The statement said 29,800 cases that have been pending two years or more would receive priority. Those cases include Odeh, Qasmieh and Abdeen.

There is part of the equation 29,800 - how many of those were for Muslims v. other 'religions'? It should be quite easy to determine exactly how proportionate this situation is.

The statement also said all cases of people waiting for more than four years had been resolved recently. But Galloni says that is not true of Qasmieh, who has been waiting six years.

FBI spokesman Bill Carter says that he has no explanation for the Qasmieh case but that about 300 FBI workers and outside contractors are doing name checks. The most time-consuming cases involve common names.

Outside contractors - never a good sign.

"If your name is Mohammed, that's probably going to take more time," Carter says. "It's like having the name John Smith."

Carter says the important thing is to reach "accurate and thorough results" regarding possible threats to the nation.

He says about 1 percent of people investigated are given a "negative" report. That report goes to Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is likely to deny those citizenship requests.

"But we are also very sensitive to the impact that the delays have on individuals," Carter says.

Odeh, who married while on a 2006 trip to the Palestinian territories and has a 1-year-old son there, hopes his case is resolved so he can start the process of bringing his wife and child to the U.S.

"Any person who loves this country the way I do understands the need for security," Odeh says. "But I've never committed a crime or threatened anyone or was involved with anyone who did. I wish they would just figure this all out."

And rather than blaming your fellow Muslims for creating this situation, you file stacks of lawsuits against the U.S. which only adds more burden to the government workload. If Muslims weren't bent on destroying the West it might be a little easier to become a U.S. citizen.

Prince Alwaleed said: "It is paramount for both Islam and the West to reach mutual ground for pro-active dialogue, respect, acceptance and tolerance. We are determined to continue building the bridge between Islam and the West for peace and humanity."

Funny - they always talk about acceptance and tolerance...and they are one of the least tolerant countries in the world.  The only acceptance that they are interested in is your acceptance of Islam and Sharia.  Understanding and dialogue is always one way - their way.  And when you have that much money and your audience is idealistic, liberal university students, the battle is half over.

via LGF links

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