Thursday, January 15, 2015
‘We Haven’t Shown Enough Outrage:’ French PM Issues Blistering Denunciation of Antisemitism
It was an electrifying moment: in a voice crackling with anger and pain, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls denounced the rise of antisemitism in France before the country’s National Assembly yesterday, pointedly observing, “We haven’t shown enough outrage.”
Valls was speaking following the funerals of seven of the victims of last week’s Islamist terrorist attacks in France, in which a total of 17 people, including four Jews trapped in Friday’s siege at the HyperCacher market in eastern Paris, were murdered in cold blood.
Though his speech covered a wide range of issues, and included an emotional plea to recognize that France is “at war with jihadism and terrorism…not against Islam and Muslims,” Valls was determined to highlight the threat posed by antisemitism, declaring: “I say to the people in general who perhaps have not reacted sufficiently up to now, and to our Jewish compatriots, that this time [antisemitism] cannot be accepted.”
The address brought to mind the impassioned “J’Accuse” letter, penned by the great French writer Emile Zola in 1898, in response to the antisemitism displayed by the French government during the infamous trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish military officer who was convicted and publicly humiliated on fabricated charges of treason. In that letter, Zola spoke with disgust “of the hunting for the ‘dirty Jews,’ which dishonors our time.”
When Valls asked with anger, “How can we accept that cries of ‘death to the Jews’ can be heard on the streets?” the echoes of Zola’s words were unmistakable.
In his speech, Valls was explicit that the “first question that has to be dealt with clearly is the struggle against antisemitism.” (h/t Guest)
France envoy to JPost: Jewish crisis has 'nothing to do with Israel and the Palestinians'
In a modern synagogue in the capitol on Tuesday, alongside members of Congress, Obama administration officials and hundreds of deeply troubled Jewish Americans, France's ambassador to the United States apologized for his country's conduct last week.French Muslim Students Yell “Allahu Akbar,” Dishonor Moment Of Silence For Charlie Hebdo Victims
"We failed," Ambassador Gérard Araud told the audience. "We have not done enough. It's obvious."
Araud, once France's envoy to Israel, said he was "ashamed" at the prospect of his Jewish compatriots fleeing France out of fear, after the latest anti-Semitic attack in his homeland on Friday claimed the lives of four Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket.
"We have to consider that we are at war," he said, warning that the very soul of France is at stake. "The first line of democracy is the journalists and the Jews."
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday night, Araud expanded on the dimensions and targets of that war.
France's challenge, he said, is delineating between criticism of the Israeli government and a growing, radical opposition to the existence of Israel as a vehicle for hatred against the Jewish people.
Throughout many schools in France, Muslim students refused to comply with a moment of silence to honor the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. While some spoke obnoxiously loudly during the 60 second period, others yelled “Allahu Akbar!” or “God is great.” In another incident, a group of young Muslims dishonored the moment of silence, telling their teacher, “You reap what you sow,” the Washington Post reports.
At another school in Seine-Saine-Denis, some 80 percent of students refused to honor the moment of silence, saying that the Charlie Hebdo staff “deserved what they got” for insulting Islam’s Muhammad, reports Le Figaro. In another incident in Lille, a young boy threatened to shoot his teacher “with a Kalashnikov” for asking him to remain silent during the minute of remembrance. Others spoke highly of jihadists who had joined ISIS and fought on behalf of Islam abroad.
“You do not understand the Prophet, they should not have drawn it… He is above men,” was another student’s explanation as to why he was not going to respect the minute of silence.
HPMonitor: The Red-Green Alliance Points the Finger At Jews In the Wake of Charlie Hedbo
In the wake of the murder of 12 people over the publishing of a Mohammad cartoon last week, a lot was said in various media outlets. Most of it was the usual rhetoric from all sides: Islam is bad, Muslims are mad, Muslim immigration to Europe is bad, etc. Unlike when four Jews and three non-Jews were killed in France by an Islamist, this time the attack got wall to wall media coverage and many expressions of solidarity. The attack was impossible to ignore: even Palestinian governmental groups lined up to condemn an act extremely similar to what their own soldiers have done many times over. And of course there were the usual hashtag trends and so forth on social media.'War on terror will only be won if it is guided by moral clarity' Netanyahu tells AIPAC leaders.
This time, there was a small group of people who couldn’t simply stand by and condemn the murder of cartoonists for the crime of drawing a religious figure. They had to use the opportunity to push their own agenda, and their agenda consisted of one statement alone: “You can’t make fun of Jews in the West the way you can make fun of Muslims! Wah!”
Let’s count how many Muslims and Muslim apologists said exactly that. We’ll start with Mehdi Hasan, political director of the Huffington Post UK, who wrote:
“Why have you been so silent on the glaring double standards? Did you not know that Charlie Hebdo sacked the veteran French cartoonist Maurice Sinet in 2008 for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark? Weren't you sickened to see Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of a country that was responsible for the killing of seven journalists in Gaza in 2014, attend the "unity rally" in Paris?...Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren. Context matters, too. You ask us to laugh at a cartoon of the Prophet while ignoring the vilification of Islam across the continent…”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the following remarks at his meeting with AIPAC leaders on Wednesday, Jan. 14:IDF War Widow's Moving Letter to Wife of Paris Attack Victim
“I think the war against terror will not succeed if it’s founded on hypocrisy, and I’ve yet to hear any world leader condemn the comments by Erdogan, not one.
“Now he said that Israel should not have been represented in the march in Paris, and the reason he gave, was our actions to defend our citizens against the thousands of rockets hurled at our cities by the terrorists of Hamas.
“I believe his shameful remarks must be repudiated by the international community, because the war against terror will only succeed if it’s guided by moral clarity. That means that the terrorists and their supporters must be condemned, and those fighting terror, like Israel and the United States, must be supported. It’s as simple as that. And I think we’re going to be tested by these issues of moral confusion versus moral clarity and courage versus cowardice again, and again, and again.
“This is not a one-shot battle.”
The Chairwoman of the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization, Nava Shoham Solan, sent a moving condolence letter to Valerie Barham, whose husband Philippe was murdered in the kosher supermarket attack in Paris last Friday.Mark Steyn: Where's the Lead in the Pencil?
Braham, 45, was an advertising manager at a computer consultancy. He leaves behind his wife Valerie and three children.
Solan is the widow of Major Raanan Shoham, who fell in the First Lebanon War. She raised two children alone after his death.
Solan begins the letter by expressing her empathy for Barham: "You are going through difficult days and nights, and I know exactly what you feel. I myself experienced very troubled nights in the days and weeks that haunted me, like spirits, from the time that I received the bitter news."
"And I know: the pain - it is the sharp and stabbing pain like a knife or like an explosive that threatens to knock you over and chokes in your throat. In these moments - as I remember them, these will be the words of all the widows who lost their beloved in wars, military operations, and hostilities - life seems only black, without shades of color, without light, and without flavor."
The cover of this week's Charlie Hebdo (right) shows Mohammed shedding a tear and holding up a "Je suis Charlie" sign under the headline "Tout est pardonné" - all is forgiven. The illustration is unclear: Is Mohammed forgiving the secular leftie blasphemers? Or are the secular lefties forgiving Mohammed and his murderous believers? The Commentator devotes an editorial to the subject, and finds it "a strange cover" symbolic of "western confusion". On the other hand, Paul Berman in The Tablet thinks "uncertainty lends majesty".Salman Rushdie Strongly Defends Free Speech, Blasts Charlie Hebdo
When skilled persons who have never shied away from clarity produce a work whose meaning is unclear, then it is reasonable to assume the unclearness is itself the meaning. The surviving staff at Charlie Hebdo have undergone a week of surreal hellishness, in which their senior colleagues have been murdered for publishing images of Mohammed, and the world is professing its solidarity and egging them on to prove that nothing has changed. In other words, they're expected to produce new images of Mohammed, which may well get them murdered, too.
Meanwhile, no one else is even re-publishing the old Mohammed images, even as your basic Exhibit A in a news story - ie, this is why these guys were killed.
Critics
The terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo have brought up an international conversation of free speech and what it really means.Rushdie Defends Charlie Hebdo, Free Speech
Salman Rushdie has lived for years under death threats from Islamic leaders for his book that came out in 1988 entitled “The Satanic Verses.”
“The moment someone says ‘I believe in free speech but’ I stop listening. The point about it is the moment you limit free speech, it’s not free speech. That point about it is that is free,” said Rushdie at a speech at the University of Vermont about the absolute right of free speech.
The point of free speech is that it shouldn’t be limited regardless if it offends a person or group of people.
Jewish Group Rips Jon Stewart for Lumping Israel With Turkey, Russia and Egypt
The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Tuesday slammed Daily Show host Jon Stewart for categorizing Israel’s freedom of expression with the repressive regimes of Turkey, Russia and Egypt.Charlie Hebdo and the Temptation of Self-Censorship
“It’s offensive that Jon Stewart chose to lump Israel in the same boat as Turkey, Russia and Egypt,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean for The Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner. “Israel may not be a perfect democracy but it doesn’t jail people for their ideas; for expressing their thoughts. If anything Stewart should’ve mentioned [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas and his PA who have the nasty habit of summoning and arresting political opponents, journalists and bloggers.”
Stewart made the controversial comment Monday night on the Daily Show. While lashing out at President Obama for not attending a massive Paris rally on Sunday in support of free speech, the television host sought to sarcastically point out who did show up at the march, including “Palestinian cartoonist-jailing Israel.” Stewart claimed some of the leaders at the rally were not known for supporting free expression but they still attended the event, while President Obama did not.
“How could the US not be there when representatives of such beacons of freedom and lack of censorship as journalist-punishing Russia was there?” Stewart asked. “Journalist-jailing Turkey was there. Egypt… ’nuff said. Palestinian cartoonist-jailing Israel was there. And of course, our greatest ally, Saudi Arabia was there — although a little out of breath having just days ago flogged a blogger.”
Stewart sourced an Al Jazeera story about a Palestinian cartoonist whose work “landed him in an Israeli prison for five months.”
The assault on Charlie Hebdo was, Gurfinkiel told me, an assault on many of the symbols of France: its democracy, its secular nature, its treasuring of the freedom of speech and of expression. But it was also a poignant assault on the legacy of the soixante-huitards—the revolutionary generation of the 1960s, exemplified by the radical students who took to the streets of Paris and thereby changed, as Gurfinkiel said, “the French way of life.”JCPA: The Paris Terrorist Attacks and Hamas’ Conspiracy Theory
Charlie Hebdo was integral to the culture of this generation. The French establishment in large part loathed it, regarding the magazine as an outpost of the revolutionaries who could conceivably have unseated General de Gaulle during the heady days of May 1968. Many of its editorial stances—including on Israel—reflected the imperatives of a left that is now, in our own time, all too ready to engage in self-censorship.
As an example, and with great sadness in his voice, Gurfinkiel told me about George Wolinski, the Charlie Hebdo cartoonist who, at the age of 80, was brutally murdered in the attack. A Jew born in Tunis to a Sephardi mother and an Ashkenazi father, in the 1970s Wolinski had been a member of the French Communist Party and a trenchant opponent of Israel. When Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978, Charlie Hebdo labeled the affair a “shitty peace,” and Wolinski provided an accompanying cartoon of the two leaders sitting at a table together and breaking wind.
Now, a man who pushed freedom of speech to its limits—including in service of the Palestinian cause—lies dead, murdered by Islamists who detest the West’s ability to tolerate the grotesque and the tasteless. It is, as Gurfinkiel recognizes, a horrible irony, but it’s one that too many on the liberal left are unable or unprepared to grasp. Thus do we come to platitudes about provoking Muslims.
Hamas’ announcement warns French Jewry against aliyah and says: “Every Jewish immigrant who agrees to immigrate to occupied Palestine will become a target of the Palestinian resistance, which, more than ever, is prepared to sweep away the occupation and liberate Palestine from the last imperialism of the 21st century.”I’m Muslim and I’m Charlie
Hamas’ blatant mendacity reflects concern in the movement about the repercussions of the attacks in France on the Palestinian issue.
Hamas shares the Palestinian Authority’s concern that the process of vilification and isolation of Israel in Europe will come to a halt, and the Palestinian political success in the capitals of Europe will be stymied.
Sources in Hamas express apprehension that the global agenda will change and the war on radical Islamic terror will assume a high place on this agenda.
If so, European countries will presumably restore Hamas to the list of terrorist organizations, and the faltering rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip since Operation Protective Edge will presumably come to a halt because the donor countries will not want to strengthen Hamas rule in Gaza.
My eyes turned to a TV monitor on the wall adjacent to the metal detector. I saw the two terrorist brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, armed with AK-47s, forcing their way into the Charlie Hebdo building. I had seen a similar incident on December 16, when seven terrorists entered a Pakistan Army School and killed over 130 school children. My whole body quivered and my heart dropped; I hoped with all my heart that this time, the perpetrators were not Muslims this time. After all, I am a Muslim. However, not 10 seconds later, I heard “Allahu Akbar,” and my heart broke into a million pieces. The security person who was still searching little Soborno Isaac looked at me and asked, “What does that mean?” I did not reply. I was speechless.Everything has been Turned on its Head
However, that is what I should have said: “Allahu Akbar” used to mean “God is great.” However, today it means violence, blood and terrorism.
It means, “I’m about to fire a rocket from Gaza to Israel to kill innocent people.”
It means, “I’m about to use hijacked planes to fly into the Twin Towers.”
It means, “I’m about to kill hundreds of schoolchildren.”
It means, “I’m about to kill journalists.”
The Kouachi brothers proved me right.
They started shooting while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” killing nine journalists at a meeting, as well as Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim police officer. When I saw them shooting innocent people, I cried out loud, tears trickling from my disbelieving eyes.
I thought: Kouachi brothers, you are not Muslims, you are not human beings; you are animals, you are disgusting bastards.
Last night, I lectured at a synagogue in Westchester. Afterwards, a man came up “to shake my hand.” He had asked me this exact question about Western survival and I had answered him partly based on the Arutz Sheva article I recently wrote on the question. Then he told me:Obama Administration Undermines Muslim Reformers with Excuses for Radical Islam
“Our son was supposed to be at the finish line at the Boston Marathon. Luckily, something prevented him from going but we spent the weeks afterwards calling up many of his Boston-area friends to see how they were. What will it take for Americans to wake up and to take Jihad seriously? If 9/11 and Ft Hood and the Boston Marathon Bombing did not do it, I am afraid to think of what will.”
A young college student said: “If I say any of the things you have just said, my friends would call me crazy.”
Said I: “So what? If you opt for popularity and conformity you will never develop the strength to stand up to evil or to tell the truth. Remember: Evil always prevails when the good people are afraid to stop it, lest they not only become pariahs--they may also lose their livelihoods and their lives.”
I thought she was going to faint.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest explained that the Obama administration would not be using the phrase “radical Islam” to describe the ideology motivating the Charlie Hebdo terrorists.Everyone says they’re Charlie. In Britain, almost no one is
“These are individuals who carried out an act of terrorism,” he tut-tutted, “and they later tried to justify that act of terrorism by invoking the religion of Islam in their own deviant view of it… we have not chosen to use that label because it doesn’t seem to accurately describe what had happened.”
Not to quibble, but the Charlie Hebdo terrorists didn’t commit an act of terror, go out for a scotch, and then fix on an Islamic excuse. They shouted “Allahu Akhbar” and “we have avenged the prophet Mohammed” between firing rounds at innocent people. So either they were extremely quick thinkers on their feet, or they had an actual settled ideology motivating them to murder innocent people.
Even some erstwhile Obama administration allies realize that the latter explanation seems more plausible. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, who has in the past acted as lackey for the Obama administration’s most implausible Middle Eastern schemes, wrote an op-ed on Wednesday in which he openly questioned why the Muslim world hadn’t actually condemned the Charlie Hebdo attacks en masse:
Je suis Charlie indeed. This is the problem with placards — there is rarely enough room to fit in the caveats, the qualifying clauses and the necessary evasions. I suppose you could write them on the back of the placard, one after the other, in biro. Or write in brackets and in much smaller letters, directly below ‘Je suis Charlie’: ‘Jusqu’a un certain point, Lord Copper.’ Then you can pop your biro into your lapel as a moving symbol of freedom of speech.French Police ID 4th Suspect in Terror Attacks: 'We Really Are in a War'
Only a few of the British mainstream -national newspapers felt it appropriate to reproduce the front cover of the latest, post-murder, edition of Charlie Hebdo, which shows the -Prophet Mohammed (PBUH, natch) saying: all is forgiven. Nobody else was quite Charlie, although BBC Newsnight held up the front page very, very briefly, as if it were on fire. Credit to them at least for that.
Of course, our MPs had their pens out as well, waving them around in the chamber in a show of solidarity. Their number will have included plenty who voted in favour of Section 5 of the Public Order Act, and particularly the clause that prohibits people from saying stuff to which other people might possibly take offence. ‘Using threatening, abusive or insulting words to cause alarm and distress’ was the original wording of this charter to protect the perpetually outraged; the word ‘insulting’ has since been removed, after a long campaign from, among others, the excellent Conservative MP David Davis. But the rest of it’s still there, a restriction on freedom of speech primarily to protect the sensibilities of people who feel that they have a human right not to be offended and enjoy ringing the police any time that they are.
Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four hostages at a Paris kosher supermarket, rented a small suburban house the week before and filled it with an impressive arsenal of late-model weapons, police said Wednesday.Paris gunman spent three days in Madrid
A published report said a search of the house has enabled police to identify a potential fourth attacker as investigators follow the money and supply systems for the three known killers, all of whom died in police raids. Police told The Associated Press as many as six members of the same radical Islamic terror cell may be at large.
“We have put our finger on some extremely dangerous people, men and women,” French police union spokesman Christophe Crepin said. “We are really in a war.”
Of special interest is the small attached house on a quiet street in the town of Gentilly south of Paris that Coulibaly rented about two weeks ago. French police officials refused to say what has been discovered inside the dwelling, but the newspaper Le Parisien reported detectives from the Paris Criminal Brigade and a special police anti-terrorism unit seized a scooter there that allowed them to identity “a fourth man” who acted as Coulibaly’s accomplice.
French Islamist gunman Amedy Coulibaly spent three days in Madrid before last week’s Paris attacks, with Spanish police now investigating whether he had a support cell there, a Spanish newspaper said Thursday.In tense France, car injures officer at presidential palace
He was in Madrid between December 30 and January 2 with another person who has not yet been identified, Barcelona-based daily newspaper La Vanguardia reported.
Coulibaly shot dead a policewoman in Paris on January 8 before killing four hostages he took at a kosher supermarket in the east of the French capital the following day.
His partner, Hayat Boumeddiene, is known to have been in the Spanish capital before last week’s attacks, but this is the first report that Coulibaly himself had been there for three days.
A car ran into and slightly injured a policewoman guarding the French presidential palace Thursday, raising tensions in a country on high alert after the worst terrorist attacks in decades. Funerals are being held for staff killed in the attack on irreverent newspaper Charlie Hebdo amid continued huge demand for its first post-attacks edition.Charlie Hebdo victim out of induced coma: Australian girl's relief as her boyfriend wakes in hospital after he was shot in Paris terror attack, puncturing his lung and spine
The incident overnight at the Elysee Palace had no apparent links to last week’s shootings and might have been an accident, prosecutors and police said. But it comes at a time when about 120,000 police and other forces are deployed around France as the government seeks to prevent future attacks. Twenty people, including the three gunmen, were killed in last week’s rampage.
Officials with Paris police and the presidential palace said in the new incident a car carrying four people took a one-way street in the wrong direction then drove off when the police officer tried to stop them. She sustained slight leg injuries.
Police said two people were later arrested, and two others in the car fled. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly identified.
An Australian woman's French boyfriend who was gravely injured in the Charlie Hedbo shooting has woken up from the coma he was in for eight days.Window of Jewish Library Near Lyon Smashed by Antisemitic Assailant Yelling ‘We Will Get The Jews’
Simon Fieschi, 31, was in an induced coma after a bullet punctured his lung and spine in the terror attack where two men massacred five of his colleagues in a hail of gunfire at the satirical newspaper's office in Paris.
Masie Dubosarky was visiting friends and family in Sydney for Christmas when the attack took place, and flew to be by her boyfriend's side on Friday as he underwent surgery for the gunshot wounds.
Ms Dubosarky's mother said that she had been by his bedside since she arrived back in the country.
'He is still in the intensive care unit. He has not been allowed visitors apart from family and Maisie,' she told The Daily Telegraph.
It is still unclear whether Mr Fieschi will walk again, and his girlfriend expressed both her relief at his lucky escape and fear for his future.
The window of a Jewish library in Villeurban, a suburb of the French city of Lyon, was smashed earlier today by an assailant wearing a motorcycle helmet.Threats to Sweden’s Jews double after Paris attacks
French Jewish website JSS News reported that the attack took place around noon. The assailant used a hammer to smash the window of the Aleph library, which specializes in religious books. When the library manager emerged to confront the assailant, he was told, “We will get the Jews.” The assailant then departed on a scooter driven by an accomplice.
The library was visited shortly after the attack by Jean-François Carenco, the Prefect for the regional government who is in charge of security. “I came to tell the victims that the country is with them,” Carenco said.
The number of threats against Swedish Jews has doubled since the Paris attacks and the killing of four people in a kosher supermarket, a representative said Thursday.Ohio man with Islamist sympathies ‘planned to bomb US Capitol, kill officials’
“The threats have at least doubled in Sweden,” Lena Posner-Koerosi of the Council of Jewish Communities told AFP.
Security has been increased around Jewish institutions, particularly in the capital Stockholm, police spokesman Lars Bystroem said.
Sweden has previously drawn international criticism for not taking threats to its Jewish community seriously.
A 20-year-old Ohio man’s Twitter posts sympathizing with Islamic terrorists led to an undercover FBI operation and the man’s arrest on charges that he plotted to blow up the U.S. Capitol and kill government officials.In Pictures: France Queues For Charlie Hebdo
Christopher Lee Cornell, also known as Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah, told an FBI informant they should “wage jihad,” and showed his plans for bombing the Capitol and shooting people, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Ohio Wednesday. The FBI said Cornell expressed his support for the Islamic State.
Cornell’s arrest came only days after a grand jury indictment charged another Cincinnati-area resident with threatening to murder House Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement Wednesday: “Once again, the entire Congress owes a debt of gratitude to the FBI and all those who keep us safe.”
Not since the collapse of Communism has Europe seen queueing on a scale like that to be found all over France today, as fans of freedom clamoured to get their hands on copies of the survivors’ edition of Charlie Hebdo.Filipino protesters burn Netanyahu poster at anti-cartoon rally
The first print run, which will continue tomorrow to take the total to five million copies of the niche political magazine, hit news stands in the early hours of this morning. In many places queues had already formed and whole stocks sold out almost immediately.
Around 1,500 people protested in one of the Philippines’ main Muslim-majority cities on Wednesday against the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, police said.Jerusalem mufti condemns Charlie Hebdo cartoon as 'insult'
At one of the rallies, protesters burned a banner showing the image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli flag.
Local politicians, teenaged students and women with veils covering their faces packed the main square in Marawi in the southern Philippines, some raising their fists in the air as a Charlie Hebdo poster was burnt.
“What had happened in France, the Charlie Hebdo killing, is a moral lesson for the world to respect any kind of religion, especially the religion of Islam,” organizers said in a statement released during the three-hour rally.
“Freedom of expression does not extend to insulting the noble and the greatest prophet of Allah.”
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Hussein condemned as an "insult" a new cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed published on Wednesday by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.Hamas blames ‘Zionist lobby’ for new Charlie Hebdo cartoon
"This insult has hurt the feelings of nearly two billion Muslims all over the world. The cartoons and other slander damage relations between the followers of the (Abrahamic) faiths," he said in a statement.
The mufti, who oversees Jerusalem's Muslim sites including Islam's third holiest, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, slammed the "publishing of cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, and the disregard for the feelings of Muslims."
The Gaza-based Hamas terror group on Wednesday denounced the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for putting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad on the front cover of its new issue, asserting that the publication was part of a global conspiracy by an anti-Muslim “Zionist lobby.”Turkish PM says Netanyahu same as Paris terrorists
“We condemn the latest publication of ‘Charlie Hebdo,’ which has caricatures offending the Prophet Muhammad,” spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, according to Channel 10 news.
“The way the Israeli newspapers have dealt with the issue, with the blessing of the US secretary of state, is clear evidence that there is a plot, directed by the Zionist lobby, targeting Muslims, their culture, and the tolerance toward them by Western countries.”
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Thursday said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has committed crimes against humanity comparable to those behind the Paris attacks that left 17 dead.MEMRI: Turkish Reactions To 'Charlie Hebdo' Terror Attack: Erdogan Accuses Western Hypocrisy, Racism, Hate Speech, Islamophobia; Islamist/Pro-AKP Media Justify It; Secular Media Mourns
“Netanyahu has committed crimes against humanity the same like those terrorists who carried out the Paris massacre,” he told reporters in televised comments, pointing to the deadly 2010 Israeli assault on a Turkish vessel trying to break the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip and last year’s Israel-Hamas war. Israeli naval commandos opened fire, killing nine Turkish nationals, when they were attacked with clubs and poles on the deck of the Mavi Marmara in the 2010 incident.
“Just as the massacre in Paris committed by terrorists is a crime against humanity, Netanyahu, as the head of the government that kills children playing on the beach with the bombardment of Gaza, destroys thousands of homes … and that massacred our citizens on an aid ship in international waters, has committed crimes against humanity,” Davutoglu said.
The remarks came as part of the latest round in a series of snipes between Israeli and Turkish officials.
In Turkey's Islamist pro-AKP media, there were justifications for the January 7, 2015 terror attack on the office of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Headlines and columns carried claims that France was reaping what it had sowed, and that Charlie Hebdo had insulted the Prophet Mohammad and provoked Muslims.Turkey Blocks Sites With Charlie Hebdo Covers
While the AKP leadership condemned the attack, it also blamed the West for it; furthermore, its main concern was that it would deepen anti-Muslim sentiment. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed Western hypocrisy, racism, hate speech, and Islamophobia, saying, "We must be aware of [the West's] plots against the Muslim world." Additionally, an AKP MP, Ali Sahin, claimed, in a series of tweets, that the attack had been staged, like "on a movie set."
A billboard erected in the AKP-ruled city of Tatyan, in eastern Turkey, read: "Salute to the Kouachi brothers, who avenged the Messenger of Allah [i.e. Muhammad]/May Allah accept your martyrdom/ When you [i.e. the West] strike, it is democracy – when we avenge, it is terrorism."
Turkey on Wednesday blocked web sites where the satirical covers - featuring a cartoon of Mohammed - of France's Charlie Hebdo magazine were available on-line.Muslim Backlash Against Choudary, Group Publishes Alcohol And Porn Pic
The sites were blocked after the government got a court order, based on claims by the government that the caricatures of Mohammed that appeared on-line were offensive to Turkey's Muslim population.
Charlie Hebdo made a defiant return on Wednesday with a new issue that sold out across France in record time, once again featured Mohammed on its cover - but with a tear in his eye, holding a "Je Suis Charlie" sign under the headline "All is forgiven.”
The magazine is distributed outside of France as well, and publishers are planning to print millions of more copies for residents of France who were unable to get a copy when it went on sale Wednesday morning, as well as for readers in other countries.
The magazine has been available in Turkey in the past, and on Wednesday the opposition daily Cumhuriyet published a version, but the government blocked the newspaper's site as well.
A group calling itself ‘Muslims Against Anjem Choudary’ has published an embarrassing picture of the hate preacher with alcohol and a pornographic magazine. The picture, which has been circulated before, is said to have been taken when the 47-year-old attended Southampton University.British Islamist Anjem Choudary Praises Paris Terrorists: May Allah Accept Them in Paradise
He is said to have been a fan of cider, the super-strong alcoholic drink made in Western England from apples. Friends from the period claim Choudary styled himself “Andy” in order to fit in with his University friends and showed no signs of the radicalisation that would later make him famous.
Muslims Against Anjem Choudary say they want “To condemn extremism and extremist groups such as Anjem Choudary and his group. We condemn ISIS. We condemn Al Qaeda.
“Social media is the biggest tool to spread our message. We don’t care for likes we want the public to know we are not with these people. The reality is these people are tarnishing the name of Islam and the western media does not help as well.”
Pat Buchanan: ‘No Doubt’ Charlie Hebdo Brought Attack Upon Themselves
Buchanan made the comments to NewsmaxTV host Steve Malzberg Wednesday afternoon.East London café threatened for placing #JeSuisCharlie sign outside – owner says he won’t back down
“I do believe this: I’ve seen some of those cartoons which have not been published, and they are really foul and offensive,” Buchanan said, “and understandably outrage the Islamic community and the decent Muslims around France and around the world.”
“Given what’s happened since the Ayatollah put the fatwa out on Salmon Rushdie, you ought to realize if you’re going to insult the Prophet or write foul cartoons about him, you’re risking a real problem for yourself,” Buchanan said. “That’s just the real world.”
“If you ask me if I’m going to march in defense of a magazine that portrayed the three persons of the Blessed Trinity in a sodomite relationship in a huge cartoon and thought that cartoon was funny, then I’m not marching with them,” Buchanan told Malzberg. “I don’t say they should be shot and killed or that Muslims should shoot and kill them, but I thought that was disgusting, outrageous and offensive.”
“I would not march and say Je Suis Charlie on that. No!” Buchanan said.
After putting up a sandwich board with the message “Je Suis Charlie” outside his deli-shop in London’s Brick Lane, owner Adel Defilaux says he was followed inside and threatened by a man who said that anybody supporting the satirical magazine “deserved to die”.Charlie Hebdo: Belgian seeking to trademark "Je Suis Charlie" says he wants to help victims
The slogan has become a symbol of the mass movement created after the massacre of 12 people at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine, but the man demanded that Mr Defilaux take it down because it was offensive to Muslims.
When Mr Defilaux responded that he was himself Muslim, the man turned aggressive:
“He said: ‘The people in Paris deserved to die. If you don’t remove the sign, something is going to happen,’ and then he left.”
Mr Defilaux, who is originally from Marseille but has lived in London for five years, said he had put up the sign to support everyone in France and had received no complaints from anyone else.
He added: “I get on with all the community here. We are opposite a mosque and all my neighbours are Muslim and no one else has had a problem with the sign…
When Yanick Uytterhaegen applied to trademark the slogan “Je Suis Charlie” for commercial goods he became an instant hate figure.PreOccupied Territory: Fodor’s Top 10 Places Least Likely To Get Stormed By Islamists: A Family Guide (satire)
But the Belgian businessman has told The Independent that he plans to licence the phrase, adopted by Charlie Hebdo sympathisers worldwide, to raise funds for the families of the cartoonists massacred by terrorists last week.
Uytterhaegen, a Brussels resident, yesterday lodged an application to register “Je Suis Charlie” at the Benelux Trademarks Office.
The application, which would apply across Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, covers goods including laundry and cleaning products, printed matter, clothing, footwear, toys, decorations for Christmas trees, fruit juices and beer.
Vacation is stressful enough without having to worry that little Timmy will wind up beheaded, or little Emma abducted and sold as a child bride to a Sunni warlord. So where can you go that won’t put you and our family at risk of pulling a Yazidi? We’ve compiled a list of the Ten vacation destinations least likely to get overrun by Islamic militants. No guarantee they won’t be overcrowded by Israeli backpackers, though.PreOccupied Territory: New Palestinian Dating Site For ‘Lone Wolves’ (satire)
We’ll start with:
10. Tehran
It’s counterintuitive, we know, but Khamenei’s security forces have the place pretty much secure, and there certainly are no Sunni threats to your safety there. Pros: friendly people; economic crisis means weak local currency and attractive prices. Cons: possible collateral damage from Israeli attempts to assassinate nuclear scientists; not recommended for homosexuals.
Sayyid convinced several colleagues from the region to help him found DhibDate, a site that matches lone Palestinian wolves with potential partners. “You can still be a wolf, but you needn’t be lone,” reads the site’s tagline. Members of DhibDate can list the qualifications they seek in a mate, as with most other dating sites, but DhibDate offers users the unique attribute of matching a partner’s desired level of compensation from the Palestinian Authority for the martyrdom of a family member with a lone wolf’s aspirations for a minimum number of Israeli casualties.
“In a way, we perform an important social service,” explains Sayyid. “The Palestinian Authority will pay pensions to the families of martyrs – or even those who don’t manage to get themselves killed, but are imprisoned for the attempt – in any case. What we do is enable additional people to become eligible for those monies. The Palestinian economy is tight, and DhibDate can be a meal ticket for any number of otherwise needy people – and of course to find true love in the process, at least until their formerly lone wolf goes and gets himself shot after running over some Jewish pedestrians.”
DhibDate is not Sayyid’s first attempt at online matchmaking. A separate venture last year sought to bring together people killed by the Assad government, under the assumption that people who were both killed by barrel bombs would find common ground. Response was poor, leading to cancellation of Syria Ever After.
