Omri's on a tear

Omri at Mere Rhetoric is posting a great series of articles this morning detailing the incredible bias that the mainstream media is exhibiting against Israel, especially in the wake of the Beit Hanoun accident.

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Israelis saving the world. As usual.

Great news, as an Israeli company has devised an extremely efficient way to extract fuel from oil shale - at a cost of $17 a barrel.

HAIFA, Israel, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- The Israeli process for producing energy from oil shale will cut its oil imports by one-third, and will serve as a guide for other countries with oil shale deposits, according to one company.

A.F.S.K. Hom Tov presented its oil shale processing method on Tuesday, outside Haifa and just down the street from one of the country's two oil refinery facilities.

"Because the patents for this process belong to (the company), Israel is the most advanced in the world in the effort to create energy from oil shale," Moshe Shahal, a Hom Tov legal representative and a former Israeli energy minister, told United Press International.

Shahal estimated that the company's Negev Desert facility would begin full-scale production in three to four years, while other countries with oil shale deposits will need five to six years to reach production.

Oil shale is limestone rock that contains hydrocarbons, or fossil fuels -- about 20 percent of the amount of energy found in coal. Using the rock as a raw material and coating it with bitumen, a residue of the crude oil refining process, the company can produce natural gas, fuel, electricity, or a combination of the three.

Older technologies squeezed the hydrocarbon material out of the rock, with extremely high pressure and at high temperatures.

According to Professor Ze'ev Aizenshtat, an oil shale expert, the Hom Tov process is more environmentally friendly than other methods of converting oil shale into energy. It also allows for more flexibility in the kind of fuel produced, produces less waste and operates at lower temperatures than other methods.

Though the production process may be more environmentally friendly, the end product is still a fossil fuel, similar in quality to a high-grade diesel when in liquid form.

...Because fewer refining processes are necessary with oil shale than with crude oil, the final product is a higher quality fuel at a lower price, Aizenshtat said.

The company estimates it will consume 6 million tons of oil shale and 2 million tons of refinery waste each year, for an annual production of 3 million tons of product.

It would cost about $17 to produce a barrel of synthetic oil at the Hom Tov facility, meaning giant profit margins in a world of $45 to $60 per barrel crude. Yearly earnings are forecasted to be between $159 million and $350 million, Shahal said.

Israel has 15 billion tons of oil shale reserves. Jordan, on the other hand, has about 25 billion tons, and the oil shale in Jordan is of higher quality. Shahal met with Jordanian Energy Minister Azmi Khreisat earlier this year, to discuss setting up a plant there.

The United States also has a giant reserve, mostly in Colorado, and Hom Tov sees potential for its patented process there.

The unfortunate equation is that petrodollars equals terror, and anything we can do to make Middle Eastern oil irrelevant is a huge win for the security of the free world.

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Iranian threats and "open-mindedness"

Iran's "supreme leader" Khamenei blamed the world's problems on Zionist and capitalist control of the world:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said here Thursday that changes in human communities are unavoidable adding that control of world developments by the Zionists and global capitalism is a serious threat.

"The international bullying gangs, which developed the military apparatus of NATO to have hegemony over nations, are now determined to make NATO's cultural apparatus annihilate the national identity of human communities and achieve their goals.

"They intend to control the major political, economic, social and cultural developments in the world by using their extensive media facilities," said Ayatollah Khamenei, while urging the need for vigilance.

Ayatollah Khamenei called for renovation, open-mindedness and proper management as a way to advancement.

This is of course nothing new, but it needs to be stressed that while he is using Zionism as a rallying cry and relying on age-old anti-semitic stereotypes, the US is being threatened repeatedly just as much by Iran. Recall that the year before the Iranian "World Without Zionism" conference they had a similar "World Without America" conference.

The call for "open-mindedness" is especially interesting, as Reporters Without Borders just named Iran as one of the 13 nations that censor the Internet. Also, in 2004, an Iranian blogger was imprisoned for 21 months on the charge of "insulting the Supreme Leader" - and if he would have been convicted of insulting the "Prophet" he would have been executed.

I guess when Khamenei says he wants open-mindedness, it only means open-mindedness to think whatever Khamenei says is allowed to be thought.

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PalArabs need more weapons - to shoot themselves in the foot

More proof that Israel cares more about Palestinian Arab lives than Arabs do:

Lebanon's Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah called for weapons and money to be sent to Palestinians following an attack by the Israeli military that killed 18 people in Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip. He said on Wednesday that it is necessary for Palestinians to defend themselves.

"Arms, money and medicine must be delivered to this nation of resistant fighters and the blockade imposed on them must be broken," Nasrallah said in a statement.

Now, as we've demonstrated, who gets hurt most when Palestinian Arabs escalate their "resistance"? It is always the PalArabs themselves. But their leaders keep feeding their people the fiction that they can destroy Israel if they just would try a little harder.

Notice Nasrallah's priorities - weapons above all must be delivered to a population where unemployment is at about 70%. This shows how much he loves the "Palestinian" people.

If there was ever a "golden age" of the fictional Palestine, it was during the years between 1993-2000. Israel did all it could to adhere to the disastrous Oslo accords, even though Arab suicide bombings continued sporadically throughout that time. But relatively speaking there was peace, Palestinian Arabs had jobs, the economy was booming and even Jordanian Palestinian Arabs were illegally immigrating to the West Bank by the tens of thousands to share in the bonanza of world investment and charity.

Whose fault is it that this nascent nation descended into chaos and poverty?

It is squarely the fault of people like Nasrallah, Arafat and the gangs of "leaders" who have consistently led the PalArab people to ruin. And the reason is as obvious as it is distressing for Western minds to accept: their leaders do not want to create a state but to destroy one. And even in the face of the unlikelihood of them hurting Israel, just the fact that they can occasionally kill some Jews in terror attacks or rocket attacks makes them happy and feeling "victorious."

The only people who get hurt in the end are their own. Yet even so, their own people keep supporting them. Nasrallah, instead of being told to go to hell by the PalArabs who do not need his advice, judge him as a hero.

It is hard to remain sympathetic with people who seem to always choose what is worst for them.

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India's Bene Menashe making aliyah - but not publicly

218 members of the Bnei Menashe community in India are moving to Israel starting next week, but apparently the major media event that was to accompany them was quashed by India.

According to "Arab Monitor" (note the spin):

Three days before it was to be implemented, the government of India, acting through the Indian aviation authorities, revoked permission for a spectacular Israeli Zionist public relations action to take place. On 12th November an Israir charter flight, hired by the Jewish Agency and funded by US Evangelical Christians, was to airlift a group of 812 [sic] Indians who had converted to judaism, to Tel Aviv within the frame of the Zionist "return to Israel" paradigm. The Indian converts had undergone their judaization process about a year ago under the supervision of emissaries of the Chief Rabbinate, who had heceforth recognized them as members of the biblical lost tribe of Bnei Menashem. Having been officially recognized as Jews, the Indians automatically were eligible to become citizens of Israel under the Zionist "Right-of-Return"-law and the Jewish Agency in Israel had already prepared for the settlement of the new immigrants in Carmiel and Nazareth, where they were destined to boost the Jewish presence in an Arab Palestinian environment. The US-based Friendship Fund of the Evangelical Christians, who funded the project of mass immigration of allegedly Indian Jews to Israel, had prepared for a spectacular mass-media covering of the organized departure of the group from India on 12th November and of the celebrations planned to greet their arrival in Israel. Concerned about the negative repercussions that an action designed to appear as a "rescue campaign for Jews" would have, India took steps to prevent the Zionist scoop by forcefully grounding the Israir machine and requesting that converts willing to emigrate to Israel should do so on an individual basis and booking regular El-Al flights.

Of course this article is a bit inaccurate: the Bnei Menashe identify themselves as being Jews for millenia, and the Israeli rabbis only formally converted them to erase any Jewish legal problems.

In fact, a genetic study did find evidence of commonalities between these Indian Jews and those of Uzbekistan:

Bhaswar Maity, a research scholar at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Kolkata, had begun the DNA typing of samples (100 male and 80 female) taken from the Mizos in March 2002. "Studies on the Y chromosome [male] did not return the Cohen modal haplotype, which is present in most Jewish males around the world," says Dr V.K. Kashyap, director of the laboratory. (Tracing the male chromosome is difficult because most Mizo men, who migrated from elsewhere, wed women along the way and the Y chromosome is lost every time a female child is created.) "But of the mitochondria DNA [female samples], a few Kuki samples returned the unique haplotype [genetic sequence code] found in the Jewish community in Uzbekistan."

This is a clear indication that there was a Jewish female founder effect in the Kuki community. "It is scientifically impossible to have the same genetic sequence in two populations living so far apart if they did not originate from a common stock who historically inhabited a common space," says Maity. He also found a specific mutation in some Lusei and Kuki samples that is also present in Indian Jews.

If these Indian Jews indeed descended from the biblical Menashe, none of the males would have the Cohen haplotype - because that would be reserved for those descended from Levi.

The article from 2004 continues with some fascinating background:

There are also historical pointers to this claim. Zaithanchhungi, a scholar who has been studying the Mizo claim to Israeli ancestry for over 20 years, is convinced that all Mizos are descendants of the Menashe. "The Menashe were enslaved by the Assyrians and taken there [Assyria] when Jerusalem fell," she says. "From there they migrated to the Afghanistan region. During Alexander’s invasion they were driven further on to Mongolia through the Kashmir region and Tibet plateau, and they settled in the Chhinlung region of China. They entered Mizoram about 300 years ago from Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Burma."

This puts the Indian government on a sticky wicket as the United Nations has said that a country cannot rule over people other than its own. The government has more reason to be worried because the Aizawl-based Chhinlung Israel People’s Convention, an organisation of 2.5 lakh members who believe they are descendants of the Menashe, has begun preparations for realising their dream of a "New Jerusalem". This correspondent even stumbled upon a new flag for the "country of the Menashe people" as Lalchhanhima Sailo, the chairman of the convention, put it.

The organisation had submitted a memorandum to the UN in 1998 to recognise the Chhinlung people as a lost tribe of Israel. "We are now awaiting Israeli recognition," says Sailo. "Once it comes through, we will have an independent country in the northeast of India." Sailo feels this is a very real possibility because there are Chhins in parts of Manipur, Burma, Bangladesh and Assam.

It is difficult to ignore the similarities that exist between the lives of the Jews in Israel and those of the Mizos. According to Zaithanchhungi, there are anthropological perspe-ctives. The Mizo burial ritual is similar to that of the Jews. Secondly, though the Mizos migrated to Mizoram through lands where Buddhism was the dominant faith, it left no influence on them. Even in the first half of the 20th century, they sacrificed animals to Pathian (Jehova). "They had the sacrificial altar on a hillock and a cross similar to that of David was drawn on the altar," she says. "Only men were allowed to witness the sacrifice. This is more than sheer resemblance."

Another resemblance is between the Mizo ritual of Cawngpuisial and the Jewish Sabbath. Sabbath starts when the stars appear on a Friday evening and ends with the same on a Saturday evening. In Mizoram, during the Cawngpuisial, villagers are restricted from going out of the village (and strangers from entering it) after the stars appear on a Friday. The curfew is lifted on Saturday after the stars appear.

Shaina, a student from Raanana near Tel-Aviv, who recently visited the Amishav Hebrew Center in Aizawl—an Israeli government agency tracing lost Jewish tribes—found the "similarities between the people of Israel and Mizoram simply too stark to be neglected".

Allenby Sela, principal of Amishav, was one of 900 Mizos who converted to Judaism to settle down in the Gaza Strip. He returned to Mizoram to make the people aware of their history. "We should know who we are, where we came from, what our roots are," he says. "Faith can’t be recognised by blood tests. It’s a spiritual thing. Our history is oral and there is no clinching evidence. But this is not enough for Israel to accept." Israel recognised the Black Jews of Ethiopia and the Fallasahs of South Africa as lost tribes without any tests.

A stroll down the roads of Aizawl—with signs Moses Snack Centre, Nazareth Medical, Israel Stores, Zion Street—is enough to understand its connection with the Promised Land. "The Torah [Jewish Bible] states that there shall be one Holy Land in the west and one in the east," says Sailo. "I’m convinced this is it. The Torah also mentions that the descendants of Abraham shall be as plenty as stars in the heaven and the sands of the earth. Though the population of Israel is only five million, if you include all the Chhinlung people, you will find the true meaning of the prophecy."

The Wikipedia article on the Bnei Menashe adds much more information.

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Cleric: UNIFIL should give Lebanon missiles

I missed this one last week:

Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah sharply criticized Israel's violations of Lebanese airspace Thursday, calling on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to provide the Lebanese Army with defensive weapons.

"Israel is still violating our skies without taking UNIFIL's role into consideration," the country's senior Shiite cleric said during a meeting with Spanish Ambassador Miguel Benzo Perea. "UNIFIL should provide the army with surface-to-air missiles so it will be able to prevent any Israeli violation of Lebanon's airspace."

Fadlallah also expressed opposition to foreign interference into Lebanon's affairs, which he warned might create conflicts in the country and complicate relations among the Lebanese.

"We do not accept any international or regional tutelage," the cleric said.

In other words, give us lots of weapons but don't tell us what to do. Sounds about right.

Turns out that this Lebanese Shiite leader has a website. Thanks to him, we now know that women should never act as women in public.

For more info on him check this out.

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What you didn't read about the Gaza incursion

This interview was before the shelling this morning that (apparently) tragically killed some 18 civilians. It shows a side of the Gaza incursion that you simply will never see outside the Israeli media.

Givate Brigade commander Col. Yoel Strick was pleased as his forces left the area of Beit Hanoun after a weeklong operation.

Col. Strick says that the forces also uncovered five weaponry manufacturing facilities. Buildings used as 'laboratories' where missiles and explosives were prepared...

Regarding the local Palestinian population Col. Strick admits that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is very difficult: "The situation is miserable and reminiscent of the familiar images from refugee camps. It's not easy to see the way they're trying to maintain their daily lives there. It was clear that an operation of this stripe would force us to operate from areas populated with civilians and that we would have to take every precaution not to harm them. There were only six civilian fatalities; I can say that I'm proud of the outcome considering the scope of the operation. I have no problem with our moral standing."

During the operation Col. Strick met in person with the director of the Beit Hanoun hospital. "I asked him what equipment he was missing and we made sure he got it," says Col. Strick, adding that "we didn't go in to holy sites or hospitals, the terrorists did however, often entering these places with arms."

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Our favorite self-hating Jew dislikes Borat

Gilad Atzmon, that legendary jazz musician in his own mind, has decided that Borat's lampooning of anti-semitism is in fact a malicious way for him to shield Israel from legitimate criticism.

As best as I can tell from his latest rant, much of today's anti-semitism is really legitimate anti-Zionism, and therefore making fun of it serves to shield Israel from its crimes. Or something like that:

However, after last summer’s Israeli extravaganza of brutality in Lebanon and the seemingly endless and daily flood of Palestinian blood made to spill by the IDF in Gaza and the West Bank, anti-Jewish feelings seem to be fuelled by Zionist crime. Moreover, nowadays, when the Jewish State’s influence within the American administration is academically and historically established (The Israel Lobby, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html), when the support for Neoconservatism that has lead to a genocide in Iraq is largely endorsed by the Zionist intellectual and ideological voice (The Euston Manifesto http://eustonmanifesto.org/joomla/), some forms of anger against the ‘Jew’ should be comprehended as a political criticism rather than merely a primitive irrational outburst. This is, of course, not justifying ‘throwing Jews down the well’ but rather trying to explain from where such anti-Jewish feelings are originating.

Borat is set to present anti-Semitism as a backward reactionary tendency. By doing so Baron Cohen and his team are there to block or even to shutter any form of criticism of global Zionism in general and of Israel in particular. This is indeed a non-violent legitimate political agenda, yet something to keep in the back of your mind while having an evening out at the cinema.

As usual, Atzmon looks at the world through his usual evil-Jews lens and everything he sees confirms his views. One hopes that his clarinet playing is somewhat more competent than his articles are. (Then again, his usual publishers in the indymedia and Arab worlds will print anything he has to say, as the token Jew-hating Israeli.)

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Hamas helpfully issues terror press releases

From YNet:

The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, have begun issuing a report which chronologically describes the resistance activities and the names of group members killed.

"We hereby announce the blessed operations we have carried out," the report states. "We shall continue to hit the enemy using all means. With the help of Allah, each of their bombardments will be answered with a bombardment, and each blood with blood."

The latest report punctiliously elaborates on the operations carried out on Sunday:

2 a.m. – Qassam launched

At night – Maadi Khaled al-Khamadin killed

7:10 a.m. – Qassam launched at Sderot

12:25 p.m. – Mortar shells fired at IDF forces in Beit Hanoun

1:30 p.m. – Two RPG rockets and Yassin antitank missile fired at Israeli armored forces in Beit Lahiya

2:10 p.m. – Qassam launched at Sderot

3 p.m. – Police officer Atef Kahlut killed in Beit Lahiya battle

5:10 p.m. – Snipers fire at IDF soldiers

6:35 p.m. – Qassam launched at Zikim

7:15 p.m. – antitank missile fired at IDF force

7:33 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. – Qassam launched at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai and Kibbutz Zikim

At night – Raid Abed al-Aal killed in Jabalya after being hit by a missile fired from a helicopter.

Notice that they don't even pretend to be targeting military targets - they say that they are shooting Kassams towards kibbutzim and towns.

Even though this was the terror report from Sunday, Hamas announced today that "the truce with Israel is over." As if it ever existed.

Oh, and by the way - Hamas also announced that they are calling on all Muslims to kill Americans.

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Embrace your inner anti-semite

Mark Glenn, whom I've quoted before, has finally made his feelings explicit. He's sick and tired of everyone pretending that Zionism is the problem when it is, in fact, Judaism!

Let’s face it–the only reason we are allowed (not to mention willing) to talk about it these days is because it begins with the letter ‘z’ and not the letter ‘j’. That is the single barrier demarcating the two items–a simple issue of letters and pronunciation, despite the fact that they are basically the same animal. Stay within that safe ‘z’ zone and all will be relatively fine. You will be championed as a friend of humanity and a warrior for the truth. Venture into that other area though and bring up that dreaded ‘j’ word and suddenly the same ‘open-minded’ people who a moment before were erecting a monument in your honor start to loosen their collars and clear their throats uncomfortably.

...Let’s just lay it all out on the table and let the chips fall where they may. What have we got to lose, after all? Are we worried about making them mad? They already are mad, and I don’t just mean in the commonly-used manner indicating ‘unhappy’. Are we concerned that with the amount of power they possess that somehow God’s chosen people might do something to make life uncomfortable for us? That they might start a war?

Wake up and smell the Knishes, my friends, Judaism has been at war with us for over 2,000 years, ever since this man named Jesus of Nazareth came and blew the lid open on what Judaism‘s real agenda was. Judaism is a declaration of war and manifested by thousands upon thousands of acts of intentional malice directed by Rabbinical generals against the rest within the non-Jewish world in matters involving money, business, politics, and culture....

While the other two Middle Eastern faiths that are Judaism’s organic enemies–meaning Christianity and Islam–elevate the virtues of humility, charity and righteousness, Judaism not only elevates, but institutionalizes and legislates the vices of haughtiness, supremacism and callous disregard for other human beings. It is the codified mindset of mankind’s first murderer, Cain, who slew his brother Abel over reasons of envy and economics. Gentiles exist to serve the Jews. Rape of gentile children, murder, lying, theft, usury, all these things that have been condemned in every other religion around the world are given full sanction in Judaism when it benefits the tribe....

Judaism is nobody’s friend, and the sooner that the rest of us–Jew and non-Jew alike–come to realize this, the better off we will be. Get rid of it. It is a cancer. Cut is out and throw it away, as Jesus instructed that we do. It has never and will never be of any benefit to mankind. We cannot live in any kind of ‘peaceful co-existence’ with it. It is a declaration of war, and as long as it exists out there, mankind will never have peace.

Of course, he has an entire website dedicated to eradicating the world of the evil Jews, but he has been a little reticent to go public with his views before. Glad to see that the pesky mental block is gone and he is proud for who he is. Shouting your ignorance and bigotry from the rooftops is so therapeutic - especially when you know that, deep down, all your anti-Zionist friends agree with you.

(And, as usual, this article was indexed as "news" by Google.)

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Women's lib, PalArab style

Islamic Jihad has accused Israel of arresting charity workers. In this painful autotranslation from WAFA:

Islamic Jihad accuses the occupation authorities to arrest citizens working in the framework of charity work
Wafa accused the Islamic Jihad movement, today, the Israeli occupation authorities to arrest citizens working in the framework of charity work, among charities based movement founded to help the citizens.Khader Habib, denied the news reported by the Israeli media, the arrest of occupation cell belonging to the women's movement in the cities of Ramallah and Hebron in the West Bank.

The Sheikh Habib, All prisons in the occupation forces working in the field of philanthropy.

Now, let's see what is really going on:

The Shin Bet exposed during the months of August and September a network of women operating for the Islamic Jihad as part of the organization's terror infrastructure in the West Bank. This was cleared for publication Tuesday.

The network is split into two terror cells – one in Kfar Ayin and one in Kfar Na'ama – that have carried out shooting attacks and have laid roadside bombs around Ramallah. The network has even operated an explosives lab. The Shin Bet and the IDF have arrested a number of the network's members.

One of the senior women arrested is Wadha Faqhaa, 24, from Jilzon, dealt with transferring finances to one of the cells. Faqhaa, head of the Islamic Jihad office in Ramallah, was arrested on August 3. During her interrogation, she said that she received funds from the organization's command center in Syria. Some of the funds she allocated to finance terrorist cells by way of a number of women Islamic Jihad activists serving as money couriers.

Two of the couriers – Haba Hamidat, 21, and Falastin Tsoobah, 21, also residents Jilzon – worked in the Islamic Jihad office in Ramallah that takes care of the organization's prisoners. They were arrested on August 20 and confessed to the accusations against them.

In addition to the two couriers, Faqhaa was also aided by other Islamic Jihad activists who served as a conduit for transferring funds from the organization's central command in Syria to the terror cells.

Two of these activists – Afat Khalifa, 21, from Kfar Naama, and Zakia Guanma, 40, from Jilzon – were arrested as well. They said during their interrogations that they received commission of USD 100 for each money transfer they carried out. These funds then funded the terror attacks of the Islamic Jihad's terror cells.

The sixth member who was arrested is Rania Abu Khadir, 26, from Tzurif. She is the head of the Islamic Jihad's student union at Hebron University. Khadir is suspected of being active in charity organizations, which transferred funds to terrorist organizations and the families of suicide bombers.

Judging from the use of female human shields to allow wanted terrorists to escape, and yesterday's woman suicide bomber and this article, it seems that the PalArabs are hellbent to make their own lives even more miserable than they are now.

But it is no surprise that they have such low regard for their women's welfare. Domestic violence against women in the territories has increased in recent years, with rapes, honor killings and incest all rampant, according to a HRW report released yesterday. (Although the PA gets the brunt of the responsibility in the report, HRW manages to obliquely blame Israel for some of it - after all, if PalArab men don't have jobs, then what choice do they have but to take their frustrations out on their wives and daughters?)

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The one article liberals need to read

For all those who excuse Islamic terror, for all those who navel-gaze to try to find out what we did to make them hate us, for all those who are convinced that colonialism and Western values and Zionism are what motivate the jihadists - read this.

Hot for martyrdom

Michael Coren
National Post

Friday, November 03, 2006

Dr. Tawfik Hamid doesn't tell people where he lives. Not the street, not the city, not even the country. It's safer that way. It's only the letters of testimony from some of the highest intelligence officers in the Western world that enable him to move freely. This medical doctor, author and activist once was a member of Egypt's Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Arabic for "the Islamic Group"), a banned terrorist organization. He was trained under Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bearded jihadi who appears in Bin Laden's videos, telling the world that Islamic violence will stop only once we all become Muslims.

He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism.

"Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."

Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic.

He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.

"I've heard this poverty nonsense time and time again from Western apologists for Islam, most of them not Muslim by the way. There are millions of passive supporters of terror who may be poor and needy but most of those who do the killing are wealthy, privileged, educated and free. If it were about poverty, ask yourself why it is middle-class Muslims -- and never poor Christians -- who become suicide bombers in Palestine."

His analysis is fascinating. Muslim fundamentalists believe, he insists, that Saudi Arabia's petroleum-based wealth is a divine gift, and that Saudi influence is sanctioned by Allah. Thus the extreme brand of Sunni Islam that spread from the Kingdom to the rest of the Islamic world is regarded not merely as one interpretation of the religion but the only genuine interpretation. The expansion of violent and regressive Islam, he continues, began in the late 1970s, and can be traced precisely to the growing financial clout of Saudi Arabia.

"We're not talking about a fringe cult here," he tells me. "Salafist [fundamentalist] Islam is the dominant version of the religion and is taught in almost every Islamic university in the world. It is puritanical, extreme and does, yes, mean that women can be beaten, apostates killed and Jews called pigs and monkeys."

He leans back, takes a deep breath and moves to another area, one that he says is far too seldom discussed: "North Americans are too squeamish about discussing the obvious sexual dynamic behind suicide bombings. If they understood contemporary Islamic society, they would understand the sheer sexual tension of Sunni Muslim men. Look at the figures for suicide bombings and see how few are from the Shiite world. Terrorism and violence yes, but not suicide. The overwhelming majority are from Sunnis. Now within the Shiite world there are what is known as temporary marriages, lasting anywhere from an hour to 95 years. It enables men to release their sexual frustrations.

"Islam condemns extra-marital sex as well as masturbation, which is also taught in the Christian tradition. But Islam also tells of unlimited sexual ecstasy in paradise with beautiful virgins for the martyr who gives his life for the faith. Don't for a moment underestimate this blinding passion or its influence on those who accept fundamentalism."

A pause. "I know. I was one who accepted it."

This partial explanation is shocking more for its banality than its horror. Mass murder provoked partly by simple lust. But it cannot be denied that letters written by suicide bombers frequently dwell on waiting virgins and sexual gratification.

"The sexual aspect is, of course, just one part of this. But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?"

He's exasperated now, visibly angry at what he sees as a willful Western foolishness. "Stop asking what you have done wrong. Stop it! They're slaughtering you like sheep and you still look within. You criticize your history, your institutions, your churches. Why can't you realize that it has nothing to do with what you have done but with what they want."

Then he leaves -- for where, he cannot say. A voice that is silenced in its homeland and too often ignored by those who prefer convenient revision to disturbing truth. The tragedy is that Tawfik Hamid is almost used to it.

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