Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, March 10, 2008

two minor blog milestones

Today I published my 4000th post.

Tomorrow (or possibly tonight) I will get visitor number 222,222.

A student stands behind a podium as a video of Hezbollah's Leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah plays during a pro-Palestinian meeting at a cultural centre in Tehran March 9, 2008. Students agreed on a one-million dollar reward for the murder of three Israeli commanders, Ehud Barak, Amos Yadlin and Meir Dagan. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl (IRAN)

A "pro-Palestinian" meeting? Let's see what we know about this meeting:

1) The video being shown is of Hassan Nasrallah, a Lebanese-born terrorist who has never been in Israel or Palestine in his life. His goal, nonetheless, is the destruction of Israel - not the building of a Palestinian Arab state.

2) At this meeting, students agreed it would be a good idea to murder three Israelis. Not to help Palestinian Arabs, but to murder Israelis.

3) On the podium it helpfully says "Israel must be wiped off the map."

So, is this a "pro-Palestinian" meeting - or an anti-Israel meeting? Is anything being discussed that would help the Palestinian Arabs' lives - any fund raising for medical equipment for Gaza, for example? Apparently not.

So if Reuters is labeling this a "pro-Palestinian meeting" that means that Reuters does not distinguish between "pro-Palestinian" and "anti-Zionist."

Reuters apparently does not believe in a peace process that would result in a Palestinian Arab and Zionist state side-by-side, and it believes that the mainstream of "pro-Palestinian" opinion is similar to the sentiments being displayed here in Iran. So either Reuters does not believe that the "peace process" is "pro-Palestinian," - or they believe that even the "moderate" Palestinian Arabs view the "peace process" as being an anti-Israel movement, with the same goals as shown here.

Which is it?

Staged Gaza photos of the day

AP's Gaza photographer Eyad Baba published a series of pictures showing how barbaric Israeli airstrikes are:

Palestinian children play on the ruins of a building destroyed in a recent Israeli air strike, in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, March 10, 2008. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)

A Palestinian walks through the ruins of a building destroyed in a recent Israeli air strike, in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, March 10, 2008. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)

A Palestinian boy looks on as he stands in the ruins of a building destroyed in a recent Israeli air strike, in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, March 10, 2008. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)

A Palestinian rides his bicycle past the ruins of a building destroyed in a recent Israeli air strike, in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, March 10, 2008. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)

Palestinian children play on the ruins of a building destroyed in a recent Israeli air strike, in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, March 10, 2008.

Any photographer knows that a picture of a building by itself has no soul. One needs to add people to make it interesting.

Now, it is entirely possible that Mr. Baba, knowing that he wants to get a good shot, would wait for just the right moment that people happen to walk past some ruins before clicking his shutter. But here we have five pictures of buildings - all with people in and around them! What a fortunate coincidence!

Either Gazans really like to play and examine dangerous buildings that can collapse at any time, or the photographer asked them to please walk/play/ride their bike/stand right where the photo would be the most likely to win an award - and make Israel look as awful as possible.

After all, he must illustrate that everyday normal innocent Palestinian Arabs are forced to live next to buildings that were inexplicably, randomly destroyed for no reason at all that AP can find.

AP might get more than it bargained for

LGF links to a posting at Confederate Yankee where AP defines "fair use" a bit better for bloggers to stay on the right side of the law:

AP licenses its works (photos, news stories, video and so on) to newspapers, Web sites and broadcasters for the purpose of showing news events and to illustrate news stories or commentary on the news events.
If the entirety of the work is used (such as when a whole photo is reproduced), that is considered a substantial “taking” under fair use law. If there are many photos used, that is a substantial taking of AP’s photo library.

In the case of criticism, the commentary or criticism has to be about the protected work, not commentary or criticism in general – not using, as in the case of Snappedshot.com, protected photos to illustrate something on which the blogger was commenting. One cannot post a copyrighted photo of President Bush to illustrate commentary criticizing the policies of his administration, for example.

This makes a certain amount of sense, but what is going to happen is what I did in a previous posting today: make a story about something outrageous that happened into a story about media bias, by criticizing either the staging of the picture or the caption, thereby killing two birds with one stone.

So, for example (this one was on LGF as well):

Palestinian Hamas activists take part in an anti-Israel rally organized by the Hamas movement in Gaza March 7, 2008.

Not only am I showing how civilized Gazans are in tolerating a march of people dressed as suicide bombers in their midst, but now I must also mention how (in this case Reuters) calls these people "activists", on par with people who work hard to open libraries on weekends!

So a higher percentage of my blog posts, and those of others, are going to necessarily end up pointing out media bias that has been largely ignored because it is so widespread, in order to keep to the correct side of the "fair use" issue.

Another example coming up!

Algerian volunteer suicide bombers going to Gaza

From AKI (h/t Watcher):

Eight would-be suicide bombers left eastern Algeria a few days ago and are reportedly heading to the Gaza Strip to commit suicide attacks against Israeli soldiers, reported pan Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat on Monday.

The young men reportedly left their homes days ago without saying anything to their families.

Reportedly, their intent is to join Hamas' armed wing, the Izzadin al-Qassam brigades, considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.

It is reported that the eight were driven to go to Gaza after the grim images broadcasted by Arab satellite TV stations showing the dead, following Israel's military operation against alleged Palestinian rocket crews.

The report said that after a few days, two of the would-be bombers reached Gaza and called their parents saying they were in good health and that they wanted "to carry out a suicide attack against the Jews."

I wonder if Egypt would kill Algerian terrorists going to Gaza the way they kill refugees from Africa going to Israel.

Israel builds driverless jeep

From Ha'aretz:

The Israel Defense Forces are set to introduce an unmanned jeep into the ongoing conflict with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

While pilotless drones are already common in the Israel Air Force, this is the first time a driverless jeep will be used by the army's ground forces.

Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries jointly developed the guardian for the IDF, and it is expected to be deployed this summer along the security fence with the Gaza Strip, replacing many manned vehicles.

Of course, the only reason Israel needs to spend millions on saving its own people's lives is because its opponents consider their people's lives to be nearly worthless.

Video available at Ha'aretz (sorry, I couldn't figure out how to stop it from playing automatically.)

Iranian threat merits Reuters pictures but no story

Reuters has a series of interesting pictures this morning from Iran that look like this:

A student stands in front of a banner with pictures of Israeli commanders, Head of Aman (IDF) Amos Yadlin (L), Director of Mossad Meir Dagan (C) and Defense Minister Ehud Barak during a pro-Palestinian meeting at a cultural centre in Tehran March 9, 2008. Students agreed on an one-million dollar reward for the murder of the three Israeli commanders. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl (IRAN)

So where is the story that can fill in the details?

Not from Reuters. Apparently an explicit assassination threat against Israel coming from Iran is just a photo-op. The only place one can find details right now is a South African newspaper:

Iranian hardline students have offered rewards totalling a million dollars for the "execution" of three Israeli military leaders after Israel's deadly strikes on Gaza, the student news agency ISNA reported on Monday.

The group is even encouraging Iranians to donate their kidneys to increase the bounties on the heads of Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Mossad spy agency director Meir Dagan and military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin.

The rewards were announced by the Justice Seeking Students Group on Sunday at a ceremony in Tehran entitled "setting the bounty for the revolutionary execution of the designers of state terrorism," ISNA said.

The bounty for Barak is set at $400 000 while those for Dagan and Yadlin are $300 000 each, the report said. It is not clear where the money is coming from.

"These sums will be given to any person or their families who could punish these individuals in any part of the world," the organisers of the event announced.

Pictures taken at the ceremony showed a banner bearing pictures of the three Israelis against the backdrop of an Israeli flag, with rifle sights stencilled onto the foreheads of the trio.

"Israel must be wiped off the map," read a quote from Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini printed on the top of the banner.

Nothing to see here. Just a cute little picture of Israeli officials being threatened with assassination. Just part of Iran's right of free expression when it comes to genocidal plans for Israel.

Is Juan Cole going to write to this student group to tell them that their translation from Farsi to English is incorrect?

Kuwaiti strategist wants Israel to attack Iranian nukes

From Iran's PressTV:

Senior Kuwaiti strategist Sami al-Faraj says an Israeli military strike on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities is not a bad idea.

In a Sunday interview with the daily Al-Siyassah, the former government adviser said Iran's nuclear program has become a major concern for all Persian Gulf littoral states and therefore an Israeli attack may be an appropriate solution.

The question is what would it do if it were a nuclear nation? We have to call a spade a spade and say that burying the military nuclear Iranian project is in the interest of PGCC states, said al-Faraj, who heads the independent Kuwait Center for Strategy Studies.

He added that it would be 'less embarrassing' if Israel cripples Iran's nuclear program rather than the US.

Honestly speaking, they would be achieving something of great strategic value for the PGCC by stopping Iran's tendency for hegemony over the area, he said.

Palestinian Arab newspaper gleefully prints massacre pictures

Who needs the Government of Israel to distribute pictures of the Mercaz HaRav massacre?

The "Palestine Today" newspaper/website is happy to do it for free, printing no less than 26 pictures, under the headline "Photos show the heroic Jerusalem operation which killed 10 Jews and injured dozens of extremists"

And notice that their pride is in killing Jews, not Zionists, in cold blood - so much so that they exaggerate how many were murdered.

(After the Snapped Shot debacle, does anyone want to sic AP or Reuters lawyers on Palestine Today? I strongly doubt that they pay for the rights to reproduce these.)

Israel to distribute pictures of yeshiva horror (Hasbara failure #3)

From YNet:

Israel has decided to take advantage of Thursday's bloody terror attack in Jerusalem in order to launch an aggressive campaign against Hamas.

Yedioth Ahronoth has learned that the political echelon instructed the Government Press Office to distribute the shocking images from the yeshiva shooting worldwide, including pictures of holy books perforated with bullets, a blood-stained praying shawl and the terrorist's body inside the yeshiva.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni decided that the Foreign Ministry would work to convey the Israeli messages to the international community.

This, more than my last two posts, underlines the sheer incompetence of Israeli efforts to get its message out.

The massacre at Mercaz HaRav already has made headlines worldwide. The pictures have already been in the front pages. When Israel decides to "take advantage" of the massacre it smacks not of giving a message as much as opportunism. It is a third-rate version of Zaka's innovative campaign a few years ago of bringing the wreckage of a bombed bus to major European cities.

That idea was smart, because it showed thousands of people first-hand what terror looks like, using an object that they could relate to - a bus. Showing off bloody tzitzit, on the other hand, may evoke a reaction among Jews but to the world it could make Israel look like another fundamentalist theocracy. Beyond that, it just looks like propaganda, not new information.

In other words, Israel's insularity and isolation has made it unable to see things how others see them, which is a crucial skill needed when trying to master public relations. People are more sophisticated than they were thirty years ago and they know when they are being manipulated.

Israel needs to publicize stories like the ones I previously posted today. Stories that are either underreported or completely ignored, that show the terrorism for what it is, stories that educate the world rather than beat them with crude imagery and those that, above all, can be related to. The facts are on Israel's side but seemingly no one is interested in getting the facts out to the people who need to read them - the large numbers of people who are not overtly anti-Israel but just misinformed by years of good Arab publicity and poor Israeli PR.

The GOI together with the Israeli English-language media needs to wake up.

Gazans fire mortars at their own "humanitarian aid" (Hasbara failure #2)

Last week, a group of 8 British "human rights" groups released a report that slammed Israel for not allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza and for its restrictions on movement for Gaza residents. While it was one-sided, it did throw a bone to Israel condemning Qassam attacks and airily declaring that Israel has the right to defend itself.

What it failed to acknowledge was that not only does Israel facilitate plenty of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but that terrorist actions directly affect how much they can safely provide.

Last Sunday, for example, Israel allowed 62 trucks to cross through the Sufa crossing. Almost unreported was that mortars were fired on the trucks, forcing them to turn back. Several hours later they tried again, successfully this time.

On Tuesday, Israel allowed some 160 truckfuls of aid to enter Gaza through three checkpoints. Again, mortar fire from Gaza was directed at the Kerem Shalom and Sufa crossings, which Islamic Jihad and PFLP took credit for.

Moreover:

On Wednesday, Israeli authorities discovered chemicals used for making explosives just one hour after Israel opened up Gaza crossings for shipments of humanitarian goods. The chemicals were discovered in a sealed container and were intended for use in Kassam rockets.

None of these stories merited a headline in any newspaper. All of them were buried in much longer articles about other topics. Not only does the Israeli government fail to publicize these issues appropriately, but even Israeli media bury these stories.

They just don't understand how Western media works nowadays.

Palestinian Arabs scream and cry about their "humanitarian crisis" and they get gullible Western humanitarian organizations to believe them, while at the same time they are continuing to do everything they can to minimize that same humanitarian aid. The idea that Palestinian Arabs are sabotaging their own humanitarian efforts, and using them to smuggle in rocket material, is newsworthy because it is ironic.

All Israelis know that these things happen every day and as a result these are regarded in Israeli media as "dog bites man" stories, buried within the larger articles about PalArab terror. But nowadays, the audience for the Israeli media is worldwide, and therefore at least the English-language stories need to be reported from the perspective of what Western audiences will find interesting and illuminating.

And the Israeli government press office needs to emphasize these facts, not just mention them.

The homemade rockets of the Atallah family (Hasbara failure #1)

The Los Angeles Times mentioned last week:

The Israeli military says it does not target civilian sites, but attacks by warplanes and tanks in the crowded strip make such casualties almost inevitable.

At least 10 people from three generations were in the Atallah household when the missile struck Saturday just before sunset.

Medhat Abdullah, a relative of the family, was at work nearby when he heard the news. He arrived to find the home almost flattened, the walls collapsed and the ceiling caved.

"It's a massacre. When you kill a whole family, what else do you call it?" he asked. "What am I supposed to do? Forgive [the Israelis]?"

Among the dead in the Atallah family were patriarch Abdel Rahman Atallah, 65, his wife, Suad, two sons and two daughters. One of Atallah's grandchildren, a 23-month-old baby, was pulled from the rubble alive but suffering from oxygen deprivation. The child remains in the intensive care unit of a Gaza City hospital on an artificial respirator.

The dead must be buried promptly according to Islamic custom, but relatives still hadn't recovered all the bodies in time for the funeral Sunday afternoon.

The final two bodies, almost unrecognizable, were pulled from the rubble after the funeral procession had already left, Abdullah said. They were wrapped in blankets and rushed to the cemetery.

Abdullah said there were no militant strongholds in the area, and no factories for making Kassam rockets.

One of Abdel Rahman Atallah's sons was a member of the Executive Force, a Hamas-led police unit, and may have been involved in launching rockets into Israel, Abdullah said. But that, he said, did not justify the missile strike.

It would appear that the Atallah family was either the target of an indiscriminate policy of punishing civilians, as the Palestinian Arabs would spin it, or at the very least they were the accidental victims from an Israeli airstrike gone awry. And, after all, a relative said that there was no rocket factory nearby, and why wouldn't you believe him?

The airstrike occurred on February 27. The LA Times article came out on March 3. Israel didn't come out with an explanation until March 6, and even then it was difficult to know exactly what event they were referring to:

The deliberate use of civilian homes to shield Hamas arms and explosives manufacturing facilities
Hamas frequently uses civilian homes in the Gaza Strip for the manufacture of rockets, explosives, antitank missiles and other arms being used against Israel. Rockets, explosives and other arms were also found in the mosque in Jabalya.

Weapons found in a mosque in Jabalya, including RPG
rockets and hand grenades
(IDF Spokesman)

For example, a factory manufacturing dozens of Kassam rockets a day was located in the basement and first floor of a two-storey building. The terrorist responsible for the factory was housed with his family on that second floor. When Israel targeted the factory, destroying scores of rockets as well as the factory’s capability to continue producing those rockets, civilians in the house were unfortunately hit as well.

A Hamas explosives lab in the ground floor of a residential
building in Jabalya

A Hamas Kassam rocket manufacturing shop in the Darj
neighborhood of Gaza

The Israeli statement didn't explicitly say that the Atallah family is being referred to, but apparently it was them, as a line buried in a Ha'aretz (March 7) op-ed made clear:

Israel's explanation that civilian members of the Atallah family were killed in an Israel Air Force bombing because they chose to build an assembly line for Qassam rockets in their home did not penetrate the public mind.

Indeed it did not penetrate the public mind, because Israel itself didn't address it until nearly a week after the event and even then it only referenced it obliquely.

Israel is probably justified in destroying a rocket manufacturing plant in the middle of Gaza City where a family lives. Fair-minded people can debate this. But no one even had the chance of debate, because Israel never publicized the circumstances of this airstrike. By the time Israel mentioned it, the story about the poor martyred Atallah family was out.

By the time we find out the real circumstances - that this family had at least one Hamas member who built rockets in a factory in the basement, deliberately placed there in order to make his family into human shields - it is old news, the LA Times has already finished its sob-story piece. And we cannot blame the LAT because they literally had no Israeli response about the story four days after it occurred.

The IDF and Ministry for Foreign Affairs have dropped the ball time and time again on getting Israel's viewpoint out to the world - and to reporters - in a reasonable and consistent manner.

More examples follow.

Hamas admits hundreds of terrorists train in Iran

From the Times (UK):

...Israel has long insisted that Iran is behind this training. Last week Yuval Diskin, the head of the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet, said as much when he claimed that Hamas had “started to dispatch people to Iran, tens and a promise of hundreds”. He provided no evidence.
The Hamas commander, however, confirmed for the first time that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been training its men in Tehran for more than two years and is currently honing the skills of 150 fighters.
The details he gave suggested that, if anything, Shin Bet has underestimated the extent of Iran’s influence on Hamas’s increasingly sophisticated tactics and weaponry.
Speaking on the record but withholding his identity as a target of Israeli forces, the commander, who has a sparse moustache and oiled black hair, said Hamas had been sending fighters to Iran for training in both field tactics and weapons technology since Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza strip of Palestinian territory in 2005. Others go to Syria for more basic training.
“We have sent seven ‘courses’ of our fighters to Iran,” he said. “During each course, the group receives training that he will use to increase our capacity to fight.”
The most promising members of each group stay longer for an advanced course and return as trainers themselves, he said.
So far, 150 members of Qassam have passed through training in Tehran, where they study for between 45 days and six months at a closed military base under the command of the elite Revolutionary Guard force.
Of the additional 150 who are in Tehran now, some will go into Hamas’s research unit if they are not deemed strong enough for fighting.
Conditions at the base are strict, the commander said. The Palestinians are allowed out only one day a week. Even then, they may leave the base only in a group and with Iranian security. They shop and “always come back with really good boots”.
According to the commander, a further 650 Hamas fighters have trained in Syria under instructors who learnt their techniques in Iran. Sixty-two are in Syria now.
But what Hamas values most is the knowledge that comes directly from Iran. Some of it was used to devastating effect by the militant group Hezbollah against Israeli forces in Lebanon in 2006.
“They come home with more abilities that we need,” said the Hamas commander, “such as high-tech capabilities, knowledge about land mines and rockets, sniping, and fighting tactics like the ones used by Hezbollah, when they were able to come out of tunnels from behind the Israelis and attack them successfully.
“Those who go to Iran have to swear on the Koran not to reveal details, even to their mothers.”
He said the Hamas military, which numbers about 15,000 fighters, was modelling itself on Hezbollah. “We don’t have tanks. We don’t have planes. We are street fighters and we will use our own ways,” he said.
Nodding in agreement was his companion, another senior Qassam fighter, from Hamas’s manufacturing wing. Dressed in a new, olive-green uniform, he said his job entailed “cooking” – putting together the explosive mixture that Hamas inserts into Qassam rockets.
Everyone was working overtime, he added. He too had been out all night. He said he had launched five mortars and faced heavy machinegun fire in return from Israeli lines.
The commander was particularly impressed with advances made using Iranian technology. “One of the things that has been helpful is that they have taught us how to use the most ordinary things we have here and make them into explosives,” he said.
Such technology had been most useful of all in developing the Qassam rocket and mines deployed against Israeli tanks.
Hamas had just developed the Shawas 4, a new generation of mine, with Iranian expertise, he added.
“We send our best brains to Tehran. It would be a waste of money to send them and then have them come back with nothing.”
They travelled to Egypt, flew to Syria and, on arrival and departure from Tehran, were allowed through without a stamp for security reasons.
“Anything they think will be useful, our guys there e-mail it to us right away,” the military technician said.

This is what Al-Jazeera apologizes for

Too funny:

Al Jazeera has apologised for "offensive" remarks made by a guest during a live debate about the reprinting of cartoons in Denmark said to insult Prophet Muhammad.

In a statement on Wednesday, Al Jazeera expressed its "deepest apologies" for comments made by Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born US-based academic, which "offended Islam".

The comments were made during the Tuesday evening debate on the talk show "The Opposite Direction".

The statement did not say what offensive remarks had been made in the programme, which was moderated by Al Jazeera's Faisal al-Qassem.

Support for terror and praising 9/11 is fine, but putting a woman on the air who tells Muslim terror-supporters and apologists for Islamism that they are full of crap evinces great regret.

(h/t Suzanne)

Wafa Sultan rocks!

The Arab-American psychologist who caused a huge stir with her comments about Islam on Al Jazeera two years ago has done it again. She, quite simply, rocks.

The following are excerpts from a debate between Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan and Egytian Islamist Tal'at Rmeih, which aired on Al-Jazeera on March 4, 2008.

Egyptian Islamist Tal'at Rmeih: "The West only understands the language of force. Contacts with the West which are not based on real force are futile. One day, America declared that the North Korean nuclear dossier would be referred to the U.N. Security Council. North Korea issued a one-line declaration: 'Korea will consider this to be a hostile act of war.' The Americans bit their tongues, and that was it. The West understands nothing but the language of force, and attacks nobody but the weak. Therefore, our nation – with all its people, and organizations, institutions, rulers, and subjects – is required to adopt a resolute stand of resistance and confrontation in the face of these criminal and hostile acts. The West, in this confrontation, which is not divorced from the massacres that are taking place in Palestine and Iraq…The embassies of Denmark, Holland, France, and the U.S. are not more precious to us than Iraq, which has been destroyed, or than Palestine, which is experiencing a real – not fabricated – holocaust. These countries are subject to a holocaust and a massacre. How can we confront this? By Allah, if we issued a communiqué, signed by all the Arab and Islamic organizations and institutions, the West would bite its tongue and stop all this. By Allah, if the Arab summit decided to boycott Denmark, they would all be disgraced. By Allah, if the masses of the nation would gather for one hour only around the embassies of Denmark, those despicable lowlifes would be in a position of retreat, not attack."

[…]

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan: "All religions and faiths, throughout the history of humanity, have been subject to criticism and affronts. With time, this has helped in their reform and development. 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. The Danish cartoons have managed to break down the first brick in the wall of that prison, and to open up a window, through which the sunrays enter, after a lengthy darkness. The Danish newspaper exercised its freedom of speech. Liberties are the holiest thing in the West, and nothing is more important. But if Islam were not the way it is, those cartoons would never have appeared. They did not appear out of the blue, and the cartoonist did not dig them out of his imagination. Rather, they are a reflection of his knowledge. Westerners who read the words of the Prophet Muhammad 'Allah has given me sustenance under the shadow of my sword' cannot imagine Muhammad's turban in the shape of a dove of peace rather than in the shape of a bomb. The Muslims must learn how to listen to the criticism of others, and maybe then they will reexamine their terrorist teachings. When they manage to do so, the world will view them in a better light, and consequently, it will draw them in a better light. The reactions of the Muslims, which were characterized by savageness, barbarism, and backwardness, only increased the value of these cartoons, and gave them more importance than they merited, simply because they proved that these cartoons were true, and that the message they were conveying was true. The Muslim is an irrational creature ruled by instincts. Those teachings have deprived him of his mind, incited his emotions, and reduced him to the level of an inferior creature that cannot control himself or react to events rationally."

[…]

Tal'at Rmeih: "God help me. First, Islam is too great to be harmed by the publisher of the cartoon, or by that woman who is talking over there. The truth is that everything she said is 100% false, I'm sad to say. It seems to me that the American and Zionist intelligence agencies have begun to produce people who are hostile to their own nation."

[…]

Dr. Faysal Al-Qassem, Moderator: "How come freedom of expression in the West is sacred only when it comes to degrading the Muslims? Are they allowed to talk about the Holocaust? Are they allowed to talk about Christianity? That is the question. Cinemas were burned down in the West when they talked about Christ."

Wafa Sultan: "I live in America, and I never heard of a single cinema that was burned down here. Where do you get your information from? It sounds as if you are living in America, not me."

Moderator: "In France."

Wafa Sultan: "This is completely baseless. You should criticize your own beliefs just as Christians criticize their beliefs."

[…]

Moderator: "Don’t you think that you are treating the viewers like fools? You present some trivial reactions as barbaric. Have you forgotten that the country in which you live destroyed Iraq in its entirety, killing 1.5 million Iraqis and driving five million out of their homes? Didn't you see the dozens of children annihilated in Gaza, in a holocaust, as Israel itself admits? When a man blows himself up, he becomes a terrorist, but when you annihilate an entire people, whole countries, it is considered a humanitarian act?! Who are you kidding?"

[…]

Wafa Sultan: "Why are they upset about what is going on in Gaza, while the Koran says to them: 'They shall kill and be killed.' So here they are – killing and being killed. What's wrong with that?"
Tal'at Rmeih: "Leave the Koran out of it. If you want to talk politics, go ahead."

Moderator: "I beg you to stick to politics. He talked only about politics."

Wafa Sultan: "Dr. Faysal, you know that you cannot separate Islam from politics. Islam is not a religion, but politics. You must let me express my views the way I want. When you called me, you didn't say I was not allowed to discuss Islam or the Koran. Islam says to them that they will 'kill or be killed', and here they are—killing and being killed. So what's wrong with that? They want to be martyred and to meet their black-eyed virgins, and Israel is merely helping them get what they want. What's wrong with that? If you want to change the course of events, you must reexamine 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, will consider you in a better light, and will draw you in a better light."

Moderator: "Can you denounce the Zionist massacres in Gaza? That's a simple question. Do you have the courage to do so?"

Wafa Sultan: "I can denounce the Palestinians and the Israelis alike. Hamas chose this path, and you have to pay the price for your choices. When you decide you want peace – I am sure that Israel wants peace, but as long as you keep reciting those teachings, which are full of hatred, rancor, and terrorism, you will be unable to make peace with others. You must recognize and respect Israel's right to live. You must teach your children love, peace, and coexistence. Only then will there be peace."

[…]

Moderator: "Do you dare to say that the number of people who died in the Jewish Holocaust is even one less [than what they claim]? Do you dare to say that? Why don't you dare to even touch on Jewish history – let alone on Jewish religion and sanctities? Why do you flex your muscles only against the oppressed Muslims?"

Wafa Sultan: "Why do you want me to deny historical documents that confirm that the Holocaust took place? If there was no proof, I would deny it. But I cannot deny history, knowledge, and documents confirming that the Holocaust indeed took place. Why do you want me to deny the facts?"

Moderator: "From what she says, it is clear that she has no problem denying the holy books, but she is adamant about not denying historical documents."

Wafa Sultan: "Can you as a Muslim deny the massacre of the Jews of the Bani Qureyza tribe, by Muhammad and his followers?"

[…]

Tal'at Rmeih: "There is a gang that controls [the West], and you are not allowed to criticize Israel or the Holocaust. Anyone who criticized the Holocaust was placed on trial. Noam Chomsky wrote one line about the Holocaust in a book, and the book was recalled from the market. Bernard Lewis – that great philosopher – said something about the Holocaust and was placed on trial. What did the American president say to the U.S. forces sent to the Philippines? He gave them two orders: 'Kill all people above the age of ten, and convert [the rest] to Christianity.'"

[…]

Wafa Sultan: "Did you invite me to the show to hear hollow speeches, which have been around for 1,400 years?"

Tal'at Rmeih: "Allah be praised, we have an identity and a culture."
Wafa Sultan: "How can someone who believes in killing people who do not pray possibly criticize liberties in the West? This is a farce. What past is he defending? Is he defending the invasions and lootings?"
Tal'at Rmeih: "I am defending the past of the Islamic nation, which was the beacon of knowledge for the entire world…"

Wafa Sultan: "…polygamy, beheadings, chopping of heads and feet on alternate sides, accusing people of heresy, and drinking camel urine, as a cure for all ailments – is this the past he is defending?"

Tal'at Rmeih: "No, I am defending a magnificent past of a magnificent nation, which was the cradle of knowledge and civilization, at a time when the most that people in the West could do was to catch a rabbit and scurry back to their caves. This nation has made the greatest contribution to civilization and humanity. Our religion is not complete without recognition of other religions. We are the ones who have called for tolerance and respect for religions."