Great stride forward for Muslim women

We all know that women are not allowed to travel alone, and must be accompanied by a mahram, who is usually a relative (like a brother) who can ensure that they arrive to their destination unmolested by the general Islamic public. This is, of course, for their own good.

The fact that this makes it impossible for women to live lives as if they are normal, functioning adults. Which is pretty much the point.

Now, you may have noticed that eight year old children in the West sometimes travel on airplanes unaccompanied by an adult. Does this mean that eight-year olds have more maturity than the average Muslim 30 year old single woman?

Of course not, you Islamophobe!

Aafaq.com reports on a new Saudi fatwa that allows an adult woman to travel by herself in closed, safe environments like airplanes, as long as a mahram accompanies her to the plane and another one is with her when she gets off. The logic is that the crew members are trained to stop the good Muslim passengers from harassing or raping the defenseless woman, so therefore she is as safe as if she had her brother with her.

(Of course, this is not yet normative law in Saudi Arabia, but a brand new innovation that will take decades or centuries to take root.)

So it is clearly insulting to even imply that eight year old American or European boys have more maturity than adult Muslim women. As this fatwa shows, progressive Islamic clerics hold that their level of maturity is exactly the same!

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The etymology of "Jew Cooties"

Meryl claims initial use of the term "Jew Cooties," and chances are it creeped into my subconscious from reading her excellent blog.

However, I can say that the term was used earlier than her stated coining in February of 2005.

It was used in 2001 in a posting in an Atlanta newsgroup (in reference to a church that would not allow a rabbi to address the congregation.) It was also used in 2003 in another newsgroup article insulting an anti-semite who was railing against the "kosher tax" we are all horribly forced to pay when we buy our Oreos.

So, I'm sorry, Meryl, but chances are you will not get rich from copyrighting the term.

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Israel allows aid into Gaza

Almost completely unreported by anyone:

Convoys carrying food and medical aid worth six million pounds ($1 million) sent by the Egyptian Red Crescent to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Monday await inspection at the Israeli controlled Karam Abu-Salem [Kerem Shalom] border crossing.

Mohamed Orabi, the head of the organization in North Sinai, told AlArabiya.net that five trucks were loaded with 40 tons of flour, 20 tons of rice and some medical supplies and sent to Gaza Strip.

An Egyptian official at the Rafah border crossing said Egyptian authorities had agreed with Israel to allow the trucks in on Monday however through the Karam Abu-Salem border so that Israel could ascertain that no weapons were being smuggled into the Strip.

Remember that some 34 Qassams and 30 mortars were fired into Israel from Gaza over the past three days, including three rockets today.

Egypt was originally going to ship these goods through Rafah but appears to have decided that going through Israel would strengthen Egypt's claim that Israel is still legally occupying Gaza.

CORRECTION: The goods are still waiting at Kerem Shalom as of Tuesday morning.

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Saudi court upholds marriage of 8-year old to 58-year old man

From Al Arabiya:

A Saudi court has rejected a plea to divorce an eight-year-old girl married off by her father to a man who is 58, saying the case should wait until the girl reaches puberty, a lawyer involved told AFP.

"The judge has dismissed the plea—filed by the mother—because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told AFP in a telephone interview after Saturday's court decision.

The divorce plea was filed in August by the girl's divorced mother with a court at Unayzah, 220 kilometers (135 miles) north Riyadh just after the marriage contract was signed by the father and the groom.

"She doesn't know yet that she has been married," Jtili said then of the girl who was about to begin her fourth year at primary school.

Relatives who did not wish to be named told AFP that the marriage had not yet been consummated, and that the girl continued to live with her mother. They said that the father had set a verbal condition by which the marriage is not consummated for another 10 years, when the girl turns 18.

The father had agreed to marry off his daughter for an advance dowry of 30,000 riyals ($8,000), as he was apparently facing financial problems, they said.

The father was in court and he remained adamant in favor of the marriage, they added.

In Yemen in April, another girl aged eight was granted a divorce after her unemployed father forced her to marry a man of 28, who forced the child to have sex with him.

A mother is not even allowed to protect her own daughter from being abused, thanks to the all-wise sharia law of Saudi Arabia.

Sick, sick, sick.

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Iran shuts down human rights center

From WaPo:

Iranian authorities on Sunday closed the office of the country's main human rights organization, headed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.

Dozens of plainclothes detectives and local police officers entered the Center for the Defense of Human Rights in Tehran and shut it down hours before a ceremony was to take place commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

An Interior Ministry commission that issues permits for political organizations said the center was carrying out illegal activities, such as publishing statements, writing letters to international organizations and holding news conferences, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported.

The commission, according to the news agency, accused Ebadi's center of distributing propaganda against the state. The report also cited repeated warnings delivered to the center and said the building had been sealed on the order of Tehran's top prosecutor.

Iran has a history of arresting and pressuring dissidents who question the country's record on human rights and democracy.

Nothing says "human rights" more than arresting people for "publishing statements, writing letters to international organizations and holding news conferences."

Iran will often claim to be in the vanguard of human rights, never failing to accuse the US and Israel of violating human rights. Of course, its own human rights record is horrible; violently breaking up peaceful demonstrations for women's rights, for example, and employing religious police to enforce "morality" laws.

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Today's Palestinian Arab news

An Al Jazeera reporter who was covering the latest Free Gaza publicity stunt accidentally shook hands with the far-left Israeli Channel Ten reporter who was on the same boat, and then said that had she known that the reporter was Israeli she would never have done so.

There are reports that Egypt asked Hamas to stop any rocket attacks for 24 hours so that Israel would continue to ship humanitarian aid to Gaza. This is plausible; there were no Qassams this morning although one landed in the afternoon so far. This means that Israel can expect huge rocket attacks one day and much fewer rockets the next, as Israel's policy has been to close the crossings for one day no matter how large or small the barrages are.

Gaza's electric company claims that they are down to 30% of their needs. Not that Israel is stopping sending electricity to Gaza, but the transformers have been burning out because of increased demand.

It appears that the technical hurdles to pumping natural gas from Egypt to Gaza through Rafah tunnels are being overcome; lead pipes from the UAE are being used to build these pipelines.

Refrigerators and washing machines are now being smuggled as well into Rafah.

Hamas is threatening to resume suicide attacks against Israel.

It appears that a Hamas-backed sheikh, during a Friday sermon, called Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh a "caliph", which upset the worshippers so much that they threw shoes at him.

PA security forces arrested a Hamas leader who had been thought to have been dead for years.

Another tunnel death. The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now 221.

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El Baradei interview, part 2

This weekend's interview with Mohamed El Baradei seems to only have been part 1. Part 2, published in Al Hayat (Arabic only), concentrates on nuclear issues. While it is infused with his usual wishful thinking, there are some parts that have some value. I cannot believe that I cannot find this interview in English anywhere - when the head of the IAEA talks about Iranian nuclear ambitions, it is important. Here is some of what he said:

Iran says its nuclear program is only for economic purposes, an that after 20 years of being under siege, and that it would achieve self-sufficiency. But I have no doubt that this is part of its desire to buy an insurance policy, after you hear a lot about the [US] desire for regime change as being part of the axis of evil. It is therefore not surprising that Iran is trying to obtain an insurance policy.

I always say that, whatever the nature of the regime, it is always looking for continuity and survival. Consequently, the draft Iran in large part insurance policy, it considers that the same actors in the region, that were not the largest. It wants to be recognized [as a regional power] with the West, especially the United States, this role. Therefore, another part of its determination to have the capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons is their desire to obtain recognition of this regional role it wants.

Iran's essentially competing for territorial control, and the role that both parties would like to play in the region. Therefore, I always say that the solution to this will only be through dialogue and negotiation. Two parties must sit down at the negotiating table and put forward their concerns and their red lines, to reach a compromise that everyone can live with in peace.

...As far as Obama is concerned, I am optimistic. He will negotiate directly with Iran without conditions, while the Bush administration and the six countries so far require Tehran to suspend enrichment before sitting with them to the negotiating table. But we must wait and see his policy and, if it is true [that Obama requires no preconditions], it would be a very positive step, because there will be no solution without building confidence. In the past six years since we began inspections in Iran, the process of building confidence between Iran and the international community had failed. We have not one inch forward in this regard. We inspect, but there are still outstanding issues. A key part of how to build confidence between Iran and the international community, especially the United States, we have not moved forward.

Also, Obama said he would like to work hard for a world free of nuclear weapons. This is a complete change in the policy of the current administration, in general, the policies of nuclear powers continue to rely on nuclear weapons, and a complete change in the concept of international security and foreign policy will have implications throughout the world, including in the Middle East.

I think [the West] reached this conclusion, not because of ideals, but because of fear, that the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons at the current rate contains the risk that some of these weapons will fall in the hands of extremist groups. Thus, the so-called nuclear deterrence will cease to exist, because the extremist groups if they had the nuclear weapons [would not hesitate to use them.] We are not talking about the States, whether Iran or North Korea, I can not imagine that any country would nuclear weapons because it knows that it will be destroyed completely. This raises the fear that appeared recently, and to make people like Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, who were poles in the Cold War and advocates of nuclear deterrence, calling for a world free of nuclear weapons. If that is what Obama said, there would be a radical change in the subject. The course will have an impact on our region.

Q: What is the price which we believe is required to pay for Iran to stop en route to nuclear weapons?
A: A lot. Regional role, and guarantees of the system and technological assistance, aid and trade. Political and economic security. A system of regional security in the region and assisting Iran in all advanced technologies, including nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, in addition to the international trade agreement. The West made a very generous offer.

Q: Why was this offer not accepted by Iran?

A: Because it requested the suspension of enrichment before negotiations begin. This issue is most important to them. Therefore, we do not want to abandon them at the beginning of negotiations, but may do so in the end. The obstacle in the negotiations is the insistence of the West to suspend enrichment before negotiations on the one hand, and Iran's insistence on refusing to negotiate with these conditions on the other.

What worries me is that there will be a solution to the Iranian problem, and it would be an integral part of it linked to regional security and Iran's role in the region. Therefore, Arab countries must be part of the process of negotiating with Iran, as any solution to the situation will be a regional solution at the expense of Arab States affected. I do not understand how they are absent from the problem like it deems vital to it, and how can a solution without the Arab part of it.

Q; However, any regional security solution will include Israel as well.
A: Yes, of course. It will involve Israel and the Palestinian problem and Israeli nuclear arms. I am convinced that all this would be raised during negotiations. Therefore, I do not understand that the Arabs are not part of it.

Neighboring countries are sitting with North Korea. With the issue of Iran, the Arab countries are absent, just as we were not in Iraq, as well as in Darfur, in Somalia and member of the Arab League, the Arabs deal with it as if it were in Central America.

[Later, in a non-sequitor answer that had nothing to do with the question, El Baradei has to say] Even on the Palestinian issue which is the core of all problems in the Middle East. Finally I saw Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, both former advisor to the national security of the heads of Democrats and Republicans, wrote to Obama in a letter not to waste time in the Middle East and to begin the solution to the Palestinian cause as the basis of the Arab sense of injustice, injustice and humiliation.

Q: Based on estimates, how long it would take for Iran if the situation continues as it is to produce a nuclear bomb?
A: I do not want to go into talking about numbers. But Iran can not have a nuclear bomb as long as it is subject to IAEA inspection regime, as the degree of uranium enrichment will remain low in the range of 5 percent enrichment. Nuclear weapons requires a rate of 90 percent enrichment, this will not happen as long as they are subject to the Agency inspections.

Therefore, to get Iran to a nuclear bomb, it must opt out of the first inspection regime and non-proliferation. This of course would be a signal to the world that Iran is moving in another way, and there will be time to deal with it. This is first.

Secondly, not only must Iran have the capacity to enrich uranium by 90 percent, but also to convert it into a bomb. And that they have the means to weaponize enriched uranium, a complicated process that takes some time. There are many assumptions and possibilities talking about a scenario evolution of a sudden, is that Iran out of the agreement and expel the inspectors and has become the enriched uranium necessary and the capacity to manufacture. We are talking at least several years. Even the uranium found in Iran is now not enough for one bomb.

Q: The source of this uranium?
A: The enrichment facility in Natanz were imported after uranium ore. All this was done under the supervision of the IAEA. But there is a lot of worry, as if we will wake to a nuclear Iran. As I said we are not talking about months, but a year or two at least. These estimates are difficult because we do not see the whole picture, we do not know the extent of Iran's progress in the manufacture of enriched uranium. Even U.S. intelligence agencies reported that Iran has itself conducted some studies, only studies in this area, but stopped in 2003. We have not seen otherwise.

There is no evidence of any state that Iran was able to (see) the manufacture of a nuclear bomb in a military sense, or evidence of the possession of low-enriched uranium, enough to make even one bomb at the present time, and are subject to inspection. What I would like to say that there is still time to reach a peaceful solution.

Q: Is it possible that there will be Iranian nuclear facilities that you are not aware of?

A: - Of course, this is possible in any country. But there is no evidence of any State or intelligence on the existence of undeclared facilities to them. The inspection system can not guarantee that we know everything one hundred percent of the nuclear activities of any State. We are always in a conflict between demand for greater transparency and the attempt to say that it can not open fully because it has the sovereignty and military installations and military secrets. What distinguishes Iran of course, is that it concealed some of its activities in the past, so we say that it must take the initiative and show greater transparency so that it is our understanding that all nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes.

El Baradei's confidence in the IAEA's ability to know exactly what is happening in Iran, even as he admits that he cannot possibly know if Iran has a secret nuclear program, should scare the hell out of anyone who relies on the IAEA for any assurances. He is clearly an intelligent man and has thought about these issues a great deal, but his blind spot is that his very position depends on peaceful negotiations and the IAEA has no real ability to look beyond the places it is allowed to go. It is not a spy agency and it generates a great deal of data from the information it is allowed to gather, so the IAEA fools itself by burying its collective head in the information it can verify and it all but ignores everything else.

This also explains his single-minded insistence on "peaceful negotiations" and on rewarding Iran for its obstinacy. The IAEA needs legitimate data and it can only get it with the inspected nation's approval. The blind spot is the inability - even in the face of known deception in the past - to imagine that a large amount of information is being purposefully hidden from IAEA inspectors.

And yet he even admits explicitly that Iran wants to build nuclear weapons! The entire interview is an object lesson in how easy it is for even a smart man to fool himself.

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Happy Chanukah!

I'm stuck in an airport waiting for a delayed flight, and I couldn't find any Chanukah clip-art that impressed me.

So, I made this:

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Mild milestone

Sometime over the past week or so I passed 400,000 visitors as well as 500,000 pageviews.

Here's a neat graph of my blog readership growth by quarter since Q1 2005:

Thanks to all my readers!

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Egyptian police find suitcase bomb

From Daily News Egypt:

AL-ARISH: An Egyptian security official says a booby trapped suitcase carrying 25 kilograms of explosives was defused near the Egyptian border with Israel and Gaza.

Police often find weapons caches destined for the Gaza Strip, but the official said finding an "advanced" bomb is rare.

The official said the bomb is being inspected to determine who was behind it and whether it was heading to Israel.

Al Arish is where yesterday's fuel truck explosion was as well.

25 kilos is quite a large bomb, and it indicates that Hamas is trying hard to come up with new and innovative ways to murder Jews.

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The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

Palestine Today, the Islamic Jihad mouthpiece in Gaza, publishes a "cartoon" that looks more like a movie poster:
Apparently, Giant Abdul is aiming his rifle at the Mediterranean, Mohammed is shooting his RPG at Egypt and Ahmed is firing his submachine gun at the Negev.

Even funnier is the caption:

"Factions are preparing for calm"

Any better ideas for captions?

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This morning's Palestinian Arab news

Al Azhar's Sheikh Tantawi, still smarting over the withering criticism for his handshake with Shimon Peres, decided it is best not to visit a meeting of imams and rabbis in France. He also refuses to go to Iran, which is probably a very smart move.

Hamas leaders have decided to stay out of sight, fearing Israeli assassination attempts.

Islamic Jihad declared that Israeli "settlers" must not be allowed to sleep as long as Gazan children are "without electricity or medicine." His definition of "settler," obviously, includes all citizens of Israel within the Green Line.

Speaking of Islamic Jihad, here's a nice picture from their unofficial newspaper showing five terrorists praying before shooting rockets meant to kill Zionist women and children.

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Carter praises Hamas leaders

From The Carter Center, Jimmy breathlessly tries to make Hamas leaders seem to be just like Western leaders:

In the afternoon Bob, Hrair, and I met with Khaled Mashaal and his fellow Hamas politburo members, all of whom are scientists, medical doctors, or engineers – none trained in religion. It was the anniversary of Hamas' founding, and they were watching Prime Minister Haniya's speech in Gaza to an enormous crowd.

They're professionals! They wear suits! They don't talk about religion all day! How can you not love these guys?

And, as Israel Matzav points out, Carter was not above giving his terrorist pals some friendly advice on how high a price to demand for the release of Gilad Shalit:

We discussed items on my agenda that included ... formulas for prisoner exchange to obtain the release of Corporal Shalit.

Why would that great humanitarian Jimmy Carter demand an unconditional release of Gilad Shalit when he can agree with Hamas that kidnapping soldiers can help them gain more terrorists from Israeli prisons?

There's more in this "trip report" that shows exactly where Carter's even-handedness lies:

We spent one day visiting the UNIFIL area south of the Litani River. We flew by helicopter along the coast past Tyre and Sidon, then landed at Naqoura just north of the Israeli border. We then traveled along the "blue line" between Israel and Lebanon and viewed the distant Sea of Galilee from the helicopter while proceeding eastward toward Mount Hermon. ... Israelis are also occupying the northern (Lebanese) 2/3 of a small village named Garjaa. The general showed us a graph of the many flights of Israeli planes over all parts of Lebanon, averaging about a dozen each day. Neither Hezbollah nor the Lebanese Armed Forces have any anti-aircraft weapons for defense.

Notice Jimmy the Dhimmi's thinking: IDF planes that are passively monitoring Hezbollah terror activity and weapons smuggling are terribly offensive, and he would advocate that Hezbollah or the Lebanese Army have anti-aircraft missiles to shoot them down - and that would be considered "defense."

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Saudi girl handles her own passport: "I felt independent!"

Once again, the Arab News has an article about how Saudi Arabia is liberalizing itself, while the article itself shows instead how impossibly far it has to go:

At the immigration check at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, Ghadeer Al-Swailim got her first taste of how things are done in the West. As he always does, Al-Swailim’s brother handed the immigration officer his passport as well as his sister’s. The immigration officer initially refused to take the booklets, telling the brother that his sister must hold her own passport when she goes through the immigration and customs process at the airport.

“I felt independent!” said Ghadeer, a 20-year-old Saudi postgraduate student on her way to Maastricht under Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s foreign scholarship program.

Holland, one of the most liberal countries in the world, has 138 Saudi students currently on scholarships; 36 of them are women. In 2007 the country was added to the list of authorized Saudi scholarship destinations; students are able to choose from three fields there: Medicine, dentistry and engineering.

Twenty-year-old Kawthar Al-Marhoon, from Qatif, shares an apartment with her women colleagues in Groningen, located in northern Holland. There are 56 Saudi students studying there. She began studying medicine in May after receiving the Saudi study-abroad scholarship.

Kawthar’s brother stayed with her the first three months.

One of the requirements for Saudi women to obtain government study-abroad scholarships is that a legal guardian must accompany them during the entire duration of their studies. In many cases, however, the guardian will go and then return to Saudi Arabia later. The requirement to send a guardian to accompany an unmarried Saudi woman (which is usually a brother, though mothers are also allowed to be guardians in this case) for the entire study-abroad period places an additional burden on women scholarship-seekers, especially if they are unmarried.

In Kawthar’s case, her brother left and she had to learn to deal with a lot of responsibilities that she used to ascribe to men.

“It wasn’t easy for me to adjust with load of household tasks, such as fixing the Internet in my apartment or going to the electricity company to pay my bill,” said Kawthar, who had never been in any European country before winning her scholarship.

Now Kawthar travels to Amsterdam to process her own immigration documents. In Saudi Arabia, a woman would typically need permission to travel to another city and the presence of her male guardian to engage in bureaucratic procedures.

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IAEA chief El Baradei talks about the Arab world

I cannot find this interview of Egyptian-born International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohammed El Baradei in English anywhere. El Baradei plans on leaving his position next year, so he feels much freer to speak openly. Too bad the Arab interviewer didn't go into any questions on Iran and Syria's nuclear programs.

Q: Are you afraid for the future of the Arab and Islamic world?

A: Yes, I am very afraid for the future of the Arab world, as well as the future Muslim world. Indeed, the problems are known. The solutions are known as well: Science. Freedom. Equality. Social solidarity.

Q: Meaning education?

A: Exactly. We can not compete with underdeveloped education curriculum available to us in the Arab world. We in the Arab world do not learn. We do not learn. We have no education and we do not have scientific research.

Q: Do I understand that there is no future for the Arabs if this continues?

A: They have no future at all, if it continues. I say this after forty years of service within the Arab world and beyond. When comparing the Arab world today in other parts of the world say we have no future unless we had frank with ourselves first and we recognized that we have reached the bottom in all areas and must begin again. And focus first and foremost the rights and needs of education, freedom and hope. Give him these things and we will start as any other human being.

Q: Do I understand you consider that the Arab capitals were at their best fifty years ago, for example?

A: Speaking about Lebanon that I know of, Beirut and Mount Lebanon. And Cairo. The situation was much better, we lived as part of the world. There were Greek and Italian communities and people from all communities. Our strength lies in the plurality. Now we are trying to be a single pattern, which means a return to backwardness. The world today is a source of strength in multi-civilizations and cultures and languages. We stoop to the most serious rejection of the other. Others refuse to reject the same in the end. We must be part of the human family.

Q: Are these the worst times for Arabs?

A: I've never seen in my life, at least, the Arab world in a worse position than we are today. It is the worst, at least in the past fifty years, both in our internal or external relations. At home we suffer a lot of problems, and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz opened the Arab summit in Riyadh saying that the fundamental problem in the lack of credibility of the system of government.

There is a crisis of credibility to regimes in the Arab world. Half of the Arab world is illiterate, more than in the sub-Saharan Africa. How I will be able to compete and be my role in human civilization if half of the Arab world does not read or write? We are issuing to the world, including oil, 4 percent of world trade, with imports 3 percent.

When we talk about education, we believe that the number of books translated into Spanish in one year is equivalent to the number translated to Arabic in a thousand years. Translations into Arabic is one third those translated into Greek. Greek is spoken by more than 15 million people. We are 300 million Arabs. We have no education or a system of good governance, the rights of the Arabs today feel that subjugated by the government, and he is being treated unfairly by the outside world.If we look at these indicators together, I believe that you have a ticking bomb. What I see every day is the continuation of the process of radicalization of the Arab and Islamic worlds, as we see in the London Underground and in Mumbai.

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