Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 12, 2009

A Muslim poem to women

Autotranslating poetry is always dicey, but the intent of this poem in the (relatively secular) Firas Press is very clear. I kept the parts that didn't translate.

The title of the article is "To every woman...."

The name of God the Merciful
From Imam Ali bin Abi Talib, peace be upon him said:

I entered and Fatima Zahra peace, the Messenger of Allah may Allah bless him and his family and peace

Found a strong cry cry, so I said: Here I come, my father, my mother, O Messenger of Allah, what Obkak?! He prayed

Allaah be upon him and his family and peace: "O Ali: the night a family saw me to the sky in the women of my

I remembered the agony of severe and just as I saw the severity of Amabehn

I saw a woman hanging her head her hair is boiling brain

And I saw a woman hanging herself and her throat was in intimate

And I saw a woman hanging Butdia

I saw a woman and eat her flesh and fire glow from beneath

I saw a woman and had to pull her legs shackled and had been highlighted by snakes and scorpions

And saw a blind woman in the coffin of the brain fire out of her head and thighs of her body is heartbreaking

Aljmaa and leprosy

I saw a woman and hold her legs in the fire

And I saw a woman cut off her body at the top of meat and Mwka Bmgard of a fire

I saw a woman and burning her face and hands and is eat Oamaaiha

I saw the woman and the head of a pig's head and her body and the body of a donkey by the AA of the body color

And I saw a woman in the image of the dog and the fire and the intervention of her rectum outside of her mouth, and the angels

Beating on her head and her body with excerpts from the fire

Fatima said: Suffice Kara and my eyes told me what was their work, and walking up to him and put God

This suffering, he said may Allah bless him and God and peace: Oh, my intention

The outstanding hair it was not covered [to be hidden from] men

The tongue was outstanding hurt her husband

The outstanding Butdia it was not for her husband's bed

The outstanding Berglha [she went] out of her house without her husband's permission

Those that eat meat Jsha it was adorned her body for people

The strain, which hands and legs shackled to a shed by snakes and scorpions, it was a few Ablution [not ritually washing in proper times]

Dirty saliva and not from janaabah Ngtzl and menstruation and do not underestimate the Taatnzv and prayer

The blind and dumb and Kherads they were giving birth to their husbands of adultery Vtalguenh Boenaq

Those that had lent money to the meat they were pimping Palmgard

The head of a pig's head and her body was the body of a donkey, it Nmamp Kmabp.

The picture of the dog and the fire and the intervention of her rectum outside of her mouth it was Ma'lep

Nuahh.

Then he said may Allah bless him and his family and peace: and angered me to a woman and her husband, a woman may Tuba

... By her husband ...
Ratified by the Messenger of Allah may Allah bless him and God and peace.

Please dissemination Hmaalrsalp oblivious to all the Muslim God may give
And to all Muslim believers, to stabilize the debt
Oh God, Oh God, I was led to

In other words, the poet saw a vision of women being horribly tortured in hell, and then Fatima helpfully explained exactly what the women's sins were that would make these punishments appropriate.

The funny part is that many of these sins apply to men as well (ritual washing, eating improper meat, adultery) yet only the women are singled out for the gruesome punishments in this poem.

No doubt this is because of the "occupation."

Bang your head against a wall before reading this

From IMEMC, also in Palestine Today (I couldn't find the Yediot article):

Israeli media sources reported on Thursday that Israel is planning to return to the Palestinian Authority light weapons and munition it confiscated during the so-called “Operation Defensive Shield” military assault Israel carried out in 2002.
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted a political official in Israel stating that Israel previously agreed to transfer thousands of light weapons to Palestinian security personnel.
The sources added that “it is not by accident that this decision was made after US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, visited the region”.

I can only hope this was a Purim spoof that was misinterpreted by the Arab media.

Amnesty blames Israel for PalArab abuse of women

Amnesty International just came out with a report called Challenging Repression, on the state of human rights defenders in the Middle East and North Africa. While the report does detail abuses of human rights activists in all the countries in the region, what it says about Israel shows once again that Amnesty has deep biases.

The most egregious example can be seen in this passage:

In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the impact of occupation has been felt by women human rights defenders in a particularly acute way. Their long efforts to end gender-based discrimination have been thwarted by a sense that the primary need is to bring an end to Israeli occupation. The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, stated after her visit to the OPT: “the deepening of the conflict in the OPT and the expansion of the tools of occupation has weakened the negotiating power of Palestinian women to challenge the patriarchal gender contract which has, in part, become a defence mechanism to keep the society intact”.

In a place where, as described by the Special Rapporteur, the “increased transgression of [Palestinian] land has left honour as the only viable ground for the preservation of societal identity – to the detriment of women”, women human rights defenders have found it increasingly hard to promote the principle of gender equality. Indeed, women human rights defenders who have advocated law reforms and supported victims of domestic violence have themselves been targeted by state agents and others. As a result, these activists have been gradually sidelined.

This is an amazing passage. Amnesty, without any evidence whatsoever, claims that Palestinian Arab men abuse women because they have no energy left for equal rights due to the oppressive "occupation."

You see, the reason that Palestinian Arab women cannot be treated equally is because the "occupation" makes it difficult for misogynist Palestinian Arab men to listen to their side of the story. The men need to abuse women as a "defense mechanism" - they have become so emasculated by the "occupation" that they have no choice but to take it out on their wives and sisters!

The poor Palestinian men, according to Amnesty and the Special Rapporteur, are doing a noble thing by abusing women - it is how they keep their "societal identity." If they would start treating women with respect, they would have nothing left - first they lose their land, and then they lose their very identities as misogynists!

The next logical step is honor killings.

Obviously this is all Israel's fault. If only Israel would do the right thing and give them a state, then the Palestinian Arabs would treat women just as well as their brethren in Egypt and Saudi Arabia do.

And of course, Israel is darkly accused of "targeting" women's rights advocates. No names given, no specifics offered, no idea what exactly is meant - but clearly Israel is no better than any of its neighbors in human rights in its "targeting."

Furthermore, this is the only part of the section on women's rights advocates that talks about abuse of women, something that is not in the scope of the report. There is nothing in the report about "honor killings" or anything similar; the rest of the section talks about human rights workers being abused, not women. Only when Israel is mentioned is the abuse of women mentioned.

It is a large report, and Amnesty is not sparing in its criticism of other countries. But this passage, and others in the report, show that Amnesty is hardly objective when it comes to Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

Why Arabs cannot understand Purim

What does Purim celebrate?

Wikipedia says "Purim is a festival that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman's plot to annihilate them."

Judaism 101: "It commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from extermination. "

Jewish Virtual Library: "It commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from extermination."

Notice what Purim isn't. It is not celebrated as a military victory. Jews aren't celebrating the death of Haman and his allies. While Haman's death is an integral part of the Purim story, and it was necessary for him to die in order for his decrees to be countermanded, we do not specifically cheer Haman's death except as to its role in the salvation of Persian Jewry. From Judaism's perspective, it would have been preferable if the Jews had not been in danger at all (and if they would have repented on their own and not as a result of the direct threat to their lives.)

Purim is a joyous holiday in that it does not celebrate death, but the saving of lives.

Sometimes, war is necessary and lives have to be lost for others to be saved. Arabs tend to celebrate the (real or perceived) defeat of their enemies, and they assume that Jews are doing the same thing on Purim and Chanukah (and Yom Yerushalayim and Yom Ha'atzmaut.) This is exactly wrong: the Jews are celebrating their survival and, yes, their victory - but not the defeat of their enemies. The two are obviously related but the mindset is completely different.

One celebrates life and the other celebrates death.

Chanukah represents a spiritual victory more than a military victory; Yom Ha'atzmaut represents the revival of a millennia-old dream of Jewish nationhood on its own land; Yom Yerushalayim celebrates the return of Judaism's holiest city to Jewish control. All of these events would have been preferable had no blood been shed. The defeat of enemies is not what is being celebrated; that is a necessary evil, not a cause for cheer.

Though of course Jews take undeniable pride in military victories, they would prefer that the engagement never happen to begin with.

Arabs cannot wrap their minds around this idea. For them, military victories are proof of their manhood, a source of "honor," and, for Muslims, proof of their belief system being superior. Conversely, military defeats are shameful and indicate a problematic belief system, as why would Allah allow his people to be so dishonored? The point is the utter defeat - and more importantly, the humiliation - of their enemies.

This is why Arabs cannot understand Purim, and they cannot understand Jews. They project their own belief system and the honor/shame culture on their enemies. They cannot conceive that the defeat of one's enemies is not the overriding goal of an embattled and surrounded people. All of the vitriol heaped on "Zionists" about their supposedly racist and genocidal goals is nothing more than Arab projection of their own belief system on Jews.

And, as Adin Steinsaltz notes, there are only two ways for Jews to counter the anti-semitism of both Haman and Hamas:

The conclusion of this is that we only have two possible responses. First, we can do our best, as was done in the days of Esther and in other generations, to defend ourselves against evil and fight it. This needs to be done in any case, even if only to gain a respite from the outbreaks of hatred.

The second possibility is to laugh. Laugh not only about the defeat of our enemies, but also about the absurdity, ridiculousness, and inherent contradictions of anti-Semitism. The laughter does not mean that there is an answer, yet this is our way of declaring that we have removed ourselves from the irrational interaction of hating Haman. We laugh at Haman, Ahasuerus, and all their successors, because after all we shall prevail and stick around, and they shall become the subject of jokes.

This is what Purim is about - celebrating Jewish survival. Our enemies' defeats are incidental, and eventually comedic, but they are not central.

"Jews desecrate Al Aqsa Mosque" - by their very presence

At the end of an article about Israeli security in Jerusalem during Shushan Purim, Palestine Today writes:

In the region around the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque there is a state of high tension, uncertainty and caution that Jewish groups will enter the Mosque and desecrate its dignity and prestige.

They are not worried about "Zionists" taking control of the Temple Mount. They are not accusing Jews of impacting their freedom of worship. They are not saying that these groups will scrawl graffiti, or tear up Qurans, or throw stones at Muslims in the mosque.

To them, the very existence of Jews in the most holy of Jewish places is, in itself, a "desecration."

Freeman proves the points against him

Chas Freeman couldn't resist proving his critics correct in his withdrawal statement from consideration as NIE head:

The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.
There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.

The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues. I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.

In the court of public opinion, unlike a court of law, one is guilty until proven innocent. The speeches from which quotations have been lifted from their context are available for anyone interested in the truth to read. The injustice of the accusations made against me has been obvious to those with open minds. Those who have sought to impugn my character are uninterested in any rebuttal that I or anyone else might make.
Still, for the record: I have never sought to be paid or accepted payment from any foreign government, including Saudi Arabia or China, for any service, nor have I ever spoken on behalf of a foreign government, its interests, or its policies. I have never lobbied any branch of our government for any cause, foreign or domestic. I am my own man, no one else's, and with my return to private life, I will once again – to my pleasure – serve no master other than myself. I will continue to speak out as I choose on issues of concern to me and other Americans.

Here is his statement - in context - blaming the nefarious "Israel Lobby" of a carefully controlled and centrally managed campaign on behalf of a foreign power for "libeling" him. It is yet another manifestation of the anti-semitic canard that the Jews control America. He has the audacity to say, publicly and in the pages of countless newspapers and magazines, that his anti-Israel statements are not permitted to be said in this country.

He says that he never accepted money from Saudi Arabia or China directly for lobbying on their behalf. That is probably true. Their influence on him may have been less direct (he clearly has business dealings with them) and it is possible that his reprehensible views predated his accepting business ties with them. But his hypocrisy is crystallized in this statement where he claims that he is only being a patriotic American by advocating pro-Saudi and pro-Chinese policies - yet when people advocate and lobby for Israel, they must all be working for a foreign government and cannot possibly be patriotic Americans.

This is the classic accusation of dual-loyalty, and if he wants to make it publicly then he has no right to be so insulted when others make the exact same accusations of him.

Beyond that, the campaign against him was no more virulent than that against any high-profile political nominee from any party. As ABC's Jake Tapper writes:

What's perplexing about this that so much of what critics objected to were Freeman's statements, in full context. His record was picked apart like that of any other controversial nominee -- sometimes fairly, sometimes not so -- but only in Freeman's case does the nominee make an allegation that a foreign power was lurking nefariously somehow behind it all.

But Freeman would no doubt dismiss this criticism - because, to him, Tapper is one of those dual-loyalty Zionists who are clearly paid by Israel to attack Freeman.

Purim Open thread

It is the first day of the Purim Open, and the crowd is hushed as Rabbi Weissschwartz is putting for a birdie...which is remarkable, considering that this is a tennis match.

Feel free to post any narishkeit in the comments.

UPDATE: Cool....I was quoted in James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" column in the WSJ Online.

MEMRI brings us another insane Egyptian cleric, who says that the girl on the Starbucks logo is none other than Queen Esther!

Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi, which aired on Al-Nas TV on January 25, 2009.
"Today, I would like to talk about the Starbucks coffee shop. Starbucks is to be found in Mecca, in Al-Madina, opposite the King Abdul Aziz Gate in Mecca, opposite the Al-Majid Gate in Al-Madina, as well as in Cairo. Starbucks is to be found everywhere, with this logo. This is the Starbucks logo.
"Has any of you ever wondered who this woman with a crown on her head is? Why do we boycott Starbucks? I will tell you, so you will know why you should boycott this company, and what this logo stands for.
"The girl in the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther. Do you know who Queen Esther was and what the crown on her head means? This is the crown of the Persian kingdom. This queen is the queen of the Jews. She is mentioned in the Torah, in the Book of Esther. The girl you see is Esther, the queen of the Jews in Persia." [...]
"King [Xerxes] gave an order that the seven most beautiful girls in the kingdom be brought to him. So they held contests and auditions, and selected the seven most beautiful virgins, one of whom was the Jewish Esther, whose uncle, Mordechai - or actually, it was her cousin’s brother - was a villain.
"It was Mordechai who hatched this plot. Esther was one of the seven girls brought before King Xerxes in the palace. When Esther, who was very beautiful, was shown to King Xerxes, she captured his heart, and he chose her to be his queen. He placed a crown on her head, and the crown you see here [Higazi indicates the Starbucks logo] is the crown of the kingdom of Xerxes, and this is Esther, who became Queen of Persia, instead of Queen Vashti."[...]
"Can you believe that in Mecca, Al-Madina, Cairo, Damascus, Kuwait, and all over the Islamic world there hangs the picture of beautiful Queen Esther, with a crown on her head, and we buy her products?
[...]
"We want Starbucks to be shut down throughout the Arab and Islamic world. We want it to be shut down in Mecca and in Al-Madina. I implore King Abdallah bin Abd Al-‘Aziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques: It is inconceivable that in Mecca and Al-Madina, there will be a picture of Queen Esther, the queen of the Jews."

It saddens me that Muslim clerics on TV are so nutty as to make it impossible to spoof them. They always seem to come up with something even crazier than any comedian could credibly make up.

(h/t Sammish and Reuven Koret in the comments)

Purim Torah: The Mossad Connection

Haman's wife Zeresh tells him after he was forced to lead Mordechai around on the royal horse, "If Mordecai, before whom thou hast begun to fall, be of the seed of the Jews, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him." (Esther 6:13)

This is strange, because Zeresh already knew that Mordechai was Jewish - Haman himself told her! (5:13)

So what was Zeresh talking about?

Another question: How did Charbonah know that Haman had built a gallows for Mordechai, when he suggested to the King that Haman be hung on it? (7:9) Only Haman, his family and friends knew about the gallows!

And furthermore: How did Esther, out of all the virgins in the kingdom, manage to find favor with the King? The odds were pretty astronomically against that happening!

The answer to all of these questions is, clearly, the Israeli Mossad had infiltrated Persia, and these Zionists were cleverly positioned to convince (or force, if necessary) the King to allow Jews to return to Israel.

Esther was a Mossad agent, of course, but she had help. The king's chamberlain Hegai was one of the most brilliant Mossad scientists ever, and he was in charge of perfuming the women who had to attend to the King. Using secret Zionist pheromone techniques, Hegai ensured that all of the women - while they looked good - smelled terrible.

Esther, who refused to wear perfume (at the suggestion of Hegai - 2:15) therefore had a great advantage after months of the king having to put up with smelly Persian women. Clearly the Mossad was behind this operation.

But it didn't end there. Zeresh was a paid informant for the Mossad, as we could see from her "noticing" that Mordechai was a Jew, something she knew quite well. What she also knew was that Haman* was going to his doom, and she would never see him again - so she couldn't resist one last dig at her husband, whom she only married at the behest of the Mossad to begin with.

And Charbonah was her "handler." The gallows that Haman built was Charbonah's idea, and he suggested it to Zeresh - who in turn told Haman. Charbonah, a highly-placed Mossad agent in service of the King, cunningly planned Haman's ironic means of death down to the last detail.

All of this was part of a huge Zionist plot meant to have Esther become queen, give birth to Darius who would then allow the Zionists to move to Palestine and usurp the natives who had lived there for decades.

It is all so clear!

(Last year's Purim Torah, on rock and roll, here.)

(*2010 update: I clearly was at the point of "ad d'lo yadah" when I wrote this last year, as I originally wrote "Mordechai" instead of "Haman.")

"The Right to Development"

A nice piece by Joseph Shattan in The American Spectator (h/t Sigmund, Carl and Alfred):

In the early 1980s, the Strasbourg-based European Parliament held a conference on the "Right to Development," and I was the Reagan Administration's representative.
The Right to Development was an attempt by such knavish Third World dictatorships as Cuba, Algeria and Libya to create a new, internationally recognized human right -- the right of all nations to full economic development -- equal in status to such well-established civil and political rights as freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religion. The basic idea was that even if a regime systematically violated these rights, it still enjoyed an inalienable Right to Development.
...Tthe argument I made was that recognizing a human right also meant recognizing a corresponding obligation to enforce that right. For example, if I have a right to worship freely, and someone interferes with that right, then the government is obliged to step in and help me exercise my right. Similarly, if Cuba has a right to development, but remains sadly impoverished thanks to what enlightened opinion the world over recognizes as dastardly imperialist machinations, then the international community has an obligation to step in and help Cuba. That, I stressed, was the logic of the Right to Development. But did we really want to go down this road -- funding the world's worst dictatorships in the name of a newly concocted human right?
Although all of the other participants (with the surprising exception of the Swedish expert, who argued that human rights only belonged to individuals, and not to states) disagreed with me and strongly backed the Right to Development, we adjourned without achieving any sort of consensus. In that very limited sense, I suppose, my one and only foray into international diplomacy ended successfully.

But while the "Right to Development" has stalled, the Right to Development in Gaza has apparently won universal recognition. On March 2, the Egyptian government hosted an "International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Economy for the Reconstruction of Gaza." The Conference, attended by delegates from 71 states, raised $4.5 billion. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged $900 million.

Why is the international community so seized with the plight of Gaza? The conventional answer, that the people of Gaza are living in a virtual rubbish heap because of Israeli attacks, is false. As a recent visitor to Gaza, Yvonne Green, reported in the March 3 Jerusalem Post, "The Gaza I saw was societally intact. There were no homeless, walking wounded, hungry or undressed people. The streets were busy, shops were hung with embroidered dresses and gigantic cooking pots, the markets were full of fresh meat and beautiful produce…Mothers accompanied by a 13-year-old boy told me they were bored of leaving home to sit on rubble all day to tell the press how they'd survived…"

But even if Gazans were living in a rubble heap, why are Western nations obliged to help them out? After all, the Palestinians are part of the Arab world, Arab states are not exactly cash-poor and (so they never tire of telling us) are obsessed by Palestinian suffering. So why not let them pick up the tab for Gaza reconstruction, while we attend to our own needs?

But even if the Arabs were cash poor, why must we begin the Gaza reconstruction process now -- even before a ceasefire has been reached, and while Palestinian rockets continue to rain down on Israeli towns and villages? And why lift a finger to support the main beneficiary of the world's largesse -- the Hamas government of Gaza, a totalitarian regime that cynically uses its captive population as "human shields," while relentlessly seeking Israel's destruction?

Evidently, the world has bought into the logic of the Right to Development --not as a universal right for all (Darfurians and Tibetans, for example, need not apply) -- but as a right that applies solely to Palestinians. The reasoning goes like this: Palestinians have an inalienable right to development; Israeli aggression is preventing the Palestinians from exercising that right; Israel was foisted on the Arab world by the West -- therefore the West is indirectly responsible for Palestinian underdevelopment; hence, it must pay…and pay… and pay.

The only way out of this trap is for the West to tell the Arab states that it is their refusal to come to terms with Israel that is responsible for the Palestinian plight, and that it is therefore their responsibility, not ours, to fund Palestinian reconstruction. But no Western statesman (or stateswoman) has ever summoned up the courage to say anything so bold, and it is unlikely that anyone ever will.

Arab writer: Iran won, Gaza lost

A lengthy op-ed in Firas Press bucks the trend of praising Hamas that has become fashionable in Palestinian Arab circles. Instead, the writer, Mohammed bin Ali Al-Mahmoud, writes that the apparent victory of Hamas is really a stunning loss for Gaza and the Palestinian Arab people, and was a victory for Iran.

The writer sarcastically speaks of the deaths of innocents in Gaza as being part of Hamas' "victory." He calls it a completely theatrical victory, that has nothing to do with Gaza and everything to do with Hamas' political desires for legitimacy - legitimacy that is entirely dependent on Iran's largesse at theexpense of Palestinian Arabs.

He gives an example of how a small group can be considered a winner when the larger group has lost, pointing out that arms dealers are clear winners in proportion to the losses of their own side.
The Hamas "victory" is likened to someone who declares himself a leader of a sinking ship that symbolizes the Palestinian Arab cause altogether.

Iran is the big winner here, as it manages to wage proxy wars against Israel via Hamas and Hezbollah without risking a single Iranian; it then positions itself as the leader of the Muslim world while Arab governments are more conflicted about supporting the extremist Islamist groups. Hamas is not really a winner; it has mortgaged itself as a vassal of Iran and it now sheds its own blood for its Iranian master. Gazans are the biggest losers, as well as Palestinian Arabs altogether.

The commenters on this article were very complimentary, indicating that Hamas did not fool every Palestinian Arab.

Here are the Jews who "stormed" the Temple Mount

Palestine Today publishes these scandalous pictures of Jews on the Temple Mount earlier today. As I wrote before, the Arab media said that the Jews "stormed" and "raided" the Al Aqsa mosque. Look at how the Jews are looting the area, harassing Muslim worshippers and showing how little regard they have for the holy site.

The caption says "A group of Jewish extremists during incursions into al-Aqsa mosque courtyards while guarded by the Israeli police."

Meanwhile, at another Jewish holy spot that Muslims belatedly claimed as their own, Arabs destroyed Jewish prayer books and Tehillim at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

It doesn't appear that Muslim respect for "divine religions" is quite as extensive as they pretend.

Happy Eid al-Msakr!

As I mentioned yesterday, Purim was translated into Arabic as Eid al-Msakr. I was trying to figure out what hebrew word might be cognate to "mskr" to figure out what it meant, and Suzanne in the comments noted that the M might mean "of" in Arabic. Her guess was that "sakr" means "satire," but I think I came up with a much more likely root word:

שכר

It is the festival for getting drunk!

Have a freilichen Purim, everybody!

Galloway makes it to Gaza; aid goes through Israel

Despite George Galloway's insistence that all of the aid of his "Viva Palestina" convoy go through Rafah, he ended up caving - all the while declaring victory:

An agreement was reached late Sunday afternoon between the Egyptian authorities and Galloway that medical aid and all 500 convoy members were to go through Rafah, while non-medical aid such as food, toys, and clothes would be emptied from Viva Palestina trucks and repackaged by the Red Crescent to enter Gaza from the Awja border, which Israeli security controls.

Israel requires specific packaging of non-medical supplies so the trucks had to be emptied in Arish and the supplies repackaged in 120 cm. wide wooden boxes and wrapped, Ahmed Orabi, Head of the Red Crescent office in Sinai, told AlArabiya.net. Israeli security officials then scan them on the Israeli side of the Awja border before taking the boxes to Karam Abu Salem border to be delivered to Gaza.

This is exactly what Galloway vowed not to let happen just yesterday:

To give in to this would be to admit to Israeli command and control, which we can't do....we can't accept a special favour from Israel which, for almost two years, has sealed the borders and starved the Palestinian people, a communal punishment which is illegal under the Geneva Conventions.

Well, telling the truth was never exactly one of Galloway's strong suits.

Proving Islam is a religion of peace (Tawfik Hamid)

From the WSJ:

Many Muslims seem to believe that it is acceptable to teach hatred and violence in the name of their religion -- while at the same time expecting the world to respect Islam as a religion of peace, love and harmony.

Scholars in the most prestigious Islamic institutes and universities continue to teach things like Jews are "pigs and monkeys," that women and men must be stoned to death for adultery, or that Muslims must fight the world to spread their religion. ...We must blame the leading Islamic scholars for having failed to produce an authoritative book on Islamic jurisprudence that is accepted in the Islamic world and unambiguously rejects these violent teachings.

While many religious texts preach violence, the interpretation, modern usage and implementation of these teachings make all the difference. For example, the stoning of women exists in both the Old Testament and in the Islamic tradition, or "Sunna" -- the recorded deeds and manners of the prophet Muhammad. The difference, though, is that leading Jewish scholars agreed to discontinue these practices centuries ago, while Muslim scholars have yet to do so. Hence we do not see the stoning of women practiced or promoted in Israel, the "Jewish" state, but we see it practiced and promoted in Iran and Saudi Arabia, the "Islamic" states.

...So, Islamic scholars and clerics, it is up to you to produce a Shariah book that will be accepted in the Islamic world and that teaches that Jews are not pigs and monkeys, that declaring war to spread Islam is unacceptable, and that killing apostates is a crime. Such a book would prove that Islam is a religion of peace.

This has been one of Robert Spencer's main points for years - there is as of yet no authoritative denunciation of the more barbaric of Islamic practices from within a valid interpretation of the Quran or of Sharia itself. Islam can only reform in ways that are consistent with its source materials, and until recognized Islamic scholars find a way to do that, all of the Muslim apostates and reformers will never make a dent.

Of course, Islam as a personal religion is not nearly as problematic as Islam as a political movement. Islam itself does not distinguish between the two, even though Westerners automatically consider religion to be a personal matter.

Hence the liberal reticence to criticize Islam. As long as religion is considered a private matter, it is natural for Westerners to be reluctant to criticize people's personal beliefs. But Islam is not just a personal religion in the Western sense; it is a dangerous worldwide political movement that is absolutely antipathetic towards liberal ideas like equal rights, freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

To ask Islamic scholars to re-interpret Islam as a purely personal religion is to ask them to abandon a major part of Islam. Islam is not going to be remade into a personal religion; it cannot be. Muslims living in the West have to accept their status as "just another religion" because they have no choice, but those in Muslim-majority countries - or Muslim-majority areas where they can begin to practice some level of autonomy - will invariably start to add the pan-national, political aspects to their religion as they believe it must be practiced.

And as a political movement, Islam is worse than communism and comparable to Nazism. It is way past time for the West to recognize that the danger of Islam is not so much in its private, West-defined religious aspects but in the political and military sphere.