How Muslim co-wives feel

From Now Lebanon:

Imagine you're a woman. Imagine you fall in love with a man, or at least, like him, or merely consider him as a potential husband. Imagine he asks to marry you, and you (or your parents, depending on the context), say yes. You move in together, you bear him two or three or five children, you wash his dirty socks and cook for him and serve him and try to be the best wife there is. Because that's what a 'good' wife does.

Now imagine that after a few years of doing that, all of that, your beloved husband, who is financially at ease, decides to get himself a new wife. Just like someone would get a new car. He doesn't divorce you. No. It is much worse than that. He wants to keep you both. And now you have to share him with another woman. You hate the guts of that other woman, and she hates your guts too. But you are forced to live together. If you are lucky enough, he would build a new floor for her on top of the one where you reside. And you wouldn't need to see her constantly gloating in your face. But every night, as he comes back from work, you would hear his footsteps on the stairs, going past your door and up to spend the night with her, to eat her food, to sleep in her bed — the younger, fresher, prettier wife — and you'd wish your heart would stop beating right there right now, because you can't take the pain anymore. But then you do take it, day after day, and you learn to become numb. And your only moment of glory or vengeance would happen the day wife number three arrives, along with the third floor on top of the previous two. That's when the one who replaced you finally learns what it means to be cast aside like a useless mop, a dirty mop full of holes that is forgotten in some corner of the cupboard under the kitchen sink...

This is not some imaginary scenario. It is the reality of many women in Lebanon and other Arab countries. The sad case of the Lebanese woman who recently committed suicide because her husband decided to take up a second wife is but one example of many stories that do not make it to the media. ...

You see, the prophet allowed Muslim men four wives on the condition they are able to do them justice: "Marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess." (Qur'an 4:3). Yet the concept of "justice" here, as interpreted in numerous Hadith (like Bukhari's), means specifically being able to provide for the four wives financially. There is no taking into account the emotional or physical needs of the wives, or their human right to be treated fairly. They are properties. As long as you can guarantee the "maintenance" of your properties, you are welcome to "acquire" more.

One long-lasting pretext to justify polygamy is the strong libido of some men, for whom one wife is not enough. So they marry more than one woman in order to avoid "committing adultery": what a genius way to make adultery itself Halal....

In the meantime, many Arab husbands will keep on buying themselves new wives, as long as Allah is the dealer and he is such an excellent salesman.

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Sunnis claim Iran revealed photo of alleged Mahdi - and he's Jewish

Lots of newspapers in the Sunni Muslim world have been publishing this photo:

Supposedly, Iranian Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Major General Mohammad Hassan Nami promised last week to reveal a picture of the messianic Mahdi on the eve of the Iranian elections.

Since then, Arab media has been showing this photo of a veiled person, claiming that it came from an Iranian news agency and is indeed the supposed Mahdi.

I can't find any evidence that these images were in fact in the Iranian media, so almost certainly this is another attempt by Sunnis to make Shiites look like fools. In fact, according to the news accounts, this Mahdi is "not be a Muslim but will be of the religion and the law of the Jews, and the law of the Jews will judge the world according to their messages.

Arab news media does things like this all the time, yet Western media still believes what they have to say when their fanciful stories happen to fit the conventional wisdom - and they simply ignore the obviously crazy stuff.

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Monday Links Part 2

From Ian:

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Muslim writer touts Israeli tolerance of minorities

Ahmed discussed her experience working in Saudi Arabia – the topic of her book, In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom, which documented the rampant anti-Semitism in the country and lack of women’s rights.
She said that Muslims she encountered saw Jewish intellectual prowess as particularly irritating.

NGO Monitor: Blood Libels & BDS – NGO Monitor’s Report to the 2013 Global Forum on Antisemitism

The network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that claim to promote human rights and humanitarian agendas in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict often use antisemitic themes and imagery. These groups include international NGOs (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch), Palestinian NGOs (MIFTAH, Badil, Sabeel, Kairos Palestine, Electronic Intifada, Gaza Community Mental Health Programme), and Israeli groups (Coalition of Women for Peace, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions).

Jewish Virtual Library: Myths and Facts 33: Zionism is Racism


The myth of the ‘Zionist Crusader’
The Muslim holy war to expel the Christian invaders did not begin until almost a century after the initial Crusader conquests.

The Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is organic and ancient. Jewish redemption and the Jewish future are centered on the Land of Israel. Anti-Israel propagandists can continue to rob the State of Israel of its legitimacy by portraying Jews as a foreign, imperialist element in the Land of Israel, yet in the end, the truth will win out. The Zionist movement – an anti-imperialist movement to the core – returned the Jewish people to their homeland.
The myth of the “Zionist Crusader” is a distortion of history that has only yielded lies and misery.

The London Beheading: A Betrayal of Britain, Not Islam

The Islam that killed Lee Rigby is growing and gaining confidence day by day. It’s time that Britain woke up to the fact that it’s already too late to fight it on the beaches. The battle is already here on the streets.

Commentators slam Glenn Greenwald for claiming ‘it’s our fault’ when Islamist terrorists attack

Here are a few suggested posts which effectively take on Greenwald, or at least fisk the logic he employs to arrive at the conclusion that it is our fault when Islamist terrorists murder civilians in the West.

Richard Kemp: Michael Adebolajo's dangerous ignorance about Afghanistan

Michael Adebolajo, the knife-wielding, blood-soaked brute who is suspected of killing Drummer Lee Rigby told passersby he was fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan. If that was the reason for Wednesday's attack on Drummer Lee Rigby, Adebolajo should have travelled to Helmand and started wielding his knife against Taliban fighters. It is they who kill most Muslims in Afghanistan.

Surrendering freedom to the violent: ANU censors student paper for mocking Islam

The Australian National University has cited international violence in the wake of the Danish cartoon and Innocence of Muslims controversies in justifying its decision to force student newspaper Woroni to pulp a satirical infographic which described a passage from the Koran as a “rape fantasy”.
The university also threatened student authors and editors of the infographic with disciplinary action, including academic exclusion and the withdrawal of the publication’s funding.
The piece was the fifth in a satirical series entitled “Advice from Religion” which had previously discussed Catholicism, Scientology, Mormonism and Judaism.
No complaints were received about any of the earlier instalments.

Concert-goers chant anti-Semitic slurs at Beyonce show in Germany

Israelis attending a Beyonce concert in Berlin over the weekend were met with anti-Semitic chants from the audience.
The incident took place when a group of eight Israelis, including two soldiers on leave, arrived at Germany's O2 stadium for a Beyonce concert. The group managed to arrive early and succeeded in seating themselves in the first row, to the dismay of local German fans.

Man wearing pro-Israel shirt attacked in Berlin

Three people attacked a 26-year-old Jewish man in Berlin early on Sunday morning, lightly wounding him.
The three men insulted and hit the man in front of a disco in the Mitte district, a neighborhood with many clubs and bars. He was wearing a T-shirt with a pro-Israel emblem on it, and the assailants learned that he was Jewish in the course of a conversation.

Jewish children hidden twice over by the Church

The formal Church directive outlining how to deal with requests from Jewish organizations looking for hidden children throughout Europe fails to mention the atrocities of the Holocaust.
“Children who have been baptized must not be entrusted to institutions that would not be in a position to guarantee their Christian upbringing,” the document says. “For children who no longer have their parents, given the fact that the Church is responsible for them, it is not acceptable for them to be abandoned by the Church or entrusted to any persons who have no rights over them, at least until they are in a position to choose themselves.”

Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes

In 2009, a chapel serving the city’s 700-strong Jewish community was set ablaze. Jewish cemeteries were repeatedly desecrated, worshippers were abused on their way home from prayer, and “Hitler” was mockingly chanted in the streets by masked men.
“I never thought I would see this hatred again in my lifetime, not in Sweden anyway,” Mrs Popinski told The Sunday Telegraph.
“This new hatred comes from Muslim immigrants. The Jewish people are afraid now.”
Malmo’s Jews, however, do not just point the finger at bigoted Muslims and their fellow racists in the country’s Neo-Nazi fringe. They also accuse Ilmar Reepalu, the Left-wing mayor who has been in power for 15 years, of failing to protect them.

Israelis give a double punch to triple-negative breast cancer

Israeli researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot are opening a new window of hope for the daughters and granddaughters of women diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer. The cancer carries a strong genetic link and it is also found in people of Jewish Ashkenazi (Eastern European) ancestry.

Marks and Spencer to Sell ‘Sweet Green’ Tomato First Discovered in Israel

The British retailer Marks and Spencer is benefiting from Israeli agriculture with what it claims is the first ripe and sweet green tomato on London’s High Street.
The tomato, named the Sweet Green, was first discovered in Israel and has sugar levels of up to 12 on the Brix scale, a scientific measure developed to assess the quality and sweetness of fruit and vegetables.

Easy laughs for visiting comedians

The crowd was friendly at Jerusalem’s Beit Shmuel theater Sunday night, eager to laugh and hear what four American comedians had to say about Israel, Jews, and just about anything else that came to mind.
It was the third show out of seven for Comedy for Koby, the bi-annual event that has brought some 30 comedians to Israel over the last 10 years, raising money for the Koby Mandell Foundation.

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Was Gaza journalist groupthink the source of the Al Dura blood libel?

Given all the time people have spent on the case of the Al Dura hoax, it is newsworthy when someone discovers something new.

But Arnold Roth at This Ongoing War noticed something fascinating:

In "22-May-13: The post-Al Durah period: the challenges are starting to become sharper", we quoted Israeli journalist Ben Caspit's valuable analysis of the Al Durah Affair and of the role and responsibilities of the news-reporting media. 

Here's a key quote

The truth is a vital commodity, especially where we are. If we didn’t kill Muhammad al-Durrah, then I want to know that. If he wasn’t injured in the film clip screened by France 2, then I want to know that too... I have a lot of respect for correspondent Charles Enderlin from France 2, but as someone familiar with all the details at a very high resolution, I believe that he never should have determined that the al-Durrah boy was dead, as long as he had a video clip which showed him still alive. That footage was put into deep storage. It was censored and disappeared, only to show up again this week in the report by the Israeli Commission of Inquiry. A responsible journalist never would have broadcasted the footage without also showing the doubt, the full picture, and all of the details relevant to the story. [Source]

Today, this afternoon, in going back over some of the things we know about Charles Enderlin and France2, we came across something quite extraordinary. Enderlin, France2's man in Israel, the one who personally edited the original Al Durah "killing" footage that went to air all over the world on September 30, 2000, was interviewed in Haaretz on November 1, 2007, to mark the seventh anniversary, more or less, of the events that we know as the Al Durah Affair.

It's a long interview with Haaretz reporter Adi Schwartz, and it appears in both the Hebrew and English editions. Both are still online today: the Hebrew ("בואו נראה את זה שוב") here and the English ("In the footsteps of the al-Dura controversy") here.

The reporter, after reviewing the controversy about who fired at the Al Durahs and the way in which parts of the media made up their minds, asks Enderlin:

In hindsight, is it possible that you were too hasty that evening?

Here's the Haaretz English version of the answer:

I don't think so. Besides, the moment I saw that nobody was asking me anything officially, I started feeling more strongly that the story was true.

And here is the Haaretz Hebrew version of the Enderlin response to the same question:

לא חושב. אם לא הייתי אומר שהילד והאב היו קורבנות לירי שבא מכיוון עמדת צה"ל, בעזה היו אומרים, איך אנדרלן לא אומר שזה צה"ל? 

 We'll translate the Hebrew for you. 

I don’t think so. If I had not said that the boy and the father were victims of gunfire emanating from the direction of the Israeli position, in Gaza they would have said “How come Enderlin doesn’t say it was the IDF?"

Got that? It's a helpful insight into how news sometimes gets reported by certain kinds of journalists and channels.

To remind us all, Charles Enderlin was in his Jerusalem office when those events took place in Gaza on September 30, 2000. The sum total of the visual evidence he had was video material sent to him by digital transfer from a stringer in Gaza. Its source was a Palestinian Arab cameraman, Talal Abu Rahma. Did Enderlin thoroughly check it to satisfy himself that it was an authentic record of what it claimed to be - the cold-blooded and deliberate killing of a child and the wounding of the father by Israeli forces? Given what most of us know about the relative accuracy of factual reporting on the two sides of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, did he harbour any doubts at all? Did he seek independent verification? A second opinion? A third? Did he speak with any of the other video photographers out there at Netzarim? Or to their agencies?

The answer, which we have not seen reported anywhere else in all these years (correct us please if we're wrong on this), is this: evidently he felt he could not go off and check because (our understanding of his plain Hebrew words) what would they then say about him, Enderlin, over there in Gaza? 

Roth then goes on to contrast how painstakingly the media vetted the footage of the Woolwich terror attack videos to ensure accuracy. Enderlin, by contrast, told Ha'aretz that he assumed it was accurate - and any investigation he would have mounted would have made him look bad to people in Gaza!

Ha'aretz seems to have deliberately sanitized this part of the interview for its English speaking audience, which is most probably why it was not noticed until last week.

We have seen reporters and NGOs consistently take Palestinian Arab accusations of Israeli crimes at their word without doing the least amount of fact checking. That's just the way things happen in Israel and the territories. Enderlin, by his own admission, was upholding the journalistic double standards of not bothering to double check the facts when they fit so well with the anti-Israel narrative.

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The NY Times can't utter the "M" word

This is an amazing article for what it doesn't say:

Eva Bromster, an elementary school principal, was jolted awake by a telephone call late Thursday night. “Your school is burning,” her boss, the director of the local education department, told her.

Ms. Bromster rushed to the school, in the mostly immigrant district of Tensta, north of Stockholm, and found one room gutted by fire and another filled with ankle-deep water after firefighters had doused the flames. It was the second fire at the school in three days.

In Stockholm and other towns and cities last week, bands made up mostly of young immigrants set buildings and cars ablaze in a spasm of destructive rage rarely seen in a country proud of its normally tranquil, law-abiding ways.

The disturbances, with echoes of urban eruptions in France in 2005 and Britain in 2011, have pushed Sweden to the center of a heated debate across Europe about immigration and the tensions it causes in a time of deep economic malaise.

The riots, now subsiding, have produced less damage than the earlier ones in Paris and London, which also involved mostly immigrants. But the unrest has shaken Sweden, which has a reputation for welcoming immigrants and asylum seekers, including those fleeing violence in countries like Iraq, Somalia and Syria, and regularly ranks in surveys as one of the world’s happiest places.

“I don’t know why anybody would want to burn our school,” Ms. Bromster said. “I can’t understand it. Maybe they are not so happy with life.”

The riots are not unprecedented here. In 2008 and 2010, immigrants clashed with the police in the southern port city of Malmo. But the past week’s arson attacks in Stockholm, the capital, and the spectacle of teenagers hurling stones at firefighters have left many Swedes wondering what went wrong in a society that has invested so heavily in helping the underprivileged.

While the violence was concentrated in relatively poor districts, most of their residents have been shielded from dire poverty by a welfare system that is one of the world’s most expansive, despite recent cutbacks.

So what might the problem be?

...One big problem is the lack of jobs. The national unemployment rate is about 8 percent, but the rate is at least twice as high in immigrant areas and four times as high for those under 25. But, said Nima Sanandaji, a Kurdish-Swedish author of several books on immigration who was born in Iran, remote areas in the north of Sweden have more people out of work, “but they are not throwing rocks and burning cars.”

...Immigrants and the Swedish-born children of immigrants make up about 15 percent of the population, and last year Sweden nearly doubled the number of asylum seekers it took in and became Europe’s primary destination for refugees from Syria.

Ms. Bromster, the school principal, whose 325 students are all from immigrant backgrounds, said families who had “escaped from terrible wars in Iraq and Syria” could not be expected to adapt easily to an entirely foreign environment. “They don’t get work, and they feel excluded from society,” she said.

So it is not poverty. What possible other reason is there for some young immigrants to riot, while poorer people don't?

What could they have in common besides their immigrant status? Something cultural, perhaps, that teaches them that rioting and rock throwing are acceptable behaviors when things don't go your way? Is it possible that, say, their religious beliefs that they are taught from the time they are children might have something to do with it?

We'll never know, because some questions cannot be asked.

(h/t EBoZ)

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Egyptian parliamentarian in Gaza: "Stone all the Jews...America's apes and pigs"

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a public address delivered by Egyptian Shura Council member Sheik Muhammad Al-Saghir, upon his visit to Gaza, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on May 9, 2013:

Muhammad Al-Saghir: Take [my] heart, which has become as hard as steel, and use it to stone all the Jews. Take it and use it to stone all the Jews. Take my eyes. Perhaps a handsome boy who has become blind can use them to see again. Take my skin. Turn it into a fuse or a slingshot for a child, because this land constantly begets boys as proud as [Khaled] Ibn Al-Walid.

[...]
Dear brothers, the Jama'a Islamiyya and the Building and Development Party, with its leader, the Jihadi scholar who is imprisoned unjustly in the U.S., Dr. Omar Abd Al-Rahman...

Applause

America is the patron of Israel the foundling. It is America that plunged a poisonous dagger of hatred into the heart of the Arab and Islamic nation. America holds the remote control, and commands the movements of its apes, its pigs, and its juvenile thugs on the frontier land of glory. America... Let us never forget that when you see a moving puppet, do not pay attention to the puppet itself. Always look for the filthy hands that command this puppet.

>br>

[...]

I represent the [Egyptian] people as a preacher in Al-Azhar and as a member of parliament. All the people who wrote posts on [my social media] page asked for the same thing: "Oh sheik, Jerusalem is in our hearts, and Palestine is the apple of our eye. If we are not allowed to visit [Palestine], we will meet them with the beating of the drums of Jihad." They asked me to kiss the heads of the mothers and fathers of the martyrs, and if I cannot, they asked me to kiss, on behalf of the Egyptian people, the head of the symbol of resistance, Ismail Haniya. So that's what I will do.

Al-Saghhir walks over to Haniya blesses him and kisses him on the forehead

To the applause and cheers of the crowd 

[...]

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Monday Links Part 1

From Ian:

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Michael Oren: Iran’s nuclear designs are the greater Middle East threat

We will prevent these sophisticated missiles from reaching Hezbollah. We will closely monitor the movement of chemical and other game-changing weapons in Syria. Together with the United States, we will develop more advanced anti-ballistic systems. Yet we can never lose sight of the ultimate threat.
If Iran gets the bomb, so too will a number of Middle Eastern states that can pose not only regional chemical but also global nuclear threats. An Iran with military nuclear capabilities will dominate the Persian Gulf and its vast oil deposits, driving oil prices to extortionary highs. And Iran can transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists who can launch them at foreign ports in shipping containers. The entire world will be endangered.

PMW: Bullets in the enemy's chest are sweet - PA TV song


Abbas: "We don't educate our children to hate" VIDEO

Norway and other European obstacles to peace

Donors have been praising the PA for its successful preparations for statehood – its institutions and its infrastructure – but few seem to care about its ethical foundations. As funders, Norway and other countries have an opportunity and an obligation to demand the end of the PA hate and terror culture.
Attacking PMW for exposing the hatred, and not the PA for promoting the hatred, is a failure that will postpone peace for another generation.

Palestinian man (whose is definitely NOT a refugee) tipped to win Arab Idol

The Palestinian “refugee” swindle is but one of the many political derivatives from the ideologically inspired uncritical embrace of the Palestinian narrative which so often passes for serious journalism at the Guardian.
Mohammed Assaf - a Palestinian (born 42 years after the 1949 war) who lives in the Palestinian run territory of Gaza, in Khan Younis – is not, by any reasonable definition of the word, a refugee. And, the fact that Palestinians continue to hold the key to this immutable victim status illustrates a greater truth about the egregious abuse of ordinary language within the cognitive battlefields of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Kerry Announces Plan to Boost PA Economy

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry unveils plan to boost the PA's economy by attracting $4 billion in private investment.

Peres Lauds 'Arab Initiative'

Speaking in Jordan, president says "Arab Peace Initiative" is a meaningful change and a strategic opportunity.

Jordanians Stage Walkout on Israelis at WEF

Jordanian reporters walked out en masse when Israeli journalists and officials entered the communications center at the World Economic Forum Sunday. The Forum is being held in Aqaba, Jordan.

Rock Terror Reaches Jerusalem Homes

Arabs hurl rock into living room in southern Jerusalem.

Jerusalem: Arab Arson Season Kicks Off

Every 24 hours, on average, Arab arsonists start a fire on Mount Scopus or near Abu Tor.

IAF Chief: Hezbollah Using Populated Areas for Weapons Transfers to Avoid Israeli Interceptions

During a strategic review, Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel told a group of former senior U.S. Army generals that Hezbollah is using warehouses, civilian buildings, mosques and underground storage facilities to dissuade Israel from striking at weapons it is transferring to and from Syria.

Analysis: Rocket attack on Hezbollah a turning point

The rocket attack on the Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut marks a turning point in the Syrian war and the clearest signal yet that the conflict is likely to escalate and spread to Lebanon, already on a knife’s edge due to sectarian divisions. Shi’ite- Sunni strife in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere is manifesting itself in the Syrian civil war, dragging neighboring countries into the conflict.

Israel key to Berlin Hezbollah terror label

Israeli diplomats traveled recently to Berlin and presented court documents showing Hezbollah’s role in terrorism within the European Union.
The meticulous documentation collected by Israeli officials played a critical role in changing attitudes among German foreign ministry officials who were reluctant to include Hezbollah in the EU’s terror list.

'Assad's forces used chemical arms on rebels'

Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have repeatedly used chemical weapons against rebel fighters in Damascus, according to first-hand accounts in France's Le Monde newspaper.
The newspaper, in a report issued on its website on Monday, said one of its photographers had suffered blurred vision and respiratory difficulties for four days after an attack on April 13 on the Jobar front, just inside central Damascus.

Egypt: From Energy Exporter to Energy Basket Case

Not long ago, Egypt was an energy exporter, with Israel and Jordan eager customers for Egyptian natural gas. Now, though, Egypt can't even produce enough energy for its own needs – and the country over the past several weeks has faced rolling blackouts, with even the most upscale districts in Cairo facing 3-5 hours a day of darkness.

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Poor, hypocritical Gideon Levy

Gideon Levy, the Haaretz writer who hates everything Jewish about Israel, has a column talking about how a stranger came up to him, insulted him and spit at him, for his far-left viewpoint.

Levy bitterly complains about the such an unseemly display of hate - and then Levy says he "kicked his ass."

The self-righteous Levy says that people who dislike his opinions don't have to read him, and is amazed at the anger that could cause someone to act this way against someone from "the peace camp."

Poor, poor Gideon.

As far as I can tell, Levy never said a word of sympathy for the Zionists who have to run through a gauntlet of hate - of people spitting and screaming at them, of insulting them and calling them child murderers - just to see Israeli cultural events in Great Britain or South Africa. Those protesters, presumably, are simply exercising their right to free speech. Their hate is very understandable and explainable to people like Levy. The people who insist on supporting Israel in public are the ones who have to cower in fear, while their tormentors are free to act as thuggish as they want.

If an IDF soldier, who stands calmly in the face of a protester screaming and spitting in his face, would react by "kicking his ass," Levy would be the first one to want to bring the soldier up on criminal charges.

But if someone screams at Levy, this self described member of the "peace camp" cannot be expected to walk away quietly. No, his principled, moral, peaceful position is that someone insulting him must be physically assaulted in response.

This is the hypocrisy of the Left - pretending to be peaceful and tolerant, but not willing to tolerate anything close to what they insist their opponents put up with..

(h/t Kramerica)

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Nasrallah 1988 video: "Lebanon should not be an Islamic republic on its own, but rather, part of the Greater Islamic Republic"

In light of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's speech on Saturday where he said he group will do whatever it takes to save Basahr Assad's regime, his opponents have released a MEMRI video showing Nasrallah's real goals:

A video in which Hassan Nasrallah spoke about his dream goal in Lebanon before he became Hezbollah leader is being circulated again on social media following a speech on Saturday in which he officially admitted engagement in the Syrian civil war.

The video being circulated online reportedly dates back to 1988 and shows a younger Nasrallah saying: “Our plan, to which we, as faithful believers, have no alternative, is to establish an Islamic state under the rule of Islam.”

“Lebanon should not be an Islamic republic on its own, but rather, part of the Greater Islamic Republic, governed by the Master of Time [the Mahdi], and his rightful deputy, the Jurisprudent Ruler, Imam Khomeini,” he said.

MEMRI's full text:

Hassan Nasrallah: What is the nature of the regime that Hizbullah wants for Lebanon at present, in light of the state of the country and the numerous sects? The preceding lectures have answered this question. Right now, we do not have a plan for a regime in Lebanon. We believe that we should remove the colonialism and the Israeli [occupation], and only then can a plan be implemented.

Our plan, to which we, as faithful believers, have no alternative, is to establish an Islamic state under the rule of Islam. Lebanon should not be an Islamic republic on its own, but rather, part of the Greater Islamic Republic, governed by the Master of Time [the Mahdi], and his rightful deputy, the Jurisprudent Ruler, Imam Khomeini.
[...]
[I was asked] about Hizbullah's relations with Iran and with the leadership of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. As far as we are concerned, these relations... I am one of the people working for Hizbullah and its active apparatuses. I would not have remained for a single moment in any apparatus of Hizbullah if I were not absolutely convinced that these apparatuses are connected, through a certain hierarchy, to the Jurisprudent Ruler and Leader, whose decisions are binding.

As far as we are concerned, this is axiomatic. Diplomatic and political statements are not what is important in this case. Ayatollah Karroubi cannot simply admit: Yes, Hizbullah are our people in Lebanon. This is inconceivable, both politically and media-wise. Our essential and organic relation with the leadership of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Rule of the Jurisprudent is axiomatic, as far as we are concerned.

We belong to this path, we make sacrifices for its sake, and we expose ourselves to dangers, because we are convinced that the blood we shed flows for the sake of the Rule of the Jurisprudent.
[...]
Should the Jurisprudent Ruler be the one to appoint the leaders, and bestow legitimacy upon them, in all Muslim countries? Yes, because his jurisprudence is not limited by geographical boundaries. It extends to wherever Muslims may be.

Of course, Hamas shares that exact same goal of "Palestine" being part of an Islamic 'ummah and not an independent state except as a stage. The only difference is whether this pan-Muslim state would be Shi'ite or Sunni.

No one seems too bothered by Hamas' identical hypocrisy, though. From their charter:

As for the objectives: They are the fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail, homelands be retrieved and from its mosques would the voice of the mu'azen emerge declaring the establishment of the state of Islam, so that people and things would return each to their right places and Allah is our helper.

(Note to MEMRI: Please don't flag me on YouTube for uploading your video that is already pirated by Al Arabiya. We're on the same side, and I will happily encourage my readers to donate to you. )

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Pregnant Gaza woman beaten to death for entering in-laws' kitchen

Ma'an reports:

Nawal Fathi Tafish Qudieh, 25, lived with her family-in-law in the town of Khuza, east of Khan Younis. On Saturday she was allegedly beaten to death by her in-laws. She was seven months pregnant at the time, and the baby also died.

Nawal's brother Ahmad says that his sister was humiliated, insulted, verbally abused and beaten by her mother-in-law and her husband's family.

Nawal's family even offered her a piece of land to build a house on and live in with her husband and family to get away from the abuse, but her husband refused to leave his family.

"Due to the problems she was exposed to, she was banned from entering the kitchen. She used to wait for her mother-in-law to leave the kitchen in order to be able to enter the kitchen," Ahmad told Ma'an.

On the day of her murder she had entered the kitchen without making sure her mother-in-law had left the area, her brother said.

"Her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law began beating her on the head, abdomen and back. They did not feel sorry for her or even for the baby she carried in her womb for the seventh month."

Her brother-in-law then began beating her with an iron pipe, with the family joining in until she lost consciousness, Ahmad said.

They dragged her body into the landing of the house and left her there until an ambulance arrived and tried to resuscitate her, but it was too late.

Both Nawal and her unborn baby died. Medics at Shifa hospital said that the cause of death was bleeding in her brain due to blunt force trauma.

One commenter is convinced that Israel must be responsible, somehow:

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3 ) albertine harris / usa

26/05/2013 21:57

sorry..show me facts..how do i know that she was not abused by israelis''...? they seem vicious and cruel to children? what makes me to think otherwise.

A quick search shows that this commenter is "US Representative for Arab Green Development Association" who wants to invest in something called "bioatomic plants."

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Arab League accuses Israel of "Judaizing" PA school curriculum

You might have missed it, but yesterday was the opening of the 87th Session of the Commission on Educational Programs Addressed to Arab students in the Occupied Arab Territories, which is part of the Arab League.

Perhaps in an effort to distinguish itself from the previous 86 sessions of this august body, they came up with something that is new, at least to me.

The august Commission now accuses Israel of "Judaizing" the Palestinian Arab school curriculum.

The only thing I can think of is that they are complaining that Israel regularly publicizes that the PA curricula include antisemitism and incitement to violence, and by pressuring them to remove patently offensive materials from their schoolbooks, that is considered "Judaization"!

If it is so easy for Israel to "Judaize" the curricula of schools over which it has zero responsibility, then maybe it is time for Israel to Judaize the Palestinian Arab flag as well:

The very existence of this blog post should be enough to start a new Arab League Commission on Dangers of Judaization of the Palestinian Flag, that would meet six times a year in different Arab capitals and issue harshly worded statements.

(h/t Irene for idea of adding blue to symbolize Israel's aggressive desire to take over every piece of land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in both directions.)

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Jew-Bashing, the New Anti-Semitism (video parts 1-4

3 parts of a 4-part series from Canada have aired so far. I believe that the filmmakers are the same as the one-hour Channel 2 Israel documentary I posted last week.

Antisemitism in the Middle East:


Jew Bashing - Anti-Semitism in the Middle East from Skeptic on Vimeo.

Antisemitism ,in Europe:


Jew Bashing - Anti-Semitism in Europe from Skeptic on Vimeo.

Antisemitism in the US


Jew Bashing - Anti-Semitism in the USA from Skeptic on Vimeo.

Antisemitism in Canada:


Jew Bashing - Anti-Semitism in Canada from Skeptic on Vimeo.

(h/t many people)

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