Solsticewitch13's BOS

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2824/palestinian-authority-facebook-censorship

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Translated and Introduced by Raymond Ibrahim.

The following op-ed, written by Ahmed El Aswany, appeared in the popular news website El Bashayer, December 22, 2011, following several lawsuits against Egypt's Christians, most notably billionaire Naguib Sawiris, for "defaming Islam." Hard-hitting and self-critical, it deals with an important question: Exactly who is it that defames Islam and its prophet Muhammad? Many in the Muslim world insist it is the West—whether through cartoons, books, or simply free speech. However, as El Aswany boldly argues, no one defames Islam as much as "we Muslims, for imposing a terrorist, hypocrite, and life-hating Islamic model that feeds on killing others in the name of jihad and fighting freedom of expression…"

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I do not believe that cartoons, books, or movies can defame any religion or affect the faith of its adherents and true believers.

Those who defame the Prophet are they who slaughter and bomb innocent people all over the world—in New York, Madrid, London, Bali, Riyadh, Cairo, Kabul and Baghdad—while citing the name of Allah and his Prophet and under the banner of Islamic jihad. Ongoing demonstrations follow in support of their acts, while Internet sites sing praises of the "knight" Osama bin Laden, the "hero of the two raids on New York and Washington [i.e., the strikes of 9/11]."

Those who defame the Prophet include men like [Yusif] Qaradawi [the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader], who incite killing Jewish babies in their mothers' wombs (his lecture at the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate in 1996), and who incite and support suicide bombings and declared jihad in Iraq, in the name of religion and the Prophet, leading to the killing of innocent people.

Those who defame the Prophet are they who demand the world to enact resolutions against the "defamation of religion," while they practice this defamation in every prayer in their mosques, schools, and satellite stations—especially against Christians and Jews, whom they curse in every prayer. (After the Islamic Human Rights Commission of the United Nations motioned this resolution against "Defamation of Religion," according to the Saudi internet site ArabiaNet, the Saudi Shura [Consultative] Council opposed the resolution—because defaming other religions is a rite and part of the rituals of Islam.)

Those who defame the Prophet are they who issue fatwas sanctioning "adult breastfeeding," who claim that drinking the Prophet's urine is a blessing, and allow such hadiths to be taught in schools and religious universities—including the hadith of the fly and other hadiths advocating humiliating the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] and treating them with contempt, the hadith of "paradise is under the shades of swords," and thousands of other hadiths, the mere existence of which defame the Prophet and Islam.

Those who defame the prophet are they who teach children in Islamic schools to hate Christians, that befriending them is forbidden ("your enemy is the enemy of your religion")—as one niqab-wearing teacher taught my friend's ten-year-old daughter at Al Fateh Islamic Schools in Maadi; and when the parents complained they were told "This is Islam."

Those who defame the Prophet are they who believe that outward appearances—such as beards, zibibas [callous mark, or "raisin," on forehead from prayer], and Islamic female dress—are part of the statutes of Islam, and they accuse people of being infidels and kill them in their cause.

Those who defame the Prophet are they who deem women defective, equating them with dogs and donkeys in that they invalidate prayer, as per the famous Sahih Muslim hadith. They believe that women are brainless and impious—forgetting that women are mothers, sisters, sweethearts, daughters, and wives, and are on an equal par with men. What is even sadder is that the majority of Muslim women believe in the authenticity of such hadiths that disparage them.

Those who defame the prophet are men like [Dr.] Zaghloul El Naggar, who have a claim to knowledge, yet proclaim natural disasters such as hurricanes, volcanoes, and floods as Allah's punishment for sinners, and denigrate both the Bible and Torah, claiming that they are fabricated books. And he does all this under the banner of the Prophet and in the name of Islam, and many rabble emulate him.

Those who defame the prophet are they who propagate myths among the Muslims—such as the "Prophet's medicine" and dream interpretation—and call their followers to replicate the Prophet's traditions [Sunna], thus promoting ignorance and retrogression among Muslims, who fall easy prey into their wicked web.

Those who defame the prophet are the rulers and Sheikhs of the Arab world who have transformed their countries into the last strongholds of tyranny and dictatorship in the world and who manipulate religious texts to justify their crimes.

Those who defame the prophet are not in the West, but rather we Muslims, for imposing a terrorist, hypocrite, and life-hating Islamic model that feeds on killing others in the name of jihad and fighting freedom of expression on the pretext of defending the Umma's [Islamic world's] precepts, which mean only regression and ossification.

They [Western people] only defame and combat the model that we—and no one else—created.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Palestinian Authority: Write Only Nice Things About Your Leaders

by Khaled Abu Toameh
February 7, 2012 at 5:00 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2816/europe-moving-left

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Facebook has become a dangerous playground for Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

The US-backed Palestinian Authority security forces belonging to Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad have been monitoring the activities of Palestinians on Facebook to make sure that no one criticizes them.

The Palestinian Authority wants Palestinians to write only nice things about their leaders. Criticism should be directed only against Israel. Those who fail to toe the line will find themselves either behind bars or without work.

The Palestinian leaders are aware of the power of social networking, especially in light of what happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria.

The Palestinian leadership's clampdown on Facebook users is seen as a pre-emptive measure to prevent the "Arab Spring" from infiltrating into the West Bank.

Rami Samara, a Palestinian journalist from Ramallah, last week found himself under interrogation by two different security agencies in the West Bank: Military Intelligence and General Intelligence.

Samara was detained while at work in the offices of the PLO's official news agency, Wafa. His crime: a comment he posted on his Facebook page.

The comment was about a statement issued by the PLO executive committee holding Israel responsible for the failure of the recent Israeli-Palestinian talks in Jordan.

Samara wrote in his sarcastic comment: "Ok, no joking now, do the members of the 'sole legitimate leadership of the Palestinian people' believe that this announcement is worth their sitting in their seats, turning on the heaters and drinking coffee and tea in their offices in Ramallah?"

The journalist said he was interrogated separately by the two intelligence forces in Ramallah about the comment and his activities on the social networking site. He was released a few hours later following strong protests by other journalists and human rights organizations.

Samara is the second Palestinian journalist to be targeted by security forces loyal to Abbas and Fayyad because of Facebook.

About a year ago, Mamdouh Hamarneh, a TV producer from Bethlehem, was detained for 50 days after comparing Abbas on Facebook to a Syrian actor who portrayed a "traitor" in a popular Syrian soap opera.

This week, a Palestinian woman complained that she too had been summoned for interrogation because of a comment she had posted on her Facebook page. She said she was interrogated by another security agency - Preventive Security - which also belongs to Abbas and Fayyad.

Because of the crackdown on Facebook users, many Palestinians in the West Bank today think twice before they post a comment that could anger the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.

Related Topics: Khaled Abu Toameh

Europe Moving Even Farther Left

by Peter Martino
February 7, 2012 at 4:30 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2825/if-armenian-genocide-proven-turkey-will-apologize

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What will happen if the euro collapses? Politicians such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy say it will be an unmitigated disaster. They depict a gloomy future in which complete chaos follows and the nations of Europe go back to their past habit of waging war on each other.

Swiss professor Bruno S. Frey of the University of Zurich, however, is not impressed. Last week he published an article in which he called these scaremongering statements "careless" and "totally misleading." The euro, the EU, and Europe are far from being identical, he points out. Not all the countries in Europe are members of the European Union – Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Ukraine, and a number of others are not. Nor do all the EU member states use the euro as their currency – such as Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Poland and a number of others.

Countries which are not in the eurozone nor even in the EU, do not wage war on each other, despite a past in which they sometimes did. Norway is not at war with Sweden, Sweden is not at war with Denmark, Poland is not at war with Ukraine. Why would France and Germany be bound to go to war with each other simply for not sharing the same currency?

If the euro, or even the EU, collapses, says, Frey, the individual countries in Europe will quickly draw up new treaties among themselves. Just as non-EU members Norway and Switzerland are party to certain European treaties. The essence of Europe is variety and diversity, rather than uniformity, centralism and bureaucracy. "A possible demise of the euro and the EU can be seen as a chance for the evolution of a better future Europe," Frey predicts. He envisions a Europe of states using flexible and overlapping agreements and contracts; not a Europe where all the member states are put through the same mold.

The euro project is a classic example of what Friedrich Hayek called the "fatal conceit" of bureaucratic planners, who assume that only uniformity and centralism can ensure peace, prosperity and harmony among peoples.

What happened in Europe shows that in fact the opposite is true. By forcing the divergent economies of Europe to adopt one monetary policy that fitted no one, the euro has exacerbated problems everywhere. Growth has stalled, unemployment in the eurozone has risen to 10.5% of the labor force, with records up to 25% in countries such as Spain. The countries with contracting economies and ever higher levels of unemployment in southern Europe can only survive with a financial lifeline from the healthier economies of northern Europe; but the latter, who have traded in their former currencies, such as the German mark or the Dutch guilder, for the weaker euro, feel they have already made enough sacrifices.

In the South, laborers have lost their jobs; the economy is not competitive with the northern economies. In the North, austerity policies have kept production costs down while laborers did not benefit from earning their wages in a stronger currency.

The dissatisfaction of the working population in both North and South, is benefitting the far-left. In the Netherlands, polls indicate that the Socialist Party (SP) has become the biggest party in the country. The SP is the successor to a former Maoist fringe group. It has managed to attract the bulk of the electorate of the social-democrat Labor Party and proposes to solve the crisis by "letting the rich pay for it."

In France, the polls predict that Socialist candidate François Hollande will win next May's presidential elections there, not the current President. Nicolas Sarkozy. Hollande is campaigning on a very radical platform, pledging a 15% tax increase on banks and rejecting the balanced budget principle which the EU wants to impose on its members. Pressured by Hollande's leftist rhetoric, Sarkozy announced on French television last week that France will introduce a financial transaction tax of 0.1% in August. The tax, expected to raise €1billion, will be levied on stock purchases and on certain credit default swaps.

Hollande has also announced that, if elected, he will renegotiate the fiscal treaty which the EU countries, at Germany's instigation, approved at last week's summit meeting. This statement prompted Sarkozy to postpone ratification until after the elections, while German Chancellor Merkel announced that she will actively back Sarkozy's re-election. One of the leaders of Merkel's Christian-Democrat Party in Germany even commented that Hollande's election would "hinder further European integration and endanger the future of the EU." Germany's leading conservative newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, warned that Hollande's program "is heavily influenced by redistribution and by the firm belief in the supremacy of the state."

Even if Sarkozy wins the election, however, Merkel's worries are not over. Next year, Merkel herself will have to run for re-election. She hardly stands a chance if the euro crisis is not under control by next Summer and if Europe is still in a recession in 2013. There is a great chance, therefore, that by the end of next year both France and Germany will be ruled by Socialists.

Related Topics: Peter Martino

If Armenian 'Genocide' Proven, Turkey will Apologize, Bagis Says
And more from the Turkish Press

by AK Group
February 7, 2012 at 3:00 am