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Who
are the Victims and Who Are the Victimizers?
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One year after the bombs went off at
the Boston marathon, Brandeis authorities were so intent on avoiding the
issues those bombs had raised, that they would rather point the finger at a
critic of the radical ideology than do anything to criticize the ideology.
Is not the Palestinian leadership a
viable negotiating partner with whom peace is just about to be achieved? How
do you protest if the protesters are Muslims? Who are the victims and who are
the victimizers? After all, "victims" cannot victimize, can they?
When we see a global bigotry and
hatred such as this, we should identify it as such and demand, in the name of
all that is decent, that it stop.
The great Western disease of today -- there could be quite a competition
for that one -- is probably denial. Denial now runs right through the Western
way of looking at the world. It is just unfortunate for us that it does not
run through the rest of the world in the same way.Take three recent examples, one in America, one in Britain and one absolutely everywhere.
One year ago, two young male immigrants to America -- to whom America had given absolutely everything -- repaid the favor by planting bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Their victims included an eight year old boy. This atrocity was carried out because the young men had absorbed the grievance culture and violent radicalism of a form of Islam, a strain of thinking that has not gone wholly undocumented in recent years.
Yet from the moment the bombs went off, most of the media tried as hard as possible to avoid the subject. After the whiny early stages ("Let's Hope the Boston Marathon Bomber Is a White American," as Salon so beautifully put it) there followed the obfuscation. Had the bomber of the Boston Marathon been someone who, say, had once attended a Tea Party rally, every columnist, and wider society, would be asking how such an atrocious ideology could come up from its wake. Intense scrutiny and introspection would be the order of the day.
The wish of
Salon.com columnist David Sirota on April 16, 2013.
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The message underlying Hirsi Ali's mistreatment can hardly be overstated. One year after the bombs went off, Brandeis authorities were so intent on avoiding the issues those bombs had raised that they would rather point the finger at a critic of the radical ideology than do anything to criticize the ideology. As evidence, take Professor Jytte Klausen, author of a sloppily researched book on the Danish cartoons controversy who not only called for Hirsi Ali's disinviting, but also took the opportunity to smear her as a woman who was supposedly a liar and somehow "anti-immigrant." Incidentally this is the same Professor Klausen whose book was itself subjected to censorship when Yale University Press refused to publish it -- a book about cartoons -- with images of the cartoons in it. But onwards.
In Britain, The Independent reported the strange case of Andrew Moffat, a schoolteacher in Birmingham and author of "Challenging Homophobia in Primary Schools." He felt forced to resign after a group of mainly Muslim parents at Chilwell Croft Academy, in Birmingham, said that they were not happy with their children being taught by a gay man because he might make them think being gay was all right. So off goes Mr. Moffat. Some Christian parents had complained as well. If only there had been more of them. Then everyone would know what to do.
But what to do when the main offense comes from Muslim parents? The answer is simple. Give up. If they had been Christian fundamentalists, all might have been fine. There might have been a celebrity campaign against the "militant" Christians, some protests outside the school, and Mr. Moffat could have remained in place and become a defiant hero. But it was Muslims, so instead he had to go. Because how do you protest if the protesters are Muslims? Who are the victims and who are the victimizers? After all, "victims" cannot victimize, can they? Can they?
All this culture of denial in America and Britain is disturbing. But it is small stuff compared to the greatest form of denial. That is the one which now, strangely, finds itself being spearheaded from America, and has, like some super-blockbuster film, gone global. This is the idea, as the Middle East "peace" talks inexplicably fail to come up with a lasting and durable peace, that the radical opinions of the Palestinian leadership may not be a factor. Is not the Palestinian leadership a viable negotiating partner with whom peace is just about to be achieved?
How many people who read their daily papers know what the Palestinian leadership actually says, or does? How many would even have heard of a routine and commonplace event, such as the recent interview with the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority's Olympic Committee and Deputy Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee, Jibril Rajoub?
Interviewed on official Palestinian television, Rajoub said that the Palestinians have nothing to lose, because they "live under a racist and fascist occupation." Asked by the interviewer if he expected things to get worse, he replied, "Sir, we have nothing to lose. What's worse? Do you think we are living in Sweden and have something to lose? We are living under a racist and fascist occupation. I'm telling you, if Hitler had come [here], he would have learned from them how to oppress humans and learned from them about concentration camps, extermination camps."
Sometimes it is in America, sometimes in Britain, but always in the rest of the world whenever it considers Israel. Always it is the same strange response: denial. A denial to admit the realities of what is happening worldwide. A denial to face up to the reality that the Palestinian Authority [PA], meant to be the "partner" for peace, seems incapable of giving up on the culture of violence, death and anti-Semitism which has always been its trademark. A denial in the face of the continuous, daily, over-flowing quantity of evidence that, in 2014, the PA seems no closer than their forebears were in 1948 to recognizing the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people. "Surely this can't still be the case, can it?," people ask. So they ignore the bombs and the murders, such as that outside Hebron last week, and they ignore the incitement and terrorist-praising by the PA. All of which adds up to an outright denial of that responsibility which simple honesty surely demands -- that when we see a global bigotry and hatred such as this, we identify it as such and demand, in the name of all that is decent, that it stop.
Related Topics: Douglas Murray
Libya: Jihadi Terror Leaders' Safest Haven
by Anna
Mahjar-Barducci
April 23, 2014 at 4:30 am
April 23, 2014 at 4:30 am
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Libya is the new jihadist front on
the Mediterranean -- and just a few hours away from the centers of Europe.
Several security sources have
confirmed that Belmokhtar is still alive and has moved, along with his
troops, from Mali to a new base in the Libyan desert.
The leading jihadist commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar -- also known as Khalid
Abu Al-Abbas, and by his nickname "Al-A'war" ("the
one-eyed") -- is hiding in Libya. From there, according to security
sources quoted in media reports, he is planning to mastermind terrorist
attacks against Westerners and their interests across Africa's Sahel region.Belmokhtar, born in Algeria in 1972, and an Algerian citizen, was a key member of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM]. After an internal power struggle, he decided in December 2012 to form a new group, known as the Signatories in Blood.
Jihadi commander
Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
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As a former Algerian soldier with experience from training camps in Afghanistan, and as a member of the Armed Islamic Group [GIA] in Algeria, he rose quickly to the high rank of "emir" (commander). Later, he was one of the co-founders of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which evolved into AQIM.
As a commander in AQIM, Belmokhtar conducted kidnapping operations against Westerners. Later, while in the north of Mali, fighting against Western and African military intervention in the area, he established his own group.
Although his career as a terrorist seemed to have come to an end when, in March 2013, the Chadian government announced that he had been killed in combat in Mali, U.S. intelligence and military officials were wary of confirming Belmokhtar's death.
Several security sources have confirmed that Belmokhtar is still alive and has moved, along with his troops, from Mali to a new base in the Libyan desert. Malian security sources further say that Belmokhtar intends "to control the entire Sahel from the Libyan territory."
In an interview to the Libyan press agency LANA, Malian President Boubaker Keita said that Belmokhtar represents a menace for the region. "If this news [that he is still alive] is true," he said, "we are under a serious threat. Belmokhtar is a very dangerous figure. I am sorry that he was not killed in my country as previously announced and that he managed to move to Libya. There is not going to be peace in the whole region of the Sahara as long as he is alive."
The news that he managed to escape a huge manhunt staged by the international military forces in the Sahel is doubtless helping to build him into a legend and attracting more young people to jihadism.
In addition, Libya is undergoing a period of uncertainty and weakness. The country is in a political vacuum and unable to pursue a war against terrorism. After gunmen recently attempted to attack family members of Libya's interim Prime Minister, Abdullah Al-Thani, he handed in his resignation.
The Egyptian media outlet Al-Ahram Weekly wrote that leaked reports linked the attack to pressure exerted on Al-Thani's choice of members of his cabinet. According to the article, the pressure on the former PM was to appoint certain people as Ministers of Defense, Interior and Finance, in addition to the Head of Intelligence.
One thing is certain: Belmokhtar will try to take the maximum advantage of the present Libyan instability. He knows the ground well and can rely on a local network of support.
Belmokhtar also reportedly spent several months in Libya in 2011 and received logistical aid from Islamists in Libya for the attack against the gas plant in Algeria.
Belmokhtar's presence in Libya is not only alarming -- more than anything it is a testimony that the country is becoming a safe haven for Islamist terrorists. Libya is, in fact, the new jihadist front on the Mediterranean -- and just few hours away from the centers of Europe.
Related Topics: Anna
Mahjar-Barducci
The Moroccans That Infuriate the Dutch
by Timon Dias
April 23, 2014 at 4:00 am
April 23, 2014 at 4:00 am
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"If Lady Justice is truly blind,
she will prosecute all of us or none of us. I hope none of us." — Geert
Wilders, MP and Leader of the Party for Freedom, the Netherlands.
A more recent development is the
pending Dutch Moroccan takeover of the drugs and human trafficking
businesses.
Who, actually, are the Dutch Moroccans about whom Dutch MP Geert Wilders
recently stated:
"The fewer, the better"?During the 1960's, the Netherlands chose to attract migrant workers to perform low-skilled manual labor. This group included Turks, Spaniards, Portuguese and Moroccans. It was never the original intent of the Dutch government permanently to settle these workers; they were expected to return to their home countries after a few years.
In most instances, they did not. Family reunification laws -- derived from the European Treaty of Human Rights article 8: Right to family life -- provided that migrant workers had the right to bring their families to the Netherlands and settle in a permanent manner.
Moroccans now number 393,000 (p.37), comprise 2.3% of the Dutch population and are the sixth-largest ethnic minority.
The majority of Dutch Moroccans, descended from migrant workers, ethnically belong to the group of Moroccan Berbers. A minority of Dutch Moroccans are ethnically Arab Moroccans. Only 6.5% of current Dutch Moroccans came as migrant workers; around 49% were born in the Netherlands; the remaining group, nearly half, entered the country as a part of family reunification.
Wilders is now pressing charges against the Dutch Labour Party leader Diederik Samson and Labour Party Chairman Hans Spekman, who said, "Moroccans have an ethnic monopoly on street crime" and "Moroccans that will not abide by the law, must be humiliated in front of their own people."
Wilders says: "If lady justice is truly blind, she will prosecute all of us or none of us. I hope none of us."
Dutch member of
parliament Geert Wilders.
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At the forefront is the extremely high percentage of involvement of many Dutch Moroccans in criminal activities.
65% of all Moroccan male youths between 12-23 years of age have been detained by police at least once. One third of this group has been detained five or more times. Moroccan criminals are convicted four times more than Dutch suspects.
To illustrate the problem, this video clip (07:38), for instance, depicts a Moroccan street gang that terrorizes the neighborhood and asks pedestrians to pay a toll in order to pass. Its local rap group boasts about its defiance of, and supremacy over, the law -- an event all too common in the author's town of Delft.
Dutch Moroccan street thugs also frequently gang up on isolated girls to rob, harass or hurt them -- assaults that are mostly not caught on film and only very rarely reported in English language media, but can, for instance, be seen here (2:40). A detail worth emphasizing is that they always attack non-Muslim girls.
A more recent development is the pending Dutch Moroccan takeover of the drugs and human trafficking businesses.
Many Dutch Moroccan youths also seem to have a tendency toward racism, especially against Jews, and are noticeable for their anti-Semitism. The sociologist Mark Elchardus published a series of studies in 2011 that shows half of all Muslim students, most of them Moroccans, in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent, to be anti-Semitic. Here you can see a Dutch Moroccan, wearing the characteristic imitation-fur collar jacket, proudly stating, "The Jews must be exterminated," and "When I see them, I immediately want to stab them." Here (0:50) and here, you can see Moroccans performing a Nazi salute when a Jewish man greets them, while they shout "Jew!" and "Cancer Jew!" The last is a distinctively Dutch form of cursing, highly popular among Dutch Moroccans.
This racism, however, is not always confined to targeting Jews. Two years ago, five Moroccan men assaulted a 26-year-old pregnant Moroccan female, who was walking down the street with her (black) Surinamese partner. The men shouted "Nigger-whore" at her. As a result of the attack, the baby died.
14% (p.67) of all working age Dutch Moroccans live off welfare and have their housing and healthcare heavily subsidized by Dutch taxpayers. Child support checks, payments for special needs children, and survivor benefits are also being paid to adults and children who have a Dutch passport or whose parents have a Dutch passport, even after they have gone back to Morocco and now live there.
Dutch taxpayers also not only continue to cover the social security checks of legally Dutch Moroccans now living in Morocco, but the payments are aligned with the Dutch living standard. Morocco is familiar with poverty and deprivation. There, one Euro is worth 11 Moroccan Dirham. As one might imagine, welfare fraud is not uncommon.
Even though Moroccan street thugs do not behave as devout Muslims and often have little knowledge of their religion and its traditions, they nevertheless strongly identify themselves as Muslims, and often share the political worldview of their Islamist counterparts.
The only authority they seemingly do respect is religious in nature: the imam. The relationship between religious Dutch Moroccans and their criminal non-religious counterparts however, is more complex and less innocent than that.
Highly religious Moroccan youths, however, are not street thugs. As Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has repeatedly stated, they are "no problem at all."
Related Topics: Timon Dias
Iran: Rayhaneh Jabbari's Stay of Execution
by Shabnam
Assadollahi
April 23, 2014 at 3:30 am
April 23, 2014 at 3:30 am
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It is now being said that Morteza
Sarbandi, instead of assaulting Reyhaneh Jabbari, was stabbed while
performing Muslim prayers.
Reyhaneh Jabbari's first lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, had apparently made
it clear that Jabbari's death sentence was signed by the courts even after
the evidence had been destroyed or went "missing." Possibly those
who signed her death sentence in the Islamic Republic of Iran are not even
sure of Jabbari's guilt themselves, or could be just trying to blame her for
the murder, regardless.
Reyhaneh Jabbari in
court.
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For example, since the campaign began, the knife in question has "become" larger and larger. Now the lawyers of Sarbandi's family are claiming that the knife was half a meter long, up from from the 15cm originally recorded. Additionally, it has been claimed by Sarbandi's family that the drink on the table, which forensics confirmed contained sedatives, did not contain sedatives but laxatives. It is now being said that Sarbandi, instead of assaulting Jabbari, was stabbed while performing Muslim prayers
As Jabbari's death sentence was not cancelled by the courts of the Islamic Republic, the Campaign to Save Rayhaneh will continue full force. We stand against executions, and ask that Jabbari's death sentence be officially overturned by the courts. We ask that the death of Morteza Sarbandi be investigated in a fair trial, as described by international standards.
Please continue to help us save her.
Nazanin Afshin Jam
Shadi Paveh
Shabnam Assadollahi
Mina Ahadi
Related Topics: Iran
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Assadollahi
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