Yes, well said. Funny how Jews get blamed for everything, even antiSemitism -- sort of creates an existential quandary (for those that believe the crap coming out of this schmuck's poison pen.).
Monday 20 February 2006
Idiot of the week: Israeli politics today make a holocaust the day after tomorrow credible
Self-designated "Half-Jew" Christian Priest: "Israeli politics today make a holocaust the day after tomorrow credible""I began with the recognition that the cancer of anti-semitism has not been cured. Tragically, Israel’s policies feed it - and when world Jewry defends Israeli policies right or wrong, then anger turns not only against Israel, but against all Jews. I wish it were mere rhetoric to say that Israeli politics today make a holocaust the day after tomorrow credible".
Paul Oestreicher in today’s Der Guardian.
Die Juden sind IHR Unglück?
Classic anti-Semitism: "We’re not anti-Semites, the Jews make us anti-Semites". And as though that were not enough, Jews, writes Paul Oestreicher, if they continue defending their right to live as a nation, will disappear as a nation through "a holocaust the day after tomorrow". As deservedly as the first time around, Herr Oestreicher?
Oestreicher, a self-designed "half Jew", was a member of the Church of England’s general synod and director of the Centre for International Reconciliation, Coventry Cathedral; he is now a chaplain at the University of Sussex
Should any doubt still linger about the priest’s moral compass, here is a letter to the editors of Der Guardian (May 21, 2004) by a man old enough to know the difference between French resistance fighters attacking armed Nazis and Islamic radicals murdering and maiming unarmed Israeli commuters and diners:
"Those old enough to remember will recollect that the French Resistance were held to be heroes when they killed the German occupiers. I did not rejoice at German deaths then, any more than I rejoice at Israeli, American and, yes, British deaths now. But there is no difference".
Canon Paul Oestreicher
Former chairman
Amnesty International
And thus we have the pleasure to crown British Desmond-Tutu-wannabe Paul Oestreicher Judeoscope’s first Idiot of the Week. Way to go Paul! We are sure you won’t let us down in the future either!
http://www.judeoscope.ca/breve.php3?id_breve=0807
20 February 2006
19 February 2006
Living In a Parallel Universe
Dateline San Diego, CA: 2/19/06
If you would like to have a peek at the mentality of the Islamic world that has called for, among other things, the beheading of the dangerous Danish cartoonists who dared to draw the image of the Prophet Mohammed, see the below article. And don't forget about the title of the article. It does not tell you what the article is about -- for that, one must read about 2/3 of the way down the page.
I strongly encourage you, in light of the severe rioting the cartoons have set off, to try to get a flavor for the remaining informative 1/3 by reading the first 2/3 of the page. And try to put it into some context.
What are the author/editor's definitions of "peaceful" and "secular"? They are not adjectives that immediately pop to MY mind when I think of Islamics who seek to behead Danish cartoonists or for that matter those Islamics who go on riotous rampages over the transgressions committed against Islam by Danes in Denmark, ostensibly because they were so upsetting to Islamics world-wide.
Give 'em a corned beef, some rye bread and good, plain Yellow mustard and a diet Dr. Brown's Cherry Soda and give 'em a booth in the corner so they can calm down and return to their “peaceful” and “secular” ways. First 50 to visit get $2.00 off their sandwich. It’s worth at least $100 to spare ONE Dane his/her head.
RS
Visit My Deli:
http://randyscornerdeli.blogspot.com/
The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily
Sunday, 19, February, 2006 (20, Muharram, 1427)
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Indian Minister Offers Bounty
Nilofar Suhrawardy, Arab News —
NEW DELHI, 19 February 2006 — A minister in India’s Uttar Pradesh state government has offered a reward of $11.5 million to anyone who would kill any of the cartoonists who drew the images of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Muhammad Yaqoob Qureshi, minister of state for Haj and Minorities Welfare in the Uttar Pradesh government, told a rally in Meerut, 65 km east of New Delhi, after Friday prayers that he would give “the avenger” 510 million rupees ($11.5 million) and his weight in gold.
“Drawing a cartoon of the Prophet is blasphemous and Muslims will not tolerate this insult,” he said in a speech that was broadcast by Indian television stations. “The money will be paid by the people of Meerut,” said Yaqoob.
The cartoons, drawn by 12 artists, were first published in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September and later reprinted in a number of other mainly European dailies. They have sparked Muslim protests worldwide.
The minister’s remarks sparked a nationwide furor and demands for his immediate arrest and resignation. When contacted by Indo Asian News Service yesterday, Qureshi repeated his declaration and said: “Muslim women of Uttar Pradesh have decided to give away their jewelry to weigh in gold any one who beheads the cartoonist, while I would collect 510 million rupees and donate it to him.
“Our protest is against none other than the United States which is solely responsible for masterminding a war against the Muslim world,” he said. “The Indian government should sever all diplomatic ties with the United States and recall its ambassador,” Qureshi said by telephone from Meerut.
Qureshi also said he had made these comments as an individual and not as a minister.
The government of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state that has a large Muslim community, said the minister’s statements were “his personal wish” and did not violate government rules.
The state’s Principal Home Secretary Alok Sinha said: “Mere announcement of this kind does not amount to a crime.’”
“Let me clarify that he did not make the announcement in his capacity as a minister.
“Secondly, the reference is being made to something that has happened outside the geographical boundaries of India. Lastly, he was simply expressing the common feeling of members of his community,” Sinha said.
The home secretary also denied that such an announcement could cause sectarian tension.
“I am sure the minister has no intention of inciting communal passions and his statement is not intended to hurt the sentiments of any other community,” Sinha said. “But, of course, I am aware that the issue is a sensitive one. We are taking due precautions to ensure maintenance of law and order.”
In the state capital, Lucknow, most establishments owned by Muslims kept their shutters down as a mark of solidarity with the protesters in Meerut.
But the influential All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, an authoritative national body of Muslim scholars, slammed the announcement as “anti-Islamic and anti-humanity.”
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party demanded immediate arrest and dismissal of Qureshi from the state government. BJP leader N. Venkaiah Naidu said: “He should be dismissed forthwith and arrested. He should also be tried under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code.”
Describing Qureshi’s comments as cheap, vote-buying tactics, Naidu said told reporters in Madras that he hoped the Uttar Pradesh government, governor and the federal government would take immediate action against the minister.
On the cartoons, Naidu said: “I can understand sentiments of the community being hurt by such caricatures. The BJP strongly disapproves and condemn such acts.”
In Indian-administered Kashmir, some 1,000 people yesterday protested the publication of the offending drawings and demanded punishment for the cartoonists.
Carrying banners and shouting slogans, the protesters marched through the streets of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, before handing over a memorandum to United Nations officials posted in the state.
“We love our Prophet” and “Down with enemies of Islam” read some of the banners carried by the protesters, who were led by the mayor of Srinagar, Ghulam Mustafa.
The protesters demanded that the governments of the countries where the drawings were published “tender unqualified apologies for such drawings and deal with the editors and publishers with an iron hand,” Mustafa said. “We are peace loving and secular people. Such acts outrage us,” he said, before the protesters peacefully dispersed.
— Additional input from agencies
Relativism and Hate Speech
This article has created appropriate condemnation. This is a blatant example of the logical fallacy called "reductio ad absurdum", a concept I learned about in sophomore logic class. Not only is Caldwell's argument (and those of like thinkers) logically fallacious, it is morally so as well, as it yields to a supposed desire on the part of governments and people not to want to make judgments about certain events (e.g., the systematic killing of 6 million Jews qua Jews...) as being worthy of official condemnation. That this is still being bandied about in papers such as the FT is in itself absurdum. Have they taken a position on the very real violence that cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed have supposedly wrought? I take the FT every day; I see nothing in that regard, ostensibly for the same reason that Western Officialdom has not seen fit to condemn the violence and its perpetrators: they have the oil or, in the case of the FT, advertising revenue, and they can't offend the oil or the money, heaven forfend!
RS
Christopher Caldwell: Historical truth speaks for itself
By Christopher Caldwell
Friday, February 17, 2006
Posted: 03:35 PM EST (20:35 London)
At the height of the worldwide demonstrations over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, some protesters claimed the west did not value free speech as much as it said. After all, the argument ran, many western countries ban Holocaust denial. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the Iranian leader, has recently thumbed his nose at the west by denying the Holocaust himself. A Belgian Arab group released a cartoon showing Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank. "Europe, too, has its sacred cows," said the group's leader, Dyab Abou Jahjah, "even if they are not religious sacred cows." The gesture may be tawdry, but the point is essentially correct. In much of Europe, there is a legislated "official truth" about the Holocaust. France passed its so-called Gayssot law, making Holocaust denial a crime, in 1990. Germany and Switzerland soon followed suit. Denying or minimising the Holocaust is now also a crime in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia.
The problem with this official truth is not that it is untrue. The problem is that policing fringe opinion about the second world war creates more problems than it solves. Some are constitutional. In The Guardian last week, Ronald Dworkin, the legal philosopher, wrote: "If we expect bigots to accept the verdict of the majority once the majority has spoken, then we must permit them to express their bigotry in the process whose verdict we ask them to respect." He suggested using the European Convention on Human Rights to strike down laws banning Holocaust denial.
Madeleine Rebérioux, the late leftist historian, warned of the biggest danger of the Gayssot law as soon as it was passed. "One day", she wrote, "it's going to lead into other areas besides the genocide against the Jews – other genocides and other assaults on what will be called 'historical truth'." She was right. A law declaring the Turkish killings of Armenians early last century to be a "genocide" was passed in 2001; later that year, another law defined the slave trade as a "crime against humanity"; a year ago, legislation mandated that teachers stress the "positive role" of the French presence in north Africa. Each new officialisation of remembrance calls into being more "moral lobbies", which press their claims with ever more insistence, in ever more obscure corners of political life, and with ever more legal clout.
Since the Gayssot law, sanctions against "crimes of opinion" have proliferated in all walks of life. Already in 1995, Bernard Lewis – probably the most important scholar of Turkey in the past century – was condemned in a French court for refusing to apply the term "genocide" to the Armenian massacres. Muslim and human-rights groups have brought complaints and suits against the novelist Michel Houellebecq, the journalist Oriana Fallaci, the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut and (for printing cartoons of Mohammed) the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. In January, a member of the national assembly who had said he found "heterosexuality superior to homosexuality on the moral level" became the first Frenchman convicted of homophobia.
Last year, Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, the best-known French historian of slavery, criticised the 2001 slave-trade law in an interview. A pressure group of "descendants of slaves" took him to court for "disputing a crime against humanity". In recent weeks, two petitions have urged the repeal or gutting of all memory laws – and have won the support of much of the intellectual world in Paris. The first, "Freedom for History", signed by the historians Pierre Nora, Michel Winock and Mona Ozouf, among others, noted the way claims to official memory multiply. The second, "Freedom to Debate", authored by Paul Thibaud, the anti-colonialist essayist, and signed by several of the country's most distinguished historians and philosophers, deplored the recent "competition of memory".
The Gayssot law, Mr Thibaud argues, unleashed "a variety of anti-Semitism more dangerous than the one it restrained". Groups formed to promote the memory of slavery, for example, increasingly allege that Jews controlled the slave trade – a favourite myth of Louis Farrakhan's US-based Nation of Islam. In principle, what was done to the Jews of Europe during the second world war holds universal lessons. In practice, minority groups have not seen the Gayssot law that way. They reason that there are other prejudices in society besides anti-Semitism. Once the state admits the principle of protecting minorities by restricting certain utterances about their history, new groups pop up to agitate for special protections against the prejudice that threatens them most.
Mr Dworkin's case for abolishing laws against Holocaust denial, on grounds of political legitimacy, is the right one. Of course, no one should be under the illusion that being able to go out and deny the Holocaust will add much to any "debate". The official truth of western governments about the Holocaust happens to be the truth. Allowing delusions or anti-Semitic propaganda to masquerade as "opinions" will not change that. So those western countries with laws against Holocaust denial are now in a tricky position. They must undo laws that have proved unworkable and counterproductive, and at a moment when some of those laws' most vocal detractors are violent people of ill will.
The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard
http://us.ft.com/ftsuperpage/superpage.php?news_id=fto021720061542207772&page=2&referrer_id=yahoofinance
RS
Christopher Caldwell: Historical truth speaks for itself
By Christopher Caldwell
Friday, February 17, 2006
Posted: 03:35 PM EST (20:35 London)
At the height of the worldwide demonstrations over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, some protesters claimed the west did not value free speech as much as it said. After all, the argument ran, many western countries ban Holocaust denial. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the Iranian leader, has recently thumbed his nose at the west by denying the Holocaust himself. A Belgian Arab group released a cartoon showing Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank. "Europe, too, has its sacred cows," said the group's leader, Dyab Abou Jahjah, "even if they are not religious sacred cows." The gesture may be tawdry, but the point is essentially correct. In much of Europe, there is a legislated "official truth" about the Holocaust. France passed its so-called Gayssot law, making Holocaust denial a crime, in 1990. Germany and Switzerland soon followed suit. Denying or minimising the Holocaust is now also a crime in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia.
The problem with this official truth is not that it is untrue. The problem is that policing fringe opinion about the second world war creates more problems than it solves. Some are constitutional. In The Guardian last week, Ronald Dworkin, the legal philosopher, wrote: "If we expect bigots to accept the verdict of the majority once the majority has spoken, then we must permit them to express their bigotry in the process whose verdict we ask them to respect." He suggested using the European Convention on Human Rights to strike down laws banning Holocaust denial.
Madeleine Rebérioux, the late leftist historian, warned of the biggest danger of the Gayssot law as soon as it was passed. "One day", she wrote, "it's going to lead into other areas besides the genocide against the Jews – other genocides and other assaults on what will be called 'historical truth'." She was right. A law declaring the Turkish killings of Armenians early last century to be a "genocide" was passed in 2001; later that year, another law defined the slave trade as a "crime against humanity"; a year ago, legislation mandated that teachers stress the "positive role" of the French presence in north Africa. Each new officialisation of remembrance calls into being more "moral lobbies", which press their claims with ever more insistence, in ever more obscure corners of political life, and with ever more legal clout.
Since the Gayssot law, sanctions against "crimes of opinion" have proliferated in all walks of life. Already in 1995, Bernard Lewis – probably the most important scholar of Turkey in the past century – was condemned in a French court for refusing to apply the term "genocide" to the Armenian massacres. Muslim and human-rights groups have brought complaints and suits against the novelist Michel Houellebecq, the journalist Oriana Fallaci, the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut and (for printing cartoons of Mohammed) the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. In January, a member of the national assembly who had said he found "heterosexuality superior to homosexuality on the moral level" became the first Frenchman convicted of homophobia.
Last year, Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, the best-known French historian of slavery, criticised the 2001 slave-trade law in an interview. A pressure group of "descendants of slaves" took him to court for "disputing a crime against humanity". In recent weeks, two petitions have urged the repeal or gutting of all memory laws – and have won the support of much of the intellectual world in Paris. The first, "Freedom for History", signed by the historians Pierre Nora, Michel Winock and Mona Ozouf, among others, noted the way claims to official memory multiply. The second, "Freedom to Debate", authored by Paul Thibaud, the anti-colonialist essayist, and signed by several of the country's most distinguished historians and philosophers, deplored the recent "competition of memory".
The Gayssot law, Mr Thibaud argues, unleashed "a variety of anti-Semitism more dangerous than the one it restrained". Groups formed to promote the memory of slavery, for example, increasingly allege that Jews controlled the slave trade – a favourite myth of Louis Farrakhan's US-based Nation of Islam. In principle, what was done to the Jews of Europe during the second world war holds universal lessons. In practice, minority groups have not seen the Gayssot law that way. They reason that there are other prejudices in society besides anti-Semitism. Once the state admits the principle of protecting minorities by restricting certain utterances about their history, new groups pop up to agitate for special protections against the prejudice that threatens them most.
Mr Dworkin's case for abolishing laws against Holocaust denial, on grounds of political legitimacy, is the right one. Of course, no one should be under the illusion that being able to go out and deny the Holocaust will add much to any "debate". The official truth of western governments about the Holocaust happens to be the truth. Allowing delusions or anti-Semitic propaganda to masquerade as "opinions" will not change that. So those western countries with laws against Holocaust denial are now in a tricky position. They must undo laws that have proved unworkable and counterproductive, and at a moment when some of those laws' most vocal detractors are violent people of ill will.
The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard
http://us.ft.com/ftsuperpage/superpage.php?news_id=fto021720061542207772&page=2&referrer_id=yahoofinance
These are the 25 most popular overall books at What Should I Read Next?
| I liked it! | I didn't like it! | I want to read it! |
| The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown |
| The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams |
| The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger |
| The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald |
| To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee |
| 1984 - George Orwell |
| Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling |
| The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger |
| His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman |
| Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell |
| The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien |
| Life of Pi - Yann Martel |
| Catch-22 - Joseph Heller |
| The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon |
| Lord of the Flies - William Golding |
| Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen |
| One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
| Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut |
| The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold |
| The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini |
| Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden |
| Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card |
| The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien |
| Angels and Demons - Dan Brown |
| Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk |
Eight different categories to try!
Buy your books at Amazon US or Amazon UK
12 February 2006
11 February 2006
So much has been written lately about the protests all over the world about the publication (in September of 2005 in a little known Danish newspaper,) of cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed that it hardly deserves more attention than it already has received. But the extent of the mob response is symptamologic of a greater problem (given the pervasiveness of Islamics in Western and especially European society) : this is a signal to everyone -- including the Norwegians who instigated a boycott of products from Israel over the so-called "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza -- that our fundamental principles, not just freedom of the press, but freedom generally, are all under attack from this element which, as Krauthammer describes, is attempting to dictate to us, through fear, how we run our lives and governments. As the Israeli experience shows, if the West lies down to this, it would be doomed, and we may as all move to Mars.
Today it was reported that Arab mobs erupted in violence in East Jerusalem over the Danish cartoons. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3214442,00.html What is the point of these protests? They happened in Denmark...and only recently were republished in other papers throughout the world as a sign, presumably, of solidarity with the Danes who have been savaged for allowing a free press.
I would say to those who don't appreciate the free press in the liberal democratic Western European countries they chose to emigrate to -- LEAVE. Go back to the bastions of liberal democracy you came from like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, etc. And this time, stay there. And leave the rest of the world alone. Just make sure that you leave the oil spigot on. God knows that we don't want to lose THAT.
RS
Curse of the Moderates
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 10, 2006; A19
As much of the Islamic world erupts in a studied frenzy over the Danish Muhammad cartoons, there are voices of reason being heard on both sides. Some Islamic leaders and organizations, while endorsing the demonstrators' sense of grievance and sharing their outrage, speak out against using violence as a vehicle of expression.
Their Western counterparts -- intellectuals, including most of the major newspapers in the United States -- are similarly balanced: While, of course, endorsing the principle of free expression, they criticize the Danish newspaper for abusing that right by publishing offensive cartoons, and they declare themselves opposed, in the name of religious sensitivity, to doing the same.
God save us from the voices of reason. What passes for moderation in the Islamic community -- "I share your rage but don't torch that embassy" -- is nothing of the sort. It is simply a cynical way to endorse the goals of the mob without endorsing its means. It is fraudulent because, while pretending to uphold the principle of religious sensitivity, it is interested only in this instance of religious insensitivity.
Have any of these "moderates" ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part (!) series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery (and inspiration of the Nazis), "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?
A true Muslim moderate is one who protests desecrations of all faiths. Those who don't are not moderates but hypocrites, opportunists and agents for the rioters, merely using different means to advance the same goal: to impose upon the West, with its traditions of freedom of speech, a set of taboos that is exclusive to the Islamic faith. These are not defenders of religion but Muslim supremacists trying to force their dictates upon the liberal West. And these "moderates" are aided and abetted by Western "moderates" who publish pictures of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung and celebrate the "Piss Christ" (a crucifix sitting in a jar of urine) as art deserving public subsidy, but who are seized with a sudden religious sensitivity when the subject is Muhammad.
Had they not been so hypocritical, one might defend their refusal to republish these cartoons on the grounds that news value can sometimes be trumped by good taste and sensitivity. After all, on grounds of basic decency, American newspapers generally -- and correctly -- do not publish pictures of dead bodies, whatever their news value. There is a "sensitivity" argument for not having published the cartoons in the first place, back in September when they first appeared in that Danish newspaper. But it is not September. It is February. The cartoons have been published, and the newspaper, the publishers and Denmark itself have come under savage attack.
After multiple arsons, devastating boycotts, and threats to cut off hands and heads, the issue is no longer news value, i.e., whether a newspaper needs to publish them to inform the audience about what is going on. The issue now is solidarity.The mob is trying to dictate to Western newspapers, indeed Western governments, what is a legitimate subject for discussion and caricature. The cartoons do not begin to approach the artistic level of Salman Rushdie's prose, but that's not the point.
The point is who decides what can be said and what can be drawn within the precincts of what we quaintly think of as the free world.The mob has turned this into a test case for freedom of speech in the West. The German, French and Italian newspapers that republished these cartoons did so not to inform but to defy -- to declare that they will not be intimidated by the mob. What is at issue is fear. The unspoken reason many newspapers do not want to republish is not sensitivity but simple fear. They know what happened to Theo van Gogh, who made a film about the Islamic treatment of women and got a knife through the chest with an Islamist manifesto attached.The worldwide riots and burnings are instruments of intimidation, reminders of van Gogh's fate.
The Islamic "moderates" are the mob's agents and interpreters, warning us not to do this again. And the Western "moderates" are their terrified collaborators who say: Don't worry, we won't. It's those Danes. We're clean. Spare us. Please.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020901434_pf.html
Today it was reported that Arab mobs erupted in violence in East Jerusalem over the Danish cartoons. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3214442,00.html What is the point of these protests? They happened in Denmark...and only recently were republished in other papers throughout the world as a sign, presumably, of solidarity with the Danes who have been savaged for allowing a free press.
I would say to those who don't appreciate the free press in the liberal democratic Western European countries they chose to emigrate to -- LEAVE. Go back to the bastions of liberal democracy you came from like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, etc. And this time, stay there. And leave the rest of the world alone. Just make sure that you leave the oil spigot on. God knows that we don't want to lose THAT.
RS
Curse of the Moderates
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 10, 2006; A19
As much of the Islamic world erupts in a studied frenzy over the Danish Muhammad cartoons, there are voices of reason being heard on both sides. Some Islamic leaders and organizations, while endorsing the demonstrators' sense of grievance and sharing their outrage, speak out against using violence as a vehicle of expression.
Their Western counterparts -- intellectuals, including most of the major newspapers in the United States -- are similarly balanced: While, of course, endorsing the principle of free expression, they criticize the Danish newspaper for abusing that right by publishing offensive cartoons, and they declare themselves opposed, in the name of religious sensitivity, to doing the same.
God save us from the voices of reason. What passes for moderation in the Islamic community -- "I share your rage but don't torch that embassy" -- is nothing of the sort. It is simply a cynical way to endorse the goals of the mob without endorsing its means. It is fraudulent because, while pretending to uphold the principle of religious sensitivity, it is interested only in this instance of religious insensitivity.
Have any of these "moderates" ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part (!) series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery (and inspiration of the Nazis), "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?
A true Muslim moderate is one who protests desecrations of all faiths. Those who don't are not moderates but hypocrites, opportunists and agents for the rioters, merely using different means to advance the same goal: to impose upon the West, with its traditions of freedom of speech, a set of taboos that is exclusive to the Islamic faith. These are not defenders of religion but Muslim supremacists trying to force their dictates upon the liberal West. And these "moderates" are aided and abetted by Western "moderates" who publish pictures of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung and celebrate the "Piss Christ" (a crucifix sitting in a jar of urine) as art deserving public subsidy, but who are seized with a sudden religious sensitivity when the subject is Muhammad.
Had they not been so hypocritical, one might defend their refusal to republish these cartoons on the grounds that news value can sometimes be trumped by good taste and sensitivity. After all, on grounds of basic decency, American newspapers generally -- and correctly -- do not publish pictures of dead bodies, whatever their news value. There is a "sensitivity" argument for not having published the cartoons in the first place, back in September when they first appeared in that Danish newspaper. But it is not September. It is February. The cartoons have been published, and the newspaper, the publishers and Denmark itself have come under savage attack.
After multiple arsons, devastating boycotts, and threats to cut off hands and heads, the issue is no longer news value, i.e., whether a newspaper needs to publish them to inform the audience about what is going on. The issue now is solidarity.The mob is trying to dictate to Western newspapers, indeed Western governments, what is a legitimate subject for discussion and caricature. The cartoons do not begin to approach the artistic level of Salman Rushdie's prose, but that's not the point.
The point is who decides what can be said and what can be drawn within the precincts of what we quaintly think of as the free world.The mob has turned this into a test case for freedom of speech in the West. The German, French and Italian newspapers that republished these cartoons did so not to inform but to defy -- to declare that they will not be intimidated by the mob. What is at issue is fear. The unspoken reason many newspapers do not want to republish is not sensitivity but simple fear. They know what happened to Theo van Gogh, who made a film about the Islamic treatment of women and got a knife through the chest with an Islamist manifesto attached.The worldwide riots and burnings are instruments of intimidation, reminders of van Gogh's fate.
The Islamic "moderates" are the mob's agents and interpreters, warning us not to do this again. And the Western "moderates" are their terrified collaborators who say: Don't worry, we won't. It's those Danes. We're clean. Spare us. Please.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020901434_pf.html
For those of us with a fascination at the capacity of man to be cruel others, I invite you to read the following review. It looks as though the book and DVD under discussion ought to be in the library of those with an interest in Holocaust studies in general and in the German response to it following the cessation of the war.
What is this book's place in the literature that include's Goldhagen's _Ordinary Germans_? Or Hannah Arent's _Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil_? Did it take sensationalism in the local press for Germans to take a look at what they had, in one way or another, permitted? Why was the subject Court placed in essentially the same position as the Nazi tribunal that looked at "corruption" at Auschwitz in 1943 -- looking only, really, at those people who went beyong the "call of duty" to satisfy their own bloodlust? What about the "duty" itself? Was that ever called into question during the trial? Or were these statistical "outliers"?
I think that Arendt's book concerning the Eichmann trial and its motivations and conduct is quintessential reading to answer some of these questions which certainly, because of newly available documentation, is first exposed in the subject book. But the trial of Eichmann in Israel in 1962 exposed, if these trials did not, the sense of the overall involvement, the banality if you will, of the "duty" of "ordinary Germans" to make Germany "Judenrein". This book will go on my "to read" list to fill in some holes in my understanding at the very least with the hope that it will demonstrate its worth on its own merit based on the newly available documentation.
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-German@h-net.msu.edu
(February 2006) Rebecca Wittmann. _Beyond Justice: The Auschwitz Trial_. Cambridge andLondon: Harvard University Press, 2005. ix + 336 pp. Illustrations, notes,bibliography, index. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-674-01694-7.
Digitale Bibliothek. _Der Auschwitz-Prozeß_. Herausgegeben vom Fritz BauerInstitut Frankfurt am Main und dem Staatlichen Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau.Berlin: Directmedia, 2004. EUR 45.00 (DVD-ROM), ISBN 3-89853-501-0.
Reviewed for H-German by Caroline Sharples, Department of History,University of Southampton
Putting the Past on Trial
The Auschwitz trial was the largest Nazi war crimes trial to take placeunder the jurisdiction of the Federal Republic. Staged in Frankfurt am Mainbetween December 1963 and August 1965, the proceedings against twenty formerextermination camp personnel lasted over 180 days and called upon 254witnesses. The trial commanded massive media attention, both within the WestGerman state and abroad. It stood in stark contrast to earlier West Germantreatment of Nazi atrocities. During the late 1940s, popular voices calledfor an end to the Allied-imposed denazification process, and for theamnesties of those already sentenced by Allied tribunals. Once the FederalRepublic gained its sovereignty in 1949, the number of war crimesprosecutions fell rapidly. The Allies rendered 5,006 convictions between1947 and 1950; in 1954, there were just 44.[1]
It was not until the UlmEinsatzkommando trial in 1958 and the subsequent establishment of theZentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltung zur Aufklärungnationalsozialistischer Verbrechen in Ludwigsburg that the West Germanjudiciary was seen to be taking the Nazi past more seriously.As a result, the Auschwitz trial--together with the 1961 prosecution ofAdolf Eichmann in Jerusalem--has been popularly regarded by historians asone of the key factors in inspiring a more critical West German engagementwith the legacy of the Third Reich.
Ian Buruma insists that, for the WestGerman people, the Auschwitz trial "was the one history lesson thatstuck."[2] Similarly, Mark Osiel argues that the trial "captured theimagination of millions of young Germans as virtually nothing about thecountry's past had done before."[3] Despite such claims, however, there hasbeen little critical analysis to date of the trial and its impact upon theWest German population.[4]
This absence of work on the Auschwitz trial stems from the fact that primary source material on the proceedings was not made available to researchers until fairly recently. Federal German law precludedthe release of trial documents until thirty years after the case's conclusion, while the proceedings themselves had been audiotaped rather than transcribed. Only in the last few years has the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt completed the transcription of some fifty hours worth of tape recordings.
Rebecca Wittmann's new book thus represents the first detailed study on the trial, a valuable contribution that draws upon previously untapped evidence and fills a significant gap within existing war crimes historiography. A glance at Wittmann's work reveals that the long wait for a detailed account of the Auschwitz trial has proved worthwhile.
Over the course of six chapters, the entire history of the trial is laid bare in meticulous detail from its inception to the final sentencing. For those unfamiliar with thehistory of Nazi war crimes trials up to this point, the first chapter provides a concise overview, exploring earlier Allied policies as well as competing political interpretations of the Nazi past played out between Adenauer and Schumacher during the formative years of the Federal Republic. Wittmann explains the nature of the West German penal code and its capacity for dealing with Nazi crimes, together with the ongoing political debates onthe Statute of Limitations that came to characterize the 1960s.
The remaining five chapters deal in turn with pre-trial investigations leading up to the Auschwitz trial, the indictment, the course of the trial itself, the judgment and, finally, the response leveled at the verdict by Fritz Bauer (Attorney General for the State of Hesse), the media (including theWest German and international press), Holocaust survivors and other contemporary observers.Wittmann's chief argument rests in her claim that--despite all the educational ambitions invested by prosecuting agencies in the run up to the trial, and despite the subsequent claims made by historians--the Auschwitz trial produced a paradoxical result.
It certainly brought the history of the extermination camp to a far wider West German audience, inspiring Peter Weiss's 1965 play, _The Investigation_, and producing much excitement among the West German media. The press followed the proceedings avidly, with dramatic headlines relaying each day's events to their readers. Yet the very nature of this press coverage distorted reality. Sensationalized articles demonized the defendants and emphasized the most sadistic acts described in the Frankfurt courtroom. Wittmann comments, "It was almost a pornography ofthe Holocaust, that both sold papers and distanced the general public from the monsters on the stand whose actions were reported in graphic detail"(p.176).
This implicit distinction between the perpetrators of the Holocaust and the"ordinary" West German population, though, could be traced back to the nature of the proceedings themselves. Indeed, as Wittmann argues, the language of the indictment revealed how the basis for bringing the defendants to trial rested on "the maltreatment of prisoners and excessive cruelty leading to death, rather than murder per se" (p.101). During the trial itself, lesser crimes were relativized, not least as a result of a reliance on the testimony of former SS personnel.
In 1943, the Morgen Commission was sent to Auschwitz to investigate allegations of corruption among the camp staff. Its leader, former Nazi judge Konrad Morgen, now appeared in Frankfurt, outlining examples where defendants had used their own initiative to follow their sadistic instincts. As a result, the Auschwitz proceedings became a trial of excess perpetrators, men who could clearly be seen as going beyond the call of "duty" to satisfy their own bloodlust. Wittmann notes that "the limitations of the law obscured more than they revealed, by making the prosecution dependent on the same standards of illegality the Nazis themselves had used to investigate criminal activity in the camps" (p.271-2).Wittmann's book thus provides a refreshing corrective to previous scholarlyclaims about the impact of the Auschwitz trial. Through her careful and immensely detailed analysis of the proceedings, Wittmann offers new evidence of the trial's impact upon the West German people, and the extent to which it really can be said to have altered popular attitudes towards the Nazi past.
Her findings highlight the contradictory nature of war crimes trials and their treatment within the media, underlining the need to go beyond conventional historical narratives and acknowledge the complexities involved within any study of _Vergangenheitsbewältigung_ in 1960s West Germany.
As Wittmann concludes: "There is no doubt that the Auschwitz trial did, at least for a short time, bring the atrocities of the Nazi regime to the fore.The daily press coverage and most especially the widely staged, important and sensational play _The Investigation_ by Peter Weiss, provided constant reminders to the public of the crimes committed by former Nazis who were then living in freedom in Germany.... At the same time, though, most people saw the grisly crimes of the sadistic defendants as if they were part of a macabre fantasy world...and did not make a connection between the perpetrators on trial, the harmless neighbors living peacefully beside them, and their own role in the Nazi past.
To them the trial seemed to have done its job, properly punishing the real monsters and leaving the rest, people who had been confused, coerced or brainwashed into collaborating with the Nazis, to go on with their lives" (p.247).
A perfect accompaniment to Wittmann's study comes in the form of a newDVD-ROM compiled by the Fritz Bauer Institute and the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum. This resource provides a good starting point for examining the trial. It contains a wealth of documents, photographs, plans and transcripts from the Auschwitz trial, including witness statements. A brief overview of each of the twenty defendants is included, citing their date of birth, former SS rank and role in the Nazi regime and the charges leveled against them. Users are able to follow the key moments in the trial from start to finish, or look up key terms or individual names within an easy to use search facility. The program even includes some of the audio recordings from the proceedings, enabling us to hear the testimonies for ourselves andliterally bringing the case to life.
Thus, after decades of neglect, the history of 1963-65 Frankfurt Auschwitztrial has suddenly become accessible as a result of these two new resources, marking a long overdue but vital contribution to the field of war crimes trials and the history of _Vergangenheitsbewältigung_.
Notes [1]. Statistics taken from C.M. Clark, "West German Confronts the Nazi Past:Some Recent Debates on the Early Postwar Era, 1945-1960," _The EuropeanLegacy_ 4 (1999), p. 122. For details on the amnesty campaigns of the late1940s and 1950s, see Norbert Frei, _Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past:The Politics of Amnesty and Integration_, translated by J. Golb (New York:Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 203-233.
[2]. Ian Buruma, _The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan_(London: Vintage, 1995), p. 149.
[3]. Mark Osiel, _Mass Atrocity, Collective Memory and the Law_ (NewBrunswick: Transaction, 1997), pp. 192-193.
[4]. Existing works on the Auschwitz case have been confined to publications during the 1960s by trial observers. See Bernd Naumann, _Auschwitz: A Reporton the Proceedings Against Robert Karl Ludwig Mulka and Others Before theCourt at Frankfurt_, translated by J. Steinberg (London: Pall Mall Press,1966); and Hermann Langbein, _Der Auschwitz-Prozess: Eine Dokumentation_(Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1965).
Copyright (c) 2006 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.
What is this book's place in the literature that include's Goldhagen's _Ordinary Germans_? Or Hannah Arent's _Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil_? Did it take sensationalism in the local press for Germans to take a look at what they had, in one way or another, permitted? Why was the subject Court placed in essentially the same position as the Nazi tribunal that looked at "corruption" at Auschwitz in 1943 -- looking only, really, at those people who went beyong the "call of duty" to satisfy their own bloodlust? What about the "duty" itself? Was that ever called into question during the trial? Or were these statistical "outliers"?
I think that Arendt's book concerning the Eichmann trial and its motivations and conduct is quintessential reading to answer some of these questions which certainly, because of newly available documentation, is first exposed in the subject book. But the trial of Eichmann in Israel in 1962 exposed, if these trials did not, the sense of the overall involvement, the banality if you will, of the "duty" of "ordinary Germans" to make Germany "Judenrein". This book will go on my "to read" list to fill in some holes in my understanding at the very least with the hope that it will demonstrate its worth on its own merit based on the newly available documentation.
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-German@h-net.msu.edu
(February 2006) Rebecca Wittmann. _Beyond Justice: The Auschwitz Trial_. Cambridge andLondon: Harvard University Press, 2005. ix + 336 pp. Illustrations, notes,bibliography, index. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-674-01694-7.
Digitale Bibliothek. _Der Auschwitz-Prozeß_. Herausgegeben vom Fritz BauerInstitut Frankfurt am Main und dem Staatlichen Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau.Berlin: Directmedia, 2004. EUR 45.00 (DVD-ROM), ISBN 3-89853-501-0.
Reviewed for H-German by Caroline Sharples, Department of History,University of Southampton
Putting the Past on Trial
The Auschwitz trial was the largest Nazi war crimes trial to take placeunder the jurisdiction of the Federal Republic. Staged in Frankfurt am Mainbetween December 1963 and August 1965, the proceedings against twenty formerextermination camp personnel lasted over 180 days and called upon 254witnesses. The trial commanded massive media attention, both within the WestGerman state and abroad. It stood in stark contrast to earlier West Germantreatment of Nazi atrocities. During the late 1940s, popular voices calledfor an end to the Allied-imposed denazification process, and for theamnesties of those already sentenced by Allied tribunals. Once the FederalRepublic gained its sovereignty in 1949, the number of war crimesprosecutions fell rapidly. The Allies rendered 5,006 convictions between1947 and 1950; in 1954, there were just 44.[1]
It was not until the UlmEinsatzkommando trial in 1958 and the subsequent establishment of theZentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltung zur Aufklärungnationalsozialistischer Verbrechen in Ludwigsburg that the West Germanjudiciary was seen to be taking the Nazi past more seriously.As a result, the Auschwitz trial--together with the 1961 prosecution ofAdolf Eichmann in Jerusalem--has been popularly regarded by historians asone of the key factors in inspiring a more critical West German engagementwith the legacy of the Third Reich.
Ian Buruma insists that, for the WestGerman people, the Auschwitz trial "was the one history lesson thatstuck."[2] Similarly, Mark Osiel argues that the trial "captured theimagination of millions of young Germans as virtually nothing about thecountry's past had done before."[3] Despite such claims, however, there hasbeen little critical analysis to date of the trial and its impact upon theWest German population.[4]
This absence of work on the Auschwitz trial stems from the fact that primary source material on the proceedings was not made available to researchers until fairly recently. Federal German law precludedthe release of trial documents until thirty years after the case's conclusion, while the proceedings themselves had been audiotaped rather than transcribed. Only in the last few years has the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt completed the transcription of some fifty hours worth of tape recordings.
Rebecca Wittmann's new book thus represents the first detailed study on the trial, a valuable contribution that draws upon previously untapped evidence and fills a significant gap within existing war crimes historiography. A glance at Wittmann's work reveals that the long wait for a detailed account of the Auschwitz trial has proved worthwhile.
Over the course of six chapters, the entire history of the trial is laid bare in meticulous detail from its inception to the final sentencing. For those unfamiliar with thehistory of Nazi war crimes trials up to this point, the first chapter provides a concise overview, exploring earlier Allied policies as well as competing political interpretations of the Nazi past played out between Adenauer and Schumacher during the formative years of the Federal Republic. Wittmann explains the nature of the West German penal code and its capacity for dealing with Nazi crimes, together with the ongoing political debates onthe Statute of Limitations that came to characterize the 1960s.
The remaining five chapters deal in turn with pre-trial investigations leading up to the Auschwitz trial, the indictment, the course of the trial itself, the judgment and, finally, the response leveled at the verdict by Fritz Bauer (Attorney General for the State of Hesse), the media (including theWest German and international press), Holocaust survivors and other contemporary observers.Wittmann's chief argument rests in her claim that--despite all the educational ambitions invested by prosecuting agencies in the run up to the trial, and despite the subsequent claims made by historians--the Auschwitz trial produced a paradoxical result.
It certainly brought the history of the extermination camp to a far wider West German audience, inspiring Peter Weiss's 1965 play, _The Investigation_, and producing much excitement among the West German media. The press followed the proceedings avidly, with dramatic headlines relaying each day's events to their readers. Yet the very nature of this press coverage distorted reality. Sensationalized articles demonized the defendants and emphasized the most sadistic acts described in the Frankfurt courtroom. Wittmann comments, "It was almost a pornography ofthe Holocaust, that both sold papers and distanced the general public from the monsters on the stand whose actions were reported in graphic detail"(p.176).
This implicit distinction between the perpetrators of the Holocaust and the"ordinary" West German population, though, could be traced back to the nature of the proceedings themselves. Indeed, as Wittmann argues, the language of the indictment revealed how the basis for bringing the defendants to trial rested on "the maltreatment of prisoners and excessive cruelty leading to death, rather than murder per se" (p.101). During the trial itself, lesser crimes were relativized, not least as a result of a reliance on the testimony of former SS personnel.
In 1943, the Morgen Commission was sent to Auschwitz to investigate allegations of corruption among the camp staff. Its leader, former Nazi judge Konrad Morgen, now appeared in Frankfurt, outlining examples where defendants had used their own initiative to follow their sadistic instincts. As a result, the Auschwitz proceedings became a trial of excess perpetrators, men who could clearly be seen as going beyond the call of "duty" to satisfy their own bloodlust. Wittmann notes that "the limitations of the law obscured more than they revealed, by making the prosecution dependent on the same standards of illegality the Nazis themselves had used to investigate criminal activity in the camps" (p.271-2).Wittmann's book thus provides a refreshing corrective to previous scholarlyclaims about the impact of the Auschwitz trial. Through her careful and immensely detailed analysis of the proceedings, Wittmann offers new evidence of the trial's impact upon the West German people, and the extent to which it really can be said to have altered popular attitudes towards the Nazi past.
Her findings highlight the contradictory nature of war crimes trials and their treatment within the media, underlining the need to go beyond conventional historical narratives and acknowledge the complexities involved within any study of _Vergangenheitsbewältigung_ in 1960s West Germany.
As Wittmann concludes: "There is no doubt that the Auschwitz trial did, at least for a short time, bring the atrocities of the Nazi regime to the fore.The daily press coverage and most especially the widely staged, important and sensational play _The Investigation_ by Peter Weiss, provided constant reminders to the public of the crimes committed by former Nazis who were then living in freedom in Germany.... At the same time, though, most people saw the grisly crimes of the sadistic defendants as if they were part of a macabre fantasy world...and did not make a connection between the perpetrators on trial, the harmless neighbors living peacefully beside them, and their own role in the Nazi past.
To them the trial seemed to have done its job, properly punishing the real monsters and leaving the rest, people who had been confused, coerced or brainwashed into collaborating with the Nazis, to go on with their lives" (p.247).
A perfect accompaniment to Wittmann's study comes in the form of a newDVD-ROM compiled by the Fritz Bauer Institute and the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum. This resource provides a good starting point for examining the trial. It contains a wealth of documents, photographs, plans and transcripts from the Auschwitz trial, including witness statements. A brief overview of each of the twenty defendants is included, citing their date of birth, former SS rank and role in the Nazi regime and the charges leveled against them. Users are able to follow the key moments in the trial from start to finish, or look up key terms or individual names within an easy to use search facility. The program even includes some of the audio recordings from the proceedings, enabling us to hear the testimonies for ourselves andliterally bringing the case to life.
Thus, after decades of neglect, the history of 1963-65 Frankfurt Auschwitztrial has suddenly become accessible as a result of these two new resources, marking a long overdue but vital contribution to the field of war crimes trials and the history of _Vergangenheitsbewältigung_.
Notes [1]. Statistics taken from C.M. Clark, "West German Confronts the Nazi Past:Some Recent Debates on the Early Postwar Era, 1945-1960," _The EuropeanLegacy_ 4 (1999), p. 122. For details on the amnesty campaigns of the late1940s and 1950s, see Norbert Frei, _Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past:The Politics of Amnesty and Integration_, translated by J. Golb (New York:Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 203-233.
[2]. Ian Buruma, _The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan_(London: Vintage, 1995), p. 149.
[3]. Mark Osiel, _Mass Atrocity, Collective Memory and the Law_ (NewBrunswick: Transaction, 1997), pp. 192-193.
[4]. Existing works on the Auschwitz case have been confined to publications during the 1960s by trial observers. See Bernd Naumann, _Auschwitz: A Reporton the Proceedings Against Robert Karl Ludwig Mulka and Others Before theCourt at Frankfurt_, translated by J. Steinberg (London: Pall Mall Press,1966); and Hermann Langbein, _Der Auschwitz-Prozess: Eine Dokumentation_(Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1965).
Copyright (c) 2006 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.
The following is an interesting article from the University of Pittsburgh's student newspaper. It discusses the nature and findings of a Pitt professor who (contrary, really to the title of the article) makes more sense out of the "theory" of evolution in light of advances in our knowledge of molecular cell biology.
The Pitt News - Professor challenges evolution
What is fascinating is are the responses to the article. Some are obviously from professors; others are from those who would cram "Intentional Design" theory (creationism in new clothes) down the throat of people who would look to some rational explanation of the basis for the evolution of the earth and its multifarious inhabitants, including bugs, fish, and of course humans.
What had brought this subject to light was the amusing notion that the Bush administration had in censoring an NOAA scientist for stating the truth concerning global warning, something that the Bush Administration apparently does not recognize as something particularly troubling, but that scientists are warning will, if not checked, cause the melting of the polar ice caps, causing (more) disasters of Biblical proportions. Subsequently it was discovered that the Bush Administration had put a 24 year old gentleman who (it turns out) misrepresented himself to his employers as having a college degree, but who nonetheless was given an appointment as the head of the Public Affairs department at the NASA. Mr. Deutsch, the subject individual, apparently sent around a memorandum ordering that all references to the "Big Bang" be followed by the word "theory". All of this was covered in detail by the oft-criticized New York Times which did an excellent job of exposing this clear case of censorship, with those who defied the diktat facing "dire consequences" according to the memorandum.
For a good discussion, see
Censorship Is Alleged at NOAA
Scientists Afraid to Speak Out, NASA Climate Expert Reports
By Juliet EilperinWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, February 11, 2006; Page A07
NEW YORK, Feb. 10 -- James E. Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who sparked an uproar last month by accusing the Bush administration of keeping scientific information from reaching the public, said Friday that officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are also muzzling researchers who study global warming.
Hansen, speaking in a panel discussion about science and the environment before a packed audience at the New School university, said that while he hopes his own agency will soon adopt a more open policy, NOAA insists on having "a minder" monitor its scientists when they discuss their findings with journalists.
James E. Hansen, NASA's leading climate scientist, told a New York audience that NOAA scientists are being censored on global warming. (Melanie Patterson - AP)
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"It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," said Hansen, prompting a round of applause from the audience. He added that while NOAA officials said they maintain the policy for their scientists' protection, "if you buy that one please see me at the break, because there's a bridge down the street I'd like to sell you."
NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher denied Hansen's charges, saying his agency requires its scientists to tell its press office about contacts with journalists but does not monitor their communications.
"My policy since I've been here is to have a free and open organization," Lautenbacher said. I encourage scientists to conduct peer-reviewed research and provide the honest results of those findings. I stand up for their right to say what they want."
Hansen prefaced his speech, which focused largely on how quickly humans must act in order to prevent irreversible climate change, by saying he was speaking as an individual. "I'm not speaking for the agency or the government," he said.
Most scientists who study climate change have concluded that Earth's current warming is being driven by the burning of fossil fuels. The administration does not question the link between human activity and climate change, but it has called for more research and supports solutions other than mandatory limits on carbon emissions.
After the panel discussion -- which also featured Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer, American Enterprise Institute fellow Steven Hayward and Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich -- Hansen said he knows of NOAA scientists who are chafing at the administration's restrictions but are afraid to speak out.
New School President Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, said he invited Hansen to speak because he was "very concerned" about what he called the administration's efforts to steer the debate over global warming: "It's not only inappropriate; it stifles the very debate we're trying to have today, and that we need to have on this issue."
Kerrey said of Hansen, "He's not a radical; he's a scientist who's studied the issue. Let the disagreement occur without stifling one side of the argument."
After Hansen told the New York Times and The Washington Post in late January that political appointees at NASA had made it hard for him and other researchers to convey their findings on climate change to the public, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin e-mailed agency employees last week and vowed to support "scientific openness."
Griffin, who had been chastised by House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) over the issue earlier in the week, said he would draft a new policy that would respect scientists' right to speak out.
In an interview Friday, Boehlert -- who has met personally with Griffin and spoken on the phone with him several times since the controversy erupted last month -- said he was satisfied Griffin was taking the necessary steps.
"The administration should make it abundantly clear, as Michael Griffin did in his letter to NASA employees, that there will be no effort, in any way, shape or form, deliberate or hinted at, that would stifle a respected scientist working for the government, doing research paid for by the American taxpayers, from talking about their work," Boehlert said.
He added that he had not received "outpourings from the scientific community" alleging government censorship and that, to his knowledge, "there are no plans in place to intimidate or stifle science."
Also Friday, George C. Deutsch, 24, a NASA spokesman who resigned this week after allegations that he had edited scientists' writings to conform to administration views and tried to limit reporters' access to Hansen, e-mailed reporters to say there is a "culture war" in the government over climate change. Deutsch's resignation came after it was learned he had not graduated from Texas A&M University, as he claimed on his resume.
"There is no pressure or mandate, from the Bush administration or elsewhere, to alter or water down scientific data at NASA, period," Deutsch said, adding that after being tasked to work with Hansen, "I quickly learned one thing: Dr. Hansen and his supporters have a very partisan agenda and ties reaching to the top of the Democratic Party.
"Anyone perceived to be a Republican, a Bush supporter or a Christian is singled out and labeled a threat to their views. I encourage anyone interested in this story to consider the other side, to consider Dr. Hansen' s true motivations and to consider the dangerous implications of only hearing out one side of the global warming debate," Deutsch said.
The Pitt News - Professor challenges evolution
What is fascinating is are the responses to the article. Some are obviously from professors; others are from those who would cram "Intentional Design" theory (creationism in new clothes) down the throat of people who would look to some rational explanation of the basis for the evolution of the earth and its multifarious inhabitants, including bugs, fish, and of course humans.
What had brought this subject to light was the amusing notion that the Bush administration had in censoring an NOAA scientist for stating the truth concerning global warning, something that the Bush Administration apparently does not recognize as something particularly troubling, but that scientists are warning will, if not checked, cause the melting of the polar ice caps, causing (more) disasters of Biblical proportions. Subsequently it was discovered that the Bush Administration had put a 24 year old gentleman who (it turns out) misrepresented himself to his employers as having a college degree, but who nonetheless was given an appointment as the head of the Public Affairs department at the NASA. Mr. Deutsch, the subject individual, apparently sent around a memorandum ordering that all references to the "Big Bang" be followed by the word "theory". All of this was covered in detail by the oft-criticized New York Times which did an excellent job of exposing this clear case of censorship, with those who defied the diktat facing "dire consequences" according to the memorandum.
For a good discussion, see
Censorship Is Alleged at NOAA
Scientists Afraid to Speak Out, NASA Climate Expert Reports
By Juliet EilperinWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, February 11, 2006; Page A07
NEW YORK, Feb. 10 -- James E. Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who sparked an uproar last month by accusing the Bush administration of keeping scientific information from reaching the public, said Friday that officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are also muzzling researchers who study global warming.
Hansen, speaking in a panel discussion about science and the environment before a packed audience at the New School university, said that while he hopes his own agency will soon adopt a more open policy, NOAA insists on having "a minder" monitor its scientists when they discuss their findings with journalists.
James E. Hansen, NASA's leading climate scientist, told a New York audience that NOAA scientists are being censored on global warming. (Melanie Patterson - AP)
var technorati = new Technorati() ;
technorati.setProperty('url','http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001766_Technorati.html') ;
technorati.article = new item('Censorship Is Alleged at NOAA','http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001766.html','NEW YORK, Feb. 10 -- James E. Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who sparked an uproar last month by accusing the Bush administration of keeping scientific information from reaching the public, said Friday that officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are also muzzling...','Juliet Eilperin') ;
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"It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," said Hansen, prompting a round of applause from the audience. He added that while NOAA officials said they maintain the policy for their scientists' protection, "if you buy that one please see me at the break, because there's a bridge down the street I'd like to sell you."
NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher denied Hansen's charges, saying his agency requires its scientists to tell its press office about contacts with journalists but does not monitor their communications.
"My policy since I've been here is to have a free and open organization," Lautenbacher said. I encourage scientists to conduct peer-reviewed research and provide the honest results of those findings. I stand up for their right to say what they want."
Hansen prefaced his speech, which focused largely on how quickly humans must act in order to prevent irreversible climate change, by saying he was speaking as an individual. "I'm not speaking for the agency or the government," he said.
Most scientists who study climate change have concluded that Earth's current warming is being driven by the burning of fossil fuels. The administration does not question the link between human activity and climate change, but it has called for more research and supports solutions other than mandatory limits on carbon emissions.
After the panel discussion -- which also featured Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer, American Enterprise Institute fellow Steven Hayward and Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich -- Hansen said he knows of NOAA scientists who are chafing at the administration's restrictions but are afraid to speak out.
New School President Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, said he invited Hansen to speak because he was "very concerned" about what he called the administration's efforts to steer the debate over global warming: "It's not only inappropriate; it stifles the very debate we're trying to have today, and that we need to have on this issue."
Kerrey said of Hansen, "He's not a radical; he's a scientist who's studied the issue. Let the disagreement occur without stifling one side of the argument."
After Hansen told the New York Times and The Washington Post in late January that political appointees at NASA had made it hard for him and other researchers to convey their findings on climate change to the public, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin e-mailed agency employees last week and vowed to support "scientific openness."
Griffin, who had been chastised by House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) over the issue earlier in the week, said he would draft a new policy that would respect scientists' right to speak out.
In an interview Friday, Boehlert -- who has met personally with Griffin and spoken on the phone with him several times since the controversy erupted last month -- said he was satisfied Griffin was taking the necessary steps.
"The administration should make it abundantly clear, as Michael Griffin did in his letter to NASA employees, that there will be no effort, in any way, shape or form, deliberate or hinted at, that would stifle a respected scientist working for the government, doing research paid for by the American taxpayers, from talking about their work," Boehlert said.
He added that he had not received "outpourings from the scientific community" alleging government censorship and that, to his knowledge, "there are no plans in place to intimidate or stifle science."
Also Friday, George C. Deutsch, 24, a NASA spokesman who resigned this week after allegations that he had edited scientists' writings to conform to administration views and tried to limit reporters' access to Hansen, e-mailed reporters to say there is a "culture war" in the government over climate change. Deutsch's resignation came after it was learned he had not graduated from Texas A&M University, as he claimed on his resume.
"There is no pressure or mandate, from the Bush administration or elsewhere, to alter or water down scientific data at NASA, period," Deutsch said, adding that after being tasked to work with Hansen, "I quickly learned one thing: Dr. Hansen and his supporters have a very partisan agenda and ties reaching to the top of the Democratic Party.
"Anyone perceived to be a Republican, a Bush supporter or a Christian is singled out and labeled a threat to their views. I encourage anyone interested in this story to consider the other side, to consider Dr. Hansen' s true motivations and to consider the dangerous implications of only hearing out one side of the global warming debate," Deutsch said.
10 February 2006
Today I was sent a copy of the first chapter of David Horowitz's new book _The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America_ which was published on a website I rarely visit since it is basically a "conservative" rag which doesn't hold terribly much for me. (The reality is that these labels have, over the course of the past few years become less and less meaningful, so that dear ol' mom's turn of the phrase "you can learn from a worm" holds very true, though mostly these people aren't worms.)
The posting is http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21249
The following is some commentary I had to someone who hadn't seen the article and to whom I had sent it:
That bastard Ward Churchill is a real peach. I saw him interviewed on Charlie Rose, and you just wanted to beat the shit out of him for what he said about the people who died on 9/11 being "little Eichmanns". As if this git ever even opened Hannah Arendt's _Eichmann In Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil _ to know who or what Eichmann was. I thought at the time that he really was an American Indian, so I gave him a little slack. Not that I didn't think his statements were any less outrageous because of his supposed background. Just that he might have some unresolved anger issues.
Now Horowitz tells us that he's a regular white guy who doesn't even have the qualifications to shine my shoes, not to mention poisoning minds at a relatively major state university. The problem with the professors at the major universities is that they aren't idiots: they are just hateful, vile individuals who just hate _____________________________ . (you name it)
I am the first to defend a professor's right to his/her opinions. In college in Madison, you knew that if you took Goldberg's political science course, you were going to get a dose of Marxism --- he was a Marxist. But in these cases (especially among the so-called Middle East Studies Departments at, for example Harvard) they are funded in large measure by Islamic foundations and oftentimes directly by the government of Saudi Arabia or individuals who are in it. And they all have their money to spend. And have done so lavishly at our finest universities to keep the professors apologizing for their colleagues who don't, for example, think cartoons of the prophet Mohammed are particularly amusing, whether or not they are editorial in nature or not. Then there are those who just hate Israel and Jews and won't hear any commentary in response. It's gotten, for Jewish kids on major university college campuses, so bad that they cannot express their views for fear of a) pissing off the wrong professor or b) getting beaten up by the local Arabs. Check out www.campuswatch.com for what I am talking about.
Academia has really run wild. Beyond the pale of reasonable discourse at institutions of higher learning. There has to be some balance between academic freedom and hate speech. Maybe that isn't even the standard; I don't know. . .
The posting is http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21249
The following is some commentary I had to someone who hadn't seen the article and to whom I had sent it:
That bastard Ward Churchill is a real peach. I saw him interviewed on Charlie Rose, and you just wanted to beat the shit out of him for what he said about the people who died on 9/11 being "little Eichmanns". As if this git ever even opened Hannah Arendt's _Eichmann In Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil _ to know who or what Eichmann was. I thought at the time that he really was an American Indian, so I gave him a little slack. Not that I didn't think his statements were any less outrageous because of his supposed background. Just that he might have some unresolved anger issues.
Now Horowitz tells us that he's a regular white guy who doesn't even have the qualifications to shine my shoes, not to mention poisoning minds at a relatively major state university. The problem with the professors at the major universities is that they aren't idiots: they are just hateful, vile individuals who just hate _____________________________ . (you name it)
I am the first to defend a professor's right to his/her opinions. In college in Madison, you knew that if you took Goldberg's political science course, you were going to get a dose of Marxism --- he was a Marxist. But in these cases (especially among the so-called Middle East Studies Departments at, for example Harvard) they are funded in large measure by Islamic foundations and oftentimes directly by the government of Saudi Arabia or individuals who are in it. And they all have their money to spend. And have done so lavishly at our finest universities to keep the professors apologizing for their colleagues who don't, for example, think cartoons of the prophet Mohammed are particularly amusing, whether or not they are editorial in nature or not. Then there are those who just hate Israel and Jews and won't hear any commentary in response. It's gotten, for Jewish kids on major university college campuses, so bad that they cannot express their views for fear of a) pissing off the wrong professor or b) getting beaten up by the local Arabs. Check out www.campuswatch.com for what I am talking about.
Academia has really run wild. Beyond the pale of reasonable discourse at institutions of higher learning. There has to be some balance between academic freedom and hate speech. Maybe that isn't even the standard; I don't know. . .
16 November 2003
Los Angeles Times: Blasts Rock Synagogues in Turkey, Killing 20
Blasts Rock Synagogues in Turkey, Killing 20
The two car bombings in Istanbul also injure hundreds, most outside the targeted buildings.
By Amberin Zaman and Tracy Wilkinson
Special to The Times
November 16, 2003
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Nearly simultaneous car bombs tore into two crowded synagogues during Shabbat prayers here Saturday, killing at least 20 people and laying waste to neighborhoods where Jews have lived easily for generations among Turkey's Muslim majority.
More than 300 people were injured, many critically, officials said.
The government quickly blamed "international terrorists" for the attack, the latest in a string of bombings of civilian targets in Muslim countries.
One bomb detonated outside the Neve Shalom Synagogue, the city's largest, as congregants celebrated a bar mitzvah. The second blast heavily damaged the new Beth Israel Synagogue in the affluent district of Sisli, three miles away.
Most victims appeared to have been people struck down outside the tightly guarded synagogues, but numerous bloodied, burned worshipers were also pulled from inside one of the synagogues, and officials with one organization, the Jewish Agency, identified five Jews among the dead.
"I was praying when suddenly there was an explosion under us and all the windows blew open and I was left standing in shock in the middle of a great cloud of heavy smoke," the chief rabbi of Turkey, Isak Haleva, told Israeli radio.
His son was among those wounded at Beth Israel and was undergoing surgery in a local hospital, he said.
The dead included a Turkish police officer and a security guard posted at one synagogue, Turkish officials said.
The twin blasts, coming within moments of each other, sheared facades from 19th-century buildings, shattered windows for miles and hurled people and debris into the air.
At the Neve Shalom Synagogue in the historic Galata district, the bomb left a mammoth crater in the street.
Inside, a visiting American rabbi was leading services when the bomb exploded. He was not hurt.
Gulen Hurley, a film producer who lives near the Neve Shalom Synagogue, heard the huge explosion, felt her building shake and then rushed to her balcony to see masses of bleeding victims and others running about in panic.
"At first I thought it was an earthquake," she said. Then she saw a wounded rabbi clamber onto the roof of the synagogue, lift his arms to the sky and scream: "We will not leave! We will not leave!"
It was not immediately clear whether the explosions were the work of suicide bombers or were activated by remote control or a timing device. Footage from security cameras showed a red Fiat being parked in front of Neve Shalom and the driver walking away before the vehicle exploded, reported the Turkish Anatolian news agency, citing police.
A small group immediately claimed responsibility, but officials were uncertain whether to take the claim seriously.
Islamic fundamentalist groups associated with the Al Qaeda terrorist network have threatened to attack Jewish and Western targets, especially in countries seen as supportive of the United States, as Turkey is.
Both the apparently coordinated bombings and the extent of damage echoed recent attacks attributed to Al Qaeda-linked groups in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and elsewhere. Jewish sites were targeted in attacks blamed on Al Qaeda associates in May in Casablanca, last November in Kenya and April 2002 in Tunisia.
"It is clear that this is a terrorist event with international links," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told Turkish television.
The casualty toll rose steadily through the day. The Istanbul health directorate said at least 20 people were killed.
"Obviously, an act of this scale suggests an organization [outside] Turkey," Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said as he arrived to inspect the destruction. "We are considering every organization, both internal and international."
Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country, and the government is led by an Islamic party, but it remains strictly secular and has unusually good relations with Israel, including strong military ties.
It is one of the few countries in the region where Israelis feel comfortable vacationing and where they go in droves, with Israeli travel agencies offering regular charter flights.
At least at the official level, Turkey prides itself on the generally peaceful coexistence of its Muslim majority and its 27,000-strong Jewish community.
Jews flocked to Turkey, then the center of the Ottoman Empire, after expulsion from Spain and other parts of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Turkey was the first Muslim nation to recognize Israel after its founding in 1948.
A member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Turkey is also a close ally of the United States.
Although bilateral relations have been strained recently, Turkey supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and offered to send troops to postwar Iraq. Those plans have been abandoned, however, in large part because of Iraqi opposition.
Turkey's private NTV television quoted police as saying they had intelligence recently that Al Qaeda might have been preparing attacks in Turkey.
The Anatolian news agency reported receiving a telephone call from a person claiming to be from a radical Turkish group, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, who took responsibility for the attack. The caller threatened "to prevent the oppression against Muslims," Anatolian said. Officials were evaluating the claim.
Lamp vendor Can Kurt, 49, whose shop is across the street from the Neve Shalom Synagogue, said he rushed outside after a deafening explosion filled the street with white smoke.
"The scene was horrific," he said. "Dismembered limbs, fingers, even ears were strewn across the street as bloodied people fled in panic, screaming in pain."
Huge shards of glass fell "from the sky" to slice people, he said, "like Judgment Day." Five of his friends were killed in the bombing, he said.
At the Sisli Etfal Hospital, not far from the Beth Israel Synagogue, scores of Turks queued to donate blood for the bomb victims.
"This is my way of helping in the war against terrorism," said Sefika Eroglu, a 43-year-old homemaker waiting in line. "I want to save lives — Jewish, Muslim, it doesn't matter."
The Neve Shalom Synagogue was also the site of a bloody attack 17 years ago. Gunmen linked to radical Palestinian militant Abu Nidal shot and killed 22 worshipers during a Sabbath service.
In 1992, Hezbollah detonated an explosive at the synagogue, but no one was seriously injured. Security has been tight since, with heavy metal barriers erected in front of the temple and access restricted.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a devout Muslim, condemned the bombings as "an attack against the humanity."
"This is a bomb aimed at the stability and peace in the Turkish Republic," he said in Cyprus, where he was on an official visit.
Israel, which was sending a team to Turkey to assist, condemned the blasts as "criminal terror attacks."
Israeli Foreign Ministry official Daniel Shek said his country empathized with the victims in Istanbul, who were experiencing "a feeling we know all too well."
Israeli media closely followed the attacks with television and radio offering nonstop coverage. TV footage repeated scenes of frantic rescuers, bleeding victims and smoldering rubble with narration from somber-faced news anchors. Radio stations played melancholy music typically reserved for the aftermath of bombings by Palestinians.
In Istanbul, Ivo Molinas, a spokesman for the Istanbul rabbinate, said Turkey was being punished for its friendliness to Jews and to Israel.
"There are two reasons why this attack took place," he said. "One is to kill as many Jews as possible. The other is to show the government of Turkey that if you have good relations with Israel this is what will happen."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writer Wilkinson and special correspondent Zaman reported from Istanbul. Staff writer Laura King in Jerusalem contributed to this report
Blasts Rock Synagogues in Turkey, Killing 20
The two car bombings in Istanbul also injure hundreds, most outside the targeted buildings.
By Amberin Zaman and Tracy Wilkinson
Special to The Times
November 16, 2003
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Nearly simultaneous car bombs tore into two crowded synagogues during Shabbat prayers here Saturday, killing at least 20 people and laying waste to neighborhoods where Jews have lived easily for generations among Turkey's Muslim majority.
More than 300 people were injured, many critically, officials said.
The government quickly blamed "international terrorists" for the attack, the latest in a string of bombings of civilian targets in Muslim countries.
One bomb detonated outside the Neve Shalom Synagogue, the city's largest, as congregants celebrated a bar mitzvah. The second blast heavily damaged the new Beth Israel Synagogue in the affluent district of Sisli, three miles away.
Most victims appeared to have been people struck down outside the tightly guarded synagogues, but numerous bloodied, burned worshipers were also pulled from inside one of the synagogues, and officials with one organization, the Jewish Agency, identified five Jews among the dead.
"I was praying when suddenly there was an explosion under us and all the windows blew open and I was left standing in shock in the middle of a great cloud of heavy smoke," the chief rabbi of Turkey, Isak Haleva, told Israeli radio.
His son was among those wounded at Beth Israel and was undergoing surgery in a local hospital, he said.
The dead included a Turkish police officer and a security guard posted at one synagogue, Turkish officials said.
The twin blasts, coming within moments of each other, sheared facades from 19th-century buildings, shattered windows for miles and hurled people and debris into the air.
At the Neve Shalom Synagogue in the historic Galata district, the bomb left a mammoth crater in the street.
Inside, a visiting American rabbi was leading services when the bomb exploded. He was not hurt.
Gulen Hurley, a film producer who lives near the Neve Shalom Synagogue, heard the huge explosion, felt her building shake and then rushed to her balcony to see masses of bleeding victims and others running about in panic.
"At first I thought it was an earthquake," she said. Then she saw a wounded rabbi clamber onto the roof of the synagogue, lift his arms to the sky and scream: "We will not leave! We will not leave!"
It was not immediately clear whether the explosions were the work of suicide bombers or were activated by remote control or a timing device. Footage from security cameras showed a red Fiat being parked in front of Neve Shalom and the driver walking away before the vehicle exploded, reported the Turkish Anatolian news agency, citing police.
A small group immediately claimed responsibility, but officials were uncertain whether to take the claim seriously.
Islamic fundamentalist groups associated with the Al Qaeda terrorist network have threatened to attack Jewish and Western targets, especially in countries seen as supportive of the United States, as Turkey is.
Both the apparently coordinated bombings and the extent of damage echoed recent attacks attributed to Al Qaeda-linked groups in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and elsewhere. Jewish sites were targeted in attacks blamed on Al Qaeda associates in May in Casablanca, last November in Kenya and April 2002 in Tunisia.
"It is clear that this is a terrorist event with international links," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told Turkish television.
The casualty toll rose steadily through the day. The Istanbul health directorate said at least 20 people were killed.
"Obviously, an act of this scale suggests an organization [outside] Turkey," Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said as he arrived to inspect the destruction. "We are considering every organization, both internal and international."
Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country, and the government is led by an Islamic party, but it remains strictly secular and has unusually good relations with Israel, including strong military ties.
It is one of the few countries in the region where Israelis feel comfortable vacationing and where they go in droves, with Israeli travel agencies offering regular charter flights.
At least at the official level, Turkey prides itself on the generally peaceful coexistence of its Muslim majority and its 27,000-strong Jewish community.
Jews flocked to Turkey, then the center of the Ottoman Empire, after expulsion from Spain and other parts of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Turkey was the first Muslim nation to recognize Israel after its founding in 1948.
A member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Turkey is also a close ally of the United States.
Although bilateral relations have been strained recently, Turkey supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and offered to send troops to postwar Iraq. Those plans have been abandoned, however, in large part because of Iraqi opposition.
Turkey's private NTV television quoted police as saying they had intelligence recently that Al Qaeda might have been preparing attacks in Turkey.
The Anatolian news agency reported receiving a telephone call from a person claiming to be from a radical Turkish group, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, who took responsibility for the attack. The caller threatened "to prevent the oppression against Muslims," Anatolian said. Officials were evaluating the claim.
Lamp vendor Can Kurt, 49, whose shop is across the street from the Neve Shalom Synagogue, said he rushed outside after a deafening explosion filled the street with white smoke.
"The scene was horrific," he said. "Dismembered limbs, fingers, even ears were strewn across the street as bloodied people fled in panic, screaming in pain."
Huge shards of glass fell "from the sky" to slice people, he said, "like Judgment Day." Five of his friends were killed in the bombing, he said.
At the Sisli Etfal Hospital, not far from the Beth Israel Synagogue, scores of Turks queued to donate blood for the bomb victims.
"This is my way of helping in the war against terrorism," said Sefika Eroglu, a 43-year-old homemaker waiting in line. "I want to save lives — Jewish, Muslim, it doesn't matter."
The Neve Shalom Synagogue was also the site of a bloody attack 17 years ago. Gunmen linked to radical Palestinian militant Abu Nidal shot and killed 22 worshipers during a Sabbath service.
In 1992, Hezbollah detonated an explosive at the synagogue, but no one was seriously injured. Security has been tight since, with heavy metal barriers erected in front of the temple and access restricted.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a devout Muslim, condemned the bombings as "an attack against the humanity."
"This is a bomb aimed at the stability and peace in the Turkish Republic," he said in Cyprus, where he was on an official visit.
Israel, which was sending a team to Turkey to assist, condemned the blasts as "criminal terror attacks."
Israeli Foreign Ministry official Daniel Shek said his country empathized with the victims in Istanbul, who were experiencing "a feeling we know all too well."
Israeli media closely followed the attacks with television and radio offering nonstop coverage. TV footage repeated scenes of frantic rescuers, bleeding victims and smoldering rubble with narration from somber-faced news anchors. Radio stations played melancholy music typically reserved for the aftermath of bombings by Palestinians.
In Istanbul, Ivo Molinas, a spokesman for the Istanbul rabbinate, said Turkey was being punished for its friendliness to Jews and to Israel.
"There are two reasons why this attack took place," he said. "One is to kill as many Jews as possible. The other is to show the government of Turkey that if you have good relations with Israel this is what will happen."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writer Wilkinson and special correspondent Zaman reported from Istanbul. Staff writer Laura King in Jerusalem contributed to this report
15 November 2003
An Island of Hope Across An Ocean of Uncertainty
The Growing Alliance Between Israel and India
By Sima Borkovski
Upon first glance, there seems to be an ocean of difference between India and Israel. The first is a country so vast that it covers an entire subcontinent and encompasses 16 official languages and numerous cultures and religions–a variety that would take a lifetime to explore. The second, a country established explicitly as the homeland for one particular people under one language and culture, is so small that it can hardly be detected when looking at a globe.
India is a country steeped in tradition and in an ancient caste system that is, for the most part, still adhered to religiously. A man is born into his place in society and there is little room for him to escape it should he wish to do so. In her book, "Arranged Marriage" (1995), the Indian-American writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni describes the relations between the sexes in India today. Marriages, she writes, are still arranged, even among those who otherwise fully participate in modern ways of life or who have spent years abroad in the West. The match is made to reflect the wealth and social standing of the two families involved, and the woman is usually expected to become a part of her husband’s family. A divorced woman must give up her possessions and return to her parental home in shame.
Israel, by contrast, is a young country created on the notion of starting over with a new identity for its people, one that would distinguish itself from that of the suffering, victimized shtetl Jew formed over centuries of persecution in the Diaspora. The early settlers who came to Palestine from Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century wanted so much to resemble the land’s native habitants that they dressed like Arabs. Slowly, the image of the "New Jew" took hold: one who possessed physical strength and knew how to work the land and to fight his enemies.
A second look at both countries, however, will reveal commonalties that may run deeper than is at first obvious. Both India and Israel today are modern nation-states that were created out of British imperialism. Though the experience of exile is unique to the Jews, the peoples of India and Israel share a deep connection to their respective countries. The peoples of India have continuously inhabited the subcontinent, while Jewish roots in the Land of Israel hark back thousands of years, the connection to the land having been maintained in the imagination through centuries of prayer and poetry. The traditions that shape Judaism today are as ancient in their origins as those that shape Indian culture. The Ultra-Orthodox are no strangers to arranged marriages and the role of patriarchy.
Since its founding in 1948 the struggle between traditional and secular in Israel has grown. So too, the Israeli farmer has given way to the Thai or Chinese laborer who works the land for him. Yet, agriculture has become an area in which Israel has developed great expertise. And due to years of fighting hostile neighbors, Israel has developed a second area of expertise: national security and defense. It is in these two areas that the modern states of Israel and India have today found common ground and around which they have begun to build an alliance.
Moti Amihai, director of the South Asia department in Israel’s Foreign Ministry describes relations between India and Israel as a success in three key areas: commercial, diplomatic and political. The current blossoming in relations is the result of slow growth and convergence that has taken place over the past 11 years when full diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Jerusalem were first established.
The formation of a "new world order" after the collapse of the Soviet Union made India more open to the values and political agenda of the western world as defined by the U.S., Amihai says. One of the signals of this was India’s new policy of economic liberalization which opened many opportunities for Israel’s business sector. According to Amihai this year’s commercial trade between the two countries totals $1.6 billion. Just last year it was still less than $200 million. An Israeli experimental farm, where various agricultural experiments are being conducted and Indian agriculturists are being introduced to new methods of growing crops and working the land, has been set up in New Delhi. More such farms are planned for the future.
Cultural and intellectual exchanges are also flowering between the two countries. According to Amihai, this year a delegation of four Israeli intellectuals will spend the year on an exchange program in India and next year a group of Indian intellectuals will spend the year on exchange in Israel. The number of Israeli tourists to India has grown to 25,000 per year.
The strongest basis for the alliance between Israel and India is cooperation in military and intelligence matters. After Russia, Israel has become the second-largest supplier of arms to India, which sees Israel as a key ally in fighting terror. Since the division of the British Raj into Pakistan and India, India has been battling terrorism along its northern border with Kashmir. In this, India feels a kinship to Israel’s struggle with Palestinian terrorists. Of late, the rise in radical Islam has loomed as a threat to Indian stability, as it has to the security of Israel. The military alliance does not consist of arms supplies alone, but of an exchange in intelligence and military know-how.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to India on September 2003 was a recent high point in the growing alliance. Sharon’s delegation included three cabinet ministers: Minister of Education, Culture and Sports Limor Livnat, Minister of Justice Yossef "Tommi" Lapid and Minister of Agriculture Israel Katz. These were joined by 30 businesspeople representing various sectors of the business community. Sharon received a royal welcome both from the Indian government as well as the Indian media, which covered the visit in very favorable terms. In his speech at the Indian president’s 340-room Abdul Kadam palace, Sharon expressed the hope that his visit would contribute to the strengthening of Israel’s relations with India, stating that, "we regard India to be one of the most important countries in the world; we share its belief in democracy."
In a tragic irony, Sharon had to cut his visit short by a day and head back to Israel because of another terrorist attack: this time on the Maxim restaurant in Haifa.
If "terror" can be said to be the term governing the developing political ties between Israel and India, then–in odd juxtaposition–it is "tranquility" which governs the draw Israelis feel in travelling to this large, culturally diverse country. Most of the 25,000 yearly tourists want nothing more than to escape the pressures and tension of life in Israel.
According to Nir Kafri, a photographer who has just returned from his second trip to India, Israelis traveling to India can be divided into three groups: The "junkies" who travel in huge groups, picking their destination according to the seasons: northern India in the spring, western India in the winter and so on. They can be spotted by the cheap motorcycles they often ride and their main pursuit is drugs that are illegal and more difficult to obtain in Israel. Kafri says these Israeli tourists resemble swarms of locust taking over a village. And when they arrive it seems as if the entire village has been "taken over." Local shops and restaurants cater to their needs and wishes with such Israeli foods as humus and falafel. Hebrew signs are put up for the duration of their visit and some of the locals have even learned some of the Hebrew language.
Kafri reports that the Indians in these villages don’t seem disturbed by the arrival of these huge groups of Israelis and they haven’t developed hostile feelings toward them, as have local residents in other places, such as Thailand.
The second group of Israelis that Kafri distinguishes are those who come to see the country and experience the culture. They come looking for educational excursions, special sites and interesting people. These Israelis usually travel in ones and twos or threes and avoid large groups. They make use of local means of transportation and try to experience India first-hand in every possible way: by talking to the people, seeing the sites and partaking of the culture.
The third group which, Kafri estimates, probably constitutes the smallest group are made up of what he calls "spiritualists." These are Israelis who hope that India will offer them answers to their spiritual quest. They find refuge in the ashrams and temples that dot the Indian landscape, seeking out instruction in yoga and various forms of meditation. Many of these travelers make a point of going to Daramsalla, a small village in the north of India where the Dalai Lama lives in exile.
Twenty-seven-year-old Noga, who asked that her full name not be used, had some time off after quitting her job and so she decided to visit India. She describes India as a sequence of experiences, all very powerful and sweeping. "Your feelings work overtime when you’re in India" she says. "Every experience is so strong: the tastes, the colors, the smells. There are great amounts of spirituality, especially in Varancy near the Gangas River which is the holiest river in India where dead bodies are burnt and its water is considered holy. When you are so swept up and overwhelmed with stimuli you can truly connect with yourself," she adds. For her, India was a place where the extremes were much more apparent: extreme wealth and abject poverty, great kindness and pure meanness. This, she says, is something one needs to learn and accept with the same tranquility that Indians do.
Noga, who was in India during Sharon’s visit, found that people were very positive about the prime minister’s visit. Describing a sense of common destiny between the two countries, especially in the face of terror, Noga said "We are twin countries; we are like brothers."
http://www.aufbauonline.com/2003/issue22/8.html
The Growing Alliance Between Israel and India
By Sima Borkovski
Upon first glance, there seems to be an ocean of difference between India and Israel. The first is a country so vast that it covers an entire subcontinent and encompasses 16 official languages and numerous cultures and religions–a variety that would take a lifetime to explore. The second, a country established explicitly as the homeland for one particular people under one language and culture, is so small that it can hardly be detected when looking at a globe.
India is a country steeped in tradition and in an ancient caste system that is, for the most part, still adhered to religiously. A man is born into his place in society and there is little room for him to escape it should he wish to do so. In her book, "Arranged Marriage" (1995), the Indian-American writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni describes the relations between the sexes in India today. Marriages, she writes, are still arranged, even among those who otherwise fully participate in modern ways of life or who have spent years abroad in the West. The match is made to reflect the wealth and social standing of the two families involved, and the woman is usually expected to become a part of her husband’s family. A divorced woman must give up her possessions and return to her parental home in shame.
Israel, by contrast, is a young country created on the notion of starting over with a new identity for its people, one that would distinguish itself from that of the suffering, victimized shtetl Jew formed over centuries of persecution in the Diaspora. The early settlers who came to Palestine from Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century wanted so much to resemble the land’s native habitants that they dressed like Arabs. Slowly, the image of the "New Jew" took hold: one who possessed physical strength and knew how to work the land and to fight his enemies.
A second look at both countries, however, will reveal commonalties that may run deeper than is at first obvious. Both India and Israel today are modern nation-states that were created out of British imperialism. Though the experience of exile is unique to the Jews, the peoples of India and Israel share a deep connection to their respective countries. The peoples of India have continuously inhabited the subcontinent, while Jewish roots in the Land of Israel hark back thousands of years, the connection to the land having been maintained in the imagination through centuries of prayer and poetry. The traditions that shape Judaism today are as ancient in their origins as those that shape Indian culture. The Ultra-Orthodox are no strangers to arranged marriages and the role of patriarchy.
Since its founding in 1948 the struggle between traditional and secular in Israel has grown. So too, the Israeli farmer has given way to the Thai or Chinese laborer who works the land for him. Yet, agriculture has become an area in which Israel has developed great expertise. And due to years of fighting hostile neighbors, Israel has developed a second area of expertise: national security and defense. It is in these two areas that the modern states of Israel and India have today found common ground and around which they have begun to build an alliance.
Moti Amihai, director of the South Asia department in Israel’s Foreign Ministry describes relations between India and Israel as a success in three key areas: commercial, diplomatic and political. The current blossoming in relations is the result of slow growth and convergence that has taken place over the past 11 years when full diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Jerusalem were first established.
The formation of a "new world order" after the collapse of the Soviet Union made India more open to the values and political agenda of the western world as defined by the U.S., Amihai says. One of the signals of this was India’s new policy of economic liberalization which opened many opportunities for Israel’s business sector. According to Amihai this year’s commercial trade between the two countries totals $1.6 billion. Just last year it was still less than $200 million. An Israeli experimental farm, where various agricultural experiments are being conducted and Indian agriculturists are being introduced to new methods of growing crops and working the land, has been set up in New Delhi. More such farms are planned for the future.
Cultural and intellectual exchanges are also flowering between the two countries. According to Amihai, this year a delegation of four Israeli intellectuals will spend the year on an exchange program in India and next year a group of Indian intellectuals will spend the year on exchange in Israel. The number of Israeli tourists to India has grown to 25,000 per year.
The strongest basis for the alliance between Israel and India is cooperation in military and intelligence matters. After Russia, Israel has become the second-largest supplier of arms to India, which sees Israel as a key ally in fighting terror. Since the division of the British Raj into Pakistan and India, India has been battling terrorism along its northern border with Kashmir. In this, India feels a kinship to Israel’s struggle with Palestinian terrorists. Of late, the rise in radical Islam has loomed as a threat to Indian stability, as it has to the security of Israel. The military alliance does not consist of arms supplies alone, but of an exchange in intelligence and military know-how.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to India on September 2003 was a recent high point in the growing alliance. Sharon’s delegation included three cabinet ministers: Minister of Education, Culture and Sports Limor Livnat, Minister of Justice Yossef "Tommi" Lapid and Minister of Agriculture Israel Katz. These were joined by 30 businesspeople representing various sectors of the business community. Sharon received a royal welcome both from the Indian government as well as the Indian media, which covered the visit in very favorable terms. In his speech at the Indian president’s 340-room Abdul Kadam palace, Sharon expressed the hope that his visit would contribute to the strengthening of Israel’s relations with India, stating that, "we regard India to be one of the most important countries in the world; we share its belief in democracy."
In a tragic irony, Sharon had to cut his visit short by a day and head back to Israel because of another terrorist attack: this time on the Maxim restaurant in Haifa.
If "terror" can be said to be the term governing the developing political ties between Israel and India, then–in odd juxtaposition–it is "tranquility" which governs the draw Israelis feel in travelling to this large, culturally diverse country. Most of the 25,000 yearly tourists want nothing more than to escape the pressures and tension of life in Israel.
According to Nir Kafri, a photographer who has just returned from his second trip to India, Israelis traveling to India can be divided into three groups: The "junkies" who travel in huge groups, picking their destination according to the seasons: northern India in the spring, western India in the winter and so on. They can be spotted by the cheap motorcycles they often ride and their main pursuit is drugs that are illegal and more difficult to obtain in Israel. Kafri says these Israeli tourists resemble swarms of locust taking over a village. And when they arrive it seems as if the entire village has been "taken over." Local shops and restaurants cater to their needs and wishes with such Israeli foods as humus and falafel. Hebrew signs are put up for the duration of their visit and some of the locals have even learned some of the Hebrew language.
Kafri reports that the Indians in these villages don’t seem disturbed by the arrival of these huge groups of Israelis and they haven’t developed hostile feelings toward them, as have local residents in other places, such as Thailand.
The second group of Israelis that Kafri distinguishes are those who come to see the country and experience the culture. They come looking for educational excursions, special sites and interesting people. These Israelis usually travel in ones and twos or threes and avoid large groups. They make use of local means of transportation and try to experience India first-hand in every possible way: by talking to the people, seeing the sites and partaking of the culture.
The third group which, Kafri estimates, probably constitutes the smallest group are made up of what he calls "spiritualists." These are Israelis who hope that India will offer them answers to their spiritual quest. They find refuge in the ashrams and temples that dot the Indian landscape, seeking out instruction in yoga and various forms of meditation. Many of these travelers make a point of going to Daramsalla, a small village in the north of India where the Dalai Lama lives in exile.
Twenty-seven-year-old Noga, who asked that her full name not be used, had some time off after quitting her job and so she decided to visit India. She describes India as a sequence of experiences, all very powerful and sweeping. "Your feelings work overtime when you’re in India" she says. "Every experience is so strong: the tastes, the colors, the smells. There are great amounts of spirituality, especially in Varancy near the Gangas River which is the holiest river in India where dead bodies are burnt and its water is considered holy. When you are so swept up and overwhelmed with stimuli you can truly connect with yourself," she adds. For her, India was a place where the extremes were much more apparent: extreme wealth and abject poverty, great kindness and pure meanness. This, she says, is something one needs to learn and accept with the same tranquility that Indians do.
Noga, who was in India during Sharon’s visit, found that people were very positive about the prime minister’s visit. Describing a sense of common destiny between the two countries, especially in the face of terror, Noga said "We are twin countries; we are like brothers."
http://www.aufbauonline.com/2003/issue22/8.html
A dilemma for Moroccan Jews: Leave amid terrorism fears, or keep alive an
ancient heritage?
ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, November 8, 2003
CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) --
Harry Amar worries his little sister will never know the Morocco he grew up
in, a land where Jews and Muslims lived comfortably side by side.
Three-year-old Audrey's Jewish preschool was evacuated a few weeks ago in a
bomb scare, and she has to cross a police barrier every day just to get to
class.
"I'm afraid about what it's going to do to her psyche," Harry, 26, says
during a break at his office supplies import business. "It's tough ...
especially if you're just a child."
This kingdom on Africa's northwestern shoulder was long held up as an
example of Jewish-Muslim coexistence, a sign of hope that peace was possible
between Israelis and Palestinians. But Morocco's ancient Jewish community --
the largest in the Arab world -- has become a target.
Suicide bombers killed 45 people -- including 12 attackers -- in Casablanca
on May 16. No Jews were killed, but three of the five bombs targeted symbols
of Morocco's Jewish presence: a cemetery, a community center and a
Jewish-owned restaurant.
In September, two Jewish men were murdered, one stabbed on his way to
synagogue, the other shot point-blank by masked assailants. Police believe
one killing was carried out by extremists, but say the motive for the other
is unclear.
The attacks have stunned Moroccans, who pride themselves on tolerance and
had been largely spared from terrorism.
Now, Jews are pondering whether it is safe to stay. Many are determined to
stick it out, saying it would be a disaster for Morocco -- and for history
-- if the few remaining Jews packed their bags.
After decades of emigration, there are only 3,000 to 5,000 Jews living in
Morocco, down from 280,000 in 1948. Many went to Israel. Others fled
Morocco's poverty to find a better life in France or Canada.
Harry Amar says only a few of his childhood friends are still here. All his
aunts and uncles moved to Israel or France.
"If I had the choice, I wouldn't be here," says Amar, who has spent time in
Britain and Israel. Now he dreams of New York.
Joe Kadoch, who runs the restaurant targeted in the May bombings, says
Morocco's Jews have lost their lightheartedness since the attacks.
"There is a before and after," he says. "Before, it was Morocco. We had
confidence in the future ... I think all that has collapsed."
With the dwindling of the Jewish community, Muslims have less and less
contact with Jews, Kadoch says, so there are fewer chances to break down
stereotypes and hate.
Before the mass departures, "every Moroccan guy had a Jewish buddy. It's not
like that anymore," Kadoch says at his quiet Italian restaurant. The elegant
entrance hall, decorated with mirrors and chandeliers, was wrecked by the
bombing.
Kadoch reopened two weeks later. He says he needed to get on with life, and
he plans to make that life in Morocco. "If the (Jewish) community
disappears, a history of thousands of years would crumble."
The first Jews settled in Morocco 2,000 years ago, about six centuries
before the Arabs brought Islam to North Africa.
While there have been dark chapters -- like the expulsion of Jews from some
Moroccan cities in the 18th century, and deadly anti-Semitic riots in 1948
-- the lot of Jews here was better overall than in Europe, community leaders
say. While the Inquisition raged in Spain, for example, Spanish Jews found
refuge in Morocco.
During World War II, when the Nazis came hunting for Jews in the then French
territory, Morocco's sultan told them: "There are no Jews, only Moroccans."
Morocco's government supported the Arab-Israel peace process from the
earliest stages. The late King Hassan II welcomed Israeli leaders for talks
when other Arab leaders shunned them, and the kingdom was the venue for the
secret talks that led to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic visit to
Jerusalem in 1977.
Today, one of King Mohammed VI's most influential advisers, Andre Azoulay,
is Jewish -- unthinkable elsewhere in the Muslim world.
In Casablanca, a city of more than 3 million people, kosher butcher shops
sit on streets lined with Arab groceries. There are more than 30 synagogues
in a city where the call to Muslim prayers echoes over the dilapidated
rooftops from the minarets of several hundred mosques.
Many Moroccans are proud to have a Jewish community. Soon after the bombings
in May, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in Casablanca, waving
banners that read, "Say no to hate!" About 1,200 Jews, including children,
felt safe enough to join in.
"Everyone applauded us and kissed us," says Serge Berdugo, president of the
Jewish community's council. He believes Muslim extremists aren't targeting
Jews specifically, but rather Morocco's open and tolerant society.
There is a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement. It has won support by
distributing food, paying hospital bills for the destitute and teaching
reading in a nation where one of two people is illiterate.
When police staged a terrorism crackdown after the Casablanca bombings,
among those rounded up were extremist Muslim preachers who told followers
that killing a Jew is not a sin.
Simon Levy, who heads a foundation to preserve the country's Jewish
heritage, believes the Jews must stay in Morocco to provide a lesson in
tolerance that will fight the spread of Islamic extremism.
Levy's Foundation of Judeo-Moroccan Cultural Heritage restores crumbling,
abandoned synagogues. At those that cannot be saved, treasures like
hammered-silver chandeliers and ornate pulpits go into a museum.
Levy has a double mission: He's putting relics on exhibit to record Jewish
life in Morocco, in case the Jews disappear. At the same time, he's trying
to show people the value of that life to keep them here.
"As long as we have a small community here, we are not just history," Levy
says. "It's easy to leave; you just have to buy the plane ticket. It's
harder to stay. That's more beautiful and more meaningful."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file==/news/archive/2003/11/08/inte
rnational1215EST0490.DTL&type==printable
ancient heritage?
ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, November 8, 2003
CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) --
Harry Amar worries his little sister will never know the Morocco he grew up
in, a land where Jews and Muslims lived comfortably side by side.
Three-year-old Audrey's Jewish preschool was evacuated a few weeks ago in a
bomb scare, and she has to cross a police barrier every day just to get to
class.
"I'm afraid about what it's going to do to her psyche," Harry, 26, says
during a break at his office supplies import business. "It's tough ...
especially if you're just a child."
This kingdom on Africa's northwestern shoulder was long held up as an
example of Jewish-Muslim coexistence, a sign of hope that peace was possible
between Israelis and Palestinians. But Morocco's ancient Jewish community --
the largest in the Arab world -- has become a target.
Suicide bombers killed 45 people -- including 12 attackers -- in Casablanca
on May 16. No Jews were killed, but three of the five bombs targeted symbols
of Morocco's Jewish presence: a cemetery, a community center and a
Jewish-owned restaurant.
In September, two Jewish men were murdered, one stabbed on his way to
synagogue, the other shot point-blank by masked assailants. Police believe
one killing was carried out by extremists, but say the motive for the other
is unclear.
The attacks have stunned Moroccans, who pride themselves on tolerance and
had been largely spared from terrorism.
Now, Jews are pondering whether it is safe to stay. Many are determined to
stick it out, saying it would be a disaster for Morocco -- and for history
-- if the few remaining Jews packed their bags.
After decades of emigration, there are only 3,000 to 5,000 Jews living in
Morocco, down from 280,000 in 1948. Many went to Israel. Others fled
Morocco's poverty to find a better life in France or Canada.
Harry Amar says only a few of his childhood friends are still here. All his
aunts and uncles moved to Israel or France.
"If I had the choice, I wouldn't be here," says Amar, who has spent time in
Britain and Israel. Now he dreams of New York.
Joe Kadoch, who runs the restaurant targeted in the May bombings, says
Morocco's Jews have lost their lightheartedness since the attacks.
"There is a before and after," he says. "Before, it was Morocco. We had
confidence in the future ... I think all that has collapsed."
With the dwindling of the Jewish community, Muslims have less and less
contact with Jews, Kadoch says, so there are fewer chances to break down
stereotypes and hate.
Before the mass departures, "every Moroccan guy had a Jewish buddy. It's not
like that anymore," Kadoch says at his quiet Italian restaurant. The elegant
entrance hall, decorated with mirrors and chandeliers, was wrecked by the
bombing.
Kadoch reopened two weeks later. He says he needed to get on with life, and
he plans to make that life in Morocco. "If the (Jewish) community
disappears, a history of thousands of years would crumble."
The first Jews settled in Morocco 2,000 years ago, about six centuries
before the Arabs brought Islam to North Africa.
While there have been dark chapters -- like the expulsion of Jews from some
Moroccan cities in the 18th century, and deadly anti-Semitic riots in 1948
-- the lot of Jews here was better overall than in Europe, community leaders
say. While the Inquisition raged in Spain, for example, Spanish Jews found
refuge in Morocco.
During World War II, when the Nazis came hunting for Jews in the then French
territory, Morocco's sultan told them: "There are no Jews, only Moroccans."
Morocco's government supported the Arab-Israel peace process from the
earliest stages. The late King Hassan II welcomed Israeli leaders for talks
when other Arab leaders shunned them, and the kingdom was the venue for the
secret talks that led to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic visit to
Jerusalem in 1977.
Today, one of King Mohammed VI's most influential advisers, Andre Azoulay,
is Jewish -- unthinkable elsewhere in the Muslim world.
In Casablanca, a city of more than 3 million people, kosher butcher shops
sit on streets lined with Arab groceries. There are more than 30 synagogues
in a city where the call to Muslim prayers echoes over the dilapidated
rooftops from the minarets of several hundred mosques.
Many Moroccans are proud to have a Jewish community. Soon after the bombings
in May, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in Casablanca, waving
banners that read, "Say no to hate!" About 1,200 Jews, including children,
felt safe enough to join in.
"Everyone applauded us and kissed us," says Serge Berdugo, president of the
Jewish community's council. He believes Muslim extremists aren't targeting
Jews specifically, but rather Morocco's open and tolerant society.
There is a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement. It has won support by
distributing food, paying hospital bills for the destitute and teaching
reading in a nation where one of two people is illiterate.
When police staged a terrorism crackdown after the Casablanca bombings,
among those rounded up were extremist Muslim preachers who told followers
that killing a Jew is not a sin.
Simon Levy, who heads a foundation to preserve the country's Jewish
heritage, believes the Jews must stay in Morocco to provide a lesson in
tolerance that will fight the spread of Islamic extremism.
Levy's Foundation of Judeo-Moroccan Cultural Heritage restores crumbling,
abandoned synagogues. At those that cannot be saved, treasures like
hammered-silver chandeliers and ornate pulpits go into a museum.
Levy has a double mission: He's putting relics on exhibit to record Jewish
life in Morocco, in case the Jews disappear. At the same time, he's trying
to show people the value of that life to keep them here.
"As long as we have a small community here, we are not just history," Levy
says. "It's easy to leave; you just have to buy the plane ticket. It's
harder to stay. That's more beautiful and more meaningful."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file==/news/archive/2003/11/08/inte
rnational1215EST0490.DTL&type==printable
Arsonists torch Jewish school near Paris
Michel Zlotowski
Nov. 15, 2003
Fire gutted the Merkaz HaTorah Jewish secondary school in the Paris suburb
of Gagny in the Seine-Saint-Denis region Saturday morning at 3am. There were
no injuries.
Fire started simultaneously in two separate places on the first floor of the
school where works were under way. A primary school and a kindergarten for
200 children were to be inaugurated there in January 2004. The arsonist or
arsonists broke into the building through a ground floor window.
About 100 firefighters were called in to put out the flames, which destroyed
some 3,000 square metres on the school's second floor.
France's Minister of Interior Nicolas Sarkozy and Minister of Education Luc
Ferry visited the charred remnants of the building on Saturday. They were
met by the head of the local Jewish community and by CRIF's (the umbrella
body representing French Jewry) Director-general Haim Musicant.
"The criminal origin of the blaze is more than strongly suspected which
gives, for this Jewish school, an anti-Semitic and obviously racist
connotation," said Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
"This shows that there is still lots of work to do to fight against all
forms of anti-Semitism," the minister added.
He vowed that those who set the fire would be caught and punished "with the
greatest severity."
Musicant said he was worried by this aggression against a Jewish school. "In
the homeland of human rights, attacks against children and schools are
absolutely intolerable," he said.
"We know the French government's determination to fight anti-Semitism. We
would like the arsonists to be arrested, tried and condemned in the hardest
possible way to send a strong signal about France's commitment to fight
anti-Semitism."
The Merkaz Hatorah school has some 160 junior high school students and 60
students in the high school.
With The Associated Press
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid
=1068880713054
Michel Zlotowski
Nov. 15, 2003
Fire gutted the Merkaz HaTorah Jewish secondary school in the Paris suburb
of Gagny in the Seine-Saint-Denis region Saturday morning at 3am. There were
no injuries.
Fire started simultaneously in two separate places on the first floor of the
school where works were under way. A primary school and a kindergarten for
200 children were to be inaugurated there in January 2004. The arsonist or
arsonists broke into the building through a ground floor window.
About 100 firefighters were called in to put out the flames, which destroyed
some 3,000 square metres on the school's second floor.
France's Minister of Interior Nicolas Sarkozy and Minister of Education Luc
Ferry visited the charred remnants of the building on Saturday. They were
met by the head of the local Jewish community and by CRIF's (the umbrella
body representing French Jewry) Director-general Haim Musicant.
"The criminal origin of the blaze is more than strongly suspected which
gives, for this Jewish school, an anti-Semitic and obviously racist
connotation," said Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
"This shows that there is still lots of work to do to fight against all
forms of anti-Semitism," the minister added.
He vowed that those who set the fire would be caught and punished "with the
greatest severity."
Musicant said he was worried by this aggression against a Jewish school. "In
the homeland of human rights, attacks against children and schools are
absolutely intolerable," he said.
"We know the French government's determination to fight anti-Semitism. We
would like the arsonists to be arrested, tried and condemned in the hardest
possible way to send a strong signal about France's commitment to fight
anti-Semitism."
The Merkaz Hatorah school has some 160 junior high school students and 60
students in the high school.
With The Associated Press
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid
=1068880713054
BBC, Smarting From Criticism, Appoints Special Editor
15:54 Nov 13, '03 / 18 Cheshvan 5764
BBC has given in to continuous criticism of its allegedly pro-Arab bias
coverage of Middle East news, and has appointed a special editor to oversee
its Middle East coverage. Malcolm Balen, a former editor of the BBC's
central Nine O'Clock News edition, will assume the post, working from London
but in close cooperation with the BBC bureau in Jerusalem. A BBC
spokeswoman denied that Balen's appointment was an admission of anti-Israel
bias. She said, "We aim that his appointment will help us to build
relationships with all parties in the region. It's obviously a difficult,
sensitive area for all broadcasters to work from."
Israel's perception of BBC's bias was so strong that Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon barred the corporation from a press conference during his visit to
London earlier this year. Media watchdog association HonestReporting.com
awarded its Dishonest Reporting Award of last year to BBC, and said that the
British corporation had received "a slew of nominations again this year.
Members particularly criticized BBC for being caught altering a quote by
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, substituting the word 'terror' with the
word 'violence' in reference to Palestinians."
One media watchdog group that concentrates on the European media is
Take-A-Pen, and can be visited at www.take-a-pen.org/english/index.html.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=R746
15:54 Nov 13, '03 / 18 Cheshvan 5764
BBC has given in to continuous criticism of its allegedly pro-Arab bias
coverage of Middle East news, and has appointed a special editor to oversee
its Middle East coverage. Malcolm Balen, a former editor of the BBC's
central Nine O'Clock News edition, will assume the post, working from London
but in close cooperation with the BBC bureau in Jerusalem. A BBC
spokeswoman denied that Balen's appointment was an admission of anti-Israel
bias. She said, "We aim that his appointment will help us to build
relationships with all parties in the region. It's obviously a difficult,
sensitive area for all broadcasters to work from."
Israel's perception of BBC's bias was so strong that Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon barred the corporation from a press conference during his visit to
London earlier this year. Media watchdog association HonestReporting.com
awarded its Dishonest Reporting Award of last year to BBC, and said that the
British corporation had received "a slew of nominations again this year.
Members particularly criticized BBC for being caught altering a quote by
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, substituting the word 'terror' with the
word 'violence' in reference to Palestinians."
One media watchdog group that concentrates on the European media is
Take-A-Pen, and can be visited at www.take-a-pen.org/english/index.html.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=R746
14 November 2003
Special Report - PA
November 14, 2003
No. 22
To view this Special Report in HTML format, please visit: http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SR2203
A 2003 Palestinian Authority Textbook Calls for Jihad and Martyrdom
Following the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority began to devise new schoolbooks that showed a relative change in content and direction. MEMRI's 2001 study of Palestinian schoolbooks, "Narrating Palestinian Nationalism," found that the Palestinian textbooks produced after Oslo reflected a general attempt to lessen the virulence of anti-Israel venom, as direct incitement significantly declined while a serious effort was made to enhance values such as democracy and freedom.(1)
By 2003, however, a newly-printed textbook produced by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education titled "Islamic Culture," intended for students in the 11th grade, shows a return to incitement for Jihad and martyrdom.(2) The following are excerpts from the textbook:
The Role of the State in Islam
(Page 98): "[One of] the State's tasks is to strengthen the ties between the people and their Creator... to defend the religion and protect it from [heretical] innovators and doubters... to prepare the nation for Jihad and to defend the country from its enemies... to increase the nation's level of knowledge... because implementing the religious duties and knowing the necessary religious commands requires some amount of knowledge and education."
(Page 104): "The nation should support the ruler in anything that prompts progress... In external matters [the nation should assist] through Jihad, while in the domestic arena it should help through... industrial, agricultural, moral, and social revival... and by adhering to the religious laws..."
Jihad and the Propagation of Islam
(Page 208): "Islam is Allah's religion for all human beings. It should be proclaimed and invite [people] to join it wisely and through appropriate preaching and friendly discussions. However, such methods may encounter resistance and the preachers may be prevented from accomplishing their duty... then, Jihad and the use of physical force against the enemies become inevitable...
"Jihad is an Islamic term that equates to the term war in other nations. The difference is that Jihad has noble goals and lofty aims, and is carried out only for the sake of Allah and for His glory... [By contrast] wars by other nations are mainly waged because of wickedness, aggression, love of domination, expanding influence, looting properties, murder, and the fulfillment of ambitions and desires, such as the war that the Western countries waged to exploit Islamic countries for imperialistic purposes, to control their Muslim citizens and to rob their resources and richness..."
(Page 209): "In Mecca, Allah's Messenger called [to join] Islam by using evidence and proofs... His weapons and those of his companions at that stage of spreading the message [of Islam] were perseverance and restraint. After the Prophet's migration to Al-Medina, and the emergence of an Islamic society in it, there was no escaping the fight against aggression and the polytheists... Following that, the duty of Jihad was imposed on all Muslims...
"Allah's Messenger practiced Jihad during his sojourn in Al-Medina, his companions and followers followed in his footsteps.
"However is Jihad a personal duty [Fardh 'Ein] that each Muslim is required to fulfill personally, or is it a collective duty [Fardh Kifaya]? It is likely a collective duty. If some Muslims fulfill it, then it is not required of the rest as long as [the acts of those who waged it] are sufficient... [however] if no one practices Jihad, then all Muslims are guilty of negligence.
"Jihad becomes a personal duty in the following three cases:
a. "When Muslims are attacked. When the enemy is present in a Muslim country, it is the duty of the [Muslim] citizens of that country to fight the enemy and chase them away. If they are unable [to do so], the personal duty [of Jihad] passes on to their neighbors, until the enemy is defeated and destroyed...
b. "In the case of a general call to arms. When a Muslim ruler declares it, or calls a specific group, it is the duty of Muslims to answer the call...
c. "Whoever attends a battle, it is his duty to fight the enemy and to partake in the battle and not to be delinquent..."
(Pages 210-211): "Types of Jihad:
a. "The physical Jihad - Participation [in battle] against the enemy. To fight him directly with weapons, and with actual participation in the battle and with self-sacrifice for the sake of Allah. This is the ultimate requisite from a [believer]. Allah promised anyone who participates personally in Jihad for His sake Paradise, or that He will return him safely to his family with great spoils.
b. "The material Jihad - He who wages such a Jihad gives some of his money in order to equip Muslim armies with various weapons, necessary supplies, land, sea and air transportation, and anything else that those who wage Jihad need in order to defeat the enemy, to glorify Allah's name, and to strengthen His faith. Included in the material Jihad is the construction of military installations, fortifications, strongholds, airports, and seaports, that are necessary for the Muslim armies, as well as health centers and hospitals for the soldiers of Jihad and their families, and granting money to those who implement Jihad and to their families.
c. "The Jihad of ideas - Jihad accomplished by mouth and pen and by providing irrefutable evidence against enemies and inviting them [to recognize] Allah. This Jihad includes preaching, writing, singing, etc.
d. "Jihad accomplished through... contact with Jihad participants and through participation in acts related to Jihad such as transporting soldiers and their provisions, serving them water and food, taking care of the wounded and guarding a [military] position.
"The Islamic nation today is in urgent need [of reviving] the spirit of Jihad in its sons, [by using] all types of Jihad and to concentrate all its resources on strengthening Allah's religion and to force His enemies [to surrender]."
(Page 213): "Jihad is one of life's needs. A nation cannot defend its religion and uphold its honor and its motherland if it does not have the power to do so. This is why Islam imposed [the duty] of Jihad on the Muslim nation when [a Muslim] society and state emerged in Al-Medina..."
Propagating Islam
(Page 214): "Allah instructed the Muslims to convince people [with the message of Islam] in a wise way, by appropriate preaching and friendly discussions, so that the spread of Islam is achieved through intellectual persuasion, inner gratification and serenity and not through compulsion as Allah said 'There is no compulsion in religion...' [Koran 2:256]
"[However], when the despots confront Islamic preaching, prevent the preachers from bringing the good tidings [of Islam] to the people, build roadblocks and obstacles in preachers' way, and prevent the word from reaching their people - then Jihad becomes the only means to remove these obstacles, which deprive people of their freedom of choice and prevent the propagation of Islam. Allah's Messenger instructed those who wage Jihad not to initiate war against their enemies [as a first option], but to offer them Islam, and if they refuse it - to suggest to them to pay Jizya [tax imposed on non-Muslims under Muslim rule]... and if they refuse again, to fight them.
"Jihad is considered a way to strengthen the nation and [to secure] its victory in an armed struggle when it uses all its resources, efforts and capabilities for its sake... Jihad is also considered a source of welfare and prosperity for the Muslims. After realizing victory, he who wages Jihad returns to his family high-aspiring with his head high up, thanking Allah for his grace. If he is blessed with Shahada [martyrdom] and honor, his soul returns to its Creator to live a different life, content with the rewards and honor bestowed upon it, a life of grace thanks to Allah, as the Koran says [3:169-170] 'Do not consider those who died in the cause of Allah as dead, rather as alive at their lord sustained...'"
(Page 215): "The Islamic nation needs to spread the spirit of Jihad and the love of self-sacrifice [Shahada] among its sons throughout the generations, and especially when materialism is uppermost in people's minds and they abandon Jihad while the enemy desires [to exploit] them... It is clear that the respect and power of the Islamic nation are linked to the preservation of a strong Jihad spirit. When this spirit declines and the nation has no power to help its weak elements and to defend itself from its enemies, then the nation is attacked from the outside, the aggressors desire it, they humiliate it, plunder its resources, kill its people, conquer its land and live there in immorality."
The Risks of Ignoring Jihad
(Page 304): "A. Enemies occupy Muslim lands, their resources are plundered, their blood is spilled, their honor tarnished and as a result they [the Muslims] live a life of disgrace and oppression. B. Losing the great reward that Allah promised those who wage Jihad and the Shuhada [martyrs]. C. Severe punishment on Judgment Day."
(Page 305): "Allah instructed the faithful to partake in Jihad in all circumstances, be it easy or hard, when they are few or many, at times of prosperity or need, when they are strong or weak. Their Jihad should be through self-sacrifice or material for the sake of glorifying Allah's name. This is the way to enjoy this world and to succeed in the Hereafter."
The Punishment for Abandoning Islam
(Page 155): "The logical reason for executing a person who abandons Islam is the following: There is nothing in Islam that comes in contrast to human nature. Whoever joins Islam after recognizing its truth and after tasting its sweetness and then abandons it - is in fact rebelling against truth and logic. Like any other regime, Islam has to protect itself therefore this punishment [execution] awaits the person who abandons it, because he is spreading doubt about Islam...
"Abandoning Islam is a crime that warrants a severe punishment... [The phases of punishment are]:
a. "Urging [the sinner] to recant immediately...
b. "Warning him of the implications of his persistence in abandoning Islam, namely warning him that he will be executed.
c. "Execute the sinner if he persists in [his decision to] abandon Islam..."
Christian Missionary Activities
(Page 252): "Missionaries are one of the Western institutions used for intellectual invasion of the Muslim world. They tried to get the Muslims out of Islam by weakening the faith in their hearts and accepting the Western way of life. Outwardly they call for adopting the faith of Jesus, but in reality they try to facilitate the Western intellectual invasion of the Islamic countries... The missionary organizations throughout the Islamic world tried to weaken the faith in the hearts of the Muslims, to spread secular ideas to replace Islamic ideology and to pave the way for the occupation of Islamic countries and strengthening Imperialism in them...
"The missionary movement left deep impressions in Islamic life, such as:
1. "Admiration and adoption of the Western way of life... Materialistic and exploitative Western criteria and values and their understanding of life was common to the point that many Muslims yearned for it and turned to Western culture and literature.
2. "Weakening the Islamic spirit of the young generation as a result of weakening the faith in their hearts and the acceptance of contagious Western ideas and principles. Capitalist, Communist, and atheist ideas spread among the Muslims...
3. "Giving the educational system in the Islamic countries a Western flavor. The missionaries, with the help of Imperialism, were able to turn their philosophy and culture into educational foundations in many Islamic countries. Western history and culture became the main source of education and science-learning for Muslim children...
4. "Defamation of Islamic history and the life-histories of the Muslim Khalifs, and presenting Islamic history as [a series of] wars, conflicts, civil wars, revolutions, battles over power, and repression of citizens...
5. "Faulting Islam, its Messenger, and the truth of his prophecies, and spreading misleading ideas, such as the claim that Islam expanded by the sword and by coercion. Also, faulting the divorce laws and polygamy and depicting Islamic legal punishments as inhumane."
Endnotes:
(1) See MEMRI Special Report No. 6, December 2, 2001, http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR00601 .
(2) Islamic Culture for Eleventh Grade, issued by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education and approved by the Jordanian Ministry of Education, 2003.
*********************
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.
MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
Phone: (202) 955-9070
Fax: (202) 955-9077
E-Mail: memri@memri.org
www.memri.org
If you no longer wish to receive this publication via email, please reply and enter only the word "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line.
November 14, 2003
No. 22
To view this Special Report in HTML format, please visit: http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SR2203
A 2003 Palestinian Authority Textbook Calls for Jihad and Martyrdom
Following the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority began to devise new schoolbooks that showed a relative change in content and direction. MEMRI's 2001 study of Palestinian schoolbooks, "Narrating Palestinian Nationalism," found that the Palestinian textbooks produced after Oslo reflected a general attempt to lessen the virulence of anti-Israel venom, as direct incitement significantly declined while a serious effort was made to enhance values such as democracy and freedom.(1)
By 2003, however, a newly-printed textbook produced by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education titled "Islamic Culture," intended for students in the 11th grade, shows a return to incitement for Jihad and martyrdom.(2) The following are excerpts from the textbook:
The Role of the State in Islam
(Page 98): "[One of] the State's tasks is to strengthen the ties between the people and their Creator... to defend the religion and protect it from [heretical] innovators and doubters... to prepare the nation for Jihad and to defend the country from its enemies... to increase the nation's level of knowledge... because implementing the religious duties and knowing the necessary religious commands requires some amount of knowledge and education."
(Page 104): "The nation should support the ruler in anything that prompts progress... In external matters [the nation should assist] through Jihad, while in the domestic arena it should help through... industrial, agricultural, moral, and social revival... and by adhering to the religious laws..."
Jihad and the Propagation of Islam
(Page 208): "Islam is Allah's religion for all human beings. It should be proclaimed and invite [people] to join it wisely and through appropriate preaching and friendly discussions. However, such methods may encounter resistance and the preachers may be prevented from accomplishing their duty... then, Jihad and the use of physical force against the enemies become inevitable...
"Jihad is an Islamic term that equates to the term war in other nations. The difference is that Jihad has noble goals and lofty aims, and is carried out only for the sake of Allah and for His glory... [By contrast] wars by other nations are mainly waged because of wickedness, aggression, love of domination, expanding influence, looting properties, murder, and the fulfillment of ambitions and desires, such as the war that the Western countries waged to exploit Islamic countries for imperialistic purposes, to control their Muslim citizens and to rob their resources and richness..."
(Page 209): "In Mecca, Allah's Messenger called [to join] Islam by using evidence and proofs... His weapons and those of his companions at that stage of spreading the message [of Islam] were perseverance and restraint. After the Prophet's migration to Al-Medina, and the emergence of an Islamic society in it, there was no escaping the fight against aggression and the polytheists... Following that, the duty of Jihad was imposed on all Muslims...
"Allah's Messenger practiced Jihad during his sojourn in Al-Medina, his companions and followers followed in his footsteps.
"However is Jihad a personal duty [Fardh 'Ein] that each Muslim is required to fulfill personally, or is it a collective duty [Fardh Kifaya]? It is likely a collective duty. If some Muslims fulfill it, then it is not required of the rest as long as [the acts of those who waged it] are sufficient... [however] if no one practices Jihad, then all Muslims are guilty of negligence.
"Jihad becomes a personal duty in the following three cases:
a. "When Muslims are attacked. When the enemy is present in a Muslim country, it is the duty of the [Muslim] citizens of that country to fight the enemy and chase them away. If they are unable [to do so], the personal duty [of Jihad] passes on to their neighbors, until the enemy is defeated and destroyed...
b. "In the case of a general call to arms. When a Muslim ruler declares it, or calls a specific group, it is the duty of Muslims to answer the call...
c. "Whoever attends a battle, it is his duty to fight the enemy and to partake in the battle and not to be delinquent..."
(Pages 210-211): "Types of Jihad:
a. "The physical Jihad - Participation [in battle] against the enemy. To fight him directly with weapons, and with actual participation in the battle and with self-sacrifice for the sake of Allah. This is the ultimate requisite from a [believer]. Allah promised anyone who participates personally in Jihad for His sake Paradise, or that He will return him safely to his family with great spoils.
b. "The material Jihad - He who wages such a Jihad gives some of his money in order to equip Muslim armies with various weapons, necessary supplies, land, sea and air transportation, and anything else that those who wage Jihad need in order to defeat the enemy, to glorify Allah's name, and to strengthen His faith. Included in the material Jihad is the construction of military installations, fortifications, strongholds, airports, and seaports, that are necessary for the Muslim armies, as well as health centers and hospitals for the soldiers of Jihad and their families, and granting money to those who implement Jihad and to their families.
c. "The Jihad of ideas - Jihad accomplished by mouth and pen and by providing irrefutable evidence against enemies and inviting them [to recognize] Allah. This Jihad includes preaching, writing, singing, etc.
d. "Jihad accomplished through... contact with Jihad participants and through participation in acts related to Jihad such as transporting soldiers and their provisions, serving them water and food, taking care of the wounded and guarding a [military] position.
"The Islamic nation today is in urgent need [of reviving] the spirit of Jihad in its sons, [by using] all types of Jihad and to concentrate all its resources on strengthening Allah's religion and to force His enemies [to surrender]."
(Page 213): "Jihad is one of life's needs. A nation cannot defend its religion and uphold its honor and its motherland if it does not have the power to do so. This is why Islam imposed [the duty] of Jihad on the Muslim nation when [a Muslim] society and state emerged in Al-Medina..."
Propagating Islam
(Page 214): "Allah instructed the Muslims to convince people [with the message of Islam] in a wise way, by appropriate preaching and friendly discussions, so that the spread of Islam is achieved through intellectual persuasion, inner gratification and serenity and not through compulsion as Allah said 'There is no compulsion in religion...' [Koran 2:256]
"[However], when the despots confront Islamic preaching, prevent the preachers from bringing the good tidings [of Islam] to the people, build roadblocks and obstacles in preachers' way, and prevent the word from reaching their people - then Jihad becomes the only means to remove these obstacles, which deprive people of their freedom of choice and prevent the propagation of Islam. Allah's Messenger instructed those who wage Jihad not to initiate war against their enemies [as a first option], but to offer them Islam, and if they refuse it - to suggest to them to pay Jizya [tax imposed on non-Muslims under Muslim rule]... and if they refuse again, to fight them.
"Jihad is considered a way to strengthen the nation and [to secure] its victory in an armed struggle when it uses all its resources, efforts and capabilities for its sake... Jihad is also considered a source of welfare and prosperity for the Muslims. After realizing victory, he who wages Jihad returns to his family high-aspiring with his head high up, thanking Allah for his grace. If he is blessed with Shahada [martyrdom] and honor, his soul returns to its Creator to live a different life, content with the rewards and honor bestowed upon it, a life of grace thanks to Allah, as the Koran says [3:169-170] 'Do not consider those who died in the cause of Allah as dead, rather as alive at their lord sustained...'"
(Page 215): "The Islamic nation needs to spread the spirit of Jihad and the love of self-sacrifice [Shahada] among its sons throughout the generations, and especially when materialism is uppermost in people's minds and they abandon Jihad while the enemy desires [to exploit] them... It is clear that the respect and power of the Islamic nation are linked to the preservation of a strong Jihad spirit. When this spirit declines and the nation has no power to help its weak elements and to defend itself from its enemies, then the nation is attacked from the outside, the aggressors desire it, they humiliate it, plunder its resources, kill its people, conquer its land and live there in immorality."
The Risks of Ignoring Jihad
(Page 304): "A. Enemies occupy Muslim lands, their resources are plundered, their blood is spilled, their honor tarnished and as a result they [the Muslims] live a life of disgrace and oppression. B. Losing the great reward that Allah promised those who wage Jihad and the Shuhada [martyrs]. C. Severe punishment on Judgment Day."
(Page 305): "Allah instructed the faithful to partake in Jihad in all circumstances, be it easy or hard, when they are few or many, at times of prosperity or need, when they are strong or weak. Their Jihad should be through self-sacrifice or material for the sake of glorifying Allah's name. This is the way to enjoy this world and to succeed in the Hereafter."
The Punishment for Abandoning Islam
(Page 155): "The logical reason for executing a person who abandons Islam is the following: There is nothing in Islam that comes in contrast to human nature. Whoever joins Islam after recognizing its truth and after tasting its sweetness and then abandons it - is in fact rebelling against truth and logic. Like any other regime, Islam has to protect itself therefore this punishment [execution] awaits the person who abandons it, because he is spreading doubt about Islam...
"Abandoning Islam is a crime that warrants a severe punishment... [The phases of punishment are]:
a. "Urging [the sinner] to recant immediately...
b. "Warning him of the implications of his persistence in abandoning Islam, namely warning him that he will be executed.
c. "Execute the sinner if he persists in [his decision to] abandon Islam..."
Christian Missionary Activities
(Page 252): "Missionaries are one of the Western institutions used for intellectual invasion of the Muslim world. They tried to get the Muslims out of Islam by weakening the faith in their hearts and accepting the Western way of life. Outwardly they call for adopting the faith of Jesus, but in reality they try to facilitate the Western intellectual invasion of the Islamic countries... The missionary organizations throughout the Islamic world tried to weaken the faith in the hearts of the Muslims, to spread secular ideas to replace Islamic ideology and to pave the way for the occupation of Islamic countries and strengthening Imperialism in them...
"The missionary movement left deep impressions in Islamic life, such as:
1. "Admiration and adoption of the Western way of life... Materialistic and exploitative Western criteria and values and their understanding of life was common to the point that many Muslims yearned for it and turned to Western culture and literature.
2. "Weakening the Islamic spirit of the young generation as a result of weakening the faith in their hearts and the acceptance of contagious Western ideas and principles. Capitalist, Communist, and atheist ideas spread among the Muslims...
3. "Giving the educational system in the Islamic countries a Western flavor. The missionaries, with the help of Imperialism, were able to turn their philosophy and culture into educational foundations in many Islamic countries. Western history and culture became the main source of education and science-learning for Muslim children...
4. "Defamation of Islamic history and the life-histories of the Muslim Khalifs, and presenting Islamic history as [a series of] wars, conflicts, civil wars, revolutions, battles over power, and repression of citizens...
5. "Faulting Islam, its Messenger, and the truth of his prophecies, and spreading misleading ideas, such as the claim that Islam expanded by the sword and by coercion. Also, faulting the divorce laws and polygamy and depicting Islamic legal punishments as inhumane."
Endnotes:
(1) See MEMRI Special Report No. 6, December 2, 2001, http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR00601 .
(2) Islamic Culture for Eleventh Grade, issued by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education and approved by the Jordanian Ministry of Education, 2003.
*********************
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.
MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
Phone: (202) 955-9070
Fax: (202) 955-9077
E-Mail: memri@memri.org
www.memri.org
If you no longer wish to receive this publication via email, please reply and enter only the word "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line.
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