כּנור דוד

Christian Aravim

2006-09-09T19:29:00.000+09:30

Read this.

In Lebanon there is a strong Christian community that can act as a bridge for peace. The pilgrims to the holy places, when they come in great numbers, are also helpful to the local populations. I also have an idea that I have already proposed to the Vatican authorities: that of creating a task force with representatives from the three religions – Christianity, Judaism, and Islam – who would travel throughout the various countries of the Middle East spreading a message of reconciliation, in order to sensitize and mobilize those who sincerely desire peace, and separate them from extremist and violent groups.

But in the meantime, the Christian minorities living in the Middle East are largely hostile toward Israel.

But they are still more afraid of Hezbollah and Hamas. And they are fleeing from all of the Arab states: it is only in Israel that Christians are growing in number. The future of the Christians in the region is intertwined with the future of our state. An Israel living in security and peace with its neighbors is thw only guarantee for the future of the Churches of the Middle East.

Asaf Namir

2006-07-29T15:40:00.000+09:30

And:

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.

Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,

Et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem

Exaudi orationem meam.

Ad te omnis caro veniet...

Asaf Namir was one of our best men. May light etertnal shine upon him; may he rest in peace.

Canada

2006-05-21T12:40:00.000+09:30

BYF writes:

For too long, Canada has been like New Zealand - content to wallow in self-serving high-taxing native-bribing welfarism, confident that its bigger neighbour's armed forces would protect it in case anything goes wrong. Like all welfarist countries, it would not shoulder the burden of being grown up and looking after itself, leaving the maligned bigger neighbour to be fiscally reponsible and save money for defence. Time was when NZ and Canada were part of the muscular Anglosphere, ready to send troops the kick the arses of tyrants anywhere - they then turned in the immature ingrates of Kipling's Burden. Canada might be back on track.

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty

2006-04-23T13:17:00.000+09:30

American and Israeli readers might be surprised that I return to blogging with a tribute to Her Majesty the Queen.

She has been my Queen for all of my life, and I have a great deal of respect for her. I swore allegiance to her as a legal practitioner, and I take that oath seriously.

I voted "no" when our government asked us whether we would like to become a republic.

So, happy birthday, Your Majesty!

Cartoon Jihad IV

2006-02-07T09:02:00.000+10:30

As the Cartoon Jihad claims its first lives, BYF points out that, as always, other Moslems are among the first victims of Islamism. I like the Kipling quote, too, Toby!

Tim Blair has published two readers' emails; the first argues:

It is also not a matter of freedom of speech, it’s a matter of respect. Displaying cartoons of our beloved prophet is the same as insulting Muslims. Is anyone allowed to insult a race, religion, or group of people on the media? Why is that not allowed? Because it is wrong. You cannot argue that it is a matter of freedom of speech.

He also "argues" that Zionists are baby-killing, sister-raping monsters, and that that's the only thing he has against Jews. I'll leave that to one side, for the purposes of this post.

Consider this. Many pious Moslems refer to their deity as Allah (SWT). The letters "SWT" are the acronym for the Arabic "Subhanahu wa Ta'ala" meaning "Allah is pure of having partners and He is exalted from having a son.". Now, that seems to me to be a deliberate repudiation of Christian trinitarian theology. Is it not, in its implicit abasing of Christian theology (note the references to 'purity' and 'exhaltation') a deliberate insult to Christians? A minority of fundamentalists might think so. So let's ban references to "Allah SWT", "Allah Ta'ala" and the like as anti-Christian insults. What about the Muslim claim that Jews and Christians have "falsified" their scriptures? This is a core Islamic belief. No doubt it is offensive to Jews and Christians. Let's ban it.

On the other hand, let's not. Because, as, "Amanda" (who says she is Jewish, and as such a member of the most "provoked", "offended" and persecuted people on the face of the Earth):

There are many things in the media which are unfavorable to Jews (and Christians, etc.), but as far as I’m concerned, one needs to cop it sweet, and respond with intelligence and dignity (or not at all), rather than with unjustifiable violence.

If there's one thing the Moslem world needs, it's a lot more intelligence and dignity.

Finally, there is this article in the Sydney Morning Herald. I think that the quote attributed to David Penberthy is noteworthy. The editor of the Daily Telegraph, said that publishing the images could have "nasty consequences", especially given racial tensions in Sydney. Be that as it may, as Professor Alan Dershowitz argued in a different context in his book The Case for Israel, to hold back on that basis is to allow a "stonethrower's veto"; it is a mark of a mature democracy that insults, provocations and affronts are met with arguments, not bombs and bullets. That is the essence of the whole dispute, and that is what much of Islam needs to learn and accept. In liberal democratic countries, indeed, in the modern world, citizens are not supposed to kill people and destroy property because they feel insulted, or religiously belittled. We are not in seventh-century Arabia now, chabibi.

Moreover, Islam is a belief system, nothing more, and like liberalism, capitalism, communism, fascism, or whatever, it ought to be subject to free criticism in a democratic society.

Having criticized Penberthy for his craven submission to a bunch of atavistic reactionary thugs, I should just like to say that of the haraam cartoons, this is my favourite:

The Cartoon Jihad III - Jihad Comes to Australia

2006-02-06T15:20:00.000+10:30

Sheik Fehmi El-Imam, the general secretary of the Board of Imams of Victoria has warned the Australian media not to publish those infamous characatures of you-know-who.

Of course, that inspired Paul & Carl to publish the cartoons under the most politically incorrect heading I have seen in a long time. I won't quote it; readers can follow the link. Suffice to say "reactionary" and "atavistic" are the nicest things they have to say about the Islamic community...

If you really want to offend 1.3 Billion people, it's hard to go past this effort by SobekPundit; western bien pensants have been slavering all over "artists" who do this sort of thing to crucifixes and images of the Virgin Mary for years, but as Mark Steyn recently said, "if you're going to be 'provocative', it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked.". At least SobekPundit apologised to those Moslems who are offended by his photoshop but who don't want to kill him for it.

Less provocatively, Tim Blair highlights the all-too-obvious point made by the cartoon in my last post, namely that:

Far from being against hate-speech, many Muslim spokesmen seem to be aggressively for it; until, of course, someone contemplates publishing harmless drawings of an old beardy guy.

...then they call for beheadings and start with the Embassy-burnings. Given the content of my last three posts, if anyone wants me, I'll be seeking refuge at the Israeli Embassy...

The Cartoon Jihad II

2006-02-06T11:22:00.000+10:30

The above is courtesy of Filibuster Cartoons.

Cardinal Silvestrini (see Cartoon Jihad I) is doubless familiar with Dante's Inferno. I hope that linking to Canto XXVIII is not a mortal sin in his Koran-kissing interpretation of Catholicism!

At Ceperano where all the Apulians
Turned traitors, and those too from Tagliacozzo
Where old Alardo conquered without weapons,

And those who show their limbs run through and those
With limbs hacked off — they all could not have matched
The ninth pocket’s degraded state of grief.

Even a cask with bottom or sides knocked out
Never cracked so wide as one soul I saw
Burst open from the chin to where one farts.

His guts were hanging out between his legs;
His pluck gaped forth and that disgusting sack
Which turns to shit what throats have gobbled down.

While I was all agog with gazing at him,
He stared at me and, as his two hands pulled
His chest apart, cried, "Look how I rip myself!

"Look at how mangled is Mohammed here!
In front of me, Ali treks onward, weeping,
His face cleft from his chin to his forelock.

"And all the others whom you see down here
Were sowers of scandal and schism while
They lived, and for this they are rent in two.

"A devil goes in back here who dresses us
So cruelly by trimming each one of the pack
With the fine cutting edge of his sharp sword

"Whenever we come round this forlorn road:
Because by then our old wounds have closed up
Before we pass once more for the next blow.

What the heck! I'll even illustrate the Canto! Here's William Blake's depiction of Mohammed in Hell:

The following picture is a detail from an early Renaissance fresco in Bologna's Church of San Petronio, created by Giovanni da Modena and depicting Mohammed being tortured in Hell. This is the fresco that Islamists plotted to blow up in 2002.

Zombietime's Mohammed Image Archive has an excellent catalogue of depictions of Mohammed over the last 1400-odd years, from Islamic and Medieval Christian paintings, to South Park and the courageous Danish Jyllands-Posten cartoons. Have a look, while it's still legal.

The Cartoon Jihad I

2006-02-06T10:35:00.000+10:30

Chip decries the lack of freedom to satirize Muhammad in the United States, and explains the Shari’ah of “picture making” and blasphemy for the benefit of the news media. BYF applauds the decision of the European media to thumb their noses at Islamists (for once). Liz has a good survey of attempts to draw the Catholic Church into what she terms the “cartoon trap”, and points out that Cardinal Achille Silvestrini’s recent comments condemning the “deliberate mockery of religious belief” seem to overlook, if not ignore, this sort of filth served up by the Arab world on a distressingly regular basis. Of course, they are Arabs, so, as with children who have not attained the age of reason, we cannot expect them to behave decently. She also points to this and this, as recent examples of serious persecution of Christians by Moslems in, respectively, the Philippines and Pakistan.

So Moslems are killing Christians, while half the world is up in arms about a dozen (pretty unremarkable) cartoons.

Melanie Phillips has this excellent post, about the whole fiasco, highlighting the Foreign Office’s (and, indeed the US State Department’s) typically craven submission to the savage exigencies of political Islam, and commending a comment by, of all people, the French foreign minister, who said in the Telegraph that:

‘It is not normal to caricature a whole religion as an extremist or terrorist movement.’ But the extreme reaction to the cartoons ‘would suggest the caricaturists were right,’ he added.

Indeed. Ms Phillips continues:

The madness of this protest deepens when one considers that the claim at its heart, that pictorial representations of the Prophet are forbidden in Islam, is not true. Like so much else, it is all a matter of interpretation; but the fact remains that there have been many representations of the Prophet in Islamic art over the centuries.

This quote from Charles Moore is also apposite:

There is no reason to doubt that Muslims worry very much about depictions of Mohammed. Like many, chiefly Protestant, Christians, they fear idolatry. But, as I write, I have beside me a learned book about Islamic art and architecture which shows numerous Muslim paintings from Turkey, Persia, Arabia and so on. These depict the Prophet preaching, having visions, being fed by his wet nurse, going on his Night-Journey to heaven, etc. The truth is that in Islam, as in Christianity, not everyone agrees about what is permissible. Some of these depictions are in Western museums. What will the authorities do if the puritan factions within Islam start calling for them to be removed from display (this call has been made, by the way, about a medieval Christian depiction of the Prophet in Bologna)? Will their feeling of 'offence' outweigh the rights of everyone else?

Obviously, in the case of the Danish pictures, there was no danger of idolatry, since the pictures were unflattering. The problem, rather, was insult. But I am a bit confused about why someone like Qaradawi thinks it is insulting to show the Prophet's turban turned into a bomb, as one of the cartoons does. He never stops telling us that Islam commands its followers to blow other people up.

Indeed, the whole article, titled “If you get rid of the Danes, you’ll have to keep paying the Danegeld” is worth reading in it’s entirety.

Finally, there is David Conway's 3 February article on Civitas. Conway points out that the Chairmanship of the Security Council will have passed to Denmark just as the question of Iran’s ~~Armageddon~~ I mean nuclear weapons programmes comes before the Council. Coincidence? I hope so.

The Saudi Hillbillies

2006-02-04T11:25:00.000+10:30

Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed,
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his fam'ly fed,
Then one day he was a-shootin' at some food,
And up through the ground came a-bubblin' crude!
Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea!

Well the first thing you know ol' Jed's a millionaire,
Kinfolk said "Jed, move away from there!",
Said "Californy is the place you ought to be!";
So they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly.
Hills, that is. Swimmin' pools, movie stars.

A YOUNG SAUDI man is receiving psychiatric treatment in hospital after his family forced him to marry four women in six months:

A Saudi man is in hospital after his divorced parents forced him to marry four times within six months.
The battle began when the father insisted the boy should marry a girl from his side of the family.
The mother retaliated by ordering him to wed a girl from her side, reports Arab News quoting Al-Watan daily.
But the father wasn't happy with the balance of power and insisted on a third wife from his side, to show who was boss.
The mother, not to be outdone, then demanded that her son include another wife from her side of the family.
The son has now been admitted to a hospital for psychological treatment. He is refusing to see his parents or his wives [Now, that's a surprise! - Ed].

Can you imagine the consequences of Jed Clampett falling in with a fanatically evangelical, supremacist religious cult, and then finding a goodly proportion of the world's petroleum resources? Well, that's basically all you need to know about "modern" Saudi Arabia....

Well now its time to say goodbye to Jed an' all his kin.
And they would like to thank you folks fer' kindly droppin' in.
You're all invited back a-gain to this localiteee
To have a heapin' helpin' of their hospitality!
Hillybilly that is. Set a spell, Take your shoes off....

Y'all come back now, y'hear?.

Munich I

2006-01-24T09:41:00.000+10:30

Steven Speilberg's Munich opens in Australia on Thursday. Professor Dershowitz's review is in the Jerusalem Post today. I am reserving judgment, but having seen his review (and others), I have to say that I am concerned about the sort of ersatz morality and playing fast and loose with the truth that Speilberg seems prepared to entertain.

Galloway Sinks to New Low?

2006-01-24T09:31:00.000+10:30

Readers with the stomach to see Jihadi "Respect" MP George Galloway's antics in a red leotard can click on this link. His former friends in the ummah are not amused.

Abu Hamza's Defence to put Koran on Trial

2006-01-21T15:43:00.000+10:30

Readers may remember this decision in which the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal adjudicated a complaint by the Islamic Council of Victoria under that State's new Religious Vilification legislation alleging that two Christian evangellists had incite[d] hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of, Muslims on the basis of religious belief. The Tribunal held that views attributed to the Islamic faith:

...represented the views of a small group of fundamentalists, namely, Wahabbists, who are located in the Gulf states and who are a minority group, and their views bear no relationship to mainstream Muslim beliefs...

Now, a British terror-sympathizing Imam on trial for inciting hatred against (guess who!) the Jewish people, for inter alia citing the famous hadith in which the trees call out to the Muslims to kill the Jews hiding behind them, defends himself thus:

Edward Fitzgerald, QC, for the defence, said that Abu Hamza’s interpretation of the Koran was that it imposed an obligation on Muslims to do jihad and fight in the defence of their religion. He said that the Crown case against the former imam of Finsbury Park Mosque was “simplistic in the extreme”.

He added: “It is said he was preaching murder, but he was actually preaching from the Koran itself.”

Mr Fitzgerald cited two verses of the book that Abu Hamza would rely on, among many others, as theological justification for the words that had led to him being charged. They were Chapter 2, verse 216 and Chapter 9, verse 111. He said that all the great monotheistic religions had scriptures that contained “the language of blood and retribution”.

That should get the Courts turning intellectual somersaults.

Mr Fitzgerald's comments are here. His final coment about monotheistic religions is half right. Some scriptures (like the book of Joshua) contain such language in the form of history. Some, like the Christian Gospels generally reserve blood and retribution as the prerogative of the Almighty. Islamic holy texts (namely the Koran and ahadith) differ from the Jewish and Christian Bibles in that they positively encourage believers to shed blood and exact retribution. So, come and get me Islamic Council of Victoria!

In the seemingly far-off days before so-called "Human Rights" statutes, the law was simple; and the limits of free speech were comparatively clear. However, in the last 30 years, western governments, in various outrageous attempts to appease religious minorities (and it would be remiss of me to omit that in Australia, the Jewish community has used such statutes enthusiastically to deal with perpetrators of Holocaust denial and anti-semitism generally) have made a right pig's breakfast of the concepts of freedom of speech and of conscience. The UK prosecutes an Imam for preaching Jew-hatred; but if one attributes such views (which have plenty of support in the Koran and ahadith) to anything but a "minority" one is inciting hatred against Muslims, under Victorian law. Oh Allah!

Good Luck, Senator Hill

2006-01-21T11:20:00.000+10:30

Australian Defence Minister, Senator Robert Hill recently announced his retirement from the government and is expected to be appointed Australia's next Ambassador to the UN. This blog wishes him well in his new career as our Ambassador to the usless, corrupt and positively malign of the world, and notes with interest this article in today's Weekend Australian:

He has, slowly but methodically and comprehensively, turned the defence doctrine established under Beazley and unchallenged until Hill's tenure, on its head, cementing a new paradigm of forward engagement for the Australian Defence Force.

He has also secured massive new resources for Defence, a commitment to a real increase of 3 per cent a year for all of this decade, a commitment that John Howard foreshadowed in December would be pushed out until at least 2015.

Hill towers over Howard's other defence ministers, the inconsequential Ian McLachlan, the bumbling John Moore, and Peter Reith, who, though a capable politician, made his chief mark in defence in the children overboard fiasco.

Hill has, according to Sheridan, been instrumental in saving Defence from one of the most foolish policy fads of the 1980s and 1990s:

One of his most important achievements was in breaking the straitjacket of the Beazley-era defence of Australia doctrine. This held that the ADF should be structured purely for the defence of Australia, and that this structure would allow some flexibility for token commitments abroad.

One of the many debilitating consequences of this doctrine was a shocking neglect of the army, even though it was the army that was continually deployed abroad. The crippled nature of the army was evident in East Timor, where cobbling together a force of only 5000 soldiers almost stretched the ADF to breaking point.

Hill's philosophy of defence was evident in the main equipment decisions on his watch. The turning point was the purchase of 59 Abrams main battle tanks for the army. But similarly the commitment to two huge amphibious ships to transport the troops and three air warfare destroyers to protect them from missile and air attack while they are being transported, also gave effect to Hill's strategic doctrine.

Over the years, Hill became more confident in rejecting the old paradigm, commenting that the sea-air gap to our north was not a moat behind which Australia sheltered but a highway down which we travelled.

One of Labor leader Kim Beazely's most commonly-cited positive traits is his "credibility" on defence matters. One suspects that this is only because he liked being photographed with millitary hardware and talking about the American Civil War.

Thank you, Senator Hill, and good luck for the future.

O Little Town of Bethlehem...

2005-12-23T13:30:00.000+10:30

As Christmas approaches, Gunmen Seize Bethlehem's City Hall:

Palestinian gunmen disrupted Christmas preparations in Bethlehem on Tuesday, briefly taking over the municipality building across from the Church of Nativity, leading clergy to close the ancient shrine for several hours.

It was a scene that has played itself out in other West Bank and Gaza towns. Gunmen, some linked to the ruling Fatah Party of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, want him to carry out his promise to give them government jobs.

Oh dear. What a wonderful State "Palestine" will be!

But this was Bethlehem less than a week before Christmas, with thousands of tourists expected to arrive, encouraged by the downturn in violence since last Christmas, largely because of a February truce.

More because of a security fence than a non-existant truce. But who am I to ask Yahoo News to tell the truth. The west (and, most shamefully, Christian organizations) have ignored the persecution of Bethlehem's Christians by Palestinian Muslims since Oslo, so what harm's a little bit more "civil disorder" going to do?

Whilst we are visiting the Holy Land, you might be interested in reading about Yasser Abbas in WSJ.com.

On the very day that five Israelis were murdered and over 60 injured outside a shopping mall in the coastal city of Netanya earlier this month, the official Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas had approved fresh financial assistance to the families of suicide bombers. The family of each “martyr” will now receive a monthly stipend of at least $250 — a not inconsiderable amount for most Palestinians. Altogether, the families of these so-called martyrs and of those wounded in terrorist attempts or held in Israeli jails might receive $100 million, according to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida. [but what about the "truce"? - Ed]

Around 30% of the Palestinian Authority budget comes from international donations, including a hefty amount from the European Union. If an Arab government funded stipends to the families of the London or Madrid bombers, it would probably be pretty big news. But this is the Palestinian Authority, and no matter how little it does to discourage terrorism, or to educate its people to coexist with Israel, it can rely on excuses being made on its behalf by an army of sympathizers throughout the West — in the press, on college campuses and, most disturbingly, in foreign ministries.

For over a year now, since Mr. Abbas succeeded Yasser Arafat, his boss of 40 years, many in the West have done their utmost to “explain” or ignore Mr. Abbas’s failings. But if Americans and Europeans are genuinely interested in promoting Palestinian-Israeli peace, it is time for them to take a realistic look at his record. Some Western commentators were quick to emphasize his condemnation of the Netanya attack. But did they really listen to what he actually said? True, Mr. Abbas condemned the Netanya suicide bomb — but only in the Palestinian Authority’s usual inadequate and half-hearted terms. He said that it “caused great damage to our commitment to the peace process” and that it “harmed Palestinian interests.” But he could not bring himself to say that murdering people is simply wrong. [Now there's an idea!]
His outright refusal to confront and disarm terrorists, in violation of the Road Map, hardly registers anymore in the Western media and where it does, it is usually excused and attributed to his relative political weakness. However, the media also give very little idea of the extent to which the Palestinian Authority continues to glorify terrorists.

The Second Draft: Muhamed Al-Durah

2005-12-18T12:07:00.000+10:30

The Second Draft has an excellent re-examination of the 2000 Muhamed Al-Durah incident, in which Gaza Arabs allege a young boy was shot dead in a hail of Israeli bullets at the Netzarim Junction. The site examines a large amount of raw and video footage of the incident and examines the arguments for and against five possible explanations of the incident:

the IDF shot al-Durah on purpose,
the IDF shot him accidentally,
Palestinian gunmen shot al-Durah accidentally,
they shot him purposely,
the whole event was staged for propaganda purposes.

The site concludes that of the five scenarios above, the most likely is that the incident was staged by Palestinians for propaganda purposes, but invites visitors to decide for themselves.

Jihadis Want "Little Johnny" Dead

2005-12-17T14:38:00.000+10:30

So somewhere in his youth, or childhood...
He must have done some-thing good!

It's all over the news at the moment; alleged Jihadis plotted to kill Howard. You know, we might just have a small holy-warrior problem in Australia at the moment.

I've read a couple of dozen letters to the Editor in the print media this week blaming Howard for the Sydney lawlessness of the past few days. Apparrently the PM "demonizes" Muslims. It's got to the stage that one suspects such sufferers from Howard Derangement Syndrome are quite comfortable with this line of reasoning:

"For example, if John Howard kills innocent Muslim families do we ... do we have to kill him and his family ... (and) his people, like at the football?" asked Mr Merhi. Mr Benbrika allegedly replied: "If they kill our kids, we kill little kids."

"We send a message back to them," Mr Merhi allegedly said.

"That's it, an eye for an eye," Mr Benbrika replied.

Obligatory Sydney Riots Post

2005-12-15T13:36:00.000+10:30

Naturally enough, a lot has been said over the last few days about the causes of the recent trouble in Sydney and elsewhere in Australia. This is one of the more sensible opinion pieces I have read on the topic, by the Australian journalistic left's favourite bete noir Janet Albrechtsen:

Racism was on the streets last weekend. No doubt about it. White supremacists alleged to have links to neo-Nazis admitted they brought in more than 100 people to join the rampage at Cronulla. Young men used their bodies as billboards to read: "We grew here, you flew here". This is racist and it's wrong. Vigilantes bashing young men and women is criminal. But grabbing hold of Hansonism every time racism rears its ugly head and tarring the whole crowd with the same racist brush gets us nowhere.

Her conclusion?

Recognising human nature means that multiculturalism, though a fine sentiment, can only work if we unite behind a core set of values. Unfortunately though, that policy has become a licence for rampant cultural relativism. We are loath to criticise any aspects of cultures (except our own) for fear of sounding terribly judgmental and unfashionably un-multicultural.

Instead, culture is talked about only as an excuse for abhorrent behaviour so that the offender becomes the victim. Last week, a convicted gang rapist claimed he assaulted a 14-year-old girl because she was not wearing traditional Muslim dress and he thought she was promiscuous. Pointing to cultural differences, the 27-year-old Pakistani-born man said: "I believed at the time I committed this offence that she had no right to say no. I believed I'm not doing anything wrong." A month ago his lawyer told the court his client was a "cultural time bomb".

If this view, that culture can be used as an excuse, represents the views of even a subset of Muslim youth, then we have a problem. If we are not talking openly about egregious aspects of some cultures (except as an excuse), we have only ended up with a bigger problem. And, to date, we have not been talking. Multiculturalism has been synonymous with a rights agenda - addressing minority grievances - rather than a framework for talking about responsibilities. The violence that has been brewing in Cronulla, culminating in the disgraceful rampages in recent days, is a pointer that if we're serious about social cohesion, it's time we all demonstrated social responsibility.

Lapkin Lambasts Hicks' Legal Strategy

2005-12-15T13:20:00.000+10:30

As the United Kingdom grants Muhammad Dawood (aka David Hicks) British citizenship, and a potential "get out of Guantanamo free card", Ted Lapkin points out a few pertinent issues:

The Blair Government previously demanded the release from US custody of British subjects who were captured in Afghanistan while fighting for Osama bin Laden. The Hicks legal team will doubtless argue that its client should benefit from similar treatment. But it is worth noting that the discharge of those Britons from Guantanamo transpired before the 7/7 London suicide bombings. It remains to be seen whether the legacy of home-grown jihadist terrorism in the English Midlands has dampened Whitehall's enthusiasm for springing Islamic holy warriors from detention.

Reviewing the tactics deployed by Hicks' legal team, Lapkin opines:

Moreover, it is Hicks's own cunctatory lawyers who bear the primary responsibility for the length of their client's incarceration without trial. With all the chutzpah of a patricide who appeals for mercy on account of orphanhood, advocates for Hicks complain about the glacial pace of American military justice.

But in a deliberate strategy that seems governed more by politics than legal considerations, Hicks's lawyers have drawn out the judicial process through repeated requests for postponements. And while in US courtrooms his solicitors employ every delaying tactic in the book, in the courtroom of public opinion they shed crocodile tears over their client's predicament.

Lapkin then makes a plausible case that Hicks's supporters are guilty of hipocrisy in their criticism of the Guantanamo Military Tribunal system:

Thus the only plausible reason why the Hicks legal team is playing for time is so they can have their cake in the courtroom while eating it in the public relations arena. Because they realise the evidence against their client is overwhelming, they understand that political pressure to short-circuit the trial is his only chance to escape a serious prison sentence.

A similar sort of politically motivated dishonesty plagues other forms of criticism that have been directed towards the military commission process. Rules of evidence that permit the introduction of hearsay evidence are often indignantly denounced as a travesty of justice by the tribunal's opponents. Yet this same evidentiary procedure was employed by the Nuremberg tribunal after World War II, and is used today by other war crimes proceedings which no one thinks to challenge.

The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia admits hearsay testimony that is deemed to be pertinent by the presiding judges. But other than neo-Nazis, rabid Serb nationalists and John Pilger, there are few voices complaining that Herman Goering and Slobodan Milosevic were the victims of kangaroo justice.

The most vociferous assailants of the US military commission process are often ardent supporters of the UN and its work. Thus for many critics of US foreign policy, what's good for the ICT goose is not good for the Guantanamo gander. Hearsay evidence is fine for the UN, but it is an abomination for the US.

UN Day of Solidarity with Suicide Terrorists, Part III

2005-12-09T08:42:00.000+10:30

Eye on the UN has pictures of the UN's recent terror orgy. In the first picture, we see the UN and Palestinian Flags on either side of a map of "Palestine".

Of course, to put the imaginary "State of Palestine" on the map, they had to obliterate the map of a long-standing UN member state (even the 1947 UN Partition Lines, which pre-date this map are not marked on the map of "Palestine"):

In the third picture of this series we have the Suicide Bombers' Commemoration, as (from left to right), Nasser Al-Kidwa, "Foreign Minister" of the Palestinian Authority, President of the UN Security Council Andrey Denisov, President of the UN General Assembly Jan Eliasson, Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People Paul Badji, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, (and two others) stand in response to these words from the chair "I invite everyone present to rise and observe a minute of silence in memory of all those who have given their lives for the cause of the Palestinian people and the return of peace between Israel and Palestine.". "Return of peace between Israel and Palestine"? That's a good one! There has never been an independent entity called Palestine (and even the notion of a "Palestinian People" is a comparatively recent development in response to Zionism, and the creation of Israel), moreover, the Arabs of the region have been indiscriminately killing Jews since before the first Aliyah.

If the US is serious about defeating terrorists, this immoral gang of racists and despots standing around shedding tears over murderous, self-immolating shahids and suicide terrorists would be a good place to start. A visit from the Special Forces might do the UN a world of good...

Speaking of the UN's "glorious dead", in a sure-fire vote-winning move, Hamas has named a mother of three shahids as a candidate in the upcoming PA elections; three of her sons have been killed either preparing or participating in attacks on Israeli civillians, and she glories in their "martyrdom". That said, Ms Farhat does still have three sons who have not yet managed to get themselves killed for Allah's Palestine. But insh'allah...

This woman is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with this depraved "society". Indeed, the "my sons are dead terrorists" part of her CV is not merely incidental to her election campaign, it is her election campaign:

"Vote for me, and you too can lose half your family to glorious 'martyrdom' for the cause of genocide! Allahu Akhbar"!

UN "Not really useful in solving actual problems" - Bolton

2005-12-04T11:04:00.000+10:30

As the UN General Assembly rejoiced in the purity of the utterly impotent by passing a veritable orgy of anti-Israel resolutions to mark the 58th Anniversary of the UN's Partition Resolution of 1947, US Ambassador John Bolton had this to say about the impotent raging of the despots, bigots, and bien-pensants of the General Assembly:

``These resolutions are purely symbolic,'' Bolton told reporters at the UN. ``It is one reason why many people say the UN is not really useful in solving actual problems. We have been making enormous progress toward solutions in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that progress has benefited from UN participation, but it does not benefit from needless repetition of meaningless resolutions in the General Assembly.''

Bolton, who has pressed UN member governments to reduce the number of General Assembly resolutions, said it was up to them to ``decide they want to do things that are relevant.''

Speaking on behalf of Australia at the General Assembly, Andrew Southcott MP said:

...that his delegation was concerned that a number of resolutions taken up by the Assembly this year had been unbalanced in their criticism of Israel. The singling out of one side for blame in the current situation was very unhelpful. Australia remained concerned by the high level of United Nations resources allocated to anti-Israeli activity, including the Division for Palestinian Rights and the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

Celebrate the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the PLO Arabs!

2005-11-29T09:03:00.000+10:30

As I stand on this rostrum, the long and proud history of my people unravels itself before my inward eye. I see the oppressors of our people over the ages as they pass one another in evil procession into oblivion. I stand here before you as the representative of a strong and flourishing people which has survived them all and which will survive this shameful exhibition and the proponents of this resolution.

The great moments of Jewish history come to mind as I face you, once again outnumbered and the would-be victim of hate, ignorance and evil. I look back on those great moments. I recall the greatness of a nation which I have the honor to represent in this forum. I am mindful at this moment of the Jewish people throughout the world wherever they may be, be it in freedom or in slavery, whose prayers and thoughts are with me at this moment.

I stand here not as a supplicant. Vote as your moral conscience dictates to you. For the issue is neither Israel nor Zionism. The issue is the continued existence of this organization, which has been dragged to its lowest point of discredit by a coalition of despots and racists.

Chaim Herzog, Ambassador of the State of Israel to the UN, on the UN's infamous "Zionism is Racism" resolution.

Caritas: Catholic Jew-Baiters?

2005-11-29T08:49:00.000+10:30

Is the appellation "Catholic Jew-Baiters" a harsh calumny of an estimable charitable organization? Read Liz's Post and decide for yourselves.

Israel and the Cause of Freedom

2005-11-27T19:24:00.000+10:30

Charles Moore asks readers of the Daily Telegraph how we have forgotten that Israel’s story is the story of the West. He begins with an examination of the career of Ariel Sharon that sees the Israeli PM’s career as emblematic of the struggles of the Jewish State:

If you had followed the British media, particularly the BBC, with average attention over the past 25 years, you would have concluded that Sharon was an intransigent, murderous, semi-fascist. So you would have been perplexed by his sudden announcement this week that he is to leave the "Right-wing" (favoured Western terminology) Likud party and form a "centrist" party of his own. Suddenly, Sharon becomes visionary, peace-seeking. Little would have prepared you for it.

And that is the trouble. Little prepares the post-Christian European audience to understand Israel. By "understand", I partly mean sympathise with, and partly, just comprehend.

Sharon's career is a good place to start, because it spans the history of the Jewish state. He was 20 when it began in 1948, and had been serving in the Jewish Haganah militia since the age of 14. He fought in the War of Independence, and in 1956, and in the Six-Day War of 1967, and in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when he crossed the Suez Canal and, effectively disobeying orders, advanced to cut the supply lines of the Egyptian Third Army. He became a popular hero.

Then Sharon entered full-time politics. As defence minister, he masterminded the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which succeeded in breaking up the PLO infrastructure there. On his watch, Lebanese Christian Falangists entered the Sabra and Chatila Palestinian refugee camps. There they massacred several hundred people: Sharon was officially condemned for this, and forced to resign.

He bounced back, however. As housing minister, he built settlements. Later he was foreign minister, then leader of Likud. In 2001, he became prime minister, swept to power by fear of the new intifada. He ordered the assassination of many Palestinian terrorists. He began the security wall that divides Israel from much of the West Bank. He also ordered Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza strip, the first unilateral withdrawal it has ever made. And soon he will contest elections as leader of a party he has just invented.

Moore thus compares Sharon to Caesar; Israel to Rome; an austere nation building itself up from next-to-nothing in the face of enemy neighbours. But, as Moore notes, there is one important difference; Israel’s wars have been about security, rather than conquest for its own sake. Israeli politics, Moore writes, “for the past dozen years has been the attempt to reconcile extrication from territory with security.”.

The story of the building, and continuing survival of the Jewish State, often against seemingly insurmountable odds is one that should appeal to the right and left alike:

In the history of the West, such a narrative used to command fascination and respect. Many could apply it to their own people. British people whose convict cousins had built Australia out of their barren exile could understand; so could Americans, who had overcome hostile terrain and hostile inhabitants, and forged a mighty nation. So could any country formed in adversity, particularly, perhaps, a Protestant one - with its idea of divinely supported national destiny and its natural sympathy for the people first chosen by God. The sympathy was made stronger by the fact that the new state was robust in its legal and political institutions, free in its press and universities - a noisy democracy.

Anti-imperialists and the Left also found much to admire. They admired people whose pioneer spirit kept them equal, who often lived communally, who fled the persecution of old societies to build simpler, better ones. If you read Bernard Donoughue's diaries, just published, of his life as an adviser to Harold Wilson in the 1970s (a much better picture of what prime ministers are like than Sir Christopher Meyer's self-regarding effort), one difference between then and now that hits you hard is Donoughue's (and Wilson's) firm belief that the cause of Israel is the cause of people who wish to be free, and that its enemies are the old, repressive establishments.

But then, almost overnight, a different narrative supervened.

Once upon a time, the word "Palestinian" had no national meaning; it was simply the description on any passport of a person living in British-mandated Palestine.

Indeed, Ariel Sharon himself used to carry a “Palestinian” passport.

During the 19 years to 1967 when Jordan governed the West Bank, the people there had no self-rule, and no real name. UN Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to leave territories it occupied in 1967, does not mention Palestinians; it speaks only of "Arab refugees". Palestinian nationality came along, as it were, after the fact, a nationality largely based on grievance…

…Israel, which was attacked, has come to be seen as the aggressor. Israel, which has elections that throw governments out and independent commissions that investigate people like Sharon and condemn him, became regarded as the oppressive monster. In a rhetoric that tried to play back upon Jews their own experience of suffering, supporters of the Palestinian cause began to call Israelis Nazis. Holocaust Memorial Day is disapproved of by many Muslims because it ignores the supposedly comparable "genocide" of the Palestinians.

I interpose that this is a depraved rhetoric, with its roots deep in hatred and contempt for the Jewish people. Why are the leaders of the Jewish State almost invariably compared to Hitler? It is not as though the 20th Century has thrown up a lack of military strongmen to whom one could more appositely compare Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Rabin. Indeed, the fact that we are even discussing the Arab-Israeli dispute in 2005 is eloquent testimony to the historical bankruptcy of the comparison. Had it any validity, there would be no “Palestinians” for the UN and the assorted blowhards of the international community, and of the extreme right and left worldwide to wet themselves over. We should be quite clear about this; Hitler’s Final Solution called for nothing less than the extermination of every last Jew. After decades of terrorism, the Israeli State is still engaging in peace talks with a view to conceding Palestinian claims to land in the former Mandate.

Moore rightly links the fate of the Jewish State to that of western civilisation, as do many of the enemies of both:

In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West. He is busy building his country's nuclear bomb.

If the western democracies facilitated, or even just turned a blind eye to an Islamic Republic with a plan to nuke 5 million Jews off the face of the earth, would we really have any moral claim to be treated any better when the jihadis came for us?

Canadian Liberals put the "Moon" in "Moonbat"

2005-11-26T15:04:00.000+10:30

This story reads like an April Fools' Day hoax. In summary, a former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau has joined forces with three non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on "exopolitics" - relations with advanced extra-terrestial intelligences. He's also worried that that crazy Texas neocon cowboy, George W Bush, is going to declare war on aliens. Talk about putting the "moon" in "moonbat".

Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head."

Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."

Hellyer revealed, "The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop."

Hellyer warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, "The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."
Hellyer’s speech ended with a standing ovation. He said, "The time has come to lift the veil of secrecy, and let the truth emerge, so there can be a real and informed debate, about one of the most important problems facing our planet today."

Three Non-governmental organizations took Hellyer’s words to heart, and approached Canada’s Parliament in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, to hold public hearings on a possible ET presence, and what Canada should do. The Canadian Senate, which is an appointed body, has held objective, well-regarded hearings and issued reports on controversial issues such as same-sex marriage and medical marijuana.

Controversial issues certainly, but they are nonetheless serious matters of public policy.

On October 20, 2005, the Institute for Cooperation in Space requested Canadian Senator Colin Kenny, Senator, Chair of The Senate Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, “schedule public hearings on the Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, so that witnesses such as the Hon. Paul Hellyer, and Canadian-connected high level military-intelligence, NORAD-connected, scientific, and governmental witnesses facilitated by the Disclosure Project and by the Toronto Exopolitics Symposium can present compelling evidence, testimony, and Public Policy recommendations.”

The Non-governmental organizations seeking Parliament hearings include Canada-based Toronto Exopolitics Symposium, which organized the University of Toronto Symposium at which Mr. Hellyer spoke.

The Disclosure Project, a U.S.– based organization that has assembled high level military-intelligence witnesses of a possible ET presence, is also one of the organizations seeking Canadian Parliament hearings.

Vancouver-based Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS), whose International Director headed a proposed 1977 Extraterrestrial Communication Study for the White House of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who himself has publicly reported a 1969 Close Encounter of the First Kind with a UFO, filed the original request for Canadian Parliament hearings.

The Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, presented by the organizations to a Senate Committee panel hearing in Winnipeg, Canada, on March 10, 2005, proposes that the Government of Canada undertake a Decade of Contact.

The proposed Decade of Contact is “a 10-year process of formal, funded public education, scientific research, educational curricula development and implementation, strategic planning, community activity, and public outreach concerning our terrestrial society’s full cultural, political, social, legal, and governmental communication and public interest diplomacy with advanced, ethical Off-Planet cultures now visiting Earth.”

I'm glad they have their priorities straight in the Great White North. Hellyer's speech received a standing ovation, so this isn't a story about the failure of state-run aged care or mental health systems. On the contrary, everyone knows that the real threats to Western liberal democratic civilisation is an American military determined to declare war on the Daleks, ET or the Emperor Palpatine. Seriously, this has given me an idea. Let's call a Canadian Senate inquiry into how the Mossad and George W Bush planned the World Trade Centre attacks of September 11, 2001....

Heffer: Bring Back the Noose, or Lose Rule of Law

2005-11-24T15:29:00.000+10:30

Thus opines Simon Heffer in Britain's Daily Telegraph. Unlike some who have graced these pages, he doesn't want to hang drug traffickers or apostates from Islam, just murderers. He writes of his attendance at a criminal justice conference:

After a few hours in the company of probation officers, criminologists, a few prototypes of what we now know as the Politically Correct Senior Policeman and various others from the rehabilitation industry, I realised I would probably feel less out of place at a Tibetan religious festival. It may be uncouth, but I always feel pronounced prickles of discomfort when in the presence of those who devote themselves to making the lives of the downright wicked as comfortable as possible.
We waltzed into a plenary session about the need to curb serious crime - murder, rape, armed robbery, drugs trafficking, all those little things that make life in our inner cities so vibrant today. When I uttered the fact - not at that stage reinforced by an expression of opinion, but simply a fact - that the murder rate had quadrupled since the abolition of capital punishment, an embarrassed silence permeated the room. It was as if my personal hygiene had suddenly taken a turn very much for the worse.

Of course, there are other factors bearing upon the massive increase in the murder rate, but all the same, the absence of capital punishment cannot simply be dismissed out of hand as irrelevant. However, the expression support for the death penalty in educated company often results in much spluttering and spilling of drinks.

When Lord Stevens, the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, argued on Sunday that his opposition to capital punishment had been overturned by the shooting of a policewoman in Bradford last week, he was joining that usually silent band of intelligent people who feel that society affords inadequate protection to the innocent. And, predictably, he has been vilified for it by a noisy minority who, in the security of their comfortable existences, feel that anyone even suggesting the restoration of a death penalty for murder in this country must be certifiably insane or a complete pervert.

I regret that Lord Stevens did not advocate this course when he still held his high office, for his opinion then would have counted for far more. After all, plenty of police officers were murdered on his watch while trying to do their jobs, like poor WPc Beshenivsky last week. I also disagree with him on one point: why argue for restoration purely for those who murder police officers?

Heffer points out that the State has not abandoned the right to kill. On the contrary:

For, be in no doubt, although we forfeited 40 years ago the right of the state to impose the capital sentence after a fair trial in a court of law, the state still reserves to itself the right to take life. Ask, for example, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, shot dead by agents of the state in July this year when he was mistaken for a suicide bomber.

However awful the consequences of such an error, the state must continue to have our power, as part of its duty of protecting us. Yet we have, since 1965, been in the ironic position of having outlawed execution with trial, but continuing to permit execution without trial. I suppose there is a logic there, but I can't see it.

He makes this prediction:

If, over the next few years, the supply of cheap and illegal arms from Eastern Europe and the bandit states of the former Soviet Union continues to grow at the rate it lately has, the practice of random, casual shooting will become a normal part of our lives. Our police will be armed, but that will only feed the appetite.

On the advice of their spin-doctors, the rhetoric of politicians will become more and more tabloid in its vehemence. Home secretaries, and even perhaps prime ministers, will attend funerals and utter profound words of condemnation.

Yet, in time, such murder will be so widespread that it almost ceases to be reported. And only then will some radical politician reluctantly admit that capital punishment is the alternative to scrapping the rule of law.

Although Heffer was talking about random acts of gangster-esque violence, Australians have recently come face to face with evil on this scale. Faced with such apparrently irremediable savagery, one could be forgiven for agreeing with Heffer.