Month: August 2009

Fatah: Return Jerusalem before talks go on

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Palestine laughs at the thought of peace with Israel. Demanding the impossible is a sure way to keep the fight going.

fatah_logoThe Jerusalem Post…The sixth Fatah General Assembly decreed on Saturday that the return of both east and west Jerusalem to Palestinian control was a “red line” which was non-negotiable, and would need to be fulfilled before any peace talks with Israel could renew, Israel Radio reported.

According to the report, a document adopted by the Fatah delegates of the assembly declared that Palestinians would “continue to be sacrificed until residents of Jerusalem are free of settlements and settlers.” The document went on to state that all of Jerusalem, including the surrounding villages, belonged to the Palestinians, and lands conquered following the Six Day War shared the same status as those located within the Green Line.

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz blasted the statement Saturday, saying that the declaration was a clear message to all those who maintained the “illusion that the Palestinians were prepared for compromise,” Israel Radio reported.

Israel should take legal steps in response to the decree, Israel Radio quoted the minister as saying. According to the report, he urged the government to expand the municipal authority of Jerusalem to include Ma’aleh Adumim, Givat Ze’ev, Gush Etzion, and Beitar. In addition, Katz encouraged further construction in surrounding neighborhoods so as to increase Jewish presence in the city.

Also at the conference on Saturday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was named head of Fatah.

“This convention must be a new beginning for the Fatah movement,” said Abbas to thunderous applause. “In our history we’ve had many launches and setbacks. Sometimes we have reached the edge of the abyss – but we have always returned stronger,” he said.

Hundreds of delegates cheered and clapped as senior Fatah official Tayib Abdul Rahim announced that Abbas was chosen to lead the party. There was no vote because no other candidate came forward to challenge Abbas’ five-year rule.

Technically Abbas can only lead the party for five years, until a new conference is announced, but this is the first time Fatah members have met in 20 years and it is not clear when they will convene again.

The Copts Gather in D.C. to Challenge Mubarak

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by Dymphna

This post unabashedly copied from Gates Of Vienna.

Voice of the Copts has announced a demonstration to be held in front of the White House on the occasion of Egyptian President Mubarak’s visit to the U.S. on August 18th – next Tuesday.

They are joined in this effort to hold a peaceful rally by the National American Coptic Assembly and the American Coptic Union.

Voice of the Copts describes their mission:

Our goal is to report news of discrimination and oppression of religious minorities in every corner of our planet. A special attention will be given to those taking place in countries ruled by the Arabs, as well as providing an in-depth explanation of their mentality, behaviour and their way of living.

Since we are Copts, events of interest to the Copts concerning issues in their homeland, Egypt, will be covered, Our website would be an open window on the Coptic culture, as well as a comprehensive source of information on the Copts’ suffering in their own land.

The Copts are an ancient people. In fact, the name in Arabic means “Egyptian”, or at least it did. The fact that they survive at all after a millennium of slaughter and persecution is testimony to the strength and determination of this people. Despite the ongoing, endless inequity they experience in their native land, they have managed to maintain a precarious existence in the face of hatred and mindless attacks.

Consider the Copts a safety valve the Arab usurpers use to keep their own people in line. The latter have to queue up for necessities like bread, even though their government receives large subsidies from the West. When government is as corrupt as it is in Egypt, people suffer hardships. Thus, the Copts are a handy distraction to keep the attention of the larger population focused on something besides Mubarak’s feckless governance.

Many people are not aware of the flowering of Christianity very early on in Egypt. In the second century, it had begun to spread through the region. The apostle Mark is credited with mission work in Alexandria, and it wasn’t long before Anthony (born c. 270 A.D.), founded the cenobitic monasticism movement in Egypt. Pachomius learned from Anthony, though he was more interested in an eremitic, communal monasticism. Centuries before Benedict founded monasteries in the West, Christian monastic communities were flourishing all over North Africa and the Middle East.

After the invasions of the Muslims and the beginnings of serious slaughter, any discernible level of North African Christianity disappeared. But this didn’t happen in Egypt. North African Christians (Bishop Augustine of Hippo was one) belonged to the urban areas and to the educated elite, who were Romanized. None of those Christian leaders envisioned their theology or ecclesiology as something that belonged to the rural areas. To the extent that they “evangelized” the message was directed to urban populations.

Coptic Christianity, in contrast, went all the way to the bone. There were churches in even the smallest villages and the numerous monasteries were centers of learning, not just of Greek scripture, but also of an indigenous Coptic language collection of scripture, sermons, and hermeneutic theses. These codices and scrolls were revered by those charged with their keeping. Eventually, the murdering hordes would attack and destroy the great majority of these works, but it would take many centuries to penetrate from the cities into the hinterlands of Egypt.

The invaders found the native Copts useful. They were intelligent and literate so the Copts established a precarious niche as the clerical staff for their unschooled rulers. This didn’t mean the persecutions ceased. Rather, it guaranteed that the Copts would be harassed, intimidated, killed or kidnapped here and there when the occasion presented itself, but there would be no outright Final Solution. The Copts were always too useful to dispose of entirely.


[Here are the other sections of this story: Part Two and Part Three]

Continue Reading →

Yemeni cleric to be deported for Hamas fundraising

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Sheik_Mohammed_Ali__al-moayadCBC .. A jailed Yemeni cleric will be deported home from the U.S. after pleading guilty Friday in New York City to raising money for Hamas.

As part of the plea deal, Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad will be sentenced to time served — more than six years — and sent back to Yemen.

A Brooklyn jury had convicted the 60-year-old of supporting terrorism in 2005, for which he received a 75-year prison term. The U.S. government touted the verdict as a major victory in its war against terrorism. But an appeals court threw out the conviction last year, ruling that certain evidence at Al-Moayad’s trial was inflammatory testimony and should not have been admissible.

Rather than try him again, prosecutors opted for a plea deal because to spare government time and expense. They also said the cleric has severe health problems.

The United States considers Hamas, the political and militant group in power in the Gaza Strip, to be a terrorist organization.

Shafia trio appear in Kingston Court, request to speak with surviving children

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From The Montreal Gazette.

Shafia family appears in court via video

Charged in Kingston canal slayings; Parents can communicate with children without presence of lawyer, judge rules

By René Bruemmer, THE GAZETTEAugust 7, 2009

Mohammad Shafia, Hamid Mohammed Shafia, 18 and Tooba Mohammad Yahya. All three have been charged in Kingston with four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy to commit murder. The bodies of Yahya and Mohammad’s daughters - Zainab, 19, Sahari, 17 and Geeti 13 - and Mohammad's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, were found in a car submerged in the Rideau Canal on June 30.b

Mohammed Shafia, Hamed Mohammed Shafia and Tooba Mohammed Yahya. Photograph by Marcos Townsend/Tyrel Featherstone, Canwest News Service

KINGSTON, Ont. – The couple charged with murdering their three daughters and the man’s first wife appeared briefly via video at a Kingston courthouse yesterday with one request: that they be allowed to speak to their three surviving children without lawyers present.

Their 18-year-old son, also charged in the murders, made the same request.

Clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, looking drawn and tired, Mohammad Shafia, 56, appeared in the courtroom via video from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.

Through his lawyer, with a Farsi interpreter translating, Shafia asked that an earlier regulation, which stipulated he could communicate with his children only with a lawyer present and with the consent of youth protection services that are caring for the children, be amended.

Shafia’s lawyer, Peter Kemp, asked that the requirement to have lawyers present by removed, and that any communication be allowed only if youth protection approves.

The judge agreed to the requests by the father, the mother and the son.

The three were remanded until their next court date, Aug. 14, when lawyers are to discuss the disclosure of evidence.

Mohammad Shafia and his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 39, are charged with the murders of their three daughters: Zainab, 19; Sahari, 17; and Geeti, 13; and with the murder of Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad. Hamed Shafia, 18, faces the same charges.

Hamed Shafia and Yahya are staying at the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee, Ont. Hamed Shafia appeared composed during the short video conference, but Yahya looked stricken, holding onto the wall to support herself, her other hand clutched to her chest.

In prison, Yahya sits and stares wordlessly through the bars of her cell, said Sara Chaloux, who spent a week in the same wing at the prison and was in court yesterday on an unrelated matter.

“I felt bad for her,” Chaloux said in an interview. “Other inmates would go up to her and make comments or threats, but she just sat and stared and never said a word.”

Yahya was escorted from her cell only after all other inmates were enclosed in theirs, Chaloux said.

Lawyers for the men reported Hamed was attacked while in jail, and his father was threatened.

Montreal lawyers were replaced this week by legal counsel from Kingston with strong backgrounds in criminal law. The new lawyers did not speak to the media yesterday.

The bodies of the four family members were discovered June 30 in a Nissan Sentra submerged in the Rideau Canal near Kingston.

The accused and the victims lived together in a duplex in St. Léonard.

After the bodies were found, Shafia and his wife told police Zainab had borrowed the keys to the car. They believed she had left without their knowledge with the other victims, and probably drove into the canal by accident.

Kingston police said they discount this theory and confirmed they are looking into the possibility the slayings were carried out as a so-called honour killing.

Zainab, had been in two relationships of which Mohammad Shafia did not approve, relatives had said.

rb*******@****************st.com

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Muslim outrage: German soccer anthem sparks outcry

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Another day, another Muslim outrage. Here’s one of the latest:

Reuters Blogs

FaithWorld

Religion, faith and ethics

10:42 August 4th, 2009

Muslims angry at German soccer club over song

German Muslims have inundated one of the country’s top soccer teams, Schalke 04, with complaints about a verse in the club’s anthem which, they say, is disparaging towards the Prophet Mohammad.

The club has its home in Gelsenkirchen in Germany’s industrial heartland and immigrants make up about a third of the town’s population. Most of them have a Turkish background. Germany’s biggest mosque was opened in nearby Duisburg last year and many Schalke supporters are Muslims, as chat rooms like this one point out.

The lines in question are: “Mohammad was a Prophet who doesn’t understand football” although the words that follow seem positive: “But from all the beautiful colours he came up with blue and white.” Schalke’s colours are blue and white.

Schalke fanThe club, which plays in Germany’s Bundesliga top league and has some of the country’s most ardent fans, is taking the complaints seriously. A spokesman has said Schalke has asked an Islamic expert to analyse the text.

But what is most striking is that the song is not new. Some say it dates back to 1924.  So why has it suddenly started to offend Muslims?

The answer may lie in the mounting resentment in Germany’s Muslim community after politicians were slow to condemn the murder of an Egyptian woman in a court in eastern Germany about a month ago, which we blogged about at the time. The crime was widely viewed as racially motivated.

Germany’s Central Council of Muslims has summed up the situation. “Many Muslims in Germany no longer have a sense of security. Nerves are wearing thin,” General-Secretary Aiman Mazyek was quoted as saying in Bild daily, adding he did not believe the club had malicious intentions.

This storm is another sign of just how tense community relations are in Germany. Maybe a passion for soccer can help overcome some of the divisions.

Campus group advertising Israeli Apartheid Week lodge HRC complaint against university

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From the Ottawa Citizen.

Students take Carleton to rights tribunal

Group says school trampled its freedom of expression

By Jennifer Green, with files from Katie Daubs, The Ottawa CitizenAugust 7, 2009

Carleton University was only trying to keep campus political discourse civil. Now, it looks as if it will face Ontario’s human rights tribunal.

In March, a campus group advertised Israeli Apartheid Week with vivid signs of an Israeli fighter jet targeting a Palestinian toddler. Carleton told the group, Students Against Israeli Apartheid, to come up with something less pointed.

It complied, but complained to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario that the school trampled its freedom of expression. A mediation will likely be held in late September or early October, and, if the parties cannot agree, the complaint will proceed to a hearing, said Yavar Hameed, a lawyer representing the Carleton students.

Hameed said criticism of Israel was a sensitive issue on university campuses, and he didn’t know if this case would be resolved during the mediation stage. “The nature of this complaint focuses on the advocacy of Palestinian human rights,” he said. “We’re hopeful the human rights tribunal will take that issue seriously so Palestinian students and their allies will not feel chilled or marginalized when they try to speak about their basic rights.”

In an e-mail, Carleton spokesman Jason MacDonald said the students’ claims were “false and completely unfounded. The issue is now being addressed by the human rights tribunal and will provide us a with formal opportunity to respond point by point to these false claims once and for all. In the meantime we’re not going to do anything to undermine that process.”

Ben Saifer, a member of Students Against Israeli Apartheid, said the group would not back down. “The days of administrative intimidation and sophism are counted at Carleton University, and the tides are turning in North America against the supporters of the illegal Israeli occupation and apartheid regime.”

On its website, the group said: “In its fifth year, Toronto’s Israeli Apartheid Week has seen an alarming increase in harassment, intimidation and physical violence against its organizers and guests. While people who seem to be affiliated with the Jewish Defense League are the primary organizers of the attacks, unfortunately, the student groups Hasbara and Hillel have also joined in, using cameras, physical proximity, and threatening language to intimidate activists, especially women students, calling them ‘terrorists’ and repeating the accusations of ‘incitement’ and ‘hate speech.’ When these incidents of harassment and intimidation are reported to campus police, the police have taken no action.”

The university is also in hot water over its decision in late July to remove sessional lecturer Hassan Diab from a teaching post. A Lebanese-born Canadian citizen, Diab is accused of killing four people in the bombing of a Paris synagogue. Senior administrators at Carleton had approved his appointment, but the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith said it was “deeply disturbed by the news that Hassan Diab, the alleged bomber of the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris in 1980, will be teaching an upcoming sociology course at Carleton University. That terrorist attack, blamed on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations, resulted in the murders of four Jews, with scores more injured.”

The university fired the teacher, but a few days later, sociology and anthropology professors called for Diab’s reinstatement.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

A hatemongers guide to conversion: the United Church of Canada plays to Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism

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From The Ottawa Citizen.

Pray for the United Church

The Ottawa CitizenAugust 7, 2009

Reports that anti-Semitism is incubating in some corners of the United Church are generating anger toward the church, from both Christians and Jews. But the anger might be misplaced, because the church could end up the principal victim.

Anti-Semitism is a virus that destroys its host organism. In this case, the anti-Semitism seems to be masking itself as “anti-Zionism,” that is, hatred of Israel. Now, it is absolutely true that criticism of Israel does not automatically signal antipathy toward Jews. Many Jews themselves question Israeli government policies. It’s wrong to assume that critics of Israel are by definition anti-Jewish.

But it’s also true that every anti-Semite is most assuredly an anti-Zionist, so there is overlap between the groups. Identifying instances when the campaign to delegitimize Israel is a cover to attack Jews has always been a challenge. One giveaway is the appearance of age-old anti-Semitic tropes.

Which brings us back to the United Church of Canada. Beginning this weekend, the church will hold its General Council in Kelowna, B.C. The church will consider numerous resolutions, among them several that express extreme hostility to Israel.

It’s not just the double standard — singling out Israel, a liberal democracy, as the world’s greatest outlaw state? — that raises old memories of scapegoating the Jews. No, it’s the language in the background materials, available on the United Church’s website, that has shocked so many people.

One document warns that “some Members of Parliament are affiliated with the State of Israel” and “have sensitive roles in Canada.” Is this a coded reference to Jewish MPs, in an attempt to raise the ancient accusation that Jews are duplicitous and have dual loyalties?

It gets worse. The church document accuses the Canadian Parliament of harbouring MPs who are actually citizens of Israel. This is a lie. So far as anyone knows, there are no MPs who hold Israeli citizenship. But what if there were? Parliament is a multicultural and diverse place, like Canadian society generally. It’s conspicuous that the United Church is not witch-hunting South Asian or Muslim MPs to out those who hold dual citizenship. Only Jews constitute an enemy within.

The head of the church, moderator Rev. David Giuliano, acknowledged Tuesday that all of this is causing “pain and hurt to Jewish people in Canada,” yet he refuses to disown the architects of this campaign. Instead, he said that a rabbi will be invited to have “full speaking” privileges at the Kelowna conference. Will the rabbi be expected to answer the charge that Jews — sorry, people “affiliated” with Israel — should not have “sensitive” government jobs? Or that the Canada Revenue Agency should stop allowing tax deductions for respected Jewish charities, another idea that can be found in the materials posted on the church’s website?

Admirers of the United Church are right to be despondent. As one newspaper letter-writer put it, even if the proposals are rejected in Kelowna, “severe and irreparable damage has been done to the credibility of the (church) as a viable and doctrinally sound organization.”

The United Church of Canada isn’t the first organization that hatemongers have tried to convert into a vehicle for attacking Israel. Labour unions, student associations, even a camping store (Mountain Equipment Co-op) have had to fight off similar hijackings, not always successfully.

People with radical or hateful ideas know that by themselves they will remain marginal voices, so they infiltrate respectable institutions in order to give legitimacy to their agenda. The United Church is a great institution, and Canadians should pray that it is able to fight off those who would shame it.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Terrorists kidnap, torture boy to bully Iraqi policeman

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Khidir and Abdul QaderFALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) — Like many young boys, Khidir loves playing with toy cars and wants to be a policeman like his father when he grows up. But it was his father’s very job that caused the tiny child to suffer the unimaginable.

Khidir was just 6 years old when he was savagely ripped away from his family, kidnapped by al Qaeda operatives in Iraq.

“They beat me with a shovel, they pulled my teeth out with pliers, they would go like this and pull it,” said Khidir, now 8, demonstrating with his hands. “And they would make me work on the farm gathering carrots.”

What followed was even more horrific, an ordeal that would last for two years in captivity. Khidir and his father spoke to CNN recently, more than half a year after his rescue by Iraqi police.

“This is where they hammered a nail into my leg and then they pulled it out,” he says, lifting up his pant leg to show a tiny wound.

He says his captors also pulled out each of his tiny fingernails, broke both his arms, and beat him repeatedly on the side of the head with a shovel. He still suffers chronic headaches. He remembers them laughing as they inflicted the pain.

“I would think about my mommy and daddy,” he replies, when asked how he managed to get through the agony.

His father, Abdul Qader, struggles for words. “When he tells me about how they would torture him, I can’t tolerate it. I start crying,” he says. “What hurts me the most is when they hammered a nail into his leg.”

The father, a police officer, was sleeping at the police station in Falluja when his son was kidnapped. It was too dangerous to go home regularly. Although Falluja was no longer controlled by insurgents, assassinations against police were common.

“I woke up to the sound of a huge explosion … and then I heard my name on the radio. I ran outside and they came to me saying your house was blown up,” he says.

“When the police patrol came back, they all started kissing and comforting me,” he continues. “I was asking, ‘What’s going on? Where is my family?’ They told me that they took my son. This was a disaster. I went mad that day, I wasn’t normal, I was hysterical.”

Khidir’s grandmother was at home with the family at the time.

“The kidnappers climbed the fence and kicked in the door,” she says.”They were screaming for Abdul Qader. I told them he’s not here. They called me a liar and said we want his son. His son was hiding behind me, clutching my clothes. I said this is not his son. They hit me on the back with a rifle and ripped him out of my arms.”

The last thing she remembers were his screams of “Granny, Granny!” Continue Reading →

Pak. police stood by and did nothing to stop attackers.

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Pakistani Christians: Police did not stop carnage Found at TROP
Almas Hameed grabbed his 7-year-old daughter and stumbled out of their smoke-filled home as she pleaded in vain to bring her pet parrots. His wife, father and two other children did not survive.

Outside, hundreds of enraged Muslims called the victims “dogs” as they fired guns and burned house after house in the Christian neighborhood of this eastern Pakistani city. The weekend rampage left eight Christians dead. All but one were relatives of Hameed.

“We always live in fear,” said Hameed, 50. “I wonder if I will see a time in this country when I can live like an equal citizen.”

The attack, which Pakistani officials said was incited by a radical Islamist group, followed rumors that some Christians had desecrated a Quran — an act regarded as sacrilege by Muslims. The violence drew condemnation Monday from the prime minister and the pope, a chilling reminder of how religious extremism has left minority religious groups in this country increasingly vulnerable.

On Monday, paramilitary troops patrolled near the dozens of targeted houses, with their blackened walls, charred furniture, and twisted ceiling fans. Six people died in the fires, two by gunshots.

Authorities urged calm and promised that local police would be investigated for their inability to stop the violence, which spiraled even after an initial probe debunked the rumor that a Quran had been defiled.

“It was like hell. Nobody was coming to help us,” said Atique Masih, a 23-year-old Christian who was shot in his right leg.

Christian schools across the country closed for three days starting Monday.

“We are closing the schools to show our anger and concern,” Bishop Sadiq Daniel told The Associated Press, emphasizing the move was a peaceful tactic. “We want the government to bring all perpetrators of the crime to justice.”

In a telegram, Pope Benedict XVI said he was “deeply grieved” to hear of the “senseless attack.”

Benedict sent his condolences to families of the victims and called on the Christians “not to be deterred in their efforts to help build a society which, with a profound sense of trust in religious and human values, is marked by mutual respect among all its members.”

Christians — Protestants and Catholics among them — make up less than 5 percent of Muslim-majority Pakistan’s 175 million people, according to the CIA World Factbook. They generally live in peace with their Muslim neighbors.

Extremists, however, have made Christians and other minority religious groups a target. Earlier this summer in the Kasur area, for instance, Muslims set fire to dozens of Christian homes, according to local news accounts.

The anti-minority phenomenon seems to be getting worse as Taliban militancy has gained strength.

In March, the Taliban issued an ultimatum to the leaders of more than 25 Sikh families in a tribal region near the Afghan border: Convert to Islam and join the jihad or pay 5 billion rupees — roughly $62 million — for protection. Continue Reading →

Twitter taken out by DDOS attack. Target Georgian blogger

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This SITREP from Stratfor, explains why Twitter was down all day yesterday, and shows other targets of the DDOS attack.

Georgia: Single Blogger Targeted Through Attacks on Social-Media Sites
August 7, 2009
With a single Georgian blogger as the target, Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and Google’s Blogger were attacked with Twitter facing a site-wide outage, CNET News reported Aug. 6, citing Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook. “It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard,” Kelly said of the blogger with the account name “Cyxymu,” which is the name of a Georgian town.

Russia, Georgia: Georgian Blogger Blames Moscow For Attack
August 7, 2009
The Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu blamed the Kremlin for the attack on Aug. 7, The Guardian reported. Cyxymu was the target of a cyberattack on Aug. 6 that affected hundreds of millions of Web users. “Maybe it was carried out by ordinary hackers but I’m certain the order came from the Russian government,” Cyxmu said. Cyxmu is the Latinized name for Abkhazia, one of Georgia’s breakaway republics. Cyxmu, who gave his real name as Georgy, is an active critic of Moscow’s politics in the Caucasus and was the victim of a similar attack last year that crashed LiveJournal.

More on the mass wedding in Gaza. Something is rotten in the state of Gazania

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Please see the post over at Tundra Tabloids. He has written up the issue rather well. Also the comments are interesting. Watch the video very closely and see what context the young girls appear in.