Category Archives: Political Correctness

Cartoon Convergence at Yale

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Written by: Diana West

Friday, October 02, 2009 8:53 AM

Somehow, and I do not know how, both Kurt Westergaard and Jytte Klausen ended up speaking at separate appearances at Yale yesterday, also the same day the alumni group, the Yale Committe for a Free Press, sent off a second letter to Yale protesting the censorship of all Mohammed imagery, including Westergaard’s cartoon, in Klausen’s Yale University Press book The Cartoons That Shook the World.

Not exactly a harmonic covergence, but a convergence nonetheless.

What follows are highights from some of the reports tracking these criss-crossing events.

I’m going to start with the good news — the excellent letter from Yale alumni that I did not write but happily signed:

Simply stated, Yale must not be the arbiter of what is “safe” to publish. Such censorship corrodes the intellectual freedom that is the foundation of the entire university community. It also violates Yale’s own explicit policy: “Above all, every member of the university has an obligation to permit free expression in the university. . . . Every official of the university . . . has a special obligation to foster free expression and to ensure that it is not obstructed.”

The core American value of a free press transcends political viewpoints. Indeed, Yale’s surrender to unknown potential belligerents drew strong objection from many quarters, including the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the PEN American Center. Also protesting Yale’s action was the National Coalition Against Censorship on behalf of many constituent groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Middle East Studies Association.

Even closer to home, Sarah Ruden, whose translation of Virgil’s Aeneid was published by Yale, announced that she will no longer allow Yale to bid on her future works. In her own words, “Yale Press, after breaking a crucial relationship of trust with an author’s mind and work, should be called a lickspittle of fanatics and forfeit any respect or consideration from other authors.”

In a world where light and truth are under siege, the entire Yale community has a vital stake in preserving a free press. Fortunately, it is not too late, and not too difficult, to reverse the mistake that was made here.

We formally request that the Yale Corporation direct the Press to reprint Professor Klausen’s book with the censored material restored. This will bring a fitting end to this controversy. Lest it be said that the Corporation has never before exercised such direct authority over the Press, we must recall that never before has the Press censored an author’s work prior to publication. Restoring the censored material will also allow Professor Klausen’s book work to serve as a tangible reminder that freedom of the press cannot be taken for granted.

Alack, no such stirring stuff coming from the current crop of Yalies.

Indeed, the opinions that dominate the public space at Yale on the related matter of Westergaard’s visit to Yale to speak and answer questions are either Islamic voices, which believe Westergaard should not have been invited, or dhimmi voices, which pay lip service to free speech and take a stand on not exercising it. The following  op-ed by senior Matthew Ellison, which ran in yesterday’s Yale Daily News, sums the latter mindset up:

Yale and its students have thus far stood as a paragon of restraint amid the chaos. Unfortunately, through this international brouhaha, restraint has been the exception, not the rule.

This begins with the cartoonists.

Tsk, tsk — no self-restraint, those political cartoonists. Don’t they know better than to, in Westergaard’s case, take note of and actually illustrate the repeatedly, openly, brazenly made connections between violence and Islam, as expressed by Islamic terrorists and Islamic authorities alike? (It’s not just Abu Qatada time again, it’s also Imam Qaradawi time, because he is a world- famous Islamic authority who preaches about Mohammed the jihad model — which Kurt’s cartoon, by the way, perfectly and accurately captures.) Back to the op-ed by the Yale senior. Continue Reading →

Thirty ‘high-risk’ terrorists to be released early

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British court thinks punishing Muslim terrorists might make them more dangerous.

TIMESONLINE… UP to 30 “high-risk” terrorists — including some of the most dangerous men in Britain — are due to be released from jail in the next year.

More are being freed in the wake of a ruling by Britain’s most senior judges that long sentences for terrorist crimes could “inflame” rather than deter extremism.

An analysis of appeal court cases shows that of the 26 terrorism cases it has heard, 25 have led to men with terrorism convictions having their sentences reduced.

Others are being released because they serve only part of their term. In response, Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said the Tories were considering longer sentences for terrorists.

The leniency of the British appeal court to some convicted terrorists contrasts with America where they can be locked up for their whole lives.One man designated “high risk” and due to be freed soon is Andrew Rowe, a Muslim convert who was found guilty of having notes on how to fire mortar bombs.

Rowe was sentenced to 15 years in 2005. He is due to be freed next April after his sentence was reduced to 10 years. Others who have had their sentences cut include some of those who helped the failed suicide bombers of July 21, 2005 and two of those convicted of soliciting murder during the Danish cartoons protest.

The sentences were reduced after a key ruling in July 2008 by Lord Phillips, then the lord chief justice, and two other senior judges, who reduced Abdul Rahman’s sentence from six to 5½ years following his guilty plea for disseminating a terrorist publication.

Rahman, a key Al-Qaeda player, recruited disaffected Muslims from northern England to fight British troops in Afghanistan.

The judges stated: “Care has to be taken to ensure that the sentence was not disproportionate to the facts of the particular offences. If sentences were imposed which were more severe than the circumstances of the particular case warranted, that would be likely to inflame rather than deter extremism.” This was the green light for further sentence reductions in subsequent terrorist appeals.

Harry Fletcher, of the probation service union Napo, said: “Due to the extraordinary number of successful appeals, scores more terrorists will be released. Every single one that comes out will have to be supervised until their full sentence expires.”

Six Percent of Swedish Girls Raped Every Year?

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From the Brussels Journal:

Written by Fjordman

The newspaper Aftenposten writes that according to a new report, six percent of Swedish girls questioned said they had been raped during the previous year. The hostile Wikipedia entry on “Fjordman” previously claimed that my essays about the Swedish rape epidemic are false because the massive increase in rapes was caused by “a widening of the legal definition of rape.” I bet it was. In this situation, the number one preoccupation of Swedish media is demonizing Israel, and the number two preoccupation is demonizing native Swedish critics of mass immigration and barring them from access to the mass media.

Sweden tops European rape league Sweden has the highest incidence of reported rapes in Europe — twice as many as “runner up” the UK, a new study shows. Researchers behind the EU study, which will be presented on Tuesday, conclude that rape appears to be a more common occurrence in Sweden than in continental European countries. In Sweden, 46 incidents of rape are reported per 100,000 residents. This figure is double as many as in the UK which reports 23 cases, and four times that of the other Nordic countries, Germany and France. The figure is up to 20 times the figure for certain countries in southern and eastern Europe.

As I have explained in my book Defeating Eurabia, where I devote an entire chapter to explaining the appalling situation in Sweden, Ethnologist Maria Bäckman, in her study “Whiteness and gender,” has followed a group of Swedish girls in the suburb of Rinkeby outside Stockholm, where natives have been turned into a minority of the inhabitants due to immigration. The subjects “may encounter prejudices such as the idea that Swedish girls act and dress in a sexually provocative way or that blonde girls are easy.” Bäckman relates that several of the Swedish girls she interviewed stated that they had dyed their hair to avoid sexual harassment. They experienced that being blonde involves old men staring at you, cars honking their horns and boys calling you “whore.”

Swedish girls suffer widespread harassment: reportEvery third young Swede has been subjected to repeated harassment, threats or violence over the past year. Six percent of young girls have been raped, a new report from Swedish researchers shows.

Muslims Not ‘Free of Being Mocked,’ Danish Cartoonist Says

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DENMARK-CARTOONIST/INTERVIEWFox News…  Muslims need to develop a sense of humor and an appreciation of satire — and they need to understand that they are not “free of being mocked or being offended,” says the Danish caricaturist whose cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad incited rage throughout the Muslim world four years ago.  
Kurt Westergaard told roughly a dozen listeners Wednesday night that he will “always” be ready to defend an individual’s right to religious freedom.
“As the Danish tradition is for satire, we say you can speak freely, you can vote, you can speak out anytime, but there’s only one thing you can’t do — you can’t be free of being mocked or being offended,” Westergaard said. “That’s the conditions in Denmark and so many countries.”Several months after the cartoons were published, a Pakistani cleric reportedly offered 1.5 million rupee — roughly $16,700 — and a car to anyone who killed Westergaard. Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the Mohabat Khan mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, announced the bounty in February 2006 at the mosque and the Jamia Ashrafia religious school that he leads.

Westergaard spoke at a private residence in midtown Manhattan in conjunction with the Hudson New York Briefing Council. It was just his second appearance in the U.S. since the 2005 publication of his notorious cartoon, which depicted Muhammad wearing a turban resembling a lit bomb. In Islam, any depiction of Muhammad is forbidden and considered blasphemy.

In June 2008, Westergaard and ten newspaper editors were reportedly summoned by Jordan’s public prosecutor on charges of “blasphemy” for reprinting the cartoons. Three men were arrested last year in Denmark for allegedly plotting to assassinate him.

Security at Wednesday night’s event was heightened, with two uniformed New York Police Department officers stationed outside the building as Westergaard spoke. Additional security measures were also taken earlier in the day when Westergaard spoke during a luncheon at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and at Princeton University. He is scheduled to speak at Yale University on Thursday — an appearance that is causing some controversy on the Ivy League campus.

Members of the Yale Muslim Students Association have said they are “deeply hurt and offended” that Westergaard will speak on the New Haven, Conn., campus, though they do not plan to protest. The group said Yale fails to recognize the “religious and racial” sensitivities surrounding the matter. Continue Reading →

A virus called ‘Shariah’

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Canada Free Press…By Frank Gaffney Jr.  Monday, September 28, 2009

A Denver airport shuttle driver from Afghanistan who plotted to blow up subway trains in New York City.  A Jordanian who tried to destroy one of Dallas’ tallest skyscrapers.  An American who thought he was detonating a truck bomb aimed at a federal courthouse in Springfield, Illinois.

Law enforcement authorities who successfully stymied these alleged attacks have been at pains to emphasize that there are no connections between the three.

Of course there are.

Maybe it will prove to be the case that the three men at the heart of these interrupted plots – Najibullah Zazi, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi and Michael Finton (also known as Talib Islam) – had no connection in a tactical or operational sense.

Still, it is absurd, and extremely dangerous, to insist that they are not connected in at least one way:  What apparently animated all three of these suspects (and perhaps a number of others believed to have been involved in the New York plot who are still at large) is the seditious, supremacist theo-political-legal program authoritative Islam calls “Shariah.”

Shariah requires its adherents to engage in jihad – the struggle to bring about the triumph of Islam worldwide through whatever means are available.  Shariah explicitly calls for the use of violent techniques designed to instill terror in those who stand in the way of a global Muslim theocracy.

Lethal truck-bombs, pellet-laced explosive vests and backpacks and bombs or hijackers aboard aircraft have already been used for this purpose.  It is a matter of time before vastly more destructive weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear) become available to jihadists who believe that, pursuant to Shariah, they are fulfilling Allah’s will when they kill “infidels” or otherwise force them to submit to Islam. Continue Reading →

Tesco mocks harmless religions, will it apply the same standards to Muslims?

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H/T Gates of Vienna:

What on the surface is a harmless little nothing story, does reveal a few things. Remember, at one point in time all religions where new, and all seemed absurd. There are lots of records of Moe being properly mocked in Mecca when he tried to peddle his crap there.

Muslim JediWhen you are Muslim, every day is Halaloween!

Women-in-Islamic-dress-we-001-1

Beekeepers take their light sabers for a walk.

image courtesy of tundra tabloids

Jedi religion founder accuses Tesco of discrimination over rules on hoods. The Guardian UK

Daniel Jones says he was humiliated and victimised for his beliefs following incident at store in Wales

Tesco has been accused of religious discrimination after the company ordered the founder of a Jedi religion to remove his hood or leave a branch of the supermarket in north Wales.

Daniel Jones, founder of the religion inspired by the Star Wars films, says he was humiliated and victimised for his beliefs following the incident at a Tesco store in Bangor.

The 23-year-old, who founded the International Church of Jediism, which has 500,000 followers worldwide, was told the hood flouted store rules.

But the grocery empire struck back, claiming that the three best known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies – Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker – all appeared in public without their hoods. Jones, from Holyhead, who is known by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, said his religion dictated that he should wear the hood in public places and is considering legal action against the chain.

“It states in our Jedi doctrination that I can wear headwear. It just covers the back of my head,” he said.

“You have a choice of wearing headwear in your home or at work but you have to wear a cover for your head when you are in public.” Continue Reading →

Where Do Little Terrorists Come From #1 – Poverty?

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Scragged… Shortly after 9-11, liberal sociologists saw opportunity in the poverty which is so highly visible in the Palestinian territories neighboring Israel, and throughout the Middle Eastern Islamic world.  The liberals declared that poverty was the root cause of terrorism.  Like their Great Society predecessors of decades before, they promised that if the American taxpayers would only spend enough money fighting poverty, terrorism would melt away just as American crime had melted away when we fought the “War on Poverty” in the United States.

That notion was ridiculous on its face – most of the 9-11 terrorists turned out to be university-educated, middle class Saudis – but the idea of being permitted to spend large sums of taxpayer money fighting poverty is always attractive to liberals.  They kept banging the drum for a program to fight global poverty in the name of fighting terrorism.  The idea that poverty causes terrorism became so pervasive that someone had to write a book disproving the link between poverty and terrorism.

An article “The Poverty Myth” was published on p. 104 of the Winter 2008 issue of the Wilson Quarterly.  This article reviews the book What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism by Alan B. Kreuger.  The review begins:

“The belief that poverty is a root cause of Islamic terrorism has been thoroughly discredited.  Numerous studies of terrorism have debunked the notion.  Islamic terrorists themselves, as well as those who live among them and know them well, have repeatedly attributed Islamic terrorism to primarily to religions and ideological motivations and to the logic that – against America and the west – terrorism is used because it works.” [emphasis added]

The reviewer credits Dr. Kreuger, a Princeton economist, with a much-needed act of intellectual hygiene.  “As a group,” Kreuger notes, “terrorists are better educated and from wealthier families than the typical person in the same age group of the societies from which they originate.”

We commented some time ago on the great wealth of the Bin Laden family from which Osama bin Laden emerged.

One study examined 48 Palestinian suicide bombers and found that “almost 60 percent of the suicide bombers had more than a high-school degree, compared to less than 15 percent of the general population.” Continue Reading →

Mr. Stelmach– tear down this free speech wall!

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Calgary Herald… Is the tide of Canadian censorship finally starting to turn?

We are hopeful, though not tempted to complacency.

This week, the Alberta Human Rights Commission cited a string of recent court and commission climb-downs, in the reasons it gave for dismissing a complaint lodged against this newspaper and its corporate companion, the Edmonton Journal.

Naturally, the Herald –which has been very vocal on this issue for many years, if not decades– welcomes the decision.

However, it rests on an interpretation by a human rights commission of its own powers: The situation is thus somewhat comparable to the police investigating allegations of police misbehaviour. So, while it is a good thing that commissions are starting to realize how much they have exceeded the intentions of those who established them, a reduction of their powers must be cemented with new legislation, if free-speech rights are to be properly protected.

The case involving the Herald and the Journal arose from an editorial published in April 2002, which catalogued several allegations of duplicity, manipulation, atrocity and hypocrisy on the part of Palestinian leaders in their dealings with Israel.

At the time, reports of terrorist activity came almost daily, interspersed with the late Yasser Arafat’s protestations that all he wanted was peace: The matter was top of mind, and ripe for public examination. However, Muslim advocates complained that it was “likely to expose to hatred or contempt Palestinian Arabs and Muslims,” though there was no proof of that whatsoever and it was certainly not the intent.

Initially, the AHRC was inclined to agree, its 2004 Investigating Report finding “merit” to the complaint.

However, nearly five years later (and seven years after the original publication) it changed gears. “. . . Although offensive, the editorial does not infringe Section 3 of the Act . . . This is supported by recent case law since the issue of the Investigating Report,” wrote commission director Marie Riddle.

And, what did the new case law say? Continue Reading →

Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the UN

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When raw basic factual historical truth is on the defense, the secular civilized world cannot count on it’s survival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0YG12KQ-as

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqvE8Kqhw2k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnRbW0p9LoM

H/T Solstace

Excellent video on selective enforcement on ‘hate speech laws’

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This really is a must see video. Please spread it around

British nurse may see pink slip for wearing crucifix

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From the Telegraph U.K.

” They’ve made no provisions for someone like me who has a strong faith. They’re prepared to make allowances for other faiths, but not for Christianity”, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospitals nurse, Shirley Chaplin.

Upon further reading we find this quote from hospital administrators: ” A Muslim woman wearing a headscarf would be seen as a requirement of faith and does not cause a health and safety risk for her patients. This nurse’s faith does not require the wearing of a necklace or a crucifix, so our position is that this is not an issue of faith but an issue of health and safety in the workplace”.

This story is truly astonishing. It is indicative of the greatest of shakedowns; beat the horse into submission until it behaves. A Christian nurse wearing a symbol of her faith produces negative consequences and the potential loss of employment; a Muslim nurse wearing a symbol of her faith indicates a triumphant diversity project achievement likely to win her the accolades of her administrative peers. Make no mistake: the universal right of freedom of religion is first and foremost duly employed if your universe revolves around the orbit of Islam.

Nurse faces the sack for refusing to take off her cross

A nurse is facing the sack for wearing a cross while she cares for patients.

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Published: 9:00AM BST 19 Sep 2009

Shirley Chaplin, a committed Christian, has been told by her employers that she must hide or remove the cross or remain out of the hospital wards.

Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital told her that she cannot wear the one-inch tall silver cross openly around her neck, because it breaches their uniform policy and poses a risk to patients.

While the Trust has banned the crucifix in its wards, it makes concessions for other faiths, including allowing Muslim nurses to wear headscarves on duty.

She has been warned by her employers that she will be suspended if she does not comply with their request. There are fears that this would lead to her dismissal.

Mrs Chaplin, 54, says she has been shocked and distressed by the threat, which means she must choose between her faith and her job.

She has spent all of her career at the hospital and has never been challenged before for wearing the necklace, which she considers to be a symbol of her deeply-held Christian faith.

The move is likely to reignite the row that erupted over a British Airways employee who was told she could not openly wear a cross necklace, and will fuel fears that Christians are being discriminated against in the workplace. Continue Reading →

Sex abuse and silence exposed DND brass told of rape of boys by Afghan allies

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H/T Nick Vandergragt

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From The Ottawa Citizen:

Ottawa – Army staff and National Defence headquarters officials were told in 2007 that young boys had allegedly been sexually abused by Afghan security forces at a Canadian base in Afghanistan, but the concern at the time was that the incident might be reported in the news media, according to military records obtained by the Citizen.

In addition, last year Brig.-Gen. J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, passed on to the senior army leadership the concerns raised by military police who said they had been told by their commanders not to interfere in incidents in which Afghan forces were having sex with children.

The newly released records raise questions about a military investigation that earlier this year concluded that allegations about sexual abuse of Afghan children by members of the Afghan army and police were unfounded. The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service also stated that its thorough investigation concluded allegations of such incidents were never reported to Canadian military commanders. Continue Reading →

Shock in Norway as Media Gives Standing Ovations to Hamas Propagandizing Doctors Mads Gilbert and Fosse……!

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The Leftist media
 
loves their boys
 
Mads Gilbert & Fosse:
 
Glad you liked our stuff!

 These two doctors are largely responsible for the dissemination of the worst propaganda during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Look at how the anti-Israel Norwegian media loves them. How telling is that? KGS

Quote: [DagenMagazinets clear impression is that virtually everyone who was present at the press conference, including the huge press corps, applauded the Gaza doctors repeatedly.]

DagenMagazinets: An almost total press corps applauded when doctors Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse launched the book “Eyes in Gaza”. – Most unusual, “says Press Association Per Edgar Kokkvold.
JOHN Solsvik
Applause from an enthusiastic press corps broke out again and again when the two Gaza doctors told me about their horrible experiences that doctors at Shifa hospital during the war in January this year.
Only DagenMagazinets journalist asked a critical question about the two doctors’ credibility. Fully aware of the ties the two have to Red party in Norway and the party’s strong anti-Israeli involvement, we asked questions about doctors’ ability to objectivity and credibility.
 
Mads Gilbert, thanks for the question and said it was totally appropriate to ask such.
– Not activists
– I am very pleased that just Magazinet are present here today. We went to Gaza as doctors and not as journalists, and we do not intend to engage in any kind of propaganda, but convey the strengths of our experiences further. We do not need to lie or reinforce perceptions.
We are not party political activists, but we were in Gaza, with solid support from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, which granted five million Euros for the work, and from Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in person. He called us and said we had all the Norwegian people in the back, “said Gilbert.
In addition, he stated that they had used three “heavy” Middle East experts as consultants for the book, one is Kåre Willoch.
– But when no journalists were allowed to enter and report from the war, and it was Israel which effectively put a stop to this, so we had to stand up and tell the world what happened. We missed the Norwegian journalists and we wanted Magazinet in Gaza, said Gilbert.
Erik Fosse and Mads Gilbert gave a stirring picture of what they experienced in Gaza, and accused Israel of crimes against humanity, which they claimed the fresh Goldstone Commission had confirmed.
Gilbert had little time for the Norwegian election campaign that he had followed in part from Gaza.
– Not a single foreign policy issue has dominated the election campaign. The biggest problem in the Norwegian election campaign has been the fear of drowning in a smørøye of Norwegian self-satisfaction, “said Mads Gilbert.
– Most unusual
Secretary General Per Edgar Kokkvold in the Norwegian Press Association thinks it is highly unusual that it will be praised at a news conference.
 
– Journalists usually ask critical questions to their interviewees, and we are often accused of only being concerned with the negative – and even the public says it. Applauding journalists at a press conference is rare, there you are right, “said Kokkvold.
He added that he was not present, but that he believes appaluse probably came from representatives of organizations working actively for Palestinian cause.
DagenMagazinets clear impression is that virtually everyone who was present at the press conference, including the huge press corps, applauded the Gaza doctors repeatedly.

H/T: Norway, Israel and the Jews UPDATE: Kåre Willoch, one of the “expert” scholars noted by Mads Gilbert as contributing to his book, “Eyes of Gaza”, is a noted severe critic of Israel.

NOTE: About Dr. Mads Gilbert: It turns out he’s no neutral medical man, but active in “solidarity work with Palestinians” for 30 years. Responding to 9/11, Gilbert didn’t rush to New York’s Bellevue Hospital to offer his services. Instead, he defended the moral right of the “oppressed” to have launched that attack.

Barbara Kay-National Post review of Bruce Bawer’s Canadian tour

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National Post
Barbara Kay: The survival of the West is at stake

Posted: September 16, 2009, 10:30 AM by NP Editor

Broadly speaking, 9/11 produced two instinctive responses in the thinking population, which then became political positions that have continued to diverge and harden with the years.

The realists instantly understood that the trade tower attacks were the tipping point of an already metastasizing jihad against the West, a jihad that had now to be resisted on all fronts: the physical jihad by combat, and the soft jihad– the push for Islamization of the West through suppression of “offensive” speech and a gradual imposition of shariah law –by words and civic actions.

A more populous and culturally influential group, our liberal dreamers — mainstream media, intelligentsia, liberal Christian and Jewish clergy and most Western politicians — were too besotted by utopian multicultural ideals to grasp the nettle of Islamism as a phenomenon beyond rational means of containment.

Continue Reading →

UN Watch and National Post on Naomi Klein

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From U.N. watch:

in the space of two weeks, anti-globalization activist and best-selling author Naomi Klein, the preeminent figure of the radical left, published a lengthy essay justifying the U.N.’s disastrous Durban II racism conference, and helped organize a boycott of this week’s Toronto International Film Festival — for the crime of showing Israeli films. The New York Times reports that celebrities who signed Klein’s boycott letter include Harry Belafonte, Viggo Mortensen and Julie Christie. However, Jerry Seinfeld, Natalie Portman, Sacha Baron Cohen, Lisa Kudrow, Patricia Heaton and Lenny Kravtiz countered with an ad supporting inclusion of Israeli films, and opposing blacklists. While Jane Fonda initially joined Klein’s boycott, she has now apologized for endorsing its “inflammatory” words.

The following editorial by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, in today’s National Post of Canada, exposes Naomi Klein’s irrational rage — and reveals an ugly episode from her past that she has been carefully hiding.

National Post

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The strange, enduring rage of Naomi Klein

When it comes to Israel, she has always acted out of intense emotion, hysteria and anger

Hillel Neuer,  National Post

Abbas Momani, AFP, Getty Images
Naomi Klein attends a Palestinian boycott in the West Bank village of Bilin, near Ramallah, in June.

GENEVA — Supporters of liberal democratic values may have a hard time understanding why anti-globalization activist Naomi Klein has recruited Jane Fonda and other stars to boycott the Toronto International Film Festival for the crime of showing films from Tel Aviv, a symbol of tolerance in a region of tyranny.

Klein has never called for a boycott of films or any other products from the dozens of Arab and Islamic countries that systematically subjugate their women, torture dissidents and persecute religious and ethnic minorities.

She was not moved to protest when the city of Toronto twinned with Chongqing, nor when it established a “friendship relationship” with Ho Chi Minh City, despite the widespread human rights abuses in both China and Vietnam.

Nor has she ever called for the boycotting of films from the many Western democracies, including Canada, whose soldiers are fighting Islamist terrorists in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Klein’s singling out of Israel — particularly its most liberal city and cultural sector — has no rational basis.

This should come as no surprise. For while Klein’s statements and writings on Israel pose as sober analysis, the truth is that she has always acted on this subject out of intense emotion, hysteria and anger, rather than rational thought, facts or logic. Continue Reading →