I am intimately surrounded by enemy propaganda and I’ve only myself to blame. For example, I have been reading Publishers Weekly (PW) for a very long time. I don’t have to but I won’t give it up. Yes, I have noted the leftward drift of their reviews but, like the New York Times, whose editors and book reviewers have drifted similarly left-ward, PW remains a “must” for all those who want to read reviews of upcoming book titles and who want to know what publishing deals are in the works.

In their March 10th issue (I am behind this month), there is an image on page 66 and a glowing review on page 74. The photograph is titled “Palestinians waiting to be processed at an Israeli checkpoint, West Bank.” Yes, another image, another work. The book is titled Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. The anonymous reviewer finds the book “urgent,” and focuses on how many Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli military operations–as if Israelis planned to kill the children.

This image, this idea, this reality has been burned into Western and Eastern brains. The Chinese Occupation of Tibet, the Sudanese genocide, the thousands of Muslim on Muslim atrocities and Islamist acts of terrorism all pale by comparison. The “Israeli checkpoints” was an accusation hurled at me when I spoke at Barnard in 2003. As I described the features of Islamic gender and religious apartheid, (honor killings, arranged marriage, polygamy, forced veiling, female genital mutilation, etc.) the assembled feminist crowd kept yelling at me to “admit” or to “focus on” the checkpoints. No matter what I said, they shouted back: “What about the humiliation at the checkpoints?”

They were very noisy for “sleepwalkers.”

Here is how one of Doris Lessing’s characters in the novel The Four Gated City viewed others going about their daily lives:

“They all looked half drugged or half asleep, dull, as if the creatures had been hypnotized or poisoned…as if they were not conscious of their existence here, were somewhere else. But the most frightening thing about them was this: that they walked and moved and went about their lives in a condition of sleepwalking: they were not aware of themselves, of other people, of what went on around them..they were essentially isolated, shut in..”

Ah, yes. But today, our “sleepwalkers” have more of an edge. If anyone interrupts their “sleepwalking” they angrily turn on them, call them “racists,” “alarmists,” “provocateurs.”

Dutch politicians blame and wish to hold only Geert Wilders liable in case his film, “Fitna,” leads to riots or to any boycotts of Dutch goods. They do not condemn Muslim acts of violence in the name of Islam. Left European groups blame the Danish cartoons and Ayaan Hirsi Ali for unecessarily “provoking” Muslim rage and endangering both Holland and Denmark.

Those Americans who are voting for Obama honestly hope that his shadow, blended Christian-Muslim and person-of-color identity will usher in a diplomatic love affair between Obama’s America and the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda. Those Americans who are (Just Make My Day) waiting to vote for McCain, believe that it is World War Two again and that a John Wayne war hero will win the day for America and the West. I am no longer sure what Hilary Clintons’ people dare to fantasize,

All attempts to explain the precise way in which Islam is different from other religions–that it is not just a religion but is, rather, a political ideology or at least, it is not only a religion–falls on absolutely deaf ears. Document the genocidal history of Muslims towards non-Muslims (and towards each other); document Islamic gender apartheid and the tragic fate of Muslim women–and it is as if nothing has been said. More: It is as if one has spoken out of turn, with malice aforethought.

In response to the Islamist death-eaters of today, the “sleepwalkers” say: “But we have also had Crusaders, (but they were trying to take back Christian lands from Arab Muslim invaders–but why quibble?), a Christian Inquisition, an American genocidal extermination of native-Indians, ancient Israel was commanded to murder all the pagans in the Holy Land, (but they did not do so–again, why quibble), etc.” Others say: “America is the New Crusader, 9/11 was our own fault–hey, that’s what Obama’s Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, said and it is deemed…uncivilized, unfair, boring, and racist to harp upon this.

One might as well howl right into the wind.

Let me try to say this in World War Two terms one more time. But please remember that we live in far more dangerous times.

The rise of Islamist suicide terrorism and Big Lie propaganda is equivalent to Hitler’s rise. At the end of the day, it did not matter that individual Germans were very polite, or personally peaceful, or that they loved music. Their refusal to stop Hitler led to eleven million deaths and great suffering.

But this knowledge demands that one gird up one’s loins and Do Something, even something educational and non-violent. And our “sleepwalkers” have been too heavily propagandized or are too busy dreaming of peace.

And I have a nasty virus and face surgery and can but write this fevered column, my daily note-in-a-bottle, meant for you.

Thanks to my dear friend Carol Gould, the funniest smart lady in Britainistan for alerting me to this incident. A Muslim bus driver forced all his passengers to exit his London bus so that he could pray. Someone took a video photo of this which you may see here:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article976258.ece
The excellent Robert Spencer also has a piece about this here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/020496.php

Also in Britain: “South Asian” (Muslim girls mainly from Pakistan–3,000 of them to be precise) have disappeared from their schools in the UK. Their families have kidnapped them into arranged marriages in the Fatherland. Feminist Muslim groups who have been pleading their case have just now been de-funded. Read about this here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=549368&in_page_id=1879

Yes, once again, the “lights are going out all over Europe.” In response to the Wilders’ film the Dutch government assumed a dhimmi position vis a vis the Pakistani government. (On the other hand, other than threatening the UK (!) based blogsite “liveleak” which shut the Wilders’ film down, no riots have ensued.

Still, the final comment goes to my amazingly productive friend and colleague, Dr. Andrew Bostom. He comments upon and links to an article by an Indian journalist with bears a great title. “Being charged with Islamophobia is a small price to pay for securing our future.”

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2008/03/30/%e2%80%9cbeing-charged-with-islamophobia-is-a-small-price-to-pay-for-securing-our-future%e2%80%9d/

A reader just told me that LiveLeak has taken the Wilders’ film down due to serious threats. There are two other sites that are still showing the film: MyPetJawa and Gates of Vienna. I suspect that many people have already downloaded the film and have converted it into a video which they can keep running, perhaps from anonymous and safe locations.

These images are not private or secret. All are public images that many of us have seen before. Putting it all together and making sense of it is what Wilders has done for us.

I hope that as many people as possible see this film and draw the necessary and inevitable conclusions.

If these links fail, please advise me and I will try to find links that still work.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/191968.php

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/

Kudos to Fausta Wertz at Fausta’sBlog, LittleGreenFootballs which I am told also has a link to the Wilders’ film and to Pamela Gellar at AtlasShrugs2000 all of which have links to the film.

These are our new Free Speech Warriors. Long may they blog!

I just viewed it. It is short, powerful, and to the point. In only minutes, at least one million people have already viewed it. The Wilders film does not exaggerate a thing. Specific parts of the Qu’ran are beautifully chanted–but we then also get to see how the edict is carried out in our world. We have seen many of these images before (the airplanes flying into the World Trade Center, the mullahs spewing hatred, the bloodied and dismembered corpses after a suicide bombing), but we have never before seen these images related to specific Qu’ranic verses. View this, draw your own necessary conclusions. Wilders has drawn his.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d9_1206624103

Let me thank Professor Barry Rubin for calling from Tel Aviv to alert me to this film’s arrival on the internet. That’s Professor Barry Rubin of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center.

How do we cut down on honor murders in the West? According to some people, you do whatever it takes to keep the girls from dishonoring their families so that their families do not have to honor-murder them.

According to the New York Times, “home schooling” the girls in America, re-creating a feudal, rural, parallel universe in California in which girls and women are kept hidden and apart, is the sensible, merciful alternative to honor murders in The New World.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/us/26muslim.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Neil+MacFarquhar&st=nyt&oref=slogin

At a time when Islamists are at full jihadic throttle, The New York Times features a mild and lovely–a truly non-judgmental article about the proliferation of home schooling among Muslim communities in America.

How can anyone criticize home schooling? It’s a venerable, Super-American Back-to-the-Land and Back-to-the-Bible custom. Well, according to the article, this folksy custom might be under serious advisement since Osama Bin Laden’s American mouthpiece, Adam Gadahn, was himself home schooled in rural California.

But really: How can I criticize the tendency of immigrants to cling to their customs and their faiths? Isn’t America’s history one in which successive waves of immigrants retained their ethnic and religious identities–while their children and grand-children became integrated into American culture? And, don’t we still allow religious communities to keep themselves apart and to train their women to be docile, modest, family-oriented servants of both men and God?

Well yes, but I have always protested keeping women down in the name of religion, and have been quick to applaud the accomplishments of religious (and anti-religious) women who enter the modern professions, wage feminist battles against violence against women within their communities, and who also become leaders and authorities in their various faiths, both secular and religious.

So, why is the New York Times making so subtle and so powerful an alliance with Islamists against women?

The way propaganda works is through persistence, subtlety, and images. Every week, sometimes every day, the Times has a Muslim- or Islamist-friendly article, usually with positive color photos. The Paper of Record knows how to cover its considerable derriere. Thus, it is careful to have comments from “both sides of the aisle” as long as the critical comments are buried-in-the-balance and do not deflect from the bottom line propaganda having its way with us.

Ian Buruma writes an article that is so cleverly cobbled together than most readers do not understand that it is meant as a devastating attack on the heroic Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Tariq Ramadan, the genetic and intellectual heir to the man who founded the Muslim Brotherhood is, again and again, glowingly profiled, reviewed, published, and shown wearing trendy western dress. Noah Feldman continues to condemn Orthodox Judaism and to extol the virtues of Muslim religious (Shari’a) law, not only for Turkey but for an unsuspecting West. Young, attractive women wearing headscarves are shown and they are quoted saying sophisticated, friendly things.

Steadily, slowly, inexorably, Western readers are being softened for the “kill,” seasoned and habituated to accept the subordination of women as an inviolate cultural and religious reality.

Take a look at the March 26th edition of the New York Times. Titled “Resolute or Fearful, Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling,” the article was five columns wide and featured two sympathetic color photos. Both show female teenagers wearing head-and-shoulder hijab. The larger photo resonates for Westerners who may have seen similar images in great paintings of the Middle Ages; the photo somewhat resembles a Vermeer. The domestic intimacy, symmetry, harmony is all there. We are meant to “like” the young and smiling girl in hijab who, according to the caption, is reading the Koran.

The article explains that many Muslim families in California have opted for home schooling for their daughters; forty percent of Pakistani and southeast Asian families “in the district” have done so. Why? Many possible reasons are given: So that Muslim children will not be teased or mocked; exposed to pork; “corrupted” by American influences –but mainly, so that their girls do not engage in behaviors that would “dishonor” their families and require that they be honor murdered.

For example, Hajra Bibi stopped attending public school and began home schooling when she reached puberty. “Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives…’Some men don’t like it when you wear American clothes–they don’t think it is a good thing for girls… We don’t want anyone to point a finger at us, to say that we are bad.”

Because that might render them unmarriageable and as candidates to be honor murdered.

The smiling , Vermeer-like photo and the additional photo of three girls wearing heavy hijab and playing with their yo-yos, soften the blow that this information might otherwise elicit.

Why should American citizens or future American citizens, in California or elsewhere, be taught that girls must wear hijab or even niqab (face covering); that boys and men are entitled to boss girls around; that a minimal education and an arranged marriage to your cousin is all that an American female citizen needs? Why live in America if what you want to do is keep the girls culturally illiterate and down on the farm?

The Orthodox Judaism that Noah Feldman spurns, does not practice honor murders. If a woman marries outside her fundamentalist faith, she may indeed be ex-communicated but then again, she may not. If a Christian woman marries outside her faith…but you get my point. The countless successive immigrant waves to America did not practice honor murders. Perhaps ugly, agonizing breaks took place; killing to enforce religious norms did not.

Can we just give it some time, wait and see, give the new-immigrant-on-the block a break? Well sure, but let’s remember that some third generation immigrants in the UK have become radical Islamists. Given the “politically correct” way in which the British coddled Muslim immigrants (I view this as racist, others would view it as simply incompetent), and the rise of the radical, global mullahs, the expected integration did not “take.”

There might be something different about contemporary Islam that does not lend itself to integration.

Why is the New York Times engaged in disinformation about such an important topic?

I am perpetually stunned by how successfully the propaganda about Palestine-the-occupied-country has swept through the minds of educated western people and left nothing else in its wake but false images of Palestine beseiged by Israeli “Nazis.” The “humiliation at the checkpoints” and the faux “murder of Mohammed al-Dura” burn brightly as eternal mental images while the relentless barrage of Kassam rockets against the civilians of Sderot remain non-existent images.

Yesterday, I wrote about Letty Cottin Pogrebin’s Orwellian defense of Ms. Magazine for having rejected the AJCongress’s pro-Israel ad.

Pogrebin quotes Claire Kinberg of Bridges Magazine who says she is outraged by the accusation that Ms. has not published enough about Israel. Well, yes but…In addition to featuring mainly Israeli left-feminists who specialize in criticizing Israel without perspective or mercy, Ms. also publishes pieces about mythical “peace-making” between powerless feminists and about “Palestine,” (a country that does not exist); about the suffering of Palestinian refugees but not the suffering of Israeli civilians who are being blown up, shelled, wounded, etc.; about how brave Palestinian women are rising above their suffering–but not about how brave Israeli women are doing so.

May I suggest that this is the case because everyone over there believes that Israel is indeed, just like Apartheid South Africa and that it would be politically incorrect to document the suffering of the oppressors.

Thus, Ms. Magazine reports on the inspiring and moving events sponsored by the International Solidarity Movement–yes, that’s the group that callously targeted Rachel Corrie for martyrdom and that reguarly sponsors campus hate-fests all across America. And they feature Queen Noor, the former Lisa Halaby, whose book was chock full of poisonous propaganda against Israel. The Queen does not remind her readers that Jordan massacred more Palestinians in September of 1970 than Israel has ever done in wars of self-defense nor does she acknowledge that Jordan will not allow Palestinians to become citizens, that only Israel has allowed more than 1 million Palestinian Arabs to be citizens.

Full disclosure: Once, I demonstrated with Palestinian and Israeli feminists “against the Occupation” but, to paraphrase the acclaimed Israeli novelist Yoram Kiniuk (a great leftist): “I was dancing with my peace partner who turned into a suicide bomber.”

Make up your own mind. Here are links to four articles which are still accessible on the Ms. website.

“”Under the Peace Tent—Part I”: :

http://msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?id=6294

“Middle East: Peace Activists Step in to Pave the Way to the Olive Branch”:

http://www.msmagazine.com/dec02/rabkin.asp

“Queen Noor: The Next Chapter”:

http://www.msmagazine.com/sept03/lafferty.asp

“Images of Palestine”:

http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2004/ramallahfilmfestival.asp

In June of 1982, in the pages of Ms. Magazine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin earned her reputation as a Jewish feminist by writing about anti-Semitism among feminists. She did so by standing on the shoulders of other Jewish feminists who had been wrestling with this “problem without a name” since the early 1970s and whose cries Pogrebin finally heard.

Pogrebin’s article in Ms. Magazine was brave and she was, at the time, both attacked and disbelieved. But she was also respected for writing the piece. By 1991, Pogrebin had expanded her article about Jew-hatred among feminists into a book about Judaism and feminism, Deborah, Golda and Me. The book’s index contains at least 30 references to anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism and the women’s movement. There is also a whole chapter titled ”Special Jewish Sorrows and Women and Anti-Semitism.” Since Pogrebin published her book, she has risen to prominence as a spokeswoman for all things Jewish and feminist.

During the same decades, however, Israel’s enemies have successfully made it into a pariah nation. The constant campaign of suicide killings, international boycott campaigns against its scholars, United Nations resolutions, rocket and shooting attacks upon innocent Jewish civilians both in Israel and in the West — all accompanied by a steady drumbeat of propaganda that hardens the heart of the world against Jews, and against Israel—has transformed the victim Israel into the transgressor/aggressor and villain in the eyes of much of the world. PRESS HERE http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59743 http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-gersten-f03.htm

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1148482037471&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15669013/

It is at precisely this historical moment that Pogrebin has chosen to attack the American Jewish Congress for their campaign to place a pro-Israel ad in the pages of Ms. Magazine: she does so in her latest column in Moment Magazine. PRESS HERE. http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2008/2008-05/PogrebinColumn.html Pogrebin is a founding editor of the original Ms. Magazine and a friend and ally of Gloria Steinem’s. This entire “Ad Affair” must have given Pogrebin a serious headache. She feels she has been “forced” to choose between her feminism and her Zionism, between the preservation of her own feminist legacy and her pro-Israel and pro-Jewish principles.

The AJCongress is a liberal Jewish American organization that finally felt desperate enough about the defamatory anti-Israel propaganda to pay Ms. Magazine $3700.00 to run a neo-feminist pro-Israel ad. Ms. decided not to run the ad, which featured three powerful Israeli women over the headline: “This is Israel.” At this point, the AJCongress was genuinely frustrated and outraged: perhaps they also viewed this as an opportunity to garner headlines which might, in turn, garner funding. Whatever their motives, as a result, on January 15, 2008, the AJCongress held a press conference that challenged Ms.’s decision.

(Full disclosure: I was one of the speakers and letter-writers whose words and ideas Pogrebin characterizes in her column as “hysterical rants.” The others include Blu Greenberg, Susannah Heschel, Francine Klagsbrun, and Cynthia Ozick.) You may read the AJCongress press release, my speech, and see us all on YouTube. PRESS HERE

http://www.ajcongress.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6709
http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/phyllischesler/2008/01/15/ask_the_presidential_candidate.php
http://youtube.com/profile?user=AJCongress

Subsequently, The Nation magazine, a far-left, relentlessly anti-Zionist publication which Ms. magazine increasingly resembles where Israel is concerned, accepted the ad–which acceptance, coupled with a phone call from the very influential Pogrebin, apparently settled the matter for the AJCongress. The Congress was apparently unperturbed by the column which Katha Pollitt wrote on February 21st, 2008 for The Nation which mocked both the ad, the Congress, and the press conference. PRESS HERE TO READ POLLITT’S FEBRUARY 08 COLUMN.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080218/pollitt

On March 18, 2008, Pogrebin released her column on the internet. It is titled “The Ad War: American Jewish Congress vs. Ms. Magazine.” In it, Pogrebin justifies what Ms. has done and attacks the AJCongress for what they have done. (Only Orwell can fully capture the times in which we live). She concludes that “Ms. was right to reject the ad not just because it was nationalistic but because it violated truth in advertising.”

It seems that Pogrebin has also suffered at the hands of the AJCongress. In her column, Pogrebin describes having worked hard for the Congress in order to create an international Jewish feminist conference in Jerusalem -– only to discover that once the headlines had died down, the Congress had no serious interest in continuing the work. (Those of us who worked on the Women of the Wall struggle experienced a similar frustration).

Thus, I happen to agree with Pogrebin that the AJCongress is not a feminist organization and that it has not supported certain feminist projects for which it has nonetheless claimed credit and solicited funds. But over the years, many feminists have argued that Ms. Magazine has done something similar. Nevertheless, the AJCongress at least finally tried to Do Something, however misguided.

Why should Pogrebin attack and shame them for trying to take a principled stand — and indeed, for daring to potentially offend their own liberal funding base “for love of Zion?” What does Pogrebin gain by defending Ms.’s decision and by quoting only left-feminists (Katha Pollitt, Claire Kinberg, etc.) to support her view? Indeed, over the years, with very few exceptions, the Israel that Ms. Magazine has profiled is the Israel according to Israeli left-feminist critics of Israel.

Playwright David Mamet has written an elegant book titled The Wicked Son, in which he analyzes not only the opportunism and cowardice but the religious hunger gone awry that may account for the ways in which many progressive secular Jewish men savagely critique–or at least spurn–too close an association with Israel or with religious Judaism. He likens this syndrome to that of the “wicked son” at the Passover seder who does not think that the story of Jewish slavery and redemption has anything to do with him.

However, Pogrebin does not fit that mold. She is religious, she is also a Zionist, and she is far from being a self-hating Jew. Therefore, Pogrebin’s left-ward shift , both in general and in her column is even more troubling: it is certainly more heartbreaking to me. Pogrebin may not believe that her current ideological point of view has deadened her to certain “Jewish Sorrows.” But, based on Pogrebin’s column, one may conclude that Israel’s life-and-death struggle has nothing to do with Pogrebin. She magnifies serious social inequalities in Israel. (which exist everywhere, even more so in Muslim countries), and minimizes Israel’s unique existential struggle for survival.

In her column, Pogrebin focuses mainly upon the suffering of Israel’s women at the hands of Israeli and Jewish patriarchy. The women are suffering. Pogrebin is not wrong about this. But I despair when her emphasis suggests that only such evils are worthy of her deepest concern. To her, there is no “larger” jihadic war that has targeted Israel, Jews and the West: there is only the war against women waged mainly by: Men? Jewish and Israeli men? American, Republican, war-mongering men?

Please understand: Pogrebin speaks for many American Jewish feminists who may also wish to escape the burden of being associated with an increasingly-defamed Israel, and with an Israel that has, in their eyes, failed to hear the cries of its most vulnerable female citizens.

Such Jewish-left feminists are reluctant to criticize the far greater barbarisms of the Islamic world, including its system of gender and religious apartheid, lest they be viewed as “racists.” But they can and do criticize religious misogyny and violence against women in a demonized Jewish Israel without either risking their reputations or their lives. Indeed, scapegoating tiny Israel for the crimes that are actually indigenous to the larger Islamic world is both safe and quite fashionable.

For the record, let me be very clear: I am not saying that Israel is a feminist paradise. Far from it. And yet: There is a feminist and civil rights movement in Israel which is fighting back. And, Israeli women (Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druses), have many more freedoms and opportunities than do their counterparts anywhere in the Arab, Muslim Middle East. As the AJCongress ad points out: The President of the Israeli Supreme Court is a woman, as is the Speaker of the Parliament and the Foreign Minister. While this may not be enough, it’s not just chopped liver either!

But most important: If Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, and al-Queda have their way, the secular feminists of Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and the Negev will all be blown to smithereens, together with their haredi, right-wing opponents. Thus, I implore Pogrebin to think of both dangers at the same time because both surely exist. Let us agree to balance our righteous feminist criticism of Israel with similar criticism of other countries and to “never forget” that such criticism will invariably be used against Israel’s right to exist.

This article is dedicated to Isaac Meyers z’l (may his memory be for a blessing) who was hit by a truck in Cambridge, Massachusetts on his way to an early morning shiva minyan.

NEWSFLASH! TONIGHT.

Gail Gartrell, one of Amina and Sarah Said’s great aunts, (whom I have interviewed numerous times at this very blogsite), will be interviewed tonight by Geraldo Rivera on FOX-TV. Geraldo has agreed to display the photos and composite drawings of Yasser Abdel Said, the father who honor murderered his two daughters, on his show. Gartrell expects to be on for about five-six minutes.

NEWSFLASH! TONIGHT.

Matthias Kuntzel, the author of Jihad and Jew-Hatred. Islamism, Nazism, and the Roots of 9/11 will be speaking at Cooper Union in Manhattan at 6:45pm-7pm tonight. Fred Seigel is sponsored his talk. Kuntzel will be introduced by Paul Berman.

AND NOW, FOR SOME NEWS FROM ACROSS THE POND:

Carol Gould’s reportage is always earthy, funny, folksy, and politically devastating. Here she is on a Holocaust related matter. Here she is in Currentviewpoint:

<a href=”http://www.currentviewpoint.com/cgibin/news.cgi?id=11&command=shownews&newsid=986“>http://www.currentviewpoint.com/cgibin/news.cgi?id=11&command=shownews&newsid=986London

Recently I have been reporting on events that pass like ships in the night — the sort of occurrences that will be missed if one blinks.

I am therefore grateful to Vivien Lichtenstein, Chair of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, for bringing to my attention a very short item by Peter McKay in ‘The Daily Mail’ of 25 February 2008. Vivien and I agree on almost nothing but we do share an understanding of Jewish aspirations in a post-Holocaust world. We can both smell an anti-Semite a mile away and this article had all the earmarks of the ‘top five’ epithets of which we have been at the receiving end since early childhood.

McKay writes about the story that dominated the news for a few days near the end of February: the Brown government’s suggestion that British schoolchildren should visit Auschwitz concentration camp, and the immediate accusation by Tory leader David Cameron that this was a Gordon Brown ‘gimmick.’ Poor David, who could not be called an anti-Semite, was roundly criticised from all corners of the Anglo-Jewish community. In fact, he redeemed himself a week later by delivering a moving speech at a Jewish charity fundraiser.

The public discourse went on for days, with the usual crop of ‘Nigel in St Mary Cray’ bloggers sending in their angry messages about our poor benighted British schoolchildren being forced to visit concentration camps but not being sent to Gaza to see the bad things being inflicted by those nasty, brutal, ruthless Jews in Israel. It is amazing the way the slightest mention of the Holocaust engenders such animosity towards Jews these days; in a separate article I have related the nightmare I endured at a National Union of Journalists meeting in London when the members, to a man, berated me about the Jews ‘nicking the land off the Arabs in 1947’ and ‘getting the Holocaust out of your system, Carol.’

And so it was on 25 February that Peter McKay of ‘the Daily Mail’ indulged in that most abhorrent of analogies: that non-Jews get the Holocaust thrust down their throats and as part of the equation are forced to support Israel.

This is how he put it:

I get about 800 pieces of email a day from all over the world. Very little of it is personal. Friendly souls in Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, and in North and South America hunt down headlines for me. I am rapidly losing my sight in the effort to keep up with the headlines, not to mention with the in-depth articles in tiny print with important footnotes.

Why suffer so much knowledge alone? Thus, I have decided to pass some choice tidbits along to you on a regular basis. Hopefully, someday, people will send me news about wedding and birth announcements and when they do, perhaps I’ll pass that along to you too.

My choice today concerns Chicago based news which comes to us from the excellent Aaron Klein of WND in Jerusalem; news of a conference in Uganda to spearhead a further Islamification of Africa; news from Naples, Italy concerning a hardening of Saudi policy towards other religions; and news from the grisly propaganda mills of the Palestinian Authority via Palestinian Media Watch.

Have a Happy Purim, a Good Shabbos, a Good Friday, and a Happy Easter.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=59456

Obama church published Hamas terror manifesto

Posted: March 20, 2008
By Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama’s Chicago church reprinted a manifesto by Hamas that defended terrorism as legitimate resistance, refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and compared the terror group’s official charter – which calls for the murder of Jews – to America’s Declaration of Independence.

The Hamas piece was published on the “Pastor’s Page” of the Trinity United Church of Christ newsletter reserved for Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose anti-American, anti-Israel remarks landed Obama in hot water, prompting the presidential candidate to deliver a major race speech earlier this week.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/19/africa/AF-GEN-Uganda-Gadhafis-African-Quest.php

Libyan leader opens mosque in Uganda in bid to spread Islam through Africa

The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
KAMPALA, Uganda: In his drive to spread Libyan and Islamic influence in Africa, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi inaugurated a huge new mosque in this predominantly Christian country Wednesday, with several African heads of states attending and scores of Arab journalists flown in for the occasion.

Packed in Kampala’s soccer stadium, a crowd estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 chanted “long live Brother Gadhafi” before the Libyan leader delivered an hour-long lecture on the meaning of Islam.

http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME03.YAM14401.html

SAUDI ARABIA: PACT TO RESPECT ALL RELIGIONS REJECTED
(ANSAmed) - NAPLES, MARCH 20 - A resolution calling for the enactment of an international pact to forbid religions from being defamed or insulted as well as their symbols, leaders and prophets has been voted out by the Saudi Shoura (Consultative Council). A total of 77 members opposed the recommendation while 33 voted in favour, online newspaper Gulf News reports. According to the opponents, such a pact would force people to recognise religions, which advocate idol worship, and that “would be unacceptable.”

http://cristyli.blogspot.com/2008/03/hamas-tv-displays-children-in.html

Thursday, March 20, 2008
Hamas T.V. Displays Children In Crematoriums

In an effort to ensure the next generation of Arab hatred towards Israel, Hamas in Gaza are teaching their children that Israel is perpetuating a Holocaust against their children. Hamas has created exhibits of children in crematoriums for the children to see giving them nightmares today and hatred of Jews tomorrow.

A friend calls to tell me that suddenly, a completely burqa-ed (or abaya-ed) woman seems to have moved into the legendary apartment building for artists-only in Greenwich Village that my friend calls home. She says: “This woman also wears dark sun glasses so you can’t even see her eyes.”

Then, another friend who lives in the same building calls me. She says: “This woman is spooky. But I’m afraid to talk to her, to ask her whether she or perhaps her husband are artists. She has some really big men with her. If she were friendly, she might stop and talk to another woman, wouldn’t she?”

It’s 2008 in Greenwich Village, which has a long and honorable history of radical “attitude”–and my phone caller is whispering.

“Maybe she’s engaged in some kind of political theatre” I suggest. “Ask her.”

But my colleagues, who are brave artists, do not think this is possible. They accompany each other on a midnight mission to photograph the sign the burqa-ed Lady has on her door. It reads:

“Only Allah (God) deserves to be worshipped. (He is One. He has no partner.) Adam, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Job…Moses, Jesus, and Muhammed (peace and blessings of Allah be upon them) are Allah’s slave servants and Messengers. And…Treat others the way you want to be treated.”

I have no comment at this time. I am merely the Messenger, passing along this information.