When Jew hatred is dressed up as faith

By Effendi | Published: July 27, 2010

The video that follows are excerpts from a religious program hosted by Egyptian cleric Hussam Fawzi Jabar, which aired on Al-Nas TV on July 11, 2010.

Here we see a cleric in traditional ‘mufti’ attire expounding on the “nature of Jews” in the most egregious terms possible. But his words and opinions are considered acceptable, even laudable, to the Muslim laity because he is a religious figure, and because he is speaking in Arabic. The fact that he is expounding his political views and not purely religious ones is immaterial.

And yet these kinds of views expressed in this kind of language will pass without comment amongst Muslims. And why? Because of the received belief that there is no distinction between religion and politics and because the political views of some cleric in Egypt are supposedly the views of all Muslims everywhere else.

Transcript from MEMRI:

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Posted in Antisemitism, Islamism | 1 Comment

The General and the Taliban

By Faisal | Published: July 26, 2010

Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, center, the former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, getting roughed up

What the Guardian’s WikiLeaks article is less voluble about is the extent of Pakistan’s complicity with the Taliban and the regional insurgency. What the leaked documents uncover is the existance of a rogue element, the ‘S Wing’ of Pakistan’s national intelligence services, the ISI , which has near-complete autonomy in Pakistan’s ungovernable tribal regions and the volatile border with India.

In the midst of these massive leaks emerges the name of General Hamid Gul who ran the ISI and who is profiled in this NYT report.

Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul ran the ISI from 1987 to 1989, a time when Pakistani spies and the C.I.A. joined forces to run guns and money to Afghan militias who were battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan. After the fighting stopped, he maintained his contacts with the former mujahedeen, who would eventually transform themselves into the Taliban.

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Posted in Islamism | Leave a comment

Afghan WikiLeaks: “Catastrophic Lack of Human Intelligence”

By Faisal | Published: July 26, 2010

Alex Thomson on Channel 4 News blog:

The point is that this is according to WikiLeaks from the horse’s mouth and if it is verified it is NATO validating the above conclusions from reporters like me who take (small but significant) advantage of the embed system of allowing reporters some limited access to the war.

Had we the Vietnam era of wide and free-ranging access across Afghanistan then much more of this picture of confusion and off-hand civilian killing would have come to more strongly than it now has.

What comes across most striking is the catastrophic lack of human intelligence which is the single biggest factor as to why this war can never, ever, be won. I know that I go on banging this point home but it really cannot be said forcefully enough.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Violent” and “Non Violent” Islamists

By Guest | Published: July 25, 2010

This is a cross-post by Lucy Lips at Harry’s Place

So, it is almost that Global Peace and Unity time of year again.

Regular readers of Harry’s Place will remember that, every year, the Islam Channel invites some of the most extreme and nasty Islamists – supporters of attacks on our troops, of terrorism (outside the UK, of course), Holocaust denial, wife beating, and so on – to bunfight. Each year, leading politicians from all three parties are invited. Sometimes, they attend.

Labour’s performance on this matter has ranged from excellent to terrible.

The Lib Dems have been atrocious – not only did they attend the event, they rubbished Policy Exchange’s attempt to brief leading politicians on the nature of the invitees to the conference.

The Tories’ Dominic Grieve did turn up, and very impressively expressed his disappointment at the nasty views espoused by some of the attendees. If you are going to attend, that is the way to do it.

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Posted in Islamism, UK Politics | 11 Comments

Old Red Eyes is Back

By Effendi | Published: July 25, 2010

The IFE stalwart and major Anwar al-Awlaki fanboy, Azad Ali, has resurfaced as the newly elected president of the Muslim Safety Forum. Andrew Gilligan writes:

Scotland Yard will now face pressure to renounce Azad Ali, the new chair of the Muslim Safety Forum, which is recognised by the Met under a formal written agreement as “the principal body in relation to Muslim community safety and security”.

The deal says that the Met will “use the MSF as a consultation body to help formulate policy or practice”. Mr Ali was the founding chair of the MSF in 2006, but left that job in 2008 and resigned entirely from the group last year after publicity over his extremist comments. Last week, he was quietly reappointed as its chairman.

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Posted in Islamism | 2 Comments

Support Gheyret Niyaz

By Faisal | Published: July 25, 2010

Here’s a story of Islamophobia and brutal state-oppression of Muslims.

The intellectual, Gheyret Niyaz, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for endangering state security, a vague charge that is often used by officials to lock up people they deem political threats. The sentence was especially severe given that Mr. Niyaz was not accused of taking part in the ethnic rioting. Other Chinese intellectuals have recently been slapped with the same sentence: Last December, Liu Xiaobo, a main author of a pro-democracy manifesto called Charter 08, was also sentenced to 15 years.

Mr. Niyaz, 51, holds what are considered moderate political views — he has not, for example, advocated for Xinjiang independence, a position held by some Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people that is the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang. Many of them resent the policies of the Chinese government, which is dominated by ethnic Han, saying that those policies are diluting the Uighur culture and leading to their economic disenfranchisement.

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Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, The Far Left | 3 Comments

Pakistani Taliban vs Islamists

By Faisal | Published: July 24, 2010

Fascinating article by Arif Jamal in Jamestown Foundation on the implications of the attack, by a 14 year old suicide recruit of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM aka Pakistani Taliban), on the far-right Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islam, who the leader of the TNSM regard as “munafiqs” and traitors to their jihadist ideology. The article contains a history of factionalism within JI and a clear analysis of the ideological differences between Islamism and extremist Salafism in the Pakistani context which, if not contained, has dire international consequences.

****

Leader of Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), Maulana Sufi Mohammad

The local chapter of Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Islamist political party held a rally on April 19 in the historic Kissa Khwani Bazaar of Peshawar to protest the extremely low gas pressure and rolling blackouts that affect Peshawar residents up to 10 hours per day (for the shortages, see Daily Times [Lahore], January 18; Frontier Post [Peshawar], July 10). As leaders announced the end of the rally and protesters started to leave, a 14-year old suicide bomber ignited his suicide vest, killing 23 persons and injuring 50 others. The suicide bomber successfully targeted local JI leaders and police officers – among the dead were JI Peshawar vice-amir Haji Dost Mohammad and deputy superintendent of police Gulfat Hussain (The News [Islamabad], April 20).

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Posted in Islamism, Terrorism | 3 Comments

Islam’s Attitude to Women

By Faisal | Published: July 23, 2010

Back in 2001, Madeleine Bunting of the Guardian came up with this:

Blaming Islam for practices such as female circumcision, they claim, is the equivalent of blaming feminism for domestic violence – it is linking totally unrelated phenomena. Again, the absence of a critical analysis of the tradition is striking, and there is no answer to the question of why, if Islam offers women a bill of rights, it has not liberated more women. The point, they reply, is that male chauvinism and its bid to control women exists the world over; it simply takes different forms, and when women are educated and know what Islam really means, they can fight back.

But what if the religious texts (Qur’an, Sunnah and exegeses) themselves have provided Muslim men with the religious justification for suppressing women.

The video above attempts to identify problematic content from the primary texts which may have done just that.

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Posted in Exegesis | Leave a comment

Tatchell sticks it to Griffin

By Faisal | Published: July 22, 2010

Above is Peter Tatchell - the most principled, brave and tireless left-wing activist against hate crimes, homophobia, racism and anti-muslim bigotry, not to mention a one-man anti-Nazi movement – confronting Nick Griffin.

Terry Glavin says:

“Since the 1970s, the journalist and human-rights activist Peter Tatchell has been a singularly brave and principled voice for justice and human decency. It would be hard to name anyone in left-activist circles, anywhere in the English-speaking world, whose aim has been so true.”

The man is a national treasure.

Posted in Activism, Anti Fascism | 1 Comment

Psycho Convert, Qu’est Que C’est?

By Effendi | Published: July 22, 2010

From Gawker:

Zachary Chesser, a 20 year-old kid from the DC suburbs, was arrested yesterday while allegedly on his way to travel to join an Islamist insurgency in Somalia. No surprise. Zachary fit the classic terrorist profile: he hated South Park.

Ever wonder who took seriously the periodic calls by radical Muslims to kill various cartoonists, like the lady who started “Everbody Draw Mohammed Day?” People like Zachary Chesser, that’s who. According to the Washington Post:

Chesser, a George Mason University dropout whose parents live in Centreville, told the FBI that he only recently became religious and grew a beard, took the name Abu Tallah Al-Amrikee and married a Muslim woman in 2009, according to court papers. He allegedly looked to online videos, chats and over-the-counter CDs “almost obsessively,” before creating a stream of YouTube sites, blogs and postings spreading the call “to fight jihad,” the papers say.

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Posted in Islamism, Nutters | Leave a comment

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