Is Israel facing a genocidal terror?

A long but well written article. It goes a long way toward explaining how the manipulation of terminology changes international reaction.

I would comment more on this article but for some reason muslim mommies are once again failing to watch their children and I have to clean up their trash talking children’s posts on another thread.

Dan Izenberg, 27 March, 2008, JPOST
Last year, the European Journal of Public Health published an article arguing that had the United Nations, human rights organizations and the media used the term “genocide” rather than “ethnic cleansing” to describe events in Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia, tens of thousands of lives might have been saved.

The article was written by Dr. Rony Blum and Elihu Richter of the Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem-Hadassah Ein Kerem; Prof. Gregory Stanton, president of Genocide Watch; and HU law student Shira Sagi.
According to their findings, precise and accurate terminology is of crucial, practical importance in dealing with and preventing, or at least intervening at an earlier stage to halt, genocide. “The term ‘ethnic cleansing,'” they wrote, “corrupts observation, interpretation, ethical judgment and decision-making, thereby undermining the aim of public health. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ bleaches the atrocities of genocide, leading to inaction in preventing current and future genocides.”

According to the figure published in the article, 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda, 200,000 in Bosnia and 400,000 had been killed in Darfur at the time the article was published.
Richter and a group of his public health colleagues in Israel believe the same principle applies to the terminology used to describe the campaign waged by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. Before presenting their views, it needs to be emphasized that Richter and the others, including Dr. Ted Tulchinsky, who also teaches public health at Hadassah, are neither right-wing political ideologues nor indifferent to Palestinian suffering. Richter and Tulchinsky have spent many years participating in joint Israeli-Palestinian medical projects and training programs and believe the commitment to public health on the part of both Israeli and Palestinian doctors and scientists provides fertile ground for the most positive kind of cooperation.

Over the past few years, Richter and Tulchinsky have concluded that the terror groups headed by Hamas are waging a campaign of “genocidal terror” against Israel and that their actions meet the criteria established by the UN in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The convention defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Richter maintains that if the UN, human rights organizations and the media were to define the rocket attacks on Sderot and other civilian communities as “genocidal terrorism” rather than “war crimes,” as they do today, they would be presenting a much more accurate depiction of the threat with which Israel is contending.

In trying to explain the difference between “regular” and “genocidal” terrorism, Richter told The Jerusalem Post, “Note that Hamas and its Iranian sponsor, backer and funder are explicitly committed to the destruction of Israel. In contrast, take terrorists in Colombia. They target prominent individual Colombians, some for political reasons, others for ransom money. The same holds true for the Weathermen, who kidnapped Patty Hearst, or the Red Brigades. They were targeting specific political figures from their own countries without reference to national, ethnic or religious status. They were kidnappers, robbers and murderers.”

RICHTER IS not a lawyer. He said he came to his conclusion on the basis of the same kind of epidemiological studies that are applied to natural disasters or epidemics. “The idea evolved out of the efforts of some of us to understand what was happening, based on an examination of who, when, where, which, how and what the data were telling us,” he said.

For example, he examined the gender and age breakdown of Palestinian and Israeli fatalities during the second intifada and found that there was a disproportionate number of elderly, female and child victims on the Israeli side, compared to a disproportionate number of young male victims on the Palestinian side.

In developing the concept of genocidal terrorism, Richter also consulted with legal experts including Stanton, co-author of the ethnic cleansing article, who is currently professor of human rights at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. “I think genocidal terror is exactly what al-Qaida, Hamas and Hizbullah are doing,” he wrote. “I think the key nexus is that genocidal killing is intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Terror is aimed at killing members of another group, making no distinction between civilians and combatants. That distinction is required by the Geneva Conventions and Optional Protocol I and II and Common Article 3 apply the conventions to non-state actors.”

Richter also referred to Israel Charney, executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem. Charney, who has written several books on genocide, told Richter, “I am pessimistic about the growing violence in the world from the emerging ‘transnational genocide terrorism.’ I sadly anticipate and fear deeply that before long, there will be a use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by terrorists, including suicide bombers, with resulting horrendous widespread deaths, agony and breakdown of civilized life in widespread areas.”

Perhaps the most prominent jurist in the world working on redefining international law to address the changes that have taken place in the nature of terrorism over the decades is Harvard University’s Alan Dershowitz. In an interview with the Post published on March 14, Dershowitz said the clear distinction between civilian and combatant breaks down in a war against terrorists, and international law must acknowledge and deal with this. “The anachronistic theory that you can clearly tell the difference between civilian and combatant must be updated to deal with the new reality in which terrorists use civilian population for fighting purposes,” he said.

Man forced to buy wife from Muslim slave traders

Just another muslims abusing infidels story. This type of “forced prostitution” is just a cleaned up term for slavery. It is common place throughout all muslim countries to include the so called moderate ones like oman.

The remarkable thing about this story is the rescue. The U.N. so called human rights activists have known about this form of slavery for many years but they are too busy pushing the islamic agenda to care about a few hundred thousand slaves.

While this activity is not due to islamic verse it is common inside the muslim community. A community which turns a blind eye to the practice. The life of an infidel slave is not worth much.

Ananthakrishnan G , 30 Mar 2008, The Times of India
KOCHI: It was midnight when Salim’s (name changed) flight landed in Muscat on March 14. The weather was strange and so were the faces. All he had was Rs 6,000. But he knew he couldn’t afford to despair.

As he rode a taxi to Ruwi City, Salim had one prayer on his lips – his wife should be alive. The last he had heard from her was a wail, before the call to their home in Malappuram in Kerala went blank.

The 32-year-old man had no idea that his wife had been trapped in a deadly, organised prostitution racket. She was sold and resold several times in Oman, where she was promised a job as a housemaid.
-A common ruse to lure young women.

But he was determined to save her even if it meant risking his life. His efforts succeeded when Oman police, with the help of the Indian embassy, rescued her on March 23.

Arabian dreams lured Salim and his wife after he suffered business losses last year. The couple, married for two years, approached an agent who agreed to arrange visas for them – a housemaid’s job for her and something else for him. Her visa came first and she left for Muscat on January 21, 2008 leaving behind Salim.

After about 40 days, he got a call from her. In between sobs, she told him that she had been cheated and would end her life. He was shattered but decided to rescue her at any cost. He then approached the same agent for a visa.

Halal KFC in Dearborn, Michigan

Just more Creeping Sharia from those dhimmis in Michiganistan besmirching the good name of the Colonel (PBUH)…

H/T – TNR

Halal food lands on menus
It reflects growing interest by Muslims

BY NIRAJ WARIKOO • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • March 30, 2008

Growing up in Dearborn, Zeinab Chami often was tempted by ads for Col. Sanders’ original recipe, the finger-lickin’ meal sold by fast-food giant KFC.

However, Chami was an observant Muslim, and the restaurant’s chicken was not halal, meaning it wasn’t prepared according to Islamic law. Her choices usually were limited to what her immigrant parents cooked or the occasional takeout from Middle Eastern restaurants.

But now she’s able to get a taste of KFC. Last month, the restaurant’s east Dearborn restaurant began selling halal chicken, a change that reflects the growing demand for halal products among metro Detroit’s sizable Muslim population.

Underneath the colonel’s bearded face, the store’s sign reads “Now serving halal original & crispy.” The juxtaposition of an American icon with Islamic tradition is a striking display of the changing landscape of southeast Michigan. Halal meat is not new to Dearborn’s butcher shops and Arab restaurants, but a growing number of national chains have been accommodating the local demand for Muslim food in recent years.

“A lot has changed just in the past decade,” said Bilal Dabaja, 22, a Dearborn resident who eats halal. “More people want these products.”

The change is similar to how the growing Jewish population decades ago led to kosher becoming part of the American food industry and vocabulary. The kosher symbols “K” and “U” can be seen today on everything from Heinz ketchup bottles to Fruity Pebbles cereal boxes.

Muslims hope to create a similar market for halal products.

Muqtada al-Sadr Calls for Cease-Fire

The reports of the demise of the Iraqi army in the face of Sadr’s illegitimate army seems to be, shall we say, premature…  The first sign you have made an impressive show of force is when, in the heat of the battle, your enemy calls for a cease-fire…

Muqtada Sadr orders followers to end fighting
The Shiite Muslim cleric disavows armed members who attack Iraqi government institutions and party officers. He calls for the government to end what he calls random raids and to release all prisoners
By Alexandra Zavis and Saad Fakhrildeen, Special to The Times
March 30, 2008 – LA Times

BAGHDAD — Radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr ordered his followers today to end six days of fighting, which has killed more than 300 people and threaten to reverse recent security gains across Iraq.

In a statement issued by Sadr’s headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, the cleric disavowed any armed members who attack government institutions and party offices.

“Based on the responsibility imposed by Islamic law and to save precious Iraqi blood . . . we have decided the following: to end the armed manifestation in Basra and all over the governorates,” Sadr said.

In return, the cleric demanded that the government stop what he described as random raids and release all prisoners who have not been proved guilty of offenses.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, welcomed Sadr’s statement in an interview broadcast on state-run television but did not say whether the government had agreed to the cleric’s terms.

There was no immediate evidence of a let-up in the fighting that has raged since Tuesday in the southern Shiite heartland and parts of Baghdad. Residents hunkered down in their homes reported hearing heavy gunfire and explosions in central Basra and along the Shatt al Arab waterway.

M15 in terrorist checks on 800 killer virus labs

In the past, I have been extremely critical of the UK’s efforts to contain the demons slowly destroying them. Efforts like this one show they are awakening and considering worst case scenarios and working towards protecting themselves. Stopping crazy muslims from getting dangerous toys is necessary but without strict controls over the muslims already running rampant efforts like this are still just treating the symptoms and not the disease.

Before the UK has even a slim chance to turn the tide, they have to identify the problem. Hold UK muslims accountable, publicly identify the problem stop using cover terms like “Asian” when a muslim commits a crime say so, especially if the offender used muslim verse to praise his actions. Hold muslims who hide the radicals accountable, support to terrorism is a crime, if necessary shut down mosques preaching racial islam and sell the property to pay for your anti terrorism programs. Deportations should include a complete seizure of all assets before sending the criminals away. The same process should be used for anyone convicted of terrorism and jailed. Sure a few laws would have to be passed to allow such measures but if every muslim in the UK understood that every nickel they had would be taken and used against muslim radicals if they were convicted of supporting them they would not be so quick to do so. If anything, they would turn on each other like ravenous dogs. Would it be so bad if muslims actually pointed out the offenders?

The efforts to stop muslim crazies from getting killer bugs is simply not enough. The solution starts with understanding the problem in its entirety. Set the hard line and let muslims know up front there will never be sharia law in the UK and the UK will never be part of the caliphate. If they still want to stay make them prove it. Muslims could identify the hardline clerics quicker and more effectively than anyone. If they are unwilling to help they are un-loyal, treat them as such. Passive support is still support.

By JASON LEWIS, 28 March, 2008, The Daily Mail
MI5 and anti-terrorist police are carrying out secret background checks on thousands of scientists amid fears that Al Qaeda is trying to infiltrate British research laboratories to obtain deadly viruses.

The vetting, which includes checks on family backgrounds, political views and associates, is part of a review of some 800 laboratories in hospitals, universities and private firms where staff have access to incurable viruses such as ebola.

Last night, Whitehall sources confirmed the crackdown by MI5 and the police’s National Counter Terrorism Security Office.

A series of spot checks and detailed inspections are also being led by experts from the Health and Safety Executive.

Last week one of the HSE’s top inspectors revealed details of its investigation, which until now has been highly secret.
-Any punishment for selling out this program?

Another weapon: more knowledge about why terrorists bail out

This is not a bad article, unlike most I will not comment all the way through it. It should be read as is. However, there are a few things you should remember while reading it. The basic theme is that a few would be jihadi change their minds giving to some sort of hope that we could glean knowledge from them to bring a few more over to the light. A nicer approach to the problem of radical islam.

The problems are many with such a plan, would an infidels rational to stop violent jihad matter or would the message only be acceptable coming from muslim clerics and if so where would you find a moderate muslim cleric?

Another point which should have been considered by the author and was not is just because a jihadi changes his mind and stop supporting an al qaida type group doesn’t mean he his have changed his dream of a global caliphate or his opinion that islam should dominate the world. It wouldn’t necessaryly mean he would stop supporting the same sort of group he dropped out of or would not seek a new group with a new leadership. He could form his own group or be employed to train group members even if he did not follow their views.

I found this article falling short but it should not be dismissed in its entirety we should try as many methods to disarm, pin down and counter attack the radicalized minions of islam and their growing network of supporters as they are using against the free peoples of the world. Every method should be off the table from peaceful psyop campaigns to kinetic solutions. Although this article is limited in its analysis and short on answers it is a must read to understand the types of mindsets we face.

By Michael Jacobson, 29 March, 2008
On Dec. 10, 2001, after completing his al-Qaida training in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Sajid Badat returned home to Britain. Badat, 22, a Muslim born in Gloucester, had an associate, a gangly man named Richard Reid, and the duo were now ready to carry out their mission: blowing up two separate aircraft traveling from Europe to the United States. Badat and Reid had been given identical explosive devices, specially designed to evade airport security and destroy an aircraft in midflight. On Dec. 22, Reid — now infamous as the “shoe bomber” — was jumped by his fellow passengers when he tried to light his device on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami. He got further than Badat, who simply bailed on the plot, leaving his dismantled bomb in his parents’ house.

Badat is now serving a 13-year sentence in a British prison. He told prosecutors that he decided to “get away from danger and introduce some calm in his life.”

Badat’s case sheds some light on a rarely considered question: Why do some terrorists drop out? We rightly think of al-Qaida and other jihadist groups as formidable foes, but the stories of would-be killers who bail give us some intriguing clues about fault lines that counterterrorism officials should exploit.

So where to start? Despite al-Qaida’s reputation for ferocity and secrecy, plenty of wannabes wind up dropping out from it and its affiliates — not just the hapless Badat.
Consider the Sept. 11, 2001, plot.

Even in Osama bin Laden’s greatest triumph, not all of his recruiting efforts paid off. Two Saudis who were selected, Mushabib al-Hamlan and Saud al-Rashid, decided not to participate in the attacks after leaving the training camps in Afghanistan. And in the summer of 2001, Ziad Samir Jarrah, who became the hijacker pilot on United 93, agonized about whether to withdraw from the operation. In an emotional conversation, Ramzi Binalshibh — the Hamburg-based liaison between the plotting cell and al-Qaida’s senior leadership in Afghanistan — persuaded Jarrah to stay.

Al-Qaida prides itself on its esprit de corps, but key members have turned against the group from its earliest days. These include Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, a Sudanese radical who was one of al-Qaida’s first members and helped work (unsuccessfully) in the early 1990s to procure uranium for the organization; Essam al-Ridi, an Egyptian veteran of the 1980s jihad against the Soviets who later purchased an airplane in the United States to help ship Stinger missiles from Pakistan to Sudan; and L’Houssaine Kherchtou, a Moroccan who trained to serve as bin Laden’s personal pilot. (All three became prosecution witnesses in the trial of the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.)

Australian Children Flown to Africa to Undergo Female Genital Mutilation

It’s worth pointing out here that a clitoridectomy, or as it is more commonly known – Female Genitial Mutilation (FGM) has been a custom of many cultures since before Islam even came on the scene.  Thankfully, most modern cultures have abandoned this barbaric practice.  However, one of the four Sunni schools of religious law, the Shafi’i school, has held fast to a religious ruling that makes clitoridectomies mandatory for females.  Hopefully, continued public awareness and pressures will force them into the 21st century…

H/T – Warner 

Claim babies face genital mutilation ritual
By Edmund Burke
March 30, 2008 – News.com.au

FEARS that Australian-born girls as young as three months are being flown to Africa to undergo barbaric circumcision operations have been reported to the Department of Child Safety.

The Sunday Mail has learned that Family Planning Queensland has approached the State Government asking that a process be established to protect the children.

The organisation fears that female genital mutilation is on the rise in Queensland with the increased number of African refugees arriving in the state in recent years.

African girls face genital mutilation under the cultural traditions of countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mali and Liberia.

The practice was made illegal in Queensland in 1994.

It is also against the law to remove a child from the state to have the procedure carried out, with the offence carrying a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment.

Female genital mutilation project manager Odette Tewfik from Family Planning Queensland said anecdotal evidence had convinced her that the procedure was becoming more common here.

“We have 11 bilingual workers from those communities who say people in the community believe that it (genital mutilation) is essential,” she said.

“They are being told that it is happening but it is impossible for us to gather hard evidence.”

Ms Tewfik said she had been contacted by people who believed children they knew had been taken back to Africa for the procedure, which involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia.

Being Charged with Islamophobia is a Small Price to Pay

Warner emailed us with an interesting editorial piece.  It starts out a little slow, but the ball gets rolling along after the intro:

Let’s worry about Islamofascism
Kanchan Gupta
The Daily Pioneer

The resolution adopted by Muslim theologians representing the various schools of Islam at the All-India Anti-terrorism Conference organised by Darul Uloom, Deoband, ‘denouncing’ terrorism but condoning radical Islam’s ghastly excesses, apart from remaining silent on Islamist terrorism in India which continues to extract a terrible price, is of a piece with the Observatory Report on Islamophobia released by the Organisation of Islamic Conference at its recent meeting in Dakar, Senegal. Both documents seek to justify manufactured Muslim rage and lay the blame for the resultant death and destruction at the doors of everybody else but Muslims.

It is ironical that Darul Uloom, Deoband, should have taken it upon itself to preach to others the virtues of tolerance – Deobandis are known for neither tolerating others or their faith nor allowing Muslims the freedom to subscribe to modernism and its attendant values. Indeed, Deobandi madarsas at home and abroad, especially in Pakistan, are known to breed Islamofascists whose dark thoughts and darker deeds generate Islamophobia against which the OIC has demanded an international law. Of course, Islamofascism must remain unrestrained and Islamofascists must be allowed the right to practice their ideology of hate. To contest this would amount to Islamophobia, and Islamophobes, as we have now been told, have no right to exist. So, like the proverbial lamb, we should meekly surrender to our slaughter. The least we can do is believe the bogus declaration issued by mullahs who gathered at Darul Uloom, Deoband.

Here’s a confession: There was a time of innocence when I believed in the thesis that there is more than one Islam. There were those with whom you could swap ideas, share jokes and even the cup that cheers. A decade later, during which time I spent three years in Cairo and travelled more than once into the heart of Islam – well, almost, since non-Muslims are not allowed beyond Jeddah, the gateway to Mecca and Medina – I stand converted to the view that any talk of there being a moderate Islam or Islam as a religion of peace merely because of the salutation sa’laam is so much bunkum.

Sunday Funnies

Click on Images to Enlarge

Remember, there will be a nation-wide Trucker’s Strike to protest the high cost of fuel on April 1, 2008