Turkey's "Islamophobia" conference promotes sharia agenda

Andrew Harrod and Sam Nunberg wrote about the "International Conference on Islamophobia" that was held in Turkey:

Objective observers should be rightfully concerned by the “International Conference on Islamophobia: Law & Media” held by the Turkish government’s Directorate General of Press and Information (DGPI or BYGEM in Turkish) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) this past September 12-13 in Istanbul’s Grand Tarabya Hotel. Conference participants substantiated all too many threats emanating from various Muslims and their allies, calling into question their respect for free speech and freedom of expression.

They never had it to start with. Their whole blabbermouth gathering is nothing more than an expression of hate for every non-Muslim who loves freedom. And that's why this meeting is most definitely something everybody should be worried about.

Health education booklet adapted for Haredi schools

What makes this education manual workable is if they remain honest about including women/girls in it:

The Ministry of Education has decided for the first time to promote a program that teaches a healthy and active lifestyle to children in ultra-Orthodox kindergartens - but only once it has been especially adapted for the religious children. Included in the adapted version, is a special focus on the health-related aspects of the Jewish holidays. So, for example, the children learn about the virtues of healthy fruits like pomegranates and dates, which are among the seven species of fruits and grains named in the Torah. [...]

The illustrations drawn in the program's booklet were changed as well: the boys are dressed modestly, with yarmulkes on their heads and sidelocks. Under their shirts, the fringes of their tzitzit peek out. The girls are drawn as modestly dressed as well.

If this is so, and girls will make appearances inside without Haredi leaders acting as though the female species is nothing more than inhuman sexual objects, then this version can be appreciated.

How many converts to Islam in Britain?

Following the jihad bloodbath at the Nairobi mall, The Economist wonders how many people in the UK convert to the Religion of Rape:

Those who embrace Islam tend to do so after years of contact with Muslims. (Ms Lewthwaite reportedly had a close relationship with Muslim neighbours during her youth.) Some, mostly women who make up around two-thirds of new believers in Britain, convert because they want to marry a Muslim. Others are fed up with what they see as the bawdiness of British society. Many speak of seeking a sense of community. Prisons have proven fertile ground for conversions for men. Some worry that those who convert in jail are exposed to more radical strains of Islam; others say that Islam's discipline and structure, along with the support they received from other Muslims, helped them to cope with life inside.

I'd say it's the prejudiced mindsets lurking in the shadows in Britain that lead to this, to name one example. And becoming part of a gang in prisons for inclusive protection is another. Still another would have to be the atheism that's built up in the UK over many years, to say nothing of the whitewashed view promoted for Islam on the isle.

The article comes unglued, however, when they quote a Muslim propagandist:

Some worry that converts are more vulnerable than others to radical kinds of Islam because they know little about the religion's different traditions. That is not quite right, says Leon Moosavi, an expert on Islamic conversions at Liverpool University. The problem for converts is a lack of support, he argues. Some are abandoned by their families. They may not be accepted into mainstream mosques, many of which in Britain resemble ethnic clubs, he says. That isolation can make them vulnerable to extremists who hope that white converts will add credibility to their cause. But converts who turn to terrorism, as Ms Lewthwaite is suspected of doing, are rare. Indeed, the vast, peaceable majority may help to bridge the gap between Muslims and others.

Nope, they won't, and this only perpetuates the cliched claim that converts "misunderstand". When it truth, it is the apologists who deny the horrific beliefs embedded in the Koran. Furthermore, converts who turn to terrorism may not have been many years ago, but the more the conversions and influence increase, so does the possibility they'll become the useful idiots of Islamofascism.

A spy for Iran was captured

Ali Mansouri, a man with Iranian-Belgian background, was arrested for espionage for the former:

Petah Tikva — Israel on Monday remanded in custody for eight days an alleged Iranian spy, arrested on September 11 carrying photographs of the US embassy in Tel Aviv.

News of his arrest was made public Sunday, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for Washington and New York, determined to expose what he described as "sweet talk" by Israel's arch-foe Iran.

An AFP cameraman at the court said that in his first public appearance Ali Mansouri, 58, was silent and motionless as he sat in handcuffs, wearing a brown prison uniform.

Some pictures were released by the government showing the locations he photographed.

I don't buy a word of the new Iranian despot's taqqiya at the UN, and this newly discovered case could help expose what a phony he is, if his lackeys sent spies to record locations they could consider targets for jihad. Jennifer Rubin also says that Iran's still a very dangerous enemy, and they shouldn't be allowed to possess nuclears.

Here's more about the courtroom hearing on the Jerusalem Post.

Georgetown U. is the worst of the anti-Israel harbors

Barry Rubin's written about the far left's overlording of university campuses, with the worst of the anti-Israelists' hosts being Georgetown:

There is no university more supportive of the Arab nationalist (historically), Islamist and anti-Israel line in the United States than Georgetown University, specifically it’s programs on Middle East studies.

Every conference it holds on the Middle East is ridiculously one-sided. The university has received tens of millions of dollars from Arab states, and it houses the most important center in the United States that has advocated support for a pro-Islamist policy. [...]

Georgetown University also accepted tens of thousands of dollars from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi – who was, of course, very active in promoting anti-American terrorism – to establish an endowed chair in Middle East studies. When the university president backed down due to bad publicity, the professor who had been named to the post responded by calling the Jesuit university president a “Jesuit Zionist.”

Nobody who cares about safe society need contribute to such awful directors as those running Georgetown.

Moderate Haredi political party's HQ in Beit Shemesh was vandalized

A political party comprised of moderate Haredis is running for city council in Beit Shemesh. Predictably, the extremists detest them to the point of vandalizing their property:

The locks of the Beit Shemesh campaign office of the moderate ultra-Orthodox political faction Tov were glued shut on Monday evening, in what may be the beginning of a campaign of low grade harassment by haredi hardliners.

Tov activists told The Jerusalem Post that they will be filing a police complaint over the incident, which occurred only two days after an ultra- Orthodox man was filmed demanding that a participant at a Tov event in Jerusalem remove his black hat. Another ultra-Orthodox man physically assaulted the cameraman filming the incident and threatened to break his camera.

A party spokesman accused the “local haredi political machine” in Beit Shemesh of engaging in verbal incitement and said that harassment constitutes “proof of why a moderate haredi political party is so desperately needed.”

“Although the election campaign has barely started, political incitement and vandalism are in full swing,” he said. “Tov will not be intimidated by the hooligans and violence for which Beit Shemesh has unfortunately become known.”

Monday’s incident was committed by “hooligans with political agendas that don’t have our city’s interests in mind,” Tov Beit Shemesh chairman Aharon Salomon told the Post. “We reject them and we know voters will as well.”

We definitely hope so.

Dhimmi David Cameron thinks UK shouldn't ban niqabs

The British prime minister doesn't think veils should be banned in public:

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday Britain should not follow other European countries and ban Islamic face veils but certain institutions such as schools and courts should be allowed to set their own rules.

The issue of Muslim women wearing full veils has risen up the agenda after a judge ruled that a woman could not give evidence at a trial wearing a niqab and a school tried to ban veils before backtracking due to heavy criticism and protests.

One cabinet minister also suggested the British government should consider a full ban.

"We are a free country and people should be free to wear whatever clothes they like in public or in private," Cameron told BBC Television on the first day of the annual Conservative party conference in Manchester.

"But we should support institutions that need to put in place rules so that those institutions can work properly. In court a jury needs to be able to look at someone's face."

Britain, which is looking at ways to better integrate its 2.7 million Muslims without restricting the right to freedom of religious expression, has avoided following France and Belgium, where it is illegal for women to wear full-face veils in public.

France introduced its law in 2010, saying the adoption of burqa and niqab garments that conceal the face went against the country's traditions and values. But the ruling has remained controversial and rioting occurred near Paris in July this year after a police check on a woman.

The British judge who made the recent court ruling has said he hoped parliament would provide a definitive verdict and Cameron said he would be very happy to look at the need for national guidelines.

I think he's merely happy to say so, which is a lot different from do. There have been a lot of proposals with potential like abolishing the libel tourism laws that to date have never come to fruition, and seem to have just dropped down the memory hole. Cameron is merely scared of riots and doesn't have the courage to stop Muslims from going the rage route over peanuts. If people go around wearing ski masks in public when the weather isn't even cold, and enter stores wearing them, will he be fine with that?

If anyone must really hide their identities, they should just become hermits.

Marine Le Pen suggests an alliance with Geert Wilders

The younger Le Pen, who's certainly better in some respects than her awful father, has suggested aligning with Wilders in coming European elections:

Le Pen said in an interview with the NRC on Saturday that she could see merit in such a campaign. ‘It is important that voters see we are not alone, and that there are similar patriotic movements in every EU country,’ she said.

Le Pen said she and Wilders differ in their approach to Islam. ‘I am against the visibility of Islam in society. We have a tradition of a strict division between church and state so I think religious symbolism has no place in the street. But I have nothing against Islam per se.' Wilders regards Islam as a backward religion and has likened the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf.

There is a weakness in her argument: even if religious symbolism weren't visible in the streets per se, the danger of jihad would be lurking in the shadows. It's not just repellent ideas like Muslim veils that are a problem, but also the violence that's part and parcel with the Koran. That's something Le Pen would do well to research and ponder, if she really wants to make a good impact.

And like Wilders, she'd do well to refrain from making statements that could alienate potential allies. The anti-jihad movement needs all the help it can get from people with common sense values.

Why so-called professionals despise Diana West for researching communist history

Vladimir Bukovsky and Pavel Stroilov wrote about the reasons alleged academics like David Horowitz detest Diana West for writing about the history of communist influence and infiltration into the USA. I'd also suggest they're jealous of her. And now, they should be suitably embarrassed for all the attention they only ended up drawing to themselves for the decidedly undemocratic, disrespectful way they treated not only her, but also anybody who dared give a favorable opinion to her new book, American Betrayal.

This has made me wonder how they react if somebody like Caroline Glick or any other rightie in Israel wrote the book. The same way? Or would they suddenly have the audacity to just ignore what she published? Or, would they take to censoring the free speech of those who favor her books? Good question. Glick has some flaws of her own, but if she'd done what West did, I think it's safe to say she'd provide everybody with what to think about in regards to communist plagues.

Meanwhile, I hope Horowitz will wise up and keep his mouth shut and not give a poor impression of his otherwise stellar career as a former leftie whom I thought cared about solving bad influences.

Update: as West notes here, thanks very much to the 2 brave writers, the word battle is pretty much over, as it should've been decades ago.

Former EU leaders urge commission to abandon its anti-settlement position

Some common sense coming from former chairpeople of the EU:

A group of prominent figures from Europe and across the globe have called on the European Union to re-evaluate a recent European Commission directive pulling financing from Israeli enterprises in the "occupied territories."

Among those who signed the letter, which stated that reversing that decision would make a positive impact on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, were former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, former Uruguay President Luis Alberto Lacalle and Lord William David Trimble, who was the first U.K. first minister from Northern Ireland and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998.

"By treating Israel differently than most other states, this policy only reinforces the impression among Israelis that Europe is basically unfriendly to Israel and cannot be relied upon as it once was," the authors wrote.

Now they're talking. They have to consider that Israeli public opinion matters, and also to ponder that Islamofascism within their own borders is a much more serious concern. If the EU really wants to help matters, including their own world image, they'd do best to abandon this offensive policy of theirs and stop siding with the PLO. They also have to stop misusing European citizens' tax money.

British Muslim convert was involved in Kenya jihad attack

The authorities have issued a warrant for one Samantha Lewthwaite from Britain:

Interpol has issued a wanted person’s alert for British woman Samantha Lewthwaite – in the wake of the massacre at a shopping centre in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

The move has raised suspicions that Lewthwaite, the widow of 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsey, could have been involved in the armed assault on the Westgate mall.

Somali Islamist group Al Shabaab, which is linked to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for attack, in which at least 72 people were killed.

Some survivors have described a pale-skinned woman among the militants.

I see, so she was the wife of one of the suicide bombers back in 2005. There's a vital lesson in this case, to be sure: if there's a married couple who adhere to Islam and one turns to jihad activities, it's advisable to keep an eye on the other lest they follow suit. I hope that vile woman is caught and sent to face the highest court along with her husband.

Update: The Toronto Star says that:

Lewthwaite’s own story began sympathetically when she was portrayed as the distraught pregnant widow of Germaine Lindsay, who killed 26 people when he blew up a train in London’s Underground on July 7, 2005.

The Muslim convert condemned her husband’s crime and blamed the influence of radical mosques. “How these people could have turned him and poisoned his mind is dreadful,” she told Britain’s Sun newspaper eight years ago. “He was an innocent, naive and simple man. I suppose he must have been an ideal candidate.” Then she disappeared.

In December 2011, Kenyan authorities raided three Mombasa homes and reportedly found bomb-making material similar to that used in the London attacks in a home allegedly used by Lewthwaite.

She was not there, but she was charged in absentia with her alleged British accomplice, Jermaine Grant, for plotting to bomb hotels frequented by western tourists.

Translation: she spoke with a taqqiya tongue during the tragedy in 2005, and has since revealed her true colors.

Syria still keeps around chemicals

According to the Times of India/Reuters, a UN watchdog is supposed to inspect reports of further chemical weapon use in Syria:

AMSTERDAM: Experts from the world's chemical weapons watchdog will begin inspecting Syria's stockpile of toxic munitions by Tuesday, according to a draft agreement obtained by Reuters.

The draft, which is due to be voted on Friday night, calls on members of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to make cash donations to fund Syria's fast-tracked destruction operation. [...]

Syria is instructed to provide inspectors with security and "immediate and unfettered" access to all sites. A failure to do so will trigger a meeting by the OPCW's core members within 24 hours, the draft says.

A UN Security Council Resolution, also to be voted on Friday, does not refer to the use of force as a means to enforce the destruction plan, a point which Washington had pressed for.

The OPCW inspectors will have 30 days to visit all chemical weapons facilities declared by Syria to the organisation last week, it states.

It is still unclear where and how the chemicals stockpile, the details of which have not been made public by the OPCW, will be destroyed. For most countries, the process often takes years, but Syria has been given until mid 2014.

I doubt the UN will make any convincing effort to track and abolish the chemicals they've brewed, if they don't intend to take any convincing action against Syria's dictatorship. After all, when much of their councils are dominated by Islamofascists, then the chances are the chemicals might not be destroyed, but rather, secretly transferred to some other despot. We can't rule out the possibilities of that happening.

And one sure thing: no matter what happens, the UN is still going to remain a very corrupt outfit.

Muslim Brotherhood may shift their HQ to London

Tom Gross has several items worth reading about the middle east, including offensive acts committed by European "diplomats", honor murders of Muslim women, and among them, there's also this eyebrow raiser:

In a move that may lead to renewed violence, an Egyptian court has banned the Muslim Brotherhood and seized all its assets, including those of its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party. The order is being appealed.

Such a move may drive the Muslim Brotherhood underground and lead to increased acts of terrorism.

The Muslim Brotherhood said it will relocate its headquarters to the British capital, London.

Where some of these underground acts of violence could take place if the British government doesn't balk at their plans for moving shop to the UK. Unfortunately, with the UK government's track record, it could end up happening.

Update: Trending Central appears to have confirmed that the MB are indeed on their way to the blighty (Hat tip: Atlas Shrugs):

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has decided to move its media offices to London, following a Cairo court decision to proscribe the Islamist entity’s activities and any subsidiary institution related to it.

The Brotherhood already maintains a London presence through which it was previously running the administrative affairs of the organisation. The London headquarters is a “research centre” headed by Ibrahim Mounir, former member of the Guidance Bureau and former Secretary General of the international organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now that they're headed there, the environment could become a lot more dangerous indeed.

Media Matters is a pure disgrace

Austin Ruse at Big Journalism's written more about what's turned out to be a myth created by the sex-obsessed left, that being the murder of Matthew Sheperd, who was really put to death by his own homosexual partner over a drug row, and how the Volkswagen of media watchdog sites called Media Matters, one of those George Soros-funded scrap piles, has been part and party to those same propagandists:

David Brock created Media Matters precisely to scream bloody murder when anyone has the temerity to challenge the lying narratives of the left. Just the other day they went after me for simply reporting what one of their own, a gay man of the left, has concluded the Matthew Shepard story is no more than a myth.

According to one of their young researchers, I am the “go-to anti-gay extremist” given a perch at Breitbart to sully the image of St. Matthew Shepard. The young man’s piece spends a lot of space lying about things that I have said and written and not even a syllable refuting the new narrative of how Shepard lived and died. Heck, the guy doesn’t even try to refute me, only attack and threaten.

Besides creating myths to advance their causes, the left also likes to smear and otherwise destroy those who disagree with them. Lying and bullying are their two primary tools and they use them quite effectively. Many people are cowed into silence under the vicious attacks of Media Matters and other hit men of the sexual left.

Fearlessly exposing such lies and then taking the hits was the great original genius of Breitbart himself.

And it's a pity he's no longer with us. Media Matters is such a waste of time. I seem to remember this laughable moonbat from Titusville, PA who thought they were a genius source. But truly, they're just a trivial, self-indulgent mess of a site, solely concerned about what the right says and nothing the left itself obsesses over.

Siege in Kenya mall over

But the war against Islamofascism is not over yet. From the AFP:

Nairobi — Kenyan troops and rescue workers scoured the wreckage of a Nairobi shopping mall Wednesday for bodies and booby-trapped explosives after a four-day siege by Islamist gunmen left 67 dead and dozens more missing.

Rescuers wore face masks and some soldiers wrapped scarves around their mouths because of an overpowering stench inside the Westgate centre, once the capital's most upmarket mall. A large part of the complex has collapsed after heavy explosions and a fierce fire.

Across Kenya, flags flew at half mast at the start of three days of official mourning.

Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels claimed on Twitter that 137 hostages they had seized all died, figures impossible to verify and higher than the number of people officially registered as missing. They also accused Kenyan troops of using "chemical agents" to end the stand-off.

President Uhuru Kenyatta announced an end to the 80-hour bloodbath late Tuesday, with the "immense" loss of 61 civilians and six members of the security forces. Police said the death toll was provisional, with the Kenyan Red Cross listing 63 people as still missing.

Top forensic experts and investigators from Israel, the US and Britain are supporting Kenyan teams, officials said, with many questions remaining over the identity of the attackers, the possible presence of a British woman and American jihadists, and how the cell got such large quantities of weapons and ammunition into the complex.

Indeed, it appears there were Islamofascists born in the US who took part in this horror, and disgustingly enough, CAIR's reaction to that news is "who cares?" The New York Post (via Jihad Watch) says:

WASHINGTON – One of the most prominent and controversial Muslim-American advocacy groups says “who cares” if American jihadists were involved in the murderous terror attack on a shopping mall in Kenya.

“It doesn’t matter who’s involved in it,” Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told The Post.

“Terrorism is terrorism, whether it is Americans involved or anyone from any nation or background. Who cares?” he said.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said Monday “two or three Americans” were among the bloodthirsty thugs from the al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab who attacked the mall, hunting down and killing non-Muslims.

The American jihadists were 18 to 19 years old and of Somali or Arab origin and came from Minnesota and another place in the United States, Mohamed told PBS.

CAIR is a DC-based nonprofit organization that describes itself as a “grassroots civil rights and advocacy group” for Muslim-Americans. The group also has been linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Contrary to what they say, it matters because it shows they did nothing to prevent Muslims in America from joining up with jihadists abroad, and are unwilling to take any responsibility on their part for failure to promote honesty.

Update: and on a related note, 3 Muslims in New York were charged with collaborating with al-Shabaab (also via Jihad Watch and Atlas Shrugs).

Belgian anti-semitism plunges to new depths

Isi Leibler's written about European anti-semitism, reaching new lows in Belgium:

Manfred Gerstenfeld’s most recent book “Demonizing Israel and the Jews” documents evidence of the depressingly high levels of European anti-Semitism, highlighting the frequent employment of Holocaust inversion as a vehicle to incite Jew hatred. He notes that opinion polls indicate that nearly half of all European adults – close to 150 million – are today convinced that Israelis behave like Nazis towards the Palestinians.

This trend was corroborated in a recent report (published by the Gladstone Institute) exposing an outrageous situation in Belgium, the country of my birth and thus struck a sensitive personal chord. Had my parents not immigrated to Australia on the eve of the war, they could have suffered the same fate as many members of my family who were amongst the 50% of the prewar Belgian Jewish community deported with the active assistance of the state bureaucracy and collaborators, and murdered in Auschwitz.

The report described an extraordinary Belgian primer for teachers of “Holocaust Remembrance” which appeared on the official central Flanders educational website database. Endorsed and funded by the Ministry of Education, the template designed for teachers of 6-12 year olds shamelessly promoted hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism by employing the crudest forms of Holocaust inversion.

It even reproduced a cartoon which had initially appeared in 2009 at the notorious Teheran Holocaust Denial conference, depicting a Jewish concentration camp inmate impaled on barbed wire in the form of a swastika. Entitled “Never Again”, it was accompanied by a caricature of an Arab in the same position titled “Over Again”. The message conveyed is crystal clear – Israelis, descendants of Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust, are treating the Arabs in the same manner as the Nazis treated their forbears.

The caricature was produced by Carlos Latuff, a Brazilian of Lebanese origin, notorious for his creations of other obscene anti-Israeli caricatures bracketing Israelis with Nazis. One of his most outrageous recent works was an ugly distortion of the well-known poignant image of the young Jewish boy during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with his caption: “I am a Palestinian”. He has also depicted the Israeli Prime Minister as a vampire with blood dripping from his fangs.

There were other ‘lessons’ on the Belgian website presenting Israelis as bloodthirsty murderers. One included a “play” in which children would adopt the role of Palestinians or Hamas supporters and represent the good people whilst those assuming the roles of Israelis would epitomize the evil tyrants.

And this is what Belgium's government bankrolls. Sick. This was the country that enabled Germany to get easy access to invading France during WW2, and would probably allow the Islamic caliphate the same today. No wonder it's not a country worth living in for Jews.

IDF soldier shot in Hebron dies

A terrible obituary has been released:

Staff Sergeant Gal Kobi, 20, from Tirat Carmel in northern Israel, was killed Sunday after he was shot in the neck near a checkpoint in Hebron's Cave of Patriarchs, it has been cleared for publication. He was rushed to the Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem in critical condition but eventually died of his wounds.

Dr. Danny Fink, a heart surgeon in Shaare Zedek said, "The soldier came essentially lifeless – with a pulse but no blood pressure. We performed extensive resuscitation efforts but his injuries were too severe. He lost a lot of blood."

If the murderers are found, they should receive the death penalty, but probably won't.

London precipitates sharia finance

Britain's government keeps up its efforts to turn London into a sharia finance central (via Intl. Business Times):

Britain is encouraging banks through a task force to establish sharia-compliant products, aiming to position London as a Western hub for a fast-growing Islamic finance sector that is expected to reach $2.6 trillion by 2017.

Aiming to build on London's status as a leading exporter of financial services, Britain hopes to step up the challenge to Islamic finance centres such as Dubai and Kuala Lumpur.

"We want to be the leading (Islamic) finance sector outside of the Muslim world," deputy mayor of London Edward Lister said in a press conference in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

Islamic finance follows religious principles such as bans on interest and gambling, and is playing an increasingly prominent role internationally as often oil and gas-rich investors from Islamic countries put more of their money to work overseas.

That's the dhimmi British government alright. Always making sure to please their most untrustworthy buddies in business.

Egyptian court outlaws Muslim Brotherhood again

An Egyptian court's turned the Muslim Brotherhood illegal again like it used to be, only this time, the ruling may ensure they're weaker than before.

This is good, but it remains to be seen if they'll ever get rid of Islamism along with the awful movement of so-called siblings.

Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef breaks the law

The son of rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the Shas party, violated laws prohibiting political campaign involvement by appearing at a rally in Bnei Brak:

Only a week after being crowned with the honorific "rishon lezion," the newly elected chief Sephardic rabbi may be facing a run-in with Israeli law. This past Saturday night, Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef participated in a political rally for Shas in Bnei Brak marking the beginning of the local elections -- in violation of the law.

...according to clause 42.322 of the civil service regulations, Yosef was not allowed to participate in the rally at all because he is considered to be "a state employee, who ranks as one of the four highest positions in the administrative leadership." As such, he is subject to the "prohibition of participation in the public gatherings of political parties or of any political body as a lecturer on any topic, due to the fact that the appearance of the employee on a party stage may create the impression of party affiliation," as is written in the regulations.

A response from Shas stated, "This was an event for the municipality of Bnei Brak and was funded by the municipality. There was no mention of Shas at the event or in the publicizing of the event."

Yet pictures from the event show differently -- there was a huge sign posted with the Shas slogan: "Et achai anochi mevakesh" ("I seek my brethren"). According to an eyewitness, during the event, organizers realized that this was a political event that could complicate things for the chief rabbi, so they placed a white piece of paper over the letters reading "Shas" on the banner.

It makes no difference, it's still a political rally, and concealing their logo won't change anything. I hope the law does confront him about this seriously. Yosef is just another of his kind who has no true respect for Israeli laws.

Self-appointed Haredi "missionaries" insult holidaygoers' intellect in Jerusalem

Two Haredi women made people celebrating Succot holiday mad by trying to lecture them, and were eventually driven away from the locations they went to:

Jerusalem residents who went on the town recently, on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, were surprised to see two ultra-Orthodox women in their 50s touring bars in the city center at around midnight, as part of a spontaneous campaign aimed at convincing young secular women to become religious.

The haredi women were eventually driven away by partygoers after trying to prevent young girls from entering a pub.

Eyewitnesses say the two women walked around the city center carrying bags filled with Psalms and leaflets, which they handed out to young secular women. They asked them to return to their homes, to avoid desecrating the holiday and to dress modestly.

Implying they're pornographic objects, I suppose? That seems to be the MO whenever they babble to non-Haredi women. How they dress is the least concerning. I get the vibe they were more worried about that than drinking at pubs.

Later, they approached young women hanging out on a bar on Yoel Moshe Salomon Street and tried to start a conversation with them. The young women ignored them, but the haredi women continued talking to them against their will. Several men demanded that they leave the place and stop harassing the young women. They walked out, accompanied by partygoers who began filming and taking pictures of them.

The two women tried to start another conversation with other secular women, and one of them even grabbed a young woman by the hand. Some eyewitnesses intervened and tensions began running high, as some began throwing the leaflets at the haredi women and demanding that they leave. The women said they were entitled to continue their activity and threatened to call the police.

Only when they noticed that some people were taking pictures of them, causing a further desecration of the holiday, the two women fled towards the Mea Shearim neighborhood with some of the youngsters chasing them. There were no reports of physical violence in the incident.

"We don’t enter haredi neighborhoods and try to convince them to leave religion, so they shouldn't come to us," complained a young secular man.

Maybe the time has come to persuade them to start leaving the Haredi lifestyle. Then, religion would be a lot more welcome for everybody. They sure aren't helping by trying to convince anybody to become similar to Catholic nuns.

Who is David Cameron to tell anybody what to think?

After the horrific terrorist attack in Kenya, the British prime minister turned self-appointed apologist:

'Don't represent Islam'

Mr Cameron condemned the attacks, adding "because the situation is ongoing we should prepare ourselves for further bad news".

"These appalling terrorist attacks that take place where the perpetrators claim they do it in the name of a religion - they don't," he said.

"They do it in the name of terror, violence and extremism and their warped view of the world. They don't represent Islam or Muslims in Britain or anywhere else in the world."

What are the odds he's aware of the repulsive verses in the Koran that prove otherwise, and is too much a coward to say?

James Halling at The Commentator asks:

Hold on David. Since when did you become a scholar of Islam?

We've heard this "they're-not-real-Muslims" line many times since 9/11. But since they claim to be doing what they're doing in the name of Islam; since they're Muslims; and since they're obviously prepared to die for their religion, even as they kill others, it's not clear to me why we should listen to the secular-fudgey-quasi-Christian Prime Minister of Britain rather than them concerning their Islamic identity.

Since Cameron didn't provide any verses from the Koran to prove otherwise, nor did he say why he thinks the most vile are worth defending, I don't think he's worth the effort. His lazy apologia is nothing more than a cure for insomnia.

IDF soldier murdered in Hebron

Besides the murder of a soldier from Bat Yam, there was another murder that took place around Hebron:

A Palestinian sniper shot dead a soldier stationed the Tut Atarek Junction, across from the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Sunday.

The soldier was named as Gavriel Kobi, 20, from Tirat Carmel. He was promoted to St.-Sgt. Maj. upon his death.

The gunman fired at Kobi and another Givati Brigade infantryman positioned to defend the Jewish community, as part of the army’s holiday preparations. The soldiers were positioned near the pharmacy intersection and Beit Hamachpela, defending the road used by Jewish residents of the quarter in Hebron.

“From what we see, the shooting occurred over a long distance,” a senior IDF source said. “At this stage, we have no clear direction as to the identity of the shooter.” [...]

Following the attack, Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett, a member of the security cabinet, wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and cabinet secretary Avihai Mandelblit that the government must reconsider its plans for releasing Palestinian terrorists.

“Under the auspices of celebrating peace talks, Succot has turned into a holiday of harming IDF soldiers,” Bennett wrote.

The Bayit Yehudi chairman pointed out that Israel’s agreement to release more Palestinian prisoners is conditional on progress in negotiations with the PLO.

“There is no doubt that there have been unfortunate developments since the talks began, which require the government to rethink its path,” he wrote.

“The answer to terror must be a war on the murderers and not dialogue with those who encourage them.”

The IDF has increased its presence in the area, and embarked on a manhunt for the filth who committed the murder. It's odd that only after this tragedy has Netanyahu decided to enable the Jews who bought the Beit Machpela in Hebron to resettle it. While that's a good step in itself (and MK Orit Struk says so too), it should not have to be following tragedies like murders that an approval of a civil right be passed, and avenging the murder itself should be a top priority.

What if security grant for NYC Haredi neighborhood isn't used altruistically?

2 years after a sociopath named Levi Aron murdered a youngster named Leiby Kletzky in Brooklyn, the NY government is giving $1 million to fund security cameras in the neighborhood where the horror took place:

A hundred security cameras will be installed on public lampposts throughout the Midwood and Borough Park neighborhoods in the coming months — the result of a $1 million state grant secured in the wake of a horrifying tragedy: the 2011 abduction, dismemberment and murder of an 8-year-old Hasidic boy named Leiby Kletzky.

The taxpayer-funded security system will augment an already insular Orthodox community that has its own volunteer police force, ambulances and schools.

[...] [Dov] Hikind insists the cameras are necessary in the Jewish neighborhoods, where he said the potential for crime — if not actual crime — was ever-present.

"It's not that we have more crime than another community, but being that it's a Jewish area, there's probably at least the potential for more anti-Semitic acts," he said.

In the post-9/11 era, there is good cause for concern here. However, Hikind said something else that raises cause for concern:

Hikind said police and volunteer police groups would have access to the cameras after a significant crime only by making formal requests to Secure Watch 24.

"God forbid something happens, there's an incident, the police will have access to the video tape," he said.

Now wait a minute. What's that supposed to mean if there's an incident? According to the WSJ (via Gothamist), the local civilian patrol was blamed for not contacting the police immediately. This also conflicts with what Hikind told The Forward, that the police would always get to view the security footage first. In a community that's notorious for trying to cover up cases of child abuse, among other problems, this sounds very irresponsible on their part. It sounds like they'll be selective about what video footage is appropriate for the authorities to check. Hikind is not helping protect the community if he sees this as acceptable.

The AP Wire/SF Chronicle already gave a clue when they told that this is an insular community in focus.

Muslim mother and uncle who gave offensive t-shirt to son convicted for incitement

The Muslim mother and uncle who sent their son/nephew to school in France wearing a t-shirt condoning terrorism have been convicted:

A mother who sent her three-year-old son named Jihad to nursery school wearing a top bearing the words ‘I am a bomb’ has been convicted of justifying terrorism by a court in France.

Beneath the boy’s name on the back of the jumper was written ‘Born on the 11 September’ - the date of the 9/11 terror attacks on New York’s twin towers, the court heard.

Muslim mum Bouchra Bagour, 35, was reported to police by the boy’s outraged teacher last year and charged with justifying a terrorist act.

The boy’s uncle Zeyad Bagour, 29, who gave the boy the offending top, was also charged with the same offence.

The pair were initially cleared by a lower court in the southern French city of Avignon in April.

But they were both found guilty by a court in Nimes today after prosecutors appealed their acquittal.

Thierry Lagneau, the mayor of the southern French town of Sorgues, said when they were first charged: “We fully support charges being brought against them for provoking hatred and terrorism in one of our schools.

“This was an utterly irresponsible act by people who used a child to belittle a terrible crime and promote a violent political belief of her own.”

Exactly. It's basically child exploitation, and they should have their custody revoked.

Teachers at Madrassa in Derby forced to wear hijab

In the city of Derby in Britain, another horrible result of multiculturalism has sprung up:

Female teachers at a Muslim school are allegedly being made to wear a hijab - even if they do not practise the religion.

Teaching staff claim women are being told to sign new contracts stipulating they must wear the Islamic scarf during lessons.

Several employees at the Al-Madinah School in Derby have complained to their union about the rules.

Some non-Asian staff have been spotted taking off their hijabs as soon as they were out of sight of the school during the lunch hour.

The row over the headwear is one of several complaints made by staff to their unions about the school.

Al-Madinah, which does not recognise unions, is under investigation by the Education Funding Agency for alleged irregularities over its grants.

Nick Raine, regional NUT officer, said he was "very worried" about the school and the education of the 200 children there.

He said: "It's one thing to have a dress code which we can challenge and quite another to build it into a contract."

The new contracts for staff also include rules about not taking non-halal food into the school and not being allowed to wear jewellery.

And to be sure, they're not allowed to wear makeup either. That aside, isn't it interesting that this Muslim school, of all places, doesn't recognize unions. If it were a non-Muslim school, I figure they'd be forced to recognize unions in every way, regardless of whether they uphold selfish beliefs or not, a major problem with unions today.

Even if the teachers' unions come to their aid, they'd do well to quit working at that school and look elsewhere for better employment standards.

Danon is correct: Oslo accords should be abolished

The New York Times allowed Danny Danon to run an op-ed where he correctly states that the Oslo accords should be annulled:

JERUSALEM — THIS month marks 20 years since the signing of the first of the Oslo Accords between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Two decades after Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat stood on the White House lawn with President Bill Clinton, Israelis and Palestinians are again in the midst of the umpteenth round of negotiations.

Despite these efforts, true peace seems as distant as it did before the secret talks in Oslo were revealed to the world. The government of Israel must admit that we made a mistake and declare that the Oslo process has failed.

Only by officially annulling the Oslo Accords will we have the opportunity to rethink the existing paradigm and hopefully lay the foundations for a more realistic modus vivendi between the Jews and Arabs of this region.

Despite attempts to rewrite recent history by fringe elements, the failure of the Oslo framework cannot be attributed to a lack of will and persistence by Israel. What didn’t we try? We attempted direct negotiations, third-party mediators, public conferences and back-channel talks. We staged withdrawals and unilateral disengagements, established joint Israeli-Palestinian military patrols in Gaza and deployed American-trained security forces in the West Bank. None of this worked.

The P.L.O., and later the Palestinian Authority, never truly accepted that Israel, as the national state and homeland of the Jewish people, was here to stay. No amount of impressive ceremonies, cosmetic changes to the P.L.O. charter and Palestinian doublespeak to Western media outlets about their commitment to peace was able to change this grim fact.

To understand the mind-boggling scope of Oslo’s failure, it is best to look at the statistics. According to the organization B’Tselem, during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987, six years before Mr. Rabin’s attempt to recast the archterrorist Yasir Arafat as a peacemaker, 160 Israelis were murdered in Palestinian terror attacks. In the mid- to late-1990s, as successive Israeli governments negotiated with the Palestinians, and Mr. Arafat and his cronies repeatedly swore they were doing their utmost to end terrorism, 240 Israelis were brutally killed as suicide bombs and other heinous terrorist acts targeting unarmed civilians were unleashed in every corner of our nation.

Things did not get better after Prime Minister Ehud Barak made the Palestinians an offer in 2000 that, judging by his landslide defeat in the election a few months later, was way beyond what most Israelis supported. Between then and September 2010, 1,083 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists.

The Oslo process did not bring peace; it brought increased bloodshed. We must end this farce by announcing the immediate suspension of the accords.

Not just suspension - cancellation! And a shunning of the PLO entirely. It must be made additionally clear what Arafat truly was, a vile murderer, and that Mahmoud Abbas is the same, and also acknowledge his Holocaust-denial mentality. Those are not the kind of people any sane person should be associating themselves with.

Jihadists in Kenya hold shopping mall hostage, murder dozens of innocents

The jihad gang of al-Shabaab attacked a shopping mall in Kenya, holding hostages and murdering many people:

A major assault is ongoing against Al Shabaab gunmen in an attempt to end a siege in a shopping centre in Nairobi, Kenyan officials told the AFP news agency.

Up to 15 terrorists remain inside the centre after the attack left 68 people dead, including at least three Britons.

However the death toll could be "much, much higher" a police officer said, after reports from inside of multiple bodies.

The attack began when gunmen from the Islamist Shabaab group burst into the upmarket Westgate shopping centre yesterday afternoon armed with guns and grenades.

Unconfirmed reports suggest women as well as men took part in the attack.

Some of those killed were reportedly executed after failing to recite a Muslim prayer at gunpoint. Others were shot at the entrance to the mall as they tried to escape.

Truly repulsive. It's fortunate to learn that Israeli forces have joined the Kenyan authorities to help defeat the jihadists there. Those terrorists still at large should be put to death for their repellent crimes.

Porous boundaries and lax security

YnetNews documented dozens of Arabs from the same area as the murderer of the IDF soldier Tomer Hazan infiltrating specific borderlines illegally, in broad daylight, as the security forces are apparently ill-equipped to deal with them properly:

Sergeant Tomer Hazan was murdered Friday at the hands of his friend Nidal Amar – an illegal alien who unlawfully entered Israel. However, even this tragic event has failed to stop the endless flow of Palestinians infiltrating into Israel from the West Bank. Ynet's cameras captured dozens of Palestinians crossing into Israel without hindrance through the border fence in the exact same area from which Hazan's murderer originated. According to Israeli assessments, some 100,000 Palestinians are currently in Israel, of which some 30,000 have no valid permit. The IDF, police and Shit Bet are more than acutely aware of this issue. Security forces launch daily operations along the border fence in an attempt to capture infiltrators, but the facts on the ground paint a worrisome picture with dangerous – and as we have seen fatal – implications.

Very horrific, and serious cause for concern. And I think this is just why the Haredi isolationists might want to consider accepting the army draft, if they care about human life: they could help guard against lethal infiltrators like these and everybody would be very proud of them. Yet, I mean it. In fact, even leftists who draft-dodge would do well to consider accepting recruitment for the same reasons.

More Jews going to Temple Mount, angering the NYT

Seriously, it's apparent from the angle of the article that they detest Jewish history:

JERUSALEM — Small groups of Jews are increasingly ascending the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, a sacred site controlled for centuries by Muslims, who see the visits as a provocation that could undermine the fragile peace talks started this summer.

I guess they're fine with rioting, because they don't mention any threats made by the sickos.

For decades the Israelis drawn to the site were mainly a fringe of hard-core zealots, but now more mainstream Jews are lining up to enter, as a widening group of Israeli politicians and rabbis challenge the longstanding rules constraining Jewish access and conduct. Brides go on their wedding days, synagogue and religious-school groups make regular outings, and many surreptitiously skirt the ban on non-Muslim prayer, like a Russian immigrant who daily recites the morning liturgy in his mind, as he did decades ago in the Soviet Union.

Palestinian leaders say the new activity has created the worst tension in memory around the landmark Al Aksa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, and have called on Muslims to defend the site from “incursions.” A spate of stone-throwing clashes erupted this month: on Wednesday, three Muslims were arrested and an Israeli police officer wounded in the face. And on Friday thousands of Arab citizens of Israel rallied in the north, warning that Al Aksa is in danger.

No, they aren't warning, or else they'd say it's in danger from themselves and their vile egos.

“We reject these religious visits,” Sheik Ekrima Sa’eed Sabri, who oversees Muslim affairs in Jerusalem, said in an interview. “Our duty is to warn,” he added. “If they want to make peace in this region, they should stay away from Al Aksa.”

I think he's got it backwards. And if the NYT wants peace, they'll clear out too.

The 37-acre site is perhaps the most religiously contested place on earth. Jews revere it as the home of the First and Second Temples 2,000 years ago. For Muslims, who call the site the Noble Sanctuary, it is the world’s third holiest spot, from which Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven. More than 300,000 foreign tourists also flock there annually, many of them Christians drawn to the ruins of the temple Jesus attended.

Look how they blur history, even with Islam, avoiding the fact that early jihadists and caliphate conquered it from the Jews.

Politically, the competing claims to the area are the nut around which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict revolves, the symbolic heart of each side’s religious and historical attachment to Jerusalem that has made its governance one of the thorniest issues in peace negotiations.

Israel captured the site along with the rest of East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967, with a general declaring dramatically, “The Temple Mount is in our hands!” But the government immediately returned control to the Muslim authorities, and ever since, a de facto accommodation has prevailed in which Muslims worship at Al Aksa above and Jews at the Western Wall below, a remnant of the retaining wall around the ancient Second Temple.

I wonder why they don't name said general as Moshe Dayan? Maybe because they don't want anybody to know what a dhimmi he was. A most shameful man who thought returning control to the Waqf would save Israel a lot of trouble, and lo, it didn't.

Here's where it gets a little better:

Over the last few years, a cause long taken up by only a fringe group of far right-wingers has increasingly been embraced by the modern Orthodox — known here as religious Zionists — who have also gained political power. At three recent Parliament hearings, religious lawmakers and cabinet ministers questioned the status quo, in which non-Muslims can enter the site only for a few hours five days a week, and those identified by the police as Jews are separated, escorted by police officers and admonished not to dance, sing, bow down or even move their lips in prayer.

“The Temple Mount is in our hands — but is it really?” asked Michael Freund, a Jerusalem Post columnist who visited the site as a child in 1977 and returned for the first time last year, with 50 members of his synagogue. “It particularly offends me that the Israeli government puts into place restrictions which prevent Jews from fulfilling their basic right to freedom of worship.”

Jack Stroh, a cardiologist from East Brunswick, N.J., who visited on Wednesday, has been bringing friends for five years before the holidays of Sukkot and Passover — two of three pilgrimage festivals when ancient Jews were required to pray at the temples.

“My cousin said that if Jews don’t go up to the mountain there is an increased chance that the government will say Jews are not interested and will give it away,” he said as his group waited to enter. “I’m taking them up. Someone took me up. They’ll take other people up; it’s a growing phenomenon.”

Amid the religious pilgrims on Wednesday was Michal Berdugo, 25, a secular Israeli who said it had been her “dream for three years” to visit. “It’s part of who we are,” she said.

Gee, if she could pay a visit, there must be other "secularists" out there doing the same. Who said this was just a religious fight per se?

Experts who have observed the phenomenon also see it as a reaction to Israel’s evacuation of Jews from the Gaza Strip in 2005, a redirection of Messianic energy once devoted to West Bank settlements that many fear could soon succumb to the same fate to make way for a Palestinian state.

“The war for the land of Israel is not just political, but essentially spiritual,” said Yossi Klein Halevi, author of a new book that traces the lives of paratroopers who seized the Mount in 1967. “Given that the Temple Mount is the focal point of holiness in the Holy Land, the thinking is that we need to go to the source in order to prevent the further partition of the land.”

And it's got something to it. Now, here's where the NYT dips back into the gutter again:

While the numbers remain tiny compared with the 10 million annual visitors to the Western Wall below, Palestinian officials say what used to be a trickle of individuals has given way to groups of 40, 60, 90. They were particularly alarmed that the Israeli police commissioner told a newspaper this month that “every Jew who wishes to pray at the Temple Mount can pray on the Temple Mount,” though his subordinates said afterward that did not change the police policy on the ground preventing non-Muslim prayer. A recent visit by the right-wing housing minister also stirred outrage.

“Before, it was some settlers from here, some extremists from there; now we start to hear it from the real officials,” said Adnan Husseini, the Palestinian governor of Jerusalem. “When they get inside with this big number, it’s sure that they will make some kind of religious activities and there will be more friction between them and the people inside the mosque.”

Oh, how facinating, someone who wasn't democratically elected and has no legal authority is still the "governor" of the east side of this city! And making remarks all without saying he hopes the people inside the al-Aksa mosque won't get stirred up over nothing.

I'm happy about the increased efforts to make it legal for Jews to pray and tour atop the Temple Mount, and MK Miri Regev has also joined the march. The fight must keep on, and those who campaign for Judaism revived on the Mount are doing the right thing.

Oregon and Alaska could end up legalizing cannabis

Ugh, this is disgusting. "Recreational use among adults" is just another way of saying they'll make it legal to use it for entertainment. If that's the idea, then I'm decidedly going to take a moment to say that even legal drugs for medical use are not something I think everybody should have fun with, and what the hell makes them as great to devour as ice cream or chocolate? I've never understood why anybody thinks it's great to inject themselves with any of this crap, legal or illegal, healthy or unhealthy. Some people take medicines to alleviate stress. Does that mean they should have to? Of course not. Whether or not medical drugs like vitamins help, that does not mean anybody should have to take them, and it's sad if we do.

This, along with gay marriage, is something no sane person needs.

"Sexual jihad" in Syria makes Tunisian girls pregnant

A very grimy practice of prostitution is occurring in Syria:

A member of the Free Syrian Army stands guard at a checkpoint they took over early on Monday after clashes with pro-government forces in Salqin city in Idlib October 22, 2012.

A number of girls from Tunisia have become pregnant after traveling to Syria to participate in "sexual jihad," according to Lotfi Bin Jeddo, Tunisia's Interior Minister.

The girls “are (sexually) swapped between 20, 30, and 100 rebels and they come back bearing the fruit of sexual contacts in the name of sexual jihad and we are silent doing nothing and standing idle,” Al Arabiya reported he said during an address to the National Constituent Assembly.

The Telegraph has more:

"After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of 'jihad al-nikah' - (sexual holy war, in Arabic) - they come home pregnant," Ben Jeddou told the MPs.

He did not elaborate on how many Tunisian women had returned to the country pregnant with the children of jihadist fighters.

Jihad al-nikah, permitting extramarital sexual relations with multiple partners, is considered by some hardline Sunni Muslim Salafists as a legitimate form of holy war.

Jeddo also said his ministry had taken a number of steps to stem the flow of Tunisians travelling to Syria.

Tunisia's former Mufti (the country's highest religious official) warned earlier this year that 13 Tunisian girls "were fooled" into travelling to Syria to offer sexual services for the rebels. He described the practice as a form of “prostitution.”

“For Jihad in Syria, they are now pushing girls to go there. 13 young girls have been sent for sexual jihad. What is this? This is called prostitution. It is moral educational corruption,” Battikh said.

They're also giving sex to men who don't deserve it. But coming from a mufti, the argument against it doesn't carry much weight, and I suspect they encouraged it from the start. A real shame that these jihadists in Syria could end up fathering children they're unqualified to have as a legacy.

IDF soldier abducted and murdered by Muslim in Samaria

A tragedy has taken place involving a Muslim illegally employed in Bat Yam:

An Israel Defense Forces soldier, Sergeant Tomer Hazan of Bat Yam, 20, was abducted Friday and murdered in Samaria by an Arab terrorist.

The victim's family has been notified.

The motive for the murder was the terrorist's plan to trade the body of his victim for the freedom of his brother, a Fatah terrorist who has been in jail in Israel for the last ten years.

The soldier's family reported Friday that he went missing and failed to make contact since the morning hours. The Shin Bet, together with the IDF and the police, began a strenuous investigation, and came up with intelligence information indicating that the soldier had taken a cab together with an Arab man who worked with him in a restaurant in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv.

The Arab is named Nadal Amar, and he is a resident of the village of Bayt Amin, near Kalkilya. The two had taken the taxi toward Shaarei Tikva, which is close to that village.

Early morning Saturday, IDF forces, together with Yamam special police and Shin Bet, raided the home of Amar's family and arrested him, together with another brother. Nadal Amar confessed under interrogation that he persuaded the soldier to come to his village. He then murdered him in an open field and hid his body in a water hole.

The murder has triggered justified outrage against the restaurant that employed him:

Usually crowded on Saturday nights, “Tzachi Meats” in Bat Yam remained shuttered after Shabbat ended, and if the angry crowd outside had their way, it would stay that way for good.

Hours after it was reported that Bat Yam local Sgt. Tomer Hazan, 20, was murdered after being lured to the West Bank by a Palestinian man who he worked with at the restaurant, a crowd of a couple hundred people had gathered outside of the restaurant calling for a permanent boycott of the neighborhood institution.

“Police knew that he employed shabahim [Palestinians illegally in Israel], why didn't they check, why didn't they do something? All of our children were in danger here”, said Elinor, a mother of four boys who said she used to eat at the restaurant on a regular basis.

“It's irresponsible for him to hire shabahim at a place right here in the middle of the city. He abandoned all of us just to save a few extra shekels,” said Ravit, a mother of four standing outside the restaurant on Saturday night.

“We're all hurting with the family, but with the pain is anger. He [the murderer] could have also just set a bomb and blown up the building, killed all of us inside,” Ravit said, adding that she will never eat at the restaurant again.

And I don't want to eat there either. I don't buy the defense the owner blurted out that he didn't know he didn't have legality for the employment. Anyone who would rely on cheap labor in a case like this does not deserve to make capital on the public's dime and deserves to end up homeless for the fiasco they caused.

A pathetic argument against Richard Dawkins at the UK Guardian

Somebody at the UK Guardian thinks Islam is a race instead of a religion:

Of late, a new variation of the old chestnut "I'm not racist but …" has emerged. It goes: "I've got nothing against Muslims, it's Islam I hate". Otherwise known as the "Islam is not a race" argument.

After I wrote about Richard Dawkins's snide attack on the supposed dearth of Muslim scientific and cultural achievement, some critics hit back along these lines. It is acceptable to criticise and belittle Islam because it is a religion, not an ethnic grouping – and therefore fair game.

It is acceptable to condemn Islam because it's an ideology condoning violence and child slavemongering, as seen in the Koran/Hadith chapters involving Mohammed's marriage to the 9-year-old Ayesha. What a dummy the woman who wrote this is. She even tries to justify her position by saying:

Technically, they are right – Islam is not a race. But too often, those who deploy the argument, are borrowing from the Bill Clinton school of sophistry: "I did not have racist relations with that religion".

Oh, this doesn't make any sense. (And what Clinton said was "I did not have sex with that woman".) "Technically"? No, really, it's not, any more than Christianity and Buddhism are a race, or even Judaism is a race, rather than the founding religion of the Jews. Yes, I'm serious, there is a difference, and there ought to be. Yes, the name "Jews" sounds the same, but there's still a difference there. Funny that she actually views Clinton in a negative light though, his leftism notwithstanding.

Under British law, Jewish people are classified as belonging to a race (something that Dawkins, incidentally, disagrees with) since they are deemed to have a shared culture and history that goes beyond the religious sphere. Do I share history, culture and other reference points with Muslims around the world that go beyond the practice of Islam? Definitely. But it is a loose, secular feeling.

Assuming she's being truthful about what Dawkins thinks about calling us a race, that's one point she's made honestly, because it's true, Jews/Israelis are a race. So Dawkins would be stupid to suggest we're not.

And if she's a default Muslim, the impression is that she doesn't adhere strongly to religious practice. Otherwise, what she should be saying is that she's of Arabic/Pakistani/other descent, which she hasn't done.

Does this make me immune to discrimination that Muslims face? Certainly not, given the long hours I have spent in immigration queues, undergoing extended background checks and visa processing times. So clearly, in that sense, Islam is not a race, but Muslims are. It's entirely legitimate to question and interrogate Islam as a religion. It is not fair to do so against Muslims based on their religious or cultural identity.

Okay, I've seen it all now. I guess she thinks Christianity isn't a race but Christians are too. As for Jews and Judaism, I'll admit, that's where some better distinction is needed, and one day, we'll have to work on it, if it comes in handy (maybe Israelis and Judaism?).

This poor leftist probably won't admit it, but she's just insulted entire societies of Arabs and Pakistanis by saying they have no such nationality, let alone identity. Some way to dehumanize races by putting religion over race, and not being willing to admit that an ideology can promote itself as supremacist.

Finland apologizes for anti-semitism during 1938 athletes competition

It's a small but noble step:

In a small but symbolic gesture, the Finnish Amateur Athletic Association (SUL) has apologized for revoking an obvious 100 meter victory from a Jewish athlete in Helsinki in June 1938.

"Any manipulation of the results is shocking and goes against our fundamental values in sports ...On behalf of the SUL, I present my sincerest apologies to those who have suffered injustices and to their families," SUL chairman Vesa Harmaakorpi said in a statement published late Wednesday.

[...] although anti-Semitism was not a very widespread political ideology in Finland in the 1930s, there were "anti-Semitic sentiments like in most European countries", historian Oula Silvennoinen said.

He said SUL's apologies come after "repeated pressure" put on the association, and noted that Finns "were long reluctant to examine or acknowledge events that took place in Finland during the German national-socialism era".

It's not new. Plenty of Europeans failed to recognize their mistakes, and still do. This is a positive step for now. But Finland and other European countries still have a long way to go.

Chief rabbi David Lau says he supports non-Orthodox prayer section at the Western Wall

The Ashkenazi chief rabbi may have decided he has to mend fences after his brainless blab about the race of basketball players the other month. Almost 2 weeks ago, he apologized prior to Yom Kippur for it on TV, and now, he's saying he supports a prayer section for non-Orthodox at the Western Wall:

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau said he supports the notion of providing non-Orthodox denominations with a prayer space at the Robinson’s Arch area south of the Western Wall Plaza.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post which will be published in full next week, Lau said the construction of the prayer platform by the Religious Services Ministry was “the correct idea,” but insisted that religious practice in the central prayer area at the Western Wall Plaza remain within the realm of Orthodox tradition.

The issue has been brought to the forefront of the national debate in recent months, largely due to the activities of the Women of the Wall prayer rights group.

“I don’t want to prevent anyone from coming and praying in the way they want to pray, but I do want to request from everyone to respect the existence of the established custom,” Lau told the Post. “The reality is that when such customs exist, for a group of women to start to come and sing and disturbing the minhag hamakom [“local custom”] I think that, in accordance with derech eretz [“decent behavior”], this isn’t the way to behave. The behavior must be appropriate and respectful to other people.”

Here's where he comes up weak: is Orthodoxy as practiced today an established custom? I have no idea, and honestly, I'm not sure he does either.

In fact, a truly good argument would be whether he believes Orthodox Judaism - specifically Haredis - should be encouraged to respect other denominations and not act like they're worse than jihadists. As I've said before, if I caught Orthodox Judaists calling my grandparents - who practiced Conservative Judaism - pieces of "filth", I'd be outraged to the max.

A legitimate argument about WoW is whether they're singing too loud, enough to shatter everybody's eardrums. However, if the menfolk take to singing at their end at the top of their lungs, then you can't say the women of the Reform movement are worse.

Again, as I've noticed, the Haredi opposition to non-Orthodox prayer at the Western Wall has little or nothing to do with whether the Reform or any other such movement are anti-Israel/Zionist, which makes it more like a clash between two factions with poor grasp of honor. In short, it's an irony.

Women of the Wall strenuously opposes the Robinson’s Arch prayer platform, arguing that it constitutes an attempt to circumvent a recent ruling by the Jerusalem District Court which provided legal authorization for women to pray with prayer shawls and tefillin in the women’s section of the Western Wall Plaza for the first time.

In response to Lau’s comments, Women of the Wall Executive Director Lesley Sachs insisted that the long-standing activities of the group meant they were part of the customs of the site.

“If a group has been doing something for 25 years then they are part of the minhag hamakom,” she said. “And nothing we are doing is against Jewish law. If the custom of the place is in accordance with halacha then we are in that framework.

“To say that we shouldn’t be there because our voices are disturbing, no one can accept this in Israel in 2013,” Sachs added.

“I don't think women have to pray in silence. We don’t think women in the women’s section have to pray in silence.”

There is a hint of truth to this. If they began in the late 80s and nobody at the time had any issues with them, then the Haredis shouldn't be making one now. Sure, even I think women wearing tfillin and men's tallits is ridiculous, and the Conservatives then and now didn't do what the Reform folk are. But if the WoW aren't resorting to vandalism, arson, aggravated assault, bank robberies and racism against blacks, then barring them from the Kotel is trivial. Especially compared to some of the more serious problems this country is facing, like Islamofascism and violent crime. Including the criminal offenses committed by Haredis in Beit Shemesh, I might add.

Conservative and Reform groups cautiously welcomed the development, while senior figures in the haredi political leadership expressed anger that non-Orthodox groups were being given greater recognition in Israel.

Wow! So they think my grandparents were an abomination for just daring to adhere to Conservative Judaism? That's how I see this reaction. Tsk tsk. If the Haredi leaders consider them a bigger problem than the Islamofascists littering up the Temple Mount - a site they're noticably absent from campaigning for - then I really don't see why I should care about them any more than I do about the dopey Reform movement.

Respect for other denominations of Judaism is something the Haredis are going to have to start learning, and if they have a negative opinion on any of them, they'd do well to find legitimate grounds, like I did with the Reforms. So far, they haven't done it yet.

Lau was also willing to address accusations he wouldn't recognize conversions a bad rabbinical judge tried to annul:

Lau took the opportunity to deny reports that he would base his decisions on Jewish conversions on the advice of Rabbi Avraham Sherman, a rabbinical judge who caused huge controversy when he issued a ruling in 2008 which would have retroactively annulled the conversions of thousands of Jewish converts if not for the intervention of the High Court of Justice.

“I have seen Rabbi Sherman once in the past six months, I shook his hand at the bar mitzva of his nephew, a week before the elections for the Chief Rabbinate,” said Lau, smiling. “I didn’t speak with him beforehand, I didn’t speak to him afterward. He’s not correct in all these matters. I don’t think I agree with him on every matter.

He’s wise and respected, but I don’t agree with him.”

Well I hope he doesn't agree with any other rabbi who harbors similar standings either. And no matter how sincere Lau tries to be now, I'm still of the mind that the chief rabbinate should be closed down, since it's only become a valve for corruption, mainly among Haredis.

Israel's supreme court makes a mockery of law and order

They ruled that illegal migrants could not be imprisoned for infiltration, and it's angered the residents of south Tel Aviv, which has suffered considerable crime from Etritreans:

Shaul Nissim, a lifelong resident of the Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv, stood in a butcher shop in the shuk and expressed what he said was the fury felt by residents in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on Monday to cancel the anti-infiltration law.

“This is a victory for anarchy; there’s no law and order here anymore. People are going to take the law into their own hands. Maybe that will bring some deterrence,” Nissim said, adding that the over 60,000 African migrants in Israel “don’t care about the law at all.”

Nearby in the shuk, Tashkent native Arthur Kavodov, standing behind the counter at his deli, reacted to the decision with “What’s new? The Supreme Court has always been left-wing and anti-Jewish, and this is just more of the same.” [...]

These sentiments are familiar to anyone who has followed the African migrant issue in south Tel Aviv in recent years. Residents’ reactions to the ruling expressed feelings of abandonment by the state mixed with anger about a neighborhood that no longer feels like home and whose streets no longer feel safe at night.

The sad part aside is that this could lead to unnecessary vigilantism by TA residents who now feel betrayed by the court. This is exactly why the law needs to be overhauled so that the supreme court can't take actions that harm law enforcement.

Saudi "morality police" chief says ban on women driving not part of sharia

Yeah, right, that's what he says:

Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving is not mandated by any text in Sharia, the Islamic legal code which forms the basis for most Saudi law, the head of its morality police told Reuters on Thursday.

Sheikh Abdulatif Al al-Sheikh stressed that he has no authority to change Saudi policy on women driving, but his comment may feed into a national discussion in Saudi Arabia, where women have in the past been arrested for defying the ban.

Even without any specific law against women driving, women who defied the prohibition have been arrested by the country's regular police department and put on trial on charges that include causing public disturbance.

"Islamic sharia does not have a text forbidding women driving," said Al al-Sheikh, who was appointed by King Abdullah last year to head the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the formal name of the religious police.

No kidding. Then how come there are texts in the Koran that condone enslavement of women, and declare that men are a "degree above them" (Sura 2:228)? This is exactly why the ban on women driving in the House of Saud, among other countries where Islam reigns supreme. They impose it as their way of ensuring women will remain subservient to men.

The head of the Saudi mutawa's arguments just fall flat on the ground.

Washington SWAT team was ordered to "stand down" at Navy base shooting

Some disturbing news came up about the shooting at the US Navy center a few days ago (via Big Government):

One of the first teams of heavily armed police to respond to Monday's shooting in Washington DC was ordered to stand down by superiors, the BBC can reveal.

A tactical response team of the Capitol Police, a force that guards the US Capitol complex, was told to leave the scene by a supervisor instead of aiding municipal officers.

The Capitol Police department has launched a review into the matter.

Aaron Alexis, 34, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.

"I don't think it's a far stretch to say that some lives may have been saved if we were allowed to intervene," a Capitol Police source familiar with the incident told the BBC.

What kind of leadership is there at the local police constabulary, or any for that matter? Whoever issued those cowardly orders should be removed immediately from the job and sent to prison for costing innocent lives and desecrating law enforcement.

Eitan Haber says Yitzhak Rabin didn't want to shake Arafat's hand

One of the late leftist prime minister's former aides said the following about his former boss:

Former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin did not believe at first that the Oslo Accords would lead to peace, his close associate said on Wednesday.

Only initially? In that case, I'm skeptical he really cared at all.

Eitan Haber, who served as Rabin’s bureau chief, wrote a column in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper and described what happened in the hours that led up to the signing of the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn in 1993.

Haber wrote that Rabin felt that, despite the many celebrations of the agreement with former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, "Nothing will come of it.”

"I expressed my opinion that you cannot bridge a century of terror and bloodshed in one shot,” wrote Haber. “Rabin then replied, ‘That's just it.’”

Haber recalled that Rabin was unsure up to the last moment whether he should sign the agreement, and also loathed the thought of having to shake hands with Arafat, who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Jews.

“He wanted to avoid shaking hands with Arafat if possible,” wrote Haber, who added that moments before the trip to the White House, Rabin told his advisers that he would “take an anti-nausea pill and go.”

Rabin insisted that Arafat would not appear at the signing ceremony in his military uniform and carry a gun with him, wrote Haber. Rabin received a promise to that effect from the Americans, but in the end Arafat came to the ceremony without the gun but wearing his military uniform, he added.

Haber tried to explain in the column how it happened that Rabin, who was the number one enemy of Arab terrorist organizations, decided to hold peace talks with the PA Arabs.

“Rabin believed that a nation that has been standing on his toes for more than half a century would ultimately become tired,” he wrote. “Rabin had witnessed this tiredness from his window during the Gulf War, when half a million Israelis fled from the Gush Dan area, fearing Iraqi missiles.”

According to Haber, Rabin also believed that another overwhelming Israeli military victory, such as the one it had in the 1967 Six Day War, would not happen again.

Well, that says everything. What Rabin - who said "settlers" could go and "spin like propellors" really did was embrace a defeatist mindset, insulting intellects by condoning a path to suicide, suggesting that no matter what he thought at first, he finally didn't care about his own country, counting instead on the notion that he would receive little opposition since people were supposedly tired of living.

I don't see how somebody like that is worth admiring. Yet it does make me wonder what some leftists will think of Rabin now, when it's clearer that he didn't like Arafat.

Intel reports predicted stone throwing at Temple Mount

There was a Muslim riot on the Temple Mount shortly before the beginning of the Succot holiday:

Israeli police were attacked Wednesday morning during a patrol of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The police arrived for the patrol after receiving intelligence indicating the possibility of a stone-throwing attack from one of the mosques at the holy site, according to a report by Arutz Sheva. The patrolling police force was attacked precisely in the way predicted by the intelligence report.

The police dispersed several dozen Arab youths who were throwing stones and rioting, while others ran into a nearby mosque.

Three police officers were injured in the clash. Two were treated on the spot and a third was evacuated for further treatment.

Police arrested two of the rioters on suspicion of public disorder, and a third person on suspicion of inciting public disorder.

The main culprits, naturally, are the imams who incited this chaos in the first place.

The blame-game repackaged

Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman at the Jerusalem Post wrote about how the blaming Jews mentality of the 1920s and 30s - perpetuated by monsters like Hitler and Henry Ford - is now being repackaged in the middle east by regimes like Bashar Assad's in Syria.

A positive development at the EU

A meeting with Judea/Samaria representatives took place at the EU:

A historic conference in support of the Jewish settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria took place Tuesday inside one of the bastions of opposition to the Jewish presence in the region – the European Parliament.

The conference was organized by the Deputy Chairman of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Dr. Fiorello Provera of Italy, who became a supporter of the Jewish communities after touring Samaria (Shomron), and by senior MEP Bastiaan Belder of Holland, who has also become a friend of Samaria in recent years.

The Israeli delegation included Samaria (Shomron) Regional Council Head Gershon Mesika, Acting Council Head Yossi Dagan, and the Director of Shomron Foreign Department, Shay Atias. MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) was also a part of the delegation.

David Walzer, Israel's Ambassador to the EU, delivered an address at the conference – the first time he has done so alongside the Samaria representatives.

[...] Samaria Regional Council Head Gershon Mesika said in his speech that “the European Union needs to carry out some serious soul searching, as regards its treatment of the Jewish people throughout history, in general, and specifically in recent years. The bad old anti-Semitism is cloaked in a costume of anti-Israelism nowadays.”

Mesika's deputy, Yossi Dagan, also addressed the gathering.

“The most important thing is to come out and see things with one's own eyes. For years, we have been talking in this building about Judea and Samaria, and yet most people have not been there and have not seen the reality," he said.

Dagan also took the opportunity to call on the EU to end its funding for radical anti-Israel organizations.

"The EU must stop funding the extreme leftist organizations that are sabotaging the coexistence in the factories of Judea and Samaria. This is a great waste of money and it harms coexistence as well as relations between the EU and Israel.”

MK Shaked called for a change in the very terminology employed within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“It is time to say the truth: Judea and Samaria are not occupied territory, but disputed territory. That is the truth as far as international law is concerned, as well.”

The Israelis' speeches were marked by applause from the audience.

MEP Adrian Severin of Romania said that the EU needs to rethink its new policy regarding marking products from Judea and Samaria.

I'm glad Severin's made some sense. If he wants to prove his capability in mending fences, he can come take a tour here without fear of being hated by anti-Israelists. The same goes for many other Euro-delegates. And, they can cancel that marketing policy of theirs completely.

Tennessee school's pro-Islamist bias

The officials at a school in Hendersonville who took their students to visit a mosque sound like some of the most dishonest people I've ever heard of:

A Tennessee high school has decided to revise its field trip policy after a group of freshmen were taken to an Islamic mosque where they were given copies of the Koran and while a student who opted out of the trip was given a worksheet that alleged Muslims treated their conquered people better than the United States treated minorities.

I wouldn't be surprised if it were an ultra-abridged edition that doesn't provide any insight into the Islamic beliefs in misogyny and child marriage. And they should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for claiming Islam is more tolerant of dhimmis than US whites were of blacks.

The students were in an honors world studies class at Hendersonville High School and the field trips to the mosque as well as a Hindu temple were part of a three-week course on world religions.

But some parents objected to the trips and wondered why the school would tour a mosque but not a Christian church or a Jewish synagogue.

“If you can’t go to all five, why are you going to any?” asked parent Mike Conner. “We sent the principal an email and voiced our concerns. She sent back a reply and told us they could not afford to go to all five.”

I don't buy it. The principal sounds like a coward who can't muster the courage to clarify her positions.

“Our kids are being indoctrinated and this is being shoved in their face,” Conner told Fox News. “It tells me they are pushing other religions and they want Christianity to take a back seat. They want our children to be tolerant of everything except Christianity.”

Don't forget Judaism. The Koran already has its own hate in place for that.

A Sumner County Schools spokesman declined to answer questions about specific religious activities the children may have engaged in, but he did send a statement acknowledging there was concern about the trip.

“Our district has reviewed the practice and decided to eliminate field trips to religious venues from this class, as it does not provide equal representation to all the religions studied in the course unit,” the statement read. “This decision was made due to the fact that equal representation in regards to field trips for all religions studied in the course is not feasible.”

But it doesn't end there:

Conner told Fox News his 14-year-old stepdaughter Jessica decided not to attend the trip. So her teachers instructed her to write a paper comparing and contrasting the Christian, Hindu and Islamic faiths. That’s when his daughter noticed something strange.

“There was one page on the sayings of Jesus, two-thirds of a page on the sayings of Gandhi, and five pages on Muhammed,” Conner said.

The section about Islam was titled, “Religious Tolerance in Islam,” according to the worksheets provided to Fox News.

The author wrote that the “Prophet of Islam was prepared to live in peace with the followers of other monotheistic religions, especially Judaism and Christianity.”

The author also disputed claims that Islam is a violent religion or that conquered nations were given a choice – Islam or death.

“There is no denying that Muslims in the Middle East and Asian conquered lands of other peoples but they did not impose their religion over them,” the author wrote.

The author also stated that minorities conquered by the Muslims were treated better than minorities living in the United States.

“If we were to compare the attitude of the Muslim rulers towards the minorities living under their rule during the nineteenth century – with the attitude of the Europeans and the Americans towards their minorities, I dare to say that the record of the Muslims would be better,” the author wrote.

Conner told Fox News his daughter declined to complete what she considered to be an unfair and unbalanced assignment.

“Because of a surplus in information on Muhammed, and a lack of complete and thorough information on Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus Christ, there is not enough true facts to properly complete a comparison and contrasting paper,” Jessica wrote on her paper.

Her parents warned her that she might be punished by her teachers for standing up for her beliefs – and she was. Jessica received a ‘zero’ for the assignment.

Conner and his wife met with school officials who refused to change their daughter’s grade or give her an assignment that was more balanced.

“They told us we were being hostile towards Islam,” Conner said. “It was a very confrontational meeting. Their attitude was, ‘I can’t believe you would question our motives with your children.’”

Conner said he hopes the school board will take action against the teachers.

“Someone needs to be held accountable,” he said. “They are our children – not theirs.”

I wonder how those disgusting teachers would act if these were members of a group for relatives of 9-11 victims? The author of the reprehensible textbook assignment given to the student should be ashamed of himself for his trutherist approach to Islam; he obviously refused to research history or made up his mind where he stood from the very beginning, and didn't provide any verses from inside the Koran either. And these are the kind of people allowed to run and dictate public schools. They have to come down off their high horses and be honest about where they stand.