Pamela Geller's Blog, page 23

Paramilitary Training in Gaza High Schools

Fast times at jihad high. "Give 'em state!" Give 'em billions!"

Paramilitary Training in Gaza High Schools Al-Jadid/New TV (Lebanon) - November 24, 2013 MEMRI

The Lebanese Al-Jadid/New TV channel recently aired a report on a paramilitary program that has been implemented in high schools in Gaza for the past two years. In the program, male students receive physical training, carry out foot drills, and are taught self-defense tactics.

Following are excerpts from the report, which aired on November 24, 2013:

Reporter: At the Abu Dhar Al-Ghifari high school, the bell rings for a class of "young chivalry." "Young chivalry" is the name chosen by the Education Ministry for a new subject introduced into the curricula of high-school students. The program consists of physical training, self-defense methods, civil defense methods, and various paramilitary capabilities.

School principal Khaled Hashish: This is sports training, which resembles the military training of soldiers. However, our schools are not part of the military, even if we have training that prepares these youngsters to develop physical strength, chivalry, seriousness, and to be active.

School boys carrying wooden rifles performing military style drills

Reporter: According to the Education Ministry, which is run by Hamas, this program began in the days of Yasser Arafat, but was not implemented because of Israeli opposition to it. This is the second year that the program is being implemented. It began as an elective and then became compulsory.

Student A: This is an excellent program, which gives you complete self-confidence. It teaches you everything – manliness, values, self-defense, anything you can imagine.

Student B: In this program we get practical and theoretical lessons, in which we learn first aid and things like that. If something happens to a classmate, we will know what to do if there is no adult around.

Reporter: This has become a daily activity for all male high-school students. It is a cooperative effort of the Education and Interior Ministries. Its goal, according to the two ministries, is to release all the negative energy that these youngsters develop because of the violence surrounding them.

The heads of the program deny that they are trying to militarize the schools, as has been circulated by the Western and Israeli media. It is much simpler than that, and the "weapons" on which the students practice are nothing but wooden models.

Abu Ali, father of a high school student: This is something basic that any student must learn. When you raise a young boy on sound values, they stay with him as he grows up. This kind of knowledge is never forgotten. It is deeply engrained in the minds of the Palestinian people.

Reporter: This program appears to be the fulfillment of a well-known declaration by the interior minister in Gaza, in which he said that he would strive to raise the level of manliness. There is serious consideration about implementing the program in girls' schools, but the lack of female trainers, coupled with the conservative nature of society, are delaying the implementation of such a program.

 

[...]

 

Hamas Interior Minister Calls for Third Intifada and Declares: We Will Establish Islamic Caliphate

[Religion of] Peace partners. From Gaza to Libya, Iran to Afghanistan, Pakistan to Syria -- the goal is the same across the Muslim world: "the Islamic caliphate."

Hamas Interior Minister Calls for Third Intifada and Declares: We Will Establish Islamic Caliphate Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas/Gaza) MEMRI

Hamas Interior Minister Calls for Third Intifada and Declares: We Will Establish Islamic Caliphate

In a public address in Gaza on November 13, Hamas Minister of the Interior Fathi Hammad proclaimed: "We shall liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque, and our cities and villages, as a prelude to the establishment of the future Islamic Caliphate." In the address, which was broadcast by the Hamas Al-Aqsa TV channel, Hammad called on Fatah to cease negotiations with Israel and declared: "We shall be coming with a third Intifada, an armed revolution, a Jihadi revolution," in which "Gaza and the West Bank will fuse together, along with our brothers within the 1948 borders... in order to uproot the Jews."

Following are excerpts from the address:

Fathi Hammad: We anticipate further victories, in which we shall liberate our land, Allah willing. We shall liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque, and our cities and villages, as a prelude to the establishment of the future Islamic Caliphate. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are at the threshold of a global Islamic civilization era. The fuel and spearhead of this era will be Gaza, and its mujahideen and leaders will be from Gaza, Allah willing.

[...]

My message to our brothers in Fatah is this: Aren't you fed up with the negotiations? Have you not despaired of this enemy, which insists upon humiliating our people each and every time? Have you not despaired, after 20 years of negotiations? All of you, especially the negotiators, agree... Some brothers call Dr. Ishtayeh and other negotiators to learn about the progress of the negotiations. They tell them that they are faltering, at a stalemate. We just sit and talk to the Jews. Enough with that! Come join us, the legions of the believers, which have translated the Koran into victory, the law of the Prophet's ancestors into glory, and Jihad into liberation.

 

Therefore, we welcome you from the bottom of our hearts: Come join us so that we can retrain you, reorganize your creed, and rebuild your ideology, for we are the students of the Prophet's ancestors, the students of the caliphs, the students of the great leaders throughout history.

 

[...]

 

We shall be coming with a third Intifada, an armed revolution, a Jihadi revolution, Allah willing. Gaza and the West Bank will fuse together, along with our brothers within the 1948 borders, in a second Battle of Hattin, in order to uproot the Jews. We are a-coming.

 

[...]

 

Obama's First Selfie

heh (thanks to Big Fur Hat for illustrating this for me)

Honor Killings Double in "Palestinian" occupied terrortories

A huge piece on honor killings in "Palestinian" occupied territories. Al Reuters spills an awful lot of ink explaining how it is not related to religion. Thou doth protest too much.

Even in death, the victim is violated again, as the motive is denied or refused. Perhaps honor killings are spiking because they are sanctioned by sharia law, sanctioned by Muslim countries and sanctioned by a silent Western media.

Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide.

The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but "the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour 'provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.'" And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values." (Source: Jihadwatch).

It matters that honor killing has Islamic sanction. Robert Spencer explains here:

In light of all this, until authorities get the courage to tell the truth about honor killing, there will be many more such murders.

A manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).

In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In accord with this, in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."

And related to the practice is this:

"The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) used not to kill the children, so thou shouldst not kill them unless you could know what Khadir had known about the child he killed, or you could distinguish between a child who would grow up to he a believer (and a child who would grow up to be a non-believer), so that you killed the (prospective) non-believer and left the (prospective) believer aside." -- Sahih Muslim Book 019, Number 4457

Khadir, or Khidr, figures in sura 18 of the Qur'an. He is traveling with Moses, and: "Then they proceeded: until, when they met a young man, he [Khadir] slew him. Moses said: "Hast thou slain an innocent person who had slain none? Truly a foul (unheard of) thing hast thou done!" Khadir replies: "As for the youth, his parents were people of Faith, and we feared that he would grieve them by obstinate rebellion and ingratitude (to Allah and man). So we desired that their Lord would give them in exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) and closer in affection...." (18:74, 18:80-81).

Why does it matter that the practice of honor killing has Islamic sanction? Because if the roots of honor killing are never discussed and always ignored, the practice will never stop. Until the Islamic roots of the practice are discussed openly and human rights groups begin calling for reform, honor killings will continue in the Islamic world -- and in Muslim communities in the West.

"A silvery green olive grove in the red soil" ...... sheesh.

"Palestinians see worrisome trend in "honour" killings rise," By Noah Browning, Reuters

A silvery green olive grove set in the red soil of a Palestinian village is a crime scene - testament to a practice so sensitive that it is spoken of only in whispers. One night in late November, Rasha Abu Ara, a 32-year-old mother of five, was beaten to death and strung from a gnarled tree branch as a gruesome badge of "family honor" restored.

The woman's alleged sin was adultery, and her killer was either her own brother or husband, security sources told Reuters. Both are behind bars while an investigation continues.

Her murder brought to 27 the number of women slain in similar circumstances in Palestinian-run areas this year, according to rights groups - more than twice last year's victims.

The rise has led Palestinians to question hidebound laws they say are lax on killers, as well as a reluctance to name and shame in the media and society, which may contribute to a feeling of impunity among perpetrators.

"It feels like something that belongs to another time," said one young man in Aqqaba who refused to give his name, the first hints of a beard on his chin. "But, it's standard."

A week after the crime, Aqqaba mayor Jamal Abu Ara, who is a member of the victim's extended family, and his brothers sat in their village home, smoking cigarettes and choosing their words carefully.

"This act has no religion - it comes from closed, tribal thinking left over from an age of ignorance. People here are walking around in a haze; they want to know who did it and why. Of course, it's the first time it's happened here," he said.

His brother added: "Islam requires you have four witnesses to prove the act of adultery.

"It's not right what happened. Especially since if it were a man, some would just say 'boys will be boys'," he said.=

A representative of the slain woman's family declined to speak to Reuters.

"Honour killing" is a social menace that occurs throughout the Middle East, though precise figures are often elusive.

In neighboring Jordan, for example, a Cambridge University survey of attitudes among young people published in June found that a third of respondents agreed with the practice.

The researchers attributed the result to low levels of education and "patriarchal and traditional world views, emphasis placed on female virtue and a more general belief that violence against others is morally justified."

The study estimated an average of 15 to 20 such killings occur every year in Jordan, with a population of around 6.3 million, compared to around 4 million in Palestinian lands.

PATRIARCHY

Some activists believe the rise in honour killings indicates social and economic problems are mounting in the territories, where Palestinians exercise limited self-rule but Israel holds ultimate sovereignty, including over commerce.

But Soraida Hussein, whose rights group Muntada tallied this year's killings, said the practice also has deep roots.

"There is no balance in power relations between the genders. There is a patriarchal mentality...as always, the force and pressure in society is transferred from the strong to the weak," she said.Palestinian female participation in the labor force stands at 17 percent, a figure the World Bank called "abysmally low," noting that employers appeared to favor men, among whom joblessness was almost a third lower in 2013.Hussein said that most of the killings related to "the movement and the freedom of the woman, so (perpetrators) say it's an 'honour killing '... also, there's still no clear law to discourage the practice."Many of the cases had economic underpinnings, such as connections to disputes over inheritance, or may have been committed to cover up incest, she added.The passing of stricter laws on violence against women is hamstrung by the absence of a Palestinian parliament, which has not met since President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party and the Islamist Hamas group fought a brief, bloody civil war in 2007.Abbas has used his executive power to amend or cancel parts of the penal law, but has not yet changed all legislation which applies a separate status to domestic violence and has been used to justify killings and lighten prison sentences.Palestinian Minister of Women's Affairs Rabiha Diab saved much of her blame for violence toward women for Israel: "The Israeli occupation is the one practising the utmost violence ... it's the main thing keeping us from advancing."There's been a deterioration, financial and psychological pressure on our society, poverty. But there are also certain backward cultural legacies that must be combated," she said.

Unemployment and poverty both increased in 2013, with both standing at around 25 percent. Growth has slowed from boom rates averaging around 9 percent annually in 2008-2011 to just 1.8 percent in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in the first half of 2013, according to the World Bank.BANISHEDNot just laws but lawmakers may be part of the problem.Residents of the northern West Bank village of Deir al-Ghusun began muttering about Thamar Zeidan, a 32-year-old mother of two, after an apparently intoxicated man was spied leaving her home one morning, a local source told Reuters.Elders, including a Hamas member of parliament, soon gathered and signed an announcement formally banishing her family from the larger tribe. The notice was pasted on the outer walls of homes and on the village mosque.Days later in late September, Thamar was choked to death with a metal wire in her sleep.Her father confessed to the deed.The lawmaker, Abdel Rahman Zeidan, denied charges in the Palestinian media that the petition was tantamount to inciting murder, and said the banishment targeted the father, whom villagers say allowed his children too many freedoms."Taking the law into your own hands is wrong," he told Reuters. "These acts are unacceptable, and laws must be passed to discourage them."Spreading awareness on the issue can open campaigners and journalists to criticism and even threats, which may partly explain its scant airing in public, however.Press bulletins occasionally note the discovery of a woman's body in what are called "hazy circumstances" - a common euphemism for honour killings. Names are concealed and the news is rarely followed up on."When you touch such stories, you're up against a social taboo," said Palestinian journalist Naela Khalil, whose work focuses on women's issues."Here, the family is stronger than even the security forces. I might criticize Mahmoud Abbas more easily than a father or a brother who killed a woman. Doing this may mean a struggle with a whole family or village," she said.
 (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Sonya Hepinstall)

 

Bangladesh executes Jihad leader Abdul Quader Molla for war crimes

A mass murderer in the cause of Islam was executed today for war crimes committed during the country's 1971 civil war. Abdul Quader Molla said "he is proud to be a martyr for the cause of Islamic movement in the country." He should have followed jihad war criminal Ashrafuzzaman Khan to the US, and perhaps he, too, could have been the leader of ICNA or some other Islamic supremacist organization feted by the media and leftwing elites.

A "moderate" Muslim leader in the US, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, former ICNA-NY President, was convicted of similar war crimes. These are the moderates whom everyone is banking on. More on Khan here and here and here and here. Witnesses have clearly identified Ashrafuzzaman Khan as the "chief killer" of the intellectuals in Bangladesh (here).

ICNA, like Hamas-CAIR, is a terror front group whose "Muslim advocacy" front masks their true Islamic supremacist agenda. Despite the carefully constructed myth surrounding Muslim Brotherhood groups in America, advanced by a hostile and pro-jihadist media, the truth about these killers is out there. 

ICNA's NY president, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, is charged in the abductions and deaths of 18 people during the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to Bangladesh’s independence. When called for comment, Khan said, “I don’t know what is happening in Bangladesh. I am not a citizen of Bangladesh.” He sounds just like those Nazi war criminals when they were discovered living new lives in America (or Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, et al). The only difference is that the Nazis were hiding. These Islamic supremacists are held up as role models and pillars of tolerance and interfaith ishcabibble by media and clueless politicians.

ICNA is long known to Atlas readers. ICNA runs those bus ads (along with CAIR) proselytizing for Islam. It was those very ICNA ads that were the impetus for my first bus campaign. The media loved ICNA's ad, but I had to sue to get our pro-freedom ads up.

"Bangladesh executes top Islamist leader Abdul Quader Molla for war crimes," By AFP via NDTV December 12, 2013 (thanks to Suneil)

Dhaka:  Bangladesh on Thursday hanged a senior Islamist leader known as the "Butcher of Mirpur", making him the first person to be put to death for massacres committed during the country's bloody 1971 war of independence.

"The execution has been carried out," deputy law minister Quamrul Islam told AFP, adding that Abdul Quader Molla, 65, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was hanged at 10.01 pm (1601 GMT) in a jail in the capital Dhaka.

The hanging took place just hours after the country's Supreme Court dismissed Molla's appeal for a final review of his death sentence, removing the last legal option against his execution.

The wife and children of Molla met the Jamaat-e-Islami leader at a jail in Dhaka for one last time hours before the execution, and found him to be "calm".

"He has told us that he is proud to be a martyr for the cause of Islamic movement in the country," Molla's son Hasan Jamil told AFP after meeting his father.

Security has also been tightened outside the jail gate and in the capital Dhaka, with the authorities deploying paramilitary border guards in key flashpoints.

Islamists and opposition protesters armed with crude bombs and rocks clashed with police in riots in several cities across the country after the Supreme Court announced the brief verdict paving the way for the execution.

Molla was originally set to be hanged on Tuesday night after he refused to seek presidential clemency.

But in a night of high drama a judge stayed the hanging just 90 minutes before the scheduled execution, amid international concern over the fairness of the war crime trials of mainly opposition leaders.

Molla was found to have been a leader of a pro-Pakistan militia which fought against the country's independence and killed some of Bangladesh's top professors, doctors, writers and journalists.

A key opposition official, he was convicted of rape, murder and mass murder, including the killing of more than 350 unarmed civilians. Prosecutors described him as the "Butcher of Mirpur", a Dhaka suburb where he committed most of the atrocities.

Hundreds of secular protesters erupted in celebration hearing the news of the execution. They have been camping at Shahbagh square in Dhaka since Tuesday night, shouting slogans including: "Hang Quader Molla, hang war criminals".

A survey of Muslims in Europe

Of course an exercise comparing Muslim fundamentalism and Christian fundamentalism is silly. We never hear of pious Christians slaughtering non-Christians in the name of Jesus Christ. In the Muslim world, it is an all too often a daily occurrence. But even so, this survey is revealing in what it tells us about the "moderates" the West so desperately wants to believe in.

And the survey says...

 In the heated controversies over immigration and Islam in the early 21 st century, Muslims have widely become associated in media debates and the popular imagery with religious fundamentalism. Against this, others have argued that religiously fundamentalist ideas are found among only a small minority of Muslims living in the West, and that religious fundamentalism can equally be found among adherents of other religions, including Christianity.

However, claims on both sides of this debate lack a sound empirical base because very little is known about the extent of religious fundamentalism among Muslim immigrants, and virtually no evidence is available that allows a comparison with native......

"Fundamentalism and Out-Group Hostility in Europe" Published in WZB Mitteilungen, December 2013 via WEIS

"Muslim Immigrants and Christian Natives in Western Europe" By Ruud Koopmans

II: A survey of Muslims in Europe
 
The site WZB, which stands for “Wissenschaftzentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung” (my translation: “Berlin Center for Social Science Research”), has conducted a survey whose results were just published in a paper by Ruud Koopmans, “Fundamentalism and out-group hostility Muslim immigrants and Christian natives in Western Europe” (free download at the link; WZB’s summary is here). The motivation for this work was the controversy about whether Muslim immigrants and their descendants living in Western countries had fundamentalist religious beliefs, or were more moderate—perhaps because moderates tended to migrate or, after migration, became tempered by living in Western society. While we know quite a bit about Christian fundamentalists, there has been little attempt to compare Islamic with Christian fundamentalism in the West.
 
Koopmans’ paper is based on a WBZ-funded survey of 9000 respondents “with a Turkish or Moroccan immigration background” living in six Western countries; Germany, France, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Austria.  Note that Turkey and Morocco are not known as hotbeds of Muslim extremism.  There was also a Christian control group described in the survey paper. Although I’m not a sociologist, the study seems to me to have been well designed and controlled, with possible contaminating factors considered and statistically investigated. Two sets of questions were asked (indented matter from the paper):
 
1. Questions about the degree of fundamentalism
Following the widely accepted definition of fundamentalism of Bob Altermeyer and Bruce Hunsberger, the fundamentalism belief system is defined by three key elements:
- that believers should return to the eternal and unchangeable rules laid down in the
past;
- that these rules allow only one interpretation and are binding for all believers;
- that religious rules have priority over secular laws.
These aspects of fundamentalism were measured by the following survey items that were  asked to those native respondents who indicated that they were Christians (70%), and to those respondents of Turkish and Moroccan origin who indicated they were Muslims (96%):
“Christians [Muslims] should return to the roots of Christianity [Islam].”
“There is only one interpretation of the Bible [the Koran] and every Christian [Muslim] must 
stick to that.”
“The rules of the Bible [the Koran] are more important to me than the laws of [survey country].”
Here are the disquieting results:

60% of Turkish and Moroccan Muslim immigrants want a return to the faith’s religious roots (as opposed to 20% of Christians); 75% think only one interpretation of the Qur’an is possible (as opposed to about 17% of Christians surveyed vis-a-vis the Bible); and 65% of the Muslims say that scriptural rules are more important than the laws of the country where they live (only about 12% of Christian countrymen agreed). Overall, 44% of Muslims agreed with all three statements, as opposed to fewer than 4% of Christians. In other words, there’s an alarmingly high level of fundamentalism among Islamic residents of these countries—a level far exceeding that of Christian fundamentalism. And remember, migrants from more “extreme” Islamic countries weren’t surveyed.

These results were not due mainly to economic or class differences, for regression analysis controlling “for education, labour market status, age, gender and marital status revealed that while some of these variables explain variation in fundamentalism within both religious groups, they do not at all explain or even diminish the differences between Muslims and Christians.” And younger Muslims were no less fundamentalist than older ones. In contrast, Christian fundamentalism was stronger in older than in younger Christians.
2. Questions about attitudes toward outgroups. The study’s second part involved surveying the Muslims’ and Christians’ views on the following four statements:
“I don’t want to have homosexuals as friends.”
“Jews cannot be trusted.”
“Muslims aim to destroy Western culture.” [for natives] [JAC: note that the question asked differed based on the person's background.]
“Western countries are out to destroy Islam.” [for persons with a Turkish or Moroccan
migration background]
Here are the results, which speak for themselves.  I’ll just summarize the huge differences by saying that more than 40% of Muslims displayed hostility to at least one outgroup, and more than 25% to all three. That compares to about 2% of all Christians.

Again, a regression analysis showed that religion was by far the most important predictor of hostility toward outgroups, and the degree of fundamentalism (as shown in part I) was predictive of the degree of hostility toward those outgroups.  In other words, religion poisons everything, more fundamentalist religion conveys more deadly poison, and Islam is deadlier than Christianity.
This survey will give no solace to those who claim that Muslims living in the West are a relatively moderate and outgroup-friendly society. (This comports with the author’s note that, in a 2006 Pew survey of Muslims living in the UK, France, and Germany, about half believed that the 9/11 attacks were not carried out by Muslims, but orchestrated by the West and/or the Jews.)
 
Here are Koopman’s conclusions:
 
When we take into account religious fundamentalism, this turns out to be by far the most important predictor of out-group hostility and explains most of the differences in levels of out-group hostility between Muslims and Christians. Also the greater out-group hostility among Turkish-origin Sunnis compared to Alevites is almost entirely explained by the higher level of religious fundamentalism among the Sunnis. A further indication that religious fundamentalism is a major factor behind out-group hostility is that it is also the most important predictor in separate analyses for Christians and Muslims. In other words, religious fundamentalism not only explains why Muslim immigrants are generally more hostile towards out-groups than native Christians, but also why some Christians and some Muslims are more xenophobic than others.
These findings clearly contradict the often-heard claim that Islamic religious fundamentalism is a marginal phenomenon in Western Europe or that it does not differ from the extent of fundamentalism among the Christian majority. Both claims are blatantly false, as almost half of European Muslims agree that Muslims should return to the roots of Islam, that there is only one interpretation of the Koran, and that the rules laid down in it are more important than secular laws. Among native Christians, less than one in 25 can be characterized as fundamentalists in this sense. Religious fundamentalism is moreover not an innocent form of strict religiosity, as its strong relationship – among both Christians and Muslims – to hostility towards out-groups demonstrates.
These data should make us think twice about characterizing suspicion about Western Muslims’ beliefs as “Islamophobia.” There are pervasive and pernicious beliefs here, ones that could motivate pernicious actions.

 

Farm Jihad: Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam Receives Taxpayer Subsidies for Muhammad Farms

From 2008 on, this vicious racist, supremacist Jew-hater has been receiving our taxpayer dollars. We are trillions in debt with no relief in sight. The waste and fraud is unfathomable, and Obama won't stop spending.

I ain't gonna work for Farrakhan's farm.

"Nation of Islam Receives Farm Subsidies," by Andrew Johnson, NRO, December 10, 2013

Over $100,000 in farm subsidies between 2008 and 2011 went a charity arm of the Nation of Islam, according to a new report from a watchdog group.

The group, Open the Books, traces the money to the Three Year Economic Savings Program, a NOI charity whose headquarters are listed at Louis Farrakhan’s home address. According to the NOI website, contributions from the charity were used to purchase farmland in Georgia now known as Muhammad Farms. “In 1995 we planted and harvested 76.3 acres of land, including watermelons, cantaloupes, sweet corn, snap beans, okra, yellow squash, zucchini, butternut squash, peas and greens,” the site says.

The Three Year Economic Savings Program is listed as “Not in Good Standing” on the Illinois Secretary of State’s website.  Over the three-year period, it received $103,529 in 19 payments ranging from about $3,000 to nearly $28,000. The Three Year Economic Savings Program was also granted a $26,367 commodity loan in the final months of George W. Bush’s presidency.

The report, “Farm Subsidies and the Big Dogs,” is based on data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as well as information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Pakistani Blogger Calls For Reform In Textbooks: "On What Basis Had I Come To Believe That The Value Of The Life Of A Jew Or Christian Was Less Than That Of A Muslim?"

"As the Twin Towers came crashing down in New York City on September 11, 2001, an eight-year-old boy remained unmoved some 7,000 miles away in Lahore as the horrifying images unfolded before him. The boy then descended into a mode of celebration upon discovering that the towers were in 'non-Pakistani' territory and that a significant majority of the dead were non-Muslims.  

"This boy was no suicide bomber in the making. He was not the product of an extremist madrassa nor was he the son of a jihad veteran. In fact, this was a boy who was being educated at one of the finest institutions this country had to offer....."

Proving yet again that the "moderates" (wherever they are hiding) have no theological leg to stand on. I give this brave blogger 24 hours to go underground to escape the requsite death fatwa that is sure to foillow.

Pakistani Blogger Calls For Reform In Textbooks: 'Where We Celebrate A War Hero, We Must Also Celebrate A Hero Of Science'; 'On What Basis Had I Come To Believe That The Value Of The Life Of A Jew Or Christian Was Less Than That Of A Muslim?' 'Where We Recall The Sacrifices Of Our Prophet... We Must Also Recall The Sacrifices Of Jesus' MEMRI

 

 

Recently, Pakistani blogger Bakhtawar Bilal Soofi examined the influence of school textbooks on young children in Pakistan and they subtle ways in which they come to imbue negative ideas about other religions and communities.

Soofi, whose blog post titled "An Intolerant Educational System Made Me Indifferent To The Death Of Non-Muslims" was published on the website of The Express Tribune daily, suggested ways to inculcate pluralistic thinking among Pakistani youth.

Soofi is a student of law at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. The following are excerpts from his blog:

"On What Basis Had I Come To Believe That The Value Of The Life Of A Jew Or Christian Was Less Than That Of A Muslim?"

"As the Twin Towers came crashing down in New York City on September 11, 2001, an eight-year-old boy remained unmoved some 7,000 miles away in Lahore as the horrifying images unfolded before him. The boy then descended into a mode of celebration upon discovering that the towers were in 'non-Pakistani' territory and that a significant majority of the dead were non-Muslims.  

"This boy was no suicide bomber in the making. He was not the product of an extremist madrassa nor was he the son of a jihad veteran. In fact, this was a boy who was being educated at one of the finest institutions this country had to offer. Yet, the boy had failed to appreciate the value of human life. He was insensitive to the deaths of more than 2,000 people. What is more alarming is that at the tender age of eight, this boy had justified his delight by distinguishing between the life of a Muslim and a non-Muslim.

"As much as I hate to admit it, I was this boy. In retrospect, I question why I showed such insensitivity to the events around me. On what basis had I come to believe that the value of the life of a Jew or Christian was less than that of a Muslim? How did I develop this extremely bi-polar perception of an 'angelic' East leading a crusade against the 'demonic' West?"

Read The Full Report

U.S. suspends aid to north Syria after jihadists seize weapons warehouses

Did someone in the Obama administration finally got a clue? Or perhaps they envisioned the headlines of our soldiers or Ambassador being slaughtered with weapons we supplied to al Qaeda?

"U.S. suspends aid to north Syria after jihadists seize weapons warehouses," posted by Creeping, December 12, 2013

It’s past time to stop all U.S. taxpayer “aid” to Syria.

Syrian jihadis sporting U.S. taxpayer funded non-lethal aid

But no. Obama is only suspending “non-lethal” aid in the north. U.S. taxpayer funded weapons will continue to flow to jihadis across the rest of Syria. via U.S., Britain suspend aid to north Syria after Islamists seize weapons store | Reuters.

The United States and Britain suspended non-lethal aid to northern Syria after Islamist fighters seized Western-backed rebel weapons warehouses, highlighting fears that supplies could end up in the wrong hands.

The rebel Free Syrian Army fighting President Bashar al-Assad said the U.S. and British moves were rushed and mistaken. “We hope our friends will rethink and wait for a few days when things will be clearer,” FSA spokesman Louay Meqdad said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the United States was concerned about reports that Islamic Front forces had seized the buildings belonging to the Syrian Military Council, which is nominally in charge of the FSA.

“As a result of the situation … the United States has suspended all further deliveries of non-lethal assistance into northern Syria,” Earnest said, adding that humanitarian aid was not affected by the move.

The suspension underlines a crisis for the FSA leadership, which needs international backing to reinforce its credibility and to stop its fighters joining al Qaeda-backed Islamist militants who now dominate the war with Assad.

Fighters from the Islamic Front, which groups six major rebel brigades and which said last week it had quit the FSA, seized the headquarters of the Syrian Military Council and weapons warehouses at the Bab al-Hawa crossing on Syria’s northwestern border with Turkey.

A U.S. official said FSA leader General Salim Idriss had fled into Turkey during the takeover of the warehouses, which contained trucks, food, medical packs and communication equipment including laptops and radios.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based anti-Assad monitoring group, said the Islamic Front had seized anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons from the SMC arms stores in fighting on Saturday.

The Islamic Front’s battlefield success in capturing the stores >could undermine SMC assurances to the United States that no supplies sent to their fighters would fall into the hands of Islamist brigades.

A U.S. embassy spokesman in Ankara said the situation was being investigated “to inventory the status of U.S. equipment and supplies provided to the SMC”. Deliveries into southern Syria, through Jordan, would not be affected, he said.

We posted on this back in September and included the photo above, American-supplied arms fell into al Qaeda’s hands:

Buried in an interesting account by The Wall Street Journal is this nugget of information (emphasis added):

The Supreme Military Council, led by Gen. Idriss, has been the focus of U.S. efforts to bring a command-and-control structure to rebels–but has now lost to the Islamist extremists most of its ability to operate in some parts of the north. ISIS fighters recently raided a council arms depot filled with lights [sic] weapons and ammunition, funded by the Gulf states and funneled to the council with the guidance of the Central Intelligence Agency, council members said.

 

U.S. admits Iran will get $20 billion

Obama's treachery was worse than we imagined. And Obama is laughing all the way to the bomb.

Obama's plan allowed Iran to keep enriching uranium, spinning their centrifuges, and building advanced new centrifuges, without having to dismantle a single centrifuge. Nineteen thousand centrifuges. Last week,
Iran announced it had developed ballistic missile technology, which could eventually allow it to fire a nuclear payload over great distances.

And the quisling in the White House paid 20 billion in jizya:

Israeli officials: U.S. admits Iran will get $20 billion from sanctions relief By Amos Harel | Haaretz Dec. 11, 2013 (thanks to Banafsheh Zand)

U.S. officials admit to Israeli colleagues that they greatly underestimated the economic benefits Tehran would reap from Geneva accord.

Senior officials in the administration of President  Barack Obama have conceded over the past few days in conversations with colleagues in Israel that the value of the economic sanctions relief to Iran could be much higher than originally thought in Washington, security sources in Israel told Haaretz.

In official statements by the United States immediately after the agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program was signed in Geneva betweenIran and theF six powers at the end of November it was said that the economic relief Iran would receive in exchange for signing the agreement would be relatively low – $6 billion or $7 billion. Israeli assessments were much higher – about $20 billion at least.

The United States had originally intended to make do with unfreezing Iranian assets in the amount of $3 billion to $4 billion. But during negotiations in Geneva, the P5+1 countries backtracked from their opening position and approved much more significant relief in a wide variety of areas: commerce in gold, the Iranian petrochemical industry, the car industry and replacement parts for civilian aircraft. But the Americans said at the time that this would at most double the original amount.

However according to the Israeli version, the Americans now concede in their talks with Israel that the sanctions relief are worth much more. According to the security sources: “Economics is a matter of expectations. The Iranian stock exchange is already rising significantly and many countries are standing in line to renew economic ties with Iran based on what was already agreed in Geneva.” The sources mentioned China’s desire to renew contracts worth some $9 billion to develop the Iranian oil industry and the interest some German companies are showing for deals with Tehran. “In any case, it’s about 20 or 25 billion dollars. Even the Americans understand this,” the sources said.

The interim agreement is to come into force on January 15. Until then, Iran is not restricted in terms of moving ahead on its  nuclear program. Israel was surprised by the public statement by Obama at the Saban Forum in Washington late last week, that the agreements allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium. This is seen as an unnecessary concession considering that negotiations with Iran are still underway. However, the Israeli leadership seems to be seeking to somewhat lower its contentious tones toward Washington after two weeks of public scuffling and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent speech with regard to Iran, also to the Saban Forum, was relatively moderate.

But along with efforts to renew intelligence and diplomatic coordination between the two countries on the nuclear issue, tussles are expected to continue between Obama and Netanyahu in another important arena – the U.S. Congress. The administration is very concerned about the objections to the agreement in Geneva by senators and congress members on both sides of the aisle. A few prominent opponents of the agreement who are experts in foreign affairs and frequently express themselves on the Middle East have articulated doubts about the deal and have called for additional heavy sanctions on Iran if the accord falls through.

Although Israel has not said so publicly, it is clear that Netanyahu’s representatives have also been in touch with these lawmakers in recent weeks. Among them are Republican senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Mark Kirk and Congressman Eric Cantor and Democratic senators Chuck Schumer, Robert Menendez and Congressman Steny Hoyer.

The extent of the administrations’ concern can be seen in an editorial in Tuesday's New York Times. The paper reads as if it is quoting Obama’s messages on the Middle East. The article warned against the initiative of senators Kirk and Menendez to prepare new legislation that would complete the very effective sanctions moves they led against Iran a few years ago. According to the proposal, which has the behind-the-scenes support of senior Israeli officials, new sanctions would be instituted if at the end of the six months set out in the interim agreement a satisfactory arrangement is not reached with the Iranians.

The Times warns that the breakthrough attained in Geneva, which it calls the most positive development in relations between the United States and Iran in 30 years, will be put at risk by the initiatives in Congress. The interim agreement is “unquestionably a good deal,” which is preferable to military action and the paper joins the warnings issued both by the White House and the Iranian government against legislation that would sabotage the agreements implementation. According to the Times, moves by Kirk, Menendez and other senior officials are unnecessary and will “enrage the Iranians.” It seems that the U.S. lawmakers are not impressed by this prospect and Netanyahu even less so. In the American-Israeli dispute, the tones may be more muted, but the scene of the next clash is clear – Congress in Washington.