It is good that a short note on a few reassuring notes have been included. When asked to explain why the Islamist invaders had to retreat from Spain, a scholar replied that in Spain Islam met resistence from another fundamentalist religion.Merely Islam-bashing wo'nt work in the plural work where one canot and should not think about ethnic cleansing.

It is good that a short note on a few reassuring notes have been included. When asked to explain why the Islamist invaders had to retreat from Spain, a scholar replied that in Spain Islam met resistence from another fundamentalist religion.Merely Islam-bashing wo'nt work in the plural world where one cannot and should not think about ethnic cleansing.

Strange to call yourselves Hatewatch without mentioning discrimination or hate against Muslims, Asians, Afro-Carribeans or Arabs. Next time maybe?

If you're short on ideas, what about the numerous examples of discrimination in Israeli law. Eg. A Jew born anywhere in the world has the right to settle in Israel. And If an Israeli Jew marries a Hungarian or a German, the new spouse can move to Israel.
If an Israeli man who happens to be Arab falls in love with a Palestinian woman from Bethlehem, he will be expelled from the country or forced to live separate from his wife. Their children will be denied the benefits of citizenship. No such ethnic marriage laws apply to Jewish choices in marriage partners.

Or is your aim something other than highlighting discrimination and hate in general?

Even a 10-second look at your link to the Cat Stevens article shows you misrepresented him.

You said: "According to Cat Stevens, Al Qaeda's murderous attack on Britain had nothing to do with religious fanaticism, cultural resentment, or the desire to establish a global caliphate. Instead, the pitiable bombers were doing what they could to react to British foreign policy in the Middle East."

Yusuf Islam ACTUALLY said Britain's foreign policy "was not the only factor but it was a major contributory."
Er - even labour politicians admit that the Iraq fiasco was a primary motivator for the bombers.

What else did he say: "At the same time we have to look at how the teaching of Islam has been distorted," he added. Islam said schools should teach young Muslims the true meaning of Islam to keep them away from extremist ideas. "Right now there is a more vital role for education to play in painting a truer picture of Islam," he said. "If you don't give it to the children in schools, anybody can give it to them on the streets or outside the normal environment for learning."

He also said Muslims should do more to integrate into British society.
"Coming to Islam from a Western background, I was slightly surprised early on by the insular approach," he said. "I can understand it because many feel insecure and perhaps they weren't appreciated or were misunderstood. With a new generation of English-speaking Muslims we have an opportunity to build many more bridges between the great faiths."

Yeah....real hate-monger isn't he.

Durruti:

Your snarky little "next time maybe" seems a touch incautious - and unintentionally revelatory. The post had numerous entries about discrimination against Muslims and Arabs that, for reasons which are entirely your own, you seem to be ignoring. Sania Mirza, the Indian woman being persecuted for wearing too short a skirt, is an Asian Muslim. I imagine many of the gay men and women in Ghana who have become the target of public hysteria are similarly devout. The Palestinian Christians being attacked by Palestinian Mulsims are ethnically Arab. The extent to which you confidently and unequivocally complain that the post did not "mention discrimination or hate against Muslims, Asians, Afro-Carribeans or Arabs" seems to indicate that you do not consider these outrages to be genuine instances of discrimination - perhaps because they're targeted against women, gays, and Christians rather than people who you consider to be "good" or "authentic" Muslims and Arabs. Whatever your motives, I suggest that you be a little more careful about urging people to highlight "discrimination and hate in general" when your own attention seems somewhat… myopic. And stop making up Israeli "if an Israeli man who happens to be Arab falls in love with a Palestinian woman from Bethlehem, he will be expelled from the country or forced to live separate from his wife" is patently absurd (poor grammar is yours in the original).

I also remain unimpressed with Cat Stevens's "clarifications". If you start out with the bombshell that the 7/7 victims brought terrorism upon themselves, it does no good to spend the rest of the time saying "oh, and it'd also be nice if mosques in London didn't harbor clerics who preach jihad".

You say: "A rabbi and his son have been severely beaten in Ukraine."

Revolting, no doubt, but the original article you yourself linked to says:

"A Ukrainian rabbi and his 14-year-old son were beaten in Kiev [...] Neither was seriously injured."

A bit of embroiderment?

Solomon: Reports as to the severity of the beating vary, but most accounts agree that the beating was prolonged and involved knives and chains. Though Rabbi Menis and his son did apparently serious injury, I think one would be hard-pressed not to consider such circumstances severe. Nonetheless, exaggeration or excitability in description does no one any good, and your point is well-taken.

>>British Islamic experts: best way to dampen terrorism is to forget about Holocaust.

I consider it very important to remember the holocaust, and remember it correctly.

The Holocaust isn't important because 6 million Jews were murdered.

The Holocaust is important because ~15 million PEOPLE were murdered.

According to Cat Stevens, Al Qaeda's murderous attack on Britain had nothing to do with religious fanaticism, cultural resentment, or the desire to establish a global caliphate. Instead, the pitiable bombers were doing what they could to react to British foreign policy in the Middle East.

If that isn't a lie, it will do until a lie comes along.

• The available reports don't show him excluding religious fanaticism etc as causes.
• They do quote him saying that British foreign policy "was not the only factor".
• They don't show him calling the bombers "pitiable".
• They do show him denouncing "the violence and barbarism of the extremists".

You might think, a commentator who indulges in gratuituous slander, and accompanies his untruths with the links that belie them, would be better off avoiding terms like "hatewatch" and "idiotarian".

Also dishonest and stupid are:

• Omri Ceren's characterization (comment #4) as (scare-quoted) "clarifications" of the parts of Yusuf Islam's remarks that he chose to ignore;
• his claim that Islam "[started] out with the bombshell that the 7/7 victims brought terrorism upon themselves".

Sigh. I gave form and text to thought in response to the first troll, and now this. But as they say, in for a pound....

TJ: We don't need to get into a philosophical discussion about the uniqueness of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust to agree that banning a memorial to that experience is inappropriate, and that those who claim that they're just trying to universalize the memorial are being disengenuous. If they really cared about remembering all the victims of WWII, they'd suggest another memorial day - to say that they simply wanted to mark atrocities in general by banning a memorial to specific atrocities strains credibility.

Robert:
* It's true that the reports "don't show him excluding religious fanaticism etc as causes". They don't show him excluding alien mind-control death rays as causes either.
* I've addressed the "there are other factors too" canard in a previous comment - life isn't the Los Angeles Times: one may not state something bombastic or inflammatory - something that skirts the line of propriety and truth - and then say a lot of other true stuff to make up for it.
* Re "they don't show him calling the bombers "pitiable": give me a break. They also don't show him calling the bombers mammals with hair on top of their heads, but one can infer, can one not, that someone who believes that attacks are justified would sympathize with the attackers?
* He denounced 7/7 in the same way that Arafat used to denounce suicide bombers. In other words, it seemed that his statements lacked something in the way of full-throatedness.

>>We don't need to get into a philosophical discussion about the uniqueness of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust to agree that banning a memorial to that experience is inappropriate, and that those who claim that they're just trying to universalize the memorial are being disengenuous.

Most (including the Muslims discussed above) likely are being disengenuous. I am not.

I was very pleased with the Holocaust museum in DC, for example. It had lots of flyers about the Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, etc. who got killed.

The reason that looking at the Holocaust from primarily a Jewish perspective is dangerous is that it allows non-Jews to exclude themselves psychologically from the "area of effect." It makes it harder for people to "get" the lesson that "NEXT TIME IT COULD BE YOU." It also distracts attention from the visceral reality that those Jews who were killed were HUMANS.

>>If they really cared about remembering all the victims of WWII, they'd suggest another memorial day (...)

The Holocaust is distinct from WWII in important ways. It involved the targeted murder of civilians under that particular regime (democide) rather than attrition from combat. It likely would have occurred even if WWII had not.

The Saudis seem to hate freedom, and approve of trafficking of children as sex workers. Does that bother Bush?? No, not at all!! It would only bother Bush if people were trafficking in human embryos!

See

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/bush_human_trafficking

Omri

Calling yourselves 'Hatewatch' implies taking a stand against hatred and discrimination in general. So why the overwhelming obsession in your very long article with (particularly) Muslim hatred/discrimination against (particularly) Jews? A hidden agenda perhaps?
Sure, these examples are important, but lets have a more level playing field in your 'briefing'. Couldn't you find stories about Asians, Africans or Muslims suffering discrimination, beatings or extremist hatred in Europe or the US for example?

As for your ridiculous examples in reply to my post:
1) A conservative religious figure criticising an Asian Muslim woman for her dress sense is obviously not hostile to her Asian race or Muslim religion.
2) Its good that you highlight hostility towards gay people in Ghana, but that hostility didn't originate (as you suggest) from the victims' religion or race, but from their sexuality alone.
3) The idea that you can somehow represent anti-Arab racism merely by the actions of a few Palestinian Muslims against their Christian neighbours is totally ridiculous. What about the experience of being at the receiving end of hate by the many tens of millions of Arabs settled in the West? Or what about the fact that Palestinian Arabs (both Christian and Muslim) live under occupation, and are restricted in their democratic and legal rights (eg. land ownership, freedom of movement)

And now you write: "The extent to which you confidently and unequivocally complain that the post did not "mention discrimination or hate against Muslims, Asians, Afro-Carribeans or Arabs" seems to indicate that you do not consider these outrages to be genuine instances of discrimination....Whatever your motives, I suggest that you be a little more careful about urging people to highlight "discrimination and hate in general" when your own attention seems somewhat… myopic."

Well thanks for the suggestion....actually my "attention" highlighted the staggering lack of balance in your cherry-picking of 'hate' sources and victims. Contrary to your insinuations, I don't condone hatred against anyone on the basis of gender, ethnicity, religion, caste, sexuality or anthing else. But neither would I conveniently ignore certain types of hatred and discrimination under the pretext of promoting an anti-Muslim pro-Zionist political agenda.

"And stop making up Israeli "if an Israeli man who happens to be Arab falls in love with a Palestinian woman from Bethlehem, he will be expelled from the country or forced to live separate from his wife" is patently absurd (poor grammar is yours in the original)."

Please correct my poor grammar AND MY FACTS. Obviously research isn't a strongpoint of yours, but perhaps you would care to investigate the contents of The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law. (or you could look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Arab or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism_and_racism).

"I also remain unimpressed with Cat Stevens's "clarifications"."

Clarifications??? Nope. Unlike you I actually quoted what he said! You can be as impressed or unimpressed as you want. If you are pretending to give readers a roundup of news, a 'briefing', then quote what he said. Don't misrepresent him and then criticise things he didn't say. Very shoddy.

Durruti,

At the risk of seeming impolite, one gets the impression that you're being deliberately obtuse. "Religious hatred" means religiously inspired hatred - and thus the Islamist attacks against Muslim women, Muslim gays, and Arab Christians certainly qualify. If you're concerned that we've neglected some critical bull that the Catholic Church has published in the last two weeks, please feel free to enlighten our readers as to its content so that we can all be better informed. If your claim is that we never discuss new Jewish or Christian hatred, I urge you to read previous postings. And if, as it seems, ill will towards our highlighting of jihadist rants has caused you to jump the gun a little bit on your reading skills, then please take a moment - calm down and ask yourself what it is that you're trying to accomplish by repeatedly asserting the transparently false argument that we didn't highlight discrimination against Muslims or Arabs.

Incidentally, and this is neither here nor there, but there reaches a point in deliberative communities when certain words or phrases either lose their currency or become markers for a particular kind of discourse. Ignoring the plight of women, gays, and Christians in the Arab and Muslim world while hysterically ranting about our "anti-Muslim pro-Zionist political agenda" seems to identify you as a particular kind of apologist for a particular kind of ideology. In that context, prefacing said hysterics with "I don't condone hatred against anyone on the basis (sic) of gender, ethnicity, religion, caste, sexuality or anthing (sic) else" comes off as, shall we say, both predictable and disingenuous because it's predictable. Kind of like saying "Of course nobody wanted to see Saddam stay in power, but..." or "Clearly we had to do something after 9/11, but..." or "I have plenty of black friends, but...". It's simply that not very many reasonable or serious thinkers think that "pro-Zionist" is really a slur any more - and those that missed the memo and still do missed it because they are immersed in very particular kinds of political communities.

The Cat Stevens thing has been addressed repeatedly now. Only someone who approaches the article looking to vindicate him will accept his "of course there are other causes of terrorism, but American and Britain brought this upon themselves" as anything but blaming the victim and excusing the victimizers (or someone who, as suggested above, is being deliberatively obtuse).

One last thing: It would behoove you to avoid ad-homs about research or reading skills when you get called out for lying and then are incautious enough to link to articles which fail to confirm your lies. Neither of the links you provided came close to demonstrating that, as you said, "if an Israeli man who happens to be Arab falls in love with a Palestinian woman from Bethlehem, he will be expelled from the country or forced to live separate from his wife". You can check me on this, but if memory serves me there have been less than ten Israeli Arabs expelled from Israel under civil law, and both of those were for terrorism-related charges .Remember - ad-homs can make you sounds more credible when you're on the right side of a debate, but when you're patently wrong lashing out just makes you sound like an idiot.

Omri

I see. A so-called briefing on hatred and religious craziness, rounding up news from around the world. And in all the stories you chose to write about where Arabs, Muslims, black people, gays or women are victims the hatred always seems to come from....MUSLIMS! So no cherry-picking of news there then!

What about the Jewish extremist imprisoned in the US last week for plotting to blow up a mosque and a politician's office(the judge said his crimes were "promoting hatred in the most vile way")? Or the vatican stating that homosexuals are 'disorded' and even celibate homosexuals cannot become priests. What about media racism in early comparisons of white 'finders' and black 'looters' after hurricane Katrina? Or Christian leader Pat Robertson's advocating the assassination of a democratically elected head of state. Or various lunatic rantings by Westboro Baptist Church. Or recent sectarian violence by protestant paramilitaries in N Ireland.

I could go on, but hopefully other readers will get the idea by now even if you don't.

If you want to write a briefing which is just a sequence of cherry-picked stories (some of which were very, shall we say politely, misrepresented) about 'those awful Muslim fanatics' thats up to you. Briefing is too polite a word for it though.

Thanks for the insinuations and accusations of hysteria in your second paragraph. Eg "Ignoring the plight of women, gays, and Christians in the Arab and Muslim world while hysterically ranting about our "anti-Muslim pro-Zionist political agenda...".
Actually I did neither of those things. I would also criticise someone who pretended all was rosy in the Muslim world and that Jews / Americans / Christians / Gays / whites / Zoroastrians were the predominant source of hatred today. It's just sloppy thinking, aimed at encouraging division rather than helping any objective understanding.

"not very many reasonable or serious thinkers think that "pro-Zionist" is really a slur any more"

Fascinating, and nor do I. I was using it as an adjective, not a slur. What 'political community' do you accuse me of belonging to exactly?

Only someone who approaches the article looking to vindicate him will accept his "of course there are other causes of terrorism, but American and Britain brought this upon themselves" as anything but blaming the victim and excusing the victimizers (or someone who, as suggested above, is being deliberatively obtuse).

Others here have also pointed out how you twisted what he was quoted as saying. I guess you don't trust readers here to make conclusions which fit with your own.

It would behoove you to avoid ad-homs about research or reading skills when you get called out for lying and then are incautious enough to link to articles which fail to confirm your lies. Neither of the links you provided came close to demonstrating that...- ad-homs can make you sounds more credible when you're on the right side of a debate, but when you're patently wrong lashing out just makes you sound like an idiot.

Are you claiming there is no discrimination by religion in Israeli law? The links I provided both contained information about the "The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law". Before you accuse me of lying again, type it into Google. Or here are ayou could also try here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0808/p06s03-wome.html?worldNav or here: http://web.amnesty.org/wire/September2004/Israel

You may find this article interesting: http://www.jewschool.com/2005_01_01_archive.php

So if I'm lying (never mind just mistaken!) lets have some evidence of it please.

I'll keep my opinions of prople who start sentences with "It would behoove you to avoid ad-homs" to myself. I was trying to make some serious points without descending into pathetic insinuations, name-calling and pretentious language.

You're starting to get absurd:

• The Ukrainian neo-Nazis, Cindy Sheehan, the AP as a whole, the reporters who got dismantled by Gen. Honore in New Orleans, many people in the State Department, and French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy are not Muslims. There's only so long that I can continue to point out the obvious to you.

• I’m reserving a special spot in this comment for the following criticism from you: What about media racism in early comparisons of white 'finders' and black 'looters' after hurricane Katrina? Or Christian leader Pat Robertson's advocating the assassination of a democratically elected head of state.
  Now, throughout our conversations, I've suggested that you make things up as you go along - that you substantiate your accusations with neither careful research nor sound reasoning. And in response, you list several past acts of discrimination that you say we don't address as evidence of cherry-picking "only hatred that comes from Muslims". Presumably, if you're not just pulling any random example you can find in a desperate attempt to climb out of the rhetorical and argumentative ditch you've dug yourself into, then actually mentioning these things would have been evidence of the opposite - that we do in fact try to call attention to prominent acts of discrimination, hatred, and bigotry across the board. Otherwise, you'll always be able to dig up buried stories that even people on the blogosphere miss - I'm sure you'll agree that no post can cover everything, and so the goal is to cover the most prominent stories.
  Which is why it was a particularly poor argumentative move to castigate us for not addressing the 'find'/'loot' media controversy and the Pat Robertson/Hugo Chavez fiasco - given that WE DID cover it in the previous post. So either you didn't do the most cursory research into Hatewatch before accusing us of vile bigotry or you did do that research and you're outright lying about it. Either way, you've helped us establish that there's plenty of attention paid to non-Muslim forms of hatred, and made yourself look like a wild-eyed hysteric in the process.

• The story about Eric Kugel broke after we had finished writing last week's post (name of the Congressman, incidentally, is Rep. Darrell Issa, a Christian Arab - even when you mention specific incidents, you basically ignore the dimensions which effect non-Muslim, non-male Arabs. You really out to be more careful) It will be included in next week's post. Ditto on the Vatican thing. If you doubt our willingness to criticize Jewish extremism or Catholic bigotry, I suggest that you read previous posts. Again, there's a limit to how many times I can state the obvious to you.

• You very much did ignore the suffering of women, gays, and Christians in the Arab and Muslim world by implying that we didn't address the suffering of Arabs or Muslims when all of these people are Arabs or Muslims - so either they're not Arab or Muslims (false by assumption) or when their suffering was pointed out to you, you ignored it and stated that it didn't exist (which is, after all, what you did). Again, ascertaining your motive is difficult, but there are only a very few political communities where labeling someone "pro-Zionist" is a prima facie insult. Which one is between you and the pseudo-radical academic community that you doubt belong to.

• It's difficult to supply evidence that someone is lying - there are no articles written out there about how a Jew won't get expelled from Israel for falling in love with an Arab. The link you provide certainly does not imply that the Citizenship and Entry law throws people out of Israel for falling in love. When it was passed in 2003, it was odious, but it did not make falling in love a crime. Perhaps you might have been better off with a little less rhetorical exuberance and a little more accuracy. Which brings up one more thing: the law was passed in 2003 - if you think that leaving it out of a bimonthly roundup of recent hatred, discrimination, and bigotry constituted evidence of intentional oversight, then you're as dense and hysterical as your poor argumentation makes you out to be.

Regarding the “Loot versus Find” Controversy, it might help to ask the people who actually wrote the captions (two different people witnessing two different events) why each chose the term they did

From the one who wrote “found:"

"I wrote the caption about the two people who 'found' the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water - we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow. I wouldn't have taken in, because I wouldn't eat anything that's been in that water. "

Source:
http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=17204

And the one who wrote “looting:”

"Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."

Source:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/01/photo_controversy/?x

In other words, each journalist chose the terms they did in the caption of their respective photographs because of what they witnessed the subjects doing. The person who went into someone's business and takes stuff that clearly belonged to someone else was called a "looter" wheras the person who took stuff that was floating away down the street was called a "finder."

Go peddle phony charges of racism somewhere else.

Thorley,
The Hatewatch briefing which included the loot/find controversy also included a link to the quotes you provide, which you feel are dispositive on the point that racism played no part in the captioning. I'm less certain, but certainly there is a genuine controversy here, one that it would behoove people who track contemporary disputes over discrimination and bigotry would be remiss not to call attention to. If those quotes are as overwhelmingly clear as you think, then there's no harm in saying "lots of people think this was racism - go here and come to your own conclusions." Surely if the choice is between ignoring a controversy or presenting all sides of a controversy, space permitting the latter is superior.