Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Nov 8/10:

"Members of the Steering Committee, fellow parliamentarians, Ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by saying how delighted I am to see so many of you from around the world, gathered here in Ottawa for the second annual conference of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism.

It is a sign, not only of your commitment to our common cause, but also of the momentum established at the London Conference last year. It is, therefore, a great sign of hope.

History teaches us that anti-Semitism is a tenacious and particularly dangerous form of hatred. And recent events are demonstrating that this hatred is now in resurgence throughout the world. That is why the work of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism has never been so important or timely as it is now.

On behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I commend you and support you in the great and important work that you are doing.

I would like to thank Minister Jason Kenney, for inviting the ICCA to Ottawa, and for his outstanding record of leadership in combating anti-Semitism.

I would like also to thank my introducer and friend, Scott Reid, Chair of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, and Mario Silva, Vice Chair, for organizing this conference.

And I would like to thank all my colleagues in the Parliament of Canada here today, including Professor Irwin Cotler, for their dedication to your mission.

Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, two weeks ago I visited Ukraine for the first time.

In Kiev I laid a wreath at Babi Yar, the site of one of the numerous atrocities of the Holocaust. I was left there with much the same impression as I had in Auschwitz in 2008 - that such horrors defy all comprehension.

At the killing grounds of Babyn Yar, I knew I was standing in a place where evil - evil at its most cruel, obscene, and grotesque - had been unleashed. But while evil of this magnitude may be unfathomable, it is nonetheless a fact.

It is a fact of history. And it is a fact of our nature - that humans can choose to be inhuman. This is the paradox of freedom. That awesome power, that grave responsibility - to choose between good and evil.

Let us not forget that even in the darkest hours of the Holocaust, men were free to choose good. And some did. That is the eternal witness of the Righteous Among the Nations. And let us not forget that even now, there are those who would choose evil and would launch another Holocaust, if left unchecked. That is the challenge before us today.

The horror of the Holocaust is unique, but it is just one chapter in the long and unbroken history of anti-Semitism. Yet, in contemporary debates that influence the fate of the Jewish homeland, unfortunately, there are those who reject the language of good and evil. They say that the situation is not black and white, that we mustn't choose sides.

In response to this resurgence of moral ambivalence on these issues, we must speak clearly. Remembering the Holocaust is not merely an act of historical recognition.

It must also be an understanding and an undertaking. An understanding that the same threats exist today. And an undertaking of a solemn responsibility to fight those threats.

Jews today in many parts of the world and many different settings are increasingly subjected to vandalism, threats, slurs, and just plain, old-fashioned lies.

Let me draw your attention to some particularly disturbing trends. Anti-Semitism has gained a place at our universities, where at times it is not the mob who are removed, but the Jewish students under attack. And, under the shadow of a hateful ideology with global ambitions, one which targets the Jewish homeland as a scapegoat, Jews are savagely attacked around the world, such as, most appallingly, in Mumbai in 2008.

One ruthless champion of that ideology brazenly threatens to 'wipe Israel off the map,' and time and again flouts the obligations that his country has taken under international treaties. I could go on, but I know that you will agree on one point: that this is all too familiar.

We have seen all this before. And we have no excuse to be complacent. In fact we have a duty to take action. And for all of us, that starts at home.

In Canada, we have taken a number of steps to assess and combat anti-Semitism in our own country. You will no doubt hear from my Canadian colleagues about the measures we have taken to date.

I will mention for the time being that, for the first time, we are dealing with Canada's own record of officially sanctioned anti-Semitism. We have created a fund for education about our country's deliberate rejection of Jewish refugees before and during the Second World War.

But of course we must also combat anti-Semitism beyond our borders, an evolving, global phenomenon. And we must recognize, that while its substance is as crude as ever, its method is now more sophisticated.

Harnessing disparate anti-Semitic, anti-American and anti-Western ideologies, it targets the Jewish people by targeting the Jewish homeland, Israel, as the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses, perversely, the language of human rights to do so.

We must be relentless in exposing this new anti-Semitism for what it is. Of course, like any country, Israel may be subjected to fair criticism. And like any free country, Israel subjects itself to such criticism - healthy, necessary, democratic debate. But when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack - is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand. Demonization, double standards, delegitimization, the three D's, it is the responsibility of us all to stand up to them.

And I know, by the way, because I have the bruises to show for it, that whether it is at the United Nations, or any other international forum, the easy thing to do is simply to just get along and go along with this anti-Israeli rhetoric, to pretend it is just being even-handed, and to excuse oneself with the label of 'honest broker.' There are, after all, a lot more votes, a lot more, in being anti-Israeli than in taking a stand. But, as long as I am Prime Minister, whether it is at the UN or the Francophonie or anywhere else, Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost. And friends, I say this not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israeli mob tells us all too well if we listen to it, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are a threat to all of us.

Earlier I noted the paradox of freedom. It is freedom that makes us human. Whether it leads to heroism or depravity depends on how we use it.

As the spectre of anti-Semitism spreads, our responsibility becomes increasingly clear. We are citizens of free countries. We have the right, and therefore the obligation, to speak out and to act. We are free citizens, but also the elected representatives of free peoples. We have a solemn duty to defend the vulnerable, to challenge the aggressor, to protect and promote human rights, human dignity, at home and abroad. None of us really knows whether we would choose to do good, in the extreme circumstances of the Righteous. But we do know there are those today who would choose to do evil, if they are so permitted. Thus, we must use our freedom now, and confront them and their anti-Semitism at every turn.

That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the purpose of our intervention today: our shared determination to confront this terrible hatred. The work we have undertaken, in our own countries and in cooperation with one another, is a sign of hope.

Our work together is a sign of hope, just as the existence and persistence of the Jewish homeland is a sign of hope. And it is here that history serves not to warn but to inspire.

As I said on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, Israel appeared as a light, in a world emerging from deep darkness. Against all odds, that light has not been extinguished. It burns bright, upheld by the universal principles of all civilized nations - freedom, democracy and justice.

By working together more closely in the family of civilized nations, we affirm and strengthen those principles. And we declare our faith in humanity's future in the power of good over evil.

Thank you for all you are doing to spread that faith. And thank you for your kind attention.

Thank you very much."

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"I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon."

It has no permalink, but is currently at the top of her site.

I'll begin by noting the term "last week." The videotaped statement was made on a Tuesday. Which leads to point #2.

This apology was an utter and complete lie, to an extent that would embarass the most hardened politician.

If her apology was true, she wouldn't have said what she said in the first place. While laughing. This statement, and her videotaped statement, cannot coexist in one belief set. And it's not like someone born in 1920 could possibly be ignorant of what "go back to Germany and Poland" means.

If her apology was true, she would have apologized that day, or the next day.

Every word of her "apology" is a lie, beginning with the word "I". The only thing she deeply regrets is the need to tell that lie, in order to preserve her job and reputation.

It should preserve neither.

The most likely defense mounted by her apologists is obvious: she's old, and doesn't know what she's saying. My response is 2-fold. One is that if this is true, she should be fired right now. People who don't know what they're saying can't be in a job that revolves around saying things.

The second is that this may be an argument for lowered inhibitions, but it won't make people say things they don't believe. Helen Thomas was asked an open-ended question, and then an open-ended clarification question. She responded with her real beliefs.

A belief that Jews, uniquely among nations, have no right to exist. No right to security. And ultimately, no right to live, save at the sufferance of others.

That's the real Helen Thomas. And she's not alone.

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While I see no good reason to deliberately insult people's beliefs simply for the sake of insulting them, there are pre-eminent reasons to stand up for our own belief, and to take a stand against threats of violence, against attempted intimidation, even by a minority within a community. Indeed, that is all the more reason to not be silent: We cannot let a violent minority of any faith or community determine the terms of debate, and effectively hijack it and become its de facto spokesmen.

As it already is for many people.

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***

IT IS RAINING. Amid the leaf-green patches and high-rise suburbia, the Muslim flock is on the move. As the call to Friday prayers wafts through the doors of the central mosque, an unholy alliance of men walks up the steps and into its entrance. As they remove and shelve their footwear in the foyer, their bland shalwar kameezes, prayer caps, and fistfuls of scraggly hair growth mingle and compete with exaggerated "bomber" jackets, "condom" hats, and goatee beards. But women, all of whom are safely tucked into hijabs and niqabs, move to an unobtrusive side entrance of the mosque.

The car park nearby is, as is usually the case, a scene of confusion. The non-Muslim policeman on duty is feeling the pressure. Muslims in this community, it appears, do not know how to park their cars, or at least, not around each other. Out of necessity, the ground of the car park itself is not a flat, smooth tarmac: it consists entirely of small, but sizeable, jagged rocks that pre-emptively puncture the ambitions of opportunistic speeders, who would care to exhibit the marvels of their machines. For the more likely that young, fertile, non-Muslim women live and reside in a vicinity, the greater are the efforts invested into displaying male plummage.

But there are males who are aware that sabotaging this holy day in the service of reproductive pursuits is not usually the same as siding with God. As their souped-up, low-slung cars cruise into this arena that is a car park under heavy siege, some of them dutifully decide that it is now appropriate, perhaps, to stop pumping out hip-hop and bhangra. And when the inhabitants of these vehicles finally emerge, together they look like an odd lot. Most conform to the usual urban "rude-boy" stereotype, given how obvious their efforts are in trying to appear "accidentally" attractive; the rest look as if they have just returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca: moustaches are trimmed, beards are not, and the trousers of their long, white jilbabs are jacked above the ankles.

It has long been thus: welcome to this outpost of Islamic civilisation, a colony where the stridency of the faithful collides with vogues that were once confined to the underclass of non-Muslim British society. Muhammad is not just the newest, and the final, of God's prophets; Muhammad is the newest, and the final, of the bling-bling superstars. Since the Rushdie Affair, and more recently the Cartoon jihad, even the most irreligious of the street-savvy Muslim rude-boys have come to know of the new universal limits: nobody disses Mo, the Final Gangster of all time and a Mercy to all the worlds.

Such are the strong sensibilities of those Muslims who are deprived of all high culture, and have only a very nominal sense of their own religious background. If you drew Muhammad sporting gold jewellery, a tailor-made condom hat, a goatee, wraparound orange shades, and tell him to strike a pose, they will not be amused. They will not giggle at how "hard" the prophet is. And, to paraphrase from the movie Pulp Fiction, they will go jahiliyya on your ass. Mo's turf is the entire planet, and his homeboys, which range from imams to the most ridiculous of their underclass congregants, are busy trying to strut their stuff on it.

And many are succeeding.

***

AS I WALK into the prayer hall of the mosque, the signs of this being a place for worship are clear: the carpets are arranged in the direction of Mecca, stacks of Korans line the shelves, prayer beads swing from cupboard handles, and an imam is addressing his congregation with a typical sermon, a tedious khutbah admonishing them all and steadfastly calling them to the way of God. By now, the mosque is packed.

Having once belonged to the ranks of believers, I have always understood that heartfelt prayer is to a man's turbulent mind what water is to a flame. For some people, prayer encourages inner tranquillity and peace, and subdues their seething waves of anger, the fiery discontent that simmers away in their heart. And this is an end in itself for some faiths. Not so for Islam: congregational prayer has always been preferred over individual worship; prayer is just one step on the pathway to mobilising human action within a community. The mosque is more than just a Muslim church; it is like the equivalent of the old Roman forums.

As such, there is little in the way of serenity to be found in mosques. Instead, other things occupy the minds of these congregants. After the prayers, and once the imam's appeal to God to aid the Muslim "resistance" in Palestine, Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan and so on, ad nauseum, is finally over, I walk over to near where a discussion in Urdu is taking place among some men, including the imam. They are talking about how the police apparently like causing their community trouble.

Not so long ago, the area nearby the central mosque was swamped with media reporters and photographers, after terror arrests had been made of some Muslim men living in the vicinity, men who were thought to have been plotting to kidnap a British Muslim soldier and behead him as punishment for aiding the "dirty kuffar". The embarrassment of the community and its leaders was palpable. The chairman of the mosque tried to take the mature line during the whole fray and declared that the raids were obviously part of a government conspiracy to make upstanding, well-respected, and peace-loving Muslims look bad. And the media, which was promptly dubbed by the community as an arm of an anti-Islamic war machine, searched in vain for reasonable concerns coming from within about radical Muslims.

The press did encounter some other interesting things however. One was a sign of the importance attached to good manners by Muslims in the community, as seen in one press photo: a few women, one of whom is pushing her child's buggy, are walking down the street. All are clad in dark niqabs. One of these upstanding, peace-loving Muslim women, who has spectacles jutting out in front of the slit that allows her eyes to peek through, proceeds to salute the flood of press and photographers by sticking two fingers up at them.

***

I WANT TO ask the imam of this mosque something. Incompetents like him sometimes amuse me. I get my chance when the discussion group finally disperses and he steps away towards the doors.

"Assalaamu Alaikum", I say. I smile and hold out my hand.

"Wa-alaikum salaam" he replies. He shakes my hand, but only by tentatively gripping my fingers, not the palm. Arrogant sod.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I'd like your advice on a couple of things, if that's okay."

He is not looking at me. He seems rather distracted by the shape of the door he was just heading towards.

"Please be quick. I am in rush."

Okay. I begin with a random question.

"My professor says that natural selection is the only process that generates life on this earth. What does Islam have to say about this?"

He looks at me for a few seconds, puzzled. "Evolution? Evolution?" he asks. I nod.

"Yaar, it is not allowed. All mad dreams." He waves his hand dismissively.

Huh.

"Okay, I'll look into that. The other thing is that Hizb-ut-Tahrir has been tellling me to join their group to implement the caliphate. They say it's obligatory for me as a Muslim to join and help them to work towards this. What do I do? Are they right?

"Aray yaar, these kids. Small groups. No knowledge. Nothing."

"So what should I say to them?"

"Ignore. Ignore".

"But how are they wrong?"

He is tiring of this conversation.

"They are not knowing".

"They don't know what?"

"Uff, do not ask me such things".

"What?"

But he walks off, with nary a salaam in the wind.

***

THE BELIEVERS ARE now feeling suitably chastised and worked up in equal measure, and they file out of the mosque. But there are those for whom the opportunity to chastise has only just begun. As worshippers leave the mosque, they are handed leaflets by Hizb-ut-Tahrir, leaflets that usually rail against an ongoing war against, apparently, Islam, as well as this and that obstacle to the implementation of the mighty khilafah, a universal Islamic state that is said to be the necessary solution given the group's lengthy diagnosis of the ills availing the Muslim world. Usually young, in their 20s and 30s, the supporters of the group are a waste of a generation. They mark out their territory in front of the mosque with a stall selling books and magazines, and their junior supporters, typically smartly suited and booted, coolly patrol the vicinity in search of unsuspecting Muslims who have not yet realised the potentials of their faith. The flyers and leaflets they hand out freely are all paid out of their pockets.

I walk over to the stall, where a few people are already talking animatedly. Or rather, the designated person looking after the stall is gesticulating energetically. He is not pleased. Your Muslim brothers and sisters are being massacred around the world by the West, he says. But there is a hint of embarassment in the questioner's face at being subjected to such an unexpected display of emotion. No matter how privately posed a question on world affairs may be, it is a religious obligation for the Hizb-ut-Tahrir speaker to spread word of the injustices perpetrated against Muslims far and wide. Any conversation is explored for opportunities for howling oratory. But what is also clear from this spectacle is that senior members of the group are carefully observing the member's performance from the sidelines. And he knows it.

After a while, the man with the question purchases some literature and moves on. I pretend to be looking at a book entitled "The Economic System of Islam". The guy in charge of the stall now turns his attention to me. He seems quite aware that I was in earshot of his little rehearsed monologue.

"Assalaamu Alaikum, brother", he says.

"Wa-alaikum salaam", I reply.

He says nothing, but keeps looking at me expectantly.

"So", I say, smiling.

"Brother, have you been given one of these leaflets?" He holds out one for me to take. I already have one. His accent is a slurred English, although he is clearly more articulate than the imam. I have had many run-ins with suburban mujahideen such as these elsewhere, and I know their type well.

"Actually, no", I lie. "So, what's a khilafah? What does it look like?".

He is pleased at the question, but before answering he quickly glances around to gauge earshot potential. He already knows his seniors are listening.

"Brother, the Islamic khilafah is the Islamic State. It was destroyed in 1924, and ruling by Islam in the state and society ceased", he says emphasising the last word. "Ruling by Islam ceased when the khilafah was destroyed by corrupt rulers who were agents of the kuffar [infidels]".

Huh.

"Brother, the implementing of the khilafah is a great obligation upon each and every Muslim. It is haram [forbidden] to remain for more than three days without a pledge to a khaleefah being on your neck. It is haram to rule by anything other than Islam and to stay silent about the implementation of kufr laws over us".

His voice is carrying across the courtyard and he promptly shifts to third-person.

"Due to this, Muslims all over the world are sinful in the sight of Allah and they will all receive punishment except those who involve themselves in establishing the khilafah and restore the ruling by that which Allah has revealed. The sin will not be lifted from their necks until the khilafah is established, and whosoever dies without a bay'ah [oath of allegiance to a would-be khaleefah] on his neck will die the death of jahiliyyah [ignorance]."

As Americans are fond of saying: like, whoa.

"So, it is obligatory for every Muslim to help establish the khilafah?", I ask.

"Yes, brother". He looks at me pointedly. "The daleel [evidence] is laid out in the Koran and the Sunnah, and any Muslim who refuses to help establish the khilafah has committed a clear act of kufr and this takes them outside the fold of Islam".

His mention of apostasy is pregnant with implications of punishment by death. And by this time, more of his colleagues are gathering around to listen to this exchange.

"So, you're basically saying: it's obligatory for every Muslim to be subject to all the laws and customs of Islam but the only way for this to come about is by establishing the khilafah, right?"

"Brother, it's not me who is saying this". He holds up a Koran. "Rather, this is God's command to each of us as laid out in the Koran and Sunnah. To be ruled by Islam is an obligation upon our necks. Establishing the khilafah is the only method for establishing Islam over our heads. Only in the presence of the khilafah can the laws of Islam exist and in its absence they are suspended. Brother, there is a very important, well-known Shari'ah principle that says: that which is necessary to achieve an obligation is itself an obligation".

Much of this explains why many of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir members I have met think themselves superior to those Muslims who are considerably more religious than themselves. If you happen to believe that you are already working towards the greatest obligation, that of establishing the khilafah, then all the other religious stuff can just, well, get in line.

"Isn't that principle illogical, though?", I reply. "That's like saying: It's obligatory to free slaves, so it's therefore obligatory to keep slaves so we can free them".

The area goes quiet. The man behind the stall is unsure of how to respond.

"Who's talking about slaves here, brother?"

This is the best response he can come up with?

"What is your name?" comes a voice from behind him. A fat man with spectacles steps forward.

"How is that relevant?"

"Because you do not have knowledge. You clearly need to gain knowledge. If you are going to ask such questions, you should discuss these matters in greater detail with us - in private".

It seems I have touched upon a criticism that his colleagues were not trained to publicly respond to.

"Actually, you haven't answered my original question", I reply.

"God's logic is not the same as your logic. These things cannot be understood unless one has understand the proofs as laid out in the Koran and Sunnah, and this means learning the process of extracting them, by first having knowledge of how one may reason about the manaat [reality] of the text".

He seems touchy.

"What's the difference between your version of Islam and that of this mosque's?", I ask.

"There are no versions of Islam. There is only one Islam, that of God and His Prophet. Who are you to be asking such questions?", he says.

***

THERE IS ACTUALLY not much difference between the "moderates" and Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Islamic teachings stipulate that if a Muslim ever happens to find himself in a position of power, no matter where he is, then there is a clear religious obligation upon him to implement the laws of Islam. That is what Muslims usually described as moderate or traditional believe. The main difference is that moderates believe that the establishing of Islamic Shari'ah is conditional, since it depends upon having a Muslim in power in the first place. If there is no Muslim in power, then there is no religious obligation to reach that point. But of course, they have every other desire to implement Shari'ah, given that Islam's own vision of itself has become locked such that it cannot pretend in any way to exist as a minority culture. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, on the other hand, believes there are no strings attached in the pursuit of power. The reign of Islam is religiously obligatory, and whatever leads to it also becomes automatically obligatory. Both are deeply anti-semitic, anti-women, homophobic, anti-science, and anti-freedom. They are dangerous movements and need to be combatted strenuously. Moderates and militants differ in degree, not in kind. One is not the solution to the other.

In fact, militant Islamists spend more marketing effort in distancing themselves from the moderates than vice-versa. The more militant a group is, the more effort they spend in delegitimising those who are less so. Hizb-ut-Tahrir markets itself as being heavily divergent from moderates, and constantly brings attention to what it sees as huge errors in the moderate position. While there is little of actual substance between the two, given the main difference is over a question of whether a certain principle is to be expressed conditionally or not, most Muslims have come to accept Hizb-ut-Tahrir's line that the differences to, and errors in, the moderates are huge.

Moderate imams and their colleagues therefore face a dilemma. On the one hand, they refuse to take on the ideology of radical Islamists for fear of looking incompetent to Muslims at large; on the other hand, by refusing to police the radicals the imams look incompetent to non-Muslims at large. The truth is that they are incompetent on both counts; radical Islamists and the not-so radical imams are not so terribly far apart in their aspirations. One seeks to advance their cultural supremacism in a clear-cut way by installing a universal Islamic state, and the other seeks to spread it diffusely, with weakest areas being targeted first. Differences between the two are mostly down to questions over methodology.

The solution adopted in the face of the dilemma is thus: Most Muslim leaders and communities attempt to alleviate their public incompetence by shifting the burden of action onto non-Muslims, claiming that unless they start acting responsibly by stop acting so "belligerently" towards Muslims, then "small groups with little knowledge" will flourish and be attracted towards extreme ideas. Indeed, the chairman of the mosque described previously has updated this argument of late: these extreme groups, which range from Hizb-ut-Tahrir to al-Qaeda, are all government conspiracies.

***

NOW I FEEL rather more uncomfortable than I did when I entered the mosque's vicinity. There are plenty of people milling around me, but there is also this group of unimpressed-looking men asking me who I am and what I am up to. The fat Hizb-ut-Tahrir man with spectacles is trying his best to be intimidating, but he seems unsure as to whether I'm buying it. I'm not.

"Let me ask you, what if it turns out to be true that those who were arrested last month actually were planning to murder that British Muslim soldier?", I ask.

"Astaghfirullah. Let me ask you, you call that kafir a Muslim? Let me ask you, where is the evidence that these well-respected, peace-loving community members have done wrong? Show me! People are supposed to be innocent until proved guilty, yet the kuffar accuse Muslims of being guilty through trial by media. The kuffar accuse us advocating a police state, yet try to silence Muslims so they can justify their foreign policy! Why? So they can get on with the butchering of Islam and abuses of Muslims across the world!" He jabs his finger violently in my direction. "You need to smell the coffee! Tell me, where do you stand? Do you support the harm done against this Muslim community?"

"I think you're hysterical", I say.

"Hysterical? Hysterical? What about our Muslim sisters and children in Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan? Tell me, do they have no right to be hysterical about their situation? Do you expect us all to just sit back and enjoy seeing our Muslim sisters being ripped of their honour at the dirty hands of the kuffar? Especially when an apostate aids the kuffar in abusing their dignity and livelihoods? Do you expect us to stay silent and instead dance to Bush and Blair's tune? Tell me!"

"You're misguided, aren't you?"

"This is a Muslim area. Get out", says one of his comrades.

"Actually, sunshine, this is my country."

Now several guys are facing me. Some step closer. But there are many people still in the vicinity.

"You would contemplate attacking me? For what? What do you think you can get away with in broad daylight?", I ask.

"I do not suffer apostates", the fat man says.

"You want to take over this country? Over my dead body".

He stares at me directly. His look is almost apologetic.

"Yes, exactly. That is the material point".

And they chuckle.

This article has been adapted from a book that Adil is currently writing.

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Religious Hate:

• Muslim fanatics committed mass murder, killing almost 200 people in India and tens in multiple attacks across the Kashmir. Six people were also murdered by Islamists in Malaysia. Religiously-inspired murders also occurred in the Philippines and in Afghanistan. Four people were killed in two bomb attacks in Thailand. Multiple bomb blasts wrecked a resort in Turkey, injuring 10. In Somalia, multiple battles resulted in over 60 deaths (the LA Times on the fighting in Somalia: "Islamists Sow Calm, and Concern, in Southern Somalia" - seriously).

• The great Hezbollah victory being celebrated on the Arab street was achieved through the indiscriminate targeting and murder of 123 Israeli children. These children were killed by missiles and rockets loaded with shrapnel and ball bearings, specifically designed to tear through flesh instead of impacting infrastructure. A group of pictures demonstrating these criminal weapons includes a shredded metal sign: "Warning: Children Are In the Way". It's the sign you see outside schools, kindergartens, etc.
  Don't just blame Hezbollah - the most sophisticated rocket the Palestinians have ever launched also landed in an Israeli schoolyard
  
  [This entry originally stated that Hezbollah was responsible for the deaths of 123 children. This is incorrect. There were 43 Israeli civilians killed, including children, by Hezbollah rockets. 119 IDF soldiers fell in the field. 123 is the number of children murdered by Palestinian terrorism, not Hezbollah rockets. We apologize for the error]

• For those of you who are tuning in after a couple weeks' break, Iran is still dedicated to the destruction of Israel, which they consider to be the duty of all Muslims. Hezbollah agees. So does Hamas Just a little FYI.

• The thing about Asian Muslims wanting to destroy Israel? Also true for British Muslims: "Israel is a cancer that Islam will eradicate". True to President Bush's description of Islam, this destruction is set to proceed in a peaceful fashion.

• Anyone can deny that six million Jews perished in the Nazi Final Solution. But it takes the Iranians to work in some quality Christ-killing references in their cartoons. Why bloodsuckers? That's what we can never figure out. Surely just throwing out the phrase "babyeating Jew" is punchier than "blood-suckers... who prepare matzos from human blood" - which if nothing else is kind of repetitive. That's not even an elegant phrase... Ah well, maybe it sounds better in the original Egyptian-dialect Arabic.

• A Muslim man shot up 6 people in a Seattle Jewish center, killing 1. He said that he was angry at Israel and shooting in reaction to events in the Middle East - which was somehow not enough to declare him a terrorist. But at least the FBI was willing to admit it was a hate crime - officials wouldn't even go that when a Baltimore Hebrew University building got firebombed last month. No way to even guess what the motive might have been, after all.

• A Catholic priest was knifed in Turkey by someone opposed to his religious beliefs. The BBC doesn't deign to give any details about the attacker's religion, but we'll take a gamble on the possibility that he was not a Protestant, Jew, Hindu, or Buddhist. Oh look - it turns out that he is a Muslim - wonder how that slipped through the final edit. Of course, the BBC rushed to inform its readers that the attacker is mentally ill. Just like the mentally ill Seattle Muslim who shot up a Jewish center last month and who, by virtue of his mental illness, could not have been committing terrorism. Or the mentally ill Los Angeles Muslim who shot up an El Al counter in 2002 and who, by virtue of his mental illness, could not have been committing terrorism. Except then a year passed and he didn't seem so ill and he explained - as he had been saying all along - that he really was very intentionally shooting Jews in the interest of his political cause. So then it was terrorism.

• Arab children are brainwashed to hate Jews and to want kill them. No, no, don't argue with us. Normal children don't talk like this, no matter how horrible their lives have been:

  A dozen small boys, not yet teenagers, were among relatives gathered at a funeral in Gaza on Friday for a young man killed in clashes between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops. Asked if they would learn from the death of 19-year-old Mohammad Maher Shahine, killed while watching Thursday's fighting as Israel stepped up an offensive in the strip, the boys answered almost with one voice. "No. We want to be martyrs too," they said, seemingly oblivious to the danger of following around bands of gunmen as they battle more powerful Israeli troops, who are backed by tanks and helicopters.

  If you have liberal friends who might not be able to picture what that this like, here are photos of Palestinian fighters hiding behind Palestinian children and here are photos of Hezbollah fighters hiding in crowds of Lebanese children.
  
  Why the children should play their assigned human-shield roles with such enthusiasm is explained in part by the recently-exposed Summer Camp O' Genocide put on for Palestinian kids:

  [Camp director] Hisham launches into a monologue on history from his perspective: "We teach the children the truth. How the Jews persecuted the prophets and tortured them. We stress that the Jews killed and slaughtered Arabs and Palestinians every chance they got. Most important, the children understand that the conflict with the Jews is not over land, but rather over religion. As long as Jews remain here, between the [Jordan] river and the sea, they will be our enemy and we will continue to pursue and kill them. When they leave we won't hurt them."...
  Fadl, 11, lives near the beach. His mother is American, his father Palestinian. They lived in Virginia until a few years ago when they came to visit his father's family and so that Fadl could learn Arabic... Regarding Jewish-Arab relations, Fadl is quite decisive: "I think that what they are teaching us here about Islam and the Jews is correct. There will never be peace with them."

  So the next generation: also not looking good on the Israeli-Palestinian peace front. It's probably because of the Occupation of Gaza the West Bank all of Israel.

• Being a vocal Christian in Palestinian towns is becoming an increasingly bad idea. Must be the Occupation - it makes Palestinians hate Christians.

• Speaking of vocal Christians, U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris has a poor understanding of the Federalist Papers:

  U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws." The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.

  Begging the obvious question: is legislating sin worse than legislating morality? It seems like they'd be opposites. To the extent that conservatives have been complaining for years that the government shouldn't legislate morality, it only seems fair that politicians should be allowed to legislate sin. And we're all about fairness.

• You know what has to suck? Being a woman in the Muslim world. If you date an Italian guy, you die. If you commit adultery, you die. If you get raped, you get accused of adultery. Then you die.
  Sometimes, you don't get killed - you're actually allowed the honor of committing suicide:

  For Derya, a waiflike girl of 17, the order to kill herself came from an uncle and was delivered in a text message to her cellphone. "You have blackened our name," it read. "Kill yourself and clean our shame or we will kill you first." Derya said her crime was to fall for a boy she had met at school last spring. She knew the risks: her aunt had been killed by her grandfather for seeing a boy.

  And there's even a chance for a bonus if you're luck lucky enough to live close to Jews. Then, you can not only avoid being murdered but you can even pick up some extra family honor by blowing yourself up next to other women and children. In fact, the armed part of oh-so-moderate Palestinian President Abbas's Fatah party is making it even easier - they've put together an entire brigade of female suicide bombers last month.

• If you're under Muslim rule, don't commit blasphemy, miss prayer, or convert from Islam. Otherwise, you die (actually, you only get jailed for blasphemy - the other two, though, yeah, you die).

• Political Islam is incompatible with Western civilization. If this was not an obvious and demonstrable fact before, we submit to you that hating soccer is incompatible with the entire tone and tenor of the European legacy. If Islamists controlled Britain, they'd kill you for playing soccer. Islamists actually do control Somalia, and they actually do kill people for watching soccer. Killing two people for watching the World Cup - who does that? Back when the African continent was just a particularly violent whirlwind of chaos and conflict instead of a front in the global war against Islamism, countries fighting each other would stop border wars so that everyone could enjoy the World Cup. If the beautiful game is to be taken as an index of civilization (and let's be honest, it's art, music, and then soccer) then even the warlords who tried to destroy Africa for decades are more civilized than these barbarians. Who kills people for watching the World Cup? What's next, no puppies? ++

• Palestinian terrorists kidnapped two Fox News journalists. The journalists were held for almost two weeks. Then before they were released they were forced at gunpoint to say they had converted to Islam (or as the New York Times put it - they were released unharmed). Then the Palestinian Authority admitted that they knew where they were kept since day one, and had pretty much been stringing the rest of the world along.

• At this point, does it matter that the Palestinians in Gaza celebrated and handed out sweets when they heard that Israeli soldiers had been killed and kidnapped by Hezbollah? Yes, it does: because it shows the insane stupidity of people who compare Israel to Nazi Germany. Does anyone imagine that Jews in Nazi-Occupied Europe would have been allowed to hand out sweets if Germans were killed by their enemies? No - they would have been wiped out to the last child, because that was the goal of the Nazi project. It is not Israel's goal to commit genocide against the Palestinians, you idiots. And contrary to AFP's insinuation that Israel blitzed Lebanon, we've yet to read history books describing Nazi efforts to coordinate with the Red Cross and get food and medicine to civilians in countries they invaded. Because those were some of the varied efforts that the IDF made to help the Lebanese. Now the interesting question: if there's no rational way to compare Israel to Nazi Germany - and yet these comparisons have become disgustingly commonplace in even mainstream liberal activism - then what pathology is causing people to assert them with such vehemence?

• Arab-Israeli rights groups are calling for an investigation into the comments about Arabs that Yitzhak Ben-Zvi wrote in the ultra-Orthodox "Hassidic World" newspaper. Ben-Zvi mobilized various Torah rulings in an effort to demonstrate that the what the Arabs have done to the Jews is worse than what the Nazis did. Which means that Ben-Zvi is not just a religiously-inspired racist, but also kind of bad at ethics and math. It's not that Iran doesn't have ambitions to be as effective as Hitler was, just that the fact that Ben-Zvi is writing means that they haven't realized those ambitions.
  You know what? We haven't been harsh enough on the lunatic fringe of Israeli ultra-Orthodoxy here recently. Here's a link to a story from earlier this year, when ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem expressed their displeasure regarding an autopsy by rampaging through a forensic facility Presumably, Hashem, while not in favor of medical procedures on dead people, is a huge fan of destroying buildings and instruments that could help people who are still alive.

• Jews are being blamed by Muslims for stopping Muslims from killing other people:

  The genocidal president of Sudan, Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, absolutely refuses to allow entry to U.N. peacekeepers to supplement the inadequate, though brave, African Union mission in Darfur. Declaring that these would be "colonial forces"... al-Bashir accuses Jewish groups of organizing for U.N. intervention. "If we return to the last demonstrations in the United States, and the groups that organized the demonstrations... we find they are all Jewish organizations."

  They're also being blamed by Muslims for encouraging Muslims to kill other people:

  Iraq's parliament speaker Thursday accused "Jews" of financing acts of violence in Iraq in order to discredit Islamists who control the parliament and government so they can install their "agents" in power.

  We're beginning to suspect that Muslim hatred of Jews isn't entirely rational.

Idiotarian Seethings:

• On the morning of Saturday, August 5th, LGF starts monitoring blogosphere buzz about a fake Reuters photograph attributed to photojournalist Adnan Hajj. People are emailing about an embarrassingly bad Photoshopped image of downtown Beirut, with cloned and darkened smoke plums designed to give an exaggerated impression of an Israeli attack. Within a couple hours, Left and Right identifies the repeating elements created by the stamp, ending debate about whether (or how) the photo was doctored. By early Sunday morning, Reuters issues a picture kill for the photo.
  The day that began with a black eye for Reuters soon becomes a total disaster. Some time around early evening, the Jawa Report's Dr. Rusty Shackleford posts evidence of a second Photoshopped Hajj picture that has slipped by Reuters editors - a single Israeli defensive anti-missile decoy has been transformed through cloning and false captioning into multiple bombs. Meanwhile, Powerline gets an email from a reader with two pictures of a destroyed building, ostensibly damaged overnight by Israeli attacks - except the photos dated a week apart. The scandal jumps into the MSM, and Reuters withdraws all of Hajj's photos from their portfolio.
  By this time, however, MSM photojournalism is fair game. Bloggers begin to pick through the products of biased, anti-Israel stringers. As of this posting, rightwing and pro-Israel bloggers are still discovering, tracking, and posting more evidence of bias, from selective omission to outright hoaxes:
  
  MSM pictures of a girl injured in an Israeli air strike - false by Reuters's admission.
  
  MSM pictures of a Red Cross ambulance bombed by Israel - totally destroyed by Zombie from Zombietime.
  
  MSM reports that Israel used chemical weapons - debunked by forensics experts who examined the bodies.
  
  Zombietime hosts the definitive taxonomy of Reutersgate - digital manipulation, victim staging, object staging, and demonstrably false captions. It is comprehensive in scope, but out of obvious necessity it doesn't recount every single hoax or forgery. As far as the Qana Incident specifically, the EU Referendum has the compiled report on media manipulation. Eight parts and multiple subsections demonstrate the report's description of "a media that seems to have lost its moral base and has forgotten entirely the purpose for which it exists". For what it's worth, the most entertaining way to get a feel for the entire scandal is the justifiably triumphalist mashup All Your Fakes Are Belong to Us. It's stored at the Jawa Report, which is appropriate: as Allahpundit declared when Reuters was forced to withdraw all of Adnan Hajj's photographs, 'twas Rusty killed the beast.

• This is where we publish really snotty and sarcastic remarks made by leftists about the scandal. As they explained at length and with insufferable condescension, only unsophisticated idiots would believe that professional journalists would manipulate images. By all means, enjoy yourselves:
  
  (1) WaPo blogger Jefferson Morley:

  As Hezbollah wins support throughout the Middle East in the aftermath of the Israeli airstrike that killed at least 57 Lebanese civilians over the weekend, an alternative view of the attack is emerging in blogs - that the incident was actually staged by Hezbollah. The Qana conspiracy theory not only underscores how the Internet can misinform (an old story), it also reveals a popular demand for online content that attempts to explain away news reports... On another site, British bloggers asserted that a "Hezbollah official" took control of the scene to orchestrate false photo opportunities with the dead bodies.

  This turned out to be an unfortunate standard to set for moral and journalistic superiority, since all of the casualty reports being passed on by the MSM's news reports was wrong by almost a factor of two. But that's not really what ends up making Morley look like an arrogant fool. Go back and appreciate the dripping sarcasm in his tone when he writes about how dumb a person has to be to believe that anyone "took control of the scene to orchestrate false photo opportunities with the dead bodies". Now watch this undercover video that shows death pimp Salam Daher (aka "Green Helmet", aka "Green Helmet Guy", aka Abu Shadi Jradi, aka Abdel Qader) taking control of the scene to orchestrate false photo opportunities with the dead bodies.
  
  (2) Some Daily Kos wacko:

  Here is really all that you need to know about the Bush partisans. Mere facts stand little chance against their cherished fictions. Bile points the way toward 'truth'. Any inconvenient news can be chalked up to a corrupt media. The enemies of Oceania are expert propagandists... It's the paradox of idiocy. The idiot treats his own misinformed foolishness as a mark of distinction, the height of sophistication. The refusal to see sense is a natural corollary of the inability to see it. The facts are easily explained... If you were the sort of person who listens to Rush Limbaugh... let this selection of his blatherings [sic] stand as a warning that the man is an idiot.

  If the irony of accusing rightists of neglecting facts for cherished fictions (like "the photos are staged" vs. "Israel is evil") made this writer fold into a little black hole of irony, we haven't heard anything about it. Oh, and for what it's worth, the specific doubts about those specific set of Qana pictures were promptly withdrawn by the accusers. But don't let that distract you from the leftist arrogance about how they're so sophisticated in their misappropriation of Orwell.
  
  (3) Marc Cooper:

  [There] are a few basic questions for the Tin Foil Battalion that they don't seem able to answer, surprise, suprise. This particular "theory" presumes some sinister collusion in which many of the key moving parts are award-winning, professional, career MSM journalists who - all of a sudden - have decided to start covering for Lebanese terrorists. Sure, that makes sense.

  What kind of makes this little diatribe dishonest is that it was published just over a week after CNN's Nick Robertson openly admitted that he had lied at the behest of Hezbollah terrorists. But what makes it really special is what a dishonest understanding of journalism it is. Marc Cooper is not an idiot. He knows that, on the ground, bias seeps into news reporting. He's been in journalism classes where people have ranted that America's media is controlled by corporate interests and listened to people insist that this causes bias. Is it really worthy of mockery to suggest that stringers raised in closeknit, fanatic societies would try to do their part to fulfill the genocidal intentions that they were weaned on from birth? You really think a society where mothers say that they "are ready to strap explosives to their children" is raising locals who can put their professional allegiance to neutral photojournalistic practices above their duty to turn the world against the evil Jews?
  
  (4) AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll:

  "It's hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy," said Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor. Carroll said in addition to personally speaking with photo editors, "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described."

  30 years of experience in this business, huh? How very sophisticated and experienced of her. Just to really show how sophisticated and experienced they are, the AP awarded bonuses to their Lebanese photographers. So take that, right-wing bloggers!

• On the other hand, why do people even bother publishing pages and pages of rigorous media and photographic analysis just to prove that the main stream media is a mouthpiece for terrorists? The Washington Post actually turned over their pages to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh so he can explain his side of the "Jews should die" debate. Don't try to justify this as a "both sides of the story" type of thing - American newspapers never turned over their pages to the Axis powers during World War 2, and there were 'two sides' to that story too. Last we checked, Hamas was still explicitly dedicated to the eradication of the Jews in Israel.

• It's times like this when we really believe that Sen. Kennedy is not in prison only because Karl Rove wants to keep him in the Senate:

  Just six months after quitting the all-male social club to which he belonged for 50 years, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is questioning one of President Bush's nominees to the federal bench about his membership in an all-male dining club. "What is your reason for failing to resign from the club any earlier than February 2, 2006?" Mr. Kennedy demanded in writing of Oklahoma lawyer Jerome A. Holmes, nominated to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

  You'd really think that a drunk driving killer would be a little more circumspect in his tone.

• At the progressive Huffington Post, there are open racists publishing their racist pictures. There is also some guy who more or less wouldn't mind another terrorist attack - because it would undermine the Republicans, you see. Three things: (1) he's wrong - an attack would nationalize the election away from Iraq and to national security, which would still be a Republican strength even after an attack (2) someone needs to tell the left that the sentence construction "X but Y" ("support the troops, but...", "don't want another terrorist attack, but...", "Saddam was bad, but..." has now reached the point of self-caricature) (3) is anyone in charge at the Huffington Post? Anyone at all?

• Jimmy Carter is a liar:

  That is a verifiable, obvious, bald-faced lie. Hamas never offered to exchange Shalit in exchange for " the release of 95 women and 313 children". They offered to release information about Shalit in exchange for those women and children under 18. The very minimum that Hamas would ever accept for Shalit was - from the very first moment - all terrorists without blood on their hands. Seriously - from a former President of the United States, right there in the second paragraph, an outright lie.

  He is also a tactless hypocrite, and might very well be a senile idiot. Either way, he certainly does not know how to behave in a way becoming of his former office.

• At some point, being proudly September 10th became a hallmark of defiance on the left. Not in that "we won't let the terrorists change our way of life" kind of defiance, but more in that "we're going to stick it to George Bush by refusing to admit that terrorists are trying to kill us" kind. There's a psychoanalytic dynamic very close to fetishism at work here: yes, they know that it's not really a plot by Rove and that their wild-eyed conspiracy theories make no sense, but they act as if they believe them anyway. But for our purposes, these people are just kind of frivolous.

• Early in July, NRO's Jonah Goldberg did his part to entertain the right-wing blogosphere by tracking down this piece of comedy gold, wherein an ambitious DU denizen attempts to demonstrate that 9/11 was a conspiracy by failing to collapse steel rabbit fencing. The true entertainment only starts, as is often the case in these swamps, when other budding scientists attempt to explain why they too are moved by his demonstration. By all means, enjoy yourselves.
  But there's a serious point here for political discourse, one that often gets lost in the growing populism on both the left and the right: experts are good. Not everyone can do or know the things that they do. It's not just that being an expert causes you to have the knowledge that you need to evaluate things within your field - it's that immersion in a way of thinking that seems to be related to particular objects gets you in the habit of thinking a certain way. It's why chess masters can 'see' a board and topologists can 'see' a knot. Not to be overly pedantic, but it seems like certain objects are easier to understand by thinking in certain ways. An expert has developed cognitive habits as well as broad knowledge. That why an amateur and an expert can know exactly the same amount of things and can be exactly as smart, and the expert might have insights that the amateur might never stumble into.
  Of course, that's beside the point in two ways. First, this guy isn't an amateur in anything - he's just an tool (click through if you want some entertainment). Second, however, this anti-expert populism (most often expressed in blog triumphalism) isn't distributed evenly across the left and right of the political spectrum. To be more specific, when the right challenges ostensible experts, it seems that the people doing the challenging are actually better at the matter at hand than the people being challenged: Allahpundit and Dr. Shackleford are very, very good at Photoshop and that Reuters idiot is very, very not. Meanwhile, on the left, we've got American Apparel checkout workers and Starbucks baristas going toe to toe with MIT architects on the weight that reinforced cross-sections can bear - a matchup hilarious but for the passion with which the checkout workers and baristas insist that they have an opinion that they're entitled to. The urge to debunk the reasoning of experts is dangerous across the board, a seed that can blossom into full-blown anti-intellectualism. It just seems that when the right does it, they end up being right. And that's a difference worth noting.

• Given that Al Gore invented the Internet, it is kind of ironic that he would fail to notice the existence of decentralized media outlets? Then again, if we had an ideological commitment to what passes for sophisticated liberal opinion, we'd do our best to shut out the blogosphere too.

• For the first time ever, we're going to post pictures directly in the Briefing rather than giving you a link. Frankly, we can't take the risk that you'll miss the most the most exquisite condensation of idiotarianism ever. This is from a 21 year old student in Egypt, who received an set of two pictures that were being mailed around the kind of groups that you would expect them to be mailed around. She comments, and we quote, "I believe that this person is one of us, not a cuban guy who fought USA for freedom, he's 10000000 times more worth symbolizing :)". First, the old model of the great resistance leader - "the symbol if [sic] fighting for freedom":
  
  
  
  
  
  And now, the new model of the great resistance leader:
  
  
  
  
  If this picture is not already on American college campuses, it will be soon. It's just too perfect. The mindless imitation of leftist chic, the slightly ugly celebration of charismatic figures who just happens to murder lots of innocent civilians, the total ignorance about the man being venerated. Honestly, now that we see it, we can't believe it actually took this long for some sniveling, resentful activist to get around to making this.

• LGF has a very concise roundup of not-at-all anti-American Leftist strutting about how much they hate the Fourth of July. We quote Ann Coulter, as is our wont on matters such as this, from Treason: "Why is the relative patriotism of the two parties the only issue that is out of bounds for discussion? Why can't we ask: Who is more patriotic - Democrats or Republicans? You could win that case in court."

• July was apparently insufferable moralizers weight loss month. Cindy Sheehan (who's in a heated race with the Plames for the "you don't have to go home but you can't stay here" public awareness trophy) held a July 4th fast in protest of something or other:

  "We have to put our own lives on the line, and I'm willing to do that," said activist Diane Wilson, who pledged to fast until the United States withdraws from Iraq.

  You have to admit, that's real commitment. Death itself before breaking the fast. Or something:

  I [Sheehan] find traveling out of the country very challenging being on a fast. When I was on a layover in Madrid on my way to Venice, Italy yesterday, the closest thing I could find to a smoothie to get a little protein was a coffee with vanilla ice cream in it.

  The interesting question is whether or not these people have really managed to convince themselves that they're laying their own lives on the line. Are they so far into their ideological house of mirrors that they believe their own macho strutting? Speaking of strutting, Hollywood stars and star-ettes also held an anti-Bush hunger strike at the beginning of July, and it too fell through relatively quickly. Which is weird, because you figure someone there must have had Nichole Richie's cell phone number, and she could have easily talked them through a more sustained fast.

• Lefty celebrity blogger and anti-Bush academic Deborah Frisch threatened Jeff Goldstein's kid with death and sexual abuse (why is it that these seething, resentful trolls so easily reach for sexual degradation as their preferred fantasy of revenge - no seriously, what's wrong with these people?). And she goes on and on:

  Like you facist [sic] hypocrites never send threats to liberals. Jeff, you got everything you deserved. At least Dr. Frisch didn't go around pushing the UC-Santa Cruz chancellor to suicide like your chipmunk-faced chink bitch friend Michelle Malkin.

  Charming, really. And progressive! We'd track down those Nietzsche quotes about the corosive ugliness that gives rise to impotent fantasies of revenge, but our books are still in storage from summer. We know, we know - you're disappointed. Maybe next time.

• We're not so sure that members of the MSM should be prosecuted and executed as traitors for leaking state secrets. But we're pretty sure that death is too good for the total moron who thought that TIME should justify security leaks by penning self-serving odes to the press's role as a check on government power. The article requires a good fisking, but the first sentence is an exhibit of such staggeringly bad reasoning and writing that we have to think it's an anti-media plant: "the tension between liberty and security is as old as the Republic - and as new as the latest high-tech listening device". Seriously, who writes like that? Sophomores are embarrassed to write with that combination of heavy-handed pretension and formulaic tripe. If it's not a plant, it could be a a way to screen out anyone of insufficient leftist purity - if you're so ideologically committed that you're able to keep reading this without your brain exploding, they you're on their side and therefore safe. Publishing pictures and camera locations of Secretary Rumsfeld's and VP Cheney's vacation homes - that's just gravy. And it's not as if media leaks ever get soldiers on the battlefield killed. Except for that time that they definitely got 241 Americans killed in Beirut.

• Ladies and Gentlemen, the game is over. There is nothing left for us to do but to solemnly mark this end and to forthrightly evaluate our lives' tasks as either accomplished or naught. A rhetorician's Everest has been scaled, a reporter's arctic conquered. Human motive has met untamed will and has broken it, bending that primordial force toward a single end - to create the epitome of unthinking, reflexively anti-Israel journalistic prose. From the unceasing and chaotic flux of language, Nicholas Blanford and Stephen Farrell of The Times have distilled something pure, something both subtle and sublime. We must imagine that in their struggle to produce this dramatic monument to journalistic thinking and practice, they had to approach their task like great hunters approach game - sometimes coaxing and seducing, other times stalking and mastering. And yet, after what must have been a struggle for them, Blanford and Farrell finally produced their article - and inside they laid before us something so elusive that it had hitherto been glimpsed only fleetingly as it hid among the thick trunks and impenetrable canopies of international media's twisted and aged groves. Now, some of you might say that what Blanford and Farrell produced was something between a suggestive symptom and a definite proof of deeply ingrained, anti-Israel journalistic habits and sensibilities. And sure, you might have a point. But we suggest to you, gentle readers, that there is something beautiful in their argument.
  This is beauty as sublime Form itself, overwhelming us as we try to wrap our minds around the sheer magnitude of their unblinking anti-Israel doublethink. It's almost impossible to underestimate the levels on which this passage is perfect. The blithe logical contradictions, the unthinking impossible obligations, and of course the ever-present hint of a sneer. Turning slowly from the flickering shadows, this article hesitatingly turns us toward the cave entrance until, finally, we can the warmth of the sun on our face. Seriously, it's time for us bloggers to turn the lights out and go home, because it really can't get any better than this.

  Mr Olmert's Government has incurred widespread international criticism for killing civilians, destroying power stations and bridges and for failing to stop Palestinian militants launching home-made rockets into Israel despite sending tanks back into the coastal strip that it evacuated last year.

  It's all here, in this concise passage: using the slimey journalistic trick of inserting an editorial statement as a report about what other people are saying, mindlessly parroting witness claims about Israeli operations, and being so eager to demonize Israel that you totally miss that you are blaming them for using too little and too much force in the same sentence. Ladies and gentlemen, we tell you again, this is prose as art. It will surely inspire all future reflexively anti-Israel sophistication, shining like a brilliant but distant star to be reached for but never reached.

Race and Culture:

• Before we continue, if you haven't read the Weekly Standard expose on how UNIFIL effectively spied on Israel for Hezbollah, you should do so now. When you come back, we can all sit down and discuss this new "internet" thing that you've apparently bumped into.
  Anyway, the UN spent the last month trying to destroy whatever credibility it still had. The United Nations Secretary General - the representative of all of the nations of the world (but not the representative of Hezbollah, which is something he seems to forget) - has been known to show solidarity with Palestinians by standing in front of maps where Israel has been wiped out. Early in the war, Israel hit a UN station that was being used as a shield by Hezbollah fighters. Annan had the nerve to almost immediately accuse Israel of deliberately targeting the UN. This was based on the statement that "Hezbollah firing was not taking place within the immediate vicinity". Both of these claims turned out to be lies. Not just regular lies - very likely these were deliberative lies, since the UN knew quite well that Hezbollah fighters were "all over" the base. They had information that established beyond any doubt that Hezbollah was using the UN base as a shield - so much so that UN officials later used those precise words to describe the situation.

• We started and then deleted introductory commentary for this link more than 20 times. We're at a loss, so you know what, we're just going to describe this picture to you. Behind this link there's a picture of an activist at an anti-Israel rally held last month in San Francisco. To his right is a woman wearing blue and to his left there is a man with a reddish shirt and a backpack. A little behind him someone is holding up a sign with pictures and some slogan, but the only part of the slogan you can make out is the word "now", which has been spelled by replacing the "o" with a peace sign. The man in the center is holding a sign that says "Nazi kikes out of Lebanon".

• Listen, we have a very simple argument for why certain kinds of opposition to Israel - and certainly opposition that is now being openly entertained in media outlets - crosses the line into anti-Semitism. When other countries screw up real bad, at worst their leaders are hunted down and thrown in prison. With the possible exception of the United States, there is no other country that the left fantasizes about literally eradicating as a punishment for its 'crimes'. The Washington Post runs articles suggesting - not advocating, just suggesting - that Israel shouldn't be allowed to exist. French lawmakers - ponder that: lawmakers from the Republic of France - suggest invading Israel (this is same France whose Foreign Minister declared that Iran is "a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region"). "Israel Must Be Destroyed" signs should be a trigger for instant condemnation and marginalization. Instead, it's seriously considered at the highest levels of political discussion...

• ... and at the lowest levels. In the wake of Hezbollah's attack on Israel, liberals at Daily Kos stated in badly paced, saccharine prose that only the Jewish entity stood between the world and an unprecedented utopia:

  Muslims, Jews, and Christians could live in peace without fear of mutual destruction.
  There would be no more need for US AID or justification for Dimona.
  We could bring down the Wall, send prisoners home, and families could be reunited.
  We could dismantle checkpoints, open crossings, and pull down barbed wire fences.
  There would be no more settlements or armed settlers because the people would be united.
  We could replant trees and olive groves and rebuild battered cities.
  No more suicide bombers or sniper fire, and no more dead civilians.
  No more targeted killings and hell-fire missiles, or systematic demolitions.
  Palestinians and Jews could live together and the world could address other issues.
  What a simpler place this world would be
  if there was no need for a Jewish majority - where there would otherwise be none.
  Is it so hard to imagine?

  Don't call him an anti-Semite just because he sounds like the terminal phase of every major failed utopian project - that part where everything is falling apart but the society tries to save the dream one last time by blaming all existing ills on a Jewish element that can be isolated and removed... actually, there's no punchline to that. Don't accuse him of anti-Semitism. It will only feed the martyrdom complex that he's playing up by criticizing Israel (he actually begins with "or is that not allowed?") Seriously, because criticizing Israel on one of the most leftist forums in existence must take a lot of bravery.

• The ugly left: 'it's too bad Ken Lay died, we really wanted him to get raped in prison'. Sure, it's kind of tactless. But aren't you glad to know that the left's gleeful fantasies of revenge via sexual degradation aren't limited to Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, or Jeff Goldstein's kids?

• For a very brief minute while we were doing the research for this post, we had hoped that all we would have to do is post the news that the BBC banned the use of the word dhimmi from their boards and let you pack your bags and head for the hills. But then they changed their minds. And thus you have to trudge through our onerous mini-essays involving Lacanian psychoanalysis, just to get to the good stuff about the idiot Democratic Underground guy who thinks that the rabbit cage he lit on fire means Jews were responsible for 9/11. Or whatever it is he thinks. But anyway, it's the BBC's fault.

• We suspect that the US-led Global War on Terror would have a marginally better chance of succeeding if we could get people in Dearborn, Michigan to stop sending vast sums of money to genocidal terrorists. Sure it might not make a big difference, but still.

• The only question we have about the lawsuit that Lebanon's cabinet was going to file against Israel was whether or not the Hezbollah cabinet members voted for or against it. What? You hadn't heard that Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government? They are - their political alliance won 24 out of 24 seats in the south in last election.

• In Argentina, Iranian-supporting Leftists declared their need to dress up like terrorists and "protect the Iranian embassy from Jews". Really, they just wanted to look thuggish and march through the streets in the kind of mob that provides those kind of leftists with fleeting refuge from their insecurity. But seriously, their excuse for this transparent hate-march-qua-therapy was they were protecting the Iranian embassy. Because Argentinean Jews might attack. Obviously.

• Palestinians hate Secretary Rice because she is a woman and a minority:

  Above and beyond the steady anti-American hatred promoted by the Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders for years, they seem to have a special penchant for hating Condoleezza Rice. Some of the attacks have included expressions of racial hatred, as in an article this week referring to Rice as a "raven" and a previous article that referred to her as "the colored... the dark skinned... the black lady."

  Whether this is similar to the way that progressives hate Michelle Malkin because she is a woman or a minority is something you'll have to work out for yourselves.

• Two Israelis were severely beaten by a group of skinheads in Belgrade. The crowd chanted 'Auschwitz, Auschwitz', while police pointedly did not step in to protect the victims.

• Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took a trip to a Muslim Canossa to beg forgiveness for condemning Hezbollah's act of war against Israel. Apparently, that's out of line now.

• Of the many ugly catchphrases that genuine xenophobes use, "don't bring your primitive customs to my country" is second only to "go back to your own country" in its unblinking coarseness. Keep that warning in mind in order to check yourself as you read about the Egyptian couple in Irvine who enslaved a 12 year old girl and the Saudi couple in Colorado who enslaved and sexually abused a 20 year old woman for four years. Then again, with people marching through American streets chanting "Jews are our dogs", maybe we're closer to Egypt and Saudi Arabia in some parts of the country than it seems.

• Charley Reese thinks that America has a Jewish problem. Charming.

• Of all the bad arguments and outright lies surroundeding Israel's self-defense in the last two months, among the more blood pressure inducing is the accusation of disproportionate force. Disproportionate force in Gaza and in Lebanon. Listen, levels of appropriate and inappropriate force matter in relations between unequal parties - parents and children, states and civilians, etc. These were wars against governments and government entities. It wasn't Israel that choose to give the Palestinians UN observer status and to make the Palestinian Authority into a pseudo-government. It wasn't Israel that choose to let Hezbollah have two cabinet seats and a dozen parliamentary seats in the Lebanese government (and it certainly wasn't Israel's fault that the Lebanese Prime Minister congratulated Hezbollah on starting the war). When Hamas and Hezbollah forces crossed the Blue and Green Lines and attacked Israeli solders, those weren't terrorist acts - they were acts of war by the armed wings of members of the Palestinian and Lebanese governments. Once that happens, all normative bets are off. How much force is too much force is not the problem of the country that has been attacked, with the singular exception of committing war crimes. If it can be proved that Israel committed war crimes, then let's have that debate (and that debate is ongoing, and Israel is winning). But until then, it's not Israel's fault that militarily weaker governments choose to attack them.

• Mel Gibson blah blah blah. The flv is pretty funny though. Also, Denis Leary loves the Red Sox and does not love Mel Gibson.

• Early in July, a Middle Eastern man going through a Texas airport lied about having a laptop. His lie was detected, and he was subsequently searched. It was discovered that the soles of both his shoes had been hollowed out, and that among his possession were a Koran and a 9-volt battery attached to a clock. This man was allowed to board the plane to his destination. How did TSA let this happen? Nobody has any idea.

• Information wants to be free, and information on Wikipedia wants to be very, very free. The online encyclopedia is in the midst something of a minor scandal. Magicians-rights advocate Bill Palmer has been continually removing a link to his magic page from the Cups and Balls entry - because "Wikipedia exposes magic". In response to what he perceives as vandalism, Wikipedia user Shane Avidan just keeps reverting the entry to include the link to Palmer's online museum (Palmer also maintains a don't-explain-tricks advocacy page). Palmer has now gone so far as to passive-aggressively remove the frontpage from his online museum (although the rest of the pages are still accessible through Google). The content of this scandal is obviously minor for everyone but Palmer, but it's a reality check to people immersed in the blogosphere to learn that there are still people who think they can put something online and expect to control who does or does not see it. And before you think that the sensibility of controlling electronic content is limited to the fringe, consider that MSM journalists are still trying to cleanse their articles in light of blogger criticism and lefty bloggers are still implying that their leaked emails are private property. Mr. Palmer, meet Google.

• Hitler is popular again. People are opening up Hitler-themed restaurants in India and selling art made by Hitler in Britain. So we're psyched about that.

A Hopeful Note:

• An Arab journalist called on Palestinians to recognize Israel.

• The pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled Egyptian blogger at Rantings of a Sandmonkey is very happy with Nasrallah. Except the exact opposite.

• Jordanian Prince Hassan Bin Talal just unloaded on much of the rest of the Arab world:
  

  "The Arab leaders stole billions of dollars from the Arab people and spent it on weapons to fight Israel, which they will never defeat, instead of using the money for health and education purposes to aid their people," he stated. Speaking at the world conference of the interfaith group "Religions for Peace", Prince Hassan also attacked the Iranian nuclear development program. Hassan spoke against nuclear armament, especially on Iran's part, and said that it needs to be made sure that the nuclear project in Iran does not reach the stage of nuclear weapons. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was present at the conference.

  It won't stop Iran's Manhattan Project, but it's something.

• Nicole Kidman is obviously one of the three hottest women in Hollywood (before you ask: Natalie Portman and Rachel Wiess). But this makes her, against all odds, even better:

  Nicole Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism. The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today's Los Angeles Times newspaper. It specifically targets "terrorist organisations" such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

  Which means that there are 85 more people in Hollywood now on the record as opposing Hamas. Strong work.

• There are increasingly sound reasons to suspect that Hezbollah suffered a military humiliation in Lebanon. They were on the wrong side of a 10-to-1 casualty ratio, they were unable to stop the IDF from going anywhere the IDF wanted to go, and a tunnel and bunker system that they spent a half decade developing was severely degraded. But they managed to come out as victors largely because they managed to control the Western press (which is assiduously neutral - they told us so themselves!) Within Lebanon, however, the line that the Western media has been running is being rejected. Opposition is growing among Lebanon's public and their elites, and now even prominent Shiites are coming out against Hezbollah.

• Even Hamas leaders are beginning to recognize that Palestinian society is stuck in a swamp of violence, resentment, and conspiracy theory:
  

  Dr Ghazi Hamad, the spokesperson of the Palestinian government, waged scathing criticism against the Palestinian public on Sunday, blaming the Palestinians for turning the Gaza Strip into a lawless and violent place. "Have mercy on Gaza," he wrote in an op-ed published on Sunday.
  "After the withdrawal from Gaza, we hoped for a bright future, we thought that this year we will reap the fruits of our sacrifices. But I ask myself today – why did the occupation return to Gaza. The occupation – wise men and commentators will say – is responsible. I am not defending the occupation, but I want to stop at our mistakes, which we are accustomed to blame on others... Anarchy, wanton killing, land steeling, thuggery … is the occupation responsible for all?," he asked, saying that the Palestinians should stop espousing conspiracy theories which "limit our thinking."

  Now of course, what counts as hopeful coming from Israel's genocidal enemies is a relative term. Pro-Israel blogger Daled Amos has some well-researched reservations about Hamas. But Hamad's speech is notable for something that you don't find often in the Palestinian media: an identification of conspiracy theory thinking as corrosive, and a subsequent repudiation of it. Conspiracy theories rot a culture from within - they close down not only progress, but the clarity of thought that is essential for any society to progress. They are literally cognitive illnesses, habituating the everyday man and woman to yield to wild speculation instead of likely causes. The result is obviously stagnation, since without knowing the cause of your troubles you can't fix them. That Hamad took note of this is a small but real step.

• Across the rest of the Arab world, opposition is growing to Syria and Iran's power politics - politics which always seem to end up negatively impacting Arabs who live in neither Syria nor Iran.

• Noted Egyptian Sheikh Dr. Abd Al-Sabour Tantawi is a moderate who is gaining prominence.

-----

++ OK, listen. We obviously have no way of proving this, but you're just going have to believe we're telling the truth. You know that thing in the entry about banning puppies? So we wrote that last Saturday, and it was just sort of a we need a really absurd punchline kind of thing. Then Monday morning we're killing time in between some academic writing when we come across this article from the last few months about how Saudi Arabia... is actually banning puppies!. And kittens. Both. Not one or the other, but both.
Someone's gotta do something. The War on Terror is becoming a particularly bad Batman episode. A new villian enters Gotham. He's got this great longterm plan to reestablish the global caliphate, but in the meantime he wears costumes with the letter J all over them and he hatches wacky schemes like kidnapping all the puppies in the world and letting them loose during the World Cup. When he captures our heroes, he wants to kill them but instead of just shooting them he leaves them trapped in one his fiendishly clever devices, from which of course they escape just seconds before all the air is pushed out by the rising level of hummus that was supposed to drown them...
And if that's what was going on, it would not be half as insane as what these people are doing. Seriously, who are these people? Who bans puppies and kittens? How does that meeting go down? Are all the mullahs just sitting around a table and the new guy kid of nervously starts talking: "I wanna throw something around the table. Just an idea I had... not really sure... just kind of throwing it out there for consideration" and then everyone waits patiently, cause they know that this kid is gonna be a star if he can just get some confidence. So he starts talking really fast again, cause he's still nervous, and he says: "anyway, I've just been thinking. Let's ban should ban puppies". We mean, is that really how it happens?
Anyway, the point we wanted to make is that it's becoming nearly impossible to write about these lunatics. Among other things, this is a style issue. Other than polemics, newspaper articles, and textbooks, any writing that doesn't have a little absurdity and exaggeration becomes pretty boring pretty quickly. But you can't do that with Saudi Arabia. There's nothing you can make up that's more absurd than what they're doing. You think that you're safe joking about how they're going to start banning puppies, and then just to screw you they not only ban puppies, but kittens. Trying to out-psycho them is a losing battle - they're just straight better at it. Which is all a roundabout way of saying that if in future Briefings the entire "religious hate" section is just a picture of a puppy with a big red circle and diagnol line through it, then you'll know we've just given up. In the meantime, go feed your cat or walk your dog or something, and then you can click on the ++ to go back to the main text

« ok, I'm done now

Of course, he hopes these are just ill-chosen words... but:

the ill-chosen (one can hope) words by my illustrious colleagues reflects a very disturbing trend within the Left that has emerged the last few years, and which has come to a head with the latest war: Many leaders of the movement are moving away from the commitment to non-violence that defined the struggle against the Vietnam War and the vast majority of protests against corporate globalization and the invasion of Iraq, and towards embracing violent resistance (think the Red Brigade, Bader Meinhof Gang or the Weather Underground) as a viable, and even the best way to check the capitalist war machine.

I'm actually somewhat gratified to see that at least a few people on the left are primarily interested in peace activism, and have enough sense of mission that the shift toward... something else, motivates them to speak out. I have to say that even though I don't agree with this fellow's premise, his article is still a breath of air in an otherwise suffocating and demoralizing opposition movement.

The natural impulse of most serious people is to abhor violence, and if possible to quell it. But the first mistake, at least for many less idealistic than Dr. LeVine, was to sympathize by default with a murderous and barbaric group pathology. That should not have even entered the picture, but once it had it oughtn't be any wonder that many are catching some form of the disease, even if it only manifests as some "ill-chosen words".

« ok, I'm done now