Category: World News & Politics

Israel To Demolish Historic Mosque Near Jerusalem

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein has condemned a decision by Israeli authorities to demolish the Al-Omari mosque in the village of Umm Tuba near Jerusalem under the pretext that the building had been built without a license…

Sheikh Hussein told Ma’an that the mosque was built more than 700 years go, and it was last restored in 1963. It is the only mosque in Umm Tuba.

The Mufti claimed that Israeli authorities have been attempting to wipe out historic Islamic sites in Palestine which is violation of all religious values and international treaties.

He warned of the repercussions and called on the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) which is charged with protecting human cultural heritage around the world, and other international organizations to prevent the demolition of the mosque.

[Source: Ma’an News]

Does anyone really have to comment on this?
Don’t acts like this just obviously show how much Israel wants Peace?
It’s pure ill-willed provocation that is destined to fuel even more conflict and close the doors in front of any possible peace efforts.
And then everyone turns around and blames the Palestinians for not pursuing peace.

[Via: CCNWON]

Israeli Lobby Unwritten Contract With American Media

Andrea Levin, president of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) said in a speech: “The American media is much, much more geared to understanding that there is an unwritten contract between them and us…”

What is this “unwritten contract”? I’ll tell you what it is: it’s an agreement to censor anything and everything that offends the Lobby and its glorified, sanitized view of Israel. Here, after all, is a country that practices apartheid, imprisons children, and was founded on ethnic cleansing and bigoted religious obscurantism – and yet they present themselves to the world as a valiant little “democracy,” a beleaguered outpost of “the West” in the midst of an Arab sea. It takes a lot of cosmetics to hide the true face of this dog, and that’s what CAMERA is all about – prettifying an increasingly ugly reality. The Lobby reserves the right to censor any material that presents Israel in a more realistic light, and anyone who opposes them in their mission on behalf of a foreign power is smeared as an “anti-Semite.”

— Full article: The Lobby, Unmasked by Justin Raimondo.

Dutch MP To Release Film Insulting And Desecrating The Koran

The Dutch MP Geert Wilders who recently called for the Koran to be banned in the Netherlands, will soon be releasing a film on the internet which insults the Koran, and which is reported to show the Koran being torn up and otherwise desecrated.

The extreme right wing politician has made the ten minute film promoting his belief that the Koran inspires people ‘to do the worst things’. His views have inspired him to talk about a ‘Tsunami of Islamisation’ in Europe, for the Koran to be banned, and for Dutch Muslims to either give up their religion or leave the country.

Dutch embassies around the world are beefing up their security ahead of the release of the film. Most politicians in the Netherlands believe Wilders is being inflammatory and insulting, but are sticking to the principle of freedom of expression.

I think there is a big difference between ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘freedom to insult’!
Where are the freedom, rights and law in an official disrespecting the beliefs of a whole group of the country’s citizens, wanting to ban their holy book and even threatening them to give up their beliefs or be thrown out of their country??

And what’s even worse is that this guy’s party gained nine seats in the parliament because of his anti-Islamic remarks.

If this MP said a tenth of the stuff he’s saying now about Jews instead of Muslims for example, would the reaction have been the same? Would it still be freedom of expression? Would it still be so acceptable?
Of course not; He’d be framed as anti-semitic, thrown out of the government, maybe even prosecuted, and his public life would be totally buried forever.

I personally think this has nothing to do with freedom of expression, I think it is staunch bigotry, very insulting and something that should be totally unacceptable from a state official.
I believe it should be illegal for anyone to threaten legal citizens to throw them out of their country for any reason, let alone their religious beliefs.
I think this bigot should be thrown out of office and prosecuted for his attacks and actions.

And regarding the possibility of a violent reaction in the Muslim world to the release of this movie; nobody should expect a ‘civilized’ reaction to such an uncivilized attack! Every action has an equal and opposite reaction!
But still, I really hope violence is avoided and that people show their protest and anger in a more effective way.

Barack Obama Is Not A Muslim

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama launched an online viral counteroffensive Tuesday against persistent e-mail chain letters that lie about his religious and political background.

[…]

There are various versions of the e-mails, but they generally insinuate that Obama is secretly a Muslim who attended a radical Islamic school in Indonesia. One of the e-mails charges that he’s a radical Muslim who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Another e-mail claims that he was sworn into the Senate using a copy of the Quran. All of the allegations are false.

[Source: Wired]

I don’t even know what to say or where to start about this…
Should I worry about the way Islam is made out to sound like a plague that everyone wants to distance themselves from?
Should I be wondering what the religion of a person has to do with them being electable to office or not?
Or should I just mind my own business and watch the US presidential elections as people judge the candidates on their race, religion and popularity instead of on how much good they’ll be able to do the country and how good a leader they will be?

The True Legacy Of George W. Bush

“. . . as Bush basks in the glow of his own fantasy, the suffering in Gaza, one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, along with the savage occupation of Iraq, continues to fuel widespread anger and rage.. . . he has, with Israeli encouragement, isolated governments, even friendly governments, in the Middle East that raised feeble protests. But his day is past. There is open revolt. Opinion polls show that two-thirds of Palestinians, and three-fourths of Israelis, do not believe Bush can affect events in the Palestinian territories.

. . . The agenda of the Bush White House is exposed as irrelevant, myopic and counterproductive. Most Arab countries are in open defiance of Washington and are actively reaching out to Iran.

. . . It is the end of the road for George Bush. The world takes less and less notice of him. He strutted and swaggered across the stage. He bellowed and raged. He plundered and murdered. And now he wants to be anointed as a peacemaker. His presidency, like his life, has been a tragic waste. But he at least he has a life. There are tens of thousands of mute graves in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iraq that stand as stark testaments to his true legacy.”

Chris Hedges, The End of the Road for George W. Bush

 

[Via: A comment left by The Vigil on AquaCool]

 

Trading Places, Changing Perspectives

I just came across a really interesting post in which the writer puts himself in the others shoes, looking at the situation from another perspective, imagining how it would be if it happened to him and his country…

Some highlights:

It’s been eight years now. Eight long years. Sure, initially I was glad when China toppled the Bush regime and executed the “retarded tyrant” as I love to call him. It wasn’t that bad at the start, but as time wore on and I realized they weren’t leaving, it started to gnaw at me.[…]

Initially, people seemed to accept the fact that we needed help getting rid of Bush’s dictatorship. Lately, I think people have come to understand that the Chinese are really here for our natural resources.

[…]

Yes, I know they call me a terrorist and an insurgent. I like to think of myself as a freedom fighter. If someone invaded your country and killed your people, I’d like to think you’d fight too. I don’t expect to win but if I don’t fight, if we don’t fight, then all Americans lose.

 

Very worth the read, check it out here: We fight for freedom – or “What if someone else did it to us?”.

 

Middle East Indebted To Bush??!!

While checking out the news today, I came across what has to be one of the dumbest articles in the history of news and media; it’s so stupid I thought the guy who wrote it was actually just being sarcastic, but no it turns out he’s seriously deranged as he believes what he wrote.

The article’s title is: “Middle East indebted to Bush“; I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read it; Do I even need to go any further to show how crazy this person is?

In the article he talks of the malignancy of the Middle East, how Arabs’ independence was won for them by Britain & France but they were still incapable of lifting themselves up from the broken ruins of their tribal culture, which he says is the root of Arab failure for which they blame the Jews and Israel instead of of embracing the modern world.
Interesting sickly twisted view of history and Middle Eastern affairs, don’t you think?

But it gets even weirder when he writes the following:

George Bush could have remained indifferent to the Arab-Muslim world’s malignancy, mouthing pieties as members of the ever fashionable lib-left political class in the West endlessly does, while watching the Arabs sink deeper into the political squalor of their making.

Instead, Bush struck directly at the most rotten core of the Middle East — Iraq, the land of two rivers, choked to death by the vilest of Arab tyrants in recent memory, Saddam Hussein — to give the Arabs an opportunity one more time to make a better future.

[…]

A democratic Iraq is George Bush’s formidable legacy, and the Arabs will be talking about him long after his contemporary critics bite the dust and are forgotten.

Unbelievable…
There is a person on Earth who actually thinks George Bush will leave a legacy behind him, and not any legacy, a formidable one too, in the form of a war that further tore apart a country that was already in ruins, installed a sectarian divide in the country, took thousands of lives from both sides, and did nothing but widen the gaps between people, ruin the image of America in the region, and fuel more hatred.

The only thing George Bush will be remembered for, his only “legacy”, is the fact that he is the worst President of the United States of America to date, something both Arabs and Americans agree on.

World Outsources Pregnancies To India

IT companies outsourced programming there, other companies outsourced customer support amid other services, now it’s pregnancies that are being outsourced to India…

The small clinic at Kaival Hospital matches infertile couples with local women, cares for the women during pregnancy and delivery, and counsels them afterward. Anand’s surrogate mothers, pioneers in the growing field of outsourced pregnancies, have given birth to roughly 40 babies.

More than 50 women in this city are now pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Taiwan, Britain and beyond. The women earn more than many would make in 15 years…

[Source: The Guardian]

I totally understand the natural desire for a lot of people to have children and a family, and I know how hard it is for infertile couples, how they feel, and how they yearn for a solution; and I think that if a woman is ready to help them out and be a surrogate mother for their child, then that is a very kind, generous and respectable action from her side.

But I think turning this around into a business, where people take advantage of some poor women in India or elsewhere who are doing this just because they can’t afford a good living otherwise is just very wrong, immoral and unacceptable.

Rudy Guiliani Will ‘Chase Muslims Back To Their Caves’

So here’s an interesting quote from John Deady, a designated surrogate for Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign, and a leader with a group called “Veterans for Rudy”…

“He’s got I believe the knowledge and the judgment to attack one of the most difficult problems in current history and that is the rise of the Muslims, and make no mistake about it, this hasn’t happened for a thousand years. These people are very, very dedicated and they’re also very smart, in their own way. We need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves — or in other words get rid of them.”

He has resigned now after those remarks, but after such comments you can only wonder if there is a truth in there somewhere, if maybe Rudy Guiliani who is one of the Republican front runners for the US presidency actually thinks a bit like that; After all, we know there is no lack of people who do think that way or even worse.

[Via: Huffington Post]