...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
Kudos to Harper: I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the efforts of my Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. It’s been a long time since
Prime Minister Stephen Harper blocked a last-minute resolution at the Francophonie summit on Friday that would have recognized only
Mr. Harper said an institution like la Francophonie could not recognize suffering based on the nationality of its victims, and he called for recognition of the conflict's effect on Israeli residents.
The resolution was proposed by
”Obviously
The language on
The resolution had gained the acceptance of a majority of members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, but it faced the ”hostility” of the Canadians, who managed, with the support of Mr. Chirac, to prevent its adoption.
Mr. Harper said he hoped the dispute was more over ”language than substance.”
Mr. Chirac that negotiations are continuing on the resolution and said a solution is needed to ”allow everybody to save face.”…
Right, because there’s nothing worse that the sight of some faceless Arab French-speaking Jew-haters. They're uggh-ly!
Freedom and censorship: If I had to come up with a thumbnail definition of “freedom” it might be this: Freedom is the inalienable right to offend some of the people some of the time. From an editorial in the Chicago Tribune about the German Opera company which chose censorship over freedom:
…Self-censorship to mollify those who would practice violence in the name of Islam is self-defeating. Canceling an opera--or any other public event--bolsters the radicals' belief that the West can be intimidated and eventually defeated.
It's understandable that Deutsche Oper felt a threat to the safety of its players and patrons. It looks now that it will respond in the best way possible, by confronting that threat rather than succumbing to it.
Art offends some people. Books offend some people. Music offends some people. Newspapers offend some people. People choose to read or not, to listen or not, to go to the opera or not. Those choices cannot be made for them by those who are intent on doing battle with Western culture.
Feeding time at the crocodile exhibit: Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson wants us to know that there’s no point in trying to use our military to defeat the jihadis. (Column available online for extra shekels.) He cites two new reports—one American, one British—which conclude that engaging them in actual battle only make ‘em madder.
No, evidently the best way—the only way—to fight the jihad is to promote those “more tolerant voices in Islam” which might exert some “real or actual” influence over their more excitable co-religionists.
Topping idea, Jeff. Sound a lot like the one Daniel Pipes was promoting a few years back. But it seems to me that several years into the current round of jihad, it’s not the influence of these tolerant voices that are “real or actual”; it’s the voices themselves. And it seems to me that if they haven’t stepped in to lend us—and themselves—a hand up till now, they are probably more actual than real.
Simpson, quoting the British Muslim chick who penned the study by the Royal
And the maximum? I bet the establishment of a Palestinian state with sovereignty over the entire Entity would really put them in a good mood.
Just kidding. Anyone who has a sense of the larger global jihad—a category which seems to exclude Simpson and report-writers—knows that this tiny Jewish morsel is unlikely to satiate the rapacious, implacable, unappeasable crocodile.
Update: My letter to the Globe:
I always wondered what was deterring “moderate” Muslims from speaking out in greater number about the extremists who have hijacked their religion. Now I know that, according a recent British report on combating the jihad, the moderates are all waiting for the Palestinians to be sovereign over a state that includes at least a portion of
But if that were the case, where were all these moderates when Palestinian President Yasser Arafat rejected a deal that would have given the Palestinians exactly that? Why didn’t they raise their voices back then and encourage him to settle the matter once and for all?
The truth is that if moderates haven’t yet spoken out against those who imperil them as much as they do non-Muslims, I doubt it’s because the Palestinians don’t have a state. More likely, it’s because moderates fear reprisal from the extremists, or because they are unwilling to side publicly with non-Muslims, or because, in their heart of hearts, some of them are actually rooting for the jihadists who are waging war not just in Israel, but around the globe.
In any case, counting on these voices of “tolerance” to kick in once the Palestinian issue has been resolved, and to make any headway with the extremists on their and our behalf at that indeterminate future date, is a pipe dream—and a very dangerous one at that.
Persian nip ‘n’ tuck: We’re told that Moo and the mullahs are deeply unpopular, and that one day in the near or distant future, the Iranian people will muster the will to rise up and free themselves from the oppressive party poopers.
Mmm, don’t think so. From the sounds of it, they have some other priorities. From the Beeb:
It is eight in the morning in the plastic surgeon's office and Hussein is preparing for an operation.
He's going to have a nose job, following in the footsteps of his mother, his brother, his aunt and his cousin who have all had cosmetic surgery.
"Now it's really normal but of course 10 years ago if you were a boy and had a nose job everyone would laugh at you and make fun of you," admits Hussein.
"But now it's not like that - lots of people are doing it," he adds.
Hussein, who is a university student with a wealthy father involved in trade with
"I was shocked because everyone would love to have a more beautiful face," he says.
It's becoming increasingly common for Iranian men to have cosmetic surgery.
At first it was Iranian women who wanted nose jobs because strict Islamic dress regulations meant the only thing peeking out was their face and they wanted to make the best of it.
Since the revolution in 1979,
I can think of at least one Iranian who could have benefited from a little beautification.
“Theoretical” denial: You know how certain fundamentalist types try to play up the iffy nature of “natural selection” by saying that, after all,
That’s more or less how Ahmadinejad’s minions have come to think of the Holocaust. As the abaya-clad reporter in this visual tour of
If it actually happened, I guess you could call it Hitler’s unnatural selection.
Rise and shine!: Thomas L. Friedman has belatedly awakened to the fact that Islam may not be living up to its P.R. as a religion of peace, and that keeping mum about the resulting cognitive dissonance may not be in the interest of our civilization.
Boker tov, Tom. (link via Martin Kramer):
We need to stop insulting Islam. It’s enough already.
No, that doesn’t mean the pope should apologize. The pope was actually treating Islam with dignity. He was treating the faith and its community as adults who could be challenged and engaged. That is a sign of respect.
What is insulting is the politically correct, kid-gloves view of how to deal with Muslims that is taking root in the West today. It goes like this: “Hushhh! Don’t say anything about Islam! Don’t you understand? If you say anything critical or questioning about Muslims, they’ll burn down your house. Hushhh! Just let them be. Don’t rile them. They are not capable of a civil, rational dialogue about problems in their faith community.”
Now that is insulting. It’s an attitude full of contempt and self-censorship, but that is the attitude of Western elites today, and it’s helping to foster the slow-motion clash of civilizations that Sam Huntington predicted. Because Western masses don’t buy it. They see violence exploding from Muslim communities and they find it frightening, and they don’t think their leaders are talking honestly about it. So many now just want to build a wall against Islam. It will be terrible if
But it is not the dialogue the pope mentioned — one between Islam and Christianity. That’s necessary, but it’s not sufficient. What is needed first is an honest dialogue between Muslims and Muslims.
As someone who has lived in the Muslim world, enjoyed the friendship of many Muslims there and seen the compassionate side of Islam in action, I have to admit I am confused as to what Islam stands for today.
Why? On the first day of Ramadan last year a Sunni Muslim suicide bomber blew up a Shiite mosque in
I don’t get it. How can Muslims blow up other Muslims on their most holy day of the year — in mosques! — and there is barely a peep of protest in the Muslim world, let alone a million Muslim march? Yet Danish cartoons or a papal speech lead to violent protests. If Muslims butchering Muslims — in Sudan, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan and Jordan — produces little communal reaction, while cartoons and papal remarks produce mass protests, what does Islam stand for today? It is not an insult to ask that question…
No, but it’s an insult to the jihad and those who wage it to suggest it can be set aside through “honest dialogue.”
Loving Hu: Democrats and other leftists, including Jewish ones, tend to think Moo’s Venezuelan pal Hu is a capital chap, mostly because his loves and hates match their own. (Loves: Chomsky-esque rhetoric which casts
…Late last year, Chavez took the occasion of his Christmas Eve speech to invoke an old anti-Semitic slur. Chavez declared,
“the world has wealth for all, but some minorities, the descendants of the same people that crucified Christ have taken over all the wealth of the world”.
While well-informed people know that Romans crucified Christ, there are many millions of ill-informed people (including, apparently Chavez) who believe that Jews killed Christ. Clearly, when Chavez spoke of the people responsible for the death of Christ taking the wealth of the world, he was not referring to any ancient centurions living in plutocratic splendor these days, he was employing an anti-Semitic canard.
However, his insults go far beyond this. In 2004, a state prosecutor and Chavez ally was killed in car bombing. The Chavez-controlled state-run television referred to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad as being behind the killing. (The Mossad is routinely dredged up by Arab anti-Semites as being responsible for all sorts of calamitous events in the world, including 9/11).
Chavez sent Venezuelan security forces to raid a Jewish private school in Caracas as the school day was beginning, in an incident widely regarded by Jews there as a warning to support him or else. His forces terrorized young children, holding sub-machine guns as the school was searched. Of course, no evidence was found implicating anyone in the killing of the prosecutor. But the event can also be seen as a present to
Of course, his alliance and friendship with the Iranian regime should be enough to disconcert American Jews. Iranian-supported Hezb’allah has blown up a Jewish Community center and an Israeli Embassy in
Crumbs and sins: There’s a Jewish prayer which mentions how, throughout their history, the Jewish people have “eaten the bread of affliction.” (To which I once retorted—because, as you may have noticed, I’m not always as reverent as I’m supposed to be—“I’m tired of eating the bread of affliction. I think I’d like a nice baguette for a change.”)
I only mention this because it seems to go well with the following e-mail a friend just sent me (with thanks to Harry):
As one knows in Rosh Hashanah there is a ceremony called Tashlich. Jews traditionally go to a running body of water such as the ocean, a stream or a river to pray and throw in breadcrumbs. This symbolizes throwing away one's sins which the fish devour. Occasionally, people ask what kinds of breadcrumbs should be thrown. Here are suggestions for breads which may be most appropriate for specific sins and misbehaviors:
· For ordinary sins --white bread
· For erotic sins - French bread
· For particularly dark sins - pumpernickel
· For complex sins – multi-grain
· For sins of indecision - waffles
· For sins committed in haste - matzos
· For sins of chutzpah - any fresh bread
· For substance abuse - stoned wheat
· For committing auto theft - caraway
· For timidity/cowardice - milk toast
· For ill-temper - sourdough
· For silliness, eccentricity - nut bread
· For excessive irony - rye bread
· For unnecessary chances - hero bread
· For war-mongering - kaiser rolls
· For dressing immodestly - tarts
· For lechery and promiscuity - hot buns
· For promiscuity with gentiles - hot cross buns
· For racist attitudes - crackers
· For being holier than thou - bagels
· For overeating - stuffing
· For indecent photography - cheesecake
· For raising your voice too often - challah
· For pride and egotism - puff pastry
· For sycophancy, ass-kissing - brownies
· For being overly smothering - angel food cake
· For trashing the environment - dumplings
· For telling bad jokes/puns - corn bread
Mad science: The thing about trying to defeat the infidel through suicide terror is that it’s just so piecemeal (or “pieces”meal). Sure, a chump, er, shahid, who successfully self-detonates for Allah can often kill a number of infidels—perhaps even dozens—in one go. But at that rate, it’s going to take forever to restore the glorious caliphate.
With that in mind, Al Qaeda in
The fugitive terrorist chief said experts in the fields of "chemistry, physics, electronics, media and all other sciences -- especially nuclear scientists and explosives experts" should join his group's jihad, or holy war, against the West.
"We are in dire need of you," said the speaker, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri. "The field of jihad can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases [in
The 20-minute audio was posted to a website that frequently airs al-Qaeda messages. The voice could not be identified independently, but it was thought to be Mr. al-Masri's. He is believed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in a
The other night on its “Ideas” program, Ceeb radio ran a documentary dedicated to the proposition that Islam and science are completely compatible, at least according to the message of the Koran. Now, anyone who knows the problems that all fundamentalists, including Christians and Jews, have reconciling faith and science—and who also knows that, science-wise, Muslims have been resting on the laurels of having invented algebra in, what, the 9th Century or something—might be sceptical about such a claim (and might even see it as another of the Ceeb’s seemingly endless shilling-for-Islam efforts). But reading the above, perhaps there’s more scope for scientific endeavour among true believers than we may think.
The great divides: There are a number of ways to divide the world. There are those—you know who you are—who see it as a matter of dar al Islam vs. dar al Harb; others see it in terms of that left-right rift. Me? I tend to split the world into those who “get it” and those who don’t “get it”—and, believe me, there are far too many of the latter for my liking.
But here’s another way to divvy things up: between those who think “it’s about us,” and those, like Mark Goldblatt, who know it’s not about us, “it’s about them. From NRO:
According to a National Intelligence Estimate composed last February but released just this week by the Bush administration, “The Iraq conflict has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of
None of this is conclusive, or even news, but the NIE’s suggestion that the war in Iraq has become a recruitment tool for Islamic terrorists was immediately seized upon by Democrats to argue, yet again, that President Bush’s decision to oust the regime of Saddam Hussein was a tactical blunder and that the effort to establish a liberal democracy in its stead has turned into an unmitigated fiasco.
The judgment of history on Bush’s
That decision doesn’t seem quite so smart nowadays.
Nevertheless, to argue that the war in
Then again,
I say “no,” but let’s ask Harpoon Siddiqui. He’s seems to be really hot for that kind of “interfaith dialogue.”
They’re ba-ack!: And speaking of the old antisemtism, guess who’s enjoying a return engagement in
Yes,
I’ll give you a hint: they were all the rage there in the 1930s.
Forever young: The “oldest hatred” may have had a facelift, but as Victor Davis Hanson writes, it’s just as ugly and repulsive as ever. From RealClear Politics:
…We're accustomed to associating hatred of Jews with the ridiculed Neanderthal Right of those in sheets and jackboots. But this new venom, at least in its Western form, is mostly a leftwing, and often an academic, enterprise. It's also far more insidious, given the left's moral pretensions and its influence in the prestigious media and universities. We see the unfortunate results in frequent anti-Israeli demonstrations on campuses that conflate
The renewed hatred of Jews in the
The dangers of this post anti-Semitism is not just that Jews are shot in
The result is that the world's politicians and media are talking seriously with those who not merely want back the
Speaking in forked tongues: Those “Dr. Doolittles” of the EU continue to try to master that most baffling of lingos: mad mullah-speak.
If they could talk to the mad mullahs,
Learn to speak to them,
Maybe they’d prevent a genocide.
If they could learn to read taqiyah,
They’d finally be free-ah,
To see that they've been taken for a ride.
If they could talk to the mad mullahs,
Hear where they’re coming from,
They’d know the wicked thinking they embrace.
They’d know for sure that grim Khomeini’s
More evil than inseini,
And so is Moo, though he’s a smiley face.
They would converse in Shia and in Persian.
And they would curse the Zionists and Jews.
If mullahs asked, “can you speak ElBaradei?”
They’d say, “we can parlez—and do.”
If they conferred with the fascist fiends, dhimmi to Übermensch,
You’d think they’d get a sense of history.
Instead they’ll try to please the mullahs,
And ne’er appease the mullahs,
They’ll go on bended knees to the mullahs,
And end up causing tons more misery.
Immoral imperatives: Harpoon Siddiqui has another of his “shut your pie holes, you cheeky infidels” pieces. Of course, Harpoon, who is nothing if not a master of “subtlety” and “nuance,” wraps it up in a pretty package about “the moral imperatives of our times.”
Here’s a taste of Harpoon’s Islamism-enabling, democracy-thwarting, morally-inverted thoughts on the subject:
It seems like a disaster a day on the Islam vs. West front. No sooner had the Danish cartoon controversy died down than one erupted over Pope Benedict XVI's comments on Islam.
He had barely managed to mitigate it — with three semi-apologies and two Vatican clarifications — when Germany finds itself engulfed in a row over a Berlin opera company's cancellation of a Mozart production featuring a severed head of the Prophet Muhammad.
These cultural clashes are taking place in tandem with the ongoing catastrophes in
The counter-argument would be that the Salman Rushdie affair and the Theo von Gogh murder preceded the
But there's no doubt that the disastrous war on terrorism has turned the world into a tinderbox. The slightest spark can cause a conflagration. We should know that by now.
It is, of course, infuriating that Deutsche Oper Berlin folded when faced with an anonymous threat. The culture critic for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union accused the company of "falling on its knees before the terrorists."
This issue is not as black-and-white as that.
The company had acted on the advice of police, which decided that the production posed an "incalculable" security risk.
Did the company cave in to the deliverer of the threat or did it bow to the presumably prudent judgment of the police?
Merkel herself felt that "self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practise violence in the name of Islam. It makes no sense to retreat." But, again, in the never-ending battle for freedom of expression, the answers are not always all that easy.
We must not give in to bullies, whatever their twisted motivation. Yet we cannot pretend that we do not "retreat" and self-censor when, in fact, we do every day. Ask any editor and media, movie or theatre executive.
But the issues involving Muslim sensibilities have made two things perfectly clear:
· Incidents that used to pass with barely a murmur are being turned into warfare by both sides. Many Muslims are being overly sensitive and some Westerners are clamouring to put Muslims in their place.
· If freedom of speech only means the right to disproportionately and gratuitously malign Muslims and Islam, the double standard will indeed be challenged.
When such challenges are violent, we must not flinch. If they are peaceful and intellectual, we have to have a rational answer for why we willingly practise self-restraint on certain subjects but resist it on others.
A similar argument is being advanced about the Western anger over the violent Muslim reaction to the Pope's original statement and to the Danish cartoons...
And here’s a letter which will never, ever appear in “black and white” in the Toronto Star, a most “nuanced” publication:
In seeking to shed light on the latest incident of Muslim outrage—the Pope’s suggestion that religious beliefs should entail reason instead of violence—Haroon Siddiqui has merely succeeded in muddying the waters. It’s not, as he says, that “both sides” have turned this and other such incidents, starting with the Salman Rushdie affair, into “warfare.” No, the “warfare” in question has been initiated and incited by one side—the one that insists non-Muslims must hold their tongues and thereby abide by Muslim doctrine. And this tactic of flying off the handle seems to be working because Westerners, like that German opera company, are now taking it upon themselves to censor material beforehand on the off chance that it may—and then again, may not—cause offence.
Then there’s Siddiqui’s suggestion that “freedom of religion only means the right to disproportionately and gratuitously malign Muslim and Islam” and that those on the receiving end cannot help but challenge this “double standard.” I think what Siddiqui is referring to here is a Western freedom which he seems to abhor: the freedom to criticise Muslims and hold them accountable for their actions. Siddiqui refers to this type of criticism, as practiced by people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whom he has written about in the past, as “Islamophobia”—the catch-all category for those who are bigots and racists, and those who aren’t, but who have valid concerns about Muslim doctrine and behaviour and who, in a free society, have every right to voice them. By labelling these non-bigots “Islamophobic,” Siddiqui and others would effectively silence them once and for all. At the same time, there is indeed a double standard in operation since many Muslims in Muslim nations and elsewhere continue to speak in the most vituperative terms about Christians and Jews.
Finally, in a column about “imperatives,” Siddiqui fails to mention the one imperative that threatens to revoke the freedoms that we in the West hold so dear. It is the jihad imperative, and it’s not going to go away simply because Westerners, like the Pope, are counselled to keep mum (and to apologize profusely when they don’t) lest they inflame hair-trigger Muslim tempers. In fact, holding our tongues is entirely the wrong approach, since it means the erosion of free speech, a foundational principle of our society. In the short term, it may help keep the lid on things. But in the longer-term, it only serves the political interests of those who for whom our freedoms are anathema.
Chancellor-designate walks the plank: Conservative Judaism seems to be in decline these days, but the incoming head of the movement’s American wing thinks he’s figured out a way to revitalize it. From the Canadian Jewish News:
But the chancellor-designate of the Conservative movement’s New York-based Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) said in a telephone interview last week that if there is anything he brings to his new position in the way of west coast sensibility, it’s that he’s “relaxed about some things [that] people consider a crisis.
“I see numbers dropping in the Conservative movement, but I see them dropping in Judaism generally. I see tremendous success stories [in Conservative Judaism],” said Eisen, referring to schools and summer camps in particular.
In the
Eisen’s own background in the countercultural chavurah movement in the late 1970s and subsequent leadership in the Conservative movement is not an isolated example, he noted.
Conservative Jews are overrepresented in chavurah-style independent minyans, many of which have “strong interactions” with organized movements and institutions, he added.
Currently the chair of the department of religious studies at Stanford, Eisen is on leave and will teach one last course in the spring. He is commuting to