Did anyone who voted for Obama, or even the media that shilled for him, imagine that he would go this far to abase his country?

Take precautions against your blood boiling when you watch this:

Video made by Eye on the UN

The proposition for the debate at Cambridge University was: Israel is a Rogue State.

The mood now in Britain and the British universities – Cambridge no exception – is anti-Israel.

Gabriel Latner, a strong supporter of Israel, was on the side whose remit it was to argue for the proposition.

He did it so convincingly that – the other side won. By a decisive majority.

Here’s part of what he said (but enjoy reading it all):

This is a war of ideals, and the other speakers here tonight are rightfully idealists. I’m not. I’m a realist. I’m here to win. I have a single goal this evening – to have at least a plurality of you walk out of the “Aye” door. I face a singular challenge – most, if not all, of you have already made up your minds.

This issue is too polarizing for the vast majority of you not to already have a set opinion. I’d be willing to bet that half of you strongly support the motion, and half of you strongly oppose it. I want to win, and we’re destined for a tie. I’m tempted to do what my fellow speakers are going to do – simply rehash every bad thing the Israeli government has ever done in an attempt to satisfy those of you who agree with them. And perhaps they’ll even guilt one of you rare undecided into voting for the proposition, or more accurately, against Israel.

It would be so easy to twist the meaning and significance of international “laws” to make Israel look like a criminal state. But that’s been done to death. It would be easier still to play to your sympathy, with personalized stories of Palestinian suffering. And they can give very eloquent speeches on those issues. But the truth is that treating people badly, whether they’re your citizens or an occupied nation, does not make a state “rogue.” If it did, Canada, the US, and Australia would all be rogue states based on how they treat their indigenous populations. Britain’s treatment of the Irish would easily qualify them to wear this sobriquet. These arguments, while emotionally satisfying, lack intellectual rigor.

More importantly, I just don’t think we can win with those arguments. It won’t change the numbers. Half of you will agree with them, half of you won’t. So I’m going to try something different, something a little unorthodox … to try and convince the die-hard Zionists and Israel supporters here tonight to vote for the proposition. …

A rogue state is one that acts in an unexpected, uncommon or aberrant manner. A state that behaves exactly like Israel. …

The fact that Israel is a Jewish state alone makes it anomalous enough to be dubbed a rogue state: There are 195 countries in the world. Some are Christian, some Muslim, some are secular. Israel is the only country in the world that is Jewish. …

The second argument concerns Israel’s humanitarianism – in particular, Israel’s response to a refugee crisis. Not the Palestinian refugee crisis – for I am sure that the other speakers will cover that – but the issue of Darfurian refugees. Everyone knows that what happened, and is still happening in Darfur, is genocide, whether or not the UN and the Arab League will call it such. There has been a mass exodus from Darfur as the oppressed seek safety. They have not had much luck. Many have gone north to Egypt – where they are treated despicably. The brave make a run through the desert in a bid to make it to Israel. Not only do they face the natural threats of the Sinai, they are also used for target practice by the Egyptian soldiers patrolling the border.

Why would they take the risk? Because in Israel they are treated with compassion – they are treated as the refugees that they are – and perhaps Israel’s cultural memory of genocide is to blame. The Israeli government has even gone so far as to grant several hundred Darfurian refugees citizenship. This alone sets Israel apart from the rest of the world.

But the real point of distinction is this: The IDF sends out soldiers and medics to patrol the Egyptian border. They are sent looking for refugees attempting to cross into Israel. Not to send them back into Egypt, but to save them from dehydration, heat exhaustion, and Egyptian bullets. …  To call that sort of behavior anomalous is an understatement. …

When you compare Israel to its regional neighbors, it becomes clear just how roguish Israel is.

Israel has a better human rights record than any of its neighbors. At no point in history has there ever been a liberal democratic state in the Middle East – except for Israel. …

In Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Syria, homosexual conduct is punishable by flogging, imprisonment, or both. But homosexuals there get off pretty lightly compared to their counterparts in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who are put to death. Israeli homosexuals can adopt, openly serve in the army, enter civil unions and are protected by exceptionally strongly worded anti-discrimination legislation. …

Freedom House is an NGO that releases an annual report on democracy and civil liberties in each of the 195 countries in the world. It ranks each country as “free,” “partly free” or “not free.” In the Middle East, Israel is the only country that has earned designation as a “free” country. …

Iran is …  given the rating of “not free,” putting it alongside China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Myanmar. … Iran is the world leader in terms of jailed journalists, with 39 reporters (that we know of) in prison as of 2009. They also kicked out almost every Western journalist during the 2009 election. I guess we can’t really expect more from a theocracy.

Which is what most countries in the Middle East are – theocracies and autocracies. But Israel is the sole, the only, the rogue, democracy. Out of all the countries in the Middle East, only in Israel do anti-government protests and reporting go unquashed and uncensored. …

Israel willfully and forcefully disregards international law. In 1981 Israel destroyed Osirak – Saddam Hussein’s nuclear bomb lab. Every government in the world knew that Hussein was building a bomb. And they did nothing. Except for Israel.

Yes, in doing so they broke international law and custom. But they also saved us all from a nuclear Iraq. That rogue action should earn Israel a place of respect in the eyes of all freedom-loving peoples. But it hasn’t.

Tonight, while you listen to us prattle on, I want you to remember something: While you’re here, Khomeini’s Iran is working towards the Bomb. And if you’re honest with yourself, you know that Israel is the only country that can, and will, do something about it. Israel will, out of necessity, act in a way that is not the norm, and you’d better hope that they do it in a destructive manner. Any sane person would rather a rogue Israel than a nuclear Iran.

Christians burnt alive by Sunni Muslims in Nigeria

Note: Some commenters in October 2011 tell us that these burnt bodies were victims of a truck accident in the Congo. Whatever the provenance of the picture, it was posted in good faith, and Christians were burnt to death in 2010 by Muslims in Nigeria. See the reports here and here and here.

Daniel Greenfield, aka Sultan Knish, writes a passionate though entirely rational essay evoking memories of 9/11, and condemning the psychological sadism of Imam Rauf’s plan – defended by the unprincipled mainstream media – to build a mosque at Ground Zero.

The essay deserves to be read in full. Here is part of it:

Just the Facts, Imam. Here 3,000 Americans were murdered. For working in offices or visiting them. For being members of the NYPD or the PAPD or the FDNY. For putting on a uniform or a suit. For living their lives. And then the walls and floors and furniture around them burned. The papers in their hands burned. Their bodies burned. The ashes drifted down narrow streets. Streets where George Washington and his men once passed to visit Fraunces Tavern and toward Broadway where the Iranian hostages rode back in a ticker tape parade on their return.

Now the money that nourished their killers, will help erect a mosque. A temple of death by the ashes of the dead. And the media is outraged that we won’t allow it. That we won’t stand for it. The same media that stood and grinned while Muslims burned synagogues, churches and temples. That tells us that the Muslim terrorists who try to kill us are not really Muslims. Just going through a midlife crisis, picked up some PTSD from some bad coffee or was just having a bad day. Because we are not equal. On their farm, some animals are more equal than others. Some have the right to kill, others only have the right to be killed. Some have the right to build houses of worship, others have the right to build and to burn what others labor to build. Some have the right to be offensive, others only the right to be silent.

The dead of 9/11 are silent now. Or rather they have been silenced. As countless millions have before them were silenced. With flame and sword. In mass graves and at spearpoint. Tortured and mutilated. Torn apart with bombs. The dead cannot speak out against their murderers, but we can. The dead cannot protest, but we can. It is our duty to stand up and speak out. This is our place. Our land and our city. These are the streets where they tried to kill us. These are the streets where they will try again. To speak out is to defy those who would kill us and claim our cities as their own. Who would build monuments to their own victory over the ashes of our dead.

First they bomb. Now they occupy. We have lived through the bombing. And now we rise to defy the occupation.

We have taken these extracts from an essay on slavery in Arab Africa, in particular Mauritania and the Sudan, by Samuel Cotton, titled Arab Masters-Black Slaves:

These black African slaves in Mauritania are subjected to mental and emotional torments that have always been concomitant with slavery. “Routine” punishments for the slightest fault include beatings, denial of food and prolonged exposure to the sun, with hands and feet tied together. “Serious” infringement of the master’s rule can mean prolonged tortures, documented in a report by Africa Watch.

Some of the tortures are highly imaginative. Even a natural sadist would need to ponder for a while to come up with them:

These include 1. The “camel treatment,” where a human being is wrapped around the belly of a dehydrated camel and tied there. The camel is then given water and drinks until its belly expands enough to tear apart the slave. 2. The “insect treatment,” where insects are put in his ears. The ears are waxed shut. The arms and legs are bound. The person goes insane from the bugs running around in his head. 3. The “burning coals” where the victim is seated flat, with his legs spread out. He is then buried in sand up to his waist, until he cannot move. Coals are placed between his legs and are burnt slowly. After a while, the legs, thighs and sex of the victim are burnt. There are other gruesome tortures … Another report states that some slaves caught fleeing are often castrated or branded like cattle. …

The civil war … led to the resurgence of the slave trade….Arab militias, armed by the Government, raid villages, mostly those of the Dinka tribe, shoot the men and enslave the women and children. …

The price varies with supply. According to the London Economist (January 6, 90) in 1989, a woman or child could be bought for $90. In 1990, as the raids increased, the price fell to $15. …

The head of state, Omar Hassan el Beshir, is reputed to have six or eight slaves in his home in Khartoum.

The author asks “why has the media given such little attention to this story?” and suggests an answer:

Perhaps fear of incurring the wrath of the Islamic governments of Mauritania and the Sudan lies at the heart of the issue. It is dangerous business to expose corrupt regimes in Islamic countries.

We have heard so.

Certainly Gaspar Biro found it was:

Biro produced a 42-page report to the U.N.’s Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. He pointed to slave trafficking, and that the Sudanese criminal law provides routinely for flogging, amputation, death by stoning, and in special cases, for the execution and crucifixion of children as young as 7. The Sudanese called his report a “flagrant blasphemy and a deliberate insult to the Islamic Religion” on which it says Sudanese law is based.

Biro received “veiled threats” against his life, and a blunt warning not to offend Islam from the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C.

Will any power come to the aid of the slaves held by Arab owners?

The United Nations will not. Islamic states dominate that disgusting organization.

Will the US State Department do anything? Not while Barack Obama is president and Hillary Clinton is secretary of state.

Last questions:

Should the United States – once rid of Obama and his black-winged minions – act to put an end to this time-honored custom of slave-owning in Islamic countries? If so, why? As a moral imperative? As resistance to the jihad? Both?

Considering what is done to prisoners in Iran, what American captives have had to endure at the hands of the mullahs, and how women generally are treated under Islamic law, one might say that Sarah Shourd is extraordinarily fortunate to have been let out of prison and allowed to leave that fearful country. Her half a million dollars ransom was almost certainly paid by the US State Department with tax-payers’ money, though that’s unlikely ever to be admitted for the sensible reason that if a state is known to be willing to pay for the release of its kidnapped citizens, more will be kidnapped. So rumors that the Sultan of Oman paid it out of the goodness of his generous heart have been allowed to float.

How did she come to be in Iranian hands? She and two men friends decided to go for a nice long walk somewhere abroad, for recreation, exercise and amusement. Did they look at maps and pictures of various likely resorts for walking vacations? Did they consider Scotland, Canada, New Zealand? Whether they did or not, what they chose was Iraq: a country that has barely if at all emerged from a long war, where every day people are being shot down and blown up. One of the most dangerous places on  earth. And the route they chose was along the border with Iran, another of the most dangerous countries on earth, at least for Americans. They could have picked only one region more dangerous – the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Were they excited by the idea of putting themselves at risk? Were they “playing chicken”? Did they imagine, fear, or get a frisson at the idea, that they might be taken hostage? And did they not understand that if they were, they’d be putting their families and their country over a barrel? Or are they – as many  say they are for loss of a better explanation, and the Iranian authorities insist they are – spies? Shourd denies it, but so she must, whether it’s true or not.

We don’t think the three hikers are spies. We think they’re more likely to be reckless fools. And yet – how did they get to where they were captured? What documents did they need to get into Iraq? Can anyone do it? Are crowds of tourists landing there daily now? Do coaches take parties of Americans sightseeing or bird-watching? How did they get from wherever it was they entered Iraq to the Iranian frontier? On foot? Unchallenged and unmolested? The more one thinks about it, the stranger the whole affair seems, and the more questions present themselves.

Where do Sarah Shourd’s political sympathies lie? Had she ever protested against the Iraq war? Was she trying to prove something?

Does she by character belong in that class of  “privileged, young, white” women from America, Europe and Israel (Jewish and Arab) who are going to the West Bank to protect the Palestinians from Israeli soldiers by interposing themselves between the “murderous” Jews and their hapless victims – and, Phyllis Chesler writes at FrontPage, are being kidnapped, raped, and (in the case of the Arab girls only, presumably) forced into marriage by the subjects of their selfless compassion?

According to one recent and very disturbing report, foreign (American and European) and Israeli Jewish and Arab left-feminists are being routinely harassed, raped, and even forced into marriage by the very Palestinians whom they have come to “rescue.” More shocking is the alleged pressure brought to bear on those activists who wish to press charges about being raped or abducted into marriage; their own movement presumably pressures them not to do so because the alleged Israeli “occupation” of Palestine is far more important than the violent “occupation” of any woman’s body.

The type of girl we’re talking about has been sacrificing herself for noble causes to the annoyance and inconvenience of others, and her own ultimate remorse, since the nineteenth century.

Joseph Conrad wrote about her sort in a story called The Informer:

She went to a great length. She had acquired all the appropriate gestures of revolutionary convictions – the gestures of pity, of anger, of indignation against the anti-humanitarian vices of the social classes to which she belonged herself. …She was displaying very strikingly the usual signs of severe enthusiasm, and had already written many sentimental articles with ferocious conclusions. … For all their assumption of independence, girls of that class are used to the feeling of being specially protected, as, in fact, they are. This feeling accounts for nine tenths of their audacious gestures.

Reckless adventurism and a self-righteous refusal to believe that people can intend to do evil – especially if those people have been selected as objects of pity – are not criminal but they are not blameless. Willful ingenuousness amounts to a vice. A grown-up should know better.

Jillian Becker    September 24, 2010

Continued from the post below, A flock of pigs:

For once, we say, Robert Fisk is telling the truth in this report on the victimization of women in Islam. We’ll qualify that as mostly the truth. He can’t resist accusing Christians and Hindus of committing the same crimes, though he cites no incidents to bear him out. Still, the report as a whole amounts to a strong – and from him astonishing – denunciation of  Islam.

Here’s a part of it:

Iraqi Kurds, Palestinians in Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey appear to be the worst offenders but media freedoms in these countries may over-compensate for the secrecy which surrounds “honour” killings in Egypt – which untruthfully claims there are none – and other Middle East nations in the Gulf and the Levant. But honour crimes long ago spread to Britain, Belgium, Russia and Canada and many other nations. Security authorities and courts across much of the Middle East have connived in reducing or abrogating prison sentences for the family murder of women, often classifying them as suicides to prevent prosecutions.

It is difficult to remain unemotional at the vast and detailed catalogue of these crimes. How should one react to a man – this has happened in both Jordan and Egypt – who rapes his own daughter and then, when she becomes pregnant, kills her to save the “honour” of his family? Or the Turkish father and grandfather of a 16-year-old girl, Medine Mehmi, in the province of Adiyaman, who was buried alive beneath a chicken coop in February for “befriending boys”? Her body was found 40 days later, in a sitting position and with her hands tied. [See our post, In the name of Allah the merciful, February 4, 2010]

Or Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, 13, who in Somalia in 2008, in front of a thousand people, was dragged to a hole in the ground – all the while screaming, “I’m not going – don’t kill me” – then buried up to her neck and stoned by 50 men for adultery? After 10 minutes, she was dug up, found to be still alive and put back in the hole for further stoning. Her crime? She had been raped by three men and, fatally, her family decided to report the facts to the Al-Shabab militia that runs Kismayo. Or the Al-Shabab Islamic “judge” in the same country who announced the 2009 stoning to death of a woman – the second of its kind the same year – for having an affair? Her boyfriend received a mere 100 lashes.

And so it goes on, atrocity after atrocity: women electrocuted, burnt to death, buried alive, raped as punishment by judicial order, stoned to death, disfigured by acid and knives …

The headline of the story, for which Fisk himself is probably not responsible, suggests that this is happening as a “crimewave”. No, it is not. Women are subjected to this by order of the holy books of Islam, by the Prophet Muhammad, by fourteen hundred years of custom among his followers. This is the way of Islam.

We’ve seen three pigs flapping their way into the sky in the last few weeks.

The first became airborne when Barney Frank, who had protected the corrupt twins Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with the flaming ardor of an angel at the gate of Eden, suddenly declared that they should be abolished. (See our post Gasp, August 19, 2010.)

The next swine soared up a few days ago when Fidel Castro, Communist dictator of miserable Cuba for over 50 years, announced that Communist economics don’t work. (See our post Oops! immediately below.)

Now we’ve spotted another.

Robert Fisk has spent a lifetime in journalism defending Arabs and Islam, and Palestinians in particular. He lied consistently about Israel (to my certain knowledge as I was witness to the same events during the Israeli intervention in Lebanon that he reported in 1982 and 1983 – JB.]  Now he’s suddenly discovered that Islam oppresses, tortures and murders women. We’re glad that he has ferreted out this obscure fact, that he is appalled, and that he is publishing cases, descriptions, and the names of victims. We applaud him for it. But he’s the last person we would have expected to write this report.

Harrowing though it is, it needs to be read. This time Robert Fisk, the veteran liar, is telling the truth. …

Continued in the post above, The atrocity that is Islam.

Today, Thursday September 2, 2010, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Abu Abbas for the Palestinian Authority start talking about “peace talks” under pressure from President Obama.

Obama has stopped the prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, “a major al-Qaeda figure”, who coordinated the lethal attack on the USS Cole.

October 10 will be the 10th anniversary of the bombing.

The Washington Post reports:

The attack …  killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens when a boat packed with explosives ripped a hole in the side of the warship in the port of Aden.

In a filing this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department said that “no charges are either pending or contemplated with respect to al-Nashiri in the near future.”

The statement, tucked into a motion to dismiss a petition by Nashiri’s attorneys, suggests that the prospect of further military trials for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has all but ground to a halt, much as the administration’s plan to try the accused plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in federal court has stalled.

Why  has the prosecution of al-Nashiri been dropped?

We hear pundits on TV saying that it is because the US “needs Yemen”.

What for?

If  Yemen is a country that requires terrorist murderers to be acquitted, why does the US have anything whatsoever to do with it?

Oh, we remember now: Yemen is an Islamic country, and the president of the United States wants the country he leads to submit, submit, submit to Islam.