A fine and depressing example of what a pesky nuisance religion is in human affairs, this passage from a report (read the whole thing here) on the Macedonia region of erstwhile Yugoslavia:

“Oh yes,” he said. “Because the Serbian church is supporting the Greek church against recognizing the Macedonian church as independent. The Greek church can recognize the Macedonian church as independent, but not under this name. They are not recognizing the name of the state and they are not recognizing the language, plus they are not recognizing the church. The Muslim community is supporting the Orthodox church against this Pope, and saying You should be independent, and this Pope should have his own church in Macedonia. The Muslim community is supporting the Orthodox church, so the Orthodox church is supporting the Muslim community against us. And the Macedonian government is under the influence of the Orthodox church. Plus, this political party – the national political party – they are investing a lot of money in the church building process, mosques also, etc. So you see, this government is sacrificing Bektashism because of the problem of the Orthodox Church with the Pope.” 

The moment Samir Kuntar walked into Lebanon as a free man spelt the end of a hard earned 60 years cultivating the image of Israel as a capable, tough and proud state. Samir Kuntar is one of the most despised villains of Israeli society: a vicious murderer, his crimes included the inhuman beating to death of a three year old Israeli girl in front of horrified witnesses. In the eyes of the Arab countries and even among Western Arab communities, Samir Kuntar is the darling of the defenders of Islam – a brave resistance fighter.

My horror at the release of this epitome of evil is not the support for his crimes that is propagated among the Arabs; it is not even shock at the (frankly expected) Western indifference for this monster – instead I am appalled by the virus that goes by the name of appeasement that has risen again to infect the integrity or lack thereof, manifested by the weak politicians and the morally bankrupt Left of the “liberal” West.

One particular historical parallel that can now be applied to the Arab-Israeli conflict by supporters of Israel is the disastrous policy of appeasement practised noticeably by one of its true founders: Neville Chamberlain. Once the understanding of the West and even the byline of slightly cringe-worthy Hollywood films was ‘Never negotiate with terrorism’. Now appeasement and negotiation appears to govern international politics: from the hundreds of incentives made to the Iran by the EU, hoping to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons research, each new offer giving more and more away to the Iranians; to the ‘quiet diplomacy’ pursued by Thabo Mbeki with Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

The release of Samir Kuntar, four other terrorists and the hundreds of remains of dead Lebanese murderers marks the beginning of the end. Israel, more than any country, should realise that appeasement is a policy that will never work to their advantage. It betrays the teachings of Machiavelli: “…one should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for war is not avoided thereby but merely deferred to one’s own disadvantage.” And it sends chilling reminders of Chamberlain’s efforts to secure peace; or the IRA murderers given their ill-gotten freedom by Blair’s government; the US government’s protection of Arafat in 1982; the attempted appeasement of Saddam Hussein before the 1990 Gulf War; the encouraged promotion of Islamic culture above all others in Western countries by Western governments; the suggestions of British judges for allowing some form of sharia law in Britain – the last hundred years have shown a frightening propensity for the West to fail to learn from its mistakes and to allow the forces of evil a chance to exist and prosper.

So why is Olmert’s government meeting Hezbollah’s demands? Why is it appeasing its enemies? Israel has owed 60 years of remarkable existence to ‘disproportionate’ response and a tough and no-nonsense attitude towards its enemies. Many would argue this is a key reason for her survival. The release of the five terrorists by Israel met one of Hezbollah’s few demands, another being the return of the Sheba farms to Lebanon. Is it that these unforgettable years of terrorism, torture, murder, cruelty unimaginable to civilized society have all just been for the return of a few hundred yards of farm and a child murderer? – the truth of course, is that Hezbollah, like the rest of the Arab world, seeks the destruction of Israel and its people. Olmert seems to have forgotten this. They have reversed the direction of sixty years of policies based on reality and common sense, and are taking an ill-fated chance with the future of their country.

For the despairing results of this cruel act of appeasement we have not even had to wait a few days. Immediately Hamas decided it was no longer going to agree to Israeli terms for the return of Gilad Shalit and was to demand greater returns for the terrorist group. Furthermore, a group of British MPs called for a dialogue with Palestinian terror groups, Hamas included; breaking the policy of no recognition that most Western countries have pursued.

But this author is not completely a pessimist and his writings shall not just be a harbinger of Israel’s complete failure – there is still a chance: Olmert and his coalition must be removed, a strong leader (preferably Netanyahu) must be elected, Kuntar must be assassinated, Hamas must be destroyed, Hezbollah must be removed, Iran’s nuke and missile sites must be obliterated and the supply of armaments to the Gaza Strip and West Bank must be stopped. Tough orders? These are problems all created by appeasement; it is war deferred to Israel’s disadvantage, and now Israel is forced to deal with it.

 Anne Applebaum, writing in the Washington Post, just doesn’t seem to get it.

She says: 

In fact, any child who attends Saudi schools until ninth grade will eventually be taught outright that "Jews and Christians are enemies of believers." They will also be taught that Jews conspire to "gain sole control over the world," that the Christian crusades never ended, and that on Judgment Day "the rocks or the trees" will call out to Muslims to kill Jews.

These passages, it should be noted, are from new, "revised" Saudi textbooks, designed to be less harsh on the infidels. 

But the passages she is referring to are not just bad lessons in textbooks, they are either directly (Jews and Christians being enemies of believers, and the ‘rocks and trees’ bit), or indirectly by interpretation, derived from the Koran itself.  She urges Muslims to change the lessons taught in their schools without apparently understanding that she is urging Muslims to change their religion.

If only 1.2 billion Muslims (or 1.4 – accounts vary) could be persuaded to change their religion! But Islam is not going to be reasoned or nudged out of existence. The one thing we can and should do is inform ourselves about it, read the Koran, be guided by reliable exponents and commentators (such as Robert Spencer and Andrew Bostom) and talk about it as it really is.  

As James Miller writes in Islam Watch (quoted in The Religion of Peace today): ’The Koran is a harsh, cruel, uncompassionate book and Islam is its product.’ Read his whole article here.

 At last someone dares to utter the truth about who our enemy is. Robert Spencer writes in Front Page Magazine:

Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. are outraged over remarks made last Friday by Bud Day, a key supporter of John McCain. Day, a much-decorated Air Force Colonel and Medal of Honor recipient who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam with McCain, said during a conference call organized by the Florida Republican Party that “the Muslims have said either we kneel, or they’re going to kill us.” Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel, and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”

The reaction was swift. Saif Ishoof, president of the Center for Voter Advocacy, said that Day’s remarks were “perpetuating a form of Islamophobia.” Khaled Saffuri, the Executive Director of the Islamic Institute (which he co-founded with Grover Norquist), was also deeply offended. “‘This is as close to racist as it gets,” he declared. “These are cheap street tactics. Even if this is called a mistake or a slip of the tongue, it shows a bigger problem with racism. McCain and the Republican party should denounce this.” (Keith Olbermann also termed Day’s words “racism and religious hatred,” although neither he nor Saffuri explained what race Islam is.)

Please don’t apologize, retract, or in any way qualify what you said, Bud Day!  

 Good news! Danes are hitting back at racist Muslims who are trying to take over their country. They are hanging effigies of Muhammad from lampposts.

Read about it and see the PICTURES here.

 Read this story here, and just think what the life of this Iranian woman has been like since she was a little girl of 13.  Now, after 18 years in prison, she is about to be executed for a crime she did not commit, on the insistence of the actual murderer’s family.  

Needless to say, no Western feminist voices have been raised – at least not so we could hear them – in protest against the way she or any other woman is treated in the Muslim world.

Of course, wimmin are not concerned with such things as justice. They are too busy complaining that men don’t help enough with the housework , or something of that order of significance. 

 You can see a video of a stoning here.

What happens in Stoning?
In stoning to death, the victims’s hands are tied behind their backs and their bodies are put in a cloth sack. Then, this human "package" is buried in a hole, with only the victims heads showing above the ground. If its a woman, she is buried upto her shoulders. This is to give her an seemingly equal (but nonetheless impossible) chance to escape recognizing her lesser physical strength.
After the hapless individual has been secured in the hole, people start chanting "Allah hu Akbar" (meaning, God is great), and throw palm sized stones at the head of the victim from a certain distance (a circle is drawn). 
The stones are thrown until the person dies or until he/she escapes out of the hole and crosses the circle. Escaping is impossible, given that the individual’s hands are tied behind their backs and they are buried in a hole upto their necks or shoulders (in the case of males and females respectively).
Naturally, the procedure is extremely barbaric and bloody. 

 At least some Germans are:

In the case of the controversy over the mosque planned for Cologne’s Ehrenfeld neighborhood, the right-wing Pro protesters have indeed been pushed into the margins. Their complaints have been drowned out by more high-profile statements coming from prominent leftists and liberals including German Jewish journalist Ralph Giordano, women’s rights activist Alice Schwarzer and investigative reporter Günter Wallraff, who have all spoken out against the mosque. Representatives of Germany’s large churches have increasingly added their voices to the criticism as well. The "dishonest dialogue" with Islam described in SPIEGEL’s pages in December 2001 – in which church representatives simply ignored scandalous and unbearable aspects like persecution of Christians, discrimination against women, toleration of terror and "honor" killings for the sake of harmony – is now a thing of the past.

In place of the "fairy tale that we’re all ‘children of Abraham’," in the words of Leggewie, the churches are now making an effort not to entangle themselves in finding contrived common ground with Islam. Instead they are trying to find areas in which they differ – and this applies particularly to the construction of mosques.

 

Read the whole report here.

 Read here how European states are allowing Islam to conquer them by sedition, and how the US is threatened by the same process. 

 go here and see appalling pictures of Muslim savagery .