Provocative Sheikh's views aired

Safa TV, a Saudi satellite station, recently allowed known terrorist Sheikh Mohamed Al-Zoghbi to air his inflammatory, xenophobic and libellous views on their station.

The Sheikh lists horrific calamities he wishes to befall Bashar Al-Assad and calls on Allah to punish not only Bashar, but all the Al-Assad family as well as those who help and support them, referring to the whole family as an ‘infidel clique’, ‘criminals’ and ‘abusers’.

He then calls on the people of Syria, men, women, slaves and children to revenge themselves against them all and fight them with their ‘money, bodies and tongues’.

He says that the jihad against the Al-Assads is more important than that which Muslims should be waging against the Christians and even the Jews, referring to both religions as ‘infidels’ but stresses that Nusayris are greater infidels.

He closes by saying ‘Kill these unbelievers until you purify the earth from their filth’.

These comments should be strongly condemned as should Safa TV for allowing Sheikh Zoghbi to make them on their station.

Interview can be viewed here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi24WT7D2fg

Koran burning protests still ongoing

Even though the pastor concerned called off the Koran burning in the USA, the news seems not to have filtered through to the people of Afghanistan, many of whom think the action went ahead, such is the poor state of the media in that country. Heaven knows the outcry that might have ensued had he actually gone ahead and done it:

2 killed in Afghan anti-Quran-burning protest

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC (AP) – 14 hours ago
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan soldiers fired on demonstrators trying to storm a government building to protest against a once-planned Quran burning in the U.S., and two protesters were killed, an Afghan official said. Four were injured.
The protesters in eastern Logar province Sunday chanted "Death to America" and burned tires, attacked several shops and set election campaign posters on fire, said Mohammad Rahim Amin, chief of Logar's Baraki Barak district.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Israeli police raid peace radio station

This piece came in from Dajani of ATFP. Sometimes Israel goes crazy. I mean they complain about mosque broadcasts inciting violence on Palestinian State TV. So when they get a half-way decent broadcaster they HAMMER it into the ground. Meanwhile they give cart blanche to all the filth. Are Israelis insane or just plain stupid. They are certainly badly served by their government - unless that is their government has some sort of death wish. I have often wondered that. Else how do you explain this kind of inane policy?

JERUSALEM -- Israeli police raided the Jerusalem studio of Ram FM – an English-language peace radio station, based in the West Bank, which aims to find common ground between Israelis and Palestinians – on the grounds the station was operating without a license.

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

The Innocent pay the price for incitement

This comes in from Felix with the comment, "Pretty basic stuff":

Former Dean of Islamic Law at Qatar University Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari: It is the Innocent Who Pay the Price for the Incitement by the Preachers of Hatred

Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari: "In my opinion, the people who try to impose a single religion, a single culture, or single political regime oppose the will of Allah. Allah created human beings, and the Koran says: 'but they will not cease to differ' until Judgment Day.[...]"Why did Allah create human beings different from one another? The development of the world, the enrichment of life, and the progress of Man and society can only take place when there is such diversity.

TO VIEW THIS CLIP CLICK HERE

Appeals against facilitating settler radio

Settler Radio has always been grossly racist in the past. Settler Radio Channel Seven I THINK it was that used to issue calls to "kill the arabs". And now we are to get these people back. Well that's an end to any legitimacy to Israeli complaints about PALESTINIAN TV BROADCASTS:

In an appeal to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, the Gush Shalom movement asks the judges to halt government plans for creation of a “regional radio” intended for the use of West Bank settlers. The appellants say that the tender issued by the government is in fact meant to legalize pirate radio stations such as “Arutz 7”, and that the military government has moved to facilitate the creation of such a settler station without legal authority and while seriously undermining the due democratic procedures.

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Al-Zawahiri to the U.S.:

I put this on the blog because it is good to see that Memri have mended their ways - and are now sourcing their "Islamist website" stories. This is much more credible:

Al-Zawahiri to the U.S.: "Do Not Ask President Bush When The Soldiers Will Return– Ask Instead How Many Will Return"
The Islamist website www.ekhlaas.org/forum/ which is hosted by Layered Technologies, Inc. in Texas, USA, posted, on September 20, 2007, an 80-minute video of Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri speaking on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of 9/11. The video was produced by the Al-Sahab media company in the month of Sha'ban, 1428 (August-September 2007), apparently prior to September 11, 2007, and is subtitled in English.In the video, statements by Al-Zawahiri are interspersed with footage of jihad fighters in various places around the world, audio clips from Osama bin Laden's speeches, statements by Western commentators and U.S. officials, and more.

TO VIEW THIS DESPATCH IN FULL CLICK HERE

PA Speaker makes racist assault

Felix sent this in - AN INDICATION OF INCEASING RADICALISATION - The Palestinian Authority used to have a moderate as speaker - a man of some distinction who respected Israel and wanted Hamas recognition of Israel. He was snatched earlier this year by Israel and imprisoned without trial - and was then replaced by this extremist. So sad.

Speaker of Palestinian Legislative Council Ahmad Bahr Refers to Jews as "Brothers of Apes and Pigs". The following are excerpts from a public address delivered by Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmad Bahr, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on August 21, 2007:

Ahmad Bahr: Jerusalem, which was first conquered by Omar and then liberated by Saladin, was lost by the Muslims, who strayed from the path of Allah. This was the reason that the brothers of apes and pigs had the audacity to defile and occupy it, and then to burn its pulpit, in complete disregard of everyone. [...] The liberation of Jerusalem will not be achieved by means of glittering slogans, cheap arrogance, and degrading concessions. It will be achieved by realizing the divine path in the souls of the Muslims, and by raising the generation of the coming victory to lead the battle against the brothers of apes and pigs. By Allah, Jerusalem will be restored only through Jihad. The foundations of the monstrous entity will be shaken only by the love of martyrdom for the sake of Allah. By Allah, even if all Palestinians die for the sake of Jerusalem and Palestine, and if they all attain the honor of martyrdom for the sake of Allah, this would be a small and cheap sacrifice for the sake of Jerusalem.

TO VIEW THIS CLIP CLICK HERE

Issues Raised by Journalists: Jihad Bee replaces Terror Mouse

Itmar Marcus' occaisionally unreliable Palestinian Media Watch site was the first to pick this up from whence it was forwarded to us by Adel Darwish. See this link:

Issues Raised by Journalists: Jihad Bee replaces Terror Mouse

However, Memri has also been highlighting this issue.

Following the "martyrdom" of Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV's Mickey Mouse-like character Farfour at the hands of an Israeli soldier on the Pioneers of Tomorrow children's show, the show introduced a new character, Nahoul the Bee, who vowed to continue in Farfour's path of "Islam, heroism, martyrdom, and the mujahideen." The following are excerpts from the Pioneers of Tomorrow show featuring Nahoul the Bee, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on July 13, 2007. TO VIEW THIS CLIP CLICK HERE

Qardawi promotes violence - AGAIN and AGAIN

One of Al Jazeera's greatest sins - probably its greatest by a mile - is the airtime it gives to the Egyptian zealot preacher, Yousef Qardawi. Felix writes: This is truly very sick and must be on your blog as an example of hatefulmisrepresentation of history meant to mislead today's generation concerninghistory -both the history of the holocaust and the history of the near East.Regardless of Quradhawi's official titles within Islam, he purposefully misrepresents history in no less a fashion than past and present falsifierssuch as Hitler and his ilk, religious or secular, who simply refuse to facefacts well recorded. In that sense he is worse than a flat earther whosimply refuses to face reality but otherwise has no further influence inmankind. Qaradhawi engenders hateful thoughts and ideas to help stoke thefire of lothesome self immolation in the name of a religion whose essentialshe has perverted.

Hamas Leader Khaled Mash'al Praises Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi for HisSupport of Suicide Operations and States: Holocaust Exaggerated, Being Usedto Extort Germany, and Zionist Holocaust Against Arabs Much Worse

To view this Special Dispatch in HTML click here

The following are excerpts from speeches delivered by Hamas leader KhaledMash'al and Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi at a conference honoringAl-Qaradhawi. The speeches aired on Al-Jazeera TV on July 16, 2007.

To view this clip click here

PA government shuts down Hamas' "Mickey Mouse" of hate

With thanks to Felix for sending the link. Hamas' indoctrination of children continues despite 'Mickey' going off air...




Hamas Mouse: Blame the Jews

by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook - May 13, 2007

The Mickey Mouse clone named Farfur who’s been preaching hatred and Islamic domination to Palestinian kids was back on the air and blaming the Jews for his woes on Friday, despite public statements by Palestinian Authority Minister of Information Mustafa Barghouti that the show would be taken off the Hamas TV network until it could be reviewed.

Farfur, star of the Al Aqsa TV children’s show Tomorrow’s Pioneers, was joined on the broadcast by his regular co-host, a little girl named Saraa. The program also featured an adult, Hazim, who delivered most of the show’s messages about Islamic supremacy.

PMW reported last week that the Hamas Mickey Mouse character was teaching world Islamic domination, violence and hatred. The ensuing worldwide outrage over the use of this character, dubbed “Terror Mouse” by the New York Daily News and described by Walt Disney’s daughter as “pure evil,” prompted the PA to announce that it was suspending the program until further review.

But the show is still on the air, with no change in content except for a somewhat smaller role for the squeaky-voiced Mickey Mouse knockoff. The more inflammatory comments are delivered by the soft-spoken adult character.

It appears from the latest broadcast that the Hamas or PA officials who oversaw the show were concerned only with neutralizing Farfur’s dialogue, and not with moderating the show’s content. It is as if they decided that the show’s messages, which also promote hatred of Israel and the US, are completely acceptable -- as long as the more controversial comments are not coming from a corrupted version of Disney’s beloved mouse.

Even though Farfur's role in Friday’s program was minimized, however, it was definitely not benign. When chastised for cheating by copying another student’s work, he blamed "the Jews" for destroying his home, which prevented him from finding his own notebook.

Meanwhile, the adult Hazim told the child viewers that Islam will spread all over the world, including Spain, and that the spread of Islam is for the world’s benefit. He said the “massacres” in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine will be replaced by “love and justice” under Islamic rule.

In a debate with PMW director Itamar Marcus on FOX TV today, Barghouti again acknowledged that children shouldn't be exposed to this type of television. He said that the program would be taken off, or have its content changed, by next week.

Original Article

Fayyad warns Islamic Preachers

Well, you have to admit he's trying. This from Rafi at ATFP:

The Associated Press looks at efforts by Palestinian PM Fayyad to crack down on mosque sermons in the West Bank that espouse political messages

By Mohammed Daraghmeh The Associated Press June 29, 2007

The new Palestinian prime minister delivered a stern warning Thursday to hundreds of Islamic preachers, including Hamas supporters: He won't tolerate calls for violence delivered from mosque pulpits and plans to collect militants' weapons. Salam Fayyad's meeting with some 800 Muslim clergy marked the latest attempt to stem the influence of Hamas in the West Bank following the Islamists' violent takeover of Gaza this month. Security forces have arrested dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank, and President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to dry up funding to Hamas with a review of all private organizations.

TO VIEW FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

The battle for hearts and minds

Dr. Reuven Erlich sends this diatribe against Hizbollah - and perhaps he has a point - certainly with regard to explicitly ant-semitic Al Manah TV. Reuven states:

The flagship of Hezbollah's media empire is its TV satellite channel, Al-Manar , which was set up in 1991 with aid from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The channel's broadcasts are slanted toward propaganda and reflect Hezbollah's Iranian-inspired ideology and political agenda. From the very beginning Hezbollah specialized in mixing propaganda with factual information, including visual material from the battlefield . To that end, it established a body called “ battle information, ” which embedded professional photographers in the squads attacking the IDF and the South Lebanese Army. Al-Manar is professional and effective, and it is extremely popular not only in Lebanon but throughout the entire Arab-Muslim world, the Middle East (including the Palestinian Authority) and abroad.

TO VIEW FULL ITEM CLICK HERE

Huge Gulf in Mid East Narratives

Rafi Dajani sends this item from the BBC (UK) which reports on individual Israeli and Palestinian efforts to address the severe lack of official acknowledgment of the other's history and narrative by both sides

HUGE GULF IN MIDEAST NARRATIVES By Claire Bolderson BBC (UK) May 2, 2007

Israel's independence celebrations gloss over parts of historyIf you watch the introductory video at Tel Aviv's Independence Hall Museum you will hear barely a mention of the Arabs who lived in Palestine before Israel became a state.
If you look at a map in an Israeli school text book you are unlikely to find the Green Line, the ceasefire line which until 1967 separated Israel from the Palestinian territories.
Israel stretches to the border with Jordan. It is as if the Palestinians don't exist.

TO VIEW FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Jerusalem Post: Back to the Future

This is the transcript of a fascinating interview with Robert Wistrich, which Felix thought you might be interested to read. There are some interesting concepts that need development - i.e. "On the substantive issue of when criticism of Israel becomes anti-Semitic, I think that there are good criteria. Every rational person understands the difference between criticism and defamation. If you talk about an individual in a defamatory way, you're going to the heart of his character, his essence. The same is true of countries."

One on One: Back to the Future

Islamic Scholars Debate the Meaning of Jihad

Felix sends this item. William comments: Omar Bakri Muhammed is a fanatic cut from the same cloth as all extremists. We in Britain have dumped him in Lebanon instead of dealing with our own dirty washing. I have never heard of "New TV" in Lebanon - but this may be an issue for the forthcoming media conference.

The following are excerpts of a TV debate on the subject of jihad. Theparticipants are Syrian-born British Islamist Sheikh Omar Bakri,(1) Bahraini Shi'ite liberal intellectual Diyaa Al-Musawi,(2) and Egyptian Islamist thinker, author, and journalist Sheikh Gamal Al-Bana.(3) The debate aired on New TV onMarch 20, 2007.

Sheikh Omar Bakri: "Jihad is a duty that has to do with the means, not thegoals. In other words, jihad is a religious means to a religious goal – toelevate the word of Allah. This is what jihad for the sake of Allah, in thesense of fighting, means, although we accept that there is another meaning to jihad."

Qaradawi damages Palestine’s cause

Mona sends this and says: "Below is my latest SaudiDebate.com column in which I lay out an argument that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a Muslim issue but a human one."

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a Muslim issue. It is a dispute over land, it is about an occupation that must end and it is about a people who deserve a state. But it is not a religious dispute. Clerics, rabbis, priests and any one else who claims religious authority for his opinion should stay out of it. As a Muslim, I’m particularly eager to keep our clerics away from Palestine. For too long the easiest Friday sermon to give began and ended by cursing the “Zionists”, often interchanging Zionist with Jew, stopping along the way to enflame the worshippers with news of the latest humiliations or atrocities committed by the Israelis against the Palestinians.

TO VIEW FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Father of Palestinian Suicide Bomber Interview

Felix sends this disturbing item. He comments: Another one to read. As Alan Dershowitz told the students in Soas "There are no 72 virgins up there. It is just one 72 yr old virgin"

The following are excerpts from an interview with the father of Palestinian suicide bomber Tareq Hamid, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 6, 2007. It is followed by excerpts of an interview with the children of Palestinian suicide bomber Rim Al-Riyashi, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 8, 2007

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS CLIP

About Palestinian School Books

This response to the Clinton complaint (SEE BELOW) was sent by Afif:

By SAMI ADWAN
On February 8, 2007 Mrs. Clinton made an incendiary statement on Palestinian schoolbooks to Itamar Marcus. This is not the first time Mrs. Clinton accused the Palestinian schoolbooks of inciting violent, teaching to hate and de-legitimizing Israel existence. When she was running for a senator seat in New York in 2000, she made almost the same accusation. Questions ought to be raised on the timing of her statements and the resources that she depends on in her statements.
It is very clear from the timing of her statements that she would like to get more votes now to be the future president of the USA, as she got enough votes to be a senator before.

TO VIEW FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE

Syrian Incitement

Anti-Semitic expressions in the Syrian media as part of the false incitement campaign about the earthworks at the Mugrabim Ramp in Jerusalem. This is yet another example of anti-Semitic incitement in Syrian government-controlled media. The Syrian regime makes no distinction between anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incitement.

Full Text