Gavin Boby of Law and Freedom reports on another successful mosque-busting operation:

Santa Brings Us Another Win!

Few of our liberal-left opponents have any real guts.

We get plenty of abuse, which is one of the things that keeps us going.

Otherwise, it tends to be the moral exhibitionism of people anxious for the good opinion of those who agree with them. People with such needs tend to be too selfish to do much. And there are few other reasons — e.g. being a treacherous nutcase — for a non-Muslim to cut a pro-Islam pose.

Substantive opposition is usually self serving, especially if money is involved.

E.g. if you sue someone for non payment of a bill, their response is that it is beneath their principles to cough up to an Islamophobe. Or if a BBC guy wants to pose as macho, he’ll pick on an Islamophobe.

This behaviour is as far removed from principle as you can get, based on the assumption that an Islamophobe is a weak target. And they get a surprise.

And this was the case with the Cricklewood mosque in Camden. We briefed a printer, who shafted mis-served us. When we informed him that there might have been a problem, he told us baldly that the issue was “sensitive”. I.e. it was our own fault and he kept the money.

So, a few weeks ago, I thought it would be my hard lot to explain to you, Dear Readers, that we had lost the case by lousing up the case. Because getting taken advantage of by the supplier you’ve selected is no excuse. There are no excuses in this line of work, full stop. When you louse up, you own up.

Not fun. Losing a case is kind of inappropriate for an organisation whose motto is “We Win”.

Never daunted, we scrambled into rearguard action and we managed to turn it around despite a major setback. If you have any idea how hard it is to change a Council’s mind once they’re in a mindset, then you’ll know how pleased we are with ourselves.

Our tactics were clean, lawful, and effective. And we won. The Council decision came just as Santa was doing his rounds on Christmas Eve: “Decision: Refused and Warning of Enforcement Action to be Taken 24-12-2012”.

We know how keen the Taqiyya artists are to proclaim their reverence for Jesus, so we hope this news didn’t spoil their celebrations of His birth.

This was a miserable application — as they tend to be. There was a history of lack of candour with the Council. The mosque outfit claimed to have been operating unlawfully, without planning, since 2009. And to have been “offering services to our community members since 2004”, despite having claimed in a 2007 application that the property “is used as A1 leased shop and will remain the same”. This was not the case. And now they claimed that it was used as a “library”, and not a bookshop after all, and that that use would continue.

Funnily enough, this outfit lists itself as “Masjid (translation: ‘mosque’) Rawda” on Somali related websites. Watch below for some interesting brainwashing. See the little twerp speaking for 3 minutes from the 7:05 mark (“imitating the Kuffars”) for some less than cohesion-enhancing stuff. Yes, I think we can say this place is a mosque.

The Council had fallen for the string of Islamic half truths and evasions, as public apathy always tempts them to do. Until we got involved.

Take a step back and ask yourself precisely what a mosque is doing in Cricklewood, the butt of every suburban-London joke since the Carry On films. Had you offered Hattie Jacques, Sid James, and Kenneth Williams the chance to appear in some slapstick about “Up the Cricklewood Mosque!”, they would have thought it too contrived.

However, truth is stranger than fiction and reality is zanier than comedy. Thus we found ourselves briefed to do the business with the Cricklewood Masjid Rawda. And it was nice to win despite, or because of, the hindrances.

In the meantime, you might like to contact the Camden Council Planning Enforcement Department, especially if you live in London. Here is their page to “Report a Suspected Breach of Planning Control”, where you can let them know just what this property is used for. You may like to include a link to their YouTube vid below (“Ardayda Masjid Al Rawda Cricklewood Cnt 08 04 2012 Somali Channel”), and point out the bit from 7:05 to 10:15, where junior shows off what they preach about the Kuffar, and the Kuffar’s reverence for Jesus, at this unlawful mosque.

It usually takes something to rouse a Council enforcement department, and you can be that something.

Once again, Merry Christmas, and a mosque-free 2013 to you and your neighbours!

Previous posts about Gavin Boby and the Law and Freedom Foundation:

Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, has told his fellow South African blacks that they should not own dogs. He says ownership of dogs is a white thing, and if blacks do it, they are just trying to copy whites.

In other news, the S&P has downgraded the debt rating of three Egyptian banks from B- to C. Meanwhile, the purchasing power of the average Italian family dropped by 4% in 2012.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

The following essay by Henrik Ræder Clausen places the recent hudna between Hamas and Israel in its proper historical context. It has been adapted from an article published last Sunday at Europe News. See the original article for photos, maps, and a video.

November 21st, 2012: The day we lost the “War on Terror”
by Henrik Ræder Clausen
December 23, 2012

It may have escaped the attention of most, but on November 21st 2012, we suffered the final defeat in the War on Terror declared by President George W. Bush on September 20th 2001. After more than 11 years of fighting, 56,900 American casualties, cumulative expenses of between 1.2 and 2.7 trillion dollars and a very complicated series of diplomatic and military alliances, the aim to defeat terror was abolished in Cairo, Egypt on that day.

Here, the triumvirate of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal announced a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel following a week of intense fighting between the terrorist organisation and the Israeli army.

Now, the word ‘ceasefire’ may take on different meanings for those who want peace as opposed to those who want war. For those who want peace, a ceasefire is a prelude to a permanent peace agreement, and makes sense in that perspective. On the other hand, for those who want war, halting the fighting is primarily an opportunity to regain strength to take up fighting again, and in some circumstances a protection against crushing defeat. Islam has a specific term, ‘hudna’, for this kind of ceasefire. Based on the example of Muhammad, it may last no longer than 10 years, and can be broken earlier if deemed beneficial for Islam.

Courtesy of Challah hu Akbar, let us have a closer look at the ceasefire agreement:

Understanding Regarding Ceasefire in Gaza Strip

1.		Israel shall stop all hostilities on the Gaza Strip land, sea and air including incursions and targeting of individuals.
2.		All Palestinian factions shall stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel, including rocket attacks, and attacks along the border
3.		Opening the crossings and facilitating the movement of people and transfer of goods, and refraining from restricting residents free movement, and targeting residents in border areas and procedures of implementation shall be dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire.
4.		Other matters as maybe requested shall be addressed.

Implementation Mechanism:

1.		Setting up of the zero hour for the Ceasefire Understanding to enter into effect.
2.		Egypt shall receive assurances from each party that the party commit to what was agreed upon.
3.		Each party shall commit itself not to perform any acts that would breach this understanding. In case of any observations, Egypt — as the sponsor of this understanding — shall be informed to follow up.

First, and most important: This agreement blocks Israel from taking any military action against Hamas or other terrorist organisations in Gaza. Without a credible threat of military action, Hamas is now at liberty to rebuild its military infrastructure, its rocket launcher sites, and not least to replenish its somewhat depleted rocket stocks. Hamas will not voluntarily abstain from this.

Reciprocally, Hamas and the other terrorist organisations in Gaza shall stop attacking Israel. Given that their purpose in life is the annihilation of Israel, that can only be a temporary measure.

Then, Israel is to facilitate the movement of people and goods at border crossings. Given that the borders were never closed, not even during Pillar of Defence, that is a somewhat unclear requirement, and could easily become a bone of contention if either Hamas or Egypt deems it insufficiently fulfilled.

The hindrances to free movement in and out of Gaza came into place in June 2007 after extensive fighting between Hamas and Fatah, leaving over 600 Palestinians dead in the power struggle. After Hamas had gained undisputed control of Gaza, Israel and Egypt implemented stricter border control, blocking transport of materials deemed of military importance. That border control, however, has been perforated by an extensive set of tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border.

The final clause of the ceasefire agreement holds another surprise — Egypt, not some neutral international institution like OSCE or the United Nations, is to oversee the implementation. Given that Egypt is now ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas is a branch of the Brotherhood, this does not seem fair, impartial or even reasonably reliable.

What makes Hamas a “terrorist organisation”?

The answer is trivially easy. Hamas is a terrorist organisation because it organizes terror. Anyone who has seen the images of Israeli children running for shelter or being protected by their parents for fear of incoming Hamas rockets will know this to be true. It is not rocket science (pun intended) to realize that a key aim of Hamas is to indiscriminately terrorize the citizens of Israel.

The aims of Hamas are not particular secret, except perhaps to some journalists and a few politicians who have not read the appropriate research papers. A Report on Hamas, presented to the US House of Representatives on October 14th 1993, has this telling quote about Hamas and its motivation:

Hamas relies heavily upon its use of violence. This is clear from the content of pamphlets regularly distributed throughout the occupied territories since the first month of Hamas existence. The pamphlets include statements such as: increase attacks with knives, grenades, and guns against the cowardly Jews in their houses and turn the day into darkness and the nights into intolerable hell.

Apart from the upgrades in rocket technology, the fundamental objective of Hamas has not changed significantly since 1993.

This is also outlined in their 1988 Charter. From the Introduction:

For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world, until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails.

From Part I, article 7, about the anti-Semitic sentiment of Muhammad:

The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!

The Charter quotes many anti-Semitic passages from the Quran, as well as passages calling for Jihad, ‘holy’ war. Stunningly, the Charter in article 32 refers to the classical anti-Semitic pamphlet “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, as if it were factual, not a fabrication by the 19th century Russian secret police:

Their scheme has been laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is said there.

Unfortunately, Hamas does not restrict its terrorist activities to Jews, it also targets the citizens of Gaza if disagreement, dissent or un-Islamic behaviour is suspected. For instance, 6 men suspected of collaborating with Israel were shot in public on November 20th 2012, one of the dead bodies being then dragged through the streets of Gaza by motorcycles to instill terror in any Gaza citizen who might dissent with Hamas. Bystanders were quoted complaining that the brutality of the killings was insufficient.

Probably the most systematic description of the inside workings of Hamas has been provided by Mosab Hassan Yousef in his book Son of Hamas. Born as a son to one of the Hamas founders and known as the “Green prince” as he started revealing the inner workings of the organisation. He reported of prison camps, torture and executions of Palestinians, all for the “Greater good” of keeping up the fight against Israel.

Fortunately, not all is doom and misery in Gaza. While Hamas and other radical Islamist organisations stockpile rockets and build launch pads, living conditions in Gaza are not all that bad. Food is available in sufficient amounts, new houses and shopping malls are being erected, and commodities such as desalinated water, oil, electricity, and medicine are being supplied from Israel. Massive international support to Gaza makes for above-average living conditions compared to most of the Arab world. Poverty is a problem, but not more so than in many other places.

Iron Dome: A game changer

The main objective of any terrorist organisation would, by definition, be to strike terror into the hearts of its enemies. Unpredictable rocket fire used to be an excellent method to achieve this, and cheap rockets can be produced in neighbourhood workshops, as shown in this CNN news clip.

The arsenals of Hamas and associates, however, also includes advanced rockets delivered from Sudan, Iran and possibly elsewhere. These rockets are able to strike far into Israel, yet their lack of a precise guidance system makes them more suited for terrorists than for armies.

On the other side of the fence, in Israel, the situation is more complicated. Warning systems and shelters for the civilians do exist, but frequently the sirens sound a mere 15 seconds before impact, requiring everyone to stop whatever they are doing and scramble for cover.

Enter the Iron Dome, an advanced warning and interception system designed by Israel after the 2006 war in Lebanon. This system detects rocket launches from Hamas, and quickly determines the expected location of impact. If the incoming rocket can be expected to land in a populated area, it sends one or two interceptor missiles to destroy the incoming rocket, which then fails to cause the fear and damage intended.

Iron Dome has was first deployed in 2011, and saw sporadic use until the barrage of rockets in November 2012. At its first major test, it brought down 421 rockets, 80-90 percent of those targeted. While expensive, the system brings welcome relief to the civilians otherwise relying on entirely passive defence.

Iron Dome does not have any offensive capacity and does not change the methods required to uproot the rockets stockpiled in Gaza itself. But it does frustrate a core intention of Hamas, that of terrorizing the population of Israel.

Operation Pillar of Defence

The IDF estimates that up to two hundred thousand rockets are stockpiled by enemies of Israel, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. To entirely eliminate the threat from Islamist terrorists, these weapon arsenals need to be destroyed before they are fired against Israel. The recent addition of Iranian Fajr-5 missiles made that need urgent. To achieve that end, a more offensive strategy is needed. Thus Operation Pillar of Defence.

For, as the government as Israel states:

Despite Israel’s total disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Hamas continues to attack Israel, proof of the fact that they are not fighting against Israel’s (non-existent) presence in Gaza but against Israel’s very existence.

The international community should act to stop the attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip. Hamas and the other terrorist organizations cannot be allowed to act with impunity against the civilian population of southern Israel.

It’s quite simple, actually:

What sense does it make to attack civilians if you pretend to desire peace?

None, really.

Thus, Operation Pillar of Defence started on November 14th 2012 with a targeted strike against the chief of the Hamas military wing, Ahmed Jabari:

As can seen by the video, he suffered a clean hit on his car in a largely empty street, and was killed on the spot. At the same time, Israel targeted multiple Fajr-5 missile storage and launch sites, largely eliminating the novel threat supplied to Hamas by the virulently anti-Semitic Iranian regime, as discussed in this CNN news report.

With their military leader dead and their most potent assault weapons eliminated, Hamas had little choice but to display their strength through a barrage of lesser rockets against Sderot and other cities within range. That triggered an all-out race between Hamas and the IDF: The former would launch rockets in order to terrorize the civilian population, while the IDF would retaliate to destroy Hamas’ weapon caches and military infrastructure.

In a single week, Hamas managed to fire at least 1,456 rockets towards Israel, almost twice as many as during all of 2011. Among others, Hamas targeted Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, fortunately causing only superficial damage. It is particular ironic and embarrassing that Hamas would target Jerusalem, a city supposedly holy to Islam — but apparently not to Hamas. One wonders what would happen if one of their imprecise missiles were to hit the Dome of the Rock mosque?

In any case, the intended terrorizing of the Israeli population failed to materialize. While an estimated million Israelis would seek the shelters to protect themselves from the Hamas rockets, public opinion was firm. Call-ins to the Israeli radio encouraged the IDF to deal with the roots of the problem solidly, even if that meant staying a week or two in the bomb shelters.

From fighting terrorism to ‘ceasefire’

While targeted air strikes are impressive and effective for some purposes, to really eliminate the terrorist infrastructure, a ground invasion would be needed. Israel mobilized the army reserves and sent them to the border with Gaza, and everything was clear to go. At that point, however, world government leaders were scrambling to demand “Peace in Gaza”, and the ground invasion was kept on hold.

Egypt, in particular, had reason to be concerned. The Muslim Brotherhood had risen to power after the so-called “Arab Spring”, crowned by the election of Mohamed Morsi as president in June. Since Hamas is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood and shares the goal of reestablishing the Caliphate, protecting Hamas from destruction became a top priority for Egypt.

It might seem paradoxical that Morsi, who refuses to even use the word ‘Israel’ or meet personally with any representatives of the country, would want to broker a peace agreement between Israel and Hamas. But the influx of foreign diplomats acknowledging his importance surely had an effect. Turkish prime minister Erdogan, the emir of Qatar, German foreign minister Westerwelle, UN chairman Ban Ki-moon and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton all rushed in to stop the fighting. Not all of these can reasonably be suspected of being driven by anti-Jewish sentiment or sympathy for the terrorists being hammered by Israel, but the end result was that the terrorist organisations were spared extinction and a ceasefire became active on November 21st, 2012.

While the Germans, the Arabs and the Turks may have their own motivations for supporting Morsi, and the ceasefire protecting Hamas, the participation of Hillary Rodham Clinton is peculiar. Since 1997 Hamas has been a US-designated terrorist organisation, and if we were to take the US commitment to conduct war on terror seriously, the US should not have any desire to prevent the Israeli army from defeating a major terrorist organisation. Pulverizing Hamas and liberating the Palestinians from its brutal rule could be declared a major victory for Israel, for peaceful Palestinians, and for international law.

Yet this didn’t happen, and thus the stage is being set for another round of fighting, more brutal and lethal than the one that was just interrupted. The reason for this lies in Islamic teachings, which do not recognize a ‘ceasefire’ in the sense it’s understood in the West, a preparation for permanent peace. Rather, Islamists like Yasser Arafat think in the terms of ‘hudna’, a temporary laying-down of arms in order to gather strength for further fighting.

Thus, when attention turns away from Gaza, Egypt, the nomads of Sinai will quietly transport more advanced missiles into Gaza, preparing for another assault on the ‘Zionist entity’, as anti-Semitic regimes designate Israel. That our own leaders do not comprehend this is a source of embarrassment. Worse, it shows that we have entirely lost our moral clarity in the Byzantine game of friends, foes, perceived prestige, deception and betrayal.

The root of the problem

How could the US government lose their moral clarity like that? The answer is probably quite sinister. The problem is likely that the Muslim Brotherhood has managed to infiltrate the White House as such, and that is Bad. That would involve organisations such as CAIR and ISNA, and names such as Huma Abedin, Rashad Hussain, Mohamed Elibiary, Dalia Mogahed, Ingrid Mattson, Kareem Shora, and Salam al-Marayati, all Muslims, and all advisors to the US government. The Center for Security Policy has detailed this problem in its video series The Muslim Brotherhood in America: A Video Course, and others have commented on the problems as well, including FrontPage Magazine, TheBlaze.com, Gates of Vienna, World Net Daily, RadicalIslam.org, NewsMax and others. Unfortunately, the report drew condemnation rather than investigation, thus any and all infiltration can proceed with caution.

Where do we go from here?

In a world without obvious moral compasses, it is good to stick with a few basic principles:

As for Israel, there is every chance that she will deal with the threat of Hamas. For in spite of grandstanding and declaring victory, it has also ceased sending rockets against Israeli civilians. And if it did, there is every chance that the now-famous Iron Dome will intercept those, eliminating Islamic terrorism in mid-air, solidly frustrating their Quranic bid to “strike terror into the hearts of their enemies”.

For the Palestinian areas, the de facto elimination of moderate voices poses a problem. When moderate opposition to Israel and the Jews have not brought about material improvement for the Palestinians, radical voices argue that the elimination of Israel is a precondition for reestablishing the Caliphate. Such religious madness is best countered by frustrating the reaching-out for military victories, and of course by halting any and all Western support to the anti-Semitic Palestinians.

For Egypt, the glow of international prestige is fading rapidly, as secularists and Islamists battle in the streets about the future direction of the country and the role of Sharia. With any luck, the internal struggles will be so consuming that supporting or starting a war against Israel fades from the agenda.

For the US, the situation is a lot more complicated. Having gone all-out for the so-called “Arab Spring”, the US government has played a major role in the recent regime changes from Tunisia to Egypt, and currently arms the rebels and coordinates the war in Syria via Qatar.

While also supporting Israel with defence technology and other means, the US can hardly afford to severely upset the Arab governments, either, or the Federal Reserve might face severe financial trouble. It constitutes a significant fall from grace that Clinton protected Hamas from destruction, and it will be very difficult to climb back and return to principled behaviour and stand firm against terrorists.

If we had been serious about defeating terrorism, we would have applauded the IDF land offensive into Gaza. Instead, everyone rushed in to prevent Israel from defeating the terrorists, setting the stage for yet more rounds of terrorism and retaliation, rather than peace and reconciliation.

November 21st 2012 marks the final defeat in the War on Terror. This is going to hurt.

This morning Fjordman sent out the following tweet:

An entire academic Fjordman-industry is now developing. When will Norway produce the first PhD thesis in fjordmanology?

He was referring to an article in På Høyden, the online newspaper of the University of Bergen. I don’t have a formal translation, but using Google, and with additional help from Henrik Ræder Clausen, I was able to piece together the latest news from Modern Multicultural Norway.

A Norwegian professor of “digital culture” named Jill Walker Rettberg has helped midwife a new fellowship that will investigate extremism on the Internet. According to På Høyden:

“22 July forced us to see that there is a lot of extremism on the net,” says Professor Jill Walker Rettberg. Now the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies has announced a fellowship that is designated for research on extreme speech on the web.

The new scholarship was added to the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies. “There has been little research on extremism on the Internet, at least from a humanist perspective,” says Prof. Walker Rettberg.

Generally speaking, she is positive about the internet:

“The network is global. It’s wonderful if, for instance, one has a very specific disease or a child with special problem — then one can make contact with the few others who are in the same situation. But it is also easier to find other people who have the same and perhaps equally quirky viewpoints as oneself. One talks about a filter bubble or an echo chamber — it means that one only sees those who are similar to oneself,” says Walker Rettberg.

She adds: “Analyses can focus on language, rhetoric, ideology, visual instruments, aesthetics, discourse or social networks… We want to build up expertise in this field. The debate has shown that there are many views — but there is little scientific research.”

Norwegian academics are known to be scrupulously fair and even-handed in their dispassionate scholarly investigations, so we can be certain that the new discipline will take at least a cursory look at left-wing extremists, and maybe even Islamic radicals.

However, the reader is left in no doubt about the real meat of the matter — the dreaded Fjordman:

One of bloggers focused on by the media after 22 July was Fjordman. He was mentioned in Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto, and it has been said that he was Breivik’s mentor. Fjordman is a radical right-wing anti-Islamist. Among others, Marie Simonsen — the political editor of Dagbladet — has charged that he is an extremist who calls for political violence.

Prof. Walker Rettberg adds, “I knew about Fjordman before 22 July, but I had not made a close examination of what he said.”

All that will change as soon as all that petroleum-backed grant money starts flowing into the Department of Aesthetic Studies. A tireless and fully-funded investigator will leave no stone unturned as he, she, or it gets to the bottom of the dangerous xenophobic right-wing extremist phenomenon known as “Fjordman”.

Obviously, the most qualified candidate for the new position is Fjordman himself. After all, who knows more about Fjordmanology than he does? Just think of the research time and effort that would be saved if he were to take up the fellowship!

I think he should apply for the job.

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Jill Walker Rettberg talks about the “echo chamber” that all of us right-wing extremists inhabit. And what she says is true enough — I’m certainly preaching to the choir here 99% of the time.

But what would you call the mainstream media, especially in Norway, if not an “echo chamber”? Doesn’t Prof. Walker Rettberg inhabit a “filter bubble” of her own?

After extensive research into the topic of left-wing extremism in the media, I have come to the conclusion that their primary gripe with the Internet is that it has broken their monopoly on the cultural echo chamber. Now all of those “right-wing extremists” and “xenophobes” can establish their own echo chambers, where they are able to send their racist yodels bouncing back and forth across the virtual valleys of the digital uplands.

And the reach of these new filter bubbles is enormous. The echoes resonate across the entire globe, with millions of people on six continents listening in on them.

This must be galling for a tenured professor of digital nonsense, who is only able to be heard by a few thousand like-minded academics because the state delivers dump truck loads of kroner to her department to support all the claptrap and flapdoodle that passes for “research” in the modern Norwegian academy.

Pull out the petrodollars, and all those professors of comparative cultural oppression would be reduced to boning herring in the canneries, as were their foremothers a hundred and fifty years ago.

Let them shovel out the mammon to themselves while they can. Their time is short.

As a wise man named Lao Tzu said more than two millennia ago:

This is not the way of Tao.
Whatever is contrary to Tao will not last long.

Follow Fjordman on Twitter: Fjordman@Fjordman1

The Lao Tzu quote is from Chapter Fifty-Five of The Tao Te Ching.

The Yemeni interior ministry is asking tribal leaders to help them find three Europeans, two Finns and one Austrian, who were kidnapped last Friday. Reports indicate that their captors are demanding several million dollars ransom for the kidnapped hostages.

In other news, pirates hijacked an Italian ship off the coast of Nigeria and brought it safely to shore along with its four-man crew. Somali pirates generally hijack ships to extort ransom, but their Nigerian counterparts are said to be more interested in the ships’ cargo.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

As reported here last week, Gates of Vienna has received two emails from Sveriges Television (SVT), the Swedish state broadcaster. The first one was from the executive producer of “Agenda SVT”, and the second from a lawyer in SVT’s legal department. Both messages objected to a video embedded in a post from last spring entitled “A Loss of Faith in Sweden as a Democracy”, and cited copyright issues as the reason for their concern.

Last summer’s decision by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, written by Richard Posner no less, makes it quite clear that the embedding of a video uploaded by someone else cannot constitute a violation of copyright — only the uploader of the video and the hosting service may be considered liable. This decision applies to citizens of the United States who live in the United States, which is what the proprietors of this blog are.

When I outlined the above information in my reply to the second email, I received an automated notice (in Swedish, but clear enough in machine translation) saying that the esteemed lawyer was on leave until the 7th of January. That’s a nice long Christmas winter holiday those SVT apparatchiks get! So we will have to wait a couple of weeks until the next act of this drama unfolds.

Copyright may be a genuine concern with SVT, but I have my doubts that it is the real issue. Why, eight months after it was originally posted, did the video suddenly draw the attention of the legal department at Swedish state TV? Even now, after the recent brouhaha, it has been viewed fewer than four thousand times — hardly a matter of great concern.

A Swedish reader wrote us with an interesting theory of what might really be going on:

The threat of legal action from SVT against Gates of Vienna may have a covert purpose which you may be missing. My guess is that they are hoping for a legal fight — going to court in Sweden. The Swedish kangaroo court would rule in favor of SVT. Since your blog would then have been convicted of a crime, SVT and the Swedish court will be able to have the Swedish government, the government of Norway, and perhaps the EU itself block access to GoV within Europe and wherever else they can.

I tend towards paranoia myself, so I’m not ready to rule out such a possible scenario. Other Scandinavians may want to weigh in with their own evaluation of the likelihood of any devious schemes. What do you think is the meaning behind SVT’s action, and in particular the significance of its timing?

A reader in Norway pointed out another aspect of the affair that I hadn’t considered:

Regarding the Sweden Democrats clip and the accusations of alleged copyright infringement made by SVT, maybe you should write back to the Swedish lawyer and demand that the screenshots of Gates of Vienna featured in this documentary be removed, as they are the legal property of GoV.

I presume that SVT did not have the permission from GoV to use them in their documentary.

In any case, whatever you decide to do you should know that there are lots of people out there supporting you.

Well, that’s a thought — if I ever acquire the bottomless pockets I have longed for all my life, maybe I’ll dig into them and send an entire warren of lawyers haring after Sveriges Television, and clean them out of every last krona.

Until then, I’ll have to be content with buzzing around their ears like an annoying little transatlantic fly.

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This current eruption concerning Swedish state TV recapitulates what happened earlier this year with the Norwegian media during the Breivik trial. The klieg lights were hot in our faces in those days, just as they had been a year previously, right after the slaughter on Utøya.

This unwanted attention from the organs of leftist orthodoxy in Norway had the unintended consequence of sending readers to Gates of Vienna who would otherwise never have found us. As I pointed out at the time:

A couple of weeks ago we discussed a process I likened to a 21st-century Radio Free Norway. Since almost all Norwegian mass media are severely skewed in their bias against Islam-critics, and in favor of leftist Multiculturalism, this blog and other prominent sites of the anti-Islamization resistance act as conduits of real information into Norway.

Now the same thing seems to be happening with SVT. Perhaps the proximate cause is the fact that the Sweden Democrats have for the first time gained the support of more than 10% of the Swedish populace. Or maybe there is some other domestic political reason that makes the Swedish authorities want to shut down or discredit overseas websites that help Swedes discover the truth about what is being done to their country.

Whenever they attempt something like this, thousands of Swedes are pointed to the article and see the video clip. And they don’t just read the SVT-related material: new readers work their way through our archives as well, discovering all our horrifying blasphemies against Multicultural orthodoxy. Worst of all, they are able to see their country from the point of view of an outsider — exactly what their own state media want to prevent.

So the meme propagates, thanks to SVT. The Swedish media are their own worst enemy, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for that, communists or not.

Thanks, comrades!

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Very little real dissent occurs in public within Sweden itself. Like Norway, Sweden is unkind to those who sin against jantelagen, and makes the lives of its dissidents miserable.

It’s not a good sign when no vigorous and open discussion contrary to consensus occurs within Sweden itself. This is one of the characteristics of a “totalitarian democracy”: the state exercises virtually complete control over public opinion, but without the necessity for jackboots or a gulag. Given the right conditions, the total suppression of officially unacceptable opinions may be achieved without any violence whatsoever.

I have said all these things before concerning Norway, and the same is just as true of Sweden. This blog did not set out to become a haven for Scandinavian dissidents. We stumbled into the role accidentally, over the course of six or seven years, as disgruntled Swedes and Norwegians took an interest in the translations, the news stories, and the free-ranging discussion in our comments. We gradually accumulated more tipsters, more translators, and more correspondents.

Now, as 2012 draws to a close, our broadcast radius has increased to the point that the official state media of Sweden find it expedient to bring us to heel — or try to.

To paraphrase what I said last June:

We beam our signal into the oppressed forests and snow-covered uplands so that ordinary Swedes may realize that yes, there is another point of view besides the one they are spoon-fed by SVT.

That their homeland and heritage are worth preserving and protecting.

That not only is there nothing wrong with having such a goal, but that striving for it is in fact a noble and worthy enterprise.

That saving their culture is a moral necessity for all Swedes.

The same is true for the rest of us in our own homelands, of course. We really need a Radio Free Everywhere.

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One final point is worth considering. Suppose the Swede who wrote to us last week is right?

What if this operation by SVT is an attempt to obtain a legal judgment against Gates of Vienna, and thus provide a pretext for blocking access to us within Sweden, and possibly other countries as well?

I am by nature obstinate. This is especially true when someone attempts to bully me. My first tendency is always to resist, to be defiant, to dig in my heels. I am wont to say, in effect, “Take your filthy hands off me, Sirrah, or I warrant that you shall live to regret your insolence!”

But is this the most prudent course, given the current context?

SVT has no case against Gates of Vienna under any law that a court in the United States of America would recognize. But suppose they succeed with some intra-European gambit, and shut down access to this blog in Scandinavia or elsewhere. What then?

Which course would be better? Should we censor ourselves, and remove the embedded video in order to obviate such a pretext? Or should we remain defiant, and thus take the risk that Sweden will jam our signal?

I’ll be gratified to hear from our Scandinavian readers. Radio Free Scandinavia is here to serve you, so your interests in this matter are paramount.

An Indian student in Bonn reports that on Christmas Eve he was attacked and injured by two men who demanded that he convert to Islam. The media generally have difficulties finding the proper spin in reports of “brown-on-brown” violence, so it will be interesting to see how the German MSM handles the follow-up on this story.

Many thanks to Hermes for translating this article from Express.de:

Christmas Eve in Bonn — Indian student apparently attacked by Islamists

Islamist attack on Christmas Eve? An Indian student was attacked by two men on 24 December — they wanted him to convert to Islam.

When the police arrived at 10:10 pm in Endenich, the 24-year-old was bleeding from the head and the mouth. He was treated by an emergency doctor. The young man told the police that he had been walking on the road to a restaurant in Bonn-Poppelsdorf, and as he walked past no. 119 in Sebastian Street, he was approached by two unknown men who asked him to convert to Islam.

Bonn state protection office active in this issue

He wanted to continue on his way, but the two men caught him from behind and knocked him to the ground. In the course of events one of the suspects succeeded in inflicting a cut on the student’s tongue, who was dazed by the blows he received.

After the two offenders fled, the student was able to attract the attention of a passer-by who helped him and called an ambulance. The 24-year-old was taken to a nearby hospital.

The police began searching for the perpetrators immediately, but with no success. With this act having an apparent political motivation, Bonn state protection became involved in the investigation, witnesses were interrogated, and physical evidence as well as the clothing of the victim was secured.

Perpetrators with an Islamist background?

The young man explained in his testimony that one of the suspects was about 35 years old, 180 cm tall, and slim. He had dark, curly hair with gray highlights, a long beard and was dressed in dark clothes. After the attack, he drove away towards Poppelsdorf together with the other suspect, of whom he could give no description.

Taking into consideration the physical description of the offender and the course of events, the police said that it cannot be ruled out the perpetrators were members of the Islamist scene. The investigation has been handed over to the public prosecutor’s office in Bonn. An investigative team has started working on the case, and is looking for witnesses to report more details.

This is the thirteenth in a series of subtitled versions of Dr. Bill Warner’s talk from last summer in Tennessee.

Thanks to the steady stream of translations, Dr. Warner’s carefully researched seminar about the history of Islam has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Danish version of Dr. Warner’s talk is below, and Russian is still in the pipeline.

Many thanks to TB for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

(* = assigned but not yet received; † = received but not yet posted)

The English transcript is available here.

Danish transcript:

After months of waiting, an Austrian anti-sharia activist has received an answer from his government to his request for its reaction to the Turkish prime minister’s advance interference with the Organization of Security Cooperation (OSCE) meeting in Warsaw last October.

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff sends this introductory note to accompany the reply from the Austrian ministry of foreign affairs:

Prior to the annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of OSCE in Warsaw, Poland, Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Islamophobia needed to be recognized as a crime against humanity. He also made the following boast:

“I was able to include Islamophobia as a hate crime in the final statement of an international meeting in Warsaw.”

This prompted Harald Fiegl, a dedicated Austrian Counterjihadist and representative of Mission Europa Netzwerk Karl Martell, to write a letter to the Austrian minister of foreign affairs and ask whether the Austrian government was aware of Mr. Erdogan’s claim, and what it planned to do about this. It is not standard diplomatic practice for a prime minister to add anything to the final statement of a conference that has not yet taken place.

It took three months and many interventions in the foreign minister’s cabinet to receive an answer.

Here is the letter to Mr. Fiegl from the minister of foreign affairs, kindly translated by JLH:

Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs
Vienna, December 21, 2012
Mr. Harald Fiegl

Dear Mr. Fiegl:

Vice Chancellor and Minister for European and International Affairs, Dr. Michael Spindelegger, has requested that I reply to your communication of September 20.

I am familiar with the cited discussion and I share your view that under international law the concept “Islamophobia” is not straightforward, and is therefore a problematic concept. Proceeding from your interpretations, we may assume that “Islamophobia” (hostility to Islam per se) — without the further qualification of criminal action — does not as a rule satisfy the qualifications for crimes against humanity.

Austria is following with interest the discussion of “Islamophobia,” including at this year’s Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw. The concluding report says: “A number of speakers addressed the issues of ‘Islamophobia.’ Concern was expressed over wide-spread demonization of Islam and Muslims, while one speaker requested that the term itself, as well as the concept of “religious hatred” should be clarified, or avoided.”

A purely political judgment on “Islamophobia” in the framework of the OSCE is quite possible in the future. It would, however, have to be preceded by a comprehensive and thorough discussion, wherein the reservations you have noted from the Austrian point of view — but also from others — would be included. Without a clear definition of the concept, no consensus about it can be reached. To that extent, “Islamophobia” will remain in the OSCE, pending further clear discussion, which will be followed very attentively by Austria.

Yours truly.
Dr. Friedrich Stift

Previous posts about the OSCE and the Counterjihad:

A couple of weeks ago pastor Terry Jones of Stand Up America Now, in collaboration with the Pakistani ex-Muslim Imran Firasat, released movie a move called The Innocent Prophet (watch it here).

The immediate fallout from the movie’s release was that Imran Firasat had his asylum revoked and will be deported from Spain, his adopted home. As an apostate from Islam, when Mr. Firasat is deported to his native Pakistan he will likely face the death penalty.

Now Terry Jones has been forbidden entry to Spain or any other country that has signed the Schengen Agreement. Below is the press release that was just sent out by Stand Up America Now:

Dr. Terry Jones — Banned from Spain and Schengen States

As of December 10, 2012, Dr. Terry Jones has been officially banned from entering Spain or any other country of the Schengen States, by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior for a period of two years. The Schengen States include: Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Iceland, Netherlands, Malta.

Spain has banned Dr. Jones because of his involvement with the YouTube video, “The Innocent Prophet”, stating that, “the video has offensive references to the Koran and to Islam which creates a hazardous situation for Spain.”

Dr. Jones had been invited to Madrid, Spain by Imran Firasat to hold a joint press conference announcing the release of the movie “The Innocent Prophet”. Imran has been involved in the co-production of the Youtube, The Innocent Prophet, with Terry Jones and Stand Up America Now. The Innocent Prophet was released to the public on Youtube on December 15, 2012.

Imran Firasat has been served the official documents by the Spanish government confirming that his residency status has been revoked.

The authorities quickly hand-delivered the official revocation documents to Imran on Friday evening, December 22nd, giving him no chance to consult his lawyer or plea his case.

Through these actions, Spain and the Schengen States have proven to the world that they hold Islamic law in high regard, even above their own laws. The weak leadership of President Obama, his support of radical Islam, and friendship with the Muslim Brotherhood leads the way for other western nations to enact blasphemy laws and abolish freedom.

Well, the news feed is back. I can’t say we’re fully up to speed yet, but the engine is consistently firing on four cylinders, and occasionally on five or six.

A young African-American lady named Tawana Brawley gained notoriety in New York State twenty-five years ago by accusing several white men of abducting her, holding her prisoner, and raping her repeatedly. After a firestorm in the media, Ms. Brawley’s accusations turned out to be utterly bogus, and the men she falsely accused won lawsuits against her and the race-baiting “civil rights activists” who helped her concoct her story. Al Sharpton eventually paid up (with a little help from his friends), but Tawana Brawley disappeared, and the judgment was never served against her.

A New York newspaper has discovered Ms. Brawley, now 40 years old, living in Hopewell, Virginia and commuting to her nursing job in Richmond. She is licensed to work in her field under two different names, neither of them Brawley.

In other news, the French actor Gérard Depardieu recently moved to Belgium in disgust over the high rate of taxation in France, which he says took 85% of his income last year. Now Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered Mr. Depardieu a Russian passport, and says the actor will be welcomed if he wants to move to Russia.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

This song by Robert Earl Keene makes me cry every single time I listen. Not big tears; it simply plucks nerve endings from some Christmases Past. The Baron thinks I may have posted this before — could be, since it was first put up on You Tube in 2006, and I like to repeat a good thing. Evidently others feel the same way since it now has the better part of two million views.

You may have to be an American to understand why this fond reflection on lower middle class family traditions sounds such a responsive chord, or why it seems so deft and so lovingly rendered. Trust me, Robert Earle Keene doesn’t strike one condescending note.

In the song he mentions that one of his kin “drove in from Harlingen”. That’s Harlingen, Texas, after the Frisian town of the same name in the Netherlands. The town in Texas wins awards for its all-American character.

Notice that all the Christmas songs he includes are actually church hymns. Once those very same tunes resounded on the bustling downtown sidewalks and later in shopping malls, playing incessantly through the loudspeakers all season long. That was back when the “season” began around the first of December.

Those times are gone. Where you can hear the music at all, usually in some huge indoor mall, there is only “Winter Wonderland” or something equally bland on offer. God forbid anyone’s fragile sensibilities be offended by songs of straggling shepherds or the random angel of peace. As this aggressive secularization spreads into our holidays, the crowds are noticeably thinning.

Those two factors may or may not be causally linked.

So you can sing along, here are the lyrics:

Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk at our Christmas party
We were drinking champagne punch and homemade eggnog
Little sister brought her new boyfriend
He was a Mexican
We didn’t know what to think of him until he sang
Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad

Brother Ken brought his kids with him
The three from his first wife Lynn
And the two identical twins from his second wife Mary Nell
Of course he brought his new wife Kay
Who talks all about AA
Chain smoking while the stereo plays Noel, Noel
The First Noel

Carve the Turkey
Turn the ball game on
It’s margaritas when the eggnog’s gone
Send somebody to the Quickpak Store
We need some ice and an extension cord
A can of bean dip and some Diet Rites
A box of Pampers, Marlboro Lights
Hallelujah everybody say ‘cheese’
Merry Christmas from the family

Fred and Rita drove from Harlingen
I can’t remember how I’m kin to them
But when they tried to plug their motor home in
They blew our Christmas lights
Cousin David knew just what went wrong
So we all waited out on our front lawn
He threw the breaker and the lights came on
And we sang Silent Night, Silent Night, Oh Holy Night

Carve the turkey turn the ball game on
It’s Bloody Marys
Cause We All Want One!
Send somebody to the Stop ’N ’ Go
We need some celery and a can of fake snow
A bag of lemons and some Diet Sprites
A box of Tampons, some Salem Lights
Hallelujah, everybody say ‘cheese’
Merry Christmas from the Family

Feliz Navidad!

This is a song for Christmas evening, when entropy reigns and no one cares.

The days of work preparing for the feast are a memory, the feast has been mostly consumed, only the clean-up and stashing of leftovers remains.

Glitter sparkles in the rug where it fell off some curling ribbon. The children are asleep here and there — on the sofa, behind the tree, on top of the coats in the guest room. The remaining cranky one is about to be lulled into his blanket and placed on Great-Grandpa’s lap in the padded rocking chair.

Finally, the old tom cat pokes his head out from under the couch. Is it safe yet?

Hat tip: One of our family members reminded me.

Gavin Boby of Law and Freedom paid a visit to Australia back in September under the sponsorship of the Q Society. Gavin told his audience that Australia is ten or fifteen years behind Britain in the process of Islamization, but is bound to catch up quickly.

He then laid out some general guidelines for resisting the establishment of new mosques, using his own successful experiences before local councils in England opposing planning applications for “interfaith centers”.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:

Previous posts about Gavin Boby and the Law and Freedom Foundation:

Our wonderful videographer-on-call, Vlad Tepes (peace be upon that brave man) created an evocative montage of video and stills (the latter by Bear). For this, and for so much more, seasoned greetings to the Baron’s colleague and my good friend… the one who rescues me when the B. has to travel and I need an image or an embedded video.

This wintry confection he made certainly brings back some New England Christmases for me — the frost-rimed rhythms of urban life continuing on despite the weather. I couldn’t help but smile to think of the panicked reaction if this were to happen in Washington, D.C.

There is lots to see here; I watched it several times, looking at what appear to be tiny onion domes on one church, and the steeply pitched roofs everywhere. Even in the snow and slush, someone is moving…

Now that it’s quit raining ‘round here, I’m going out to cut some holly for the supper table. The future Baron will be home for Christmas evening and we’ll have roast beef in his honor. Kind of like the fatted calf, only it’s a very small roast and that boy — oops, man — has never had even a prodigal moment. (Yes, we are lucky indeed.)

Merry Christmas once more.