Promoting Peace, Harmony, and Magic Ponies At The OIC

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As we reported here last week, President Miloš Zeman of the Czech Republic made a remarkable speech at a closed-door reception on May 26th to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day. Unique among Western political leaders, Mr. Zeman was willing to call out Islam itself — not “radicalism”, not “extremism”, not “Islamism”, but the “very essence of the ideology” — for its anti-Semitism and instigation of violence.

It’s no surprise that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation was very disappointed in what the Czech leader said. President Zeman made his speech almost two weeks ago, but the OIC’s statement of disapproval is still featured at the top of the organization’s main web page as of this writing. The speech was barely noticed in the Western press, but its prominence on the OIC’s website is an implicit recognition of its significance.

In case you missed it, here are a couple of paragraphs from the text that caused so much heartburn among the luminaries of the OIC:

So let me quote one of their sacred texts to support this statement: “A tree says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. A stone says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” I would criticize those calling for the killing of Arabs, but I do not know of any movement calling for mass murdering of Arabs. However, I know of one anti-civilisation movement calling for the mass murder of Jews.

After all, one of the paragraphs of the statutes of Hamas says: “Kill every Jew you see.” Do we really want to pretend that this is an extreme viewpoint? Do we really want to be politically correct and say that everyone is nice and only a small group of extremists and fundamentalists is committing such crimes?

Below is the text of the OIC’s statement, with my own remarks interpolated:

OIC Secretary General expresses disappointment at the Czech President Miloš Zeman’s Statement against Islam

The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Iyad Ameen Madani, expressed his disappointment at the reported statements made by the Czech President, Miloš Zeman, on 26 May 2014 at the Israeli Embassy in Prague that “Islamic ideology rather than individual groups of religious fundamentalists was behind violent actions similar to the gun attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.”

“I believe that this xenophobia and this racism or anti-Semitism stem from the very nature of the ideology on which these fanatical groups rely, I know about an anti-civilization movement that calls for the massive murdering of Jews,” the Czech President was quoted to say.

The OIC’s statement elides the Czech president’s words, but without including any ellipses. Specifically, it inserts a comma between “groups rely” and “I know about”, omitting Mr. Zeman’s quote of the hadith about the Jew-betraying tree: “A tree says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. A stone says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

Now, why would the earnest scribblers at OIC headquarters want to skip that well-known and authoritative piece of Islamic scripture? As respected Muslim citizens of proven integrity, they would be the last people in the world to obfuscate any documentary evidence buttressing President Zeman’s case.

No, it must have been an oversight on their part. Or maybe an error at the printer’s. Or an HTML slip-up by an inexperienced webmaster. But surely not a deliberate omission…

Mr. Madani stated that the Czech President’s recent statements on Islam are in line with the previous statements the President made in the past, where he linked “believers in the Quran with anti-Semitic and racist Nazis”; and that “the enemy is anti civilization spreading from North Africa to Indonesia, where two billion people live”.

Such statements, said Mr. Madani, not only shows President Zeman’s lack of knowledge and misunderstanding of Islam, but also ignores the historical facts that anti-Semitism and Nazism are a European phenomena through and through. They have no roots in Islam, neither as a religion nor as a history or civilization. The Holocaust did not take place in the area from North Africa to Indonesia, Madani said.

The authors are evidently unfamiliar with The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism by Andrew G. Bostom, in which the evidence of 1400 years of Islamic Jew-hatred is meticulously compiled. Perhaps someone should send them a copy of the book, which will provide ample leisure-time reading during the long hungry daylight hours of Ramadan next month.

Were you waiting for the dreaded “Islamophobia” to make an appearance? Well, here it comes, albeit with a spelling error:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/6/2014

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Over 2,500 illegal migrants were saved at sea by the Italian Navy in the space of 24 hours, as a part of the “Mare Nostrum” operation. After the Navy made its announcement, the Coast Guard rescued another 300 refugees off Lampedusa, and a merchant ship reportedly picked up 94 more.

In other news, 46 people were killed and more than a hundred wounded in various bombings and other attacks across Iraq.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, 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.

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.

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Whistles the Wind

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Max Modine is a long-time reader and commenter at Gates of Vienna. His first guest-essay concerns the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, and its relevance to today’s events.

Whistles the Wind
by Max Modine

It was Easter Monday, April 24rd 1916. 200 everyday men walked down Sackville Street in Dublin led by the schoolmaster and Irish language activist Padraigh Pearse, joined by James Connolly and his small band of labour unionists, along with 200 members of Cumann na mBan, nurses and women of menial employment. The group seized key locations in Dublin and proclaimed the Irish Republic independent of the United Kingdom.

POBLACHT NA H EIREANN
___________________________
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the last three hundred years they have asserted it to arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God. Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, in humanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Signed on Behalf of the Provisional Government.

Thomas J. Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh,P. H. Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett

All of the above men were executed by the British Government for their efforts in trying to secure a free Ireland.

The guns of Brittanie responded in brutal retaliation; monster naval guns available to only the great powers of the time, aimed at fewer than 500 husbands and wives and teachers and architects and millers and nurses occupying the General Post Office building near the banks of the river Liffey. What did Pearse and his boys have? Not much. Fewer than 100 rifles and a few Webley revolvers.

For six days they bombarded them and killed many of them. Afterwards they executed Pearse, and tied a dying Connolly to a kitchen chair and shot him as well.

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Throwing Open the Gates of Rome

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Even though I’m not a Catholic, I find following article disquieting.

The saying of Muslim prayers in the Vatican constitutes a claim of territory for the Ummah. When that happens, Vatican City becomes the official responsibility of the Waqf board in perpetuity. Islamic authorities will assume the practical administration of the territory whenever demographics and political conditions are ripe.

Do Pope Francis and his interfaith-minded cardinals know these facts?

If they know, do they even care?

Do they have some bolt-hole they can escape to when the black flag of jihad flies over the structure formerly known as St. Peter’s? Perhaps they have reservations on the Mars rocket…?

Or will they just say the shahada and resume their careers without interruption?

Here’s the story, according to Al Arabiya:

Islamic prayers to be held at the Vatican

For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran will be heard at the Vatican on Sunday, in a move by Pope Francis to usher in peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Francis issued the invitation to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit last week to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas, Peres, and Francis will be joined by Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious leaders, a statement released by Peres’s spokesperson said, according to the Times of Israel.

Holy See officials on Friday said the evening prayers would be a “pause in politics” and had no political aim other than to rekindle the desire for Israeli-Palestinian peace at the political and popular level, according to the Associated Press.

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A Europe Without France

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Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National in France, is seeking an amicable divorce from the European Union. Well, a relatively amicable one, anyway. A French exit from the EU was previously unthinkable, but now, in the wake of last month’s local and EP elections, the new electoral clout of the FN has made the possibility quite thinkable.

JLH has translated an article about Marine Le Pen from an Austrian daily newspaper. He includes this brief note:

This piece on Marine Le Pen has some interesting reverberations for what “the other half” thinks in Europe, while the big Bries get on with trying to build their lofty edifice.

The translated article from Kurier:

Le Pen Warns Merkel of An “Explosion of the EU”

France’s Right Populist Aims a Roundhouse Blow — Especially Against Germany

by Danny Leder
June, 1, 2014

The 25% approval in the EU elections last Sunday has given the head of the French Front National a new self-confidence. In an interview with the German newsmagazine Spiegel, Marine Le Pen — who intends to found a rightist faction with Austria’s FPÖ in the European Parliament — is focused above all on Germany.

“If she does not see the misery suffered by the other peoples of Europe, Germany will make itself hated,” she says of Angela Merkel, who is the main target for anti-European parties. The German Chancellor should think about her cutback plan, she says. Merkel is defending a policy that is advantageous only for Germany, but harmful to others. “She believes it is possible to conduct policy against the population.” Le Pen’s prognosis is that this would “lead to the explosion of the EU.”

Respect for Putin

Merkel is not the only one Le Pen calls to account. “I blame our own leaders, who are not representing our interests. A strong euro is ruining our country.”

On the other hand, Le Pen has respect for the actions of Vladimir Putin, as she has already said in an interview with the Kurier (see below). “I have a certain admiration for Vladimir Putin, because he does not allow any country willy-nilly to impose decisions on him,” she says in reference to the Ukraine question. The Russian president thinks first of Russia’s interests, and that is simpatico. “To that extent, I have the same respect for Putin as for Mrs. Merkel.”

“Putin Is Defending Europe’s Civilization”

(KURIER interview with Marine Le Pen, who hopes to lead France out of the EU, and praises Russia’s president)

Front National chair, Marine Le Pen (following an election rally in Evreux in Normandy) described for Kurier her plan for France’s exit from the EU. She intends to have “intelligent protectionism” on the borders. She accuses the EU of a “cold war” against Russia. Putin is an exemplary patriot and European. On the other hand, France was guilty of electoral fraud in the presidential election of 2002, when her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was defeated by Jacques Chirac.

Kurier: Madame Le Pen, you told me in an interview in June, 2012, that you hoped for the “collapse of the EU” and called yourself then a “convinced EU-phobe.” Is that still your position?

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Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

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A gunman, presumably Islamic and possibly a “Frenchman” named Mehdi Nemmouche, recently shot down four people in the Jewish Museum in Brussels. The principal victims of his actions were…

You guessed it: Muslims.

After Mr. Nemmouche was arrested, French Muslim leaders stood at the microphones in front of the TV cameras and exhorted the audience to guard against the “stigmatization” of Muslims, whilst reassuring them that the gunman’s actions had nothing — nothing, I tell you! — to do with Islam.

In the video below, Vlad has repeated the same media clip twice, the second time including modifications that most readers will find appropriate. Many thanks to Oz-Rita for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling and augmentation:

Transcript:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/5/2014

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An “Austrian” imam has been arrested for recruiting young Chechens in Austria to fight in the Syrian jihad. There’s no word yet on whether the charge will be “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion.” Stay tuned.

In other news, eighty people were killed and at least as many wounded in a series of attacks across Iraq.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Fjordman, Insubria, JP, 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.

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.

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School for Scandal

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How many Talibans can you find in this picture?*

Making a comprehensive list of Obama administration scandals is difficult task. It’s not that there is a lack of material, but rather that it’s difficult to distinguish the major scandals from the innumerable minor ones.

And also: what constitutes a scandal? As opposed, that is, to what is simply venal, tacky, gauche, and inappropriate behavior. Like golf. Or $45 million Obama family vacations. Or the “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon” affair.

Thinking about what would be considered the real scandals of the Obama administrations since January 21, 2009, Dymphna and I put our heads together — giving us a combined 40 watts of brainpower — and came up with the following list:

  • The Benghazi affair
  • Using the IRS to target political enemies
  • The ATF’s “Fast and Furious” gun-running operation
  • The Justice Department’s gathering of AP reporters’ phone records
  • The Solyndra bankruptcy
  • Various incidents of malfeasance and corruption by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during the ObamaCare rollout
  • The DOJ’s refusal to investigate voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia

That’s just a selection. It turns out the White House Dossier has seventeen more.

So “scandal-plagued” doesn’t even begin to cover this administration. If a Republican president had been in charge when just one or two of those occurred, he would have been impeached long ago, and might now be making license plates at a federal vocational institution. But the rules are different for a Democrat, and especially for a Magic Negro.

And now comes the Bowe Bergdahl affair. Based on the headlines over the past week, the swap of Taliban terrorists for Sgt. Bergdahl looks to become the biggest Obama scandal so far, eclipsing even the Benghazi fiasco.

I’m not going to cover the content of the scandal here; see the links at the bottom of this post for various analyses of what happened, what probably happened, and what did not happen. Bowe Bergdahl went missing in 2009, and was captured by the Taliban. Soldiers got killed looking for him. President Obama swapped five top Taliban mujahideen for him. The administration used the occasion as a political boost for the president, including the lovely photo-op of Mr. Obama with his arms around Sgt. Bergdahl’s parents.

Those are the bare-bones facts of the case. There is virtually no doubt that there are massively scandalous aspects to the incident, but that is not the point of this post. For us, the important questions are: Why did the Obama administration to decide to make this prisoner swap? And: Why now?

Some writers have suggested that Mr. Obama timed the swap to distract attention from the Benghazi scandal, while raising his poll numbers at the same time. If that was his purpose, it certainly worked: there’s scarcely a peep about Benghazi in the MSM now.

But what if the real purpose was to distract everyone from something else, something the State Socialists in the Executive consider much more crucial than whether Congress holds hearings about Benghazi?

I refer, of course, to the proposed new regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency on carbon emissions, which were announced on Monday.

What? You’ve never heard of those? Well, neither have most Americans — that’s a sign of how well the Bergdahl head-fake is working.

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Principal Product of Minnesota: Jihad

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Last night we reported on the peripatetic mujahideen of Calgary. Today we focus on another North American hotbed of jihad, this one a little to the south and a thousand miles to the east of Calgary. Since Minneapolis is the headquarters for the Minnesota jihad, it’s no surprise that many of the participants are Somalis.

Below is the latest newsletter from the Minneapolis chapter of ACT! for America.

Dear Minnesotans,

“The FBI says more Somali travelers have left Minnesota, possibly to fight against the regime of President Bashar Assad in Syria. Investigators believe those who left Minnesota were motivated by radical ideology, not nationalism.” (h/t Denise) Watch the video cliip and read more: FBI: Somalis leaving Minnesota to fight in Syria — KMSP-TV

Westerners flocking to join jihadist groups in Syria are a growing concern for Western intelligence agencies — and U.S. intelligence officials in particular.

National security officials worry about what happens when these people return home from the battlefield.

This raises our concern that radicalized individuals with extremist contacts and battlefield experience could return to their home countries to commit violence or participate in al-Qaida-directed plots aimed at Western targets outside of Syria,” Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NTC), told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March.

— John Rossomando, Investigative Project on Terrorism

According to the sister of one of the missing men, Mohamed Nur,

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Thought for the Day

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A lot of nasty comments get deleted without any further remarks by Dymphna or me. They’re mostly unoriginal and boring, but this one (submitted on last night’s news feed) has a certain je ne sais quoi:

Fjord man. Is a Hook nosed Jewish dirt bucket like you and you need gassing.

Kind of says it all, doesn’t it?

It was submitted by “Anonymous” from the IP address 188.29.164.26.

The Global Jihad Trains in Syria

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A French author uses the example of Mehdi Nemmouche to discuss the radicalization of “French” fighters in Syria, and the threat they pose when they return to France and other parts of Europe.

Many thanks to Oz-Rita for translating this clip from French TV, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/4/2014

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Public controversy about the “Trojan Horse” scandal about the radical Islamic infiltration British schools has been ratcheted up by the political war between Theresa May and Michael Gove. As James Kirkup from The Telegraph says:

Theresa May goes nuclear

Theresa May has been accused of an “extraordinary over-reaction” by publishing private Cabinet papers as part of a row with Michael Gove. Senior Government sources have expressed alarm after the Home Secretary published a letter she wrote to the Education Secretary about Islamic extremism.

See various articles below for more on the topic.

In other news, seventeen people were killed and more than fifty wounded in separate bomb attacks across Iraq.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Fjordman, Insubria, JP, 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.

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.

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