Egypt, Tunisia to get Billions in Aid

 

by Maayana Miskin

 

The United States, Qatar and the World Bank each pledged to give billions of dollars in aid to Egypt this week, in order to help the country boost its economy following the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak.

U.S. President Barack Obama has promised to relieve Egypt of $1 billion in debt, and has offered an additional $1 billion in loans to improve infrastructure and create new jobs.

The Wold Bank pledged to provide $4.5 billion over the next 24 months, including at least $1 billion in budget support this year and $1 billion next year “dependent on progress.” The other $2.5 billion will be invested in development projects.

Saudi Arabia has pledged $4 billion in aid, and Qatar is considering projects worth more than $10 billion.

The International Monetary Fund sent a delegation to Cairo this week to discuss the possibility of a loan. Egypt is seeking up to $4 billion from the IMF. Once an IMF agreement is signed, the European Union will decide how much aid to give. EU officials are currently considering giving several hundred million euros.

The G8 is expected to approve a package including billions of dollars in aid and debt swaps.

Tunisia will get $1.5 billion from the World Bank, including budget support and money for investments.

The World Bank said in a statement, “Approximately 50-75 million jobs are needed over the next decade to absorb new labor market entrants and to bring down unemployment” in the Mideast and northern Africa. The World Bank warned, “Only 48 million jobs will be created if countries continue to grow as they did over the past decade.”

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the goal is “to try to stabilize and then modernize the economies of the region.”

The World Bank lowered its economic growth forecast for northern Africa and the Middle East to 3.6% from 5% this week, but has expressed hope that the overthrow of long-term authoritarian rulers in Egypt and Tunisia will lead to economic integration similar to that in eastern Europe in the 1990s.

 

 

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144552

 

Book: Vatican helped Nazis evade conviction

 

By JPOST.COM STAFF 
05/27/2011

Harvard researcher's publication claims that Catholic authorities helped SS men find exile, avoid trial, in years following World War II.

 

A new book by Harvard Research Fellow Gerald Steinacher has claimed that thousands of Nazis were able to evade justice following the Holocaust thanks to the complicity of the Vatican.

Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Europe, published this month by Oxford University Press, claims that Catholic authorities helped SS men including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele avoid detection, travel safely out of Europe, and live comfortably in exile after the end of World War II.

RELATED:
German court convicts then frees Nazi guard Demjanjuk
Demjanjuk: A powerful verdict, bitterly undermined

According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, Steinacher examined a trove of unpublished Red Cross documents, which showed that understaffed and overwhelmed European human rights workers attempting to resettle the millions of displaced victims of World War II unwittingly created a network that was exploited by Nazis evading justice.

Using papers they were issued by the Red Cross through fraud, Steinacher writes, some 8,000 former SS men managed to find exile in Britain and Canada in the years following 1945.



But while the Red Cross may have inadvertently aided these former Nazis, the Vatican was well aware of the role they played.

The Telegraph wrote, "'Owing to a desire to revive a Christian Europe or out of a morbid fear of the Soviet Union, the Vatican, through its refugee commission,' said Mr. Steinacher, 'provided leading war criminals with false identity papers.'"

 

http://www.jpost.com/ArtsAndCulture/Books/Article.aspx?ID=222504&R=R1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

Nigerian President Faces Security Challenges in New Term

 

Scott Stearns | Abuja  May 27, 2011

Photo: Reuters

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan casts his ballot in his home village of Otuoke, Bayelsa state, April 16, 2011

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan says he is determined to improve security in his country with a new administration that takes power with Sunday's inauguration.

Security was a driving issue in the presidential campaign following bomb blasts by militants from the oil-rich Niger Delta and attacks on police by members of an extremist Islamic group in the north.

President Jonathan campaigned hard to convince Nigerians that his government was meeting those security challenges. But rioting that immediately followed his election raised anew questions about security preparedness. The New York-based rights organization Human Rights Watch says Muslim-Christian electoral violence in northern states killed at least 800 people.

President Jonathan says he is determined to protect Nigerians wherever they live.

“As president, it is my solemn duty to defend the constitution of this country. That includes the obligation to protect the lives and properties of every Nigerian wherever they choose to live,” he said.

Delta State University political science lecturer Benjamin Agah says part of the problem is that suspects arrested after attacks are often released without prosecution, returning to the streets for the next round of violence.

“The same people who ought to be found guilty, who ought to be jailed or who ought to be punished, they are the same people who will still come out again, untouched by the law. So the president has a lot of security challenges,” he said.

Agah says the new government must be willing to better equip security forces, especially in remote areas of the north.

“There are some places now that can not be policed ordinarily except through air. So the police should be fully equipped. They should be given the requisite necessities to enable them to fight these criminals,” he said.

Public affairs analyst Kole Shetimma says insecurity is a problem for the president that runs far deeper than spending more money on police.

“In these security challenges, I think that we should not approach it from a law-and-order perspective. I think we have to look at the socio-economic and political conditions that have given way to some of these major problems,” said Shetimma.

In the Niger Delta, for example, President Jonathan helped organize an amnesty for militants fighting against a federal government that they say has failed to develop the oil-rich region. There have been delays in paying monthly stipends to those demobilized combatants and far fewer job-training programs than were promised.

Shetimma says the president must address the underlying economic grievances in the Delta.

“How do we ensure that the communities in which this oil is produced have access to some of the oil resources that we have. The new petroleum bill, which gives like ten percent of the oil resources to the communities, I agree that that should be fast-tracked,” said Shetimma.

In the north, the extremist Boko Haram group is fighting to establish Islamic law and says it recognizes neither the Nigerian constitution nor the just-completed election. It is rejecting an amnesty offer from the governor-elect of Borno State, who is trying to end months of attacks  against security forces.

Shetimma says one of the obstacles is the government's refusal to recognize that security forces acted outside the law last year in killing Boko Haram members in Jos.

“It has to be on how do you respond to the loss of property? How do you respond to the security implications? So I am hoping that this is going to be a comprehensive approach to the issue of Boko Haram,” said Shetimma.

President Jonathan says part of his plans for improving security in the north and in the south is to increase employment for young men who he says are being used as “cannon fodder for the ambitions of a few.”


http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/west/Nigerian-President-Faces-Security-Challenges-in-New-Term-122713124.html?utm_source=voa_news&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=en&utm_content=twitterfeed

Egypt Comes Out for Hamas

by Robert Spencer



In one of the clearest signs yet that the “Arab Spring” in post-Mubarak Egypt heralds a resurgent Islamic supremacism rather than a flowering of Western-style pluralism and democracy, Egyptian officials announced Wednesday that they were reopening the Rafah crossing this Saturday.

The Rafah crossing is the only official point of entry into Gaza other than from inside Israel. Egypt closed it for good in 2007 after Hamas took power in Gaza, as part of its uneasy observance of the Camp David Accords maintaining peace with Israel. The Rafah crossing had been an easy route into Israel for jihadis and their weapons suppliers who, for obvious reasons, wanted to avoid Israeli scrutiny.
 
But now it appears that peace with Israel is no longer such a high priority; instead, the new government in Egypt appears to be more concerned with accommodating Israel’s jihadist enemies. Egyptian officials announced that the Rafah crossing was being reopened in order to “end the status of the Palestinian division and achieve national reconciliation.”

 

The reopening of the Rafah crossing is just the latest indication that Egypt is heading toward becoming a Sharia state that is pursuing war with Israel. Man-on-the-street interviews conducted during the uprising against Mubarak more than once found ordinary Egyptians explaining to clueless and incredulous reporters from the likes of CNN that one of their principal beefs with Mubarak was that he maintained peace with Israel. “He is supporting Israel. Israel is our enemy,” protesters explained to the journalists who had come out looking for ringing declarations of love for democracy and pluralism. Instead, they heard that “if people are free in Egypt…they gonna destroy Israel.” Many of the demonstrators carried posters of Mubarak defaced with a Star of David drawn on his forehead.

In January, Mohamed Ghanem, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, said in an interview on Iran’s Al-Alam television station that Egypt should prepare to go to war with Israel. That same month, Iran’s Press TV interviewed an Egyptian international lawyer Marwan al-Ashaal. Al-Ashaal explained the popular discontent with Mubarak as a direct consequence of his keeping the peace with Israel: “Currently the Egyptians demand a new rule for the country, a new government, a new leader. The American-Egyptian relationships were based on Israeli security and I think Mubarak has been very dedicated to Israeli security more even than to his own people’s security or the national interests.” Al-Ashaal asserted that “we see the deals with Israel that provoked people and took them to the edge.” And he declared that Egypt is “never going to be a friend of Israel.”

Then there was the delirious welcome accorded the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual father, the Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. In February one of the biggest and most enthusiastic crowds of the entire Egyptian revolution thronged to Cairo’s Tahrir Square to hear Qaradawi, who outdoes even the most Hitlerian Islamic clerics in his Jew-hatred and bloodlust. Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone welcomed Qaradawi to the city in 2004 and praised him repeatedly; during that visit Qaradawi explained to the BBC that suicide attacks against Israelis did not actually constitute suicide at all, but rather “martyrdom in the name of God.” In January 2009, during a Friday sermon broadcast on Al Jazeera, he prayed that Allah would kill all the Jews:  “Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people.  Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them.  Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.”  He also declared: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the people [Jews] who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler.”

That is the man who, by the record of the welcome Egyptians gave him in Tahrir Square that day, best embodies the spirit of the “Arab Spring.”
 
And so last week the Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood leader Rachid Ghannouchi was much more perspicacious than Western analysts when he predicted that the “Arab Spring” would lead to the destruction of Israel. For every day brings new advances toward power in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic supremacist groups allied with it. Once they finally attain that power, there is no indication whatsoever that they have any inclination to keep the peace with Israel that has prevailed, however uneasily, for the last thirty years; indeed, there is abundant indication to the contrary.

 

The Rafah crossing is just the beginning. Watch for more belligerence from Egypt toward Israel, and more Egyptian moves that redound to the benefit of Hamas. After all, Hamas styles itself in its charter as the Muslim Brotherhood for Palestine; why wouldn’t its sister organization in Egypt be interested in lending it a helping hand? And as it does so, it inches the Middle East and the world ever closer to the inevitable conflagration.




http://frontpagemag.com/2011/05/26/egypt-comes-out-for-hamas/

The Netanyahu-Abbas Exchange That Explains Why There’s No Peace, Who’s Responsible, and What Obama Doesn’t Understand

 

by Barry Rubin

“We cannot negotiate with those who say, ‘What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.’” — President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

You can read for yourselves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress. Both on regional issues and the Israeli-Palestinian question he was quite clear. His speech was vastly superior to those by Obama not just because of the policy content but because he deals with regional realities that the president ignores or just gets completely wrong.

But what I want to talk about here is a remarkable juxtaposition that no one else seems to have noticed. If you understand this article, you can understand all of the problems of the Middle East. If you don’t, please go mess up the lives of people elsewhere.

To set up this point I must first quote extensively from Netanyahu’s speech. He said:

This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace. No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.

But there is another truth: The Palestinians share this small land with us. We seek a peace in which they will be neither Israel’s subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people in their own state. They should enjoy a prosperous economy, where their creativity and initiative can flourish.

So this is a classic Western — indeed a classic liberal Western — formulation. We have our rights but we also respect your rights. Let’s find a win-win situation that benefits everyone.
Netanyahu added:

They [the Palestinians] were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.

In a moment, watch Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas prove Netanyahu’s first sentence to be true.

My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… “I will accept a Palestinian state.” It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… “I will accept a Jewish state.”

Remember that challenge.

Those six words will change history. They will make clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end. That they are not building a state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it. They will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace. With such a partner, the people of Israel will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise. I will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise.

In other words, once the Palestinians really acknowledge — which they have not done — the Jewish connection to the land, Israel will know they are a partner for peace and make more compromises.
Now, here’s the part nobody noticed. Abbas answered Netanyahu!

In a major speech for “Nakba Day,” that is the Palestinian day of mourning that Israel was ever created in the first place, Abbas said:

We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims — that they [Jews] have a historical right dating back to 3000 years [BC] — we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history [BC]. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: “Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.”

Do you understand?

Netanyahu said: We have rights; you have rights. We recognize yours and when you recognize ours we can have peace. Your refusal to recognize our rights — to demand total victory for yourself (which means Israel’s disappearance) — makes peace impossible.

And here is how Abbas (whose name cannot appear in the American media without the word “moderate” being attached to him) answered:

Well, we don’t recognize that you have any rights. All the rights belong to us! You are just a passing breeze that will become extinct and you are of no importance.

So that’s the bottom line. Even in the year 2011 — as happened in the year 1948 — even a relative moderate like Abbas simply cannot bring himself to say in Arabic: “Let’s share this land in a two-state solution.”

Ironically, Netanyahu is taking a liberal and flexible position while Abbas is taking a reactionary, imperialistic stance. Talk about accepting the “other”!

And yet not a single professor in any university class, not a single journalist or expert in the mass media will raise or even report that point. President Obama won’t pick up on it to chide the Palestinians. Nobody will start calling Netanyahu moderate and peace-seeking while saying that Abbas is extremist and peace-rejecting.

Nevertheless, what simpler and more graphic example could anyone want?

Now you know why peace is impossible. It isn’t because Israel won’t go back to the 1967 borders. It’s because the Palestinian leadership still believes and tells its people that Israel has no right to exist.

PS: Abbas’s history is of course rubbish. There is no connection between ancient Canaanites — who don’t go back anywhere near that far — and modern Arabs. Since the Canaanites weren’t Muslims, Abbas is acting as a pure opportunist since no Arab nation accepts such pre-Islamic connections any way.

But I love that phrase he said, “We are the owners of history.” In other words, we can make up any lie we want and to Hell with the consequences.

The Jewish Temple? Never existed in Jerusalem!

Did we miss a chance to have our own state in 1947? Never happened!

Is it crazy to go on fighting for decades hoping to destroy Israel rather than make a compromise peace now? No alternative. Israel doesn’t want peace.

Abbas has told us everything we need to know about who doesn’t want peace. And here’s the reality of the Palestinian Authority position (not to mention that of its partner, Hamas): if you can’t have peace without accepting Israel’s permanent existence then it is better not to have peace at all.




http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/05/25/the-netanyahu-abbas-exchange/?singlepage=true

Men who beat up RE teacher were terrorist suspects

 

MI5 was investigating four Muslim men who savagely beat a Religious Education teacher, it can be disclosed after they were jailed for at least 19 years.

Azad Hussain, left to right, Akmol Hussein, Sheikh Rashid, and Simon Alam all

admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent after ambushing Gary Smith, left,

outside his school Photo: PA

 

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent

The Security Service had placed a listening device in a car driven by one of the men as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist network in East London, sources told the Daily Telegraph.

When transcribers went back over a conversation the men had held in the car, they were picked up discussing killing Gary Smith and praising Allah as they drove from the scene after attacking him.

Akmol Hussein, 27, Sheikh Rashid, 27, Azad Hussain, 26, and Simon Alam, 19, all admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent after ambushing Mr Smith outside his school.

Akmol Hussein was heard setting out the plan to attack Mr Smith, head of religious education at Central Foundation Girls' School in Bow, east London, saying in a Bangladeshi dialect: 'This is the dog we want to hit, to strike, to kill.’

'He's mocking Islam and he’s putting doubts in people's minds...How can somebody take a job to teach Islam when they’re not even a Muslim themselves?' he added.

Mr Smith, 37, had been head of religious studies at the school for eight years and was described as an able, enthusiastic and popular teacher.

He followed the national curriculum by teaching his pupils all six of the main religions along with ethical issues such as abortion and euthanasia and the role of women.

After the attack, the teacher was left with a four inch slash across his face from the corner of his mouth to his right ear and suffered a fractured skull and shattered jaw.

He underwent an operation to repair leg and facial wounds and nerve damage and did not regain consciousness until two days later.

Jailing the gang at Snaresbrook Crown Court, Judge Hand said they had “literally smashed Mr Smith’s face in.”

He said the motivation for the attack was solely down to the victim’s religious beliefs. He told them: “You believed there was a higher authority to which you were responsible and that authority dictated you must attack Mr Smith.

The judge added: 'Only time will tell whether you will ever have a different belief but, at present, I believe that if you think that the people around you are guilty of posing a threat or insult to the way in which God intends the world to be and in which God intends people to live you would not hesitate in acting again in the way you have acted in this case.'

Judge Hand handed Akmol Hussein, a self-employed builder, and Azad Hussain, a finance worker, indeterminate sentences for public protection and ordered they serve at least five years before they can be released.

Simon Alam, an engineering student, was ordered to serve at least five years in a Young Offenders' Institute and Sheikh Rashid, a bus driver, was jailed for at least four years.

A fifth man, Bangladesh-born Badruzzuha Uddin, 24, who helped the men by hiding blood-stained clothing, was jailed for two years.

Uddin and Alam, born in Germany, may now face deportation.

The gang made at least two aborted attempts to target Mr Smith in the days before the attack, finally catching up with him as he made his way on foot along Burdett Road in Mile End at 8am on July 12 last year.
Moments before the attack, as the men pulled on gloves, Azad Hussein could be heard saying: 'Does everyone remember the drill? One time, bang, bang, bang, bang.'

The recording was then silent for ten minutes while the attack took place.

In the course of the attack Mr Smith was attacked with a knife, a metal rod and a brick and was hit in the stomach, and kicked in the head and face as he lay on the ground.

After the attack, the four men, pumped up on adrenaline, returned to Akmol Hussein’s Ford Focus where they were heard boasting about the attack, praising Allah and listening to Jihadi music.

Akmol Hussain said: 'Praise to Allah. At that time nobody was there...Bruv, I don’t care about prison as long as I’m doing it for the deen [religion] of Allah...you know what, he's not going to get up"

Arabic chanting in the background included the lyrics: 'If we are killed, then our Lord’s heavens are for us. If we are victorious, it is the inevitable promise'.

Traces of Mr Smith's blood were found in Uddin's car and the attackers' blood-soaked clothing was found in a garage where Uddin worked as a mechanic. DNA testing showed the blood was Mr Smith’s and the clothing had been worn by Akmol Hussein and Simon Alam.

When they were first detained the five men either refused to comment or denied their involvement in the attack but they were rearrested in August after police transcribed and translated some of the material recorded in Akmol Hussein's car.

Despite suffering depression, anxiety and horrific physical injuries, Mr Smith, a former martial arts enthusiast, has returned to his job.

Days after the assault, he said: 'I'm determined to be back at work,” but added: “I wouldn't want anybody else to suffer what I went through. I survived but somebody else might not.’

Superintendent Colin Morgan of Scotland Yard said: "I know that the community of east London has been shocked by this vicious assault on a valued and highly respected teacher.

"This was an unprovoked and premeditated attack by a group of men who were carrying weapons. Mr Smith was struck without warning, and was subjected to an appalling level of violence with no opportunity to defend himself.”


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8538804/Men-who-beat-up-RE-teacher-were-terrorist-suspects.html

Watchdog: Islamic Sharia law 0-4 in Fla. courts since '78

 

  A study released Friday by the conservative Center for Security Policy warns that issues involving Islamic Sharia law have popped up in legal cases across the country, including four in Florida trial and appellate courts. Muslims, after all, have grown to represent 0.6 percent of the U.S. population, and Sharia customs include codes for resolving disputes as well as standards for prayer and worship.

The critical 600-page report by the Center for Security Policy portrays any consideration of Sharia in Florida courts -- including pleadings by plaintiffs or defendants -- as a threat to the U.S. Constitution. Its legal research identified four such cases in Florida from the past 33 years, so we reviewed them to understand the threat.

"With an increased presence of Sharia-adherent Muslims in the United States, and the rapid rise of political and militant Islam globally, the conflict between Shariah law and the Constitution requires a new level of debate among policymakers, media, the legal community, and most importantly, the American public," the report says.

Fortunately, no conflict has yet emerged in Florida's courts.

Our review of the Florida cases cited by the center found that in all of them, judges have upheld state and U.S. statutes, U.S. Constitutional provisions and American case and contract law. They so regardless of the religious or "foreign" nature of contracts or other issues.

In two cases, from 1978 and 1996, Florida appeals judges determined that prenuptial agreements between spouses are a binding contracts that must be honored, as long as the terms are legal. In both cases, Muslim women seeking divorces prevailed over men, protecting their share of property. Although the prenups were fashioned after Islamic custom, the judges cited precedent from U.S. cases and affirmed American contract law. In one case, a trial judge refused the Muslim husband special access to his wife's private psychiatric evaluations.

In a third case, a 2010 paternity and "partition" action, appeals judges ruled that couples can only be considered legally married in Florida if they enter official, state-sanctioned unions. A divorcing couple had been married in an Islamic ceremony, but never sanctioned it with a state marriage license. The courts ordered the husband to pay child support, but not alimony.

In the fourth case -- the ongoing Trustees vs. Islamic Education Center of Tampa Inc. -- the trial judge so far has ruled that a contract is a contract. If a contract calls for plaintiffs to first take their disputes to mediation, the parties and the courts must respect that contract, even if the contract calls for a faith-based mediator such as a priest, rabbi or imam. Case law in Florida and from the U.S. Supreme Court allows ecclesiastical law to control certain relations between members of religious organizations, including mosques.

Nevertheless, conservatives have blasted the judge, who wrote, "The court will require further testimony to determine whether the Islamic dispute resolution procedures have been followed in this matter."

To address cases such as these, the Center for Security Policy has drafted "model legislation" for the Florida Legislature and others to pass. Its proposed bill would invalidate any contract "based on any law, legal code or system that would not grant the parties affected by the ruling or decision the same fundamental liberties, rights, and privileges granted under the U.S. and (Florida) Constitutions."

Meanwhile, here's what Dr. Muzaffar Shaikh, an imam and spokesman for the Brevard Islamic Society, told Columnist Matt Reed in response to another center's criticism of Sharia law and Muslims in general.

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110524/BREAKINGNEWS/110524011/Watchdog-Islamic-Sharia-law-0-4-Fla-courts-since-78

Christian Pastor’s Free Speech Victory against City of Dearborn

The U. S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that Sudanese Christian Pastor George Saieg has a free speech right to distribute religious literature on public sidewalks and evangelize Muslims during the Annual Arab International Festival held each year in Dearborn, Michigan. 

For five years Saieg, who specifically ministers to Muslims, had been discussing his Christian faith and passing out literature on Dearborn’s sidewalks during the Festival without encountering any problems. Nevertheless, in 2009 police officials informed him he had to remain in a booth, prohibiting him from distributing his literature on the nearby sidewalks and public streets.  

Dearborn is one of the most densely populated Muslim communities in the United States.  It has the largest Mosque in North America.  In the past few years Dearborn has gained national attention for taking a pro-Muslim stance and for the arrest and intimidation of Christian evangelists for engaging in protected speech activity.

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national conservative Christian public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of Pastor Saieg in 2009, naming the City of Dearborn and its police chief, Ronald Haddad, as defendants.  The case was handled by TMLC Senior Trial Counsel Rob Muise.

In ruling for Saieg, the court recognized the problem Saieg had with booth-based evangelizing: “the penalty of leaving Islam according to Islamic books is death, ” which makes Muslims reluctant to approach a booth that is publically “labeled as … Christian.”

Read the Court’s opinion by clicking here.

Egyptian school beatings

Bulletin of Christian Persecution

May 2 - May 25, 2011

May 2, 2011
Pakistan
Hundreds of Muslims in Gujranwala attacked Christians' homes, a school and a Presbyterian church building after learning that police had released two Christians accused of "blasphemy" - amid reports of another alleged desecration of the Quran.

May 3, 2011
Pakistan
In the aftermath of the April 30th Muslim attacks on a Presbyterian seminary after a false accusation that Christians desecrated the Koran, at least 3,000 Christians have fled for their lives.

May 6, 2011
Nigeria
Muslim attackers killed seventeen Christians and burned down several Christian homes in the village of Karum. Since the introduction of Sharia law in northern Nigeria in 1999, thousands of Christians have been killed by Muslims, and local officials have failed to bring the perpetrators to justice. Update HERE on the killing of Christian Nigerians.

May 7, 2011
Pakistan
Police have charged a mentally ill Christian with "injuring religious feelings" under Pakistan's widely condemned blasphemy laws.
Syria
Christian communities across Syria have been attacked by anti-government protesters in recent weeks who are being led by hard-line Islamists. Also Christians have come under pressure to either join in protests demanding the resignation of President Bashir Assad, or else leave the country. Eye witnesses report seeing around 20 masked men on motorcycles open fire on a home in a Christian village outside Dara'a, in southern Syria. Another source said that churches had received threatening letters over Easter, telling them either to join the protests or leave. In Karak, Muslim Salafists forced villagers to join the protests and remove pictures of the president from their home. One man who refused was reportedly found hanged on his front porch the next morning.
Egypt
Update of this story: Thousands of Christians flocked to Saint Mark's Cathedral in Cairo Friday in response to a protest organized by Salafi Muslims last week in front of the church. The conservative Islamist group had gathered its members to protest for the release of the wives of two Coptic priests, who some believe have been detained by the church after allegedly converting to Islam. There was a strong military presence at the cathedral Friday ahead of the protest. Mina Salib, one of the protesters, said that "Christians all over Egypt were deeply disturbed by last Friday's protest and came to express their anger and assert their defense of the Cathedral against any attacks." Mina added that people immediately responded to the call to protect the church as result of the attack directed against Pope Shenouda.

May 8, 2011
Egypt
Christians Copts in the area of Embaba were attacked Saturday evening by Muslim Salafis. The attacks lasted for 14 hours. The Muslims fired guns and rifles and hurled Molotov cocktails at Coptic churches, houses and businesses. 12 Copts were killed and 232 injured.
The church of Saint Mina was the first to be attacked. According to its pastor Fr. Abanoub the attack started at 5.30 PM on Saturday May 7, when church parishioners noticed a large number of Salafis, estimated at 3000 men, congregating near the church. Anticipating trouble, the army was called. The Salafis went to the church and asked to search it because they believed a Christian girl named who had converted to Islam, married a Salafi and wanted to revert back to Christianity, was hiding inside the church.
The second church attacked by Salafis was St. Mary and St Abanob, also in Embaba. Muslims prevented the fire brigade from reaching it. The third church attacked was St. Mary Church in Wehda Street in Embaba, the ground floor of which was completely torched. More HERE.

May 9, 2011
Malaysia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Islam is under siege in Malaysia because aggressive Christians are determined to convert Muslims who are nonchalant about their faith, several Islamist groups alleged. The Muslim Organisations in Defence of Islam accused Christians of strategising an elaborate plan to ensure that more and more Muslims leave the faith, which is illegal in Malaysia. The National Evangelical Christian Fellowship, together with partners Global Day of Prayer, Marketplace Penang and Penang Pastors Fellowship, said the claims against their community were lies.

May 12, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Once more, Pakistan's 'black law' strikes again. A Muslim businessman has used the infamous blasphemy law against a rival and former associate, who happens to be Christian. More and more, the law is being used to persecute the country's Christian minority or settle personal scores. The victim is Gulzar Masih, from Sialkot, who owns a bookstore. Yesterday, he and his son had to flee town, fearing reprisals by local Muslims who tried to set fire to his shop. Only the intervention of police stopped the attackers.

May 15, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Violence erupted in a Cairo neighborhood when pro-Coptic protesters clashed with unidentified men, leaving at least two people dead and 60 injured. The demonstrators initially staged a sit-in in front of the state TV building to demand greater rights for the religious minority. Problems between Egypt's Muslim majority and its Coptic Christian minority have been on the rise in recent months, with a number of violent clashes reported between the two groups. More HERE.

May 16, 2011
Iraq (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Iraqi Chaldean Christian man was abducted, tortured and then beheaded by Al Qaeda jihadis. The victim was from Kirkuk, northern Iraq. He had been kidnapped three days ago and the family had received a ransom request. However, negotiations for his release did not work out and so he was brutally murdered. A pastor in Kirkuk said that kidnappers had pressured his employer to fire him because he was a Christian. More HERE.
Nigeria
Christians from a local Evangelical Church congregation in this Plateau state town have been displaced after Muslim extremists set their church building and some homes on fire last month. The Rev. Ishaku Danyok of the church said that the April 29 incident occurred after Muslims approached Christian music shop owner Gabriel Kiwase and told him that his music was disturbing them as they said their prayers.
The young Christian man "quietly switched off the music set, and then the Muslims left, only to return about 20 minutes later to burn down the music shop and then go on rampage, burning down houses belonging to some Christians in the town," Danyok said. Update HERE.

May 17, 2011
EU (Hat tip to Persecutin.org)
A religious liberty campaigner has been heckled at an EU meeting for saying Christians should not be sent to prison for peacefully expressing their opinions. A room full of feminist and homosexual activists jeered at Dr Gudrun Kugler when she spoke about the intolerance faced by Christians in Europe. Some of the crowd said that Christians ought to be thrown in jail if they make a "negative comment" against a "minority group".

May 18, 2011
Pakistan
Two more shocking cases have surfaced in Pakistan where Christians were badly treated by Muslims. The first concerned two Christian women working at a Lahore, Pakistan, hospital, who were allegedly "manhandled" by a leader at the Fatima Memorial Hospital on Tuesday, April 19, 2011. A source close to the situation said that Nusrat Bibi and Muneeran Bibi, who are both married female sanitary workers at the hospital were "brutally thrashed" and "unlawfully detained for several hours," after being assaulted by a Muslim officer at the medical facility.
In another disturbing case, this one in a town located in the Punjab, the Christian Communication Network Pakistan (CCNP) told ANS that "a gang of Muslim men, on the behest of a former member of the Punjab Provincial Assembly, "invaded two Christian houses" in the city. Adnan Sher, an activist of CCNP, said that a Christian man, Sharif Gull, was abducted at gunpoint by the Muslim "hoodlums."

Adnan Sher then alleged that the Muslim mob also attacked at the house of another Christian man, Idrees Asif. He added that the alleged culprits, armed with clubs, thrashed the men and women of Asif's family and ripped off the cloths of the Christian women and made publicly nude.
Azerbaijan (Hat tip to Persecution.org)
Within the space of three days in mid-May, three Protestant communities in the town of Sumgait (Sumqayit) north of the Azerbaijani capital Baku were raided by police and officials of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations.
Syria
Syria's minority Christians are watching the protests sweeping their country with trepidation, fearing their religious freedom could be threatened if President Bashar Assad's autocratic but secular rule is overthrown. For many Syrian Christians, the flight of their brethren from sectarian conflict in neighboring Iraq and recent attacks on Christians in Egypt have highlighted the dangers they fear they will face if Assad succumbs to the wave of uprisings sweeping the Arab world.
Iraq
The body of Chaldean Christian Ashur Issa Yaqub was found on Monday (May 16) with marks of severe torture and mutilation. He had worked as a construction worker from the northeastern city of Kirkuk, and al Qaeda members had demanded $100,000 for his release, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Sources close to a Christian reportedly kidnapped, tortured and murdered by al Qaeda over the weekend said the kidnappers had pressured his employer to fire him because he was a Christian.

May 19, 2011
Pakistan
An influential Muslim family in a village near Sheikhupura is holding a 17-year-old Christian girl hostage because one of her brothers allegedly eloped with a woman from the Muslim family. The Muslim parents have threatened further retaliation against the Christian family if they do not produce their daughter, whom they have also threatened to publicly shoot dead as an "honor killing."
An area clergyman identified only as Father Emmanuel called the situation "critical," saying it has pitted the area's 1,800 Muslim families against its 70-to-100 Christian families and could lead to violence. More HERE.
Indonesia
Islamic extremist groups disrupted two post-Easter services in Cirebon as police failed to stop the violence, this according to Hendardi, chairman of the Setara Institute, an NGO fighting for human rights and religious freedom in Indonesia. The activist slammed police for its "powerlessness" vis-à-vis "hostile" acts perpetrated by radical movements, which interrupted religious services.
Pakistan
The situation in Abbotabad is "critical" for religious minorities, who are "fasting and praying for peace in the region", Fr Javed Akram Gill, a parish priest in the town where Osama Bin Laden was killed tells AsiaNews. The priest confirms that the death of the Al Qaeda "has raised fears within the Christian community" because "every time the Americans say or do something, Christians [in Pakistan] become the number one target." Together with the Catholics, the faithful of other Christian denominations "prefer to stay inside" and their leaders refrain from making pastoral visits.
Egypt
On the morning of May 19 two Coptic priests went to St. Mary and St. Abraham Church and opened it together with some of the Coptic residents, but later in the day thousands of Muslims surrounded the church to protest its opening, hurled stones at the church building and the Copts, who responded by throwing stones. The army and the police stood there watching and did not intervene.
Unable to secure the church, the army and police closed it and arranged for a "reconciliation" meeting between the Coptic priest and the Salafi sheikhs. "The atmosphere of the meeting was belligerent," said attorney Ashraf Edward, "and one of the sheikhs threatened us by saying that should the church be opened without their permission it would end up like the church in Soul which was demolished by Muslims."

May 20, 2011
Pakistan
Two nurses at the Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore, were attacked and abducted for several hours by a fellow Muslim. The man also charged them with theft after stealing their mobile phone and a sum of money. In a second incident, a group of Muslims - at the behest of a former MP of the area - attacked the houses of two Christians, to force the owners to abandon them and transfer the land ownership over to him.
Turkey
Turkey's Christians are under siege.

May 23, 2011
Germany
A Coptic Christian bishop warns the native Germans about the threat of Islamic dhimmitude and where it leads.

Pakistan (Hat tip to Persecution.org)
Pakistani Christians have expressed concerns about renewed kidnappings and abuse of women and girls by Muslims in a country still reeling from the recent assassination of a Christian government minister.
Among those targeted was Sehar Naz, a 24-year-old employee with Pakistan's State Life Insurance Corporation in Punjab province, who was recovering of her injuries Monday, May 23, after she was allegedly kidnapped and raped by a Pakistan Army officer.

May 24, 2011
Sudan
Sudanese National Security Intelligence and Security Service agents have arrested a Christian woman in a Darfur camp for displaced people, accusing her of converting Muslims to Christianity, said sources who fear she is being tortured.
At the same time, in Khartoum a Christian mother of a 2-month-old baby is wounded and destitute because she and her husband left Islam for Christianity. More HERE.

Pakistan
Christians in Pakistan remained concerned Monday, May 23, over the situation of Pastor Paul Ashraf and his family after they reportedly narrowly survived a drive by shooting by suspected Islamic militants in Punjab province, seriously injuring their eldest son. "Pastor Ashraf was in a van with his wife, Rubina Ashraf, and eldest son Sarfraz Ashraf, on April 27 when two unidentified men on a motorbike opened fire" on their car, said the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement. . . . Pastor Ashraf and Rubina were unharmed but Sarfraz" who drove the vechicle, "was shot in the side and face. The masked gunmen fled from the scene when they saw that Sarfraz had been seriously injured," CLAAS explained.

May 25, 2011
Algeria
Algerian authorities have ordered the immediate closure of seven Protestant churches and demanded that the Algerian Protestant Church Association close all churches under their authority.

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Publisher: Bill Warner; Edited by Asma Marwan

Wilders: Jordan is Palestine

 

Wilders is right. There is no ethnic difference between Jordanians and Palestinians. In fact, there was no Palestinian nationality before the 1960s, when it was invented in order to reposition what was then universally known as the Arab/Israeli conflict. Up to the invention of "Palestinians," the Israelis were the tiny, besieged people amidst a huge number of hostile Arabs; after that invention, the "Palestinians" themselves became the tiny, besieged people against the big, bad Israelis.

Don't believe me? Fine. Maybe you'll believe PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, who said this in 1977:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

It was a canny propaganda move, and it worked. Bravo to Wilders for calling the Jordanians (and "Palestinians") back to the truth. "Geert Wilders: Change Jordan's name to Palestine," by Roee Nahmias for Ynet News, June 20:

Geert Wilders, who leads the right-wing Party for Freedom (PVV) in Holland, said last week he believes Jordan should be renamed Palestine. The Jordanian government responded by saying Wilders' speech was reminiscent of the Israeli right wing. "Jordan is Palestine," said Wilders, who heads the third-largest party in Holland. "Changing its name to Palestine will end the conflict in the Middle East and provide the Palestinians with an alternate homeland."

Wilders added that Israel deserved a special status in the Dutch government because it was fighting for Jerusalem in its name.
"If Jerusalem falls into the hands of the Muslims, Athens and Rome will be next. Thus, Jerusalem is the main front protecting the West. It is not a conflict over territory but rather an ideological battle, between the mentality of the liberated West and the ideology of Islamic barbarism," he said.

"There has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the kingdom of Jordan." Wilders also called on the Dutch government to refer to Jordan as Palestine and move its embassy to Jerusalem.

The Saudi Al-Watan carried Jordan's response to Wilders' speech. The kingdom's embassy in Hague was outraged, and said the Dutch ambassador would soon be summoned to explain.

Jordan's minister for media affairs and communications, Nabil Al Sharif, asked for clarifications. He described Wilders' declaration as "an echo of the voice of the Israeli Right" and "crows' screams".

"Jordan is an independent and secure country which supports the Palestinian issue, and these imaginings of finding them an alternate homeland are nothing but the delusions of a few people," he said....

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/wilders-jordan-is-palestine.html

Lebanese Businessman: Send ‘Filthy Jews’ to their True Countries

by Elad Benari

A Lebanese businessman has called to throw the Jews “back to their true countries.”

In a recent interview on the Hizbullah terror group's Al-Manar television network which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Yasser Qashlaq, a journalist who also heads the Free Palestine Movement, said: “The natural place for [Ehud] Barak is Poland, and the natural place for that idiot, Netanyahu, is Moscow, while the natural place for me is Safed [Tzfat -ed.].”

Qashlaq goes on to say, “I would like to say to Ben-Gurion: You little boy, tomorrow, my little son will stomp on your grave. He will deport your remains to your true country in Europe, and we will return.

“Like Imam Khomeini said, back in the day, if each of us were to spit, we would drown out all five million of them,” he continues. “The number of Jews – those human pieces of filth – in my land equals one third of the people of the Nasr City neighborhood in Cairo.”

Qashlaq concludes by saying, “Netanyahu, who says that the Right of Return should be resolved outside Israel, should resolve his own problem by returning to his homeland, Moscow. These are human pieces of filth. Even Balfour, when he got carried away, and gave my land to those Jews, said that he was doing so to get rid of them. They brought us those pieces of filth, and we should throw them back to their countries.”
Qashlaq provided the main funding to a Lebanese flotilla which had planned last June to set sail towards Gaza and break the Israeli naval blockade on the Strip.

It was later reported that the flotilla had been delayed or even canceled, possibly due to warnings from Israel and the United States against the attempts to break the blockade on the Hamas terror group which governs in Gaza.

Qashlaq’s latest statements are not the first time he has called Israelis to leave Israel. In a June, 2010 interview, also on Al-Manar TV, he said, “Board the ship we are sending you, and return to your countries. Don’t be misled by the Arab leaders or the moderate camp. You will never be able to make peace with us. Our children will return [to Palestine]. There is no reason for coexistence. Even if some of our leaders or regimes sign [peace] with you – we will never sign. Do not be misled by these regimes. Return to your countries.”

(IsraelNationalNews.com)

 

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144542

PA Honors Families of Arch-Terrorists Serving Life Sentences for the Mur...

NJ JUDGE ISSUES PERMIT TO PLAINTIFF IN SAF LAWSUIT

 

 twg2a PitBull

BELLEVUE, WA – A New Jersey judge today announced he will issue a gun permit to one of the plaintiffs in a Second Amendment Foundation lawsuit against several New Jersey officials for deprivation of civil rights under color of law, because applicants cannot show a “justifiable need” for a permit. SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said today this “clearly indicates that our lawsuit is proper, and we are encouraged to press our case to its conclusion.” Morris County Superior Court Judge David Ironson announced after a hearing in his courtroom this morning that a permit will be issued to lead plaintiff Jeffrey Muller. His application had languished for six months before Judge Philip Maenza, a defendant in the federal lawsuit, denied the permit without a hearing on the grounds that Muller did not have a “justifiable need.” Muller had been kidnapped by members of a motorcycle gang who threatened to kill him, in a case of mistaken identity. Several suspects have been arrested in that case, and Muller’s application for a permit had gained support from local and state police. “Finally,” Gottlieb said, “one judge has done the right thing, but it took a federal lawsuit to make it happen. Our other plaintiffs are pushing ahead with the lawsuit so we can put an end to this practice once and for all.” SAF is joined in the lawsuit by the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. and several private citizens whose applications for permits to carry have been denied generally on the grounds that they have not shown a “justifiable need.” One of the remaining plaintiffs is a part-time sheriff’s deputy, a second carries large amounts of cash in his private business and another is a civilian employee of the FBI in New Jersey who is fearful of attack from a radical Islamic fundamentalist group. They are represented by attorney David D. Jensen. “We’re moving forward with this case,” Gottlieb stated, “because there are far too many people just like Jeff Muller whose civil rights have been cavalierly denied on the whims of a judge.” The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right. http://twg2a.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/nj-judge-issues-permit-to-plaintiff-in-saf-lawsuit/

Shalom: Rafah opening a 'dangerous development'

 
Photo by: REUTERS

By JPOST.COM STAFF 

Vice premier warns al-Qaida may smuggle weapons into Gaza; Vilna'i: opening is problematic, but Egypt did not break deals.

 

Vice Premier Silvan Shalom spoke out on Thursday against the opening of the Rafah crossing from Gaza into Egypt, calling for international supervision of the crossing.

"This is a dangerous development that could lead to weapons and al-Qaida smuggling into Gaza," Shalom said.

Homeland Security Minister Matan Vilna'i also warned that the opening of the Rafah crossing will be very problematic for Israel.

However, he added in an interview with Israel Radio, that Egypt did not break any agreements with Israel.

Hamas welcomed Egypt's decision to permanently open the crossing from Gaza into Egypt.

"This decision reflects the spirit of revolution in Egypt and the depth of brotherhood between the Palestinian people and the Egyptian people, which has returned itself to its original role in the Palestinian matter," a statement released by Hamas read.

Egypt announced on Wednesday that it plans to open its border with the Gaza Strip "on a daily basis" to "ease entry restrictions for Palestinians."

Under former president Mubarak, Egypt only sporadically opened up the Rafah border crossing for food and medicine, or to let through people, mainly those seeking medical treatment or traveling to study.

"Egyptian authorities have decided to extend the working hours at the Rafah border crossing starting from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on a daily basis, except for Fridays and official holidays, starting on Saturday, May 28," Egyptian news agency MENA said.

It said the decision came as "part of Egyptian efforts to end divisions among Palestinians and to finalize their reconciliation."

 

 

 

 

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=222334