German Documentary on Islamism Shows Hitler with Mufti of Jerusalem

(ht LGF & Justify This)

Bernard Lewis on the Meaning of August 22nd

From the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal:

What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.

A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, is revealing. "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."

In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead--hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement.

How then can one confront such an enemy, with such a view of life and death? Some immediate precautions are obviously possible and necessary. In the long term, it would seem that the best, perhaps the only hope is to appeal to those Muslims, Iranians, Arabs and others who do not share these apocalyptic perceptions and aspirations, and feel as much threatened, indeed even more threatened, than we are. There must be many such, probably even a majority in the lands of Islam. Now is the time for them to save their countries, their societies and their religion from the madness of MAD.

A Strange Coincidence...

We were visiting cousins of someone I know in Grove City. There, on the wall of the dining room, was this picture by Marin County artist Millicent Tomkins. We had a very similar picture in our home when I was growing up, because the artist was married to a medical school classmate of my father. It was strange to see a picture from your home, in someone else's. No, he didn't know the artist, he just liked the picture, which had been a gift. I told him the meaning of the saxophone (Gordon's), cello (Tanya's), and viola (Lesley's). That's what they really looked like in their Mill Valley living room, when we would visit her at home, some 30-40 years ago...

You can see some current paintings by Millicent Tomkins online, here.

J. Howard Pew in Bronze at Dusk, Grove City College, Grove City, PA

The Worst Hotel I Ever Stayed In

Now, I've been around the world once, and to Central Asia and back another time. I've stayed in a Russian student dormitory, and Indian faculty dormitory, and hotels in India, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Romania, Turkey, Russia and the Ukraine. But the worst hotel I've ever stayed in was right here in the good old USA--the Super 8 in Grove City, PA.

Apparently, it does its business among Ontario residents who shop at the outlet mall in order to save on sales tax (no sales tax on clothes in PA, 25% in Ontario). So, all the motels fill up on weekends. Including this one.

What was so bad?

Price: $114 per night.

The Room: We arrived and there was no toilet paper. Went down to the front desk to get some. Came up to find that not only was the bed unchanged and sheets dirty--ther were crumbs in the bed...

Went down again for new sheets, the first set didn't fit. Another trip. This set wasn't clean either, stained with bodily fluids. Finally, third trip, got some clean but un-pressed sheets. Beggars can't be choosers. No glasses in the bathroom for tooth-brushing. And the mirror covered in spit from the last guest. Oy!

Well, the desk clerk said they'd take care of it the next morning. They gave me 1/2 off--still outrageous, honestly, I had to change my sheets three times and be grossed out at least that often. (Doesn't the Super 8 chain have inspectors, to protect their brand reputation?)

Of course, the room smelled of cigarette smoke. You can read more about it, from other dissatisfied customers here, at TripAdvisor.

PS: Hint to Ontario shoppers, there's another Outlet Mall in Erie that doesn't advertise on TV, so it is not as crowded--and closer to Canada. So, you can skip a visit to Grove City...

Shteyngart

I've been in an email discussion with a literary Russian immigrant friend about Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debuatante's Handbook.

What can I say? I like them a lot. No, they are not perfect. Yes, there is too much raunchy sex. Yes, there are some stupid scences, and he doesn't always know where he is going. BUT, overall, there is an intelligence, a sensitivity and a seriousness underlying the work. He's young, and will no doubt get better as he gets older. I wasn't surprised to read that Shteyngart studied international relations at Oberlin, nor that his senior thesis was on Gerogia, Moldova and Tajikistan. It's evident in his books that he knows what he's writing about. Not every novelist does.

And, I knew some Americans who were in Prague in the 80s--and they were just like Gary Shteyngart characters.

You can buy the books by clicking on the boxes above.

Daniel Pipes: A Kremlinologist of Jihad

One more name for Will Marshall, whom he probably knows but didn't mention, is the son of Cold War Kremlinologist Richard Pipes--Daniel Pipes. His November 2001 article on fighting militant Islam without bias from City Journal is relevant today:

What must Americans do to protect themselves from Islamists while safeguarding the civil rights of law-abiding Muslims? The first and most straightforward thing is not to allow any more Islamists into the country. Each Islamist who enters the United States, whether as a visitor or an immigrant, is one more enemy on the home front. Officials need to scrutinize the speech, associations, and activities of potential visitors or immigrants for any signs of Islamist allegiances and keep out anyone they suspect of such ties. Some civil libertarian purists will howl, as they once did over similar legislation designed to keep out Marxist-Leninists. But this is simply a matter of national self-protection.

Laws already on the books allow for such a policy, though excercising them these days is extremely difficult, requiring the direct involvement of the secretary of state (see "It's Time to Plug Our Leaky Borders"). Though written decades before Islamism appeared on the U.S. scene, for example, the 1952 McCarren-Walter Act permits the exclusion of anyone seeking to overthrow the U.S. government. Other regulations would keep out people suspected of terrorism or of committing other acts with "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences." U.S. officials need greater leeway to enforce these laws.

Keeping Islamists out of the country is an obvious first step, but it will be equally important to watch closely Islamists already living here as citizens or residents. Unfortunately, this means all Muslims must face heightened scrutiny. For the inescapable and painful fact is that, while anyone might become a fascist or communist, only Muslims find Islamism tempting. And if it is true that most Muslims aren't Islamists, it is no less true that all Islamists are Muslims. Muslims can expect that police searching for suspects after any new terrorist attack will not spend much time checking out churches, synagogues, or Hindu temples but will concentrate on mosques. Guards at government buildings will more likely question pedestrians who appear Middle Eastern or wear headscarves.

Because such measures have an admittedly prejudicial quality, authorities in the past have shown great reluctance to take them, an attitude Islamists and their apologists have reinforced, seeking to stifle any attempt to single out Muslims for scrutiny. When Muslims have committed crimes, officials have even bent over backward to disassociate their motives from militant Islam. For example, the Lebanese cabdriver who fired at a van full of Orthodox Jewish boys on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994, leaving one child dead, had a well-documented fury at Israel and Jews—but the FBI ascribed his motive to "road rage." Only after a persistent campaign by the murdered boy's mother did the FBI finally classify the attack as "the crimes of a terrorist," almost seven years after the killing. Reluctance to come to terms with militant Islam might have been understandable before September 11—but no longer.

Heightened scrutiny of Muslims has become de rigueur at the nation's airports and must remain so. Airline security personnel used to look hard at Arabs and Muslims, but that was before the relevant lobbies raised so much fuss about "airline profiling" as a form of discrimination that the airlines effectively abandoned the practice. The absence of such a commonsense policy meant that 19 Muslim Arab hijackers could board four separate flights on September 11 with ease.

Greater scrutiny of Muslims also means watching out for Islamist "sleepers"—individuals who go quietly about their business until, one day, they receive the call from their controllers and spring into action as part of a terrorist operation. The four teams of September 11 hijackers show how deep deception can go. As one investigator, noting the length of time the 19 terrorists spent in the United States, explained, "These weren't people coming over the border just to attack quickly. . . . They cultivated friends, and blended into American society to further their ability to strike." Stopping sleepers before they are activated and strike will require greater vigilance at the nation's borders, good intelligence, and citizen watchfulness.

Resident Muslim aliens who reveal themselves to be Islamist should be immediately expelled from the country before they have a chance to act. Citizen Islamists will have to be watched very closely and without cease.

Even as the nation monitors the Muslim world within its borders more closely for signs of Islamism, it must continue, of course, to protect the civil rights of law-abiding American Muslims. Political leaders should regularly and publicly distinguish between Islam, the religion of Muslims, and Islamism, the totalitarian ideology. In addition, they should do everything in their power to make sure that individual Muslims, mosques, and other legal institutions continue to enjoy the full protection of the law. A time of crisis doesn't change the presumption of innocence at the core of our legal system. Police should provide extra protection for Muslims to prevent acts of vandalism against their property or their persons.

Thankfully, some American Muslims (and Arab-Americans, most of whom actually are Christian) understand that by accepting some personal inconvenience—and even, let's be honest, some degree of humiliation—they are helping to protect both the country and themselves. Tarek E. Masoud, a Yale graduate student, shows a good sense that many of his elders seem to lack: "How many thousands of lives would have been saved if people like me had been inconvenienced with having our bags searched and being made to answer questions?" he asks. "People say profiling makes them feel like criminals. It does—I know this firsthand. But would that I had been made to feel like a criminal a thousand times over than to live to see the grisly handiwork of real criminals in New York and Washington."

A third key task will be to combat the totalitarian ideology of militant Islam. That means isolating such noisy and vicious Islamist institutions as the American Muslim Council, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Politicians, the press, corporations, voluntary organizations, and society as a whole—all must shun these groups and grant them not a shred of legitimacy. Tax authorities and law enforcement should watch them like hawks, much as they watch the Teamsters.

Fighting Islamist ideology will also require shutting down Internet sites that promote Islamist violence, recruit new members to the terrorist campaign against the West, and raise money for militant Islamic causes ("Donate money for the military Jihad," exhorts one such website). The federal government began to take action even before September 11, closing InfoCom, a Dallas-based host for many Islamist organizations, some of them funneling money to militant Islamic groups abroad.

Essential, too, in the struggle against Islamist ideology will be reaching out to moderate non-Islamist Muslims for help. These are the people unfairly tarred by Islamist excesses, after all, and so are eager to stop this extremist movement. Bringing them on board has several advantages: they can provide valuable advice, they can penetrate clandestine Islamist organizations, and their involvement in the effort against Islamism blunts the inevitable charges of "Islamophobia."

Further, experts on Islam and Muslims—academics, journalists, religious figures, and government officials—must be held to account for their views. For too long now, they have apologized for Islamism rather than interpreted it honestly. As such, they bear some responsibility for the unpreparedness that led to September's horror. The press and other media need to show greater objectivity in covering Islam. In the past, they have shamefully covered up for it. The recent PBS documentary Islam: Empire of Faith is a case in point, offering, as the Wall Street Journal sharply put it, an "uncritical adoration of Islam, more appropriate to a tract for true believers than a documentary purporting to give the American public a balanced account." Islamists in New York City celebrated the destruction on September 11 at their mosques, but journalists refused to report the story for fear of offending Muslims, effectively concealing this important information from the U.S. public.

Taking these three steps—keeping Islamists out, watching them within the nation's borders without violating the civil liberties of American Muslims, and delegitimating extremists—permits Americans to be fair toward the moderate majority of Muslims while fighting militant Islam. It will be a difficult balancing act, demanding sensitivity without succumbing to political correctness. But it is both essential and achievable.

Mohamed Sifaoui v. Islamism

I read Mohamed Sifaoui's INSIDE AL QAEDA a while ago, and was reminded of it again by Will Marshall's call for more "Kremlinologists" of Jihad. Certainly Mohamed Sifaoui is as much of an expert as anyone alive--and I hope Will Marshall reads this book. Here's an excerpt from the foreword:

I am an Algerian Muslim by birth, and a journalist by profession. Like everyone else in Algeria, I had lived with teh scourge of Islamist terrorism for a decade before the western world discovered the horror of 11 September 2001. Like may of my fellow Algerians, I have lost many people close to me, both family and firends. Such traumas have left indelible marks which will never heal.

In Algeria we have lived through this turmoil without the sympathy of the international community. To put it bluntly, the West didn't really care about terrorism until it came knocking at its own door I have never experienced the solidarity shown by the Europeans towards the Americans, for example, in the aftermath of the attacks on Washington and New York. On 11 September, I understoot something very important: no matter what anyone says, and despite the views that continually get repeated, in the West, the life of an Algerian isn't valued as highly as the life of an American, and a Rwandan life isn't worth as much as a European one.

Nonetheless, realizing this has not stopped me carrying on my fight against Islamism, since I do not want to see it strike France and thereaten the security of the coutnry which has welcomed me, and which has become mine. I have neer given up the fight, even though there are certain sectors of public opinion here in France which continue tolook the other way, and make a distinction between 'moderate' Islamism and 'radical' fundamentalism, often excusing en passant the crimes committed in the name of this form of fascism all around the world, not least in Algeria. Along with thousands of others worldwide, I have continued to denounce Islamism as the ideology which feeds a despicable form of terrorism, and which threatens whole societies from the Philippines to Chechnya, and from the Near East to the Horn of Africa. All the while, bomb attacks continue with terrible regularity.

To buy INSIDE AL QAEDA, click here:

Robert Spencer

Will Marshall asked for more "Kremlinologists" of Jihad. Here's one with his own blog: Robert Spencer:

Q: Why should I believe what you say about Islam?
RS: Because I draw no conclusions of myself, and I do not ask anyone to take anything on my word. Pick up any of my books, and you will see that they are made up largely of quotations from Islamic jihadists and the traditional Islamic sources to which they appeal to justify violence and terrorism. I am only shedding light on what these sources say.

It is amusing to me that some people like to focus on my credentials, when I have never made a secret of the fact that most of what I know about Islam comes from personal study. It is easier for them to talk about degrees than to find any inaccuracy in my work. Yet I present the work not on the basis of my credentials, but on the basis of the evidence I bring forth; evaluate it for yourself. As this site has shown, I am always open to new information.

Q: Why have you studied Islam for so long?
RS: It has been an enduring fascination. Since childhood I have had an interest in the Muslim world, from which my family comes. When I was very young my grandparents would tell me stories about their life there, and I always heard them with great interest. When I met Muslim students as a college undergraduate I began reading and studying the Qur'an in earnest. That led to in-depth forays into tafsir (interpretations of the Qur'an), hadith (traditions of the Prophet Muhammad), and much more about Islamic theology and law. While working on my master's thesis, which dealt not with Islam but (in part) with some early Christian heretical groups, I began to study early Islamic history, since some of these groups ended up in Arabia and may have influenced Muhammad. In the intervening years I continued these studies of Islamic theology, history, and law out of personal interest.

This led to my consulting privately with some individuals and groups about Islam, but I had never intended to do such work publicly. However, after 9/11 I was asked to write Islam Unveiled in order to correct some of the misapprehensions about Islam that were widespread at that time.

Q: I've read that you are secretly a Catholic and have a religious agenda.
RS: Yes, I have been so intent on keeping this a secret that I co-wrote a book called Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics. Here again, people like to imagine that a Christian cannot write accurately about Islam, but they cannot point to any inaccuracy in my work. Nor is there any religious agenda here. I envision Jihad Watch as an opportunity for all the actual and potential victims of jihad violence and oppression -- Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, secular Muslims, atheists, whatever -- to join together to defend universal human rights. There are many things about which we all disagree, but at this point we need to unite simply in order to survive. We can sort out our disagreements later.

At this point the people most active, in various ways, in the work of Jihad Watch are a Catholic, a Jew, and an atheist. If we weren't so busy trying to awaken the Western world to the threat of violent jihad, we could walk into a bar and...(fill in your own punchline).

Q: I've read that you are a member of Opus Dei.
RS: Uh, sorry, no.

Q: I've read that you are actually Jewish.
RS: Again, no. Jihadists commonly label all their opponents as Jews. They don't seem to realize that they have offended more groups than just one. I am honored to be able to stand with Jews and others in defense of human rights against the totalitarian, supremacist jihad ideology.

Q: I've read that you are actually a Maoist.
RS: Strike three.

Lying BBC Reporter Caught by Blogger

(ht LGF) Here.

Shimon Peres: Israel Won

Hard to believe, but Shimon Peres may be right, given the tone of Nora Boustany's Lebanese jokebook (scroll down). Here's the report from Ha'aretz:

"They (Hezbollah) thought they will bring Israel on our knees. I don't say it's easy but we withstood it and we feel that we went out of it militarily in a good shape and politically in an even better one," Peres, in Atlanta to raise humanitarian funds for northern Israel, told a news conference.

He said he still supported Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, adding that now was not the time for internal conflicts in Israel.

He also that the UN cease-fire resolution was an important achievement because it had been reached with the full support of the moderate Arab states, and also because Russia joined the vote against transferring weapons to Hezbollah.

Will Marshall on Confronting Jihad

The head of the Progessive Policy Institute takes on the Jihadist menace:

Some foreign policy analysts dismiss the severity of the jihadist threat, which they believe the White House has exaggerated for political reasons.

That's a big mistake. Although the ranks of hardcore terrorists may be small, the number of Islamist sympathizers, theorists, enablers, and potential recruits appears to be growing. Saudi Arabia has been particularly active in building the infrastructure that supports extremism, recycling oil revenues to the tune of $75 billion over the last two decades to spread Wahhabi fundamentalism around the world.

Instead of minimizing the jihadist threat, Americans should study the jihadist ideology. We need the equivalent of the Cold War's Kremlinologists -- jihadologists who can help U.S. policymakers understand what motivates extremism and devise better strategies for diminishing its appeal to Muslims wherever they live.

Bush's "war on terror" has focused too narrowly on terrorists' means rather than their ideas. Reza Aslan, an American Muslim, argues in With All Our Might that the president seems oblivious to the context from which jihadist extremism springs. The movement arises from a civil war raging within Islam. It pits reformers seeking an accommodation with modernity against fundamentalists determined to rid Islam of all modern and corrupting ideas.

"The simple truth is that the United States has a national security interest in the outcome of the Islamic Reformation currently under way throughout the Muslim world," Aslan writes. "It must therefore do whatever it can to tip the balance of power away from the extremists and back to the massive yet voiceless majority who are as much victims of jihadism as is the West."

Yet Bush's excessively militarized response to terrorism and his reductive, good-versus-evil rhetoric has played into the jihadists' strategy of framing their struggle as an irreconcilable conflict between Islam and the "crusader" West.
"The simple truth is that the United States has a national security interest in the outcome of the Islamic Reformation currently under way throughout the Muslim world," Aslan writes. "It must therefore do whatever it can to tip the balance of power away from the extremists and back to the massive yet voiceless majority who are as much victims of jihadism as is the West."

Yet Bush's excessively militarized response to terrorism and his reductive, good-versus-evil rhetoric has played into the jihadists' strategy of framing their struggle as an irreconcilable conflict between Islam and the "crusader" West.

The United States needs a smarter strategy for undercutting the ideological appeal of the global jihad. For starters, we need to rally the world's democracies to a stouter defense of their liberal ideas. We should challenge the international community to strengthen norms against killing civilians and impose meaningful penalties on states that don't comply with tough new anti-terror conventions. We should join the International Criminal Court and seek indictments against Osama bin Laden and other terror chiefs for crimes against humanity. It's time for a real zero-tolerance policy toward terrorism, not one that makes exceptions for "resistance to occupation."

DLC: What Next in Lebanon?

The Democratic Leadership Council has some ideas on next steps for Lebanon:

If the international community wants Israel to stop short of removing the terrorist threat, then the international community needs to:

(1) Make it clear it repudiates the rejectionist claim that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish State and condemns terrorism against Israel just as it does terrorism against any other state. Europeans in particular have long advanced an implicit and unique exception for anti-Israeli terrorists on grounds that they have a "right to resistance" against Israeli occupation of territories obtained since 1967. But both Hamas and Hezbollah are operating from territories Israeli has unilaterally abandoned; and both explicitly reject Israel's existence within boundaries established in the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. This is about Israeli sovereignty, not Israeli occupations, and terrorist acts against Israel should be opposed just as strongly as terrorist acts against, say, France.

(2) Find a way to enforce the long-standing UN mandate that Hezbollah be disarmed. The revival of Lebanon after its long civil war was based in part on the idea that Hezbollah would disband its militias and pursue its goals through peaceful political activity. It has indeed become part of the Lebanese political system, but also maintains the strongest military force in the country, thanks to massive infusions of Iranian money, training and weaponry. If UN Security Council members don't want Israel to destroy Hezbollah's military arm, they must commit themselves to do it themselves, by deploying a real international force in southern Lebanon that can prevent future attacks on Israel once the current fighting is over.

(3) Intensify pressure against Hamas to recognize Israel and reject terrorism if it wants to be regarded as a legitimate governing party. Like Hezbollah, Hamas faces a choice between terrorism or democratic politics; it cannot have it both ways. To their credit, Palestine's European paymasters supported U.S. efforts to cut off subsidies to the Palestinian Authority until such time as Hamas abandoned its rejectionist policies and terrorist tactics. But Hamas has abundantly confirmed its status as a Jihadist terrorist organization committed to the destruction of Israel, in both actions and rhetoric (such as The Washington Post op-ed last week by the Palestinian Authority prime minister pledging continued attacks on Israeli civilians until such time as Israel dealt with the "core 1948 issues," meaning the existence of a Jewish State). Hamas needs to be taken at its word and treated accordingly.

(4) Isolate and sanction Iran and Syria until such time as they stop serving as staging grounds and paymasters for rejectionist terrorism. The case for international action against Iran was overwhelming even before last week's events, given Tehran's serial defiance of global non-proliferation policies. Its deep complicity in the attacks on Israel -- Iran heavily finances and supplies Hezbollah, and also recently began channeling aid to Hamas, after a conference confirming Iran's determination to wipe Israel off the map -- makes such action urgent. Emboldened by international tolerance, and also by the preoccupation of the United States with Iraq, Iran is clearly pressing ahead with an agenda to destabilize the Middle East and establish itself as the dominant regional power. Iran's chief ally in the region, Syria, was nicely positioned to help in this flanking tactic, given its long support for Hamas and its residual interests in controlling Lebanon.

Both Tehran and Damascus have become clear threats to regional and world peace, and must be isolated and sanctioned, not appeased. Weapons transfers to terrorist groups must stop. Terrorist headquarters must be shut down. Those who fear Israeli military action against either regime need to supply an alternative way to rein in these rogue states. And Russia and China must finally understand that if they want to be great powers in a post-Cold War world, they must abandon their Cold War habit of aiding and abetting anti-western tyrants in Tehran, Damascus or Pyongyang.

And that's really the bottom line about how the United States should guide the international community in this crisis: deal with the problems if you don't want Israel to deal with them on their own terms, as it must. The administration should dispatch Secretary of State Condi Rice to the region to lead diplomatic efforts aimed at disarming Hezbollah, reining in Hamas, and imposing real sanctions on Iran and Syria for their complicity in terrorism.

The reality right now is that the fight against jihadism has entered a new and even more dangerous phase. If the United States aggressively pursues a multilateral, anti-jihadist strategy in this case or others, then we will be in a better position to not only serve as a peacemaker in the Middle East, but to reprise America's Cold War leadership in creating a collective security system that can thwart terrorists and tyrants alike.

Bernard Henri-Levy v. Hezbollah

This NY Times website Q&A with the French philosopher was sent to me by a friend in New York:

Q. 1. Why do you only paint your story from the point of view of Israelis? Why do you assume that Hezbollah is an organization that is not wanted by the people of Lebanon, if they provide services, have elected representatives, and are the only ones able to defend their country?
— Cornelius Diamond, La Jolla, Calif.

A. Three questions in one, dear Cornelius. First, why the Israeli viewpoint? Because only the other viewpoint is seen and I do not like conformism, much less injustice. In other words, it's okay to criticize Israel and debate the strategy adopted by the military command, which is not necessarily the right one. But-a little equity, please — let one begin by listening to what Israelis say and looking at what they are enduring: that's what I did in this reporting. Next: Isn't Hezbollah "wanted by the people of Lebanon"? Don't they "provide services" and "have elected representatives"? Yes, of course, there is no dispute about this, but since when would that be contradictory with the fact of being totalitarians and even perfect fascists? Wasn't Hitler — even though it's not comparable — democratically elected? Didn't Mussolini provide the Italian people every possible service? Indeed, isn't that in a general way the precise definition of fascist populism? Things get complicated with your third question and the idea that the people of Hezbollah are "the only ones able to defend their country." I hope you are joking! For in truth Hezbollah has been bleeding Lebanon and has literally taken it hostage and taken its own people hostage, turning them into human shields with mind-boggling cynicism — a bizarre way to "defend" a country.

Public Domain Images

Over the weekend, we visited with Professor David Dailey at Slippery Rock Universtiy in Pennsylvania. A professor of computer science, Dr. Dailey has a build one of the largest collection of public domain images, which he scanned into a database for public use. It's clip art on a massive scale, and you can browse the collection here. I liked this one of a Bactrian camel, a souvenir of our time in Central Asia...

Nora Boustany's Lebanese Jokebook

From today's Washington Post:

As one joke has it, residents fleeing the Shiite suburbs of Beirut were flashing the victory sign -- to indicate that only two buildings were still left standing.

It was followed by excited speculation that real estate values in the poor neighborhood of Ain al-Rummaneh, a crowded cluster of aging buildings overlooking the southern suburbs, had shot up by 50 percent. Why? It now has a sea view.

People are petrified of honoring their dental appointments out of fear they may have bridgework done, goes another favorite. So contagious have these stories been that in one refugee center, Marwa Saad, 15, whose family was driven out by fierce fighting near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, did not dare utter a word without covering her mouthful of braces.

"Everyone keeps teasing me; they bully me to keep my mouth shut so we don't get hit by Israeli jets," she said about her friends, giggling with her hand to her mouth.

Another story has Haifa Wehbe, the curvaceous bombshell of Lebanese music videos, dispatched by the Hezbollah leadership to Israel to conduct negotiations. She returns pregnant. When confronted about her condition, the anecdote goes, Wehbe insisted she was only trying to help: "I thought I would get you another small hostage."

Some jokes target the Syrians for causing the crisis by allowing arms to flow to Hezbollah and pressuring the Lebanese government to let the group keep its arms. One joke says the Israelis cannot aim at the Syrian inhabitants of Homs. Why? Because the Israelis only have smart bombs.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is also the butt of some humor. The elderly women of the Christian neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh regard Nasrallah as their new idol and sex symbol, goes one line, because he has taken them back 40 years.

Another joke extols Nasrallah, saying he is now worthy of a statue since he managed to put the entire Shiite Muslim community, with its high rate of illiteracy, in schools.

Julie Burchill on BBC Anti-Semitism

From Haaretz:

Personally, I'd far prefer the Jews to be angry, aggressive and alive than meek, mild and dead - and that's what makes me and a minority like me feel so much like strangers in our own country, now more than ever. I've always loved being a hack, but now even that feels weird, as though I'm living among a bunch of snatched-body zombies who look like journalists but believe and say the most inhuman, evil things.

When Mel Gibson was picked up for drunk-driving recently, he was reported to have screamed at the police officer, whom he believed to be Jewish, "Fucking Jews! The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." His subsequent excuse was that he has "battled the disease of alcoholism for all my adult life." The British media are notorious for our love of the hard stuff; is that going to be our excuse too, I wonder, when large numbers of us are finally bang to rights for peddling the same loathsome lie?

British Reveal Al Qaeda Links to Airline Bombing Plot

According to The Guardian:

A brother of two of the 24 suspects seized by detectives investigating a plot to bomb up to 12 planes was seized in Pakistan shortly before police launched their raids, it emerged last night.
The arrest of Rashid Rauf in the border area with Afghanistan was a trigger that led investigators to start an immediate pre-emptive operation with officers fearing the alleged cells were ready to strike.

Pakistani officials claimed last night that Mr Rauf had links with al-Qaida. "We arrested him from the border area and on his disclosure we shared the information with British authorities, which led to further arrests in Britain," said the interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao.

The foreign minister, Khursheed Kasuri, said Mr Rauf had been monitored for some time before his arrest.

Mr Rauf's uncle was murdered in Birmingham in April 2002 and as part of the murder hunt it is understood that Mr Rauf's home in St Margaret's Road in the city was searched.

Mr Rauf's arrest was one of seven made by Pakistani authorities in recent days, and is understood to have included one other Briton. Mr Rauf's two brothers were arrested in Birmingham on Thursday. There were reports last night that Mr Rauf provided the link between the plot's planners and the British Muslims alleged to have been preparing to carry out the attacks.

It also emerged yesterday that at least one suspect arrested in Walthamstow, east London, regularly attended camps run by Tablighi Jamaat, an organisation which the Americans believe has been used as a recruiting ground for al-Qaida. Martyrdom tapes and other items were found in the search of the 29 properties where arrests were made on Thursday.

Roger L. Simon: Rudy Giuliani, Now!

Andrew Sullivan on Israel & Lebanon

Andrew Sullivan quotes a letter from a Lebanese Christian praising Israelis and then adds this:

Our strongest weapons in this war are our values. Yes, military force is important and necessary. But our values are what will win in the long run — because they reflect a deeper truth about human dignity than the poisonous doctrines of distorted religious certitude and bigotry. That's why we must never — never — tolerate torture of prisoners; that's why we should never sacrifice the rule of law; that's why we should never give civilian politicians a "get-out-of-jail-free" card for war crimes. And that's why we should support Israel now, more than ever. She is not perfect. But her enemies are in a different category of morality. The difference between collateral civilian casualties and civilian casualties as the entire purpose of war is the difference between an embattled civilization and barbarism. Yes, there are grays in the Middle East. But this isn't one of them.