"I am Macaca"

In today's Washington Post, Frederick Kunkle profiles 20-year old University of Virginia student S. R. Sidarth--who revealed Virginia Republican Senator George Allen's racist campaign rally appeal,while tracking Allen for Democratic rival James Webb. Whether Allen wins or loses the Virginia race now depends on the size of Virginia's redneck voting bloc. He's clearly not going to win any Indian-American support, after going calling Virginia-born S. R. Sidarth a "Macaca" and shouting "Welcome to America!"

His political interests follow family tradition. His great-grandfather accompanied Mahatma Gandhi to London for talks on political reform. His grandfather, R. Srinivasan, was secretary of the World Health Organization in the 1990s. His father, Shekar Narasimhan, aided some political campaigns, usually for Democrats but not always, Sidarth said.

Sidarth's father, a prosperous mortgage banker, came to the United States to study about 25 years ago. His mother, Charu, a teacher of Indian classical dance, followed later.

Both played important roles in the founding of Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Lanham, one of the largest Hindu temples in the country, said Narayanswami Subramanian, the temple's president. Shekar Narasimhan is a trustee emeritus, Charu Narasimhan chairs the board of trustees and Sidarth volunteers there.

"They've instilled in him all the values that are important to a Hindu: being honest, working hard," Subramanian said.

Ali Batouli, a senior biology major at Stanford University who befriended Sidarth in a 10th-grade calculus class, said Sidarth could solve complicated math problems in his head faster than anyone else. As a high school senior, Sidarth also seemed to know more than his Advanced Placement classmates about Virginia and United States government history, Batouli said.

Sirocco (1951)

Thanks to Netflix, had a chance to watch Humphrey Bogart, Lee J. Cobb, nd Zero Mostel, among others starring in Curtis Berhnhardt's 1951 Casablanca-inspired Sirocco. it was a little slow and a little stodgy--but very interesting because of its storyline. Set in French-occupied Damascus, Syria in 1925, Sirocco is the story of American arms-smuggler Humphrey Bogart--caught in the middle between the French military and the Syrian Emir's rebellion. It is kind of sophisticated, with a love triangle featuring Bogart, the head of French military intelligence, and his mistress, played by Marta Toren. It's certainly not as good as Casablanca, but some of the scenes are eerily reminiscent of what is going on in places like Baghdad and Lebanon right now. For example, a bombing of a nightclub frequented by foreigners, as well as a plot climax featuring a kidnapping and murder by the Emir's side leading to increased fighting, followed by a hostage-taking and eventually a negotiated cease-fire. Oscar Wilde may have been right: Life does seem to imitate art.

Although Bogart called the film a "stinker" according to Film Noir of the Week, it should interest people who are following events in the Middle East. Plus, Bogart does a great job acting, as does Lee J. Cobb. Marta Toren is pretty good, but no Ingrid Bergman. And Zero Mostel plays an Armenian black-marketeer who almost steals the show.

Bottom line: For maximum effect, watch it now, before peace breaks out...

The KGB 's Role in Islamist Terror

Former Romanian general Ion Mihai Pacepa writes in National Review:

In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S. As KGB chairman Yury Andropov told me, a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States. No one within the American/Zionist sphere of influence should any longer feel safe.

According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep. The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology. Their illiterate, oppressed mobs could be whipped up to a fever pitch.

Terrorism and violence against Israel and her master, American Zionism, would flow naturally from the Muslims’ religious fervor, Andropov sermonized. We had only to keep repeating our themes — that the United States and Israel were “fascist, imperial-Zionist countries” bankrolled by rich Jews. Islam was obsessed with preventing the infidels’ occupation of its territory, and it would be highly receptive to our characterization of the U.S. Congress as a rapacious Zionist body aiming to turn the world into a Jewish fiefdom.

The codename of this operation was “SIG” (Sionistskiye Gosudarstva, or “Zionist Governments”), and was within my Romanian service’s “sphere of influence,” for it embraced Libya, Lebanon, and Syria. SIG was a large party/state operation. We created joint ventures to build hospitals, houses, and roads in these countries, and there we sent thousands of doctors, engineers, technicians, professors, and even dance instructors. All had the task of portraying the United States as an arrogant and haughty Jewish fiefdom financed by Jewish money and run by Jewish politicians, whose aim was to subordinate the entire Islamic world.

In the mid 1970s, the KGB ordered my service, the DIE — along with other East European sister services — to scour the country for trusted party activists belonging to various Islamic ethnic groups, train them in disinformation and terrorist operations, and infiltrate them into the countries of our “sphere of influence.” Their task was to export a rabid, demented hatred for American Zionism by manipulating the ancestral abhorrence for Jews felt by the people in that part of the world. Before I left Romania for good, in 1978, my DIE had dispatched around 500 such undercover agents to Islamic countries. According to a rough estimate received from Moscow, by 1978 the whole Soviet-bloc intelligence community had sent some 4,000 such agents of influence into the Islamic world.

In the mid-1970s we also started showering the Islamic world with an Arabic translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a tsarist Russian forgery that had been used by Hitler as the foundation for his anti-Semitic philosophy. We also disseminated a KGB-fabricated “documentary” paper in Arabic alleging that Israel and its main supporter, the United States, were Zionist countries dedicated to converting the Islamic world into a Jewish colony.

We in the Soviet bloc tried to conquer minds, because we knew we could not win any military battles. It is hard to say what exactly are the lasting effects of operation SIG. But the cumulative effect of disseminating hundreds of thousands of Protocols in the Islamic world and portraying Israel and the United States as Islam’s deadly enemies was surely not constructive.

Alan Dershowitz on Human Rights Watch

From the New York Sun::

How could Human Rights Watch have suppressed this evidence from so many different sources? The only reasonable explanation is that they wanted there to be no evidence of Hezbollah's tactic of hiding behind civilians. So they cooked the books to make it come out that way. Even after the fighting ended and numerous reports of Hezbollah hiding among civilians were published, Kenneth Roth essentially repeated the demonstrably false conclusions that "in none of those cases was Hizbullah anywhere around at the time of the attack." So committed is Human Rights Watch to its pre-determined conclusions that it refused to let the facts, as reported by objective sources, get in its way. Many former supporters of Human Rights Watch have become alienated from the organization, because of, in the words of one early supporter, "their obsessive focus on Israel." Within the last month, virtually every component of the organized Jewish community, from secular to religious, liberal to conservative, has condemned Human Rights Watch for its bias. Roth and his organization's willful blindness when it comes to Israel and its enemies have completely undermined the credibility of a once important human rights organization. Human Rights Watch no longer deserves the support of real human rights advocates. Nor should its so-called reporting be credited by objective news organizations.

Russia Overtakes Saudia Arabia

As Number One oil producer, according to The Moscow News:

According to OPEC, in June 2006 Russia extracted 9.236 million barrels of oil, which is 46,000 barrels more than Saudi Arabia. The statistics also showed that Russian production in the first half of this year increased to 235.8 million tons, a year-on-year improvement of 2.3 percent.

Traditionally, Saudi Arabia has been regarded as the world’s undisputed primary source of oil and Russia has had to settle for second place. But in recent years Russia has re-nationalized and modernized much of its industry and that policy now appears to be paying off.

India Extends Assam Truce

The cousin of someone I know is moving to India to work on tea plantations in Darjeeling and Assam, and as a result I've become more interested in news from that area lately. This recent announcement on Reuters Alternet naturally caught my eye:

NEW DELHI, Aug 23 (Reuters) - India has extended a suspension of counter-insurgency operations against a powerful rebel group in the country's northeast by two more weeks, a mediator said on Wednesday.

The suspension of operations against the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was first announced 10 days ago and was expected to be in force for a "few days". The rebels reciprocated and said they would halt attacks on the army "for the time being".

But both sides had said it was not a formal ceasefire.

I hope it lasts...

Will Pluto Survive?

As a planet? Or will it be demoted to a "dwarf"? They're voting right now at the International Astronomical Union convention in Prague, according to the BBC.

Ali Alyami's Letter to the Egyptian Ambassador

From the Center for Democray and Human Rights::

His Excellency Ambassador Nabil Fahmy
The Egyptian Ambassador to the US
3521 International Ct. NW
Washington DC 20008

His Excellency Nabil Fahmy:

The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia reject any call by anyone or nation to destroy a whole people regardless of causes, grievances or losses. While we support freedom of speech, thought and expressions, we reject religious extremists such as preacher Safwat Hijazi of Al-Hag Mosque in Jiza, Egypt call on Muslims to kill Jews wherever they are, especially at a time when Muslim passion is high and are looking for revenge. Your Excellency, killing all Jews are not going to solve Arab and Muslim homegrown misery, poverty, high illiteracy, oppression, intolerance and hopelessness. Issuing fatawas by religious extremists like Hijazi is not freedom of speech, it’s license to exterminate people. The following article from the Saudi daily Al-Agtasadiyah is very disturbing to say the least. Safwat Hijazi and his like must not be allowed to incite millions of desperate Muslims to kill Jews.

إمام في الجيزة دعا إلى قتلهم "حيثما وجدوا في زمن الحرب"

فتاوى وفتاوى مضادة في مصر بشأن شرعية قتل "الصهاينة"

الان نافارو من القاهرة ـ أ. ف. ب: - - 29/07/1427هـ


رفض مفتي الجمهورية في مصر الشيخ علي جمعة فتوى اصدرها امام قاهري حث فيها المسلمين على قتل "الصهاينة" وذلك وسط جدل واسع اسال الكثير من الحبر في صفحات الصحف المصرية.
ومع وقف المعارك بين اسرائيل وحزب الله في لبنان اصدر امام مسجد الحق في
الجيزة صفوت حجازي فتوى يدعو فيها المسلمين الى قتل "الصهانية حيثما وجدوا في زمن
الحرب".
واوضح حجازي في حديث للقناة الاسلامية المصرية "الناس" انه يعارض هجوما
انتحاريا داعيا الى استخدام الاسلحة النارية والمدي او السم "حتى لا يتضرر
المدنيون".
ثم عاد الداعية الاسلامي الى حصر فتواه في "اليهود الاسرائيليين" الذين
اعتبرهم "بمثابة جنود".
وفي حديث لمجلة "صوت الامة" قال ان "اي يهودي اسرائيلي مهدر الدم في اي مكان
في الكون واي سفير او دبلوماسي اسرائيلي يجب قتله في اي مكان وانا شخصيا لو قابلت
يهوديا اسرائيليا في اي مكان ساقتله والذي يستطيع فعل هذا ولا يفعله يصبح آثما
وحرام عليه".
وبعد ثلاثة ايام من فتوى حجازي اصدر الازهر فتوى مضادة تحظر على حجازي القاء
خطبة الجمعة. وقال عبد الحميد الاطرش رئيس لجنة الفتاوى في الازهر لمجلة "روز
اليوسف" ان "قتل اليهود على التراب المصري يمثل عملا ارهابيا".
غير ان الجدل لم يتوقف وسط جو معاد لاسرائيل منذ هجومها على لبنان في 12
تموز/يوليو ما اجبر مفتي الجمهورية للتدخل على توضيح ان منح تأشيرة دخول ليهودي
الى مصر يعني توفير الحماية له.
واوضح علي جمعة في حديث الثلاثاء لصحيفة "المصري اليوم" انه "طالما حصل
اليهودي او غيره من الاجانب على تأشيرة دخول للدولة المسلمة فقد اصبح في وضع يسمى
فقهيا بعقد الامان وهو ما يحرم الاعتداء عليه".
واضاف ان "عقد الامان هو التأشيرة التي يمنحها ولي الامر (..) وهي تعني تحريم
دمه حتى لو كان بيننا وبين بلده حرب قائمة فما بالنا اذا كان من بلد لا يحاربنا".
وكان الشيخ علي جمعة اعرب في بداية الشهر عن تضامنه مع المقاومة اللبنانية في
مواجهة "المجرمين الدمويين".
وفي السياق ذاته قال استاذ الشريعة في الازهر محمد رفعت عثمان ان الاعتداء على
شخص حصل على "تاشيرة دخول او ما يسمى في الاصطلاح الفقهي عقد الامان (..) لا يجوز
شرعا". واضاف "اذا حدث الاعتداء على هذا الشخص فهذا يعد غدرا بالعهود وهو من كبرى
الجرائم في الاسلام".
في المقابل اعتبر مجدي مهنا كاتب العمود الشهير في صحيفة "المصري اليوم"
المستقلة ان ملف حجازي يجب ان يطوى متهما السلطات الدينية بتضخيمه.
وقال مهنا "لست مع الفتوى التي اصدرها الداعية الاسلامي الدكتور صفوت حجازي
واباح فيها قتل اليهود وتعقب الاسرائيليين في كل مكان من العالم حتى اذا كان
هؤلاء اليهود من الذين يقدمون لاسرائيل الدعم ويشجعونها على عدوانها على
الفلسطينيين واللبنانيين وعلى الاستمرار في سياستها العنصرية".
ورأى الكاتب انه لا ينبغي اعطاء اهمية "لما صدر من فتاوى متشددة ومتطرفة هي
الجانب الضئيل الذي سيترتب عليه نتائج الحرب في لبنان".
وبالتوازي مع تمجيد الشيخ حسن نصر الله الامين العام لحزب الله الشيعي
اللبناني، عاد مجددا الى منابر الحوار المصرية الجدل حول العلاقات مع اسرائيل
وذهبت المعارضة الاسلامية والناصرية الى حد المطالبة بقطع هذه العلاقات.
ومصر والاردن هما الدولتان العربيتان الوحيدتان اللتان وقعتا معاهدة سلام مع
اسرائيل وهما مع موريتانيا الدول العربية الثلاث التي تقيم علاقات دبلوماسية مع
الدولة العبرية.
من جانبه اعتبر عماد جاد الباحث في معهد الدراسات الاستراتيجية في الاهرام ان
"كل شيء اصبح يستغل لمهاجمة نظام الرئيس حسني مبارك الذي يعتبر مرتبطا باسرائيل
والولايات المتحدة".
واضاف لوكالة فرانس برس "نأمل ان تحل محل التطرف المخيم لهجة اكثر اعتدالا".

Ali H. Alyami, Executive Director
Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia
1050 17 Street NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20036
202-558-5552; 202-413-0084; Fax: 202-536-5210
ali@cdhr.info; www.cdhr.info

More on Grigory Perelman

By Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber. Nasar is author of A Beautiful Mind, in the latest issue of The New Yorker:

We arranged to meet at ten the following morning on Nevsky Prospekt. From there, Perelman, dressed in a sports coat and loafers, took us on a four-hour walking tour of the city, commenting on every building and vista. After that, we all went to a vocal competition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which lasted for five hours. Perelman repeatedly said that he had retired from the mathematics community and no longer considered himself a professional mathematician. He mentioned a dispute that he had had years earlier with a collaborator over how to credit the author of a particular proof, and said that he was dismayed by the discipline’s lax ethics. “It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens,” he said. “It is people like me who are isolated.” We asked him whether he had read Cao and Zhu’s paper. “It is not clear to me what new contribution did they make,” he said. “Apparently, Zhu did not quite understand the argument and reworked it.” As for Yau, Perelman said, “I can’t say I’m outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest.”
The prospect of being awarded a Fields Medal had forced him to make a complete break with his profession. “As long as I was not conspicuous, I had a choice,” Perelman explained. “Either to make some ugly thing”—a fuss about the math community’s lack of integrity—“or, if I didn’t do this kind of thing, to be treated as a pet. Now, when I become a very conspicuous person, I cannot stay a pet and say nothing. That is why I had to quit.” We asked Perelman whether, by refusing the Fields and withdrawing from his profession, he was eliminating any possibility of influencing the discipline. “I am not a politician!” he replied, angrily. Perelman would not say whether his objection to awards extended to the Clay Institute’s million-dollar prize. “I’m not going to decide whether to accept the prize until it is offered,” he said.
Mikhail Gromov, the Russian geometer, said that he understood Perelman’s logic: “To do great work, you have to have a pure mind. You can think only about the mathematics. Everything else is human weakness. Accepting prizes is showing weakness.” Others might view Perelman’s refusal to accept a Fields as arrogant, Gromov said, but his principles are admirable. “The ideal scientist does science and cares about nothing else,” he said. “He wants to live this ideal. Now, I don’t think he really lives on this ideal plane. But he wants to.”

BTW, Nasar's father, Rusi Nasar, was born in Uzbekistan.

Human Rights Watch's Anti-Israel Campaign

From today's editorial in the NY Sun:

Mr. Roth bragged on "The O'Reilly Factor," "we know how to cut through lies." It's training that might be useful for Human Rights Watch's board and donors in dealing with Mr. Roth. Some of them are starting to wise up. Mortimer Zuckerman, whose charitable trust is listed in the 2005 Human Rights Watch annual report as having given between $25,000 and $99,999 to Human Rights Watch, told us he thought Human Rights Watch's treatment of Israel's actions in Lebanon was an "outrage." "Human Rights Watch has lost all moral credibility," he said.

Don't expect a similar recognition anytime soon from the quasigovernmental European foundations that are a big source of Human Rights Watch's funding. Or from the chairman and two members of the Human Rights Watch "Middle East Advisory Committee," Columbia professors Gary Sick, Lisa Anderson, and Jean-Francois Seznec, who accepted a free trip to Saudi Arabia from the state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, a junket so ethically dubious that the Columbia journalism school faculty voted not to send anyone. Mr. Roth and Human Rights Watch may be able to fool some of the people all of the time, as Lincoln once said. But it hasn't been able to fool all of the people. The leadership of the American Jewish community has long since figured out Human Rights Watch's game. Its founder, Robert Bernstein, as previously noted here, has been telling his friends of his private agonies over the behavior of the organization he helped bring to life. And when the history of this period is written, the record will show that during the war against Israel and the Jewish people, Human Rights Watch and Kenneth Roth joined in the effort to demonize the Jewish state at a time when righteous individuals were trying to defend it.

A question: Given Elie Wiesel's famous essay on the suffering of Soviet Jews, The Jews of Silence, why is Robert Bernstein keeping his"private agonies" --"quiet?"

American NGOs Support Hezbollah

According to today's New York Times:

KHIAM, Lebanon, Aug. 22 — When Mercy Corps and other Western aid agencies reached this devastated village on the front line of the battle between Israel and Hezbollah with food and medicine, they quickly discovered they had a big problem: the United States.

Didn't President Bush once say: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists?"

Hmm...

Christopher Hitchens on Flying in a Climate of Terror

From the Mirror:

One of the great privileges of the ordinary citizen has been taken away, or at any rate curtailed - just like that.

Imagine how furious we would be if it was the state that had made it hard to leave and return to Britain.

But a tiny group of freaks has made this decision for us. The cost of even a failed attempt is felt immediately in cancelled flights and onerous inspections.

A fine day's work already for them. But what if their plan had succeeded? Not only would we be trying to separate mangled flesh from the wreckage of fuselages, but the world economy and the freedom of movement that underpins it, would dive. At the very least, poorer countries that depend on tourism would have seen a severe drop in wages. One sometimes hears weak people argue that terrorism is caused by poverty.

On the contrary, the mass murder of people on aeroplanes is a leading cause of poverty. And this is not by accident.

It is the aim of religious fundamentalists to create a state of misery and deprivation that might - in their disordered minds - help them to grab power.

What excuse would you accept from someone who tried to bomb the jet that carried your parents or children? Low on the list would be the claim that such an atrocity would help, say, the Palestinians.

You see suffering on the TV news or dislike British or American foreign policy and think - hey, why not kill all the passengers on the Continental flight to LA? I don't quite follow you here.

Never mind whether Mr Blair is right or wrong on Iraq or Afghanistan. We cannot give the impression that British policy may be altered by mass murder.

Reference to the current horrors in Lebanon is crass - the current plot was apparently hatched last December.

I remember a chilling statement from the Provisional IRA, just after the Brighton bomb that narrowly failed to kill Mrs Thatcher. "You were lucky today. But you have to be lucky every day. We only have to be lucky once."

This psychological warfare, backed by violence, is now directed at every civilian. Will we tolerate being spoken to in this vile tone of voice?

Russian Genius Turns Down Million-Dollar Math Prize

From The Moscow Times:

MADRID -- A reclusive Russian mathematician won the world's highest honor in the field Tuesday for work toward solving one of history's toughest math problems but he refused to accept the award -- a stunning renunciation of accolades from the top minds in his field.

Grigory Perelman, a 40-year-old native of St. Petersburg, was praised for work in the field known as topology, which studies shapes, and for a breakthrough that might help scientists figure out nothing less than the shape of the universe.

But besides shunning the medal, academic colleagues say he also seems uninterested in a separate, $1 million prize he might be due over his feat: proving a theorem about the nature of multidimensional space that has stumped very smart people for 100 years.

The academic award, called a Fields Medal, was announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians, an event held every four years, this time in Madrid from Aug. 22-30. It is the highest honor in the field of math. Three other mathematicians -- another Russian, a Frenchman and an Australian -- also won Fields honors this year.

They received their awards from Spanish King Juan Carlos to loud applause from delegates to the conference. But Perelman was not present. "I regret that Dr. Perelman has declined to accept the medal," said John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, which is holding the convention.

Mark Steyn on Alistair Cooke

From McLeans Magazine:

A month or two before his death, his assistant found an old, long-lost manuscript at the bottom of a closet. Cooke was delighted, and here it is between hard covers -- The American Home Front 1941-1942, a more or less contemporaneous account of a cross-country drive undertaken a few weeks after Pearl Harbor -- Washington to Miami to Seattle to Portland, Maine. I've been reading it on little commuter flights hopping across Oz and it's both a terrific read and strangely timely.

Harvey Sicherman on the Lessons of Lebanon

From the Foreign Policy Research Insitute:

1. ELECTIONS AREN’T DEMOCRACY: Elections without qualification only enable the enemies of democracy to exploit it. Hamas, Hezbollah, and Sadr all were allowed to run despite their repudiation of the political structure (Oslo, acceptance of U.N. Resolution 1559, the Iraqi Constitution) under which the polls were held. All three produced war or increased sectarian violence not long after they assumed leading roles. We need no more such experiments. Democracy needs rules, too. Legitimacy derives not only from voters but also from platforms.
2. NEW DOCTRINE FOR A NEW ENEMY: Hezbollah has been revealed as a social-political movement, attached to a professional military force using combined terrorist and guerrilla tactics. Current Western military doctrine privileges air and armor. But firepower alone will not do the job in urban areas. Worse, the inevitable civilian toll, magnified by the media, diminishes public support. The United States and its allies must gird themselves to deal with Hezbollah-like tactics. This “asymmetrical” attrition warfare is what gives the enemy its confidence that they can prevail over the long haul whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon or the Palestinian territories. It is rooted in a view of western societies, including Israel, as too decadent to defend themselves for very long once the casualties mount, where the home front is almost more important than the war front. America’s failure to employ sufficient forces in Iraq and now Israel’s over-reliance on air power, reinforces this conviction.
3. PROXY WAR IS NOT ENOUGH: The trouble with proxy war is always the proxies, whose capabilities and interests may not be sufficient or coincide with American wishes. By definition, the main troublemakers go unscathed. Kinder and gentler regimes in Syria and Iran are not likely anytime soon. Until then, the United States must contrive a more effective mix of reward and penalty that offers direct pain to Damascus and Tehran, or should they change policy, direct benefit. Diplomatic, economic, and military policies must march together to exploit vulnerabilities. The war of attrition is available to both sides.

These lessons should survive the “two-in-one” crisis even if the Israeli-Hezbollah war of 2006 does not give a decisive turn to the larger impending confrontation between the United States and Iran.

From the White House Website

Did Karen Hughes think this up?

Melanie Phillips on Islamism in Britain

Melanie Phillips believes that Islamic fascism has taken root in England:

The British political and security establishment, meanwhile, still fails to understand that it is not enough to thwart terrorist plots and disrupt terrorist cells but it must also combat the ideology of lies, hatred and paranoia driving certain Muslims to these terrible acts. Not only do they fail to do so, but they have even recruited jihadists into the very heart of government as advisers.

The mantra justifying this appeasement of extremism is that the vast majority of Britain’s Muslims are ‘moderate.’ True, the vast majority oppose terrorism. But Britain has now effectively defined as a moderate someone who does not support mass murder — and even then, only in Britain.

Where are the Muslim public figures condemning those in their community who support suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq? Or those who blame Israel and the Jews for all the ills of the world? Or who claim that the west is a giant conspiracy to destroy Islam?

You won’t hear such condemnations from the head of the Muslim Council of Britain — an organisation which venerates Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who endorses suicide bomb attacks in Israel and Iraq — who has said his aim is to get Britain to adopt Islamic values.

Nor from Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organisations of the U.K. and Ireland, who has said he wants public holidays to mark Muslim festivals and Islamic laws to cover family affairs which would apply only to Muslims — a demand which astoundingly the Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly said she would consider. Are these really moderate attitudes?

The unpalatable fact is that there is actually a continuum of Islamic extremism in Britain. While probably only a small number on this continuum will ever be involved in violence, too many others subscribe to odious beliefs and ideas which maintain the sea of hatred and bigotry in which terrorism swims.

The key belief that sustains this continuum and fuels the global jihad is the paranoid falsehood that the West is engaged in a conspiracy to destroy Islam — and that the puppet masters of the West are the Jews.

The centrality of anti-Jewish hatred to the threat to Britain and the West makes Britain’s animus against Israel — and gross inversion of Israel’s 50-year fight to defend itself from extinction — not merely a regrettable prejudice but an act of cultural suicide.

Israel’s many enemies in the U.K. will doubtless be highly satisfied with the United Nations resolution to end the Lebanon war. But by emasculating Israel, this resolution has further empowered Iran and boosted the global jihad against themselves.

Israel’s inept prosecution of the war in Lebanon and the resulting ceasefire are not merely a potential disaster for Israel. Al Qaeda and — even more importantly — Iran will now scent not just Jewish blood but, in the apparent weakness of this key salient in the defence of the West, an opportunity to redouble their efforts to strike directly at Britain and America. For Israel’s fight is the world’s fight. Lose Israel, and the world is lost.

By the time Britain finally works out just who are its allies and who are its enemies, it may well be too late.

Islamism's Nazi Roots

Greg Richards explains in The American Thinker:

Proceeding through the Muslim Brotherhood and the Ba’ath Parties of Syria and Iraq, and under the sponsorship of the Grand Mufti, the ideas of the Third Reich never died in the Middle East. They had to exist in the shadows for a while due to the revulsion the Nazis created in the still-vigorous civilized world, but as that world has become less vigorous in its European component and as Nazi ideas have become more apposite in the minds of Islamic radicals, they are back, with the very same centerpiece, the extermination of the Jews, serving the purpose of a "driving force of fanatic and hysterical passions."

Amil Imani on the Mindset of Islamic Fascists

(ht The American Thinker)Iranian -American Amil Imani explains a key element of Islamism:

* Psychological uniqueness. People as a group or as individuals are different and none is perfectly healthy psychologically. We all have a lose wheel or two as we travel the bumpy road of life. Yet, most people manage to stay on course most of the time, with perhaps a stop or two at a repair shop of a mental health professional.

Most psychological disorders are exaggerations, deficits or surfeits of the generally accepted norm—whatever the norm may be. When caution, for instance, is practiced past suspicion, then we have paranoia; when reasonable fear is exercised beyond any justification, then there is phobia. The degree and severity of a condition frequently determine the presence or absence of psychopathology.

Muslims share a common Islamic psychological milieu, they are on Islamic “diet,” whether they live in Islamic lands or in societies predominantly non-Islamic. The psychological condition of any Muslim group or individual is directly dependent on the kind and amount of Islamic diet they consume. The Islamic diet has numerous ingredients—some of which are wholesome, some are dangerously toxic, and some are between the two extremes.

Over the years, the Islamic leaders have found it expedient to feed the masses mainly the toxic ingredients to further their own interests. Individuals and groups, for instance, have used the immense energizing power of hatred to rally the faithful; the cohesive force of polarization to create in-group solidarity; and, the great utility value of blaming others for their real and perceived misfortunes. Jews have been their favorite and handy scapegoats from day one. To this day, as true fascist, like the Nazis, Muslims blame just about everything on the Jews.

Providing a comprehensive inventory of the psychological profile of the Muslims is beyond the scope of this article. Yet, there is no question that the psychological make up of a Muslim, depending on the extent of his Muslim-ness, is different from that of non-Muslims. This difference, often irreconcilable as things stand presently is at the core of the clash of Islam with the West.

Ehud Olmert's China Connection

From Wikipedia:

Olmert's father Mordechai, considered a pioneer of Israel's land settlement and a former member of the Second and Third Knessets, grew up in the Chinese city of Harbin where he led the local Betar youth movement. Olmert's grandfather, J.J. Olmert settled in Harbin after fleeing post World War-I Russia.[10] In 2004, Ehud Olmert visited China and paid his respects at the tomb of his grandfather in Harbin. Olmert said that his father had never forgotten his Chinese hometown after moving to what was then Palestine, in 1933 at the age of 22. "When he died at the age of 88, he spoke his last words in Chinese," he recalled.