Small answers for Big questions

At some point I will finish blogging my European vacation. In the event that I don't get to it for a while, I'd like to mention the fact that while in London we spent a week in a revitalized area of the East End largely populated by Muslim immigrants. While the neighborhood was different from what my parents were used to, we never felt unsafe or even unwelcome. People just seemed to be going about their business and doing their thing.

The fact that we had just spent time in London (in an urban and ethnic neighborhood no less) and had a lovely time meant that it was quite shocking to hear about riots breaking out within a week of us leaving. While we were there we spent time with various relatives of Mama Yid's and so having just left them we spent a lot of time emailing once the riots broke out. While they were concerned they luckily weren't right in the thick of it so they never seemed super worried, but there was definitely a lot of surprise for us realizing that some of the commercial districts we had been walking through just a week prior had since gone up in smoke or been heavily looted.

It's always a challenge to dissect the causes leading to a significant disaster, and I feel like whereas most rational people are capable of reining themselves in when it comes to disasters caused by nature, that restraint seems to be greatly diminished when it comes to human causes and agency. Obviously, events like the London riots need to and should be studied to prevent similar things from happening again, but it's gotten far too easy to predict which talking heads will come popping out of the wordwork linking mob violence and bad behavior to their pet doomsday issues (usually timing it just right to also plug whatever new thing they have to sell).

Pat took the lead and blamed it on multiculturalism.

The West is in decline because the character of its people is in decline. In Europe, Christianity is dead. The moral code it gave men to live righteously is regarded with mockery. The London riots were the work of moral barbarians with no loyalty to the people in whose midst they live and no love for the society to which they give nothing, only take.

...What were the British thinking when they threw open their doors to mass immigration from the Third World?

Over centuries, they had failed to assimilate a few million Irish, who were European Christians. So, having failed to assimilate the Irish, they decided to invite in millions of Hindus and Muslims from South Asia, Arabs from the Middle East, Africans from the sub-Sahara, black folks from the Caribbean.
But with no common faith or culture to hold the nation together, Britain is coming apart.

This, of course, assumes that the rioters,

A- Were primarily ideologically motivated (as opposed to being, you know, jerks and hooligans), and
B- Didn't include anyone white or British.

Also, I'm not sure what Pat would have Britain do at this point... are they supposed to deport three or four generations of British citizens in a family if they decide that they haven't become "British enough?" It's not surprising Pat doesn't like multiculturalism; his articles sound like Kipling's gin-induced fever dreams.

Most commenters focused on values, or lack thereof.

There was Shmuley, who blamed the Church of England for being too nice and not bothering to condemn bad things: 

Britain has become a rotting carcass due to the failure of a moribund, stultifying, and amoral religion, more concerned with propriety and causing no offense than simply teaching right from wrong.

I lived in Britain for 11 years where I slowly watched the Church of England and other mainline Christian bodies succumb to PC correctness, refusing to ever condemn immoral behavior... religious leaders failed to ever condemn the narcissistic, selfish, womanizing men who behaved like Neanderthalic inseminators rather than gentlemen.

Contrary to public opinion, values do not come from schools or University professors but from the Ten Commandments.

Shmuley isn't exactly "wrong" in saying that values are worthless if they aren't practiced and taught by role models, but as a secular-oriented person, I think he's off the mark in presenting a biblical framework for his morality and then complaining that Britain doesn't follow his ideas. Well no kidding, Shmuley, considering you just said half the country doesn't believe in God. Sounds like we might need to think of a different way to talk about this then. What's that, that doesn't fit your message? Well, sorry England. Get those butts back in those pews so your pastors (you know, the ones you don't have, don't listen to, or don't preach about anything Shmuley considers worthwhile in the first place) can give you this much-needed dose of moral relevance. I can't picture any way this doesn't work out.

Then there was Dennis, who knows where Shmuley's coming from. In fact, I kind of get the feeling they were sitting too close together when they were writing their respective columns:

There is only one solution to the world's problems, only one prescription for producing a near-heaven on earth.

It is 3,000 years old.
And it is known as the Ten Commandments.

I find it entertaining that Dennis is saying this in the context of being a professional Jew when religious Jews often like to point out that being a good Jew requires following more than the first ten commandments. Incidentally, don't you just love people who proclaim their personal arguments about morality as if they were ironclad facts? Never mind that most people in the world probably don't think that being a moral person is restricted to just following the 10Cs (don't you love finding moments where Orthodox Jews, atheists and Zoroastrians agree?)

Don't believe Dennis? Don't worry, he brought his argument-bag.

1. I am the Lord your God.
There are moral atheists and there are immoral believers, but there is no chance for a good world based on atheism. Ultimately, a godless and religion-free society depends on people's hearts to determine right from wrong, and that is a very weak foundation.
Plenty of people have died in history in the name of God. But many more have been killed, tortured, and deprived of liberty in the name of humanity and progress or some other post-Judeo-Christian value. Religion gave us an Inquisition and gives us suicide terrorists, but the death of God gave us Nazism and Communism, which, in one century alone, slaughtered more than a hundred million people. All the founders of the United States - yes, all - knew that a free society can survive only if its citizens believe themselves to be morally accountable to God.

So, the breakdown on this is... more people have killed in the name of things other than religion than religion itself. Therefore, religion is more moral and the 10Cs are all we need? Also, the founders of the U.S. (ALL of them! Yes, even the ones who were religiously ambivalent) liked God. So, there you go. I guess we got served... somehow? 

3. Do not take God's name in vain.
People have misinterpreted this commandment. They think it prohibits saying something like, "Oh, my God, what a home run!" But the Hebrew literally means "do not carry" the name of the Lord in vain.

In other words, we are forbidden from doing evil in God's name. Only when thus understood does the rest of the Commandment make sense -- that God will not "cleanse," or forgive -- the person who does this.

Thus, the Islamist who slits an innocent's throat while shouting "Allahu Akbar" is the perfect example of the individual who carries God's name in vain and who cannot be forgiven. These people not only murder their victims, they murder God's name. For that reason, they do more evil than the atheist who murders.

It's nice that Dennis is at least willing to discuss evil discussed by religious people (though no one over here is surprised by who he chose as its poster-boy) but this exposes the primary reason why this essay is an exercise in masturbation. Just like a committed Socialist always has the out that Socialism and Communism could "totally work in theory," so too Dennis can't really claim that religion makes people ethical and that "people just need to follow the 10Cs," then try to weasel out of religious evil by saying, "Well, yeah, sometimes religious people do bad stuff, but they're not really religious! If people would really be religious and not do terrible things in God's name, stuff would be awesome!" No kidding! Hey, by the same token, as long as we're wishing for stuff, let's just ask for people to stop doing awful things to each other. We wouldn't even need the 10Cs!

The rest of Dennis' stuff follows the same prattle. Just like Shmuley, it's hard to take Dennis' preaching seriously when his first premise is that all wisdom and ethics everyone needs are located in his particular list, and interpretation thereof. Oh, and the various snark-attack cheap shots he takes at, among other things, colleges, pacifism, and "class warfare" in a discussion of ethics (among them the importance of not lying) don't help.

Last was Lord Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the UK. As with Shmuley, I wasn't surprised that a rabbi would say that values are important to not be, you know, a jerk, but the argument that Judeo-Christian values prevent mob violence and that therefore a drop in one leads to a rise in the other doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Britain is the latest country to pay the price for what happened half a century ago in one of the most radical transformations in the history of the West. In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint. All you need, sang the Beatles, is love. The Judeo-Christian moral code was jettisoned. In its place came: whatever works for you. The Ten Commandments were rewritten as the Ten Creative Suggestions. Or as Allan Bloom put it in "The Closing of the American Mind": "I am the Lord Your God: Relax!" 

You do not have to be a Victorian sentimentalist to realize that something has gone badly wrong since. 

Sorry rabbi, but I'm not convinced that both of these things happening simultaneously (drop in religion and rise in social problems) means that they are causal, or that the reverse will therefore solve all the UK's problems:

In the 1820s, in Britain and America, a similar phenomenon occurred. People were moving from villages to cities. Families were disrupted. Young people were separated from their parents and no longer under their control. Alcohol consumption rose dramatically. So did violence. In the 1820s it was unsafe to walk the streets of London because of pickpockets by day and "unruly ruffians" by night.

What happened over the next 30 years was a massive shift in public opinion. There was an unprecedented growth in charities, friendly societies, working men's institutes, temperance groups, church and synagogue associations, Sunday schools, YMCA buildings and moral campaigns of every shape and size, fighting slavery or child labor or inhuman working conditions. The common factor was their focus on the building of moral character, self-discipline, willpower and personal responsibility. It worked. Within a single generation, crime rates came down and social order was restored. What was achieved was nothing less than the re-moralization of society—much of it driven by religion.

There's only one problem with all of this: it's not quite true. As R. Eliyahu Fink points out, there have been plenty of occasions where so-called religious people committed terrible acts of violence. There are also plenty of people who aren't religious, or don't base their lives around JCVs, who don't commit violence. So it's a little disingenuous to single out a lack of JCVs as the specific cause of the riots and then prescribe more of them as the cure. E-Fink also notes that it is a mistake to assume that none of the rioters consider themselves Christians. Pundits may not consider them as such, but that is an entirely different issue-- and in my opinion, potentially a lot more scary-- than saying the problem is that there aren't enough Christians in England.

A similar argument from a widely different source comes from Christopher Hitchens, who makes two excellent points:

1- Despite its reputation, Britain has hardly been a violence-free society in the last 50-100 years, particularly in urban and poor areas. Think of football hooligans, street gangs, and of course sectarian violence surrounding Protestant/Catholic issues, particularly as they bled into questions about Irish nationalism.

2- That said, it is legitimate to point out that seems to be a new dimension of nihilism, disaffection, and all-around scariness coming from the new youth gangs operating in the UK these days. The fact that the general trend among immigrants seems to be less towards using "multiculturalism" as a way of supporting home culture while also participating and engaging with larger society and more as a tool to encourage separatism and justify xenophobia is also concerning.

I haven't even talked about the various social causes that people have been pointing to contributing to the rioting (among them, high unemployment, low education, bad economy, a perception that the rich are stealing from the people and getting off free, various cuts in social services, and social/cultural alienation). As someone who just visited, I would also venture an extremely cautious guess that the all the Olympics construction and promotion may also have played a role.

There are lots of big issues going on here, with lots of big questions. I freely admit to not having the answers, though I am not so closed-minded as to discount the concept that some of the work that has to be done needs to happen on a values-based, even "spiritual" level. But I don't think I'm alone in saying that, as a young person, as someone who isn't terribly religious, I don't think the way to fix the UK's problems is by shoving religion down everyone's throat.

Big questions need big answers, not small ones.

Hat-tip: E-fink by way of Dovbear.

Progress (?)

I guess Bishop Williamson has gotten tired of his ears burning. After a solid week of getting smacked around on TV, radio, print and the Internet, he made another important announcement. Will he recant his Holocaust denial? Will he apologize to the people that actually deserve an apology?

Wait for it...

"Since I see that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently, I must look again at the historical evidence," the British bishop was quoted as saying.

"It is about historical evidence, not about emotions," he added, according to the report. "And if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time."

That's right, he'll look into it! Well, as long as we know it's in his to-do pile, I guess all can be forgiven and we can move on to being cheerfully damned again at Easter. What a guy. I guess it just goes to show that if you have faith, everything will work out.

And there's more:

"I was convinced that my comments were right on the basis of my research in the '80s," Der Spiegel quoted Williamson as saying. "I must now examine everything again and look at the evidence."

That explains it- it was the 80s! Yes, that most intellectually stagnant period of Western history, in which absolutely zero scholarship or public discussion of the Holocaust occurred. Be honest, I bet you can't even name a single Holocaust film that came out in the 80s. But at least we know now-- after most of the perpetrators and victims are dead or extremely elderly-- he's willing to give the evidence another look. Hey, since we're apparently on a CSI-kick, why don't we go to the source and examine some of the physical locations where the Holocaust happened?

The magazine suggested that he could make a personal visit to the former Auschwitz death camp. Williamson replied: "I will not go to Auschwitz," it said.

Oh. Well, that's ok. He must be really busy packing to head back to the Vatican. And there's the bi-annual Society of Pius church picnic coming up next month, he's supposed to be in charge of the sack races and egg toss... In fact, guys, he might need a few years to sift through all this evidence before he's ready to really come out for either side. Maybe everyone can just focus on something else for a while until Dick here makes his decision? Here, I know-- talk about this guy, instead. That's still Holocaust-related, and only tangentially involves the Church. Go team.

Fun fact: Williamson presently lives in Argentina, which has a very colorful history when it comes to Nazi enthusiasts.

Beating the FDLS

Shiksa Girlfriend and I were talking about the news that the Yearning for Zion children were being reunited with their families in Texas.

We were both frustrated at hearing about how the Texan and federal authorities screwed up the case, but we had some very different perspectives on how people should react after the fact.

First, I have to say that I was struck by some of the similarities between the YFZ ranch and Hasidic communities like Kiryas Joel and New Square. The interesting thing is that while both Haredim and FLDS have separatist worldviews, there seems to be less of a detachment from the real world among the Hasidim. Though the communities may be insular, they are closely hooked in to the outside world through two main mechanisms: economics, and politics. Whether through business or government assistance, the Hasidim cannot afford (literally) to have zero interaction with outsiders, and this also gives politicians and law enforcement some degree of leverage over the communities, if need be. Even though Kiryas Joel and New Square may not be totally open books to the police and government, there does not seem to be as much of a culture built up around keeping things from the authorities- as reflected in some past scandals ending in jail time for the accused. The Hasidim also are very motivated to grow their communities, which requires money and political favors, which makes it advantageous for them to be prominent in the political scene.

In contrast to this, the FLDS, in part due to their history vis-a-vis polygamy, are used to operating under the radar. Not only are they a separatist group, I would argue they are also partially Messianic or apocalyptic- not necessarily that they're going to specifically DO something, a-la Heaven's Gate or Branch Davidians, but rather that their conception of reality is focused far more on "the next step," which not only helps reinforce the cultural isolation of the group, it also makes it very hard to get reliable information about them.

I know that some people are taking this as an opportunity to take us all to task about being too quick to judge weird religions.

In America, we punish conduct, not belief systems. This is the simple fact forgotten by the judge who blessed the initial raids and who took custody of 463 children from their parents. There may well be criminals and child abusers in this community, but the state has to prove it, one by one.

There may be some legitimacy to this. I've certainly been troubled by seeing how quickly people started jumping on the bandwagon of "get the polygamists," especially when I started hearing conservatives using them as a starting point for bigger and better things.

While I agree with all of that--that the behavior and conduct is wrong, you could say the exact same thing about another compound dominated by an extremist religion whose middle-aged men have multiple wives, have sex and kids with underaged women, and are "programmed" to be abused. The compound is called "Dearbornistan" and the religion is Islam.
The only difference: While the behavior of the Jeffs'-associated polygamists is abhorrent, 19 of their fellow co-religionists didn't slaughter 3,000 Americans, and thousands more haven't tried and/or succeeded at other attacks. And millions of their fellow co-religionists haven't professed their love of those who vow destruction of America.
So, tell me, where should the FBI and the federal government be focusing its attention . . . Islamic America or the far minor and less threatening Warren Jeffs' America? They haven't even found the alleged 16-year-old who tipped off law enforcement and made the alleged complaint.
When Muslim women in Dearbornistan, some aged 12 and younger, have kids with 50-year-olds with several wives, authorities look the other way and say "it's okay because they're married 'in the eyes of the mosque,' and this is how it's done in their religion." There was once a statutory rape case involving an underaged Muslim girl who gave birth in Dearborn to the child of a Muslim man decades her senior. But that was the result--the case was dropped because "the mosque says it's okay." And there have been no other cases like it prosecuted in Dearborn.
Two very similar religions . . . two very different treatments by legions of federal agents and the law enforcement policy-makers from above.
I know who needs to be de-programmed and reprogrammed. And it's not just women in bonnets, gingham dresses, and braided, long hair in Texas.

Ugh.

Anyway, SG and I were saying that the real issue now is that the FLDS is likely going to go further underground, and, assuming that there actually was something really wrong going on there (which I highly suspect), it's going to be a lot harder to prove now.

SG's view of things was largely political and social; of having politicians and government officials at all levels basically start making it a lot harder for the group to exist off the radar- start passing and enforcing laws that force them to use doctors or funereal services off the ranch, for instance, so you can start keeping better track of who's who and where. I asked her if she didn't think it ironic she was advocating the same questionable tactics the pro-lifers use on Planned Parenthood. She said that as far as she was concerned the seriousness of the crimes justified making things "a little tougher" for them, if nothing else.

I take a different approach. I see this as a law enforcement issue. Assuming that even a fraction of what the police, etc., thought was going on there was true, they need to start looking at the FLDS, particularly the YFZ group, as an organized crime organization. This doesn't mean you start kicking in doors a-la Elian Gonzales. In fact, the exact opposite. The whole reason this thing blew up was because of a dearth of intelligence. They need to monitor the group, they need to infiltrate it, they need to know who's who and what's happening in there. They should be consulting with mainstream Mormons who might have a reason to help the authorities. They should be looking at the fact that the FLDS is an organization that spans several states, making it even harder to track. They should have files on dissidents, informants, etc. Among other things, this would give a sense of purpose and identity to the many "Lost Boys" that are gradually growing into a sizeable sub-group of the FLDS. Eventually, they might even be able to split the organization by turning them on each other.

The law underestimated the FLDS last month. They can't afford to do so again. History has given us the tools and understanding to know how to combat large, spread-out criminal organizations. The FLDS may be harder to understand than the Mafia. But the same logic applies: until you know more about them, you won't be able to know how to beat them.

Guaranteed to ruin your day

A pair of Spanish twins were accidentally switched at birth. Then they found each other. The story of how they met is amusing:

"It happened by chance," thanks to a friend of one of the twins, Sebastian Socorro, the lawyer for the separated twin, told radio Cadena Ser.

"The friend was working in a shopping centre," he said. "The other twin came in one day to buy clothes. The sales assistant tried to greet her with a kiss thinking that she was her friend, but the customer refused.

This must be a Spanish thing. Or maybe it's a mid-30s woman thing. Anyway, let's make out.

"The surprised sales assistant then called her friend who assured her that she had not been in to the shop."

When the other twin came back to the shop a few days later, a meeting was arranged between the two sisters.

Just for the record, I have had the experience of meeting a friend's doppelganger. It was very, very, weird.

DNA tests proved they were identical twins, said Mr Perdomo.

Oh good. Because the alternative would be weird and confusing.

More from BBC:

Mr Perdomo said his client was taken out of a cot next to that of her twin sister and mistakenly replaced by another baby girl. His client was then raised by the family of that baby.

The non-twin was brought up believing that she was a twin sister.

And guess who feels left out now?

[Perdomo] said that of the three people most directly affected, his client had suffered the most.

Wait a minute, that's not true. She's suffered just as much displacement as the not-twin. Except now raised-by-someone-else-twin finds out she actually IS a twin, whereas not-twin discovers she's not. Even if they did spend their whole lives telling everyone they were fraternal, that's still got to suck. (Not to mention that all that time spent convincing other people they had a secret twin language just makes them look silly.)

Anyway, the hospital has said "our bad," but the twins are suing for a whopping 3 million euros. Go get 'em, girls.

In other twin news, twins are weird. But coincidence is weirder.

Just plain silly

Of all the groups of people I wouldn't want pissed off at me, Greeks and Lesbians definitely top the list. So you can be sure that this will be a fight to the finish.

Campaigners on the Greek island of Lesbos are to go to court in an attempt to stop a gay rights organisation from using the term "lesbian".

The islanders say that if they are successful they may then start to fight the word lesbian internationally.

The issue boils down to who has the right to call themselves Lesbians.

Is it gay women, or the 100,000 people living on Greece's third biggest island - plus another 250,000 expatriates who originate from Lesbos?

Snicker. I can just picture a male BBC reporter inflecting that question- "Yes, who DOES have the right?"

The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.

No, Dimitri, human rights are things like a fair trial and not getting your hands chopped off because you voted for the wrong guy. Awkward moments when you proudly proclaim "I'm a Lesbian!" might be annoying, but that's about it.

He says it causes daily problems to the social life of Lesbos's inhabitants.

Really? Why? Presumably the islanders know what they mean when they use it.

In court papers, the plaintiffs allege that the Greek government is so embarrassed by the term Lesbian that it has been forced to rename the island after its capital, Mytilini.

This from the civilization that taught us all the joys of catamitism? What happened to you, Greece, you used to be cool.

Refreshing news from Israel

Tired of hearing nothing out of Israel but Jews fighting (among other things) with each other? About Palestinians clashing in the streets? About Jews fighting with other people that claim they're Jews?

Then you're in luck:

Israeli police had to break up a fist fight that erupted between Greek and Armenian Orthodox clergymen at one of Christianity's holiest sites.

The scuffles broke out at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Orthodox Palm Sunday.

Brawls are not uncommon at the church, which is uneasily shared by various Christian denominations.

In this case, witnesses say an Armenian priest forcibly ejected a Greek priest from an area near the tomb of Jesus.

They say the attacker felt the Greek priest had spent too long at the tomb.

When police arrived to break up the fight, some were reportedly beaten back by worshippers using palm fronds.

Awesome. I love how they aren't even different denominations of Christians. I guess their Orthodox can't get along with each other, either.

Hat-tip: Keli Ata.

Stupidity comes full-circle

Q: What's the worst thing that can happen to a terrorist organization?

A: Having someone ignore you. Or even worse, stealing your credit. Or in this case, assigning it to someone else.

It's time for another imagined conversation:

Zawahiri: Hey, Mahmoud. Gotta talk to you about something.

Ahmadinejad: What's up, Ayman? How's the big BL?

Zawahiri: He's fine. We've got the cave set up pretty nice.

Ahmadinejad: Well tell him I say hi, and if he wants to drop by Tehran anytime, we'll be sure to stone him for being a Sunni infidel .

Zawahiri: Will do. So look, about this rumor you've been spreading for seven years that the Jews did 9/11...

Ahmadinejad: Isn't it awesome? I really hate Jews.

Zawahiri: Oh, definitely. And us too, don't get us wrong.

Ahmadinejad: I mean, they're just so schem-y.

Zawahiri: And weird looking.

Ahmadinejad: Those giant noses of their really piss me off.

Zawahiri: And their stupid beards. And glasses. And those silly hats. And did you ever notice how they're always pointing their fingers at you? Sooo annoying.

Ahmadinejad: Then we're agreed. The Jew libel shall continue. No amount of blogging will save their image.

Zawahiri: Well, here's the thing, though. We put a lot of effort into that thing, and to just give all the credit to the Jews is kind of, well, asshole-ish of you.

Ahmadinejad: I don't understand what the big deal is. You killed a bunch of Americans, we blamed the Jews for it, a bunch of wackos on the Internet took it and ran with it. Triple-word-score, brother!

Zawahiri: Yeah, well, we still feel you guys should set the record straight.

Ahmadinejad: Look, why are you being so Jewish about this? Just share the wealth, what's the problem.

Zawahiri: We're not being Jews, YOU'RE being Jews! Taking something that didn't even belong to you in the first place and handing it out to someone else. You're being a real Jew, you know that?

Ahmadinejad: No one calls me a Jew and gets away with it, you Sunni bastard. Why don't you go elect a Caliph or something?

Zawahiri: What are you going to do about it, you Shia dingus? Shoot a nuke you don't have at us? Or are you be too busy looking for your hidden Imam?

Ahmadinejad: No, even better. I'm going to write a letter to George Bush... and blame it all on Jerry Falwell.

Zawahiri: Nooooo!

Ahmadinejad: Have fun watching THAT on Al-Jazeera, "Rabbi."

*Click*

And... scene.

Language Politics

Chancellor Angela Merkel caused a minor firestorm in Israel by planning to address the Knesset in her mother tongue- German.

Israel Radio reported Shelly Yachimovich, of the coalition Labour Party, said she would stay absent from the speech to the 120-member Israeli parliament because it was "insensitive" toward Holocaust survivors to hold it in German, "the language of their torturers - SS officers, camp commanders and the Gestapo."

Germany is a "friend of Israel," but the feelings of the survivors should be taken into consideration, said Yachimovich, the daughter of Holocaust survivors.

Two lawmakers of the opposition hard-line Likud party and two of the ultra-right, religious National Union also said they would boycott the address, with three saying they would stay absent and one, Arieh Eldad of the National Union, announcing he planned to walk out of the room in protest.

No word yet on how many actually stayed away. Am I the only one annoyed by Yachimovich's presumption to speak for the supposedly offended survivors? Maybe I'm just too cynical, but seeing as how there are presently none in the Knesset (AFAIK), I wouldn't have minded seeing how some people that actually lived through the Shoah feel about this. I do feel bad for Eldad, though I'm not sure I agree with him about declaring the language permanently verbotten:

One Knesset member, Arieh Eldad, who lost two grandparents and other relatives in the Holocaust, said: "German was the last language my grandmother and grandfather heard before they were murdered.

"The execution orders were given in German... I plan to stand up and leave."

(Not to nit-pick, but there were also execution orders given in ENGLISH during the British Mandate. Will leaders from the US, UK, and Australia be banned from speaking in their lingua franca from now on?)

Quibbling aside, Eldad's certainly got more sympathy from me than his fellow MK, certified wacko Uri Ariel:

MK Uri Ariel was also against allowing Merkel to speak German at the podium: "I don't think that on Shabbat, when we read the parasha about what Amalek did – and they are Amalekites – they are the father of the Amalekites…six million…

"It's all well and good that Germany changed its ways, and there are important things in the political and security sphere that they should be praised for, but to go back to the reptiles and to be wusses…what's the matter? What happened to us?

Does anyone know what this guy is talking about? Someone please help me. (Incidentally, Ynet, this is a really crappy attempt at quoting someone. A better, but clipped one, is here.)

Incidentally, while Eldad may have a long-standing grudge against the German language, he should keep in mind that even though it was the language the Nazis used, it was also the language spoken by many of their victims (even more, if you count Yiddish):

MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima) responded to the debate saying: "My grandmother and grandfather were refugees from Germany, from the oppressive regime. The German language was not heard in their house because it was the language of the oppressors. I understand where MK Eldad is coming from. This wound is still open.

By contrast, one of the shuls I go to occasionally was founded by refugees from Berlin, and they all speak to each other in German (of course, a lot of them also go back and visit, so maybe they're more forgiving than most).

Incidentally, I find this kind of interesting- and ironic:

The strongest Israeli opposition to the notably close political, diplomatic and cultural ties with modern Germany has, in the past, tended to come less from Jews of German origin than from those whose families came from Poland – such as Mr Eldad, who refuses to buy German goods or visit Germany.

Dr Lars Hansel, director of the German Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Jerusalem, said last night that its polling indicated elderly German Jews in Israel who had lost "big parts of their family" in the Holocaust were strongly in favour of close ties with modern Germany – while younger Israelis showed relatively little interest in Germany or the rest of Europe.

So, German Jews like Germany, Polish Jews have mixed feelings, and young Israelis could give a shit.

Boo to Haaretz, incidentally, for totally screwing up Eldad's quote- it was his grandparents, not his parents, who were killed by Nazis. (Look out! Zombie Lehi!)

Anyway, I would be more sympathetic to Eldad if he didn't have a history of politicizing language for his own isolationist agenda. Like in 2005, when he complained that Arabic still has official status as one of Israel's national languages, and denied that English had any semi-official status.

Eldad also condemned the fact that Arabic remains Israel’s national language alongside Hebrew. “They simply erased English when the British left and left Hebrew and Arabic,” he said. “It needs to be made clear that the official language of the State of Israel is only Hebrew. The Arabs now seek to add a crescent to the state’s national symbols in their struggle to erase Judaism from the State of Israel.”

He made a similar stink in 2006 over a proposal to print road signs in English only.

"The status of English as official language was annulled after my father and his friends managed to kick the British out of here," Eldad told the transportation minister. "I'm certain you heard about it, it happened in 1948."

Hmm. Not to detract from Eldad's "sarcasm master" buzz, but maybe he could benefit from a refresher course in Israeli language laws. English was never taken off the list of official languages; rather, its priority as THE official language was revoked. Apparently English isn't allowed to be used in the Knesset, but it is mandatory for most schools and universities. If that isn't a working definition of semi-official, I don't know what is.

Even-handed... to a point

I like to think I can be even-handed about all this Middle East stuff. But even I have my limits.

The reporter describes the scene, describes a man who just murdered a bunch of college and high-school age kids in cold-blood, and then finishes by referring to, "the so-called terrorists."

Sorry lady. This time, it is clear-cut. There's nothing "so-called" here.

Pass me some more of that good old time religion

We've all thought it from time to time- what if Moses was just high? It could actually explain a lot.

But I'm a little confused why all of a sudden there are a bunch of articles about this one psychology prof at Hebrew U in Jerusalem who apparently has come up with a unified "Tripping Moses" theory- which happens to be basically the same one that every single kid (Jewish and otherwise) thought of back in third grade. But the prof's written a "study" about it, so I guess he now gets to be the center of attention for it as though he's actually come up with something new. Lame.

Shanon presents a provocative theory in an article published this week in the philosophy journal Time and Mind. The religious ceremonies of the Israelites included the use of psychotropic materials that can found in the Negev and Sinai, he says.

"I have no direct proof of this interpretation," and such proof cannot be expected, he says. However, "it seems logical that something was altered in people's consciousness. There are other stories in the Bible that mention the use of plants: for example, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden."

...The acacia tree also has psychedelic properties, Shanon says, which the Israelites could have used. The acacia is mentioned frequently in the Bible, and was the type of wood of which the Ark of the Covenant was made. According to Shanon, he drank a potion prepared from a species of acacia while he was in South America, which caused similar experiences to those produced by the ayahuasca.

You know, I'm pretty sure my desk is made of cherry wood. That doesn't mean I spend my free-time turning it into smoothies.

Yes, apparently psychoactive plants grow in the Middle East, which is interesting, but far from definitive. I guess for me the problem with Shanon's theory is that it doesn't tell us anything new or particularly useful- especially since the entire community of Israelites would have had to be consuming the substance as well (or enough of them to sway the others into going along with the mass "vision").

I can't decide if this reminds me more of the theory that the Salem Witch trials can all be blamed on ergot poisoning, or of how one time a friend of mine was giving a drash at a hippy-ish shul about Moses at Sinai. IIRC, my friend mentioned a Midrash that says the people saw the letters of the Torah flying around. My friend said this was meant metaphorically, but some random schmoe in the audience countered that "clearly" it was a vision brought on by hashish, and used his floor time to add (presumably to whatever agents of "the man" were listening) that the ancient cultures weren't so prudish about drug use. Well said, doofus. Now take off that damn pakul, you look like an idiot.

Hat-tip: Rafi G at DovBear

"The terrorists want a Democrat in the White House!"

Not all of them, apparently.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has enjoyed strong support from a lobbyist group that backs the Kosovo Liberation Army despite allegations the KLA is a Muslim terrorist group with ties to criminal drug networks and al-Qaida.

Whoopsies!

Man, Al-Qaida likes Obama, the KLA likes McCain, and the Vagina Monologue crazies like Clinton. I guess Nader really is the only sane choice (hey, he's got a better chance than Huckabee.)

In Nigeria, we don't have Irony

A female politician named Habiba Garba was badly beaten by a hired mob paid by an MP from the party she recently defected from. Recently a local paper published pictures of her injuries:

On Monday, the Triumph published the picture of Mrs Garba's injuries showing the area just under her armpit and the scars on her torso.

Except, funnily enough, the public reaction is not to condemn the MP (presently sitting in jail), but rather for some government agencies to start investigating the paper. Why?

The picture shows part of her naked torso, and as publishing nudity is forbidden under Sharia law it violates rights to privacy.

Oh God. You and your painful, brain-bleeding sense of humor.

Jews and Chavez: Part 3

Apparently Chavez just won't stop going after the Jews:

One of the first points of tension was the April 2002 coup attempt against Chavez. Michael Penfold-Becerra, a political scientist at Caracas’s institute of superior administrative studies, said that among some government officials, suspicions against Jews were fueled by the alleged support of prominent rabbi Pinchas Brenner for the authors of the short-lived coup, as well as by the perception that Israelis and Jews were active in the arms business.

The first raid, in 2004, heightened the tensions, especially since it took place early in the day when hundreds of children were on their way to school.

The tensions escalated again during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, when Chavez accused Israelis of behaving like Nazis. He recalled the charge d’affaires of the Venezuelan Embassy in Tel Aviv, and Israel, in turn, called back its ambassador. Although the Israeli diplomat returned to Caracas a month later, and Venezuela sent a low-level envoy to Tel Aviv, the relationship remains fraught.

The Jewish community turned to Argentina’s government to intercede with Chavez, and last January the self-described “Bolivarian” leader agreed to meet with CAIV following a request by Nestor Kirchner, then president of Argentina.

Through it all, Benshimol and others have stressed that there has been no instance of physical violence against Jews in the country. And they have, on occasion, defended Chavez against accusations of antisemitism aired by such American Jewish groups as the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

But the atmosphere has worsened lately, first and foremost because of Chavez’s increasingly inflammatory talk about Israel and its supporters. A television program called “The Razor,” broadcast on a state-owned channel, has featured lengthy rants about the presence of Mossad agents allegedly in the country working to unseat the Chavez regime with the support of the United States and opposition forces in Venezuela. The host of the show has also questioned the loyalty of leading Jewish figures to their home country. Despite repeated complaints by CAIV, the authorities have taken no action.

In March 2007, there were no government officials in attendance at the 40th-anniversary celebration of CAIV. Benshimol said that the government has had no official ties with his organization for the past year.

The deteriorating atmosphere has prompted a sizable exodus of Jews from Venezuela. While precise numbers are hard to come by, the number of children attending the school at the Hebraica center has dropped some 37% in the past decade, while membership at the club has slipped 30%.

Kind of scary, but at least there's been no substantial violence... yet.

Mona Charen wonders why the world Jewish community isn't speaking up about this more.

You might expect an outcry from other Jews around the world -- and there has been some. But within the U.S., many of the leaders of large Jewish organizations are seeking to stifle those, like Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns, who are urging members of Congress to hold hearings on the matter. Weiss reports that Rep. Elliott Engel (D., NY) was willing to call a hearing but was dissuaded by the Conference of Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations.

Dina Siegel Vann, speaking of behalf of the American Jewish Congress, published an op-ed in the Miami Herald scolding those who want to make as public a protest as possible. "Shouting and screaming from the safety of the United States may feel good to some," she wrote, "but the goal of the exercise is not to satisfy their needs; rather it's to ensure the safety and well-being of thousands of Venezuelan Jews . . ." Her title: "Let's use diplomacy, not public protests."

Well, diplomacy has its place, but this isn't it. When the Soviet Union was denying exit visas to Jews wishing to emigrate and persecuting those who sought to leave, only the loud and persistent protests of Jews in the United States and elsewhere (combined with congressional action) caused the Soviets to relent. Bill Buckley quipped at the time that he hoped the Soviets would release every Jew who wanted to emigrate except one -- to keep alive the Jewish pressure that was so helpful in the larger Cold War. The Venezuelan Jews themselves have asked for such international pressure. They believe Chavez is very sensitive about international opinion. It would be naive to place faith in diplomacy alone.

Charen is correct that diplomacy can only go so far, but you do need to strike a balance when you're dealing with a very vulnerable population whose fate can rise or fall at the whim of a totalitarian government (or in this case, dictator). Calling Chavez out to treat his country's Jews better does no good if it makes their lives even worse.

On the plus side, the Forward says that Venezuela's Jews are getting sick of Hugo's crap and are starting to stand up for themselves.

When two dozen heavily armed policemen came to search the Hebraica community center in the Venezuelan capital one night last month, the Jewish community here finally snapped.

The government officers who entered the sprawling, country club-like complex were ostensibly looking for a stash of weapons and for evidence of “subversive activity.” They found neither. In the subsequent days, the Venezuelan Jewish community’s umbrella organization, the Confederation of Israelite Associations of Venezuela, fired off a statement denouncing the raid as an “unjustifiable act” aimed at creating tensions between the community and the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez.

This would not be remarkable in the United States, where Jewish groups routinely state their views with little trepidation. But their counterparts abroad have tended to be less confrontational, especially in countries with small communities and a volatile political environment. In Venezuela this has been the case until recently, despite a long series of problems that includes an earlier raid on the Hebraica center, antisemitism on state-controlled media and anti-Israel pronouncements by Chavez. The calculated quiet ended with last year’s December 1 raid.

“We’re facing the first anti-Jewish government in our history,” Simon Sultan, president of Hebraica, told the Forward in an interview in his office, located in a tony Caracas neighborhood.

The December operation took place on the night preceding a crucial referendum on proposed constitutional reform that would have granted Chavez broad powers and the possibility to run indefinitely. The reform was rejected by a thin margin.

“It seems that the only interpretation is that this was an intimidation by the government,” Abraham Levy Benshimol, president of CAIV, told the Forward.

...In the end, though, it was not the immigration but the raid that convinced the community to speak up. The operation was led by the equivalent of the FBI, whereas the more recent raid was done by officers from a police force under the control of the Interior Ministry and, as such, closely tied to the presidency. While there is no evidence that Chavez himself ordered the latest raid, the all-powerful Interior Ministry is one of his strongest levers.

...Jewish communal leaders also believe that another element might be at work. Sultan noted that Tarek al Assaimi, a former far-left student leader whose father was the representative of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party in Venezuela, is the deputy Interior and Justice minister in charge of internal security and, as such, could have been involved in initiating the raid.

A few days after the raid, Sultan and Benshimol went to the interior and justice ministries to meet with a prosecutor who opened a probe into possible irregularities surrounding the police operation, which was ordered by another prosecutor. A previous probe into the 2004 incident never produced any official outcome — and neither leader expressed much optimism that the outcome would be different this time.

I know biting our tongues and letting other people take the reins isn't really the forte of American Jews, but maybe the American Jewish community would do better to ask the Jews in Venezuela how we can help them HELP THEMSELVES rather than try to take everything onto our shoulders, regardless of what result it will bring.

Gandhi's Grandson Gone

I almost feel sorry for the guy- he's resigned (entirely voluntarily, I'm sure) of the peace center he helped found more than 15 years ago. Guess there's a lesson there- if you're not big on the Jews, might want to avoid talking about them. Or at least have some sounding board people before you write screeds against them in the Washington Post. The sad thing is that some of Gandhi's points- that Jewish identity must go beyond historical persecution, for instance, are legitimate. Of course, they also aren't anything new, and at this point, nothing that anyone in the Jewish community would really contest.

"My intention was to generate a healthy discussion on the proliferation of violence," Gandhi said on Friday, a day after the board of the MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at the University of Rochester accepted his resignation. "Instead, unintentionally, my words have resulted in pain, anger, confusion and embarrassment. I deeply regret these consequences."

...Gandhi's resignation "was appropriate," because his remarks "did not reflect the core values" of either the university or the institute, University of Rochester president Joel Seligman said in a statement.

The Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman said it was "shameful that a peace institute would be headed up by a bigot. One would hope that the grandson of such an illustrious human being would be more sensitive to Jewish history."

God dammit, Abe, go read a freaking book and stop sucking up to people who only know about Gandhi from that Ben Kingsley movie. Jesus.

More background and news coverage here, including some very interesting snippets of how the media in India is receiving the news. (Spoiler: it's not helping their views of Jews.)

America’s omnipotent Jewish community has forced Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, to resign from the institute he founded in the US 17 years ago to spread the message of the Father of the Nation.

New Delhi cannot afford to even tangentially annoy the American Jewish community because successive Indian governments have relied on this community for at least 15 years to bring Indo-US relations to its present health. The nuclear deal between India and the US would not have got to its present phase of implementation without the active involvement of the American Jewish community in its favour.

Arun’s offer to resign follows several days of grovelling apologies by him, by the moderators of the online discussion on the Post website and defensive statements by University of Rochester president Joel Seligman for having associated with the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-violence.

Hundreds of messages assailing Arun and The Washington Post were posted on the website, most of them clearly by Jews. The powerful American Jewish Committee’s executive director David A. Harris pre-empted any Indian reaction by hinting in a statement that India was being ungrateful for all that his organisation did for New Delhi.

Wow. And India's going to be one of the new superpowers. That should be fun.

The Haredim on the Bus go...

"Quack Quack Quack!"

Well, actually, not so much.

There have been a few well-publicized cases of women being harassed or attacked on Jerusalem buses in the past few years. Now author Naomi Ragen and a few other women, tired of seeing Jim Crow rules play themselves out in Israel are taking their case to the Supreme Court.

The state argues that the segregation - with men sitting in front and women in back - is voluntary and that the companies operating the mehadrin lines "are prohibited from forcing the voluntary arrangement on the rest of the passengers who are not interested in it.

"There is no reason for the Transportation Ministry to get involved, as long as each person maintains a right to use those lines without being coerced by these arrangements," the state said. "A suitable arrangement is based on the assumption that there should not be a coerced segregation arrangement in public transit, but there is no obstacle to allowing the passengers to have voluntary separation between the sexes."

I feel (almost) conflicted. There is a legitimate point to be made that these buses are pre-designated as "Mehadrin," or gender-separated, and that it's not like this is happening on every bus. So the very fact of the buses existing may not be the actual problem as much as the really crappy attitudes that are occurring in conjunction with these bus lines when women don't follow the rules (the Israeli Reform movement, all five of them, disagree). Also, as Orthomom said back in 2006, if you're actually doing your job as a Haredi man and using your spare time for studying, it shouldn't make much of a difference if a woman is sitting next to you or across from you.

Incidentally, I've seen buses in New York that have women and men sitting ACROSS from each other throughout the whole length of the bus, using a curtain to keep things separate. It seems that part of this is also a desire from certain groups of Haredim to keep things as rigid, inflexible, and generally unpleasant, as they can possibly be. It's one thing to have a socially repressive (or, to be polite, "highly regulated") society, it's another thing to impose it on other folks, ESPECIALLY with the threat of violence. Gil Student put it quite well:

The problem with the arrangement in Israel is simply that the community there is incapable of controlling its hooligans. This should come as no surprise and has been a growing problem for decades.

Damn skippy. Gil also does a good job of demonstrating how the more attention this issue gets, the more ridiculous the whole thing starts to look to outside observers- especially when Orthodox women try to defend the practice as "empowering." Yeah, empowering the same way the May Laws were.

Still, some people are not convinced that Ragen and co's hearts are actually in the right place.

Reform Jews do not consider themselves bound by Torah mandates such as those relating to separation of the genders, but there are many observant Jews who have difficulty with these issues as well. Many, however, feel more comfortable in such an environment.

“There are lines all over the country, traveling to the same places, in which anyone can sit anywhere they like,” one regular rider on the mehadrin line told IsraelNationalNews. “There is no reason for a woman to sit in a men’s section on a bus clearly intended to cater to those who observe Torah law,” he said, “other than for the purpose of deliberate provocation."

The rider, who requested anonymity, likened the situation to that of a woman insisting on using the men’s public restroom. “It’s not illegal for a woman to force her way into a men’s bathroom,” he said. “But it would be unusual and bad-mannered, to say the least.”

The state argues that the seating arrangement is voluntary and that the bus operators do not force passengers to sit in any particular area, but that the restrictions are set by the community served by the line.

The standard Israeli public bus system, in which there is no gender separation on the buses, includes routes traveling to every destination served by the “mehadrin” line.

The separate, “mehadrin” system was created in 2001 in response to a growing demand by hareidi religious Jews for a bus line that would enable men and women to travel separately without being forced into uncomfortably close proximity, especially on crowded buses.

The “mehadrin” line provides for separate seating and offers direct bus service between cities with large hareidi religious populations.

Hmm. Sort of makes me think back to the old question of whether Jerusalem (or the buses going to and from it) should belong to all Jews or just the religious. Let's just hope they don't take their cues from the Klausenberger rebbe on this one.

Edit: Well that's a little surprising.

Suspicious haredi leaders and activists were pleasantly surprised to discover Monday that the Supreme Court can be an ally and that liberal, democratic values such as human rights and freedom of religious expression can sometimes serve haredi interests.

"Today the Supreme Court gave legitimacy to our claims and backed them up with values such as human dignity," said Shlomo Rosenstein, a member of the Jerusalem Municipality and Transportation Coordinator for the Haredi Public in the capital.

Yeah. Maybe next year they'll support your freedom of speech as applied through bleach-spraying.

On Monday, a panel of judges chaired by the modern Orthodox Elyakim Rubinstein seemed to show empathy and understanding for the haredi community's desire to strictly separate the sexes on public buses, according to haredim who were present at the discussions.

"The questions they asked and their comments seemed to show that they understood our needs and sensibilities," said a haredi PR man who works with one of the large bus companies that runs "Mehadrin" lines that seat men at the front and women at the back.

"The judges failed to understand what Naomi Ragen was so upset about. Why should a woman care if she sits in the front of the bus or in the back of the bus?" asked rhetorically the anonymous PR man.

Isn't that sort of like the all-white court deciding that "separate but equal" was a perfectly fine legal precedent? Maybe the court needs some women on it.

The first major development in haredi influence was the community's discovery of its buying power. As the haredi population grew they became aware of their formidable consumer buying power.

They could put pressure on the cellular phone operators to offer handsets that do not have Internet access, SMS or access to other services that offend haredi sensibilities.

They could demand that supermarkets carry products with more stringent kosher supervision. They could put pressure on El Al, the national carrier, to stop flying on Shabbat and they could demand that building contractors build haredi-only neighborhoods.

Now, haredim may have entered a new stage of influence: using the Supreme Court, that bastion of liberalism and equality, to support haredi religious freedoms as long as they do not hurt the freedom of others too much.

Ow. My poor head.

Sad, Yes...

But you know, I have a little bit of trouble swallowing this latest news from World Net Daily:

Nine people are dead and dozens of churches and hundreds of Christians' homes have been torched during a surge of Hindu violence in India, according to reports from organizations working there.
Compass Direct News reports that the deaths and damage have been reported since Christmas Eve, when members of the extremist World Hindu Council launched their assaults on the faithful belonging to Christianity.
...The nation's Human Rights Commission this week reported nine deaths from the attacks, close to 90 churches burned, about 600 homes either torched or vandalized, and about 5,000 people forced to flee.
Swami Laxmananda Saraswati, a leader of the World Hindu Council (VHP), told local reporters that the violence was triggered by Hindus who converted to Christianity.
...The violence apparently erupted first in Kandhamal as members of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in one small village were preparing for their Christmas celebration.
A Hindu mob, upset with Christianity's beliefs and the apparent choice by some Hindus to follow Christianity, attacked the Christians and their shops, the Compass Direct agency reported.
The blame, the report said, rests with Saraswati, who has opposed Christians and their work in India for more than a decade...
Even within the United States, there have been attacks, although verbal instead of physical. As WND reported, the Hindu American Foundation has attacked Christian organizations ranging from the Southern Baptists' missions board and Gospel for Asia to Olive Tree Ministries, which aims to teach Christians about their beliefs.

It's not that I don't believe that there are Hindu mobs killing Christians. There seem to be some real issues with religious tolerance in that part of the world.

It's just, well, considering who the Hindus usually target, I'm sort of surprised that WND only seems to hear about it when the victims happen to be wearing crosses.

Also, call it a crazy hunch, but I have a feeling it will be a cold day in Hell before WND tells it readers about stuff like this. Or this.

The government in India's north-eastern state of Tripura says it has evidence that the state's Baptist Church is involved in backing separatist rebels.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said state police had uncovered details of the alleged link after questioning a church leader.
Nagmanlal Halam, secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, was arrested late on Monday with a large quantity of explosives.
Mr Sarkar said that allegations about the close links between the state's Baptist Church and the rebel National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) have long been made by political parties and police.
Now for the first time, he said, hard evidence supporting the allegations had been found.

Baptists, huh? How interesting.

Give Them an A for Effort

Or something. But this still seems a tad weird:

Fed up with internal Palestinian strife, about 40 men gathered in the centre of the West Bank town of Ramallah and gave up their facial hair in solidarity with Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, who lost his moustache on Monday night.

More than a dozen of the protestors also had their skulls completely shaved by barbers who were brought in especially for the event, which drew many spectators.

In Arab culture facial hair is a symbol of masculinity that often reveals political or cultural attitudes, with secular nationalists usually sporting moustaches and religious Muslims growing beards.

"The moustache for an Arab is a source of pride. What Abu al-Naja had to go through while in the hands of Hamas in Gaza was meant to humiliate him," said newly cleanshaven retired journalist Maher Abu Ghdeib.

"Shaving our heads and beards is an expression to our rejection of the moral decadence and violations of human rights as a result of the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas," journalist Khalil Shahnin told AFP.

Haretz adds:

For older Arab men, hair, and particularly mustaches, are a sign of masculinity and status. Observant Muslims often grow beards. Hamas wrested control of Gaza from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah-affiliated forces in June and tensions have been high between the groups since then.

On Tuesday, Hamas forces rounded up a group of Fatah leaders, and shaved off half of one man's hair and mustache as humiliation. Hamas denied it shaved the man

Hamas, of course, denies this, and counter-claims that Fatah has been shaving ITS people. J'accuse!

Fatah officials held Hamas responsible, saying the act was designed to humiliate Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, who is one of the most senior leaders of Fatah in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas, however, said Abu al-Naja's kidnappers were former Fatah security officers who were angry because the Palestinian Authority had not paid them their salaries.

...Abu al-Naja, who has not appeared in public since his release early Tuesday, has been wearing a mustache for nearly 35 years.

A top Fatah leader in Ramallah expressed outrage over the abduction of Abu al-Naja, denying Hamas's claim that disgruntled Fatah officers were responsible. "As usual, Hamas is lying about its serious crimes," he told The Jerusalem Post. "Hamas's gangs are targeting all Fatah members in the Gaza Strip, including the leaders."

Ihab al-Ghissin, spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Interior, strongly denied the allegations. "You can ask Abu al-Naja himself about the identity of those who kidnapped him and shaved his mustache and he will tell you the truth," he said.

Hamas recently accused the Fatah-controlled security forces in the West Bank of shaving the beards of Hamas detainees.

So the Fatah guys are doing the only thing they can: showing solidarity and calling Hamas out for humiliating their colleague. I get that; as a fairly hirsute fellow myself, my beard has come to be part of the way I conceive of myself (to say nothing of how others think about me), and the rare occasions where I've gone without have sometimes made some of my friends and family a little upset (Shiksa Girlfriend seems to mind it the most, but I suspect that has more to do with the fact that any stubble that immediately starts coming back jabs her in the face). And certainly Jews are sensitive to how dehumanizing it can be to be treated like a sheep.

Still, it seems to me that Fatah is maybe being a little too direct about what its goals are with this protest:

"If Hamas wants to humiliate our Fatah leaders in Gaza by cutting their mustaches, we want to tell them today that mustaches are not a symbol of masculinity any more," former Fatah lawmaker Borhan Jarrar said. "Shame on Hamas for doing that."

So there! I like the idea of unilaterally changing the cultural meaning of a long-standing trend. Maybe they can also give Urban Outfitters a talking-to.

P.S.

I have to wonder, how come Satmar shearing a Chabadnik in the 80s didn't lead to a similar response? That would have been interesting. And just think of how many sheitls they could have made from the donations.

Another case of a gay homophobe

Angry anti-gay scoutmaster arrested in Internet sex sting.

Hmm. Guess we can all look forward to seeing Yehuda Levin in the news soon.

Teddy Beargate Resolution

The Teddy Bear teacher was pardoned and released early. Good news, of course. But then again, she was jailed for eight days before the government got off its duff.

Dr Khalid al-Mubarak, of the Sudanese embassy in London, said he hoped the affair would not damage relations between Sudan and the UK.

"I think this is the correct resolution - pardoned and released early," he told BBC News.

"The word pardoned also means that the original mistake has been - not forgotten - but behind us now."

Ibrahim Mogra from the Muslim Council of Britain told BBC News 24 that the whole saga had been very damaging for the image of the Muslim faith.

"Each time we have stories like these, that distort what Islam stands for or misrepresents what the compassion of Muslim law stands for, then we have repercussions and people begin to feel that Islam has no place in modern society...

"I have not come across one single Muslim in our country who has supported what has happened.''

President Omar al-Bashir had been under pressure from Sudanese hardliners to ensure Mrs Gibbons served her full sentence.

There had been a protest, and calls for a retrial and for the sentence to be increased.

BBC Islamic affairs analyst Roger Hardy said the row over Mrs Gibbons had strained relations between Britain and Sudan - and, beyond that, between the West and Islam.

And even if intervention by two prominent British Muslims had succeeded in limiting the damage, the fact remained that damage had been done, he added.

No shit it's been damaged. As if people really needed one more reason to dislike Sudan. Congrats, guys, you've gone from genocidal psychos to moronic boobs. Great improvement.

...thanks to the Gillian Gibbons saga, Sudan has managed to transform its public image from pariah state to something approaching a laughing stock.

The carefully stage-managed pardoning of Mrs Gibbons by Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir will have satisfied few within his divided government.

Moderates who want better relations with the West will want to know why Sudan's president did not intervene sooner.

Sudan's foreign ministry has been shown to be an open but ultimately powerless limb of the administration.

Sudanese officials reassured British diplomats that the case would be dismissed right up to the moment that Mrs Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in detention.

That disconnect is an experience shared by UN officials who spent months negotiating with Sudanese diplomats the arrival of a new peacekeeping force for Darfur.

Those talks have since been shown to count for little. Security agencies have impounded equipment, denied permission for night flights and refused to grant land for military bases.

President al-Bashir is a military man, and Mrs Gibbons's detention has shown clearly once again that power rests firmly with security forces and the interior and defence ministries.

Check out this article in the Sudan Tribune for some eye-opening theories on why the government thought it could play both sides of the fence on this one. Money quote:

Ultimately, many in Sudan think that poor Ms Gibson has been used in a blackmailing strategy by the Sudanese authorities who in reality are not concerned about Prophet Mohammed or anything else except sustaining their power in Sudan and consolidating their earthly gains. Many think this whole affair is a ploy to arouse ordinary Muslim sentiment in Sudan and around the world so that the regime can find a breathing space from its domestic problems, specially the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

However, the whole affair seem to have backfired. The British Muslim Council called it “a disgraceful decision and defies common sense". The Federation of Muslim Organizations, Leicestershire (UK) in their statement says, “...[the] only thing we can do to prevent some Muslims making a complete mockery out of Islam is to disassociate ourselves from such acts done in the name of Islam”.

The very little support regionally or internationally that the Sudanese government received in this affair showed how isolated and despised they are – even by their own fellow Muslims. Most importantly, the majority of ordinary Sudanese Muslims (excluding the low-paid professional protesters who appeared on TV on Friday) seem to receive the teddy affair with the sheer contempt it deserves.

Also good for some good quotes from moderate Muslims.

Of course, some people are using this disgrace as an opportunity to label all Muslims as crazy psychotics.

The kernel of truth at the heart of Islam is there: If you are an "unbeliever," then anything of which Islam disproves is punishable by death. They decide.

We've heard it before, "convert or die." Or at the very least, do everything the way Islam demands – or die.

If we don't see it that way, then what do we to make of vicious, threatening mobs reacting to an innocuous and innocent action of a British teacher and her 7-year-old students?

If we're to walk the same paths we've been pushed into, particularly since the 9/11 attacks in the United States, we're to consider mobs as just a "small part" of Islam.

Just as we were told after cartoons in Danish newspapers last year sparked violence across several continents, causing damage, injuries and death – those mobs represent just a "small part" of Islam.

Just as when a speech of Pope Benedict was deliberately taken out of context to reflect on Islam, leading to violent demonstrations and mobs demanding his death – we're told to consider it just a "small part" of Islam.

Just as in the premeditated vicious street attack and killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh because Islamists didn't like the subject matter of his films – we're told to consider it just a "small part" of Islam.

Just as in the death threats issued against people because Islamists don't like what they say or think – consider author Salman Rushdie, journalist Oriana Fallaci and Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali. There are many others.

Considering the pattern, it's hard not to consider these threats and this violence just the normal, peaceful religion of Islam in action.

There's a similarity in all these events – and so many more it would take pages to list them –and that is when there is a perceived slight to Islam; the reaction is mob violence, destruction and murder – always justified by Islam, the religion of peace.

This despite the fact that British Muslims were protesting her arrest, and that two Muslim MPs went to Sudan to broker her release. Hmmm.

Another nutjob, perhaps anticipating that this saga of stupidity was about to end, leaped at the chance to get his two cents worth in:

An American evangelist has jumped into the fray over the fate of a British teacher facing calls for death over a teddy bear named "Muhammad."

Bill Keller, host of LivePrayer, has posted a video on YouTube featuring a pink, toy pig named Muhammad after the Muslim prophet.

The pig goes on to call Muhammed a child molester and murderer, and then talks about his conversion to Christianity, coincidentally, after going to Bill Keller's website. Wow, slamming Islam AND promoting your crappy devotionals? Simply brilliant, Bill. We haven't seen this kind of impressive melding of theology and marketing since Luther started handing out coupons for discount mochas along with his Treatises.

Of course, this is the kind of well-crafted wit we've come to expect from Bill Keller (how nuts do you have to be to make Bill O'Reilly seem reasonable?)