Thursday, November 08, 2007

Are these useless b*stards worth feeding?

British bureaucracy goes very close to making some people sub-human

A woman told how two police community officers stood by while a man was attacked by three teenage girls. Ann Ward said she rushed to help the man while the officers did nothing. Mrs Ward, 59, a great-grandmother, said: "It was disgusting - any other men would have stepped in to help." She spotted the girls kicking and punching the 55-year-old man in Ravensbury Park near Morden. She said: "They asked him the time, then attacked him, hitting him across the back of the head with a stick." She added: "I shouted at him to keep hold of his bag and told him I was coming."

The girls ran off, and Mrs Ward said the PCSOs radioed for help but did not tackle them. Mrs Ward said: "They said they were there to report the crime to the police and take notes." A Met spokeswoman confirmed it was investigating a complaint. She said: "Two females were arrested. A third female handed herself in. They have all been bailed to return in December."

The two police community support officers were under investigation. Nicknamed plastic bobbies for their lack of training, the PCSOs were only a few hundred yards away when the incident happened. But instead of taking action, the duo chose to hide behind a tree, according to a witness. The officers said "they had the incident under surveillance", the witness added. The witness has now lodged a complaint with Scotland Yard claiming the support officers only radioed for help when they were asked why they had not taken any action. But the PCSOs claim they responded as soon as they were made aware of the incident.

Scotland Yard chiefs were so shocked by the claims they launched a 'Gold Command' meeting and put Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin in charge of the investigation. A senior officer said: "This could not be more embarrassing for the Met." "PCSOs might not have been able to arrest these girls but they could have at least prevented this man from being beaten up. "Instead, they are accused of hiding behind a tree. If this is found to be true, it really shows the ineffectiveness of PCSOs."

The embarrassing incident comes just weeks after it was revealed that two PCSOs looked on while a boy of 10 drowned in a lake. The support officers in that case claimed they were not adequately trained to rescue Jordon Lyon as he struggled for his life in Wigan in May. It also comes as new figures reveal the recruitment of every Metropolitan Police community support officer costs the taxpayer more than 1,300 pounds in marketing. Scotland Yard spent 3,311,164 pounds on advertising and marketing for PCSO positions last year. During that time it signed up 2,500 officers to work across the capital - a publicity cost of 1,324 each.

Increasing the numbers of PCSOs on the streets of London has been a priority of Commissioner Sir Ian Blair as part of the safer neighbourhoods programme. The role of the uniformed officers is intended to reassure communities by bolstering police numbers on the frontline. Some critics have highlighted how they do not carry the same powers of arrest as police officers and that their training is shorter. Last year's recruitment drive resulted in the number of PCSOs soaring from 2,308 on March 31 2006, to 3,682 a year later. The recruitment of PCSOs is part of a strategy to give every one of the 624 wards in London its own dedicated policing team.

Source



BOOK REVIEW of "Jihad and Jew-Hatred" by Matthias Kuentzel

Noting that the aggressive version of Jihad we see so much of today grew out of early 20th century antisemitism. It is the intimate historical and theoretical linkage between antisemitism and Jihad which is Kuentzel's basic message. Jihadism is quite literally an adaptation of Nazism. Excerpts only below

Today sees the publication by Telos Press of the English-language translation of Matthias Kuentzel's Jihad and Jew-Hatred. The publishers have asked me to review it to coincide with the publication date. And I am very pleased to do so. First, some background is needed.

I have spent my life in dialogue with Christians, Muslims and Buddhists. The longest chapter in my book on the Jewish mediaeval scholar, Abraham ibn Ezra, Deconstructing the Bible, is entitled 'Muslim Hermeneutics'. The first people to purchase the book were the Culture Departments of Iran and Lebanon. In my younger days I took part in Sufi turning sessions, and when I was growing up our family doctor was a Muslim.

Which is why, like a great many people who know something about the Holocaust (in my case first hand information from my parents, who were survivors and also from teaching courses on the subject and visiting areas in Europe where the Holocaust had been perpetrated), I was willing to dismiss Nazi links with people like the Mufti of Jerusalem as motivated purely by political considerations.

However, recent events in Britain have led many of us to believe that politics is never 'pure' and is always motivated by psychology and often also by theology, or a 'world-view'. It is impossible therefore not find this book by a leading German scholar in the field thoroughly convincing.

In my view, only a German can really understand the links between fascism and Muslim revolutionary movements. The early Muslim Brothers were inspired by 1930s European fascism and their writings are a fusion of the Koran and Nazi teaching. They came to the conclusion that not only everything Jewish is evil (which they took for granted), but that 'all evil is Jewish'. For me, this is the nub of the book and is a phrase which should be taken very seriously by all those who believe that 'Islamism' is a mere aberration of the 'pure Islam' which is completely harmless and even beneficial.

Kuentzel points out that although at first the Arabs supported the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in the 1920s, the Moslem Brotherhood changed all that. They became a populist movement, which like the National Socialists a decade later, recruited foreign students to obtain a foot in the door of as many countries as possible. The MB wished to replace democracy by sharia law and a Caliphate, much as Hamas in Gaza wishes to do today.

Kuentzel refers to these activists as a 'community of male zealots' which took 'pleasure in un-pleasure', projecting all their hatred of pleasure on 'the Jews'. Like the Nazis, they were 'dedicated to the restoration of male supremacy'. Women's role would be like that in Nazi Germany - merely in the home and subjected to men.

As for the concept of 'jihad', this had previously been an internal 'fight': now it was externalized as 'holy war'. The ideal was an 'industry of death', fostered by the 'art of death', which was encouraged as being a concept based in the Koran. Importantly for those in the West who support suicide bombers, the aim of jihad was never to improve one's lot, but instead to destroy the evil enemy, i.e. the 'Jews'.

The onset of the Nazis encouraged the Egyptian regime, which had at first welcomed Zionism, and even helped Egyptian Jews who wished to emigrate to Mandate Palestine as late as 1933, by threatening their financial interests. Due to Nazi influence the Brotherhood grew from 800 to 200,000 within two years up to 1938. The Brotherhood distributed Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Arabic. The Nazi ideal of the Volk was paralleled by the Muslim concept of 'umma'. Language, culture and blood ties were what counted. Communities, not individuals, were of paramount importance. Arab youngsters took part in the Hitler Youth marches during the 1938 Nuremberg Rally.

As for the Mufti of Jerusalem, he was interested in the figure of Hitler, per se. Muslims inside and outside Palestine welcomed the Nazi regime and operated the 'Nazi Scouts' in parallel to the Nazi 'Hitler Youth'. The anti-Jewish Nuremberg race laws were welcomed throughout the Arab and Muslim world, but particularly in British-mandate Palestine.

In order to strengthen the Mandate Arabs against the Jews, Hitler offered scholarships to the the Arabs from mandated Palestine and employed them in Germany. The German Propaganda Ministry set up and increased its Arab service (just like the BBC today). Germany also funded Arab spies.

The antisemitism of the Mufti was inherited from his father who had fought against Jewish immigrants to Palestine at the time of the Ottoman Turks. His father had much admired German militrary discipline and incited anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem. The Mufti was responsible for the 1920 anti-Jewish (not anti-Zionist) porgrom in Jerusalem, and then later for the pogroms against the Jews of the holy cities of Tsfat and Hebron. He used his office to 'Islamise anti-Zionism' and provided a religious rationale for the hatred of the Jews. People who did not conform to his directives were punished in religious fashion, by using sharia law. He also stated that Jewish girls demoralized Arab youth. The Mufti was even invited to address the Imams of the Bosnian SS division.

After World War II, many Nazis escaped to Egypt and continued their 'war against the Jews' in safety. They denied and yet approved of the Shoah and this permitted them to explain support for the establishment of the State of Israel as an attack on the Arabs. Just as now, anyone who refused to cooperate with this approach was murdered as a 'collaborater'.

The escalation of the so-called 'Palestinian conflict' was thus the result of a purposeful campaign based on the theological concept of Islamic Holy War. The Moslem Brotherhood and the Mufti worked together to usher in a new Caliphate based on sharia law. It was thus the shared hatred of the Jews which became the bond which tied disparate Arab groupings together. In other words, revolutionary antisemitism was the core of modern jihadism. As Kuentzel states: [T]he delusion suppressed in Germany after May 8th, 1945, found its most fruitful exile in the Arab world, where the Muslim Brothers now disposed of a million followers

Kuentzel then deals with Egyptian Islamism from Nasser to the present day. He differentiates between the mythology of the Jew in Christianity and in Islam. In Christianity, Jews have been depicted as the dark and demonic slayers of God. In Islam, however, the Jews were expelled and then exterminated by Muhammad. This led the Muslims to regard the Jews as hostile and the 'worst enemies of the believers' (Koran: sura 5, verse 85).

Muslim preachers used this phrase as a paradigm for the way they would treat israel. The Jews, and thus Israel, were regarded as weak, as 'an object more of ridicule than of fear'. Nasser and Sadat had ties both with the Nazis and the Muslim Brotherhood. Nasser was, however, against introducing sharia law to Egypt. However, he encouraged the settlement of former Nazis in Egypt and the promulgation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Nasser denied the reality of the Holocaust and openly sympathised with the Nazi cause.

Because of his condescending attitude towards Jews, based in their early history under Islam, he could not come to terms with the Israeli victory of the Six Day War in 1967, which entirely destroyed the Egyptian army. He said: 'No to peace; No to recognition of Israel' and 'No to talks with Israel'. And he intensified every effort towards the next war. In 1968 he said: Life will be meaningless and worthless to us until every inch of Arab soil is liberated Nasser's solution for Egypt's growing inflation problem was Islamisation of factories, universities, the media and mosques. In 1971 he introduced sharia law and encouraged the formerly-banned Muslim Brotherhood. The main goal of the Islamists was the 'struggle against unbelievers'.

The epistemology of the Islamists is of interest here. Human beings cannot produce new knowledge. Instead, what they do is to 'discern God's will' through the study of holy texts, which are to be taken literally. For example the Koranic view that 'Allah changed Jews into apes and pigs' (sura 5, verse 60) was taken literally. Western science was regarded as the 'intellectual invasion' of the world of Islam. The goal of Muslim academics was to 'de-westernize' sciences, to free them from the principles of doubt and conjecture, which is their hallmark. The regime encouraged 'submission' and 'dominance' of the world, as advocated by the Koran. The Muslims were to become the 'guardians over humanity'. In 2002, Al Qa'ida was to repeat this view (first expressed many years earlier) that the 'entire earth must be subject to the religion of Allah'.

The world was divided into the two sectors of Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam) and 'Dar al-Harb' (House of War), the sector of the unbelievers. The aim was: to learn how to use modern weapons and more than that, to produce and develop them so that we can strike our enemies. The State of Israel was particularly heated as lying within the 'Dar al-Islam'. The situation in Palestine was seen as a re-enaction of the encounter of Muhammad with the Jews. Muhammad's massacre of the Jews was seen 'as the model for current policy towards Israel'.....

Finally, Kuentzel deals with the phenomenon of 9/11. His main query is why the antisemitic background of 9/11 has been ignored in Europe and explains this lacuna as a means used by Europeans to justify their anti-Americanism. He sees all attemps at demolishing American buildings as part of the aim of 'obliterating Israel'. This chapter refers back to the Egyptian, Qutb, whose texts were part of the training programme set up by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. In addition, bin Laden's mentor, Abdallah Azzam, was born in Jenin and embodies the links between the Palestinian and Afghan fronts of the Islamist jihad. Azzam was also one of the founders of HAMAS, and progagated the cult of the martyr.

According to Kuentzel, Al Qa'ida's view of the USA consisted of antisemitic fantasies. They regard New York as a Jewish metropolis. He also deems it no coincidence that a colleague of Muhammad Atta, the ringleader of 9/11, has stated that: Atta's Weltanschauung was based on a National Socialist way of thinking. He was convinced that 'the Jews' are determined to achieve world domination. He considered New York City to be the centre of world Jewry which was, in his opinion, Enemy Number One

The Islamists also regard America as being under complete Jewish domination. Bin Laden has said: You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Sharia of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire.... In all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life, making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense;... your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people.... Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy .... and .... The enmity between us and the Jews goes far back in time and is deep rooted. There is no question that war between the two of us is inevitable.

Kuentzel comments that 'It is astonishing that this undisguised antisemitism has to date received so little attention in discussions about the motives for 9/11'.

Thus, as Kuentzel states: Jihad and Jew-hatred belong together. Approval of antisemitism strengthens jihadist barbarism... The struggle against jihadism therefore requires zero tolerance for antisemitism. Were Jew-hatred to be ostracized, isolated, prosecuted and punished on a global scale, then jihadism would be a thing of the past.

Kuentzel even states that: something comparable to Auschwitz could happen again. However, it is not only Israel that is at stake in the conflicts that lie ahead. Today, Israel is a symbol of otherness and difference. The contrary concept is that of forced homogeneity.... recognition and defence of the Jewish state, or Islamist barbarism - this is the "turning point" which confronts humanity at this moment in history.

As Kuentzel says: Islamic antisemitism is a taboo subject even in some parts of academia. Kuentzel should know. He was banned from Leeds University in March of this year, after being INVITED by that university to give his talk on the links between Nazi ideology and Islamism. He was then invited back in October and the world did not cave in.

More here



DOES THE ANGLICAN CHURCH HAVE AN ISRAEL PROBLEM?

The article below tries to look on the bright side but the trend is unmistakeable

Rallies accusing Israel of practicing apartheid may be old hat, but the involvement of Episcopal church leaders gave last weekend's conference in Boston more stature than such gatherings might ordinarily enjoy. The Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts, Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, was a featured speaker at the "Israel-Apartheid" conference, and the Episcopal Divinity School, which trains the church's future leaders, co-sponsored the event.

Some may see this antipathy to the Jewish state and apparent indifference to the suffering Israel has endured as analogous to the Holocaust years, when most Episcopal church leaders were largely indifferent to the suffering of the Jews in Hitler's Europe. But it is important to remember that then, as now, there were also prominent Episcopalians who stood up for the Jews. In England during the 1930s, the Archbishop of Canterbury - leader of the Anglican Church, which was the parent body of America's Episcopal Church - was Rev. Cosmo Gordon Lang, who contended that "the Jews themselves" were to blame for the "excesses of the Nazis." By contrast, Rev. William Temple, who succeeded Lang as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1942, was an outspoken advocate for the Jewish victims of Hitler and did not hesitate to take unpopular positions, such as urging the Allies to grant asylum to all Jewish refugees.

In fact, part of the reason the Roosevelt administration decided in 1943 to hold its sham refugee conference in far-off Bermuda, away from the eyes of the public and media, was because it was worried about "Canterbury giving publicity in the press," as assistant secretary of state Breckinridge Long wrote in his diary. In the US during the Holocaust, most Episcopal leaders, like most leaders of other church denominations, refrained from speaking out about the Jews' plight. But there were important exceptions.

Two Episcopal schools, the General Theological Seminary (New York) and the Berkeley Divinity School (Connecticut) were co-sponsors of an important "Inter-Seminary Conference" which was held in New York City in early 1943 to discuss the Nazi mass murders. Organized by student activists from the Jewish Theological Seminary, the conference was the first significant attempt to rally Jewish and Christian religious opinion in support of rescue.

A number of Episcopal leaders were active in the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe (better known as the Bergson Group), which lobbied for US action to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. Episcopal Bishop Henry St. George Tucker of New York was a featured speaker at its landmark 1943 Emergency Rescue conference. Rev. H.P. Almon Abbot, Rev. Rev. Harry Longley, and Rev. W. Bertrand Stevens, the Episcopal bishops of Kentucky, Iowa, and Los Angeles, respectively, were co-sponsors of the conference. Rev. Stevens also co-sponsored the Los Angeles performance of "We Will Never Die," a theatrical event that the Bergson Group used to raise public awareness of the Holocaust. In the autumn of 1943, the Bergson Group conference initiated a congressional resolution urging creation of a US government agency to rescue Jewish refugees. The Roosevelt administration vigorously opposed the resolution, arguing that nothing could be done to rescue the Jews except to win the war.

In the midst of this battle, eight Christian leaders issued an important statement endorsing the resolution. Among the signatories were two Episcopal bishops - Rev. William Manning of New York and Rev. Thomas Heistand of Harrisburg. Now consider this irony: another signatory was Dr. Angus Dun, dean of the Episcopal Theological College - the former name for the Episcopal Divinity School, which co-sponsored last week's "Israel-Apartheid" conference in Boston. And yet more irony: another of the signatories was Dr. Russell Stafford, Minister of the Old South Church - the same church which hosted the "Israel-Apartheid" conference.

One wonders what Dr. Dun and Dr. Stafford, who spoke out against the abandonment of the Jews in the 1940s, would think about the position their successors have taken today with regard to the Jewish state. It is important to note that Bishop Shaw's antipathy toward Israel has not been adopted by the Episcopal Church as a whole. At the last national Episcopal convention, three resolutions hostile to Israel were brought before the resolutions committee - a committee that was chaired by the aforementioned Bishop Shaw, speaker at the "Israel-Apartheid" conference. Thanks to intense lobbying by Prof. Dennis Hale, an Episcopal lay leader who teaches at Boston College, Rev. Dr. Bruce Chilton of Bard College, and Sister Ruth Lautt O.P., a Dominican nun from New York, the resolutions were shelved.

Today, as during the Holocaust, there are those within the Episcopal Church whose positions on issues of Jewish concern have raised troubling questions. But it is clear that there are other voices, as well.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.


For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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