Arbor Update

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Muhammad cartoon controversy

4. February 2006 • David Boyle
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Partially inspired by my seeing “Syriana” (good movie, but has basically nothing to do with Syria) tonight and thinking about the Mideast: today’s Guardian, “Cartoons and their context”, notes,

”...The right to freedom of speech which allows newspapers to publish such provocative cartoons has been hard won, is inextricably essential to liberty, must be robustly defended….

But that is not the end of the matter. There are limits and boundaries – of taste, law, convention, principle or judgment. ...In any case, the right to publish does not imply any obligation to do so. ...It would not be appropriate, for instance, to publish an anti-semitic cartoon of the sort that was commonplace in Nazi Germany. Nor would we publish one which depicted black people in the way a Victorian caricature might have done. Every newspaper in the country regularly carries stories about child pornography, yet none has yet reproduced examples of such pornography as part of their coverage.

...Context matters very much in the case of the cartoons of Muhammad too. It is one thing to assert the right to publish an image of the prophet. ...But it is another thing to put that right to the test, especially when to do so inevitably causes offence to many Muslims and, even more so, when there is currently such a powerful need to craft a more inclusive public culture which can embrace them and their faith. ...There has to be a very good reason for giving gratuitous offence of this kind. ...What is the message that is being sent…by insisting on publishing such images? ...”

In any case, we can (I hope) agree that a free press is good, but a free press with some taste and dignity is even better.



  1. I’m for 100% freedom of the press (which publishes almost no images of what is being done to Palestine, at all, though news photographers are abundant.)

    That issue is a no-brainer.

    The issue is the ongoing destruction of Palestine, Iraq, and a large part of the remainder of the Muslim and Arab world.

    That is the major indignity and the major issue.

    Still waiting for ArborUpdate—and the “Daily”—to push for divesting from not only Coke, but from Israel too.

    That’s how I would approach this cartoon isse:

    With the real issue.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 4 '06 - 05:40PM    #
  2. Woodwork squeaks and out come the freaks.

    Y’know what? That there have been calls for violence based on the cartoon shows what many people in the West know: That fundamentalist adherents of religions are fucking retards. You want us to respect your religion? Then don’t take the bait, morons.
       —js    Feb. 4 '06 - 05:54PM    #
  3. Blaine:

    Divestment is not a serious solution. I think so, and so does every other serious person that I’ve talked to about it. Its a far-fetched pseudo plan that approaches the problem as though Israel merely lacks a financial incentive to seek a mutually benificial solution. If only that were the problem.
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 4 '06 - 06:56PM    #
  4. Ahhhhhh… Another day, another sermon from the Reverend Dr. Taste N. Morality, Db.O.

    Lest we forget, from the good book Arbor Update, Chapter 1175, Verse 2:

    David, push the “newsy” levels up and the “chatty” levels down, please.

    Or, Chapter 1175, Verse 37:

    Until recently, I was under the impression that AU contributors made an effort to keep top-level posts relatively unbiased and objective, adding personal opinions via comments.

    Amen, brother Dale and sister Kelli.
       —FAA    Feb. 4 '06 - 07:11PM    #
  5. Sure, free press with taste is better than free press without taste, but look at the British tabloids – is that taste? I don’t really see how the position that, “Freedom of the press and/or of expression is a core value in democracy but those darned Danes shouldn’t have published those cartoons.” is a sensible one – do you? Either freedom of the press and freedom of expression are core values (in which case people can do whatever they want), or they are not.

    And the comparison of the Danish cartoons to Jewish anti-semitic cartoons of 30s Germany really takes the cake! Did you ever read in your history books about Jewish terrorists blowing up trains in Spain and busses in London? That’s the context of these cartoons, and if you lived over here you’d get that. Are they mean-spirited? Yes. Are they a bit over the top? Yes. But setting off bombs in the middle of Madrid and London is also over the top – to drastically understate the case.
       —Stendhal    Feb. 4 '06 - 09:08PM    #
  6. 1. Hey Blaine

    2. Not all fundamentalists are bad; Jimmy Carter would be tagged “fundamentalistic” by lots of people, but he was a good president. Many fundamentalists do respect separation of church and state, etc.

    3. Let’s divest from Sudan!

    4. Reverend Dr. who?

    5. Freedom of the press says people CAN do what they want. But just because I CAN become a Jehovah’s Witness or dye my hair purple, I don’t HAVE to now, do I? (despite a slight “want” or “urge” to see what purple hair would look like…)
    Which is where taste, consideration, etc. come in. It may not be illegal to go to your sister’s wedding and vomit on the wedding cake (and you could buy them another cake, after all), but that wouldn’t be too nice, huh?
       —David Boyle    Feb. 4 '06 - 10:01PM    #
  7. David: If you want to see purple hair, my Teeter Talk photo should be posted soon.

    Blaine: Stephen Covey’s widely hailed book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” describes a seventh habit of “sharpening the saw”—meaning, from time to time we must re-evaluate our strategies and adjust them to best suit our needs.

    You’ve been on the same tack for a long time now, and while my heart cries out for the suffering of the Arab people facing genocide, perhaps some different strategy is in order.

    Everyone out there already knows your opinion about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but they also hear the opposing opinion on the issue.

    What you could do is raise outcry over issues for which there can be know opposing opinion, period:

    The Lavon Affair: Israel bombed Americans and British to frame Arabs.

    John Pollard: Israel steals nuclear secrets from America.

    Richard Perle: Caught passing classified information to Israel. No punishment.

    Ths USS Liberty: Israel bombed an American ship to frame Egyptians.

    An Israeli pilot admitted the USS Liberty attack was intentional.

    Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty survivors and then held extensive interviews with former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role. According to this senior Israeli lead pilot, he recognized the Liberty as American immediately, so informed his headquarters, and was told to ignore the American flag and continue his attack. He refused to do so and returned to base, where he was arrested.

    More Israeli spying: AIPAC

    CBS News: “At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington. The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.”

    Rabbi Dov Zakheim: Comptroller of the Pentagon. TRILLIONs of dollars worth of weapons “lost.”

    See also: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/18/MN251738.DTL for confirmation on that one.

    The Jewish Defense League: Also caught spying for Israel

    The Anti-Defamation League: Also caught spying for Israel

    Zionist control of American media: it’s almost a cliche to talk about this one.

    How Israel got America to bomb Libya: Confessions of an ex-Mossad agent:

    “A Trojan was a special communication device that could be planted by naval commandos deep inside enemy territory. The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP, and intended to be received by American and British listening stations. Originating from an IDF navy ship out at sea, the prerecorded digital transmissions could be picked up only by the Trojan. The device would then rebroadcast the transmission on another frequency, one used for official business in the enemy country, at which point the transmission would finally be picked up by American ears in Britain.”

    Lies leading us into Iraq:

    CBS: Israel To U.S.: Don’t Delay Iraq Attack

    IAP News: Israel Urges US to Attack Iraq: “Sooner, Rather than Later”

    New York Daily News: Attack Iraq soon, Sharon aide says

    New York Times: Israel Says War on Iraq Would Benefit the Region

    JTA News: It would be a “catastrophe” for the United States to pull out of Iraq, a leading Israeli legislator warned.

    Zionists have absolutely no way rebuff any of this; it’s all been well noted. What could they possibly claim? “Oh yeah, well the Palestinians conduct massive spy operations on America, too!” “Israel is only spying on America to protect ourselves from Palestinians!”

    Huge amounts of reference information can be found at http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/israel_index.html

    There are many other sites covering these issues too, but WRH covers them with a pro-American slant instead of a pro-Arab slant.

    Which is really probably the best way to conduct the movement, since the audience you’re trying to convert is American, not Arabic.

    As WRH notes, “One cannot be loyal to two nations at the same time. The mere fact that Israel feels the need to spy on the US, to use fraud to manipulate the US, and bribe the Congress with huge campaign donations proves that Israel’s interests are often in conflict with those of the people of the US. Certainly at a time when the US economy is crippled by debt and the loss of manufacturing, the imprudence of continuing to underwrite Israel to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars every year is evident. Support for Israel’s policies even to the point of defying the United Nations has made the US a pariah to the rest of the world second only to Israel itself. How is this good for America and Americans?”

    Remember, if you want to persuade the public on anything, you have to appeal to their self-interest, no?
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 4 '06 - 11:55PM    #
  8. Hey Adam:

    “Huge amounts of reference information can be found at http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/israel_index.html”

    Sure. Also available at “WRH”: Massive amounts of strung together conspiracy theory, which if not anti-Semitic outright, is at least material often used by those with an anti-Semitic agenda. I refer you to the following:

    “There is no evidence, be it hard or circumstantial, to link the Al Qaeda “terrorist network” to these acts of terror, but there is a mountain of evidence, both hard and circumstantial, which suggests that Zionists have been very busy framing Arabs for terror plots against America.”

    The take home message: Israel is a more likely culprit for 9/11 than Al Qaeda. Are you kidding me? The author also peddles Bin Laden’s opinion that “the American system is totally in control of the Jews.” Etc. Etc.

    Adam, I am not the sort of person that attributes anti-Israeli sentiment as inherently anti-Semitic. This stuff, however, is dubious at best.
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 5 '06 - 01:04AM    #
  9. Dd,

    Sorry you r on the bushtrain on this issue, cuz the segment of protesting Muslims is mirrored by the ‘merican minions who believe in being more sensitive to religious symbolism rather than substance.

    fer instance “charity is the greatest gift of all”

    if that was the case, mebbe clinton and bush 41 would have given due to Katrina equal to tsunami.

    less focus on these issues of “symbolism” (e.g. offensive cartoons, 10 commandments display) and more on, in the words of the great J.D Salinger, through Zooey’s mouth: “As one limping man to another, let’s be courteous and kind to each other”

    Burning embassies does not fit that bill.

    I’d be the first to say that dumbya has exacerbated the situation, but non-violence must rule our hearts.

    Cuz the alternative is violence.
       —Miss Devore    Feb. 5 '06 - 01:09AM    #
  10. I may be on the Guardian train more than on the Bush train. Bush can squeeze off some comforting words at times, e.g., “Islam is a religion of peace”, even if his actions do not live up to the words.
    Burning embassies fits no bill, but outrageous anti-Islamic caricatures don’t fit the bill either. As another Guardian article I just read noted, “If there’s a right to offend people, those people have a right to be offended.”
       —David Boyle    Feb. 5 '06 - 01:15AM    #
  11. Still waiting for someone to comment on the massive indignity of destroying Palestine.

    Do you even see that as a problem to be addressed, ever?

    And the massive indignity of destroying Iraq.

    And the massive indignity of destroying Iran, which no one is marching to stop from happening.
    —Worthy of comment?

    But you want to talk about cartoons.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 5 '06 - 01:22AM    #
  12. No, the millions of Muslims whom you represent in no way, shape, or form want to talk about the cartoons. If you ever wanted to prove you do not understand Muslims, you have just done it. Salaam.
       —David Boyle    Feb. 5 '06 - 01:27AM    #
  13. Still don’t want to discuss what you and your tax money are doing to destroy Palestine, Iraq, and soon Iran as well?

    Then who does want to discuss it here—instead of cartoons?
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 5 '06 - 03:33AM    #
  14. you do, blaine. you and your nutcase pal adam.

    so go ahead—it’s a free country!
       —peter honeyman    Feb. 5 '06 - 04:17AM    #
  15. Calling all people who Peter does not call “nutcases”:

    Do you see any reason for action, any action at all, to protect the remains of Palestine from utter destruction?

    Or are cartoons pretty much the only issue you find worthy of action?
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 5 '06 - 05:26AM    #
  16. Well, let me say first of all that I hope we all agree that this exchange of comments proves useful for anybody hoping to understand people’s views on the issue.

    We have me the conspiracy nut, Blaine the hard-headed anti-Zionist, Daniel the Liar (see below), Honeyman the hater, Miss Devore the idealist, and David as “The Guy Who Starts Long Threads.”

    Allow me to elaborate.

    First off, Peter Honeyman. We’ve had a very rough exchange at another blog, which he initiated by making misleading statements about the content of my blog. I didn’t expect anything more than ad hominem attacks from him, and I wasn’t disappointed. My only response to being regarded as Blaine’s “nutcase pal” is that in this crazy world-and deep down, everybody knows this world is really, really crazy-I’m happy to be thought of as such.

    As to the allegations that I’m Blaine’s “pal,” this brings me to Blaine.

    I happen to agree that the Zionist agenda regards Arabs in a similar way that the old-Europe colonist agenda regarded blacks, Indians, and other indigenous people. Where “the ends justify the means” even if the means are mass-murdering innocent people.

    In various manifestations of activism, Blaine and I will appear side by side. But the pal-ship ends right there.

    With politeness and dignity, my previous comment to Blaine asked him to reconsider his course, and as usual, it was ignored. I’m a little offended that Blaine has gone right on being who he is without even acknowledging, much less acting on my observations.

    This has come up over and over again. Aside from Blaine changing his sandwich board sign to not refer to the Israeli occupation as a “KKK” occupation, Blaine has ignored our advice. More often than not, when we complain to him, his response is, “well, you should raise your voice to drown mine out, if that’s how you feel.”

    Some might call that good coaching but I consider it an obnoxious way of imposing one’s agenda upon people.

    Confronted with the wall of human apathy on Palestinian suffering, Blaine bangs his head against it, while other people strive to work around it, as my previous comment did.

    Many anti-Zionist people have told me that they believe Blaine secretly works for Israel by making people who agree with him seem aggresive by association. I don’t agree, because I’ve known all sorts of people, including myself, who insist on being themselves despite good recommendations to the contrary, and I think Blaine’s heart really is in the right place.

    But his method of activism is seriously flawed. He alienates potential supporters by his harsh honesty.

    The same could be said of BAMN, for example. We’ve all seen BAMN attacked by people who could be their supporters, for their “violent” [knocking over a table] modus operandi. Of course BAMN has done tremendous things to defend affirmative action (forming a legal team, defending affirmative action in court, calling witnesses the state would not to defend EQUALITY instead of diversity, mobilizing thousands for big marches, getting the truth into people’s minds by any means available), but they’ve also, like Blaine, been mean and nasty to those who take a more moderate stance.

    People can agree on things (for example, the violently racist Israeli occupation of Palestine) without being “pals.”

    Many people who support Blaine’s message (but not Blaine’s methods) have said the same thing. For example, Henry Herskowitz on Homeless Dave’s teeter-totter:

    “I mean, I’m not trying to defend Blaine Coleman. He’s gonna do what he does. Maybe this is a failure in what we do. We fail to really focus on what’s happening over there. I mean we haven’t even talked about that yet on the teeter totter here. We start off saying, ‘The vigils are really an assertive, confrontative method, what’s it going to take to end the vigils?’ It could be a whole other conversation: what are the vigils trying to say? What elevation and awareness are we trying to achieve?”

    Henry has it slightly wrong; Blaine does keep the issue on what’s happening over there—as can be seen from his comments in this thread. But the disapproval of his methods is well-known.

    Ugh. Enough about Blaine! How did I get dragged into this? Oh yes, by the snide comments of Peter Honeyman. Oh well, hope everyone learns something from them.

    Moving on:

    Miss Devore: “Non-violence must rule our hearts” is a good axiom but it’s simplistic and ignores the political facts of life of America.

    The American government we have is extremely violent. Professing ourselves to be non-violent is useless if we are not challenging the supremacy of a violent government, yes?

    What to do about it, then? My belief is that the condition of politics today is one where the only logical step is WAKING UP THE PUBLIC because the people who recognize how evil our government is are far too small in number. Forget politics—the people will pluralistically figure out the next step if only we can create mass understanding of the vicious forces that control and diminish our lives.

    Simply saying “Peace” is inadequate. The Nazis said they were killing people for peace. Bush claims he’s killing people for peace. It’s bull. Peace is justice is truth. Truth is Phase 1.

    David Boyle: Yes, the Guardian is an excellent publication.

    And finally, the only commentator whose word demand correction, Mr. Daniel Adams.

    First off, as I said, “there can be know[sic—yeah I know I sic’d myself] opposing opinion” about the issues I raised.

    Your attack is ad hominem since you’ve raised nothing to question my issues with the Lavon affair, the USS Liberty atttack, the ADL spy scandal, the JDL spy scandal, the AIPAC spy scandal, the Pollard spy scandal, the Perle spy scandal, Israeli lobbying for the invasion of Iraq, or Zakheim’s missing trillions. And I didn’t even mention the Abramoff scandal, the Israeli lobbying for the invasions of Iran and Syria, or Philip Zack. Or the Mossad operatives arrested for dancing and cheering from a rooftop as the Twin Towers fell.

    So I’m assuming that the statements I’ve made about Israeli spying and manipulation still stand, since you haven’t attacked them on their merits in any way.

    I’m going to dissect your assertions, but first, let me say something about www.whatreallyhappened.com.

    I cite WRH frequently. I do so because Michael Rivero (who’s site it is) is thorough, up-to-date, and impartial. And because many things Mike says, I couldn’t say better myself. I like that, and I think citing him makes optimal use of it.

    Let’s look at your assertions about his supposedly “anti-Semitic” weblog. (keeping in mind my Jewish grandmother narrowly escaped the Holocaust herself)

    “Massive amounts of strung together conspiracy theory.”
    Conspiracy theories, like all theories, should be judged on their merits. Evidence finds such claims meritorious. Ask Jack Abramoff.

    “If not anti-Semitic outright, is at least material often used by those with an anti-Semitic agenda.”

    Well, “those with an anti-Semitic agenda” would logically be inclined to prefer hard facts that support their sick agenda than questionable facts. That says nothing about the validity of the facts themselves. If the facts show that Jewish people were responsible for this or that, it does not mean that the Jewish people are any more responsible for the crimes of Israel than white people are responsible for the crimes of Bush’s America.

    The real criminals in this world are neo-globalist war profiteers. These people use racial/religious/ethnic issues as a means of manipulating the public to support them and consolidate power, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim or any other faith.

    As to the “anti-Semitic” claim, WRH makes clear, up front:

    “The charge of anti-Semitism is one that Israel flings at anyone who criticizes them. Israel intentionally blends itself with the world’s Jewish people in order to be able to hide behind Jewish people. If you ask Israel any question they do not like, you will be called anti-Semitic. It’s a real fraud and the irony is that Israel is setting up the world’s Jewish people as targets by acting as if they share the responsibility for Israel’s actions.”

    That Daniel Adams assumes you don’t check the references could be taken as an insult to the reader. But there is his citation:

    “There is no evidence, be it hard or circumstantial, to link the Al Qaeda “terrorist network” to these acts of terror, but there is a mountain of evidence, both hard and circumstantial, which suggests that Zionists have been very busy framing Arabs for terror plots against America.”

    The “mountain of evidence” is indeed mountainous, but the antecedent is worth examining.

    No evidence linking Al Qaeda to terrorism? Well, that’s not precisely correct, BUT, in light of the fact that the CIA created Al Qaeda and the likelihood that it still has control (as evidenced by the fact that everything Al Qaeda says and does inures to the benefit of the CIA/Mossad agenda) is significant.

    Then there is “the take home message: Israel is a more likely culprit for 9/11 than Al Qaeda. Are you kidding me? The author also peddles Bin Laden’s opinion that “the American system is totally in control of the Jews.” Etc. Etc.

    Regarding the issue of culprithood, Israel becomes more likely one every day. Who benefitted from the American invasion of Iraq that used 9/11 as a pretext? Not us—our military is stretched to the limits. If the goal of invading Iraq was to liberate them from Saddam, then we have no reason to still be there. If our goal was to make Iraq an American colony, that’s obviously been more trouble than it was worth. But if our goal was to smash an enemy of Israel, we’ve succeeded well, haven’t we?

    Of course, to claim that Israel was a culprit for 9/11 requires evidence. I would argue that it was a global elite that controls Israel as well as America that was the culprit (no other explanation for the insider trading, the military stand-down, the suppression of investigation) but the five dancing Israelis arrrested on September 11th don’t bode well for Israel’s claim of innocence.

    Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of this long, thorough response. Your prize is the exposure of the biggest lie.

    The lie told by Daniel Adams.

    It went: The author [Michael Rivero] also peddles Bin Laden’s opinion that “the American system is totally in control of the Jews.”

    You can verify the dishonesty by Googling the claim yourself.

    What is called “peddling” (“selling”) is nothing more than CITING the words of Bin Laden himself.

    This is what was written at
    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html :

    We were told that the reason bin Laden attacked the USA was because he hates our “freedom” and “democracy”. The Muslims were “medieval” and they wanted to destroy us because they envied our wealth, were still bitter about the Crusades, and were offended by Britney Spears shaking her tits and ass all over the place!

    But bin Laden strongly denied any role in the 9-11 attacks, and he suggested the attacks were orchestrated by Zionists. The BBC published bin Laden’s statement of denial in which he said:
    “I was not involved in the September 11 attacks in the United States nor did I have knowledge of the attacks. There exists a government within a government within the United States. The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; to the people who want to make the present century a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity. That secret government must be asked as to who carried out the attacks. ... The American system is totally in control of the Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States.”

    Rivero did nothing more than publish Bin Laden’s statement. That is not “peddling”; that is reporting.

    Let me be flat. Daniel Adams is a liar. He reports something as something else. Like Alan Dershowitz with his “turnspeak” he cannot claim to have made a mistake. He made a crude attempt to pass off someone who has exercised great discipline in NOT being anti-Semitic as being anti-Semitic for reporting the facts.

    “There is nothing anti-Semitic about opposing reckless deaths and deceptions that lead to wars. There is nothing anti-Semitic about opposing nuclear weapons or supporting the work of the UN. Colin Powell stated the matter quite clearly; criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic. Israel would like you to think it is, but it isn’t. Anti-Semitism is based on Israel’s race. Criticism is based on Israel’s deeds.” -whatreallyhappened.com/antisemitism.html

    “I am not “anti-Jewish”, I am anti-espionage. There’s a difference. I don’t blame the Jewish people for the crimes of the Israeli government and the Mossad any more than I blame Americans for the crimes of the United States Government and the CIA. Israel’s supporters constantly spin any criticism of Israel’s actions as hate against the Jewish people. Indeed so desperate are Israel’s supporters to dismiss criticism of Israel while being unable to refute the actual facts that they have taken to describing Jewish critics of Israel as “self-hating Jews.””-WRH

    Last and least, let me point out that Arab people are Semites themselves, so any Jewish person who hates Arabs is him/herself anti-Semitic.
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 5 '06 - 11:37AM    #
  17. Again,

    In my belief, it’s fruitless to dwell on personalities.

    You will never, that way, address what is happening to Palestine (genocide: check the U.N.’s own definition).

    Again, I’m calling on you, the reader, to say what you think should be done to protect the occupied and dying people of Palestine from destruction.

    Not what I think should be done.

    Not with my “method” of argument.

    But what YOU think should be done, by you, using your own method of human rights action.

    Why is your own method of human rights action, essentially divestment against Coke, divestment against Nike, not a good method to use against Israel?
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 5 '06 - 02:13PM    #
  18. “Let me be flat. Daniel Adams is a liar.”

    Adam, in the future, you should at least bother to consult a fucking reference book before you call someone – a stranger, no less – a liar. A synonym for “peddle,” according to my thesaurus, is “publicize.” I’ve used the word similarly in my writing before. Is that not exactly what Rivero did?

    “Rivero did nothing more than publish Bin Laden’s statement. That is not “peddling”; that is reporting.”

    Use whatever word you like. But if I’m going to be called a liar, by you, or anyone else, you had better catch me in something more than a ticky-tacky bullshit disagreement on the connotations of a single word.

    I had a narrow point to make about WRH: That the message the website is selling is one that is oft repeated to advance an anti-Semitic agenda.

    That said, my attack on the website (rather than the argument) is motivated by a desperate desire to NOT engage you on any of these issues. Take a look around other A2 blogs. I’m more than willing to debate people (extensively) on serious issues. I am not, however, willing to debate you on whether al Qaeda is under CIA control or whether Israel caused 9/11. My reasons:

    1) Its off topic
    2) WRH isn’t a credible source of info
    3) You just called me a liar because you didn’t like the way I used the word “peddle”
    4) Because Israel didn’t orchestrate 9/11
    5) Because the CIA doesn’t control al Qaeda

    And, you’re a nutjob who I don’t take seriously.

    xoxo,
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 5 '06 - 04:11PM    #
  19. More than words. Non-violence as political strategy. Worked for Gandhi & MLK.
       —Miss Devore    Feb. 5 '06 - 04:20PM    #
  20. adam,

    a few observations…the uss liberty accusation seems far-fetched…also, it seems unlikely that the jdl would pass information along to israel:

    1. how would anyone in the jdl have information that israel would need/want that it couldn’t get on its own…the jdl is a hand-ful of thugs in california, many of whom are now in jail for trying to kill rep. darril issa (r-calif.)

    2. perhaps you should know that the jdl is connected to kahane chai, a terrorist group (in both the us and israel) who’s political party is outlawed in israel…

    and a few more:

    3. the pollard affair is well known…and now pollard is-i believe-spending the rest of his life in a federal prison…the aipac scandel is also well know…that’s where there is huge investigation…

    4. out of all these allegations, the idea that israel is behind 9-11 is so outlandish it doesn’t need a response…

    however, if you would like to criticize israel for the occupation, be my guest…you have plenty to work with…but hurling conspiracy theories from a random website undermines your cause…

    just a thought,
    ari p.
       —Ari P.    Feb. 5 '06 - 05:53PM    #
  21. So, somehow, this conversation twists from racist cartoons to Israel, Sept. 11 and Al Qaeda?

    How many rational individuals really believe the Al Qaeda-CIA linkage?

    What type of nutcase does it take to argue Israel orchestrated 9/11 for national gain?

    What kind of person (in full seriousness) writes a letter to the Daily saying bin Laden is dead, and that his “existence” is a 1984-like propaganda tool to justify endless war?

    NOBODY within even three standard deviations of the mainstream. Quit giving Adam attention when he paints radical Islamic terrorists as the victim of President Bush’s Zionist/neoglobalist agenda against the proletariat.
       —Reader    Feb. 5 '06 - 06:04PM    #
  22. adam is always so long-winded! and his tinker-toy reasoning leaves so many holes, it’s tempting to respond point-by-point.

    but i’m really only interested in the fun stuff, driven by my inner hate and all.

    adam took umbrage at dan’s characterization of so-and-so’s “peddling” his opinion. a big fat lie, according to adam.

    aside from the escalation of an idiomatic phrase into A LIE told by A LIAR (adam pulled this on me once, too), there is the question of accuracy. who’s right? dan? or adam?

    turning to so-and-so’s web page, we look past line one (”... what really happened blah blah blah …”) all the way to line two:

    Home : WRH Store : WRH Index : Reader Letters : Archives : Advertise : Donate

    uh … point to dan. once again, it’s adam’s pants that are on fire.
       —peter honeyman    Feb. 5 '06 - 06:36PM    #
  23. Peter:

    I take it you’ve been down this road before?

    -Dan
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 5 '06 - 06:40PM    #
  24. I reiterate my suggestion from earlier in the fall when Blaine filled an ArborUpdate forum talking about Israel and Palestine when that forum had nothing to do with the conflict at all: just ignore him.

    Odds are that if you try to debate with him, he won’t be able to answer your points in any way, shape, or form. So, it’s useless to try.

    Now, it seems a post regarding the cartoons in Europe turned into a forum discussing Israeli “involvement” in 9/11, conspiracy theories that, yes, are anti-semitic, and a hole host of other dumb shit.

    Look, Ari had it right: criticizing and opposing the occupation is a legitimate criticism. Many Jews and Zionists disagree and oppose it and its ramifications for the Palestinians (this author included). But to devolve into wild conspiracy theories to which there is hardly a sliver of truth gives ammunition to the claim that many people who simply “criticize” the occupation are not really concerned with either the plight of the Palestinians nor achieving peace in the region but rather attacking Jews whenever they can.

    WRH is just another one of those conspiracy websites. It’s not their facts that are so crazy but their conclusions. The Lavon Affair actually happened, Pollard passed on secrets which had little to do with America and more about Israel, the USS Liberty was tragic and unintentional (I recently read an interview with one of the pilots involved, who, in addition to saying it was completely unintentional, also signed the pilot’s refusal letter to not bomb the occupied territories). The AIPAC scandal was more about frustrated government agents than with AIPAC being sinister spies, the JDL is so right-wing fringe its laughable to even talk about it, etc . . .

    Anyway, in a forum about cartoons of Muhammad, I’m not going to comment further on Israel/Palestine until a forum comes up about it. So, in spirit of that, I’ll comment about the ORIGINAL TOPIC:

    I’m never all the way one side or another, so I have issues with the cartoons. I’ve seen them, and a great number of them are somewhat racist and stereotypical. They are offensive from that standpoint.

    I agree with David; there are boundaries of good taste. And the cartoons crossed the line. But, I also treasure freedom of the press and expression, and even though the cartoons are offensive in that they depict Arabs and Muslims in a very stereotypical and racist light, the response to them is a bit ridiculous, even a bit hypocritical.

    Some of the most violent protests have erupted in countries where cartoons about Jews are publishe which make the Danish ones look like Mickey Mouse.

    Nevertheless, while no one should print offensive cartoons like that, we shouldn’t be introducing “anti-blasphemy” laws either.

    That’s my two cents. I’m waiting for the bombardment of comments from Blaine about why I can’t talk about Palestine (in which I sorta did, actually) or from Adam about why I think Jews don’t control the world by proxy. And I’ll just sit back and watch em’, because frankly discussing things with Blaine is pointless because the man has the argumentative skills of a fruit fly and listening to how Jews control with world from Adam is not worth my time; no worldwide conspiracy is paying my rent, helping me out with school, etc.
       —Jared Goldberg    Feb. 5 '06 - 10:22PM    #
  25. Daniel:

    Pulling out my thesaurus (thesaurus.com), I typed in “militant” and I found words such as “active” and “assertive” being synonymous with “militant” as well as words like “militaristic and “military.”

    “militaristic” and “military” do NOT mean the same thing as “active” or “assertive.”

    A synonym is not an exact substitute for a word. The thesaurus lists all words “in the ballpark.”

    Now, you’ve pointed out that:

    “A synonym for “peddle,” according to my thesaurus, is “publicize.” I’ve used the word similarly in my writing before. Is that not exactly what Rivero did?”

    Actually, (not that “peddle” is interchangeable with “publicize” anyway), Rivero neither peddled nor publicized it. From time to time, academic type people write books, and those books include citations. That really does not qualify as “publicizing” the quotes they cite, much less “peddling.”

    To put this in context: the Michigan Daily quoted “Bin Laden” a few weeks back from a newly-released tape. Putting aside the tape’s authenticity for the moment, let’s say somebody posted a comment on this blog saying, “the Michigan Daily peddled Bin Laden’s truce offering.”

    People would react negatively. They would call such a statement dishonest. Because, whether or not the thesaurus says “publicizing” and “peddling” are synonymous, they actually mean different things.

    But, that is precisely what you did, Daniel Adams. By YOUR standard of “peddling,” YOU are actually peddling MY views, since you are keeping this thread active.

    But you wouldn’t say that you’re peddling my views, would you? You wouldn’t say that the Daily peddles Bin Laden’s views, would you? Then why would you that WRH is peddling Bin Laden’s views?

    Because that’s what’s called as an “ad hominem” attack. Attacking the speaker instead of what he’s speaking about.

    You are forced to resort to such attacks because you can’t deny the Lavon Affair (an entire Israeli government was dismissed in shame over it) nor can you deny the Pollard incident (he’s still in prison) nor the Israeli lobbying for the invasion of Iraq and now Iran.

    You can’t deny that 100% of the neocons who told lies that kill troops and innocent people are Zionists. It’s incidental, really, that 90% of them are Jewish, because (and this is important, write this down) Judaism is not Zionism. Judaism is a race and a religion. Zionism is a political stance.

    Yeah, I do believe there is a neo-globalist consipracy. I believe a major part of that is convincing the population that state, race, and religion are the same thing. Hence the statist, racist, fake-Christian philosophy of the average Bush supporter.

    The global elite have known for thousands of years that if you can keep the public at war with itself, frightened of enemies foreign and internal, you can easily manipulate them. Tell me that isn’t the course of history. Only liars can start wars.

    Which returns me to the original allegation:

    “Use whatever word you like. But if I’m going to be called a liar, by you, or anyone else, you had better catch me in something more than a ticky-tacky bullshit disagreement on the connotations of a single word.”

    The “ticky-tacky bullshit disagreement” you refer to is the difference between telling a fact and selling an opinion. It’s a critical distinction.

    So yes. I’m sorry, I called you a liar. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, not sorry I said it.

    Come to the Planet sometime, and talk to me. Don’t tell me who you are—I have never met you in person, I have no idea what you look like, so I’ll treat you with no less respect than I have with any other customer that comes in. I’m happy to talk politics in a civil manner, and indeed in person such exchanges tend to be more civil than Internet exchanges. You’ll have the upper hand, knowing me as I won’t know you.

    Just a dare.

    Concerning the term “lie,” Jesse Richard of tvnewslies.org, an author whom I have utmost respect for, said it best:

    “NOTE: I use this word: Lie. Not mislead, not misstate, misspoke, neglected to inform, omitted, left out, misrepresent, factually incorrect etc. Part of the definition of a lie is to leave a false impression. These people lie to us. LIE. THEY LIE. Bush LIES. Cheney LIES. FOX News LIES. CNN LIES. NBC LIES, ABC LIES…THEY ALL LIE!”

    That’s all there is to it, really. You lied. And Peter Honeymnan lied when he dis-stated the content of my blog, characterizing telling of fact as selling of opinion just as you did.

    Sorry for being so caustic, but as David Boyle has recently learned from his top-thread comment about a classified in the Daily, sometimes it’s better not to breach a topic.

    In this case, you’ve thrown the door open about the anti-Semitism charge against WRH.

    Well, fine, let’s examine what’s said on the supposedly “anti-Semitic” website.

    First, we have “I Am Blogger, Hear Me Roar.” (WRH/blogger.html)

    I challenge everybody reading this to find me one better statement about the “Blog Revolution” as the Daily called it.

    Then we have “WRH and anti-Semitism.” I quoted this page before, but, in light of Daniel Adams’ misleading statements, I’m adding, from Mike:

    “As for me, you will not find anything inside my site that talks about Jewish anything. I write about Israel and the crimes of the Israeli government. I write about Rachel Corrie. I write about James Miller. I write about Tom Hurndall. I write about the USS Liberty and the Lavon affair and the Israeli spy who was inside the very Pentagon office from which the lies about Iraq’s WMDs that sent our young people off to war came from. I write about nuclear weapons being built under the Dimona reactor and radiation leaking from the complex into the surrounding soil. I write about ongoing defiance of United Nations’ resolutions.

    “There is nothing anti-Semitic about opposing reckless deaths and deceptions that lead to wars. There is nothing anti-Semitic about opposing nuclear weapons or supporting the work of the UN. Colin Powell stated the matter quite clearly; Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic. Israel would like you to think it is, but it isn’t. Anti-Semitism is based on Israel’s race. Criticism is based on Israel’s deeds.”

    For a little comparison, there are two websites that actually ARE anti-Semitic: judicial-inc.biz, and www.israel-state-terrorism.org/

    Those two websites DO what you accuse WRH of doing—turning facts about real crimes of Israel toward anti-Semitism. WRH does no such thing.

    Spectators: check out whatreallyhappened.com for yourselves, and decide for yourselves. That’s all I ask.

    Believe me, I’d like to be finished right now. As much as I enjoy tearing people’s fallacious arguments to shreds (I’m sure Norman Finkelstein can relate), part of me wants to go out and enjoy my Sunday.

    Unlike Peter Honeyman (see above), however, I will finish my point-by-point.

    “my attack on the website (rather than the argument) is motivated by a desperate desire to NOT engage you on any of these issues.”

    For obvious reasons.

    “Take a look around other A2 blogs.”

    I do.

    “I’m more than willing to debate people (extensively) on serious issues.”

    I’ve put forth that offer.

    “I am not, however, willing to debate you on whether al Qaeda is under CIA control or whether Israel caused 9/11.”

    Israel didn’t cause 9/11, globalist interest did. Whether Al Qaeda is under CIA control is beyond debate anyhow, since it’s a fact.

    Shortly before his death, former top MI6 official Robin Cook stated in the London Guardian (which David Boyle reads, as an accurate source of information):

    “Throughout the 80s [Bin Laden] was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.”

    To think the CIA just “loses control” over its precious assets is to court ignorance. The American government does not maintain itself as a premier global power by losing track of things (like “losing” a trillion bucks worth of weapons as I noted in a prior comment).

    Returning to Adams:

    “My reasons:

    “1) Its off topic”

    Nah I was just answering Blaine, that’s all. You brought this up

    “2) WRH isn’t a credible source of info”

    And what, pray tell, is your definition of a credible source? Again, WRH/blogger.html

    “3) You just called me a liar because you didn’t like the way I used the word “peddle””

    Been through this already

    “4) Because Israel didn’t orchestrate 9/11”

    I didn’t say it did. But the five dancing Mossad agents arrested on 9/11 is worth looking into

    “5) Because the CIA doesn’t control al Qaeda”

    Been through this already.

    Well, I guess I’m through with Daniel Adams. Sorry for being so rude, xoxo, hugs and kisses right back to you, I’m just telling you how I feel, which I’d like to think bears some connection to historical facts.

    What’s left? Ah, a few more comments.

    Ari:

    Your points about the JDL are well-taken and people are probably mad you even brought up the Kahanists (a group of Jewish Nazis that makes even the average Zionist blush).

    But the USS Liberty attack is well-documented. ussliberty.org has great details about this.

    As to the Israel-911 connection, it is laughable that Israel orchestrated the attacks. But it is not laughable that Netanyahu said that 911’s effect was “very good… Well, it’s not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel].”

    And again, the five dancing Mossad agents.

    Finally, let me say that you should not be so dismissive of WRH as a “random website” lest you dismiss the blogging community in general as “random websites.” Sure some of them are. Some, however, have honesty, courage, and credibility, and WRH does. It is subject to error now and again but compared to any other news source it is very good.

    And the “conspiracy theory” term that elicits immediate scorn from people (Good doggie! Have a treat) is not fair when there obviously are conspiracies. What else could you call the Abramoff scandal?

    Honeyman:

    I’m glad you didn’t get into what my “tinker toy reasoning” was (this comment is quite long enough), but since you think that having a “donate” link on a blog equates with “peddling” the statements of Osama Bin Laden for mentioning them… oh forget it this has already been covered.

    Sorry for making you look stupid once before. Explain how my pants are fire, rub more salt in your wounds.

    Anonymous reader:

    “What kind of person (in full seriousness) writes a letter to the Daily saying bin Laden is dead, and that his “existence” is a 1984-like propaganda tool to justify endless war?”

    Besides the fact that the Daily chopped off the first half of my letter concerning their total misquote of the original BBC article (which I covered in detail on my blog), the kind of person who would write such a letter is one who sells the William Blum book “Osama Bin Laden” reccomended to the American public. One who wouldn’t like to be hauled off into a “detention center” (concentration camp) for being a “terrorist by association,” that’s who.

    I can’t help but think that the anonymous reader is Jason Pesick, feeling sheepish for me observing that the anonymous “Just A Voice” who posted comments on other blogs resembles his “One Small Voice” handle as a Daily columnist.

    Ah, but that’s just a guess.

    And last, Miss Devore.

    Non-violence is in my heart, which is why my predominant activist activity is typing (aside from running a counter-culture store anyway). But in this violent and cruel world, I’m not going to hate Arabs because a very tiny fraction of them kill themselves in violent retaliation against the system that oppresses them. Even if they did destroy the World Trade Center, although they didn’t.

    Farewell, and enjoy Super Bowl Sunday (or as I call it, “Sunday”).

    Hugs and kisses

    Adam de Angeli

    “Mankind:
    The public enemy’s not the man who speaks his mind,
    The public enemy’s the man that goes and acts blind
    Searching for an answer that he’ll never find.

    “An action from reaction, and you can’t make a retraction,
    Once you’ve put your head out.
    And then you’re blue in the face,
    As you try to state your case.
    You can think with your dick
    But it can’t shout.”

    Anthrax [smirk-ironic name-look up Philip Zack]
    “Keep It In the Family”
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 6 '06 - 12:08AM    #
  26. Since one more comment came up before I finished mine, let me just say that most was already addressed but that I do NOT believe Jews rule the world by proxy.

    Rich people rule the world by proxy, and they maintain an unfair and conspiratorial system to keep wealth within their families. Some of these rich people happen to be Jewish [eg the Rothschilds]. Some are white, some are Arab, some are Asian. Very few are black or Hispanic. But it’s all incidental.

    The world is ruled by money and the banks that print it. Race, religion, and ethnicity are just classifications for keepin the rest of us at war with ourselves.

    That is all.
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 6 '06 - 12:13AM    #
  27. I’m not Jason Pesick.
       —Reader    Feb. 6 '06 - 02:59AM    #
  28. OK.
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 6 '06 - 03:07AM    #
  29. What’s with the posters who think everyone’s interested in reading their Treatise Du Jour? If it takes more than one screenscroll to read your posting, edit it down! Nothing anyone has to say here is that important!
       —John Q.    Feb. 6 '06 - 05:13AM    #
  30. Believe me I’d like to shorten my material.

    Neo-globalist world-domination conspiracy doesn’t fit into a sound byte, much as I wish it did.

    But maybe what I have is worth the read.
       —Adam    Feb. 6 '06 - 07:50AM    #
  31. O.K., they didn’t like the cartoons that were printed… so they riot and burn and destroy embassies and even some persons are killed. When the Palestinian people have a chance at free elections, they choose a terrorist group that believes that Israel has no right to exist. We keep hearing that Islam is a peaceful religon, where only a few isolated radicals are violent, yet 5% (tens of thousands) of the Muslims living in England (British citizens!) agree with and support the subway suicide bombings. Why can’t the peace loving Muslims convince the radicals to stop killing? Why should we destroy Israel to create Palestinian Nation State (a nation that has never existed at any time in the past)? Who reading this blog thinks the radical Islamists would cease their activities once a Palestinian state is created? History repeats itself. Who can’t remember that appeasement causes others to see us as weak and further incites violence? Does anyone believe that we can all just get along? Is there any hope for a lasting peace or is the goal to just forestall the inevitable conflict?
       —Karen Luck    Feb. 6 '06 - 12:57PM    #
  32. adam,

    i was disappointed that you didn’t respond on larry’s blog when i ripped you a new asshole :-(

    so i am cheered to see your admission that my snide comments here goaded you into posting such a mass of drivel. that is damn fine trolling on my part!

    as for your non-apology to dan (i am sorry for what i did is an apology; i am sorry for what you did is not) and invitation that he drop by your store and be treated “with no less respect than … any other customer that comes in”, you have demonstrated quite plainly the respect you accord to strangers. i hardly think it is necessary for dan or anyone else to experience your cordiality in person!
       —peter honeyman    Feb. 6 '06 - 04:45PM    #
  33. ”...my predominant activist activity is typing.”

    We noticed!

    You might want to bump “developing ability to weigh evidence” a little higher up on your list of “activist” priorities….
       —J. Bruce Fields    Feb. 6 '06 - 04:58PM    #
  34. The question, Peter, is why you made a false statement about the content of my blog. That’s the issue that led us to where we are.

    And the question, Daniel, is why you made a false statement about the content of WRH. That’s the issue that led us to where we are.

    In both cases the fallacy was contrived.

    Damn fine trolling, indeed. But it was worth it for my because now I have a handy copy/paste reference for the material I had about the Lavon Affair etc etc etc.

    Karen: that statistic you brought up raises a question: who in their right mind would fill out a survey and indicate that they are a Muslim supporter of terrorism?
       —Adam de Angeli (a goy)    Feb. 6 '06 - 06:50PM    #
  35. Getting back to the original topic, googling “COINTELPRO cartoons” puts this in perspective.
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 6 '06 - 09:28PM    #
  36. By the way, today, Alex Moffett has put up at http://www.xanga.com/black_conscious her own viewpoint about what lessons the Muhammad cartoon controversy may have re the “Daily racially insenstive cartoon” controversy.
       —David Boyle    Feb. 6 '06 - 11:47PM    #
  37. Also: very significant, and in the Guardian again, at http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1703500,00.html ,

    “Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons

    Gwladys Fouché and agencies
    Monday February 6, 2006

    Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of protest throughout the Islamic world, refused to run drawings lampooning Jesus Christ, it has emerged today.

    The Danish daily turned down the cartoons of Christ three years ago, on the grounds that they could be offensive to readers and were not funny.

    ...The decision smacks of “double-standards”, said Ahmed Akkari, spokesman for the Danish-based European Committee for Prophet Honouring, the umbrella group that represents 27 Muslim organisations that are campaigning for a full apology from Jyllands-Posten.

    “How can Jyllands-Posten distinguish the two cases? Surely they must understand,” Mr Akkari added. ...”
       —David Boyle    Feb. 6 '06 - 11:56PM    #
  38. David:

    I checked out Alex Moffett’s website. It always makes me laugh when I read or hear someone talk about how racist the Michigan Daily is. I think back to the three years I spent there, working with people of all different ethnic backgrounds, and wonder: Did I miss it?
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 7 '06 - 02:21AM    #
  39. The article from the Guardian is interesting, about the Jesus cartoons. But the question would be what was the aim of the Jesus cartoons? To say that Christianity was stupid? That Jesus was not as good as he was later made out to be? Not very relevant for a country that gave up on Christianity more or less, some 40 years ago.

    On the other hand, you have Muslims today, true believers, who are setting off bombs in London and Madrid, and saying this is because of the prophet and the glory of Allah that they are doing this, and that they win paradise for it. So that’s pretty timely.

    On the other hand, if they rejected them and then gave as a reason that they were, “in bad taste,” that would seem to be pretty inconsistent. I doubt that the reason given was the real one, however: that’s just something you say when you don’t want to publish something like that. No Dane is going to be offended at something like that. Only Jesse Helms and other Americans get offended at something like that.
       —Stendhal    Feb. 7 '06 - 03:06PM    #
  40. oh my god!

    I’m just going to force my self to throw up rather then address adam and blain and thier total studpidity. It seems faster and less painful

    just a voice
       —Just a Voice    Feb. 7 '06 - 06:12PM    #
  41. For a paper I wrote last semester, I read through an entire month of The Michigan Daily. I chose to read the month of June, 1967 to analyze student reactions to the Six Day War.

    One quote by Joel Hencken, class of 1969, really struck me: “There is a great propensity for indignantly calling ‘objective’ what we agree with and ‘biased’ what we do not agree with.”

    Is The Michigan Daily racist or biased? I’ve written there since 2003 and I don’t think so. What we perceive to be bias is nothing more than (most of the time) just a covering of another viewpoint. Like Joel said, we fall into a deep trap if we think that objectiveness is contingent upon our agreement with it.

    Are there papers which are partisan? Sure. Anyone read The Nation or FrontPage Magazine? But, most new agencies and newspapers don’t fall into those categories, no matter how much we believe that they do.

    Back to the original topic, it appears that a newspaper in Iran, in response to the cartoons in Denmark, has decided to run a contest to find the “best” cartoons about the Holocaust. This is done of course to “test” Europeans’ committment to freedom of expression.

    Like I wrote earlier, I think it is a bit hypocritical; many publications in the Middle East already DO publish offensive cartoons, mostly anti-semitic ones that trump the Muhammad cartoons. Just some food for thought.
       —Jared Goldberg    Feb. 7 '06 - 06:26PM    #
  42. Good idea, to read the 1967 “Daily”.

    Now, if you’re up for reading (and reporting on) the February and March 1989 issues of the “Michigan Daily”, you’ll be in for a surprise:

    For the entire 1988-89 academic year, the “Michigan Daily” Editorial Board (Jews and non-Jews) fought for Palestinian human rights.

    Oh yes.

    —As the Israel-South Africa alliance looked invincible.—As hundreds of Zionists protested outside the “Michigan Daily” building.
    – See the “Michigan Daily” from February 22, 1989 (front page).
    – See the “Detroit Free Press” from March 1, 1989 (article on the “Daily” under attack from Zionists)
    – See the “Michigan Daily” lead editorial from March 16, 1989

    (“Shanty Must Survive”, about a Palestine shanty vandalized on the Diag):


    * “A conspicuous and continuous reminder of the Intifadah is especially necessary in view of the media’s steady reduction of coverage since the uprising’s inception in December, 1987. Hardly a day goes by without a Palestinian being shot in the occupied territories…

    ”...Moreover, in spite of more than a year of uprising and the hundreds killed in its suppression, there is absolutely no talk in Congress about reducing aid to Israel…”

    —Quoted directly from the “Michigan Daily”’s lead editorial, March 16, 1989.

    —————————————————-
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 7 '06 - 06:58PM    #
  43. Blaine – those editorials are precisely the reason that the Daily doesn’t comment on international issues anymore.
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 7 '06 - 07:09PM    #
  44. Dan,

    I think Jared can quote you, in more detail than I, very recent “Daily” editorials:

    * Screaming in anguish about labor conditions in Colombia’s Coke facilities, and therefore demanding action on this campus against Coke, and

    * Screaming in anguish about India and how Coke is messing up the water supplies of India, again demanding action on campus against Coke.

    I say the “Daily” was right to demand divestment-type action in 2005 and 2006,

    And, the “Daily” was right to defend Palestinian human rights in 1988-89.

    I am hoping that Jared will write an analysis of those two periods in “Daily” editorial history.

    And I hope he will publish that analysis in the “Daily”.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 7 '06 - 07:17PM    #
  45. The entire period around 1988-1989 is considered by many at the Daily to be the worst single period in the paper’s history.

    The editorials were embarassing. In one, we suggested Israel might have had something to do with the Pan Am Lockerbie bombings.

    The Daily intentionally avoids, as a rigorous matter of policy, talking about the Israel-Palestine issue. The issues are incredibly complicated, mired in decades of history. Nothing’s clear cut. Nothing’s obvious.

    As Dan said, the articles you cite are the reason why we don’t write about international issues.

    Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing original that the Daily’s editorial board can say about international issues. So, we hardly ever say anything. We focus on local/state issues because, as a small, local paper, local/state issues are our expertise.
       —Suhael    Feb. 7 '06 - 07:32PM    #
  46. Yes, those were the good old days. MSA was similarly in the throes of “feel-good activism”. Only after the fact was it discovered that the students leaders of the time were great at singing protest chants and building shanties, not so great about keeping tabs on student fees or spending it properly. To the credit of the student body, they swept out the professional activists and cleaned house, at least for a time.
       —John Q.    Feb. 7 '06 - 07:46PM    #
  47. Wait a minute, Suhael.

    Did I totally imagine this last year’s “Daily” editorials?

    You know, the ediorials hailing action against Coke to save India and Colombia?
    – India.
    – Colombia.

    Why did you just say “we don’t write about international issues”?!
    – India’s downtrodden get ink at the “Daily”.
    – Colombia’s downtrodden get ink at the “Daily”.
    – Why not Palestine’s occupied population?
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 7 '06 - 07:48PM    #
  48. on michigan daily 89 history:

    Editors from the paper, Amy Harmon and Caleb Southworth, would later write in an edition of the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs on the Pan Am Flight story:

    “The third editorial the demonstrators charged with anti-Jewishness was printed Feb. 14 under the headline “Up in the Air.” It concerned media coverage of the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103. It criticized CBS News for perpetuating the stereotype of an “Arab terrorist” and, by citing anonymous sources and circumstantial evidence, attributing the Pan Am disaster to a radical faction of the [[PLO]]. The Michigan Daily editorial showed that by using similar circumstantial evidence and the same investigative method speculation it would be just as easy to blame Israel for the bombing. The purpose of the editorial was to demonstrate that where the Palestinian-Israeli dispute is concerned, the US media applies a double standard. The protesters charged the paper with “an outrageous and unsupported assertion that [[Israel]] was responsible for the bombing of [[Pan Am Flight 103]].””

    raise hell,
    ari p.
       —Ari P.    Feb. 7 '06 - 08:26PM    #
  49. Blaine:

    I’m sure that you could, if you tried, find an international connection to every political issue. Hell, I recall commenting on the war in Iraq in our 2004 presidential endorsement. So my comment that the Daily doesn’t write about international issues is incorrect. (Adam de Angeli would say that I lied.)

    But the Daily does make every effort to not comment on purely international issues. When one hits close to home, then it comments (Read: Coke coalition).

    When it comes to Palestine, however, it was my experience that the Daily doesn’t just avoid the issue. “Avoid” isn’t a strong enough word. The Daily makes the equivelent of a 10 mile detour around it. No one wants to touch off the next 6-Day War on the opinion page between arabs, jews and other members of the central campus political machine.

    Suhael is correct – it was my understanding that the Daily editorials from the 89’-90 period were the worst in its history. They were so bad that, while visiting a small Jewish colony in northern Israel, I met a Jewish farmer who was also an alum. His only memory of the Michigan Daily? How awful those editorials were.

    College students, even smart college students, can’t hope to intelligently comment on the Arab-Israeli comment to the degree required to feel confident in publishing it. Even if they could, other college students don’t want to read what a 21 year old kid has to say about a place that they’ve likely only read about. If you’re looking for stuff on Palestine, try another paper.
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 7 '06 - 08:40PM    #
  50. You do seem very concerned to avoid offending a few Zionist colonists in Palestine.

    But you seem less concerned about offending a few million Palestinians, whose ongoing strangulation the “Daily” & other media rank at either zero, or below zero, in importance.

    A few thousand of those Palestinians live right here.

    They have been successfully frightened into silence.

    But Palestinians do care.
    They do read the “Daily”, and even “ArborUpdate”.

    They will remember how you treated them, how you treated their loved ones.

    The “war” the “Daily” seeks to avoid is simply Letters to the Editor about divestment.

    Divestment has been a campus issue for at least 5 years, much longer than Coke’s treatment of India & Colombia have been campus issues.

    Letters for, and against, the people of Palestine were common in the “Michigan Daily” from 1998 to 2001.

    It’s true that the Zionists preferred to keep the issue of divestment quiet.

    You seem to share their preference for silence, or at least you explain it very well.

    Zionists prefer silence because they can’t win any public debate about what the Israeli army is inflicting on Palestine.

    I think you can see the complete disappearance of divestment from the “Daily” for what it is:

    Something which is the opposite of journalism.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 7 '06 - 09:12PM    #
  51. Blaine:

    You’ve gone round the bend.

    “Divestment has been a campus issue for at least 5 years.”

    And its been a thoroughly idiotic idea for much longer.

    Journalism doesn’t include an obligation to report on every world event.

    Zionism has nothing to do with this. The editorials were dumb, and so was the premise that college kids should editorialize in print on world affairs.

    The Daily doesn’t seek to avoid letters to the editor on Palestine. The Daily cannot avoid letters on Palestine. But they have a tendency to monopolize the opinion page, and usually they devolve into exactly the sort of dumbshit banter that we’re currently engaging in.

    Tell you what Blaine: Why don’t you send a LTE to the Daily. Explain for us please how divestment is anything more than a tragic sideshow put on by the Jew v. Arab campus circus?
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 7 '06 - 09:37PM    #
  52. OK, let me get this straight:

    * You would agree that major “Daily” editorials, published this year, defending humanity in India and Colombia, openly pushing for divestment-type sanctions against from Coke, are commendable, right?

    Look at the Daily’s own Editorial, published October 5, 2005:

    ”’U’ should terminate contract with Coca-Cola”

    ”...In May, the University’s Dispute Review Board validated two allegations of human rights and environmental abuse against Coca-Cola concerning reports of pesticides found in Coca-Cola products in India and of labor abuses in Colombia. Unfortunately, the DRB allowed Coke to delay accountability for its actions by being far too lenient with the company in its June recommendation….

    ”...Each day the University continues to do business with Coke, it condones the actions of a vendor it has found to be in violation of the ethical standards in the Vendor Code of Conduct. The University is an institution that claims to value its credibility and integrity. The immediate termination of its contract with Coca-Cola would be a meaningful way to provide concrete support for such values.”

    That “Daily” editorial is on the Web


    ***********************

    So…

    ...Explain to me, again, why any editorial on Palestine, seeking any divestment remedy to the occupation, would necessarily be so “dumb”, as you put it?

    Why is that?

    Do you perceive something about Palestinians that sets them apart from the rest of the world?

    Do you see them as unworthy of any defense from the “Daily” editors?

    Do Palestinians, in your eyes, deserve to be occupied, starved, bled, humiliated for their race, and enslaved?

    ********************
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 7 '06 - 09:57PM    #
  53. Anyone have links to those old Michigan Daily editorials? I would love to read them.

    Now I have been trying to hold back from addressing Blaine and Adams postings. And what makes me mad is that they present a very complex subject with a total lack of understanding. I have been very close with many Palestinians in this town, and have also worked for two different places owned by them. None of them saw the issue nearly as black and white as Blaine & Adam (actually I take that back, there was one out of the 50 or so Palestinians I know and have talked about this issue with). Since they’ll call what I say an ad-homonym attack anyhow, they seem like they are looking for a cause to fight for, screaming and kicking yet not making any real difference. They don’t care about the issue because if they did, they would understand it better. They just want something that they can hold up as an example of total injustice, their pure and sacred cow to rally behind.

    I feel I must write something though, for those who have yet to begin a deep study of the issue, please do not be so quick to try and judge either side. To truly understand the issue you need to have an understanding of all the history behind the Israel-Palestinian conflict and there is lots of it. I find a good place to start is wikipedia, as all sides can give their input. But that is just scratching the surface. I have held back two separate long responses, addressing many of Adam and Blaine’s posts point by point. Both because I am trying to avoid taking the bait and because my posts were very long due to the longwinded nature of their posts.

    Now, as I’ve said before, if you are pro-Israel or pro-Palestine then you are pro-war. The only option is to be pro-peace.

    Adam and Blaine can’t be part of a peace process. They refuse to compromise anything, they think a peace process means the Palestinians getting exactly what they want, and compromise nothing. They are actually aPolitical, as they don’t do politics. They don’t understand the concept of two sides both having to compromise to reach an agreement. While Adam has written that other posters are ‘ignoring’ the political realities, I would say he is being hypocritical.
       —Just a Voice    Feb. 7 '06 - 11:03PM    #
  54. Blaine,

    what race are Palestinians?
    from your post

    Do Palestinians, in your eyes, deserve to be occupied, starved, bled, humiliated for their race, and enslaved?
       —Just a Voice    Feb. 7 '06 - 11:11PM    #
  55. So . . . how about them cartoons?
       —Jared Goldberg    Feb. 8 '06 - 12:19AM    #
  56. Just a voice:

    Reading through my posts, I think I’ve made it clear that insofar as the Arab-Israeli conflict goes, I do not see things in black and white. That’s why the editorials were bad, and that’s why divestment is a tragically misguided position.

    If you want to know exactly how I feel on divestment, here’s my column from last year.

    Blaine:

    “Explain to me, again, why any editorial on Palestine, seeking any divestment remedy to the occupation, would necessarily be so “dumb”, as you put it?”

    Look, you’re the one with the affirmative position here. You have some obligation to substantiate the need for divestment beyond just “the palestinian people are suffering.”

    But, if I had to answer, it would be this: the companies that supply Israel are not Coca-Cola. Palestine is not South Africa or Colombia. By latching onto divestment as a solution, Palestine’s advocates have essentially abandoned her. If the cause is as pressing as you make it out to be, you’d have something more tangible than just “divestment” – a policy which has long ago lost any sort of relevance on UM campus.
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 8 '06 - 12:19AM    #
  57. Quick usability note to everybody (Most recently Daniel Adams):

    To make links, put the text of the link in quotation marks, then a colon, then the url.

    QUOTE-label-QUOTE-COLON-url.

    Please use, especially for the Daily. The Daily has the worst URLs ever (hear me, Eston?), which make AU hard to read when you paste them as text.
       —Murph    Feb. 8 '06 - 01:08AM    #
  58. Zionists are always telling you who can be part of their “piece process”
    – You know, that process whereby Zionists grab larger and larger pieces of Palestine.

    That’s what Zionists mean by “peace”.
    ——————-

    They would like their Palestinian slaves to negotiate with them.

    They hate any resistance, even the slightest back-talk from their slaves.

    But “Israel”, like every other colony, will finally have no say.

    Occupied Palestine will free itself.
    ———————————
    Palestine is asking you to divest from that plantation called “Israel” just as fast as you can.

    Look:
    – PALESTINIAN CALL FOR DIVESTMENT & BOYCOTT –
    (Excerpt)

    “We, Palestinian academics and intellectuals, call upon our colleagues in the international community to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid, by applying the following:

    # Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions;

    # Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions;

    # Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions;

    # Exclude from the above actions against Israeli institutions any conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state’s colonial and racist policies;

    # Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations;

    # Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.”

    “http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4435.shtml”:
    – END OF PALESTINIAN CALL FOR DIVESTMENT & BOYCOTT – ——————————
    Now here’s a remninder to the Israeli soldiers on this thread…

    Don’t presume to “negotiate” with those you enslave, with those you occupay, with those you starve, with those you humiliate daily, and with those you exile.

    You will end up with not one trading partner on Earth.

    Don’t touch the hair on any Palestinian’s head, either…

    ...Or else you will end up in front of the war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

    That is a guarantee from humanity.

    Remember South Africa.

    Remember the model for both Israel’s and South Africa’s ghettoes—Nazi Germany.

    Stop tormenting your captives in Palestine, while you still can.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 8 '06 - 02:18AM    #
  59. The Daily also recently switched host companies or something and now all the links anyone’s ever posted up until that point don’t work anymore.
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 8 '06 - 02:28AM    #
  60. Now does everyone see why you can’t argue with Blaine? He’s like a 3 year old standing in the middle of a grocery store throwing a tantrum, only no one is listening. You try and communicate with him, but with each attempt he gets more and more irrational and more anecdotal.

    Believe me, I tried long ago to debate him. As you can see, he just likes to make empty rhetorical statements that don’t mean anything and are not debateable.
       —Jared Goldberg    Feb. 8 '06 - 03:32AM    #
  61. Jared:

    I’m tapping out.
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 8 '06 - 03:43AM    #
  62. Blaine,

    Are you pleased that Hamas is going to be running the show now?
       —John Q.    Feb. 8 '06 - 05:08AM    #
  63. The Israeli military, with you doing nothing to stop them, has been running the show since 1948.

    Do you blame the Warsaw Ghetto uprising for anything they said or did?

    I hope not.

    Do you blame slaves for trying to speak against, and even revolt against, slavery?

    I hope not.

    So…

    How dare you taunt Palestinians now, because you disapprove of the impossible choices they are forced to make every day, from 1948 until today?

    You do nothing to relieve the deadly pressure squeezing the last life out of Palestine now.

    Instead, you dare to laugh at occupied Palestine’s expense?

    If you choose to dance on the occupied population’s grave, I will not join you.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 8 '06 - 05:16AM    #
  64. Goldberg lowering the bar for ad hominem attacks…
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 8 '06 - 05:30AM    #
  65. I think that it’s about time to kill this thread, kids. It’s not going anywhere, and it never will.

    I have to admit, John Q, that I was somewhat interested in hearing what Blaine’s take was on the election of Hamas, but it’s pretty obvious that his brain can’t handle more complicated thoughts than “Israel bad”, or “Palestine no like fire”, kinda like Phil Hartman doing his finest Frankenstein impression.

    So, let’s move on. There’s nothing to see here.
       —todd    Feb. 8 '06 - 06:59AM    #
  66. Adam:

    Ad hominem attacks? Not really. I’ve answered some of Blaine’s “claims” for a long time now; he just chooses to ignore me. I can’t debate with someone who doesn’t listen.

    An ad hominem attack would be me saying, “Don’t listen to Blaine, he’s got bad breath,” or something just as dumb. What I said was, “Don’t bother arguing with Blaine, he can’t debate like a rational human being.” Not the same thing.

    Look, I gave my opinion for debate on the actual topic of this forum. Neither you nor Blaine even touched them. Blaine just went on his usual rant and you went off on your neo-globalist rant.

    Furthermore, who’s lowering the bar for ad hominem attacks? Both you and Blaine talk about Zionists as if they are a single, monolithic entity with no variance on opinion. Zionists are either/and racist apartheid Nazi freaks intent on taking over the world and subjugating every non-Jew on the planet.

    How do you argue with those points? How can you debate with someone if those are the starting positions? I’ve given up; and apparently so have many other people.

    I’m done on this forum. I won’t be commenting any further. Adam, Blaine, if either one of you have any sort of intelligent debate that you’d like to have, please, feel free to let me know. If you want to continue this drivel, I bid you adieu.
       —Jared Goldberg    Feb. 8 '06 - 07:20AM    #
  67. OK Jared, since the original subject was cartoons, let’s talk cartoons.

    Since the whole cartoon controversy immediately sparked my recall about the FBI planting cartoons in newspapers and other places to split and infuriate people and lower the general level of civility on issues, and since it’s obviously done the same thing on this thread, let’s transform the debate from one about me and Blaine and other anti-Zionists (who, believe it or not, don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues, as you can infer from my first posting on this thread), and into one about cartoons.

    Since I know we all do enjoy taking nasty stabs at one another, and since I’m saying we should be talking about cartoons, let’s combine these together, so we can hate each other and still talk about cartoons. (Lest I be misquoted again, I’m being sarcastic about trying to help us hate each other and just making a statement about the human condition struggling with itself.)

    I’m not a cartoonist, but aw, what the hell, I’ll give it a shot. I’ll draw a cartoon.

    You and Daniel and Peter and “Just a Voice” (probably Jason—the rhetoric is identical) like to tell me what I think. Telling me that I think “Zionists are either/and racist apartheid Nazi freaks” was rather hurtful to me, since I have a Jewish grandmother and many Jewish cousins whom I love and respect and don’t regard as any of the above despite their Zionist opinions. Partly because, they don’t go around telling other people how I think.

    Anyway, here’s my cartoon. My little revenge on those who distort my beliefs into something they can attack.


       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 8 '06 - 09:33AM    #
  68. To the Israeli soldiers, and their cheerleaders, on this thread:

    You are right:

    There were differences among Nazis too.
    But they were all killers.

    Yes, there are differences among Zionists.

    But they all put on that Israeli army uniform and commit genocide against the occupied people of Palestine.

    That’s why I believe every single Zionist is a racist killer.
    That’s why Zionists will not get me to discuss their racist pet priorities.

    I’m interested in freedom and democracy for Palestine, in its own land, from Haifa to al-Quds, to Ramallah.

    So yeah, I talk about freedom, and against your occupying Palestine’s land.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 8 '06 - 02:02PM    #
  69. Uri Dowbenko notes on Conspiracy planet today:

    You can blame it on our father Abraham, the progenitor of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

    Jews, Muslims and Christians take their religion very seriously.

    Anybody remember the Crusades?

    The latest flap in the global religious-culture wars concerns Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published 12 cartoons dissing the Prophet Mohammed, showing him with a bomb under his turban.

    Imagine if the New York Times published a cartoon questioning the actual number of Jewish holocaust survivors.

    “Was it one million? Two million? Shit, let’s round it off to 6 million.”

    Imagine if New York artist Andres Serrano, whose notorious photograph called “Piss Christ” (a photo of a crucifix submerged in Serrano’s urine) continued in this art-provocation mode and produced another photo called “Piss Talmud” which had a couple pages of the Talmud submerged in his artistically photographed urine.

    Serrano would never have a show in New York again.
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 8 '06 - 02:22PM    #
  70. I took down the cartoon I made for the moment as I’m not sure it’s kosher. I’ll repost it when I find out.
       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 8 '06 - 04:20PM    #
  71. to Daniel Adams,

    my post about seeing the issue as black and white was bout Blaine and Adam de Angeli, not you

    Look, Blaine just posted what he wants, the total end to the state of Israel, and I quote

    “I’m interested in freedom and democracy for Palestine, in its own land, from Haifa to al-Quds, to Ramallah.”

    I bet he doesn’t care how many more people die on either side to get there. But he’ll say he does, at least about the dead Palestinian, he might even admint to not caring how many Isreali/Jews die.
       —Just a Voice    Feb. 8 '06 - 06:25PM    #
  72. Zionists love to speak for you.

    No matter how many times you speak against slavery, some Zionist is always ready to assert that you REALLY WANT THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SOUTH!
    —————————-

    Again, I am just reminding you:

    * The slaves freed themselves, with no help from any white person.

    Whites, even 10 years earlier, could never imagine that “powerless” slaves could free themselves.

    But yes, the slaves freed themselves.
    ———————-

    * Israel’s slaves, Israel’s concentration camp inmates, the occupied people of Palestine, will free themselves.

    Believe it.

    You will believe it, if you touch a hair on the Palestinians’ heads, because you’ll be sitting in the Hague, awaiting trial for war crimes.

    I call that freedom.

    You see it only as the “destruction” of your racialist cowboy Disneyland.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 8 '06 - 06:41PM    #
  73. “Israel’s concentration camp inmates.”

    Not cool.
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 8 '06 - 08:41PM    #
  74. Blaine,

    the slaves freed themselves, you must tell us more, somehow that seems too simplistic to tell the story, oh sorry, thats right everthing to you needs to be simple or you won’t understand it.

    So, let me ask this, because I said that you are not willing to compromise that you can’t be a part of the peace plan (when you did call for destruction of the state of Israel), you come back with ‘zionist claim you want destruction of south when you speak out on slavery’. Ok, so what the fuck would you consider an acceptable solution? At least let us know what you really see the goal as, rather then coming at us with all the believe shit. Then we might have something to talk about.
       —Just a Voice    Feb. 8 '06 - 09:14PM    #
  75. Dan:

    Not cool, indeed.

    Except that Gaza, and much of the West Bank, have become fenced-off hunger camps, where Israeli troops murder Palestinians at will.

    Do you refuse to believe anyone but Israelis? Then how about this? – –
    “In 1969, the Israeli philosopher Yesayahu Leibovitz anticipated that in the areas of the occupation ‘concentration camps would be erected by the Israeli rulers… Israel would be a state that would not deserve to exist, and it will not be worthwhile to preserve it’. How far are we from Leibovitz prophecy in the fenced Gaza strip?”
    – Tanya Reinhart, Israeli professor and author, in her article “What Kind of State Deserves to Exist?”

    http://counterpunch.org/reinhart04222004.html

    **********************

    If you ever allow yourself to read anything written by a Muslim observer, how about this? –
    “With an electrified fence cordoning off all ‘autonomous’ areas, the ‘independent’ Palestine that the roadmap is supposed to lead to by 2005 couldn’t possibly be anything other than a glorified concentration camp. Perhaps not even glorified. And most likely a series of concentration camps.”
    – from “Roadmap To A Concentration Camp”

    By Mahir Ali
    May 11, 2003

    At ZNet:

    http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=53&ItemID=3604

    **************************

    I really don’t know what sources will convince you that some action (like divestment) is needed now.

    Maybe the World Bank, and the U.N. relief agency, and the BBC?

    “At the height of the intifada in 2002, the World Bank estimated that about three quarters of Palestinians in Gaza lived on less than $2 a day.

    “It quoted surveys suggesting that malnutrition levels matched those in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo….”

    ”...About 600,000 Palestinians in Gaza – close to half the population – receive emergency food aid from UNRWA, the UN body set up to cater for Palestinian refugees.

    “But the body has complained that Israeli restrictions have blocked distribution.”
    – From the BBC, on the Web at:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3725299.stm



    *************************
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 8 '06 - 09:15PM    #
  76. Blaine,

    Hello! Turn off the cut-and-paste and answer a question with your own words. What’s your ideal solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Specifics in your own words would be great.

    PS – Sorry todd, I couldn’t resist.
       —John Q.    Feb. 8 '06 - 09:23PM    #
  77. Again, since you ask again…

    My solution to slavery: end it.

    No matter how much money the “economy” and the slaveholders lose.

    End it.
    —————
    Ditto for the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, all of Palestine.

    End that occupation.

    No matter how much you may miss feeling free to shoot Palestinians, and feeling free to colonize their homes and fields.

    That means demobilizing every last Israeli soldier, and acting to immediately welcome every last Palestinian home from exile, to their land.

    With Bosnia, you were for that, right? Reverse that ethnic cleansing- right?

    Divestment will help speed that day for Palestine, too.

    Halt that ethnic cleansing.

    Simple.

    You would never believe this, but many, many Palestinians carry the key to their lost homes, even today.

    You may not like how Palestinians voted a generation or two ago (mostly for Communists).

    You may not like how Palestinians vote now (mostly for Hamas).

    But Palestinians have always voted for their freedom from racist occupation, from exile, and from slavery.

    They want what you want:
    freedom from apartheid, from racist oppression.

    Is that what you want?
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 8 '06 - 09:50PM    #
  78. GO HOME! DON’T YOUR MOTHERS FEED YOU?
       —js    Feb. 8 '06 - 10:09PM    #
  79. Blaine,

    Just so I’m clear, you want:
    – An end to the State of Israel including all of its military forces.
    – Right of return for all Palestinians and return of all of the land that was previously Palestinian-owned before 1948.
    – Divestment from the State of Israel (although not clear how that works if it no longer exists)

    Did I get that right?
       —John Q.    Feb. 8 '06 - 10:35PM    #
  80. You have not said one word about what is happening to the Palestinians, on their own land.

    You’ve given no indication whether you will lift a finger to stop the flow of U.S. arms and U.S. money which is destroying the occupied people of Palestine.

    Your tone is cold.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 8 '06 - 11:14PM    #
  81. Blaine,

    Stick to the points – did I accurately describe what you want or not? I’m not talking about the here and now, I want to know what you see as the solution and end goals of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. Is it too much to ask for you to put that in writing?
       —John Q.    Feb. 8 '06 - 11:41PM    #
  82. Blaine,

    End the slavery?? What slavery?

    I also want to know where you see the final borders??

    When did palestinians vote for communists, ‘many years ago’? The voted for Arafat a while ago, a man from Egypt, they were supposed to vote again 4 years later, but that never happened. They just voted recently, when was this “voted a generation or two ago” made up vote happen?

    Why didn’t Arafat simply declare statehood in 2001 (i think) or what ever date it was that they put in the PA charter that said they would declare a state by that date if they hadn’t already??
       —Just a Voice    Feb. 9 '06 - 12:35AM    #
  83. Again, not a word, from any of you anonymous inquisitors about that subject which dare not speak its name here:

    The Palestinians.

    Remember them?

    The ones getting in the way of those official borders you want so badly?

    I certainly can’t make you comment on what you are doing to 9 million Palestinians, on their own land.

    I can’t make you stop sending arms to kill 9 million Palestinians, a few thousand at a time.

    I can’t make you acknowledge that anything is even happening to the Palestinians.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 9 '06 - 12:48AM    #
  84. Blaine,

    You can’t seem to realize the existence of 5 million Jews right there on the same land that the Palestinians want.

    Ridiculous “get rid of the State of Israel” solutions don’t work because you’d replace the Palestinian refugees with Jewish ones. And that wouldn’t be very humane, would it?

    Both peoples will somehow have to live right to each other – there is no other way.

    Instead of advocating useless things like divestment, why not dedicate your tremendous typing power to advocating realistic two-state solutions?

    The conflict seems closer to a peaceful resolution and lasting two-state solution than it has EVER been. Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the occupied territories, as well as the acting PM’s declaration that Israel will give up most settlements outside the pre-1967 border, indicate that the Palestinians could very soon have a sovereign nation of their own. With the capital in Jerusalem, just like they’ve wanted.

    What could be better?
       —Suhael    Feb. 9 '06 - 01:04AM    #
  85. Suhael,

    Until I read it from your lips in the “Daily”, how can I believe you care, about the Palestinian refugees you have finally mentioned?

    I didn’t think I’d see you mention the Palestinian refugees at all.

    Real refugees, having the real life choked out of them by the Israeli army.

    I’m waiting for that very same comment, the one you just posted, to appear as your column in the “Daily”.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 9 '06 - 02:22AM    #
  86. The Israel/Palestine conflict will never appear in my column. Don’t hold your breath.

    I’ve been involved with the Daily long enough to know nothing original and intelligent can be written by students about the issue. Those who try end up saying something entirely unoriginal, something entirely absurd, or both.

    My previous post was entirely unoriginal. Millions of people think the exact same thing; every newspaper between here and Tel Aviv has probably printed some variant of the post.

    I’ll post an online comment about Israel/Palestine – I can post as many as I want, as often as I want.

    I get two columns a month. I’m saving them for something else.
       —Suhael    Feb. 9 '06 - 03:10AM    #
  87. You Zionist.
       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 9 '06 - 03:40AM    #
  88. Christ, what a shitty excuse for a discussion. Maybe this thread should be locked.
       —js    Feb. 9 '06 - 07:00AM    #
  89. Suhael,

    I can’t believe it.

    India gets lots of editorials in the “Daily”.

    Colombia gets lots of editorials in the “Daily”.

    The international Coca-Cola company gets lots of editorials in the “Daily”.

    Yet you say, when it comes to Palestine only…

    “I’ve been involved with the Daily long enough to know nothing original and intelligent can be written by students about the issue.”

    What??

    Silence at all costs on Palestine only?

    Why?

    Please explain.
       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 9 '06 - 12:43PM    #
  90. For one prominent and controversial cartoonist’s view, see Doonesbury: GBT’s FAQ’s :

    “Are you going to make a cartoon response to the plight of your fellow cartoonists in Denmark who are now in hiding, in fear for their lives? Will you be making any sort of public statement? – - Larry, Santa Rosa, CA
    This issue may or may not prove to be something GBT addresses in the strip itself, as he did when the fatwa was declared against Salman Rushdie. However, we’re happy to share with readers his recent comments to the San Francisco Chronicle:

    ...Why has the U.S. news media (broadcast and print), almost universally refused to publish the cartoons?

    I assume because they believe, correctly, it is unnecessarily inflammatory. It’s legal to run them, but is it wise? The Danish editor who started all this actually recruited cartoonists to draw offensive cartoons (some of those he invited declined). And why did he do it? To demonstrate that in a Western liberal society he could. Well, we already knew that. Some victory for freedom of expression. An editor who deliberately sets out to provoke or hurt people because he’s worried about “self-censorship” is not an editor I’d care to work for.

    Will you be including any images of the Prophet Muhammad in upcoming cartoons?

    No. Nor will I be using any imagery that mocks Jesus Christ.

    What do you think of the Joint Chiefs issuing a protest to The Washington Post over the cartoon of the U.S. soldier/amputee returning from Iraq?

    Well, it was a literal reading on their part. Toles wasn’t mocking wounded soldiers—he was just using a strong metaphor. I thought it was an effective cartoon, but the blowback was understandable, and I’m sure Tom was ready for it.

    Is there an echo?

    If you mean a personal echo, not really. I have 600 client editors, and I don’t for a moment expect them all on any given day to judge my work suitable for their wildly different audiences. We have editors for a reason. Just because a society has almost unlimited freedom of expression doesn’t mean we should ever stop thinking about its consequences in the real world. If The New York Times had commissioned a dozen vicious, anti-Semitic cartoons, would we be having a comparable debate? I don’t think so.”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 13 '06 - 12:01AM    #
  91. Blaine:

    What I am about to say, I say in final gesture of good faith.

    In Comment 7, I offered constructive criticism of your methods. Not of the things you say, but how you choose to say them.

    As can be readily seen from this thread, you responded at length to every single person who goes takes issue with you.

    Except me.

    You never had any response to my advice about engaging the attackers by re-framing the Israel-Palestine (or Jewish/Arab) conflict away from the racial and ethnic issue and toward a simpler question of criminal justice.

    You snubbed that issue.

    You talk about “breaking the silence” etc and that is great, but it is you who is as silent as can be toward criticism, even from friends.

    Surely you realize that the divestment cause is more trouble than it’s worth. I respect your ill-fated goal because I believe in idealism over pragmatism as a general rule. But this isn’t even idealism.

    You can’t expect public action until you have public opinion. Public opinion on Israel and Palestine is not where it needs to be for divestment to become reality. So, the goal, for the moment, is influencing public opinion. Yet all your statements serve to do is portray anti-Zionist thought as mean-spirited.

    Your usual “Well, if people would just speak up, they could drown me out” line isn’t working anymore, it’s just embarassing people into silence. Don’t think your patronizing letters persuaded SAFE to pursue divestment this year. If anything they did it despite your goading.

    You probably know that for years now, there has been a quiet discussion among the local anti-Zionist crowd that perhaps you are a Zionist plant, missioned to make the other anti-Zionists appear obnoxiously zealous by association.

    We agreed that it was probably just paranoia, since your principled stance against Israeli terrorism was fair and since we have learned to be patient with other people’s perspectives, and not to let paranoia dictate our beliefs.

    But now, my suspicions have returned. What have you done to support Palestinian freedom? Nothing, except make others feel guilty for not doing enough.

    And you make all supporters of Zionism, most of whom are ordinary people, feel defensive and probably more bitter for it.

    In trivial ways though they are, practically everything you do inures to Israel’s benefit. You attack the neutral and inspire them against us. You ignore good advice and continue your narrow-minded campaign to make others feel threatened for disagreeing with you.

    If you aren’t put up to this by Zionist interests, you’re the best friend Zionism could have. Your brutally honest talk about the occupation, to an audience of casual readers, only serves to dissuade them.

    Ben Ayer, an anti-war activist who has stood with you and me in demonstrations and supports an end to the occupation, personally asked me to stop publicizing the weekly synagogue protests because he says they do more harm than good and it makes even him feel uncomfortable.

    Ben Ayer attends synagogue, but he is NOT a Zionist stooge, he is a well-educated activist who lives by his principles. And yet he disagrees with your methods.

    It is important that you recognize that this criticism comes from friends, not from enemies. I will support a free Palestine and treason hearings for the neocons in the White House. That does not mean that I should be expected to stand with you in front of Beth Israel on Saturday mornings.

    I believe that the movement should be individualistic, that people should do as they feel. In that sense I support whatever you do to raise awareness about Israeli state terrorism. But your means have proven totally unhelpful, and if you refuse to even address honest criticism of those means, much less change your strategy, the suspicion that you are not who you say you are will grow.

    I implore you to provide a response to these concerns, explaining why you continue to use your rhetorical style in the face of so much advice to the contrary, or perhaps conceding that it is time to change tack. Don’t tell me that my voice could drown out yours; I put quite a lot of risk on The Planet saying what I say about Israel as it is.

    I am only asking you to evaluate your own behavior, and decide whether your ends justify your means.

    Free Palestine—


       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 13 '06 - 01:19PM    #
  92. Blaine:

    Adam is correct. I do not think that you answered his question: Whether the ends justify your means?

    Your response did point out the ends: Provoking debate on Palestinian issues. It did not, however, provide support for your methods.

    Let me frame it in a different way: I believe strongly that a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage is immoral. To provoke additional debate on the subject, suppose I do something violent – say, blow up a government building.

    Certainly such an act would provoke debate. But that doesn’t justify my actions, which were immoral and illegal.

    Moreover, extreme action provokes the wrong kind of debate. In your case, I would argue that the bulk of the discussions provoked by your behavior focus on you – not Palestine.

    Now, you can distinguish your actions from my analogy in that protesting outside a synagogue isn’t illegal. But that doesn’t mean that it is appropriate behavior or moral behavior.

    You could also point out that the plight of the Palestinians demands action that would otherwise be inappropriate. That may be true. But your behavior is not, at least in any direct way, connected to the plight of the Palestinians. Its an attempt to raise local awareness. I submit that the damage done to the community and to your reputation is too high a price to pay for awareness.


       —Daniel Adams    Feb. 13 '06 - 09:15PM    #
  93. Dan,
    I hope you continue to engage others in public discussion of what is being done to Palestine.

    I hope you feel the need to engage others in public, legal actions (like I try to do) to examine what is being done to Palestine.

    Your public marches, rallies, vigils, debates about divestment, may well be more effective than mine.

    I hope so.

    I hope you will show me how effective your “means” are.

    I assume your “means” would include vigiling outside non-synagogue locales, with signs in your hand that are calculated not to offend anyone.

    Imagine how such signs would look!

    If you go down that “appropriate” road, you will soon discover exactly what kind of vigils are seen as “appropriate” by the opinion-makers in ArborUpdate:

    * No vigils.

    You will also discover what kind of protest signs are considered appropriate by the opinion-makers of ArborUpdate:

    * No signs at all.

    Finally, you will land into the one kind of Palestine human rights activity which is considered “appropriate” in Ann Arbor:

    * Unpublicized, private “dialogue” sessions with Zionists, conducted according to the Zionists’ rules, and with no media coverage ever allowed.

    That is the “end” to which your “means” will lead you.

    That “end” has nothing in common with traditional civil rights activism.

    Can you imagine slaves being asked to find “common ground” with slaveowners?

    Can you imagine abolitionists taking pains to avoid offending slaveowners?

    Yet with Palestine “activism”, the accepted rules of the game are exactly as you describe them:

    Don’t offend the Zionists.

    Can you imagine power conceding any rights, ever, without a demand?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 13 '06 - 10:06PM    #
  94. There are a few things you can always count on in Ann Arbor: shitty weather, frat parties, and Blaine parading down the street in a sandwich board.

    Honestly, when are you going to give up your racist ideology? NO ONE IS LISTENING TO YOU.

    Oh, PS – I might be joining the IDF soon. I’ll tell all the Palestinians that I keep safe from Hamas gunfire and terroorism that idiots like you want me dead.


       —Brad    Feb. 13 '06 - 10:56PM    #
  95. Wait a minute.

    Are you saying that, for a Palestinian, to demand the right to return to THEIR HOME in Haifa, Palestine:

    You call that kind of normal human rights demand “racist”?

    ?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 13 '06 - 11:05PM    #
  96. Well, no Blaine. Not really. What I’m calling racist is your propensity for not allowing any pro-Jewish or pro-Israeli argument into a dialogue whatsoever. There are TWO partners in a dance. You only recognize one.

    Any other words for me before I suit up? My buddies are in Bethlehem right now. They tell me the Palestinian women there are scared for their lives because of Hamas. Should I protect them, or should I just forget about them because I’m an inhumane Zionist nazi killer?


       —Brad    Feb. 13 '06 - 11:14PM    #
  97. OK, good.

    I always knew it was a normal human rights demand, for Palestinians to have the right to return to their homes, in Haifa, in Tel Aviv, in every part of Palestine that they’ve been expelled from.

    Now more ArborUpdate readers know it, too.


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 13 '06 - 11:17PM    #
  98. Atta way to twist an arguement. Man, you sandwich board people just get better every day. While I don’t call that demand racist, I do call it unrealistic and one-sided.

    Just curious, Blaine – do you support the right of every Jew who has been expelled from every Arab land to reclaim their ancestral homes and property?

    How about Native Americans?


       —Brad    Feb. 13 '06 - 11:24PM    #
  99. Oh and BTW you never gave me advice on what to do when I don the IDF uni. Should I allow gay teenagers from Gaza to flee into Israel to avoid being killed, or keep them in Gaza?


       —Brad    Feb. 13 '06 - 11:29PM    #
  100. The armed forces of Spain, under Cortes, also believed they were liberating Mexico.

    But they ended up committing genocide, including cultural genocide.

    They destroyed perhaps 100,000 books by the Aztecs, Toltecs, Zapotecs, etc., leaving maybe a dozen untouched.

    Millions were killed.

    The Aztec, Zapotec, Toltec, and other great civilizations were destroyed, followed by the Maya civilization.

    Think of all those languages, almost completely wiped out forever.

    ******************

    Arabic, Aramaic, Farsi, and related civilizations are only made of flesh and blood.

    These civilizations are incredibly precious, and are more fragile every year, as they are invaded, looted, and starved.

    The Israeli and U.S. militaries are in the process of wiping those civilizations out.

    The Israeli military also has hundreds of nuclear weapons.

    The U.S. has thousands more.

    In case you didn’t hear me:

    I believe the Israeli government, and the U.S., are committing the same genocide against Palestine and against Iraq.

    Look at the U.N. definition of genocide, please.

    You do not want to be sitting in the Hague 10 years from now, on trial for war crimes.

    So be very careful:

    Do not touch one hair on the head of any Palestinian man, woman, or child.

    You have no right to invade their land, so please stay out of it unless you are invited.

    Please reconsider how you plan to spend your life.

    Please consider, with perhaps more respect, what Amnesty International says regarding what is happening to Palestine.

    As for Native Americans, read Vine Deloria Jr.

    You should see that the same process of genocide is happening to Palestine now, in a much shorter time period.


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 14 '06 - 12:08AM    #
  101. Brad: No one believes for a second that you will do anything to protect Palestinians wearing an IDF uniform.

    Thousands of Palestinian people have suffered serious physical and/or neurological injuries requiring long-term health care, after having been shot or bombed by the Israelis. But the Israelis have surrounded all Palestinian villages and blocked all exits, refusing to allow those with severe injuries to get medical help outside.

    That tiny minority of Palestinians in the militias and police forces who have guns have fought back, and many have died, while the others have only rocks to throw before they die, and a few, out of total despair, have become suicide bombers. They have two choices: live and die in freedom, or live for awhile as miserable slaves while being already dead inside.

    “Live free or die!” said the men and women of the American Revolution. They would have understood the Palestinian people. But what the Palestinians have gone through, for over half-a-century now, is a thousand times more brutal.

    Even so, I could never condone suicide attacks if they kill innocent civilian people. To murder innocent people is to lower oneself to the level of the Israelis. But I have no experience to compare with the level of hardship and suffering the Palestinian people are going through. We who live our sheltered lives in America have no idea. Unless we’ve been through something very similar, for as long a time, we can’t really fathom the depth and intensity of what the Palestinians feel.

    Imagine, what would you do if a viciously racist foreign military force assaulted your town and slaughtered your children, your brothers, sisters, mother, maybe your father, grandfather, or grandmother, your husband, wife or your best friend? What if you saw the soldiers laugh after they blew up your sister, making fun of her bloody, disfigured face? What if they raped your brother’s wife after murdering her husband or father because he tried to stop them? What if you had to bury your six-month-old baby because an Israeli bullet ripped through its tiny little fragile body? What if they beat and tortured you and your father and brother, and sneered insults at you as they urinated on you?

    All these things, and much more, the satanic Israelis have done. Again and again and again and again. For many decades, since long before you were born, if you’re a young Palestinian.

    Can you really imagine what you would feel like? Would you even be strong enough to stay sane? And what if these filthy devils got away with it year after year after year, and it looked like the whole stinking world didn’t give a damn whether you lived or died? And these invaders had tanks and helicopter gunships and F-16 jets, and you had nothing but rocks. And they’ll shoot you if you throw it. They’ll shoot you if you don’t throw it. They’ll shoot you when you’re standing by your window or your front door. They’ll shoot you when you walk outside to get food at the store, even after they say they’ve lifted their curfew which has kept you starving inside cramped little rooms for days on end with scores of other hungry, suffering people. If you see a tank when you go out for food you’ll have to run back and hide, because the dirty Israeli cowards in that tank will murder you for the crime of being a Palestinian human being.

    They’ll even shoot you when you’re sleeping in your bed. Firing right through the walls with heavy-gauge ammo. They’ve done it to many people already, even little children. It could be an Israeli sniper, or an Israeli tank round that comes ripping through the wall, or a missile from an Apache helicopter gunship that rips through the ceiling and explodes, splattering everyone, your loved ones, into bloody bits. And with so many of your friends and family dead and suffering unbearably, the only hope you have is to make the Israelis pay a little bit, make the devils taste just a little bit of the horror they’ve been inflicting on you and your whole nation for decades. All your life. All your life you’ve never known anything but vicious, murderous oppression by the filthy Israelis.

    You might become a suicide bomber too. And I might too.

    And yet it obviously does no good at all. Quite the opposite. Suicide bombings are exactly what Ariel Sharon wants. They provide the Zionist Wehrmacht with all the propaganda it could possibly hope for to escalate Israeli state terrorism. Ariel Sharon absolutely LOVES suicide bombers! They make his twisted little inhuman mind feel so smugly justified about his bloody lifetime of murdering innocent human beings. Worst of all, they practically do his “Greater Israel” work for him. If suicide bombers didn’t exist, Ariel Sharon would have to invent them.

    The fundamental military fact of life in Palestine is that the Israelis have absolutely all the high cards. It is tanks and Apache helicopter gunships vs. slingshots, literally, in many cases. A modern-day match between David and Goliath if ever there was one, and of course this time around, the Israelis are the brutish Goliath. (And may history repeat itself, right between the eyes.) But so far, Goliath is beating the hell out of David, and any Arab nation that would dare to rescue their Palestinian brothers and sisters would have to deal with the fact that Israel has three submarines armed with ballistic missiles that have nuclear warheads. On top of that, they’re backed up by The World’s Lone Remaining Superpower. Internationally, Israel is like a snotty little brat in the schoolyard who can push everybody around because he’s backed up by the biggest bully on the block.

    It’s about as unequal a contest as it could possibly be, and yet the Zionist-controlled mass-media always presents it as if it was almost even. Every Palestinian suicide attack simply hands helpful propaganda to the bogus “news” media, and hands the Israelis a blank check to butcher three times as many Palestinian men, women and children, to deport more innocent Palestinians, to arrest, imprison and torture hundreds more Palestinians, to bulldoze yet more Palestinian homes as old women cry in despair.

    Carnage makes Ariel happy. No matter whose blood it is, he wins either way. With every attack, the suicide bombers make his dream of “Greater Israel” a little closer to realization.

    But by far the most important thing is this: a suicide attack might kill somebody who is innocent. A precious little Jewish child is innocent, as is a precious little Palestinian child. Obviously many beautiful human beings of all ages and every culture in the Middle East are innocent. Murdering and crippling innocent people has been the trademark of the Israelis from the beginning. No good can come from lowering oneself to their level. As a nation, the Palestinians are much braver, they are psychologically stronger, more resilient, enduring and tougher by far than the steadily decaying Israelis. I think the Palestinians are capable of seizing the moral high ground too. If they did, they would enjoy a spiritual nourishment more powerful than all the evil weapons in the world.


       —Helmi Shawashe    Feb. 14 '06 - 12:19AM    #
  102. Can we please lock this thread? Anyone?

    Blaine and everyone else has had their chance to give their opinions on this subject ad nauseum. Enough is enough.


       —todd    Feb. 14 '06 - 12:37AM    #
  103. Ah no censorship my friend. (heh)

    The insults are getting a bit much, though.
       —David Boyle    Feb. 14 '06 - 12:59AM    #
  104. Censorship?

    Wait a minute, aren’t you the guy who started this thread, and wrote in the headline commentary:

    “In any case, we can (I hope) agree that a free press is good, but a free press with some taste and dignity is even better.”

    Let’s try following your lead, and leave these ‘tasteless’ posts well enough alone, eh?


       —todd    Feb. 14 '06 - 01:03AM    #
  105. OK,

    Then please let’s see your most “tasteful” comments supporting the human rights of Palestinians!

    I am sure that Todd believes in human rights.

    And I am sure he must believe Palestinians have some form of human rights on THEIR OWN LAND.

    So this is just the time for him to show me the right way to say so, with taste and breeding.

    Todd, please show me the right way to ask for disinvestment from Israel, due to its ongoing 58-year land grab in Palestine.


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 14 '06 - 01:12AM    #
  106. zionists call anti-zionists racist on this blog…

    anti-zionists call zionists racist on this blog…

    yet when bona fide, swastika flying nazis started posting on this blog not long ago, neither of them came to fight…

    in-trest-ing,
    ari p.


       —Ari P.    Feb. 14 '06 - 01:18AM    #
  107. Sigh.

    Post away, Blaine…...

    (sorry folks, I don’t know what the firetruck I was thinking)


       —todd    Feb. 14 '06 - 01:23AM    #
  108. Wait, Blaine, did you say something? I must have missed it. Also, answer my question re: Jewish lands in Arab countries. If you avoid it again, you’re a coward.

    And “Helmi,” was that a novel you were writing? I’ll call the publisher. Come talk to me in 6 months when the largely secular Palestinian society is subjected to Hamas’s reign. THEN they’ll know misfortune, and I think your tune will change and Palestinians will beg for the “oppression” of the Israeli government, where Palestinians are afforded more rights than they are anywhere in the Middle East. It seems as though you haven’t a clue.

    Also, thanks for writing about Sharon and the current situation. if you haven’t noticed, HE’S IN A FUCKING COMA.

    I am so happy people like this are pro-Palestinian activists. I wonder if they realize how ludicrous they sound.


       —Brad    Feb. 14 '06 - 01:34AM    #
  109. Well, todd, people should use good taste, true. I am just saying that maybe the whole thread need not be shut down.

    Stay safe in the IDF Brad if you do join. (I am not endorsing any IDF actions in particular—or in general—, I am just hoping for your personal safety.)
       —David Boyle    Feb. 14 '06 - 01:45AM    #
  110. Thanks Todd,

    But I’ve posted way too much.

    I want to hear what a real mensch like Ari has to say about what is happening to Palestine and Iraq.

    Since Ari was tough enough to be on ArborUpdate, as he says, when readers needed to stand up and be counted.

    OK, Ari,

    Do you think what’s been happening to Palestine (military occupation, mass murder and racial humiliation) and Iraq (military occupation, mass murder and racial humiliation) might have an itsy-bit to do with all this indignation over a cartoon?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 14 '06 - 01:54AM    #
  111. David –

    Thanks much for your wishes. It’s not 100% certain yet, but I’m working on it. I’ll try and stay out of harms way, but that’s probably not up to me. =)


       —Brad    Feb. 14 '06 - 02:01AM    #
  112. Now, I said I would refrain from commenting on this thread because of Blaine’s belligerence, but I have to get something off of my chest:

    Ari, I DO remember when the REAL Nazis invaded Arborupdate . . . and I definitely called them out on it.

    Not starting an argument, just clarifying my position.

    Also, very few people actually talked about the cartoons. I’m just wondering . . . what was everyone else’s opinion?


       —Jared Goldberg    Feb. 14 '06 - 10:07AM    #
  113. Jared-

    There was a great piece in last week’s edition of TIME, on the last page. Can’t recall the author, but in my opinion the guy was dead-on. He was pro-publishing the cartoons.


       —Brad    Feb. 14 '06 - 07:56PM    #
  114. Today: Italian minister puts Mohammad cartoon on T-shirts ,

    “Italy’s Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli has had T-shirts made emblazoned with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a move that could embarrass Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government.

    Calderoli, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, told Ansa news agency on Tuesday that the West had to stand up against Islamist extremists and offered to hand out T-shirts to anyone who wanted them.

    “I have had T-shirts made with the cartoons that have upset Islam and I will start wearing them today,” Ansa quoted Calderoli as saying.

    ...

    The Northern League, which is gearing up for an April general election, has leapt on the controversy to promote its own far-right political agenda.

    RELIGIOUS WAR

    The League has long led the charge against illegal immigration and its leaders say the cartoon violence shows the dangers of allowing Muslim immigrants to settle in Italy.

    ...

    “As for Berlusconi, seeing as he has compared himself to Jesus Christ, I would call on him to follow (Christ’s) example and think about evangelizing Christian values and not be evangelized by Islam,” Calderoli was quoted as saying.

    Berlusconi caused a storm at the weekend when he said: “I am the Jesus Christ of politics…I sacrifice myself for everyone.”

    Maintaining a steady stream of anti-foreigner invective, Calderoli earlier this month dismissed a Palestinian journalist on a television chat show, as: “that suntanned lady”. He also said he was delighted newcomers to Italy would not benefit from a government scheme to encourage people to have more children.

    “I am proud of the fact that the baby bonus will only go to Italian citizens. I say to all those Ali Babas that either Allah or their governments will have to think of them.”

    The League’s anti-immigrant stance has found a sympathetic audience in the wealthy north of Italy, where many third world immigrants have settled in recent years. ...”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 14 '06 - 09:16PM    #
  115. I found what a great blog post on the cartoons. Its a very long one, but worth the read;

    http://www.centerfeud.com/centerfeud/2006/02/the_cartoon_war.html#comments

    some of the important text;

    “First of all, there are the cartoons themselves, originally published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which commissioned them as an experiment in countering self-censorship when it came to depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Not all were offensive in nature, in fact most would not strike the average Western reader as anything more than mildly so. Some, like the much-referenced image of Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban made satirical points associating the Prophet with the worst of his violent adherents. But others were mere renderings of the Prophet with no other comment, and a couple of them poked fun at the paper itself for its “publicity stunt”. One was not even of the Prophet but of a student named “Mohammed” who jeered the paper’s editors as “a bunch of reactionary provocateurs”. If you haven’t seen the actual cartoons, you are in no position to judge for yourself.”

    “And extremists are the ones fanning the flames in the current controversy. When the cartoons first appeared last October, largely as a challenge to the extent of self-censorship in the media, they went relatively unnoticed and created little stir. They were even published in the Egyptian newspaper Al Fagr with nary a peep from the Islamic street, a fact that only recently came to light. Nothing else happened until January when all hell broke loose. What happened in the meantime? A group of Danish imams circulated the cartoons, adding three additional images that were highly offensive to Muslims (one showed a Muslim being raped by a dog, another purported to depict Mohammed wearing a pig snout). The intent was to incite Muslim rage against the cartoons, an effort that has by and large been effective.”

    “This underground campaign by Islamist groups went undetected for several months, during which time groups all over the Middle East apparently acquired quantities of Danish flags for the “spontaneous” angry mobs to burn in January for the cameras. The Islamists have repeatedly shown their sophistication in media manipulation in what many are pointing out is actually an information war.”

    “What about the charge that even if the cartoons were not really that offensive per se, the key issue is the reproduction of images of Mohammed, which is forbidden in Islam.”

    “it turns out that the ban on images of Mohammed in Islam is not absolute, at least in the historical sense. It’s true that in the present era Islam is strongly opposed to depictions of not just Mohammed but sees as idolatrous images of Jesus and other prophets. But that wasn’t always the case. You can find depictions of Mohammed in early Islamic art (search on “Mohammed image archive”) . In some cases, his face is blank or veiled, in other cases he is fully realized. In the current era, depictions of Mohammed can be found in many unexpected places, from the Supreme Court to South Park. That there has been no reaction in the Muslim world to these prior Western depictions of Mohammed are further indications that much of the furor is the result of a deliberate campaign of incitement.”


       —Just a Voice    Feb. 15 '06 - 12:12AM    #
  116. Why are you so obsessed with Muslims?

    Why are you so focused on painting Muslims as “extremist”, as “Islamist”, as just plain unreasonable?

    You do double somersaults to avoid addressing the victim:

    The victim is not some dumbbell editor in Denmark, who’s facing protests for flaunting his racism.

    The victim is Palestine, Iraq, large parts of the Muslim world, facing real Israeli/U.S./British occupation right this minute.

    You know Palestine, and especially Iraq, are currently suffering genocide.

    You know this.

    Yet that genocide counts for zero in your comments.

    Why?

    Why are you pushing readers to see foaming mobs of “extremists”?

    Why are you aiming your readers at pictures of Muslim demonstrators, and hiding that pile of 4,000 dead Palestinian bodies which are on every demonstrator’s mind and heart?

    Just don’t put on that Israeli army uniform, and don’t commit any war crimes.

    Do not put your sick views of Muslims into action.

    Put down that gun!

    And don’t flaunt your aim to join the most openly racist, openly genocidal army on Earth: the so-called “Israeli” army.

    Or else you will learn, first-hand, that you are not killing “extremists”.

    You will learn that you are not killing “Islamists”.

    You will be killing humanity, and you may very well land in front of the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague.


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 15 '06 - 12:37AM    #
  117. Must…ignore…idiocy


       —Brad    Feb. 15 '06 - 01:08AM    #
  118. I haven’t read the insults and controversy in this post. I’m just posting my simple-minded opinion. I think the cartoons (the pictures I saw) are bad. Bad in the artistic sense and…not clever at all. I think they are racist and while we have “freedom” to publish racist things, major newspapers shouldn’t. I think you can do a political cartoon without entering into the racist/religious territory. This cartoonist doesn’t seem to have the skill to do that. Or the taste. Or the imagination to do that.


       —Aljae    Feb. 15 '06 - 01:57AM    #
  119. The catch is the unanswered questions:

    -*HOW* could at least 7 papers across Europe, have independenly decided to run the cartoons precisely on Feb 1?

    -*WHO* benefits from this quarrel between Europe and Muslim countries?

    Chris Bollyn, of AFP:
    ” ‘Agents of certain persuasion’ are behind the egregious affront to Islam in order to provoke Muslims, Professor Mikael Rothstein of the University of Copenhagen told the BBC. The key ‘agent’ is Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of JP, who commissioned cartoonists to produce the blasphemous images and then published them in Denmark’s leading morning paper last September…

    “As the boycott damaged Danish business and a bomb scare closed the office of his newspaper, Rose continued to defend his decision to commission and publish the offensive cartoons. ‘We stand by the publication of these 12 cartoons,’ he said.

    “Asked if he would have done it knowing what the reaction would be, Rose said: ‘That is a hypothetical question. I would say that I do not regret having commissioned those cartoons and I think asking me that question is like asking a rape victim if she regrets wearing a short skirt Friday night at the discotheque.’

    “The dangerous ‘game’ that was started by the Danish editor has now been picked up by at least 7 newspapers across Europe. Supposedly in support of the Danes, papers in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland simultaneously reprinted the cartoons on February 1. The timing suggests that this response was coordinated by a hidden hand.

    “In Paris, for example, Arnaud Levy, editor-in-chief of the financially-strapped France-Soir, chose to print all 12 of the offensive cartoons. Asked if there had been coordination between European editors about the simultaneous publication of the cartoons, Levy said, “Absolutely not.”

    “The following day, Jacques Lefranc, managing editor of France-Soir, was fired by the paper’s owner Raymond Lakah, an Egyptian magnate, according to employees. Chief editor Levy, however, remained on the job…”

    [link ]

    Also from Paul Watson : [quoting from here out]

    ...Leading Russian MP Vladimir Zhirinovsky said that the riots were a manufactured psychological operation on the part of the US in an attempt to enlist hardened EU support for a military strike against Iran.

    As first highlighted by this website and others, more evidence has come to light that confirms fake and misleading caricatures were bundled in with the more tame cartoons that were printed in Danish newspapers. Muslims were misled into believing that all the images were printed in newspapers when they were not.

    World Net Daily reports,

    “One of three especially inflammatory but undocumented Muhammad images distributed by a Danish imam as an example of an “anti-Muslim environment” in the European country turns out to be a poorly reproduced copy of an Associated Press photo taken at a French pig-squealing contest.”


    “The weblog NeanderNews pointed out the image used by Imam Ahmad Abu Laban was a faxed copy of AP’s Aug. 15 photo of Jacques Barrot competing at the annual French Pig-Squealing Championships in Trie-sur-Baise.”

    Another two images which were erroneously added to the caricatures that were actually carried by the newspapers depict Muhammad as a pedophile demon and a dog raping a praying Muslim.

    Were the misleading images intended to add fuel to the fire? Many have pointed out that depictions of Muhammad appear universally throughout the world. A stone sculpture in the US depicting Muhammad has been in place since the 1930’s. An Australian newspaper piece lists depictions of Muhammad, both flattering and insulting that appear regularly in the West and beyond.

    “From Ottoman religious icons to market stalls in Iran, from the US Supreme Court building to the South Park cartoon, Mohammed has been frequently portrayed in flattering and unflattering lights.”

    Many painters, including William Blake, Gustave Dore, Auguste Rodin and Salvador Dali, have depicted Mohammed in illustrations of Dante’s Inferno, where the Muslim prophet ends up in hell with his entrails hanging out.”

    Why the outrage now? And why were more degrading images that were not even printed thrown into the mix?

    The US government is no stranger to using falsely attributed paraphernalia to fan the flames of racial tension. During the Vietnam era civil rights struggle, the FBI mass mailed coloring books that were attributed to the Black Panthers. The books portrayed white people as pigs and encouraged blacks to violently attack and kill them. Primarily mailed to white neighborhoods, the books had the effect of turning middle class sentiment against the black rights movement and leading to support of enhanced authoritarian crackdown.

    The feasibility of demonstrators in Gaza having immediate access to a plethora of pristine Danish flags as soon as the furore began has also been put under scrutiny.

    A CNN International news anchor reported that the United Nations had foreknowledge that protests in Beirut were going to erupt on Sunday.

    “ANTHONY MILLS, CNN INTERNATIONAL: My understanding is, as well, that UN sources were reporting this morning that this was going to be a chaotic day, if you will… Or, certainly they were reporting—they were suggesting—their workers shouldn’t go to work today.”

    So, indications in advance, I think, probably that something was going to happen here, that some form or sort of violent protest might erupt.”

    As we reported on Monday, images of Muslims with signs that read “freedom go to hell” and “Europe, take some lessons from from 9/11” are playing right into the hands of the Globalists by enabling them to hold up examples of how the Muslims are dangerous barbarians who wish to take away our liberties and need to be dealt with.

    Violent Muslim demonstrators should be aware that they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction by allowing the media to portray them as freedom hating, brutal and out of control. This ensures increased support for future wars that primarily target Muslim and Persian majority countries.

    The seemingly artificial origins of the protests betray the true agenda behind the very real chaos that we now see engulfing the Middle East and Europe.


       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 15 '06 - 02:49AM    #
  120. Blaine, to your response 118 –
    first off, who the hell are you talking to, oh thats right your self, i’m just too stupid not to respond. you ask “why are you so obsessed with mulims?”, gee 9-11, war in Iraq, Iran about to have nukes, rioting due to cartoons (the actual topic of this thread), oh, wait, I guess I can’t really think of any reasons.

    then you say “You know Palestine, and especially Iraq, are currently suffering genocide.” Now you just need to stop with all this dogmatic bullshit. Do you even know what the word genocide means? Look it up in the dictionary before you use a big word.

    The rest of the drivel I’m not going to respond to.

    Adam – your conspiracy theory make me laugh, your world view is really funny, god, what do you do all day, sit in your store and assume everyone who comes in is really a government agent out to get you??

    fuckin hell


       —Just a Voice    Feb. 15 '06 - 07:14PM    #
  121. Palestine is dying, at the hands of your government (Israeli or American; you can tell us which it is).

    Iraq is dying, at the hands of your government.

    How on Earth does the religion of your victims justify what you are doing to them?

    Will you unleash more cussing to support your obsession with Muslims?

    Will you tell us that 9 million Palestinians should be held responsible for the actions of 19 Saudis on 9-11?

    Do those 9 million Palestinians, plus over 20 million Iraqis, plus over 70 million Iranians, therefore deserve to die, in your book?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 15 '06 - 09:08PM    #
  122. Blaine, if you do not see an obvious moral or overall dilemma in supporting the Iranians in their position on ANYTHING these days, you need counseling.

    Oh, and did you want people to know that you were going to be talking about “Palestine” ? Just checking. I didn’t know why else you put that as your sign-off.

    To quote the infamous Ari P a few years back…you make me want to sew my foreskin back on.


       —Brad    Feb. 15 '06 - 09:27PM    #
  123. i’m glad my “foreskin” line is still living on…i rule…

    on another note, brad, do you believe holding the “iranians” responsible for the position of iran’s government??? it seems from your last post that you don’t seperate the innocent iranian people from their kooky leader…

    Bush hearts Ahmadinejad,
    ari p.


       —Ari P.    Feb. 15 '06 - 10:06PM    #
  124. You are trying to become a Gentile Ari? There are easier ways than…


       —David Boyle    Feb. 15 '06 - 10:12PM    #
  125. as I go back and look at this thread, I might just have to take the time to count how many times Blaine the Pain and Adam de ConspiracyTheory have repeated the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.

    Blaine to post 123;
    1-who said anything about religion justifiying whats hapenning
    2-we can all tell that you didn’t bother to look up the word genocide in the dictionary, I know I’m a bad speller, but there is something called spell check, so just type in genocide and if you spell it wrong the spell check will help you out. If you want to complain about the cost of owning a dictionary then try dictionary.com

    Ari, long live the foreskin


       —Just a Voice    Feb. 15 '06 - 11:34PM    #
  126. OK, since you asked.

    Here is the definition of genocide:

    http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/elements.htm

    You’ll see it applies perfectly to what “Israel” is doing to Palestine.

    It is genocide.

    You need to start recognizing that Palestine has been stolen from its rightful inhabitants and owners.

    Palestine is now drowning in blood.

    And you say nothing about that.

    Why am I answering an anonymous poster who cannot, will not, defend even the simplest human rights of Palestinians?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 15 '06 - 11:43PM    #
  127. Not to be petty, Blaine, but You’re putting Israel in quotes… are you implying the state of Israel does not exist? Or that Israel is not a real country? Or that Israel is a Zionist myth propogated by the media?

    ... or, do you simply not know how to use the quotes properly?


       —Suhael    Feb. 16 '06 - 12:21AM    #
  128. Ari-

    You and I may have differences, but that line has forever had me in stitches. I still crack up just thinking about the first time I read it.

    Anyhoo, to answer your question – no, I do not hold the “Iranians” plural responsible for the government’s actions, unlike those who hold that standard to ‘Israelis’. I suppose the rhetoric has gotten to me.


       —Brad    Feb. 16 '06 - 12:37AM    #
  129. Suhael,

    Now I see why the “Daily” has stopped printing columns on divestment or even on Palestine in general.

    You and your fellow editors slammed that door shut, and welded it tightly.

    I’ll believe you care about Palestinians when you actually discuss Palestine in the “Daily”.

    Palestine, home to millions of recently expelled Palestinians, is just plain Palestine.

    Don’t you give a hoot about what’s been happening to those millions of refugees?

    Or do they all just look like interchangeable Arabs to you, who should be stuffed into any Mideast storage space that “Israel” finds convenient?

    Why do you dwell on semantics, and ignore millions of occupied, exiled, suffering Palestinian refugees?

    Palestine cannot be “Israel” no matter how many masscares Israel commits to keep that name.

    Is India “The British Raj”?

    Is India the “jewel in the crown” of Queen Victoria?

    No.

    India belongs to none but the people of India, no matter how many hundreds Britain massacred at Amritsar.

    The Israeli rulers resemble no one so closely as General Reginal Dyer, the British Commander of the Amritsar Massacre of 1919.

    If you want to understand Palestine, and its places of forced exile like Sabra and Shatila, then read up on the massacre at Amritsar:

    50 British soldiers were ordered to fire into a peaceful gathering, in India.

    Until their ammo ran out, the British killed hundreds of civilians.

    General Dyer, sounding like Israeli General Eitan, argued that he had to massacre Indians to produce a ‘moral and widespread effect,’ and he admitted that the firing would have continued if only he’d had more ammunition.

    And you ask why don’t I accord “Israel” the respect of recognizing its bloody and stolen boundaries.

    Read about Amritsar, if you want to understand what Palestine has been going through.

    Who calls India “British” now?

    No one.

    Who will call Palestine anything but Palestine, in the future?

    No one but nostalgic Israeli war criminals, passing the time in their prison cells at the Hague.


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 16 '06 - 01:19AM    #
  130. Blaine, again the book your looking for is called a dictionary, spelt D-I-C-T-I-O-N-A-R-Y. Now, while I prefer the OED, here it is from dictionary.com;

    Genocide: The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.

    Ok, so lets look at what you wrote;
    “You’ll see it applies perfectly to what “Israel” is doing to Palestine.” and in the past you included Iraq too.

    so, if we (USA) are trying to cause a genocide in Iraq, then why are we trying to encourage them to vote and build a democracy?. Why didn’t we just bomb all of Bagdad and kill everyone? Because we are not trying to cause a genocide.

    Now, as to Israel, while we some may have different opinions as to how they go about doing things, they have yet to engage in any activity that can be interpreted as genocide. If they had there wouldn’t be 6million Palestinians.

    Now what you have done is gone and used the ICC as your place to look for a definition. But look what the page you linked to says “the act; genocide by killing” then conduct “1. The perpetrator killed one or more persons.” Wow, so according to your source, killing one person may be genocide. Hmmm, looks like you’re not the only person to forget how to use a dictionary.

    Now, you say that I need to recognize that Palestine has been stolen from its rightful inhabitants and owners. Do you know anything about history? Palestine only existed as a colonial territory. First under the Romans, who named it such after the ancient philistines who have no relation to the Arabs. Second, under the British, named after the earlier roman name. But that’s just for starters. The Arab population of the British protectorate of Palestine grew dramatically from around the turn of the century. As new ports were built and the economy started to grow, lots of Arabs moved there because there were jobs. Yet you think those people, the vast majority who had just moved there are the rightful inhabitants and owners. And then don’t forget to ask why there weren’t Jew land owners, the answer is because Muslim controlled areas don’t allow non-Muslims to own land.

    So when you talk about someone still carrying around the key to a house that his grandfather lived in before 48/67, if that grandfather had just come to the area and rented the home, does that make him the rightful inhabitant and owner of that land? Say he had only been living there for 5 years, moved there in 43??

    Now, why are you so upset that I’m anonymous? Your are equally anonymous to me. But that’s OK, its much easier to throw out a red-herring like ‘he’s anonymous’ then deal with what I say.

    Now suhael brings up a good point about the Israel in quotes thing. Can you just admit that you want to see the destruction of the state of Israel. That is certainly part of your problem, you won’t accept a two state solution because that is not kosher for you.

    Ps- you have still not dealt with a comment I made much earlier about why the definition of refugee is different for Palestinians then the rest of the world. Do you even know what that difference is?

    someone stop me, I can’t help responded to these idiots. I’m sorry to everyone for keeping this thread alive.


       —Just a Voice    Feb. 16 '06 - 01:36AM    #
  131. Do you care at all about what is happening to the actual Palestinians you keep shuffling out of sight?

    Can you say one word about Palestinians themselves, and what they are suffering right now?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 16 '06 - 01:42AM    #
  132. What about what the muslims have done to the hindus in kashmir, since you are bringing up india. I’d like to see how muslims are the victims there when they forced out the entire hindu population through terrorism.


       —Mark    Feb. 16 '06 - 01:54AM    #
  133. Iranians turn on Danish pastries in cartoon row ,

    “Not content with pelting European embassies with petrol bombs to protest against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, Iranians have decided to rename the “Danish pastries” relished by this nation of cake lovers.

    From now on, the sweet, flaky pastries which dominate the shelves in Iran’s cake shops will be known as “Roses of the Prophet Mohammad,” the official IRNA news agency reported as pressure on Denmark over the cartoons took on a new dimension.

    “No one is allowed to make fun of our beloved and respected Prophet,” Hassan Nasserzadeh, a cake-shop owner in central Tehran, told Reuters.

    ...

    The Iranian move had echoes of the verbal food fight set off by restaurants in the U.S. House of Representatives which renamed “French fries” and “French toast” as “Freedom fries” and “Freedom toast” after France refused to back the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 16 '06 - 01:57AM    #
  134. So Mark,

    As long as you can find a Kashmiri atrocity, you use that to justify the enslavement of Palestine, the incineration of Baghdad, the aerial bombardment of Iran?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 16 '06 - 02:02AM    #
  135. I wanted to make the point that you tend to conveniently forget the chaos muslims have created in this world in the name of muhammed. Sure other people have fucked them over, but you make it as though they’re a peace loving religion that got sideswiped by these cartoons.


       —Mark    Feb. 16 '06 - 02:09AM    #
  136. I really don’t like being harsh. And I hate ad-hominems.

    But Blaine, you really make all of us drop IQ points with each of your posts. Please, for the love of g-d, shut up.


       —Brad    Feb. 16 '06 - 02:10AM    #
  137. Mark is uttering words that can never, should never, be uttered against any religious group:

    “the chaos muslims have created in this world”

    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Is there no one who will explain to him that the enslavement of Palestine stands on its own, as a racist abomination, regardless of his sick views of Muslims?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 16 '06 - 02:25AM    #
  138. Getting back to the subject of this thread, here’s Tomorrow’s take:

    As for the “ConspiracyTheory” (127)attachment, let’s hear your explanation for why 7 unrelated major European newspapers all ran that cartoon the same day.

    Just a stroke of luck?

    7 newspapers?
    12 cartoons?
    1 day? All the editors say, “hey, let’s run that series of twelve cartoons that are obviously offensive to Muslims, that series that the Jyllands-Posten paper did last month! Putting 12 of them together will make it a real bitch-slap!”

    Stroke of luck, or…


       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 16 '06 - 03:44AM    #
  139. Just a Voice: You really have to get out of this thread. Otherwise the morons will eat your brain. I know you’re a decent guy, but they’re fucking retarded and won’t stop until you’re down there with them, like some sort of Internet Romero flick. Bail now.
    This goes for [most] of the rest of you too.


       —js    Feb. 16 '06 - 10:42AM    #
  140. Yes, but does it go for the Palsetinian zombies, whose inalienable rights to haunt the lands stolen from them by the Zionists and their mainstream media stooges who ground them like dried peppercorns in a caesar salad of profiteering and death and terror in concentration camps personally overseen by Ariel Goebbels racist mass-murdering genocidal horde violently lurching arms akimbo screaming BRAIIIINZZZZZ while wreaking flesh ripping havoc and horrifying misery on the do I even have to say it Palsetinians????


       —-Bliane. (Palsetine)    Feb. 16 '06 - 05:16PM    #
  141. thanks js, your so right! Please, slap me harder, I just have so much trouble not responding to their lies and misleading information. Please keep slapping me if I keep responding.


       —Just a Voice    Feb. 17 '06 - 01:13AM    #
  142. Is it “misleading” to say Israel has just executed another 4,000 Palestinians, in Palestine, without trial, just since September 2000?

    Is it “misleading” to say Israel has no right to execute anybody in land that Israel has stolen?

    Why?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 17 '06 - 01:34AM    #
  143. Blaine,

    yes, just about everything you say is misleading. For starters, you say that the number dead is 4000, while I have two palestinian sites that say 3800, so yes that is misleading

    http://www.palestinercs.org/crisistables/table_of_figures.htm

    and

    http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/deaths.html

    second, it doesn’t talk about how many of those palestinians may have died from terrrorist activity (like all the palestinans killed at checkpoints when one of thier ‘brothers’ blew themselves up), how many were suicide bombers?

    Yup, that would be misleading.

    Second, if I do listen to your words, then by definition all those killings were lawful, as the definition of execute is;

    To put to death, especially by carrying out a lawful sentence. – again dictionary.com

    finally, what about the dead Isrealis, or is that OK cause you don’t see any value in the life of a jew, or is it ok because less jews have died? does that make it ok, are jewish lives worth less?

    JS – please stop me, I think I might need to get professional help, at least intenet slap me around few times


       — —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 17 '06 - 03:14AM    #
  144. Please remove Just-a-Voice’s fake signature of “Blaine (Palestine)” at the end of his message.

    It is not my message.

    It is also not the best way to have a debate:

    Where he essentially debates himself, signing my name to his message.


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 17 '06 - 03:28AM    #
  145. To answer Just-a-Voice:

    Israel has no authority to steal Palestinian land and then conduct “raids” on it, to conduct “arrests” on it, and to conduct “targeted” assasinations on it.

    The land is Palestine, and doesn’t belong to any thieves or invaders in Israeli military uniforms.

    Isn’t that pretty obvious?


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 17 '06 - 03:32AM    #
  146. No removals planned, I think we all know the “imitators” are not you. But imitation is the sincerest form of flat…

    We’re up to 150 comments! “Party time!!!”
       —David Boyle    Feb. 17 '06 - 04:32AM    #
  147. d.bo,

    the first kiblawi threat went well over 200…i’m saving the champagne for when t.j. enters the ring…

    there is no sex in the au thread,
    ari p.


       —Ari P.    Feb. 17 '06 - 05:10AM    #
  148. No sex? What?


       —David Boyle    Feb. 17 '06 - 05:17AM    #
  149. allustion to champange room…

    by the way…shameless self promotion, but on this topic:

    http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2097/The_Zionist_Evangelical_Alliance

    herka,
    ari p.


       —Ari P.    Feb. 17 '06 - 05:23AM    #
  150. Nice article. Luv the fella who sez “Evangelicals are more for Israel than we are.” (But how many Christian evangelicals join the IDF and put their lives on the line for Eretz Yisroel?)

    ...Wha’s herka mean?
       —David Boyle    Feb. 17 '06 - 05:36AM    #
  151. it is a word the derives from the marriage of “hooked up” and “eureka”...

    lexiconically yours,
    ari p.


       —Ari P.    Feb. 17 '06 - 07:00AM    #
  152. Arika! (klunk)


       —David Boyle    Feb. 17 '06 - 07:15AM    #
  153. Since J.V. (J.P.) accidentally sent a comment with the wrong signature (Blaine’s), that pretty much proves who’s making an honest point (the one who isn’t stooging as his own opposite).

    As for the other comments… well, nevermind. No sense wasting my fingers typing anything. Enjoy the apocalypse, everybody.

    Great job spreading propaganda for war with Iran. I hope you know what you’re doing . Iran is not as weak as Iraq was, and our forces are doing poorly enough in Iraq. Attacking Iran right as our economic house-of-cards crumbles is not smart.

    You are citizens of the USA, right? You know our President was never properly elected? You know the Bush regime ignores the Constitution, right? Can’t you see our country has been taken over be criminals? The kind that lie to start wars?

    This entire thread is evidence that the people running this site are as biased as can be toward the criminal policies of the Bush regime. And posing as “liberals,” no less.

    I’m getting outa here. You people are insane.


       —Adam de Angeli    Feb. 17 '06 - 02:09PM    #
  154. What about an ignore function. I just read Ari’s article over at GNN and one of the commenters posted the idea of putting in an ignore funtion. We could choose to ignore certain posters (and they can choose to ignore us).

    Blaine, you won’t believe me, but I didn’t do the first ‘fake signature’ of yours, I did the second one because I was tickled at how much the first one annoyed you.


       —Just a Voice    Feb. 17 '06 - 08:05PM    #
  155. now, adam, i’m counting on you to stfu henceforth lest you expose yourself as a LIAR.

    (don’t let the door hit you in the ass.)


       —peter honeyman    Feb. 18 '06 - 02:25AM    #
  156. Good article, Ari.


       —Jared Goldberg    Feb. 18 '06 - 04:43AM    #
  157. Today’s 16 die in cartoon protests in Nigeria: Italian minister resigns; his T-shirt blamed for inciting riot ,

    “Sixteen people were killed and 11 churches were burned Saturday in Nigeria as part of the continuing violence over cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

    The violence comes a day after at least 10 people were killed in Libya and another in Pakistan, where five deaths have been reported this week.

    ...Maiduguri bore the brunt of Saturday’s violence. Fifteen people were killed, 11 churches were burned and 115 people were arrested there, a national police spokesman said. There also were reports of attacks on businesses owned by Christians.

    In Katsina, one person was killed, two police officers were injured and 25 were arrested, a police spokesman said.

    ... Protesters torched the Italian consulate in the port city of Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city.

    “It was peaceful, then it became violent,” said Francesco Trupiano, Italy’s ambassador to Libya.

    Though Trupiano speculated that the consulate was targeted because it was the only Western consulate in Benghazi, many of the protesters said they were angry because Italian Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli recently flaunted a T-shirt displaying one of the controversial cartoons on Italian state TV this week.

    Calderoli stepped down from his post Saturday under mounting pressure, including from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who asked him to resign.

    ...An angry but peaceful protest in the British capital Saturday drew more than 15,000 people to Trafalgar Square. They prayed before marching through Hyde Park. Many carried placards. ...

    “Europe lacks respect for others,” stated one placard. “Don’t they teach manners in Denmark?” asked another.

    There were no arrests or reports of violence[.]

    Taji Mustafa, a spokesman for the Muslim Action Committee, said the protests are sparked by the Muslim people’s reverence for the prophet.

    “So when he is demonized, the young and old are deeply affected,” Mustafa said. “As long as the abuse is ongoing we will continue to rise up in protest.”

    The general anger over the cartoons was stoked when several newspapers reprinted the cartoons and by Calderoli revealing the T-shirt on television, he said.

    Mustafa added that the cartoons were reminiscent of attacks on Jews in European publications in the 1930s.

    “Now there is a demonization of the Muslim community, so we have to speak up to prevent something like the Holocaust from happening,” he said.”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 19 '06 - 04:58AM    #
  158. Now who would benefit from a conflict between Europeans and Muslims?


       —Just A Voice    Feb. 20 '06 - 05:28AM    #
  159. What are you saying? ...


       —David Boyle    Feb. 20 '06 - 06:12AM    #
  160. Post 162 is not by me, I guess thats karma for you, what I get for doing that to Blaine. I guess either Adam or Blaine really wanted to keep this thread going.


       —Just a Voice    Feb. 20 '06 - 07:45PM    #
  161. Just-a-Voice,

    No, I feel like I’ve expressed myself pretty completely here.

    I’m trying not to post.

    It would be nice to give others a chance.

    I wouldn’t sign any name but mine, although, like you, there was a time when I tried to post anonymously. I got lots of abuse for that, so I stopped.

    That’s why I don’t get on your case too much for signing anonymously.

    Of course, when you start signing other people’s names, it gets hard to tell what is going on!


       —-Blaine. (Palestine)    Feb. 21 '06 - 02:16AM    #
  162. If only I would just sign my real name, this would be cleared up. But I cannot because I have something to hide.

    Technically anybody can use this handle, since we are all just one voice apiece.

    But, then again, only someone who has pre-existing media connections would feel any need to use a pseudonym to express how s/he really feels.


       —Just A Voice    Feb. 21 '06 - 12:56PM    #
  163. “Georgetown hosts conference”
    by Iris Somberg
    GW HATCHET

    February 21, 2006

    http://www.gwhatchet.com/media/paper332/news/2006/02/21/News/Georgetown.Hosts.Conference-1621053.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.gwhatchet.com&page=1

    Georgetown Students for Justice in Palestine hosted the fifth annual Palestine Solidarity Movement Conference this past weekend, drawing about 600 people from across the country to the school’s campus.

    Contributing members and organizations support the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, obtaining equality under the law for Palestinians living in Israel and gaining the right of return for Palestinian refugees. They also oppose all forms of oppression and use divestment as their tactic of resistance.

    Georgetown University officials have taken criticism for hosting the conference, which has been previously held at Duke University, the University of Michigan, Ohio State University and the University of California at Berkeley.

    “Georgetown prizes its commitment to allowing for the free and open exchange of ideas, even ideas that may be difficult or objectionable to some. As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, Georgetown University has a longstanding speech and expression policy that governs the University’s response to controversial speech,” read a news statement from Georgetown’s Communications Office.

    The conference, which organizers said is the largest North American coalition of its kind, held this year’s event to bring awareness to divestment activities and developing existing Palestine solidarity organizations.

    “I look forward to the day when Israeli apartheid will be history too,” said Sue Blackwell, a speaker from the University of Birmingham in Britain, who led a boycott of Israeli academic institutions last spring.

    Divestment is considered by the Palestine Solidarity Movement to be a peaceful political tool used to pressure the withdrawal of investments in Israel. Another goal of the conference was “to teach skills from how to write (opinion articles), resolutions and how to advocate on campus,” said Nadeem Muaddi, a spokesperson for the Palestine Solidarity Movement.

    “We have done a poor job in training new activists on college campuses, which we can hopefully change through this conference,” said Noura Erekat, a national grassroots organizer and legal advocate for the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, who attended the conference.

    Security was a concern at this conference; Georgetown officials did not release their security plans until days before the conference. Campus police were present at a security checkpoint that participants had to clear before entering the building. A rabbi from the West Bank was escorted out of the panel discussion on Saturday after his exchange with the panelists about Jewish assimilation.

    Opposition to the conference, however, is also found on college campuses across the nation, including GW.

    “People should be aware that the innocuous-sounding ‘divestment’ is really masking some truly vile ‘speech.’ Speech such as a refusal to condemn the disgusting terrorist violence perpetrated against Israel and refusal of the state’s right to even exist,” said Laura Graham, public affairs director for the GW chapter of Student Alliance for Israel.

    The GW chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine officially endorsed the conference, and some members attended the event over the weekend.

    “The purpose of the conference is to mobilize student organizations in their efforts to demand their universities’ divestment from Israel … divestment from Israel is crucial to forcing it to comply with international law (and) end its brutal policies of apartheid against the Palestinian people,” said Leila Taha, president of the GW chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

    The weekend conference included roundtable discussions focusing not only on divestment and activism but also on the use of the media and networking techniques.

    – END OF ARTICLE –

    ******************************

    “PSM: March 30th Declared National Day of Divestment Action”

    February 20, 2006

    http://www.kabobfest.blogspot.com/

    While Saturday was geared towards discussions and workshops on the benefits and necessity of campaigning for divestment from Israel on the campus and community level, Sunday focused on working towards launching and continuing existent campaigns. The PSM announced March 30th as a national day of divestment action. March 30, 2006 will mark the 30 year anniversary of Yom al-Ard (Land Day). On this date in 1976, 7 defenseless Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed in Arrabeh and Sakhnin while the Israeli government expropriated their land. Annually, Palestinians demonstrate on this day in commemoration and recognition of the theft of their land.

    Sunday began with a panel on “Carrying the Movement Forward.” Omar Barghouti, prominent in the call for BDS by Palestinian civil society, brought this call forward from Palestinians to the solidarity activists in attendance at the conference. He emphasized the apartheid nature of the Jewish state. Mohammed Abed concluded the panel by stressing the importance of BDS in solidarity work, and provided the audience with strategies.

    Following the opening panel, attendees broke out into working groups. These were divided by type of BDS campaign (campus or community) and level (initiate or rejuvenate). In these groups, activists were provided training and strategies for their local campaign.

    The conference concluded with an open forum, where dozens of groups committed to divestment actions on March 30th. Activists spoke out on what action their group would undertake on this national day of divestment action. Sue Blackwell, of the academic boycott group in England, expressed that she would take this call for action to England, and Omar Barghouti put forth the idea of linking this with students in Palestinian universities.

    posted by Fadi at 4:56 PM
    9 comments links to this post

    *******************************************


       —Divestment Conference News:    Feb. 21 '06 - 11:44PM    #
  164. Suhael Momin’s Not as free as we think in today’s Daily,

    ”...for all practical purposes, Western society doesn’t actually place freedom of speech upon an altar. We think we do – that is, we believe that we believe in freedom of speech – but when push comes to shove, freedom of speech is not an end-all, be-all value.

    Western governments impose speech restrictions and criticize the free press routinely. You can’t deny the Holocaust in some European countries. Almost every year, Congress considers a Constitutional amendment to criminalize flag burning. President Bush and Vice President Cheney routinely lash out at the media for publishing confidential information; the administration pressured The New York Times to cancel its story on the domestic surveillance program for more than a year.

    ...But it’s pure hypocrisy to lecture the Muslim world on the integral role of free speech in our society. If an American newspaper published an equally inflammatory cartoon defaming Christianity, there’d be an outpouring of rage. Maybe not violent rage, but rage – conservative groups worked themselves into a tizzy last year because SpongeBob SquarePants might be gay.

    Just imagine if The Washington Post ran a cartoon of Moses killing a Muslim child, or if The New York Times ran one of Jesus bombing an abortion clinic.

    How large would the ‘it’s freedom of the press’ crowd be?”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 22 '06 - 05:52AM    #
  165. Should have posted this before, but Group leads discussion on cartoons: Muslim Students’ Association hosts dialogue, film about Prophet Muhammad in the 2/20 Daily,

    “Turning the focus onto education and understanding and away from ink sketches, the Muslim Students’ Association hosted an overflowing crowd at a dialogue and viewing of a film on the role of the Prophet Muhammad in Islam, at the Michigan Union Friday night.

    The event, “Not in the Name of Our Prophet,” was an effort to educate the community about exactly why the recent Danish cartoons negatively depicting the prophet were so offensive to Muslims around the world.

    ...Chris Blauvelt, the group’s president, said the cartoons make it seem like all Muslims are violent jihadists.

    If an imam, an Islamic teacher and spiritual leader, were depicted instead, Blauvelt said the reaction would have been different because the cartoons would be criticizing a particular group of Muslims at a particular time.

    Even though most Muslims are uncomfortable with any depiction of the prophet, even if it is positive, Blauvelt said depicting the prophet was not the main offense in the controversy. Images of Muhammad are seen in Islamic art from different periods and a bas relief of the prophet also appears in the U.S. Supreme Court along with other influential leaders.

    Islamic scholar Yusuf Abdullah said mobs of rioting Muslims in a number of countries feel the prophet and in turn the religion have been disrespected. As both a spiritual and political leader, Muhammad is a central example of the principles of Islam, Abdullah said at the event.
    \Organizers, however, made it clear that Islamic leaders have condemned the mob violence surrounding the cartoons’ publications.

    ...Muslim organizers…did not clearly respond to why criticizing prophets was not protected by free speech, except to say that the prophet embodied the entire religion.

    ...Response to the event, was strong with about 150 people crowding the Pond Room of the Union to watch the documentary and participate in the discussion. Leading up the event the group even held back on publicity efforts once organizers realized the room would not be able to accommodate the interest, Blauvelt said. ...”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 23 '06 - 02:58AM    #
  166. German court convicts man for insulting Islam ,

    “DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) – A German court on Thursday convicted a businessman of insulting Islam by printing the word “Koran” on toilet paper and offering it to mosques.

    The 61-year-old man, identified only as Manfred van H., was given a one-year jail sentence, suspended for five years, and ordered to complete 300 hours of community service, a district court in the western German town of Luedinghausen ruled.

    ...Manfred van H. printed out sheets of toilet paper bearing the word “Koran” shortly after a group of Muslims carried out a series of bomb attacks in London in July 2005. He sent the paper to German television stations, magazines and some 15 mosques.

    Prosecutors said that in an accompanying letter Manfred van H. called Islam’s holy book a “cookbook for terrorists.”

    He also offered his toilet paper for sale on the Internet at a price of 4 euros ($4.76) per roll, saying the proceeds would go toward a “memorial to all the victims of Islamic terrorism.”

    The maximum sentence for insulting religious beliefs under the German criminal code is three years in prison.”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 24 '06 - 02:31AM    #
  167. Michigan Review ed-in-chief James David Dickson has a piece currently on National Review Online , saying why MR won’t publish the Muhammad cartoons.

    Wise choice JDD.
       —David Boyle    Feb. 24 '06 - 05:34AM    #
  168. Washington Post, Sectarian Attacks Spreading in Nigeria ,

    “Sectarian violence spread to three more Nigerian cities Friday, claiming at least seven lives and pushing up the death toll in days of killings to at least 127, residents and witnesses said.

    Muslim youths in Potiskum, armed with machetes and clubs attacked shops belonging mostly to Christians and burned five churches, resident Ibrahim Dagbugur said. Four people were killed. Riot police battled for hours before they could bring the violence under control, other residents said.

    ...The violence followed weekend protests over the publication in Europe of controversial cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad that have enraged Muslims worldwide.

    ...In the mainly Christian southeastern city of Enugu, at least one person was killed by mobs that attacked ethnic Hausa Muslims, witnesses said. ...”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 26 '06 - 01:48AM    #
  169. Online newspaper run by MSU instructor, students publishes controversial Danish cartoons: Muslim leader objects, says free speech is not the issue ,

    “Today, an online newspaper with links to Michigan State University’s journalism program became the first news outlet in the state to publish controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

    The online publication drew immediate complaints from local Muslims and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Dawud Walid, Michigan director for the group.

    Calling the cartoons offensive and the decision to post four of them in an online newspaper needlessly provocative, Walid said, “We want the cartoons taken down immediately.

    “There is a very large Muslim student population at MSU,” he said. “You would think that a student newspaper would be sensitive to their own student body.”

    However, Bonnie Bucqueroux, an MSU journalism instructor who pays for the online publication, called SpartanEdge, said she believes there’s a big difference between printed newspapers and news publications online.

    “What we are doing is very different than a newspaper printing them, because if you open the pages of a newspaper, you’re going to see the cartoons,” Bucqueroux said. “It’s different than a TV station broadcasting these, because you don’t have a choice about what’s on the screen.”

    On the SpartanEdge Internet site, Bucqueroux said, “You have to choose to see them.”

    ...MSU officials today distanced themselves from the Internet site, pointing out that it is not an official university publication. Bucqueroux pays for the site privately and the students working on the site are not doing so as a class project.

    ...“We’re dealing with a number of free-speech issues in this special issue and this is currently the biggest free speech issue of our day,” she said. “We need to learn how to talk to one another in this culture, but we also need an informed debate.”

    In response to the site, Walid said, “Today’s publication is irresponsible. It’s like publishing racial slurs and saying, ‘If you don’t want to hear them, just put your fingers in your ears.’ It’s preposterous that they’re calling this a free speech issue.”

    Walid said that, in addition to asking MSU officials for help in trying to remove the cartoons, he plans to ask the instructor and her students for a meeting with CAIR representatives to discuss the issue.

    Terry Denbow, MSU vice president for university relations, said he welcomes the call for discussions. “We are a university, and if education can go on instead of confrontation, I’d be very very happy,” Denbow said.”


       —David Boyle    Feb. 27 '06 - 11:10PM    #
  170. CNN, Mohammed cartoons inflame U.S. campus ,

    “A controversy that has sparked violent demonstrations across the Middle East and Asia came to a U.S. college campus as a display of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed drew about 200 protesters.

    Security was increased for the student forum Tuesday night at the University of California, Irvine, but police reported no violence.

    Last week, members of the Muslim Student Union called upon College Republicans—the student group co-sponsoring the event—not to display the images, but the latter refused.

    Another sponsor, the United American Committee, likened the demonstrations to “censorship by terrorism” in a statement on its Web site.

    ...The Muslim Student Union’s Osman Umarji accused the evening program of inciting Islamophobia.

    “They are discussing Islamic terrorism and how most Muslims are apologists for terror,” Umarji said.

    But Kristen Lucero, 21, president of College Republicans, said the discussion was about free speech and an understanding of the origin of Middle Eastern terrorist networks, not an attack on Islam.

    Lucero said discussion topics included an examination of Islamic militancy on college campuses and whether some Islamic groups in the United States are apologists for terror.

    Marya Bangee, a member of the Muslim group’s board, said, “Displaying the cartoons at U.C. Irvine will only incite hatred against and deeply hurt its Muslim community. We do not believe in any violence.”

    Police removed two people from inside the auditorium for disrupting the discussion, but the unidentified men were not members of the Muslim Student Union.”


       —David Boyle    Mar. 2 '06 - 02:19AM    #
  171. AP, In Tape, Al-Zawahri Blasts Cartoons ,

    “Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri criticized the West for its insult to Islam’s prophet, complaining in a video broadcast Sunday on Al-Jazeera that the Prophet Mohammed and Jesus “are not sacred anymore.”

    Referring to the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that have been printed in a number of European newspapers, al-Zawahri said: “They did it on purpose and they continue to do it without apologizing, even though no one dares to harm Jews or to challenge Jewish claims about the Holocaust nor even to insult homosexuals.”

    ...”The insults against Prophet Muhammad are not the result of freedom of opinion but because what is sacred has changed in this culture,” he said. “The Prophet Mohammed, prayers be upon him, and Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, are not sacred anymore, while Semites and the Holocaust and homosexuality have become sacred.”

    In the video broadcast on the satellite network, Al-Zawahri also offered his support to Hamas, the militant Islamic group that is forming a new Palestinian government after sweeping legislative elections.

    He complained that the previous Palestinian leadership had “sold Palestine.”

    “Recognizing those people is against Islam’s principles. They are criminals in the Islamic balance,” he said. “Palestine is not their own property that they can give up.”

    Speaking of Palestine and Iraq, al-Zawahri said: “We have to be aware of the American game called ‘political process.’”

    “Bush, the caller for democracy, threatened Hamas in his State of the Union speech to cut assistance unless it recognizes Israel, abandons Jihad and abides by the agreements of surrender between the (Palestinian) Authority and Israel.”

    “I would like to tell my brothers in Palestine that reaching power is needed to implement Islamic rule,” he said. ...”


       —David Boyle    Mar. 5 '06 - 06:20AM    #
  172. Breitbart, Robertson Finds Radical Muslims ‘Satanic’ ,

    “Television evangelist Pat Robertson said Monday on his live news-and-talk program “The 700 Club” that Islam is not a religion of peace, and that radical Muslims are “satanic.”

    Robertson’s comments came after he watched a news story on his Christian Broadcasting Network about Muslim protests in Europe over the cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.

    He remarked that the outpouring of rage elicited by cartoons “just shows the kind of people we’re dealing with. These people are crazed fanatics, and I want to say it now: I believe it’s motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it’s time we recognize what we’re dealing with.”

    Robertson also said that “the goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, is world domination.”

    In a statement later Monday, Robertson said he was referring specifically to terrorists who want to bomb innocent people as being motivated by Satan. In the news story, he noted, radical Muslims were shown screaming: “May Allah bomb you! May Osama Bin Laden bomb you!”

    Angell Watts, a Robertson spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview that the news segment also included comments from a moderate Muslim in the United Kingdom saying radicals don’t represent most Muslims in that country.

    Robertson’s Virginia Beach-based network did not include his remarks when it posted the program on its Web site, however. That decision was made out of concern Robertson’s remarks could be misinterpreted if viewed out of context, Watts said.

    ...Robertson has come under intense criticism in recent months for comments suggesting that American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine retribution for Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip.

    Robertson recently told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he comments off the cuff after watching news segments. He later told the Christian magazine World that he’s being more careful and reviewing news stories before going on the air.

    The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called Robertson’s new comments “grossly irresponsible.”

    “At a time when inter-religious tensions around the world are at an all-time high, Robertson seems determined to throw gasoline on the fire,” Lynn said in a statement.”


       —David Boyle    Mar. 14 '06 - 07:10AM    #
  173. See yesterday’s Daily, Panelists discuss free speech vs. hate speech: Panelists deliver impassioned speeches about media’s role in stereotypes, significance of racism and trek toward change ,

    “Panelists hashed out controversies over the media’s representation of minorities last night in Hutchins Hall at the Law School.

    The Muslim Students’ Association invited various student groups as well as The Michigan Daily to sit on a panel. The panel discussion, called “Freedom of Speech or License to Hate,” began shortly after 7 p.m. and featured representatives from the United Asian American Organization, Hillel and the campus chapter of the NAACP.

    ...This discussion comes on the heels of a campus-wide debate over controversial cartoons published in The Michigan Daily last fall. The most controversial cartoon shows a classroom of dark-skinned students with one white student. A dark-skinned teacher says that everyone in the class will be granted preference in the University admissions process because of affirmative action, except the white student.

    ...Riana Anderson, chair of the University’s chapter of NAACP, described the delivery of “hate-filled” content as “purposeful, manipulative and without apology.”

    The media’s portrayal of certain issues has power over changes in people’s actions and views, she said.

    As an example of the media’s power over popular opinion, Mohammad Khalil, an Islamic Studies doctoral candidate, brought up the tarnished image of Islam after the Sept. 11 attacks.

    He said hate and fear of Muslims was inspired not by the attacks themselves, but by the climate of hostility perpetuated by television and newspapers.

    Khalil blames the misrepresentation of Islam on “a large degree of intellectual laziness,” a term he used to explain the media’s focus on radical Islam instead of the mainstream Muslim population.

    ...Stereotypes are created and propagated not only by the media but also in private conversation, said Donn Fresard, editor in chief of The Michigan Daily. Pushing all hurtful expression underground is not the key to progress, Fresard said.

    The Daily co-sponsored the panel discussion.

    Racism in America is difficult to define or pinpoint, said Manan Desai, a graduate student who sat on the panel. Desai told the story of being asked by a friend if he was a victim of racism. Desai said yes, but said he could not identify specifically how he was targeted.”


       —David Boyle    Apr. 5 '06 - 09:04PM    #
  174. Today’s DetNews, MSU prof says e-mail biased: Anti-Muslim message was to be private, he says; university sends him cautionary letter. ,

    “EAST LANSING—A professor at Michigan State University admitted Monday that he sent an e-mail with statements reflecting prejudice against Muslims. He said he thought his missive would remain private.

    Indrek Wichman, a professor of mechanical engineering, said he intended the letter as a critique of Muslim students’ protests at the university about the publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad.

    In the e-mail, after citing several international incidents of what he said was Muslim violence directed against others, Wichman wrote: “I counsul (sic) you dissatisfied, agressive (sic), brutal and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile ‘protests.’ If you do not like the values of the West—see the 1st Ammendment (sic)—you are free to leave.”

    “I hope for God’s sake you choose that option,” Wichman wrote. “Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans. Cordially, I.S. Wichman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering.”

    In an interview Monday, Wichman said he believes he has done nothing that requires an apology.

    “Why should it?” Wichman said. “I am a private citizen, right? What am I doing wrong in my job? What did I do here?

    “For the record, I thought it was a private communication and it was written in haste. I think a very minor thing has been blown completely out of proportion. I wrote it in 60 seconds. It was not like I sat and pondered over this thing for days. It was like you talking one night to your wife or your kids.”

    The letter was written Feb. 28. Wichman said he sent it to an e-mail address that he believed belonged to a particular student who is active in the Muslim Students’ Association.

    But students who lead the association said the e-mail address was part of the official Web site of the group, which assured distribution of the letter to more than the students and others who are active in Muslim affairs on the campus….

    The Muslim Students’ Association and the Council on American-Islamic Relations met with administrators at MSU three times over the past six weeks, said Dawud Walid, the executive director of the council in Michigan. The groups are seeking a reprimand for Wichman and the implementation of more diversity programs on campus.

    “He does have academic freedom and freedom of speech,” Walid said. “But when his inflammatory speech is fostering apprehension and an unhealthy learning environment for students at the university at which he teaches, that is a problem.

    “Furthermore, he is sending out this information on university property, a computer, and that is paid for by the taxpayers, by our tax dollars, during his working hours in his office.”

    Wichman received a letter from MSU Provost Kim Wilcox informing him that the opinions he expressed were against the values of the university and that if he expresses similar views again, he must make clear that they are entirely his own, said Terry Denbow, the vice president for university relations.

    “I can certainly see that as to the tone and the content of the e-mail why it was offensive,” Denbow said.

    Representatives of the Muslim Students’ Association said they waited until Monday to make excerpts of the e-mail available to students on a wider basis, hoping to deal with the issue in private meetings with administrators.

    “Obviously, we were disgusted by the e-mail,” said Farhan Abdul Azeez, 20, of Canton, president of the Muslim students’ organization. “We were appalled. We did not expect something like this, especially from a tenured Michigan State University professor.””


       —David Boyle    Apr. 26 '06 - 06:10AM    #