In this mailing:
- Anna Mahjar-Barducci: Kuwait Considering Death Penalty for Blasphemy
- Shiraz Maher: Britain's Divisive Dog-Whistle Politics
- Soeren Kern: Geert Wilders: 'Marked for Death: Islam's War against the West and Me'
- Dexter Van Zile: Why Did 60 Minutes Deceive Its Viewers?
Kuwait Considering Death Penalty for Blasphemy
by Anna
Mahjar-Barducci
April 30, 2012 at 5:00 am
April 30, 2012 at 5:00 am
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The Kuwaiti
Parliament apparently thinks that bringing development to Kuwait does not come
from job opportunities, but rather from banning swimsuits.
"Kuwait's parliament has provisionally
voted in favor of a legal amendment that could make insulting God and the
Prophet Mohammed punishable by death," reported the Arabic Network for
Human Rights Information (ANHRI). Another human rights organization, IFEX,
stated that the amendment, approved on 12 April, was backed by 46 Members of
the Kuwaiti Parliament, with four opposed and others abstaining. The bill needs
a second vote and the approval from Kuwait's ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad
Al-Sabah, before becoming law.
IFEX explained that the MPs proposed the death
penalty for religious crimes after authorities last month arrested a Shiite
man, Hamad al-Naqi, for allegedly using the social network Twitter to curse the
Prophet Mohammed, his wife and some companions. Al-Naqi denies the charges and
said that his Twitter account was hacked. He is presently in pre-trial
detention. Reuters recently reported that Al-Naqi, while in jail, was attacked
by a fellow inmate and sustained minor injuries.
Several Kuwaiti MPs threatened that if Al-Naqi
would not be punished -- for an alleged crime for which he has not yet been
convicted -- Kuwaitis will start mass protests. MP Jamaan Al-Harbash said that
the Kuwaiti nation should punish Al-Naqi if the government fails to do so.
"We are waiting for the arrest of the renegade so that calamity can be
avoided," the MP commented. Another Kuwiati, MP Waleed Al-Tabatabae, said:
"If the 'barking dog' is not arrested and legal measures are not taken
against him, we will call gather at the Irada Square today."
ANHRI noted that many Kuwaitis are facing trial
for blasphemy and, if the law is passed, might executed. One is Mohammed
Al-Mulaifi, a Kuwaiti writer, sentenced in April to seven years in jail with
hard labor, and a fine of US$18,000 for publishing on Twitter insults against
Shi'ism. According to news reports, Al-Mulaifi is guilty of saying that Kuwait
"suffers from sectarian struggles and conflicts." Al-Mulaifi also
accused Shi'ites in Kuwait of being disloyal to Kuwait but loyal to Iran, based
on their religious belief, and slandered the Shi'ite Imam, Al-Mahdi. According
to Reuters, the court commented that Al-Mulaifi posted "falsehoods about
sectarian divisions in the Gulf Arab country and insulted the Shi'ite faith and
its scholars with comments that damaged Kuwait's image."
A Kuwaiti observer commented to the Kuwaiti
Times that "Al-Mulaifi's crime, if it was a crime, cannot be meted out
with the harsh punishment of seven years. […] Seven years in jail overkills. It
is not fair." The Kuwaiti Times, however, reports that a number of
politicians expressed satisfaction with the verdict issued against the Kuwaiti
writer. "Kuwait's judiciary system is very honest and is considered a
'safety valve' safeguarding the whole society," they stressed.
The existing laws on blasphemy in Kuwait are
part of Article 111 of the Penal Code, which prohibits defamation of religion.
Article 111 currently requires up to one year's imprisonment and a fine for
disseminating opinions belittling religion. In Kuwait, blasphemy has been
illegal since 1961.
As many "attacks against religion"
are allegedly coming from Twitter, the Gulf Times reported that Kuwait
is planning to pass laws to regulate the use of social networking sites.
"The government is now in the process of establishing laws that will allow
government entities to regulate the use of the different new media outlets such
as Twitter in order to safeguard the cohesiveness of the population and
society," Information Minister Sheikh Mohamed Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah said.
In addition, the Information Minister urged the
Parliament to pass a law to regulate social media as soon as possible. "I
have been asking the parliamentarians to give this priority," he said.
Islamist MP Mohamed Al-Dallal agrees with the
Information Minister: "Twitter is an open area ... everyone can speak. But
it is not always being used as social media in Kuwait -- not about friendship
or personal matters but it is being used politically, to attack. This is a bad
thing."
The Kuwait Parliament seems to be seriously
intending to bring Kuwait back to the Middle Ages. As well as introducing the
death penalty for blasphemy, the Kuwaiti MPs have suggested banning swimsuits
and requiring women to wear headscarves in public. The journalist Sahar Moussa
recently published an article in the Kuwaiti Times, entitled "Kuwait
Development = Bikini Ban," arguing that the Kuwaiti Parliament apparently
thinks that bringing development to Kuwait does not come from creating job
opportunities, but rather from banning swimsuits. "My point here is that
you do not have to hide behind religion and distract people with holy religious
edicts and ignore what your country needs. Sorry to say it, but some MPs are
distracting people with their irrelevant ideas […] Is their mission to kill the
dreams of the young people and push them to find comfort and education in other
countries? Well, mission accomplished! […] I would like to give notice […] that
under international law, 'religious' offences do not fall under the category of
'most serious crimes,' the minimum threshold prescribed for crimes carrying the
death penalty. And MPs, every time you think of swimsuits […] try planting a
tree or start putting one brick on top of another to build a factory for
Kuwait's sake and its future."
Related Topics: Anna
Mahjar-Barducci
Britain's Divisive Dog-Whistle Politics
by Shiraz Maher
April 30, 2012 at 4:30 am
April 30, 2012 at 4:30 am
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"God
KNOWS who is a Muslim, And He KNOWS who is not." The price of this victory
has been to set back Britain by a generation.
London's Mayoral elections take place this
week; the Labour challenger, Ken Livingstone, is no stranger to sectarian
campaigning. Livingstone has previously embraced and invited to London the
radical Islamic preacher – often referred to as the spiritual leader of the Muslim
Brotherhood – Yusuf al-Qaradawi -- who condemns all Muslims who recognize
Israel, or even who simply want peace in the Middle East. He has also
legitimized the murder of Israeli children on the grounds they will one day be
conscripted into the IDF.
Inspired by George Galloway's victory in
Bradford West, Livingstone told worshippers at a mosque in north London that he
wanted to make the city a shining beacon for Islam. Londoners must now decide
if they want to drag one of the world's great capitals back into an age of
sectarian and confessional "realities" by supporting Livingstone, or
whether they want to support progressive candidates who engage their citizens
as citizens.
With the election of Galloway to Britain's
parliament last month, sectarian politics has returned with a vengeance. Few
parliamentary candidates have ever campaigned in such bald confessional terms
as Galloway -- marking ominous developments in the political alignment of some
constituencies in England.
The seat Galloway now occupies, Bradford West,
became available earlier this year after the incumbent, Marsha Singh, stepped
down, due to ongoing medical problems.
Bradford West is home to a dense concentration
of Muslims, a constituency whose concerns Galloway had previously exploited for
political capital in Bethnal Green. Galloway, deciding to run as a candidate,
appealed for Muslim votes in the most sectarian of tones. Leaflets linked to
him – but which both his campaign office and he officially deny any knowledge
of – told voters:
God KNOWS who is a Muslim. And he KNOWS who is
not….Let me point out to all the Muslim brothers and sisters what I stand for.
I, George Galloway, do not drink alcohol and never have. Ask yourself if the
other candidate [the Labour candidate who is also a Muslim, Imran Hussain] in
this election can say that truthfully. I, George Galloway, have fought for the
Muslims at home and abroad, all my life, and paid a price for it.
The unspoken corollary of all this is that
Galloway, pandering to the so-called Muslim vote, hoped to ignite Muslims'
fears and capitalize on their sense of alienation. He achieved this by winning
the seat and causing Labour a significant loss in what had traditionally been
considered a safe seat. The price of this victory has been to set back Britain
by a generation, reviving confessional politics at the ballot in a manner not
seen since the high-water mark of troubles in Northern Ireland.
Galloway warned his supporters of potentially
divine punishment if they failed to vote for him. Speaking to an overwhelmingly
Muslim audience, he said:
I believe in the Judgment Day, that all of you
do. And I just say this: how will you explain, on the Last Day, that you had a
chance, on 29 March 2012, to vote for the guy who led the great campaign
against the slaughter of millions in Iraq, but instead you voted for a party
which has killed a million Iraqis?
This kind of rhetoric was not an isolated
incident. Galloway repeatedly spoke in Muslim idioms, suggesting that he is
himself a believer, although he refuses to confirm reports about it, and
succeeded in winning support from Bradford's largely Muslim constituency.
Again, at another rally he told followers:
I'm a better Pakistani than he [Mr Hussain –
the ethnically Pakistani Labour candidate who ran against Galloway] will ever
be. God knows who's a Muslim and who is not. And a man that's never out of the
pub shouldn't be going around telling people you should vote for him because
he's a Muslim. A Muslim is ready to go to the US Senate, as I did, and to their
face call them murderers, liars, thieves and criminals. A Muslim is somebody
who's not afraid of earthly power but who fears only the Judgment Day. I'm
ready for that, I'm working for that and it's the only thing I fear.
It on the back of precisely that fear Galloway
rode to power. During the 2005 election Galloway fought for a seat in London
the heavily Muslim populated area of Bethnal Green and Bow – a deprived and
divided constituency. During that campaign, as well, Galloway was accused of
engaging in sectarian campaigning to ensure that the incumbent, Oona King, was
unseated. In a bilious acceptance speech Galloway told the audience, "Mr
Blair, this defeat is for Iraq, and the other defeats that New Labour has received
this evening are for Iraq. All the people you have killed and all the loss of
life have come back to haunt you and the best thing that the Labour Party can
do is sack you tomorrow morning." That kind of dog-whistle politics
underscored his entire campaign. After winning his seat, Galloway was also recorded
telling supporters that he owed the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) "more
than I can say." They had been instrumental in mobilizing the Muslim vote
in his favor.
An investigation into the IFE by Andrew
Gilligan revealed a secret meeting where new recruits were brought to the
organization. A trainer told them:
Our goal is not simply to invite people and
give da'wah [call to the faith]. Our goal is to create the True
Believer, to then mobilize those believers into an organized force for change
who will carry out da'wah, hisbah [enforcement of Islamic law]
and jihad [holy war]. This will lead to social change and iqamatud-Deen
[an Islamic social order].
In this election Galloway was backed by another
Islamist movement, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), which regularly
publishes anti-Semitic cartoons, peddles conspiracy theories about Jewish power
and influence, and which has even been condemned by an official parliamentary
report as an institutionally anti-Semitic organization. During the 2005 General
Election, MPAC campaigned in northern England, in a constituency not far from
Bradford West, against the Labour MP, Lorna Fitzsimmons. Members of MPAC told
constituents not to vote for her because she was Jewish. As it turns out she is
not Jewish, but she was unseated nonetheless by this insidious campaigning.
While members of MPAC are a ragtag outfit of
mostly unemployed, trouble-causing children, Galloway is a seasoned politician.
No defence of naivety can be afforded to him. He knew precisely what he was
engaging in when suggesting Muslims should vote for him because of his stance
over issues such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. None of these, of course,
is an issue that has anything to do with the very real, countless problems
facing residents of Bradford West – a constituency with high unemployment,
rampant drug abuse, and social disorder.
The stakes May 3rd could not be higher.
Related Topics: United
Kingdom | Shiraz Maher
Geert Wilders: 'Marked for Death: Islam's War against the West and Me'
by Soeren Kern
April 30, 2012 at 4:15 am
April 30, 2012 at 4:15 am
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"[I
am] imprisoned in my own country for the mere fact that I have spoken out
against the enemies of the West."
Islam is waging an aggressive war against the
West; nothing less than the future of individual liberty is at stake.
The conflict is civilizational in scope and is
being fought on two primary fronts: Europe and America.
The Islamization of the West is being aided and
abetted by multiculturalists in Europe and America who are enforcing
politically correct curbs on free speech designed to silence all criticism of
Islam.
Islam's war on the West has reached a decisive
phase. Europe may already be a lost cause, leaving America as the last bastion of
Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.
These are just a few of the conclusions of an
insightful and highly readable new book about Islam, Marked
for Death: Islam's War against the West and Me, authored by Geert Wilders,
the Dutch lawmaker who has devoted his life to fighting for free speech and
stopping the Islamization of Europe.
Wilders -- one of a growing number of
Westerners who have been marked for death for criticizing Islam -- opens the
book by briefly describing his life under round-the-clock guard because of
explicit threats to murder him by Muslim extremists.
"I have a panic room in my house,"
Wilders writes, "where I am supposed to take refuge if one of the
adherents of the 'religion of peace' makes it past my permanent security detail
and into my home. In fact, it's not really my home at all—I live in a
government safe house, heavily protected and bulletproof….I have been
surrounded by police guards and stripped of nearly all personal privacy…. I am
driven every day from the safe house to my office in the Dutch Parliament
building in armored police cars….I wear a bulletproof jacket….Always surrounded
by plainclothes police officers, I have not walked the streets on my own in
more than seven years…. [I am] imprisoned in my own country for the mere fact
that I have spoken out against enemies of the West."
Wilders continues: "Leading a life like
that got me thinking about some big questions. Western societies guarantee
their citizens something that no other civilizations grant them: privacy. It's
one of those things you tend to take for granted unless you lose it. The
importance of privacy is unique to Western society with its notion of the
sovereign individual. In stark contrast to Western norms, Islam robs people of
their privacy. Islamic societies—including Islamic enclaves in the West—exert
tight social control that is indicative of the totalitarian character of
Islam."
Wilders dedicates several well-referenced
chapters to demonstrate how "Islam is not just a religion, as many
Americans believe, but primarily a political ideology in the guise of a
religion." Among other sources, he uses verses from the Koran itself to
show how "the political ideology of Islam is not moderate—it is
totalitarian…with global ambitions."
In one chapter, Wilders provides an extensive
survey of well-known experts on Islam who show why Islam is far more than just
a religion. According to the Egyptian-born ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish, for
example, Islam as a whole is "a political and legal system of totalitarian
control….The most glaring evidence that Islam is hardly a 'religion' is in its
apostasy law—the order to kill those who leave it. That immediately moved Islam
from the realm of religion to the realm of totalitarian political
ideology."
Other experts quoted by Wilders have this to
say about Islam: "one of our greatest mistakes is to think of Islam as
just another one of the world's great religions."; "In my view, Islam
is primarily a legal system, a law."; "In Islam you can't eat à la
carte, you have to take the whole menu."; and "Islam is unique in
demanding that it alone must rule the political sphere."
In another chapter, Wilders provides an
historical survey of non-Muslims living under Islamic rule over the past 1,400
years. He also shows how one of the big consequences of the so-called Arab
Spring is that Christian communities across the Middle East are being decimated
as radical Islam becomes empowered.
Wilders takes issue with President Barack
Obama's June 2009 speech at al-Azhar University in Cairo, in which he
proclaimed that "I consider it part of my responsibility as President of
the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they
appear."
According to Wilders, "for the first time
in America's 233-year history, a U.S. president offered a pact to the followers
of one particular religion" in which he "bestowed upon Islam a
privileged position above all other religions and ideologies."
Wilders also quotes Teddy Roosevelt, the
twenty-sixth president of the United States, who wrote: "Wherever the
Mohammedans have had a complete sway, wherever the Christians have been unable
to resist them by the sword, Christianity has ultimately disappeared. From the
hammer of Charles Martel to the sword of [King of Poland John III] Sobieski,
Christianity owed its safety in Europe to the fact that it was able to show
that it could and would fight as well as the Mohammedan aggressor."
Roosevelt also wrote: "To make a statement
that all religions are the same is as naïve as saying that all political
parties are the same. Some religions and belief systems give a higher value to
each human life and some religions and belief systems give a lower value. As
generations of Americans past, our time has come to defend the beliefs and
values that made this nation great, such as equality before the law….There are
such 'social values' today in Europe, America and Australia only because during
those thousand years the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do
what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do—that is, to beat back
the Moslem invader."
In Britain, Winston Churchill had this to say
about Islam: "Were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong
arms of science….the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the
civilization of ancient Rome."
And, in the words of former U.S. President
Ronald Reagan: "If history teaches us anything, it teaches that
self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly."
After surveying other commentators on Islam who
lived in an era before the tyranny of political correctness, Wilders concludes:
"Defenders of Western civilization should not sugarcoat Islam."
Marked for Death dedicates considerable
space to discussing the "conspiracy of silence that surrounds" the
question of Islam. He describes how "naïve politicians, journalists, and
so-called intellectuals in the West who refuse to admit…how fundamentally
incompatible it is with our Western values and ideals."
Wilders also explains the growing use of
euphemisms and self-censorship to avoid direct criticism of Islam. He shows how
many European governments are censoring discussion of Islam and
multiculturalism through the use of legal warfare known as "lawfare."
Wilders discusses at length the proliferation of hate-speech laws in Europe to
"condemn and combat Islamophobia."
Although some of the reality-avoiding
appeasement of Islam is motivated by fear, Wilders blames the rapid
Islamization of Europe mostly on "cultural relativism" which
"dictates that all cultures are equally moral and valuable—although in
practice, Western culture is often presented as inferior to all others, stained
as it supposedly is by racism and imperialism."
Cultural relativism, he writes, the ruling
ethos of Europe's political establishment, "is gradually destroying our
traditions and cultural identity. The so-called multicultural society tells
newcomers who settle in our cities and villages: you are free to violate our
norms and values, since your culture is just as good, and perhaps even better,
than ours."
Wilders believes that part of the public apathy
regarding spread of Islam in the West stems from the fact that many citizens in
Europe and America have forgotten the "nature of totalitarianism." He
argues that the West made a big mistake by failing to have a "Nuremburg
trial" after the fall of communism to "expose the evil committed by
the system."
Although defeated Nazi Germany was subject to
de-Nazification, there was no de-Marxification after the fall of communism.
Instead, many former communists simply renamed themselves "Social
Democrats" and managed to retain or regain power. "And without the
public accounting of a trial, people tend to forget how… communism was."
Wilders asks: "How is all this relevant to
Islam? Our failure to come clean with communism has prevented us from standing
up to Islam, trapped as we are in the old communist habit of deceit and
doublespeak that used to haunt Eastern Europe and that now haunts all of
us."
Wilders provides his readers with several
concrete proposals and political solutions which he believes can turn the tide
on the Islamization of the West.
He writes: "To preserve our freedom from
the encroachments of Islam, we must do four things: defend freedom of speech,
reject cultural relativism, counter Islamization and cherish our national
identity."
Says Wilders: "Freedom of speech is the
most important of our liberties. So long as we are free to speak, we can tell
people the truth and make them realize what's at stake. The truth is our only
weapon—we must use it. The West's political, academic and media establishment
are concealing the true scope of the Islamic threat. But the people sense they
are not getting the whole story, and they are eager to know more. We must
spread the message."
The West, he says, should also "stop the
political indoctrination of our children and begin proudly teaching them the
real history of the West instead of multiculturalist lies designed to instill
shame in our own heritage. We must also prepare the coming generation for the
difficult times ahead."
Wilders concludes: "We can still prevail.
We begin the struggle by standing up for our values and telling the truth about
Islam. Even when we are insulted, even when we are harassed and intimidated,
even when we are marked for death just for stating an opinion—we must never be
silenced."
Soeren
Kern is Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based
Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
Related Topics: Soeren Kern
Why Did 60 Minutes Deceive Its Viewers?
by Dexter Van Zile
April 30, 2012 at 4:00 am
April 30, 2012 at 4:00 am
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It is not
safe for Palestinian Christians to condemn the misdeeds of their Islamist
neighbirs who regard Christians as infidels and obstacles to the creation of an
Islamic state. Did [reporter Bob] Simon really expect to get Khouri, a
prpominnent businessman with a lot to lose -- and exactly the type of person
who would be forced to pay the protection money described by Khaled Abu Toameh
-- to admit to problems with the Muslim majority in Palestinian society in
an on-camera interview with two other people sitting next to him?"
Palestinian Christians, like other religious
and ethnic minorities in the Middle East, are the target of mistreatment,
harassment and in some instances, violent oppression at the hands of their
Muslim neighbors.
Nevertheless, much of the media coverage about
Palestinian Christians downplays Muslim hostility toward this community and
falsely portrays Israel as the sole cause of its suffering.
The reality is Palestinian Christians cannot
speak freely about the Muslim dominated environment in which they live. Their
leaders often publicly condemn Israel while remaining silent about groups like
Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Occasionally, they might admit
that Muslim hostility is a problem, but not very often and not very loudly.
It is safe for Palestinian Christian leaders to
condemn Israel – a democracy that has a tradition of respecting religious
freedom and human rights. It is not safe, however, for Palestinian Christians
to condemn the misdeeds of their Islamist neighbors who regard Christians as
infidels and obstacles to the creation of an Islamic state.
Journalists obviously have an obligation to dig
into the underlying facts regarding the status of Christians in Palestinian
areas.
This information is harder to obtain than anti-Israel
comments from prominent Palestinian Christians. It is not however, impossible
to get testimony about Muslim oppression of Christians in the West Bank or Gaza
Strip. For example, Khaled Abu Toameh has written about mistreatment of
Christians by their Muslim neighbors, a problem that has gotten worse since
Bethlehem and the surrounding towns have become hotbeds for Hamas and Islamic
Jihad.
In a piece published by the Gatestone Institute in 2009 (when it
was then called the Hudson Institute), Toameh reported that Christians have
complained about acts "of intimidation land theft by Muslims, especially
those working for the Palestinian Authority." And if that wasn't enough,
"several Christian women living in these areas have complained about
verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men." Toameh also recounts hearing
stories of shakedowns by Muslim gangs. He writes:
Over the past few years, a number of Christian
businessmen told me that they were forced to shut down their businesses because
they could no longer afford to pay "protection" money to local Muslim
gangs.
This is however, not the story that Palestinian
Christian leaders tell to Westerners. Toameh reports:
Ironically, leaders of the Palestinian
Christians are also to blame for the ongoing plight of their people because
they refuse to see the reality as it is. And the reality is that many
Christians feel insecure and intimidated because of what we Muslims are doing
to them and not only because of the bad economy.
When they go on the record, these leaders
always insist that Israel and the occupation are the only reason behind the
plight of their constituents. They stubbornly refuse to admit that many
Christians are being targeted by Muslims. By not talking openly about the
problem, the Christian leaders are encouraging the perpetrators to continue
their harassment and assaults against Christian families.
This is an important story that journalists should
highlight.
60 Minutes Dropped the Ball
Given the time and resources available to
reporters and producers at 60 Minutes, it would seem reasonable to expect that
they would be able to give viewers an accurate picture.
Apparently, it is simply a story they do not
want to tell. This became evident during a segment that appeared on April 22,
2012. This segment, titled "Christians of the Holy Land"
reported by Bob Simon and produced by Harry Radliffe, severely misinformed 60
Minutes viewers.
In the opening, Simon reports that the
"one place where Christians are not suffering from violence is the Holy
Land but Palestinian Christians have been leaving in large numbers for
years." He continues:
So many [are leaving], the Christian population
there is down to less than two percent, and the prospect of holy sites, like
Jerusalem and Bethlehem, without local Christians is looming as a real
possibility.
In this passage, Simon is wrong on two issues.
Population deception
First, Simon reports the Christian population
in the Holy Land is down to less than two percent but he deceives viewers in
this statement. Yes, the percentageof the total is down due to an
increased Muslim population, but the actual number is up in Bethlehem and the
surrounding area since Israel took control of the West Bank. He also fails to
report that this increased stands in marked contrast to the decline of the
Christian population in the West Bank when it was under Jordanian control.
The numbers, compiled
by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, reveal that in the late 1940s, there
were approximately 60,000 Christians living in the West Bank, Jerusalem and
Gaza and that this population declined to approximately 40,000 just prior to
the Six Day War in 1967. Today, there are approximately 52,000 Christians
living in these areas.
Why did 60 Minutes deceive its viewers?
Muslim violence against Christians
Secondly, despite what Simon reports,
Palestinian Christians have been the target of violence at the hands of Muslim
extremists in the Holy Land. In 2005, more than a dozen homes were burnt to the ground by a Muslim mob. This act of arson was
perpetrated in the village of Taybeh located in the West Bank by Muslims
outraged over a romantic affair between a Christian man and a Muslim woman. Ha'aretz
reported the following about the incident:
PA security sources said that the rampage was
triggered by an incident last week in which a 23-year-old woman was killed by
her relatives because they suspected her of carrying on a romance with a
Christian man from Taybeh. The woman was quickly buried, but last Tuesday, the
PA police exhumed the body for an autopsy.
Did Simon and Radcliffe not hear about this
terrible attack and the apparent honor killing that preceded it? In a
four-minute video featured on 60 Minutes' website, Simon profiled the village of Taybeh, which the show billed as
"The Last Christian village in the Holy Land." Judging from this
video, it's clear both Simon, and his producer Radcliffe spent some time in the
town where the attack took place, but for one reason or another, this notorious
act of arson was never mentioned in either the segment shown on television or
the segment broadcast on 60 Minutes' website.
Simon also used a confrontation with Israeli
Ambassador Michael Oren as a pretext to downplay impact of Muslim hostility
toward Christians. After Oren stated that the "major duress" felt by
Palestinian Christians was coming from Muslims, Simon introduced Zahi Khouri, a
Palestinian Christian businessman (he owns a Coca-Cola franchise). Khouri
dismissed Oren's assessment as a "Great selling point. Easy to sell to the
American public."
Khouri continues: "I'll tell you I don't
know of anybody and I probably have 12,000 customers here. I've never heard
that someone is leaving because of Islamic persecution."
Did Simon really expect to get Khouri, a
prominent businessman with a lot to lose – and exactly the type of person who
would be forced to pay the protection described by Khaled Abu Toameh in the
piece referenced above – to admit to problems with the Muslim majority in Palestinian
society in an on-camera conversation with two other people sitting next to
him? Is this what passes for investigative reporting at 60 Minutes?
When Woodward and Bernstein got information
about the misdeeds of the Nixon Administration from Deep Throat, an anonymous
source, they spoke to him in secret in the bowels of an underground parking
garage.
Judging from the public testimony offered by
pastors speaking at the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference held in March 2012,
Simon may not have had to go to such lengths to get the story.
At this conference, two pastors spoke openly
about the problems Simon downplayed in his report. As detailed in a recent CAMERA analysis, Pastor Nihad Salman, who serves
as a pastor in Beit Jala, testified in more detail to the concerns Christians
in the West Bank have regarding Muslim hostility toward Christians. After
speaking about the impact of high unemployment on Christians in the West Bank,
he said that because Christians comprise only one or two percent of the
population in the territory, they are affected psychologically.
You are afraid. And we have many times when
people are afraid of what is happening in the Arabic Spring. Will the Muslims
you know, take over? If it is true or not true. Whatever the outcome of that...
what will happen? Will after Saturday come Sunday? So this is the type of thing
that makes Christians want to run away.
The reference to Saturday and Sunday is to a
well-known proverb in the Middle East about Muslim hostility toward Jews (whose
day of rest is on Saturday) and Christians (whose day of rest is on Sunday).
The question Pastor Salman is asking is, given that Islamist groups are coming
to power across the region ("Arabic Spring") and having already
persecuted and expelled their Jews ("Saturday"), will these Arab
countries now increase their persecution of Christians ("Sunday")?
And another Palestinian pastor, Labeeb Madanat,
who works for the Bible Societies in Israel and Palestine said at this
conference, "There are pressures. There is discrimination. The dhimma
system is a system of discrimination. We do not deny that."
More recently, this writer interviewed Steven
Khoury, assistant pastor at The First Baptist Church in Bethlehem in a piece that was published in The Algemeiner. Khoury
reported that anti-Christian animus has gotten worse in the Bethlehem over the
past few years. Khoury said, "People are always telling [Christians],
'Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam. It's the true and right religion.'"
Such testimony is not new. In 2005, Father
Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land for the Roman Catholic Church,
acknowledged publicly that Palestinians Christians were suffering from acts of
oppression by their Muslim neighbors.
In its coverage of the story the Telegraph
reported that things had gotten so bad that Church leaders
compiled a "dossier" of 93 alleged incidents of abuse by an 'Islamic
fundamentalist mafia against Palestinian Christians, who accused the
Palestinian Authority of doing nothing to stop the attacks."
According to the Telegraph, "The
dossier includes a list of 140 cases of apparent land theft, in which
Christians in the West Bank were allegedly forced off their lands backed by
corrupt judicial officials."
The Telegraph also reported about the
activism of Samir Qumsieh, a prominent Palestinian Christian leader in the West
Bank:
Mr Qumsieh said he was trying to repair
relations between Palestinian Christian and Muslim communities, convening a
meeting attended by members of both faiths in Bethlehem last week.
But he said that the Christian community was
faced with "very brutal" adversaries. "A criminal mafia and
Islamic fundamentalists work together," he said. "Their interests met
to take our land away." He said that one man had lost his finger in one
land dispute which turned violent and that a group had attacked and injured a
Greek orthodox monk at a 5th century monastery outside Bethlehem.
The dossier currently in Church hands details
far worse allegations of violence, notably the torture and murder of two
Christian girls in 2003 after they were deemed prostitutes. A post mortem
examination reportedly proved they were virgins.
Why is it that Simon relied on Israeli
Ambassador Michael Oren for testimony about Islamist hostility toward
Christians when Christians themselves are talking about it? And why did
he work so assiduously to discount Oren's testimony? Evidently, Simon was not
interested in the truth about the status of Christians in Palestinian society
but instead was more interested in scoring a cheap shot at Oren's expense.
Promoting Anti-Israel Propaganda as Peacemaking
Simon passed off the Kairos Document as an
honest attempt by Palestinian Christians to promote peace between Israel and
the Palestinians. He did this by reporting that in 2009, a group of Palestinian
Christan pastors "did something unprecedented. They published a document
called Kairos, criticizing Islamic extremism and advocating non-violent
resistance to the Israeli occupation which they called a sin against God."
The Kairos Document, a statement issued by a
group of Palestinian Christian pastors in 2009 is not the document of peace,
love and understanding that Simon indicates it is.
Yes, the document does call on Muslims to
"reject fanaticism and extremism" but does not mention groups like
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad that espouse Islamist ideology.
And while it calls the Israeli
"occupation" a "sin against God," it characterizes
Palestinian acts of terror as "legal resistance." A Christian group,
Presbyterians for Middle East Peace declared the use of the word "resistance" to
describe terrorism "repugnant."
The document also states that if "there
were no occupation, there would be no resistance, no fear and no
insecurity." Really? Then why did the rocket attacks against Israel
increase after it withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005?
The Kairos Palestine document is so hostile and
one-sided, that it was denounced as "supersessionist and antisemitic" by
the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 2010. Simon acknowledged none of
this in his reporting.
Raheb No Peacemaker
Simon also presented of Lutheran Pastor Mitri
Raheb from Bethlehem as a peacemaker to his audience despite the fact that he
has been roundly criticized for use of some very bothersome rhetoric at the
2010 Christ at the Checkpoint Conference. At this conference, Raheb declared the following:
… Israel represents Rome of the Bible, not the
people of the land. And this is not only because I'm a Palestinian. I'm sure if
we were to do a DNA test between David, who was a Bethlehemite, and Jesus, born
in Bethlehem, and Mitri, born just across the street from where Jesus was born,
I'm sure the DNA will show that there is a trace. While, if you put King David,
Jesus and Netanyahu, you will get nothing, because Netanyahu comes from an East
European tribe who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages.
Raheb's assertion that Benjamin Netanyahu is
not really connected to the land of Israel but is instead a descendent of an
"East European tribe" that "converted to Judaism in the Middle
Ages" is an anti-Semitic canard that has a long career.
The notion that European Jews aren't really
Jews, but instead descendants of the "Khazars" who converted to
Judaism is a shopworn trope often used to deny the connection between modern
day Jews and the land of Israel. Raheb's use of this rhetoric prompted New
Testament Scholar Malcom Lowe to issue the following critique:
Even if Raheb's claims about the ancestry of
himself and Binyamin Netanyahu were true, he would be putting them at the
service of a shameless racism. But, of course, he also has not the slightest
evidence to support those claims. He knows nothing of Netanyahu's ancestry. And
he himself, for all he knows, may be descended from Greek pilgrims or from
Europeans who arrived with the Crusaders, as I have pointed out elsewhere. As for DNA, had he taken the
trouble, Raheb could have found that genetic
studies on Jews have shown that European Jews are genetically much more
closely related to Jews in the Middle East, and even to some non-Jews there,
than to non-Jewish Europeans.
Did Simon or Radliffe, the producer, look into
Raheb's background before presenting him as a peacemaker?
Basic Facts and biased omission
Simon descended into outright propaganda about
Israeli security measures when he asserted that the concrete security barrier
"completely surrounds Bethlehem, turning the 'little town' where Christ
was born into what its residents call 'an open air prison.'"
In fact, the security barrier does not
"completely surround" Bethlehem, because if it did, it would be cut
off completely from the rest of the West Bank. It isn't.
Maps provided by the Israeli
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the United Nations, B'tselem, and the PLO all indicate that the security barrier is located to
the north and west of the city, and does not completely surround Bethlehem.
This is a favored lie of anti-Israel propagandists. Simon worked on this
program for months, spending time in Bethlehem. He could see for himself the
barrier doesn't encircle the town. If he can't be trusted to get the facts
straight on something as obvious as this, it's hardly surprising he got so much
else wrong.
Simon also reports that for Palestinians,
"leaving Bethlehem is a struggle" and that going to Jerusalem means
going through an Israeli checkpoint, which can take hours, and that in some
instances, they are not allowed to enter Israel at all.
Simon's expectation that Palestinians living in
the West Bank should have easy access to Jerusalem is unrealistic. Palestinians
have been in an effective state of war with Israel for decades. During the
Second Intifada, Palestinian terrorists were responsible for the deaths of more
than 1,000 Israeli civilians and weapons are found at checkpoints on a regular
basis.
It is simply unreasonable for Simon to expect
that it would be easy for Palestinians to enter into Israel under these
conditions.
Simon's most obnoxious moment came when he
complained about the Ambassador calling his boss, Jeffrey Fager, head of CBS
news and executive producer of 60 Minutes about the segment before it aired.
Simon stated that he has been doing his job a long time and that "he's
never gotten a reaction before from a story that hasn't been broadcast
yet."
This is newsworthy? Christians are being
murdered in Egypt, Iraq and Nigeria and Simon's scoop – his big reveal before
he signs off – is that Oren called his boss to complain about a story that
hasn't aired yet?
This is simply outrageous. Simon and his
producer, Harry Radliffe failed to treat the subject they were covering with
the seriousness it requires.
They owe the American people an apology for
their journalistic misdeeds.
This article was originally
published by the Committee for Accuracy on Middle East reporting on
April 25th.
Related Topics: Israel
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