Islamists have threatened a Christian Bishop in the Philippines… (H/T: UP Pompeii)

Philippine bishop reports receiving threat to convert to Islam

MANILA, Philippines (CNS) — A bishop in the southern Philippines reported receiving a letter threatening him with harm if he does not convert to Islam or pay “Islamic taxes.”

Such brazenness in a country where over 86% of the population is Christian, 9% is Muslim and the remaining 5% is divided among various groups such as: Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, animists and non-believers.

Even if those who sent these letters are no more than common criminals who use religion as a mere tool, the fact that they chose to represent themselves as Muslims is in itself significant. But Muslim brazenness does not stop there, unfortunately, this one is far from an isolated case! Remember the kidnapped and murdered Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, Mgr Faraj Rahho? What about the plight of Assyrian Christians in Iraq? What about the Sabian Mandaeans? Or the plight of Christians girls kidnapped in Nigeria by practitioners of the Religion of Peace? What about the treatment of Christian Copts in Egypt? Ot the threats against Western politicians like Geert Wilders or Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi? The list, gentle reader, goes on and on ad nauseum…

You may read the rest at: Freedom’s Cost

Yes, gentle reader, believe it or not the Joo has no horns, no tail. We are as human as the rest of you, we bleed, we cry, we laugh, we suffer, we sing and we too can have our hearts shuttered… But… if you look at Jewish history… we were attacked by the greatest empires, they all even held us under their individual yoke for a while and then… they disappeared! Yet… while we Jooz were decimated by the millions, while the hatred of the world at our stubbornness never abated we cried, we prayed, we hoped and died with the word “Jerusalem” on our lips! And so in 1948 of the Current Era - symbolically, Abraham was born in 1948 in the Hebrew calendar - we once again got our own independent Jerusalem.

We will survive the MSM and their hypocrisy, even though the UN’s Human Rights Council will never bring itself to discuss the Jews’ cause. We will survive the IslamoFascists hatred as they will eventually burn up in the pyre of their own poison. Yes, gentle reader, if you prick us we do bleed, if you poison us we do die… but, like the mythical phoenix, we always rise from our ashes and accomplish the impossible! Look at Israel today, a prosperous garden in the desert, a center of science and technology where there was only sand and poverty!!!

You may read the rest on: Freedom’s Cost

When it comes to hat’n dem Jooz and sucking their blood, these guys give new meaning to the Yiddish word chutzpah (unparalleled gall)

Gazan Arabs Seek Compensation for Dismissal From Gush Katif Jobs

(IsraelNN.com) Gazan Arabs who were employed by Israeli farmers in Gush Katif until the 2005 eviction of Jews from the region are seeking ways to sue their former employers for “wrongful dismissal” and other employee benefits.

Read the rest on: Freedoms Cost

This posting is a rough translation of an article that I wrote for the Dutch daily Friesch Dagblad.

Four years ago, when American voters were able to choose between four more years with Bush jr. and the unknown alternative which John Kerry offered, I wrote that Kerry’s election would probably be better for Israel and the Palestinians than the re-election of George W. Bush. The main basis for my assumption was the fact that at that moment ( August 2004 ) the deadlock of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict had only one variable which was not hopelessly and rigidly stuck: the American presidency. Since then both Israel and the Palestinians got new leaders, but few people will tell you with a straight face that, leader-wise, compared to four years ago any of the two parties is better off today. No Israeli-Palestinian peace plan can succeed without a minimum of mutual trust and a real intention towards peace on both sides of the conflict. Nevertheless, in order to bring about a true peace process and to make it succeed, an input from outside is crucial. Not unlike four years ago, we should not expect any surprising peace-input from either Russia or the United Nations. The European Union still can play a limited, mediating role, but the EU remains too divided for it to conceive – let alone carry out – a balanced, credible and decisive vision regarding Israel-Palestine. In other words, there is nothing new under the sun. America still is the most important and influential outsider in the region. The foreign policy of the next President of the United States will (continue to) influence and/or determine the lives of Palestinians, Israelis and other nations in the Middle East. (more…)

The following article appears today in the Dutch daily Friesch Dagblad.

Next week the umpteenth conference for peace in the Middle East will take place, this time in Annapolis. By coincidence this week Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jeruzalem – 30 years ago, the first official visit to Israel by an Arab leader – was commemorated. That visit led to talks between Israeli and Egyptian teams in Camp David, which after almost two weeks of dramatic negotiations resulted in a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Annapolis is the capital of Maryland, the same state where Camp David is located, but I doubt whether the names Annapolis and Camp David will have the same weight in the history of the Middle East.

The aim of the conference, organized by President George W. Bush, is to issue a document which – more or less based on the almost forgotten “route map for peace” that was issued by Bush five years ago, with the support of the European Union, Russia and the United Nations – eventually must become the key to a Palestinian state and an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. One of the main reasons why that goal will almost certainly not be reached is the very weak position of the three main participants in the meeting: the American President, the Palestinian President Abu-Mazen and the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Not one of them enjoys any real and heartfelt support and confidence among a majority of his people.

The most important difference between Camp David 1978 and Annapolis 2007, in addition to the presence of the Palestinians, is the host. I am definitely no fan of Jimmy Carter, and I have serious objections against much of what he has written and said about Israel in recent years. Still, it goes without saying that the man won his spurs in the history of Israel with his role in the genesis of the Camp David accords. From the start of his presidency peace in the Middle-East was one of his priorities. Without the courage and the initiative of Sadat nothing might have happened, but without the personal involvement of the American President in the negotiations between Israel and Egypt Sadat and Begin would not have become the historical figures that they are today. At crucial moments during the talks Carter’s intransigence was the deciding factor.

I am not exactly a Bush-basher, partly because for many Bush-bashers Bush is simply a synonym for America, but I believe that of all the areas in which the man failed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of his biggest failures. From 2000 onwards he let Israelis and Palestinians muddle on on their own. Some Israelis have called Bush jr. the most Israel-friendly president ever. I think that a real friend would have showed much more involvement. Before the invasion of Iraq – which I supported hesitantly, partly as a result of an instinctive consideration: “Look who opposes it!” – I wrote in an article for the Dutch daily Trouw that Bush and his government should have spent the period after the fall of the Taliban on thinking out and selling a comprehensive development program and peace plan for the Middle East, rather than on disseminating the “Baghdad delenda est” mantra. It is obvious that such a program and plan never existed. Annapolis is a nice photo op to conclude eight lost years, but it is mainly a matter of way too little much too late.

So, is the whole Annapolis circus pointless? No, it would be too harsh to say that. Every opportunity that is seized to show that Israeli and Arab officials and political leaders can talk and negotiate more or less on the basis of equality already is an achievement. In that respect men like Anwar Sadat, King Hussein, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin gave a brave and fruitful example. In Israel most people are very cynical about the purpose and the outcome of Annapolis. Yet the only ones who utterly oppose the conference are the fanatics, they declare loud and clear that the conference is a sell-out of Israel’s interests. Just like at previous occasions extremists on both sides of the conflict are interested in a complete failure of this peace conference. The Palestinian terrorists and their Iranian and other puppet masters keep their end up. In their eyes Abu Mazen is a traitor, and the number of attempted terror attacks has risen once again in the last couple of weeks. After all, terror leads to Israeli reactions, which make it impossible for Abu Mazen to fulfil his promises and which make Hamas once more attractive – or less unattractive – as an alternative. Israeli politicians such as Binyamin Nethanyahu and the ultra-rightwing minister Lieberman almost appear to be pleased to prove that they have been right all along: here you go, giving in only leads to ( more ) terror. When you look at all those who are trying very hard to turn Annapolis into a failure you would almost hope that Ehud Olmert is right when he says that the mere fact that the conference takes place already turns it into a success and a victory.

Right now I am reading a book by the Dutch writer-comedian Kees van Kooten. The last chapter of the book contains a number of propositions. One of them caught my eye: ” Peace will not reign in the Middle East until Palestine participates in the Eurovision Song Contest and receives two points from Israel.”

I’ve sent the following letter to the authors of The Israel Lobby:

On pages 171 and 172 of The Israel Lobby, you state that

To its credit, the New York Times’s editorials sometimes criticize Israel policies, and in recent years, the criticism has occasionally been strongly worded. The Times recognizes that the Palestinians have legitimate grievances and a right to their own state. Still, its treatment of the two sides over the years has not been evenhanded.

After reading this, I decided to investigate your assertion by consulting the Times’s online archive, starting in 1987. Enclosed are extensive excerpts from its editorials. My conclusion, unlike yours, is that the Times has been consistently evenhanded over the past twenty years.

I would obviously appreciate a reply to this letter.

I’m not holding my breath.

As soon as I finished reading Mearsheimer’s and Walt’s The Israel Lobby, I realized I had far too much to say to put it all into a single post. In view of the large number of arguable assertions in the book, it’s far easier — for me and my readers — to deal with them one at a time. In this first installment of my review, the focus is on the authors’ contentions regarding the mainstream media’s coverage of Israel.

Here’s what Mearsheimer and Walt (M&W) contend:

A key part of preserving positive public attitudes toward Israel is to ensure that the mainstream media’s coverage of Israel and the Middle East consistently favors Israel and does not call U.S. support into question in any way. While serious criticism of Israel occasionally reaches a large audience across the United States, the American media’s coverage of Israel tends to be strongly biased in Israel’s favor, especially when compared with news coverage in other democracies.

M&W treat the New York Times less harshly than other representatives of the mainstream media: (more…)

The Lebanese government has asked Fatah and Hamas to negotiate a deal with the terrorist organization that has taken over the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al-Bared, Fatah al-Islam. If this doesn’t work, the army will get cart blanche to eliminate before mentioned terrorist organization.

Good decision I’d say: give them two days (or so) to work out a deal, if that doesn’t happen / work, go in and take out as many terrorists as possible.