Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Friday 4 March 2011

None So Blind As Those Who Won't See

Courtesy: Edgar Davidson blog (see text)
The BBC (you know by now how much I love Al Beeb, don’t you?!) has kept shtum about all sorts of developments in the Middle East that suggest that not all within the protest movement is sweetness and light.

On its execrably left-leaning CoJo (College of Journalism) website – which I advise all concerned about Al Beeb’s anti-Western, anti-Israel bias to keep an eye on regularly – it carries, for example, a piece by a suitably tame Israeli about the brutal attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan by a Muslim mob in Cairo, a piece which omits the rather salient fact that the mob yelled “Jew! Jew!” and focuses instead on the “ugly media reactions” in the West that display male chauvinism towards working women in conflict zones and Islamophobia.

Here’s a snippet:

‘Debbie Schlussel, the ultra-conservative columnist and commentator, claimed in her blog:
"Lara Logan was among the chief cheerleaders of this 'revolution' by animals. Now she knows what Islamic revolution is really all about."
She added:
"So sad, too bad, Lara. No-one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows ... How fitting that Lara Logan was 'liberated' by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the 'liberation'."
For Al Beeb that kind of talk won’t do at all.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2011/02/february-11th-the-day-egypts.shtml

Courtesy: Edgar Davidson blog (see text)
Nor will any hint of antisemitism among the protesters – as captured in the composite photos I've reproduced here – they were put together by Edgar Davidson and I took the liberty of copying them from recent posts on his admirable blog (http://www.edgar1981.blogspot.com/)

And, as I’ve said more than once, neither will any suggestion that the Muslim Brotherhood, is in fact (despite the blatherings of Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen and his acolytes) a dangerous Jihadist organisation.

All of which brings me to Professor Barry Rubin’s post on his blog entitled “Muslim Brotherhood's New Campaign: Seize Control of Egypt's Islamic Institutions”.

 He writes:
 ‘MEMRI has pointed out the opening of a Muslim Brotherhood campaign to replace Egypt's current clerical hierarchy with its own people. If that happens...you can imagine.. Once Islamists are in place making the "official" decisions on what constitutes proper Islam, an Islamist state cannot be far away.
.... Knowing that control over Islam was vital to maintaining control of the country, the Egyptian regime (like nationalist regimes elsewhere) set out to build a systematic structure for doing so. The head of the al-Azhar Islamic university, the chief qadi, the clerics of different mosques, are government-appointed. Sermons are government-approved. A ministry in charge of awqaf (religious foundations) and religion supervises all of this and hands out the money. And the government also decides which clerics appear on television and radio, or even have their own programs.
Over the last decade or so, the "official" clerics have been radicalized, and they support terrorism against Israel. Yet there is still a huge gap between those who accepted the rule by Mubarak's regime and those who demand an Islamist regime. They hate the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood hates them.
Now, if all of these official clerics are declared to be corrupt instruments of the old regime and are thrown out of office, the Brotherhood will control "Islam" in Egypt. Equally important, they will control a vast amount of patronage and money. Every cleric will have to get along with them or be unemployed. They could authorize which mosques could open. They would control religious education.
If the Brotherhood is a participant in government, even as a junior member of a coalition, its highest priority will be the religious affairs ministry. To call this dangerous is an understatement.
So we should watch carefully this battle over who governs Islam in Egypt.
To save you a click, here is what Muhammad Zoghbi of the Brotherhood says:
"Al-Azhar was subjected to...the politicization of the positions of the sheikh of Al-Azhar and the mufti of Egypt, as well as the position of the minister of religious endowments. These positions must be filled through elections. By no means should these officials be appointed by the president....
Therefore I say to the 'sons' of Al-Azhar: Let us all join the campaign, led by Sheik Khaled Al-Gindi, until we liberate Al-Azhar, just like Egypt was liberated....The president of Egypt must be subordinate to Al-Azhar and respect it....
Therefore, I say to the sheikh of Al-Azhar...resign immediately.... The mufti and the minister of religious endowments should step down, leaving their positions to God-fearing imams...."
"God-fearing" imams means Muslim Brotherhood cadre. The president of Egypt "must be subordinate" to al-Azhar means an Islamist state. This strategy also suggests that the Brotherhood is recognizing that it will not choose Egypt's next president – who is more likely to be the nationalist Amr Moussa – so it must start building an independent base of support outside of the government's and president's control for its long march toward Islamism at a later date.'
Barry Rubin, in another post entitled “The Turkish Camouflage Model: Arab Radicals Learn How to Hide Your Islamism,” draws attention to a pertinent passage from Newsweek magazine (http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/an-islamist-makeover.html)
“As revolutions across the Mideast bring religious parties within sight of real political power, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is becoming the region’s go-to man for Islamist leaders looking for a makeover.”
Adds the professor:
“In other words, be an Islamist but pretend you aren't. The fact that Erdogan is an ally of Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah is not a good sign for those who follow what might be better called the Turkish Camouflage-Your-Extremism Model.”
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/03/muslim-brotherhoods-new-campaign-seize.html
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/03/turkish-camouflage-model-arab-radicals.html

2 comments:

  1. Daphne

    Thanks for the links to the pictures. The story behind those was that I did a simple google picture search on the demonstrations and was astonished how many came up with anti-semitic images. So it was not hard to put a few together.

    That BBC article you pointed out is really incredible. It actually attempts to classify the Logan attack as part of the wider attacks on Western reporters that were previously carried out by Mubarak's thugs. The BBC is simply conditioned to reject any story, no matter how strong the evidence, that does not fit their narrative. And when they fail to stop one of these stories reaching at least part of the MSM, they simply rewrite the story to fit their narrative hoping that their readers will not find out the truth.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Edgar. But fair dues to yourself for finding those pictures - a comparable google search didn't really yield much for me!
    I totally agree with your take on the BBC - in an early post ("The Man Who Begat a Multitude")I suggest that Keith Kyle was the first of Al Beeb's reporters to display bias against Israel.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.