Arab American Students Killed by Racist Terrorist in North Carolina
Investigations Reveal Sinister Motive in Terror Attack
Shooting Victims: Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu Salha, and Razan Abu Salha / Abu Salha Family
By Alexandra Halaby | IMEMC & Agencies | February 11, 2015
Three Arab American students were shot to death Tuesday night inside their apartment near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The three are suspected victims of a terrorist attack.
On Tuesday evening Chapel Hill police say that three people were shot to death at a condominium complex located just east of the University of North Carolina campus. A man has been arrested in these gruesome slayings.
Chapel Hill police told local news outlets that Craig Stephen Hicks, aged 46, was arrested and has been charged with three counts of first degree murder. The suspect is being held at the Durham County Jail as of Wednesday morning.
Police responded to a report of gunshots in the evening of Tuesday, February 10th. Upon entering the home they found three people who were pronounced dead at the scene.
The dead have been identified as Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, of Chapel Hill; his wife, Yusor Mohammed Abu Salha, 21, of Chapel Hill; and Yusor’s sister, Razan Mohammad Abu Salha, aged 19, of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Sources close to the investigation tell IMEMC that all three had been shot in the head.
46-year-old, Craig Stephens Hicks, is in custody suspected of these killings.
Hicks described himself on Facebook updates as an atheist and regularly posted images and texts condemning many religions, Islam among them.
Shock has swept the small community of Chapel Hill, as many neighbors and friends have called the slain family some of the nicest people one could ever know.
An American football and basketball fan, Syrian-born American, Deah Barakat, was a dental student at the University of North Carolina and volunteered with a charity providing emergency dental care to children in Palestine.
Deah regularly updated his Twitter account, and wrote in January: “It’s so freaking sad to hear people saying we should ‘kill Jews’ or ‘kill Palestinians’. As if that’s going to solve anything.”
It has been learned from family members of Barakat that he and Palestinian student, Yusor Abu Salha, were married less than two months ago, in late December. Yusor was planning to enroll in dental school at the university shortly before her death.
Razan, a student also from Palestine and the third murder victim, who was Yusor’s sister and lived with the couple, ran a popular blog detailing her interests in photography and art.
Razan Abu Salha had started a degree at North Carolina State University last summer, where she studied Architectural and Environmental Design.
In a painful turn, last night police in Chapel Hill were forced to turn family members away from the crime scene causing confusion, hurt, and anger.
Many in the Arab American and American Muslim communities are identifying this murder as a hate crime. Based on the alleged murderer’s own social media content, it would appear that his disdain for non-whites and those that are religious could play some part into the motive for these killings.
Yusor and Razan Abu Salha come from a prominent Palestinian family and all of Palestine are mourning their tragic deaths today.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest civil advocacy group for Muslims, called on law enforcement officials Wednesday to address speculation about a motive for the killings.
“Based on the brutal nature of this crime, the past anti-religion statements of the alleged perpetrator, the religious attire of two of the victims and the rising anti-Muslim rhetoric in American society, we urge state and federal law enforcement authorities to quickly address speculation of a possible bias motive in this case,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences go to the families and loved ones of the victims and to the local community.”
Under the current U.S. Federal guidelines of what defines terror, this crime targeting Palestinian women wearing traditional modesty covering while one of the women’s husbands attempted to defend the women from the attack does seem very much like a terrorist attack, one source told IMEMC Wednesday, speaking under conditioning of anonymity.
Violent Intolerance – U.S. Style
By Robert Fantina | Aletho News | February 10, 2015
There is an old cliché that says if one is not concerned about current conditions in the world, one is not paying attention. While this writer generally attempts to avoid tired clichés, this one certainly seems applicable today.
There sometimes comes a time when white is seen as black, and black as white, and much of society accepts this unquestioningly. One thinks of the fabled emperor, parading down the street in clothes that only intelligent people could see, when he was, in fact, naked. Yet those around him, wanting to appear intelligent, fawned all over him, proclaiming the beauty of his non-existent clothes.
Today, the extreme right wing has millions of followers who have been convinced that all Muslims are terrorists, intent on destroying the United States and killing all Christians. This group also believes that the growing acceptance of marriage equality will bring down the wrath of an angry, intolerant God upon society. They cling to the twisted, inexplicable belief that government-provided health care is an unspeakable evil. These and other bizarre and dangerous beliefs are accepted without question when proclaimed by entertainment shows masquerading as news programs, or by sobbing televangelists demanding money to save America.
Can we possibly step back and take a critical look at just these few issues, to try, probably with little success, to understand why they cause so much anger and hostility?
- Islam and terrorism. A nation with a long tradition of prejudice, subtle or blatant, against anyone who is not white, seems to find it difficult to break out of that outdated stereotype. People who have grown up seeing mainly whites in their neighborhoods, schools and churches, without exposure to anyone who might speak a different language or have differing religious traditions, can be fearful of the unknown. Certainly when one is taught from childhood that the ‘American Way’, whatever that is, is superior to everything else, anyone who strays from the narrow traditions of that concept must be inferior, and probably dangerous.And what is shown on the news? Stories of people who adhere to some twisted offshoot of Islam, and use that philosophy to commit crimes, are sensationalized. The killing of several people at the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris spawned international pseudo-solidarity with the victims, creating a brand new hashtag for all the world to enjoy. Yet on the same day that that tragedy occurred, at least 50 Muslims, including children as young as 18 months and adults as old as seventy, were slaughtered by so-called Christian militias in the Central African Republic, yet most news stations didn’t see any reason to report on that incident. After all, that happened in Africa, a mostly black nation, so one expects them to go around killing each other. No news there; just more dead black Muslims. Perhaps, just perhaps, if the people who are so fearful of anyone who wears a hijab or a kufeyah were to actually meet a Muslim, and spend a few hours with him or her, perhaps over dinner, they might begin to question what they hear on FOX news. If they were to see such people dropping their children off at school, doing yard work at their home, grocery shopping in the very same store that caters to the local white population, there might begin to be a glimmer of a belief that they are not so different after all, and that that hijab or kufeyah actually represents a religious belief or cultural tradition, and is not in fact hiding a bomb.
- Marriage equality. The reactions to this among the right-wing are so extreme that volumes could be written attempting to counteract them. However, this writer will attempt to summarize these ideas with a few salient points. First, same-sex marriage has been legal in Canada, where this writer now resides, for years. Amazing as it may seem, life goes on. People go to work and school, have children, grow up, retire, travel, shop and do all the things that people in nations where same-sex marriage is not legal do. Canada has elections, elected officials meet to debate and pass laws, and the fact that marriage equality is the law of the land doesn’t impact any of those activities. No one is forced to marry anyone they don’t want to marry; no church is forced to perform a wedding ceremony if it violates their doctrines.Secondly, since most Christians focus on the New Testament, which records the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, where this angry, vengeful God comes from is a mystery to this writer. As a Christian familiar with both the Old and New Testaments, he is certainly aware of the angry God depicted in the Old Testament. Yet we are told that, with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, all things became new. And nowhere did Jesus Christ condemn any sinner with the exception of the hypocrites (rightwing ministers and newscasters, please take note). He embraced society’s outcasts, and invited everyone to come unto him. As mentioned, this writer is quite familiar with scripture, and he knows of no situation in which Jesus Christ threatened to send plagues if a nation approved same-sex marriage.
- Health care. Will it bore the reader if this writer brings up this topic yet again? Have we not all grown tired of it? There does not seem to be any logical reason for the peculiar belief that health care is a bad thing. Nor is there any evidence to support the concept that there is only so much health care out there, and if more people get it, some of those who already have it will somehow have less.
But, one might say, isn’t this unnecessary and intrusive government involvement in the personal lives of individuals? Well, no, it isn’t. Since the death panels that Sarah Palin was so concerned about, and that some members of the right wing continue to warn of, don’t now and never did exist, and since personal health care decisions are still left up to the individual and his/her physician, there is nothing intrusive here. However, while we are on the topic of intrusive government involvement in the personal lives of individuals, how does regulating the use of birth control not qualify? Also, is not governing who one can and cannot marry somewhat intrusive?
In 1960, Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts, a Roman Catholic was the Democratic nominee for president. His religion was controversial, but he was elected. In 1984, New York Representative Geraldine Ferraro was the unsuccessful Democratic vice-presidential nominee, the first woman to run for that office for a major party. In 2006, Keith Ellison became the first Muslim elected to the House of Representatives. In 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, an African-American won the presidential election, despite his race. In 2012, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon, was the unsuccessful standard-bearer for the Republican Party.
For four of the five people mentioned above, there was much talk about how historic their candidacy was, how the nation had obviously evolved and thrown off early prejudices, since it was able to elect a Catholic and an African-American, and nominate a woman and a Mormon. Yet Mr. Ellison’s election was not heralded with the same lofty words, especially when he chose to take the oath of office with his hand on a copy of the Qur’an rather than the Bible. Conservative columnist Dennis Prager, who took great umbrage, said this: “America, not Keith Ellison, decides what book a Congressman takes his oath on.” No, Mr. Prager, that choice is left to the individual taking the oath of office. And Representative Virgil Goode (R-VA) had this dark warning to issue, saying that Mr. Ellison’s use of the Qur’an was a threat to “… the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America… [and] if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Qur’an.” So it seems that those prejudices weren’t jettisoned quite as successfully as one might like to think. Right wing comments following the 2012 presidential election also reflect this fact. FOX News demi-god Bill O’Reilly proclaimed in despair that “It’s not a traditional American anymore”. The racist ‘tweets’ that filled the Internet following the election also clearly demonstrate that racism is alive and well in the U.S.
So here we are in 2015. The anger, hostility and violence that were perpetrated against African Americans fifty years ago have now been directed towards Muslims. Right wing commentators decry the fact that Muslims have equal rights, proclaiming that the Constitution was meant for Christians only. A new movie, glorifying a serial killer whose victims were mostly Muslim, is a box-office smash. The U.S. government continues to support and finance apartheid Israel, allowing the further savage victimization of its mostly Muslim victims.
While we shake our heads in awe and disgust that U.S. citizens a generation ago were lynching African-Americans for sport, with crowds watching gleefully, future generations will question our current actions. Scenes of Israelis picnicking while watching the slaughter of Palestinians in 2014 will be hung beside photos of angry whites screaming at young black girls walking into newly-integrated schools in the U.S. south in the early 1960s, both indicating the racism and barbarism of an earlier, primitive age. Yet this is the age we are living in, and the one we have some control over. It is beyond time to act, to fight the ignorance that breeds violence, and the strident voices that fan the deadly flames of intolerance. This is not work for someone else to do; there is, unfortunately, no one else to do it.
‘Patriotic’ Folly
By Brandon Martinez | Non-Aligned Media | February 6, 2015
Capitalizing on the recent Charlie Hebdo killings in France, many European nationalists have been exploiting the tragedy to bolster sentiment towards their cause.
While the cause of European nationalists is as legitimate as any other nationalist cause, and their misgivings about mass immigration merits reflection, the way in which many of them have gone about promoting their agenda by taking advantage of what appears to be a ‘let it happen’ if not a full blown false flag provocation in Paris last month warrants criticism.
Marine Le Pen, the incumbent leader of France’s ‘National Front’ political party, seized the opportunity to rally the French public behind her anti-Muslim platform. In the wake of the Paris shootings, Le Pen offered the militant language of neoconservatism in a New York Times column, stressing that France is being besieged by “Islamic fundamentalists” who need to be dealt with. Le Pen, like many rightist political leaders in Europe, has in recent years sought to ingratiate herself with the Jewish-Zionist community, hoping to curry favor with the power brokers of that persuasion who can help her into power.
What often goes unsaid in the rhetoric of European nationalists is the fundamental backwardness and duplicity of Western foreign policy. Like its counterparts in Britain and America, France has meted out plenty of violence upon other countries without just cause, but then cries foul when the chickens come home to roost. Canadian journalist Eric Margolis observed that France presently has troops conducting military operations in about a dozen countries, many of which have Muslim majorities, namely “Mali, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, East Africa, Abu Dhabi, Iraq, Afghanistan (from where French troops have been withdrawing, as well as covert operations in Syria, Lebanon and Somalia.” Not to mention France’s leading role in the 2011 war against Libya and its unreserved support of the terrorist state of Israel.
Violence is for the most part counter-productive and shouldn’t be the first option of those seeking retribution for mistreatment, but it can still be said that if France wants to continue to pursue imperial escapades throughout the Muslim world, then it should not be surprised when some of that violence reaches their shores as well. As the mathematician Isaac Newton discovered, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Why shouldn’t that principle apply to the West’s foreign policy?
Anti-Muslim British ‘patriots’ constantly invoke the 2013 murder of Lee Rigby, a British soldier, by two disgruntled British Muslim men in London. “Look how violent Muslims are,” lowbrow English Defence League (EDL) and British National Party (BNP) activists shout in the streets. While the slaying of Rigby was certainly heinous and deplorable, it was predictable blowback for London’s lunatic neoconservative foreign policy. One of Rigby’s killers, Michael Adebolajo, made it clear that he acted in revenge for what he sees as anti-Muslim aggression on the part of the British government, most notably the invasion of both Iraq and Afghanistan alongside the Americans. Rigby’s attackers did not go after civilians, but rather targeted a soldier who represents the British military which has greatly contributed to the deaths of several million Muslims in the Middle East since 2001. Religious fanaticism was a negligible factor in the Rigby killing, but if the sub-par intellects of the EDL and BNP are to be believed religious ideology and a desire to enforce ‘Sharia Law’ in Britain was the sole motivation.
Ditto with Charlie Hebdo and other alleged acts of ‘Muslim’ violence in the West. Even if we were to accept the questionable ‘official stories’ of these events, instead of addressing the underlying causes of Muslim discontent, plastic ‘patriots’ promulgate the neocon folly of ‘they hate us for our freedoms and way of life,’ a rancid myth which doesn’t compute considering the flagrant lack of freedom in much of the West where there are surveillance cameras and cops on every street corner as well as laws on the books that relegate certain political and historical opinions outside the parameters of ‘acceptable’ discourse.
For many unsophisticated ‘patriots’ in Britain, France, America and elsewhere, state-sponsored acts of violence by ‘their side’ is defensible, even admirable, whereas violence in the opposite direction that pales in comparison to the former, and which is often committed in reprisal for perceived wrongs, is contemptible.
They can’t have it both ways.
Copyright 2015 Brandon Martinez
France abducts 5 children from Muslim couple falsely suspected of moving to Syria
February 5, 2015
A Muslim couple in France has had their five children abducted by the state over unproven allegations that they are radicals who planned to take the entire family to fight in Syria.
Nearly a dozen police and social service workers entered the couple’s house, on an allegedly false pretext, as the family was packing to move to Tunisia, where the father was born.
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On Leaving the United States
A Long and Arduous Ordeal
By SAMI AL-ARIAN | CounterPunch | February 6, 2015
After 40 years, my time in the U.S. has come to an end. Like many immigrants of my generation, I came to the U.S. in 1975 to seek a higher education and greater opportunities. I also wanted to live in a free society where freedom of speech, association and religion are not only tolerated but guaranteed and protected under the law. That’s why I decided to stay and raise my family here, after earning my doctorate in 1986. Simply put, to me, freedom of speech and thought represented the cornerstone of a dignified life.
Today, freedom of expression has become a defining feature in the struggle to realize our humanity and liberty. The forces of intolerance, hegemony, and exclusionary politics tend to favor the stifling of free speech and the suppression of dissent. But nothing is more dangerous than when such suppression is perpetrated and sanctioned by government. As one early American once observed, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” Because government has enormous power and authority over its people, such control must be checked, and people, especially those advocating unpopular opinions, must have absolute protections from governmental overreach and abuse of power.
A case in point of course is the issue of Palestinian self-determination. In the United States, as well as in many other western countries, those who support the Palestinian struggle for justice, and criticize Israel’s occupation and brutal policies, have often experienced an assault on their freedom of speech in academia, media, politics and society at large.
After the tragic events of September 11th, such actions by the government intensified, in the name of security. Far too many people have been targeted and punished because of their unpopular opinions or beliefs.
During their opening statement in my trial in June 2005, my lawyers showed the jury two poster-sized photographs of items that government agents took during searches of my home many years earlier. In one photo, there were several stacks of books taken from my home library. The other photo showed a small gun I owned at the time. The attorney looked the jury in the eyes and said: “This is what this case is about. When the government raided my client’s house, this is what they seized,” he said, pointing to the books, “and this is what they left,” he added, pointing to the gun in the other picture. “This case is not about terrorism but about my client’s right to freedom of speech,” he continued.
Indeed, much of the evidence the government presented to the jury during the six-month trial were speeches I delivered, lectures I presented, articles I wrote, magazines I edited, books I owned, conferences I convened, rallies I attended, interviews I gave, news I heard, and websites I never even accessed.
But the most disturbing part of the trial was not that the government offered my speeches, opinions, books, writings, and dreams into evidence, but that an intimidated judicial system allowed them to be admitted into evidence.
That’s why we applauded the jury’s verdict. Our jurors represented the best society had to offer. Despite all of the fear-mongering and scare tactics used by the authorities, the jury acted as free people, people of conscience, able to see through Big Brother’s tactics. One hard lesson that must be learned from the trial is that political cases should have no place in a free and democratic society.
But despite the long and arduous ordeal and hardships suffered by my family, I leave with no bitterness or resentment in my heart whatsoever. In fact, I’m very grateful for the opportunities and experiences afforded to me and my family in this country, and for the friendships we’ve cultivated over the decades. These are lifelong connections that could never be affected by distance.
I would like to thank God for all the blessings in my life. My faith sustained me during my many months in solitary confinement and gave me comfort that justice would ultimately prevail.
Our deep thanks go to the friends and supporters across the U.S., from university professors to grassroots activists, individuals and organizations, who have stood alongside us in the struggle for justice.
My trial attorneys, Linda Moreno and the late Bill Moffitt, were the best advocates anyone could ask for, both inside and outside of the courtroom. Their spirit, intelligence, passion and principle were inspirational to so many.
I am also grateful to Jonathan Turley and his legal team, whose tireless efforts saw the case to its conclusion. Jonathan’s commitment to justice and brilliant legal representation resulted in the government finally dropping the case.
Our gratitude also goes to my immigration lawyers, Ira Kurzban and John Pratt, for the tremendous work they did in smoothing the way for this next phase of our lives.
Thanks also to my children for their patience, perseverance and support during the challenges of the last decade. I am so proud of them.
Finally, my wife Nahla has been a pillar of love, strength and resilience. She kept our family together during the most difficult times. There are no words to convey the extent of my gratitude.
We look forward to the journey ahead and take with us the countless happy memories we formed during our life in the United States.
Sami Amin Al-Arian is a Palestinian-American civil rights activist who was a computer engineering professor at University of South Florida.
Eight-year-old summoned to French police station for “glorifying terrorism”, two hour interrogation
By Sylvain Mouillard – Libération – 28/1/2015
A school director has filed a complaint against the father of a fourth grader. He is also supposed to have inflicted “bullying” onto the schoolboy, according to the family lawyer.
January 8th, 2015, the day after the killing at Charlie Hebdo. In a primary school in Nice, fourth grade pupils discuss the tragedy with their schoolteacher. “Are you Charlie?”, he asks them. Ahmed, aged 8, says no. Why not? “Because they caricatured the Prophet. I am with the terrorists.” The teacher alerts the school headmaster, who decides to summon the boy, and then his parents, who reason with their offspring. But he does not stop there. On January 21st, the head of the school, which is located in the south of the city, lodged a complaint at the police station for “glorification of terrorism”, according to the lawyer for the family of the child, Mr Sefen Guez Guez.
Contacted Wednesday evening by Libération, the Minister of Education confirmed that a complaint had been filed against the father of the child, who is supposed to have made an “intrusion” into the school premises. And that “an alert had been sent to child protection services.”
“From there, the judicial machine is launched,” Mr Guez Guez, the lawyer defending Ahmed, explains to Libération.
Summoned on Wednesday afternoon to the police station in Nice, as part of an unofficial hearing, the child remained there for almost two hours.
What next?
The lawyer related the events in a series of tweets, under the moniker “IbnSalah” .
[Tweet] S. Ibn Salah Question from OPJ [police officer in the French Criminal Investigation Department]: “What does the word terrorism mean to you ? – I don’t know.” Ahmed. 8-year-old.
[Tweet] S. Ibn Salah “Did you really say that the journalists deserved to die? – It’s not true, I never said that.”
“Placing a child of 8 years in an unofficial hearing, is telling of the current state of hysteria around this notion of glorifying terrorism. In these kind of cases, pedagogy is necessary”, considers Mr Guez Guez, furious. “We do not think of leaving it there, the headmaster’s attitude is unacceptable.” He accuses him of inflicting “bullying” onto Ahmed by “putting him in the corner” and “depriving him of recreation.”
According to the lawyer, the child also recounted having endured this remark while he was playing in the sandbox: “Stop digging, you will not find a submachine gun to kill us all with.” Ahmed, a diabetic, had even once been deprived of taking his insulin, according to the lawyer. Contacted by Libération, the prosecutor of Nice confirmed the existence of this unofficial hearing, but did not have any further comment to make.
“In the current context, the school principal decided to report what happened to the police”, Commissioner Marcel Authier explained to the AFP [French Press Agency], noting that it is was absolutely not a judicial complaint. “The child and his father were summoned to try to understand how a boy of 8 years could be able to make such radical statements”, said the director for the department of public safety. “Obviously, the child does not understand what he said. We do not know where he found his declarations sentiment from”, he said. The primary school, closed, could not be reached on Wednesday evening.
~
Translated by Jenny Bright, Tlaxcala
“Glorifying terrorism”: French Minister of Education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem supports the measures taken by Nice Elementary school
Politicians react after the summoning of Ahmed, 8-years-old, to the police station for having affirmed his support for the perpetrators of the “Charlie Hebdo” attack.
LIBERATION with AFP – January 29, 2015
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem supports the administration of the Nice Elementary School where studies Ahmed, 8, summoned to the police station yesterday for “glorifying terrorism” . The staff “responded appropriately”, the Minister of Education said this Thursday. “I say it strongly, not only has this team done well to behave as such, but its monitoring work, educational as well as social, is a useful endeavour and I thank them for it”, the Minister has insisted from the Presidential Palace where she had met with teachers, educators and associations.
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem also affirmed that “when the father [of the schoolboy] came into the school facility, he had […] a brutal attitude, he even repeatedly entered without authorisation into the school building while threatening school staff. So it is for this precise reason and for that reason only that the school director filed a complaint against the father and not against the child.”
A statement which the child’s lawyer, Me Sefen Guez Guez, again challenged on his Twitter account.
[Tweet] S. Ibn Salah @najatvb Nonsense. I signed a police report that testifies to the contrary. Go ahead slandering and defaming, but the truth will always emerge. State lie.
On the right-wing scene as well, some were keen to show their full support for the school headmaster who made the complaint against the child, as for instance Christian Estrosi, UMP mayor of Nice, where the incident occurred, and Eric Ciotti (UMP).
[Tweet] Christian Estrosi Full support for the school headmaster who courageously denounced the facts. I await justice and firmness in front of parental responsibility.
[Tweet] Eric Ciotti I wonder about the collective hysteria merely because of the unofficial hearing of a child and of his parents after alarming declarations had been uttered.
[Tweet] Eric Ciotti Child heard at Nice, the police and teachers have perfectly reacted given the context, I fully support them.
More cautious, Chantal Jouanno (UDI) has wondered, in a message on Twitter, why “no one [has been] putting their trust in the principal and the police.”
[Tweet] Chantal Jouanno Child heard at Nice with his father. No one trusts the school headmaster and the police?
The communist deputy of the mayor of Paris, Ian Brossat, has not reacted on the substance of the case but to the declarations of some right-wing members.
[Tweet] Ian Brossat Those who rejoice at an 8-year-old being summoned by justice howl when their dear Sarkozy is in custody. #Go figure it out.
As for the National Islamophobia Observatory (OIC), he was indignant: “The National Observatory against Islamophobia is indignant about the treatment inflicted on Ahmed, a child of 8 years, summoned to a police station in Nice”, writes in a statement this authority attached to the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), the representative body of Islam in France. “The fight against radicalisation should not lead to mass hysteria but must be inscribed within the Republican legal framework”, said the Observatory, which calls on the Minister of Education, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, “to ensure that such excesses do not happen again and to give priority to dialogue in similar cases.”
On Twitter, where the hashtag #Ahmed8 was used nearly 4000 times Thursday morning, users have already taken up the case, with irony , dismay , annoyance , humour , or to express their agreement with the decision of the school headmaster.
~
Translated by Jenny Bright for Tlaxcala
French Child Interrogated by Police for ‘Apology for Terrorism’
teleSUR | January 29, 2015
French police interrogated an eight year old child because he said that “[he was] not Charlie” in class, in the southern city of Nice on Wednesday.
The professor had begun a discussion with his students the day following the attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine that left 12 dead – 10 journalists and two police. The child justified his refusal to identify with Charlie as “they [the journalists] caricatured the prophet. I am with the terrorists.” The school director, alerted by the teacher, decided to file a complaint for the French crime of “apology of terrorism” -similar to inciting terrorism- last week, against his father, confirmed the education ministry.
One week later, the child was interrogated for two hours in the police station of Nice, informed his lawyer, Sefen Guez Guez.
To the question “What does the word terrorism mean to you?” the child replied, “I do not know,” the lawyer tweeted. “Did you say that the journalists deserved to die?” “Wrong, I have never said that,” he said.
Guez denounced the “current state of collective hysteria that surrounds this notion of apology of terrorism.”
“In this kind of case, pedagogy is what we need,” he asserted, saying he intended to sue the director, which he accused of having abusively punished the boy. The boy claimed he was deprived of playtime, had to stand in the corner, and was even told the following while playing in the sand pit, “Stop digging, you will not find any Tommy gun to shoot us all.” As a diabetic, he was also deprived of his insulin shots, claimed his lawyer.
During the two weeks that have followed the Charlie Hebdo attack, over 70 people have been put on trial for “apology of terrorism,” sometimes just for shouting “Allahu Akbar” to municipal police. In Corsica 30 people were found guilty, including people with mental issues.
Stand-up comedian Dieudonne will be heard in a Parisian court on February 4 for having posted on Facebook “I am Charlie Coulibaly,” a combining the slogan “I am Charlie” and the name of the attacker of a Kosher supermarket, a few days after the Charlie Hebdo tragedy.
God Promised Antisemitism to the Zionists
My personal reflections on the Campaign Against Antisemitism survey, by Aaron Dover – January 25, 2015
In order to say what some might consider the un sayable I first need to deconstruct some mythical terms so let me just wade into some taboo territory as though I don’t even see the no-entry signs.
What is anti-Semitism?
“Antisemitism” is a word and a political construct. It has been loaded with meaning and importance like no other word in the English language. This is no exaggeration, it is not meant as hyperbole, if you want evidence of this you need look no further than the UK National Curriculum. I had a look at the core curriculum for secondary school History, and have quoted a section of it below.
– challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day
In addition to studying the Holocaust, this could include:
Examples (non-statutory)
women’s suffrage
the First World War and the Peace Settlement
the inter-war years: the Great Depression and the rise of dictators
the Second World War and the wartime leadership of Winston Churchill
the creation of the welfare state
Indian independence and end of Empire
social, cultural and technological change in post-war British society
Britain’s place in the world since 1945
Now take a look closely at it. It does not say that the Holocaust is a mandatory subject, but it is implied, which is interesting in itself; the optional subjects follow and are clearly marked as such. The Holocaust is the only mandatory subject in this area. Not just any holocaust; there are so many to choose from by now; with new ones happening frequently; this is the Holocaust and is a proper noun with a capital.
The most important things being said here are those that are unsaid. What is unsaid? The Holocaust is the important holocaust i.e. the Jewish one. The Holocaust is exceptional. Not just important; nobody is here to argue with that; but exceptional. The other ideas suggested are important, and many, many ideas that would never appear on that list at all are also very important. The Holocaust is unique, and all students must know about it, and laws in place that criminalise Holocaust denial ensure not just that the topic is covered, but that it will be covered with the broadly accepted narrative. Every child educated in UK schools will be told about the Holocaust and they will be told the same things you were told.
Other holocausts might match it in terms of any particular respect; the brutality of the methods; the nature of the target population; the body count; the ideals of the perpetrators; their propaganda; their moral failings; and so on. But irrespective of any of those things, the proper noun Holocaust retains an exceptional and unique position in the prevailing historical narrative of all Western society.
As a result, a fully-educated Brit will certainly know that Hitler ran the Nazi party in Germany, unless he skipped class a great deal and his parents and friends never mentioned it, but may well be unaware that the British royal family are of German origin.
One of the implications of this is that every child in the UK will learn about Jew-hatred, termed anti-Semitism. No child will be left behind on this subject. They may not hear about other racial prejudices, other holocausts, they may not know how they got what remains of a welfare state around them, but they will know about anti-Semitism and Holocaust. This then becomes the common currency in discussions as the high water mark of evil throughout history, and this is the explanation for the existence of Godwin’s law (or Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies).
The reason people reach for Nazi analogies so frequently is a result of it being this global common currency of an ultimate evil narrative. People wouldn’t write articles in the global press saying “so-and-so is behaving like Ceaucescu” the way they say so-and-so is behaving like Hitler. They know they would lose the majority of their readers on that remark, because no matter how nasty Ceaucescu is, he is just not as famous. Obviously there are countless other examples. This is quite simply because everyone knows about Hitler, and – crucially – everybody knows that everybody knows about Hitler. It’s a given. The Nazis are the one-stop-shop for evilness yardsticks.
The Nazi Holocaust of the Jews (and other victims of that same holocaust) therefore enjoys the same educational status as, say, basic math. In the same way you expect people to be able to do a bit of arithmetic, you can be confident that they have covered these educational subjects. They will know that 6×7=42 and also that the Jews have always suffered persecution throughout their history and were brutally slaughtered at the hands of a maniacal German tyrant who we stopped. They will not necessarily have heard of Zionism, nor have any awareness of the Nakba in Palestine that followed the war. Nor, for that matter, will they necessarily have any knowledge of any holocaust in Armenia for example.
So it follows that you can go and do a survey of people’s views about attitude towards Jews, and that isn’t weird to anyone, because of the Holocaust. They will know the various tropes and stereotypes associated with antisemitism, if they were listening in class, the hook noses, the greed, the blood libels and so on. Therefore if you ask someone in a survey or focus group do you think people perceive Jews to be more interested in money than other people? What will happen is that they will recognise that this view is a view that was held by antisemites, such as the Nazis. You will also know that these tropes have persisted over the ages, because you were taught that. These are ideas about Jews that wax and wane across time and society but never vanish; that is what we are taught. So to enquire as to whether these tropes that you may have first heard about during Holocaust lessons are present today and to be asked if you agree with them is a fair question, if we accept the previous fact.
Hitler was a maniac. But he was not a maniac for his antisemitic views, because these were things he found already lying around him in German society to repurpose to his ends. The antisemitism was there, it is there now, it is here, it is all around us, always, like a field. The field is stronger and weaker in places, but nowhere in space and time is it absent.
A survey therefore is simply a way to measure the field strength at a specific location and time. The questions will reflect the set of tropes that we understand to comprise antisemitism. We don’t ask, in a survey; what do you think about Jews? Open questions are not suited to surveys. So instead we must create a survey based on a set of preconceptions of how to measure the antisemitism field. We ask people about their own feelings in respect of the attitudes we suspect they may hold. This method is fundamentally flawed if we seek an objective answer, because the questions are leading.
If I ask; do you think Jews are more interested in money than most people? I might also ask; do you think Jews are more interested in motorsports than most people? But I do not ask the latter. Of course, you can only ask a limited number of questions so you have to stay focused; and that means discarding anything which could be used as a control for any other questions you are asking. What if we asked that second question and 99% of people responded positively? Thinking “bloody Jews, all into bloody motorsports” would not be the kind of antisemitism we are probing for. It does not fit our preconceived opinion-fingerprint of an antisemite. That’s not to say a dedicated Hasbarist wouldn’t try to make capital of such a statement, but it isn’t one of the statements that sets off a buzzer.
What are these tropes? The stereotyped view of a Jew by an antisemite, we learn, is made up from a number of parts. The hook nose. The evil, the clasped hands, the leering grin, the rubbing of hands in glee at either massive financial gain or the death of Christian babies. That’s your antisemitic stereotype. There’s plenty more to it than that, it extends from this to encompass more. The blood libels, the Jew hungry for the blood of Christians; that’s a blood libel.
What do each of these tropes provide to the ever-eager antisemite hunters? A wealth of opportunity for allegations.
What is antisemitism? Antisemitism poses a very real and very present danger in the UK and Europe, and around the world. On that I will agree with CAAS and their ilk. That is by now one of the most politically powerful ilks in human history. That ilk has made it on the one hand compulsory to learn the Holocaust; but on the other hand has made it criminal to deny or belittle the Holocaust. It has achieved this dual success in many of the developed nations.
Antisemitism is a danger not to the purported victims of said antisemitism, but to the actual victims; those accused of it. Everyone lives in the antisemitism minefield. It is not necessary for me to spell out the consequences for anyone who falls foul of the various bodies of antisemite-hunters that span the globe. Socially, professionally, step on an antsemitism mine, and you’re toast. You could be anyone; you can be the President of the United States, you are in the same minefield. You can even be a Jew, in which case the antisemite-hunter reaches into the bag for a self-hater label instead, it’s not a great substitute but it’s all they’ve got to work with. I’m not going to go into the self-hating Jew mythology here, there are more worthwhile subjects to address.
How do we fight antisemitism? In terms of containing antisemitic sentiment, we gag people and ban things from being said, and we keep everyone in fear of stepping on an antisemitism mine by making examples of public figures on a frequent basis. If people keep seeing careers destroyed by a misplaced remark on Gaza or similar, others will not become too emboldened, even if they harbour such antisemitic thoughts, to vocalise them.
To fight antisemitism, do we also stop the large scale killing of Jews by a monstrous machine of fascist brutality? No. Why? Because we did that decades ago.
How do we fight Islamophobia? In terms of containing Islamophobic sentiment, not very well at all, that’s how. We could try to restrain the media from trying to link individual incidents to all Muslims, through their overt and covert propaganda. But we don’t.
To fight Islamophobia, do we stop the large scale killing of Muslims by a monstrous machine of fascist brutality? No. Why? Because we are the machine. The Western killing machine has run on a fuel of Islamophobic sentiment for over a century.
But the media are focused more on the rise of antisemitism, or a perception of a rise. A survey of this kind signals simply by the fact that it is done, let alone the results, that antisemitism is something we should fear. The minefield is something we should fear.
But the fear of antisemitism is unrelated to incidents of antisemitism. The fear-to-incident ratio has never been higher; the perception of antisemitism and fear of that antisemitism has been boosted as hard as possible by the scaremongers of CAAS. They don’t even care if their survey methodology is a joke. If they send out their survey so literally anyone can fill it in and question 1 is “are you Jewish” and question 2 is “are you British” and you fill it in from any web browser… and take the answers in good faith… allowing literally anyone to contribute to the results… well then you cannot be taking the methodology very seriously. But CAAS doesn’t need to, because they know with their network they can churn out the intended results infographic and get the whole world media singing their song. It’s a song of victimhood that’s had so many re-heatings and re-releases that even Bob Geldof would blush.
It’s a song about the poor Jews feeling scared. Not being actually murdered or gassed or blown to pieces but worrying that they might at some point. Whereas the Muslims victimhood song doesn’t even chart, when they are being massacred day in day out by our stormtroopers and hired guns.
The world is tired of the Jewish victimhood song, and tired of this victimhood being used as a weapon, as a means to bully people into observing Zionist taboos.
Antisemitism is a terrorist weapon. It is used to terrify the world into observing Zionist taboos through fear of losing social standing, being labeled a racist, being fired, exiled, diminished, hounded. This terror is being escalated by CAAS and all the other antisemite-hunters.
I’m Jewish; It takes Jewish privilege to be able to say this. It should not. But to actually question the dogma around antisemitism itself, is one of the ultimate taboos. It’s at the very foundations of the Zionist enterprise.
I don’t think there is any special exceptional Jew-hatred, a special antisemitism field existing all around us throughout time. People are really very pissed off with Israel though.
That’s why the public perception of antisemitism has to be cranked up now, because the gagging needs to be cranked up, because people are waking up, smelling the bullshit and calling out Israel for its actions. Now that is the kind of antisemitism emergency that calls for a total propaganda war. Expect more assaults on free speech, the mines in the minefield are going to be increasingly sensitive. Expect increased casualties of public figures. Expect people to become more reticent about saying stuff; expect media and social media to clamp down on any anti-Israel sentiment.
Because otherwise, you know at this rate, we European Jews will all be going to the gas soon. Yawn.
A Rogue’s Gallery in Paris
We Aren’t Charlie
By Robert Fantina | CounterPunch | January 16, 2015
Much has already been said about the hypocrisy of world leaders, all of whom oppose free speech and freedom of the press to one degree or another, jumping on the ‘I am Charlie’ bandwagon and marching in Paris. Reminiscent of the massive demonstrations in support of the U.S. after 9/11, this rally was just another ‘feel good’ moment, full of photo opportunities for politicians masquerading as statesmen to use in future campaigns.
Let’s look for a minute at just some members of the Rogues Gallery that were on display in Paris.
French President Francois Hollande: As president of the country that, to hear the media and world leaders describe it, is now the front line of some war at which civilization is at stake, Mr. Hollande, of course, had to be there. So what if France banned pro-Palestine demonstrations last summer, when Israel was slaughtering thousands of defenseless men, women and children? Who cares if France assisted in the training of Muslim radicals to fight in Syria? They should have known that their victims were only to be other Muslims, not good, respectable non-Muslims who make a career out of mocking Islam. France taught them how to kill, but perhaps didn’t specify that it was only to be in Syria. But what is any of that? When Muslims, trained and armed by France, shoot up a magazine office in Paris, killing several people, and then go to a market to do the same, somehow we all become Charlie.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu: According to a recent report, Turkey has the distinction of currently imprisoning forty journalists, more than any other country in the world. But, what are facts, when a good photo op beckons?
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov: Siberian journalist and blogger Dmitry Shipilov was jailed in Russia for three months in 2014, for the crime of “insulting a government servant in the course of his work.” Free speech isn’t quite as free in some places as it might be.
Tunisian Prime Minister Medhi Jomaa: Mr. Yasine Ayan is currently imprisoned for ‘defaming the army’. Mr Ayan, a civilian, was convicted by a military court and sentenced to three years imprisonment, due to Facebook posts he created in August and September of 2014.
Israeli Prime Murderer Benjamin Netanyahu: Perhaps this writer saved the best for last. The word ‘hypocrite’ simply isn’t strong enough here, but unfortunately, a better one doesn’t exist. Israel, under Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership, arrests and jails people for Facebook posts critical of Israel. During last summer’s genocidal bombing of the Gaza Strip, press vehicles were not ‘collateral damage’; they were successfully targeted, killing the journalists riding in them. Israel pays university students to write blogs and other articles favorable to Israel. It prevents United Nations personnel from visiting the Gaza Strip to see firsthand the damage wreaked there by Israel.
Absent from this Paris love fest was a top representative from the United States. Is it possible that U.S. President Barack Obama knew that for the U.S. to go to France to show support for free speech would simply be too ludicrous? Perhaps he thinks of recent police assaults on reporters in Ferguson, Missouri. Or possibly Edward Snowden, living in asylum in Russia after having revealed the extent to which the U.S. monitors the actions of its own citizens, citizens around the world, and world leaders, comes to mind. Or could he have thought of Chelsea Manning, serving a thirty-five-year sentence for releasing the largest set of government-classified documents ever released to the public, information that was more than a little embarrassing to the government? Or maybe his thoughts were not quite so specific. Knowing that profit-making corporations control most of the ‘mainstream’ press in the U.S., Mr. Obama must surely be aware that, while many people may have the right to speak freely, there is no opportunity for them to do so. The airwaves only broadcast what their corporate masters demand. For example, Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in the thousands were occurring for weeks before any major news stations deemed them worthy of reporting.
Well, what is any of that, if people have a brand new hashtag (#jesuisCharlie), and get to feel a sense of shared outrage? And, to add icing to the rather stale and poorly-made cake, those perpetrating the crime were Muslims, a foreign-looking, foreign-sounding people who wear such things a hijabs and kufiyahs. ‘Different’, of course, must be bad. Just because nearly 25% of the world’s population is Muslim is no reason for people to learn anything about them or, heaven forbid, accept them as fellow human beings. If the media says they are terrorists, hating western society for its freedoms, then it must be so. One wonders why the nearly constant bombing of mainly Muslim nations hasn’t proven to them yet the benefits of western society.
Following the 9/11 attacks, flag lapel pins, and flag decals on car windows were all the rage. They enabled people far removed from the reality of suffering to feel that they were ‘doing their part’ and ‘supporting the troops’. It was never necessary to look at any motivations that might have been behind those attacks; after all, when politicians like New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani were telling the public that ‘they hate us for our freedoms’, well, what else is there to say? Just because the U.S. supports the most repressive Middle Eastern regimes, bombs citizens of the nations it doesn’t support, kidnaps and tortures suspected ‘terrorists’ and generally causes untold suffering, is no reason, a true, flag-waving patriot would say, for them to hate us. No, it is our cherished freedoms (similar to those enjoyed by Canada, Australia, most of Europe, much of South America, etc.), that motivates their hatred.
And now we are all supposed to be Charlie, whatever that means. But a clever phrase, an attractive sign, and the mistaken belief that by waving it one is doing ‘something’, is sufficient for many people. Tomorrow we all go back to our own little worlds, while the same heads of state that piously marched in Paris throw bread and water into the cells of imprisoned journalists, control through wealthy corporations which events become public knowledge and which don’t, and continue to repress their own citizens and press. And then come together again, in a pseudo show of solidarity the next time some event occurs that the governments and media choose to exploit. That it will most likely be at the expense of Muslims is an additional tragedy.
Robert Fantina’s latest book is Empire, Racism and Genocide: a History of US Foreign Policy (Red Pill Press).
Islamic Human Rights Commission cuts ties with ‘Orwellian’ British government
RT | January 14, 2015
One of the UK’s biggest Islamic organizations has refused to participate in future government talks on anti-terror legislation, claiming their contributions to policy are being overlooked.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), which describes itself as an “independent, non-profit campaign, research and advocacy organization,” said the British government has been “uncompromising” in its efforts to “legislate away fundamental freedoms in order to tackle terrorism over the last 18 years.”
In a statement released late Tuesday, an IHRC spokesperson said: “Such input perversely allows the government to claim that it has carefully considered the views of civil society organizations, when in fact the final policies were always a foregone conclusion.”
The statement comes at a time when a number of British Islamic organizations feel marginalized by the government, and in some cases have been accused of being linked to terrorist activities overseas.
In November, the Claystone think tank said “more than a quarter” of British charities under investigation by the charity commission were working on Muslim-related issues, and criticized the government for “excessive” surveillance of Islamic charitable groups.
Analysis conducted by the think tank found that out of 76 charities currently being investigated, 20 were led by Muslims, including the civil liberties organization CAGE.
In December, the Demos think tank also said British charities working in conflict zones in the Middle East were being cut off from “millions” of pounds in funding due to counter-terrorism legislation, with some having their private bank accounts closed down completely due to “credit risk.”
Tom Keatingue, a director at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and author of the report, said that the lack of financial access meant that charities were unable to carry out some medical projects overseas, or deliver adequate resources to vulnerable refugees.
The IHRC also hit out at the government’s Counter Terrorism and Security Bill, which is currently being debated in parliament, which the organization called “Orwellian.”
“The bill will introduce a raft of new measures to deal with terrorism and extremism in the UK. It is IHRC’s view that the current proposals are far and away the most Orwellian to date; they will erode civil liberties and turn the UK into a police state.
“Alongside the raft of new laws, we have also seen the government introduce and broaden its PREVENT program, which is aimed at both gathering intelligence on the Muslim community using public sector workers such as teachers and doctors and trying to socially engineer a more compliant Muslim community by legally defining the range of beliefs/views its members are allowed to hold.”
IHRC spokesperson Arzu Merali claimed the government’s ramping up of anti-terror measures were marginalizing British Muslims, and risked turning the UK into a “police state.”
“The anti-terrorism laws have served only to create a sub-par legal regime without due process that targets Muslims. It also demonizes Muslims further, causing backlash and discrimination. Off the back of these processes, we find the UK turning into a police state with little protest. We must stop this slide into authoritarianism,” she said.
Last month, two well-known British Muslim charities, the Muslim Charities Forum and the Birmingham based Islamic Help lost their government grants after being accused by the Department for Communities and Local Government of being linked to terrorist groups.
Both organizations say they were “surprised, dismayed and angered” by DCLG’s decision, which they insisted were based on “unfounded allegations.”
JE NE SUIS PAS CHARLIE
The Extremely Dark and Unexamined Underside of the Charlie Hebdo Affair
By John Chuckman | Aletho News | January 13, 2015
We hear much about bloody events in Paris being an attack upon western traditions and freedom of the press, and I am sorry but such claims are close to laughable, even though there is nothing remotely funny about mass murder. It certainly is not part of the best western tradition to insult the revered figures of major religions. You are, of course, technically free to do so in many western countries – always remembering that in many of them, a wrong target for your satire will get you a prison term for “hate crimes” – but it does represent little more than poor judgement and extremely bad taste to exercise that particular freedom. What Charlie Hebdo does is not journalism, it is sophomoric jokes and thinly disguised propaganda. Hebdo’s general tone and themes place it completely outside the mythic tableau of heroic defender of free speech or daring journalism, it being very much a vehicle for the interests of American imperialism through NATO.
Of course, the best western traditions don’t outlaw what garments or symbols people may wear for their beliefs, as France has done. Note also the history of some of the politicians making grandiose statements about freedom of the press. Nicolas Sarkozy was involved a number of times in suppressing stories in the press, even once getting a journalist fired. Sarkozy is a man, by the way, who took vast, illegal secret payments from the late Muammar Gaddafi and from France’s richest heiress to secure his election as president. David Cameron had police seize computers at Guardian offices and allows Julian Assange to remain cooped in the Embassy of Ecuador to avoid trumped-up charges in Sweden. Cameron is also best buddies with Rupert Murdoch, the man whose idea of journalism appears to be what he can dredge up to exchange for what he wants from government. His Fox News in the United States enjoys a reputation for telling the truth only by sheer accident. Barack Obama is a man transfixed by secrecy and ready to use all of his powers to punish those who tell the truth, a man who holds hundreds in secret prisons, and a man who regularly oversees the extrajudicial execution of hundreds and hundreds of people in a number of countries.
The parade celebrating the good things of western tradition – which Obama missed but which saw now-potential presidential candidate Sarkozy shove his way to the front – also included such luminaries as the Foreign Minister of Egypt’s extremely repressive government, which, even as the minister marched proudly, held innocent journalists in prison simply for writing the truth. The Prime Minister of Turkey was there celebrating, a man who has put a number of journalists in jail. Celebrating rights and freedoms also was King Abdullah of Jordan who once saw a Palestinian journalist sentenced to hard labor for writing so simple a truth as that the king was dependent upon Israel for power.
We shouldn’t forget, too, that Israel targeted and killed a number of journalists in its Gaza invasions, that the United States’ forces in Iraq targeted and killed a number of journalists, and that “NATO” deliberately targeted Serbia’s state television service with bombing, killing many civilians. Free speech and western traditions, indeed.
There are more doubts and questions in the Charlie Hebdo affair than there will ever be answers. In part this is because the French security forces silenced witnesses, killing three assumed perpetrators in a display which seems to say that Dirty Harry movies are now part of French training programs.
And then we have the sudden death by apparent suicide of a police commissioner in charge of the investigation just as he was writing his report alone at night, an event which received little mainline press coverage. A man in his forties in the midst of likely the biggest case of his career just decides to kill himself?
We should all be extremely suspicious of a trained killer, seen as being informed and exceedingly efficient at his work, leaving behind his identity card in an abandoned car. It really is a touch more serendipity than we would credit in a mystery story. We should all be extremely suspicious of men so obviously well trained in military techniques, about men who were well informed about schedules at the offices they attacked, and about men heavily armed in the center of Paris. People serving in notorious killer outfits like America’s SEALs or Britain’s SAS rarely achieve such complete success as twelve victims, all shot dead, and an easy get-away.
And just to add to the confusion we have the video of one of the armed men shooting a police officer lying on the sidewalk. The armed man, face covered, lowers his AK-47 to within a couple of feet of the victim’s head and fires. The head goes down, but we see no blood. Have you ever seen photos of someone shot in the head with a high velocity weapon? That’s what the Zapruder film is about, and the results are more like an exploding pumpkin than a death at the end of a stage play.
We need to be more than suspicious about anyone or any event which has any connection with ISIS. ISIS is one of the terror groups assembled, armed, and supplied by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States for the deliberate and wanton destruction of Syria. The two brothers killed in Paris both fought in Syria. It certainly would be easy enough for someone to have obtained an ID card there from one of them. Remember, the excesses of ISIS we all read about – at least those that aren’t clearly staged propaganda stunts such as video of a hostage beheading – are the direct result of assembling large bands of cutthroats and fanatics, arming them, and setting them loose to terrorize someone else’s country.
It is the simplistic view of ISIS that the involved intelligence services want us to have that it is a spontaneous fanatical rebellion in favor of one extreme interpretation of Islam. Despite many recruits for ISIS holding what are undoubtedly genuine fanatical beliefs, they almost certainly have no idea who actually pays their salaries or provides their equipment – that is simply the way black intelligence operations work. And those participating in such operations are completely disposable in the eyes of those running them, as when the United States bombs some in ISIS who perhaps exceeded their brief.
Every society has some percentage of its population which is dangerously mad, and if such people are gathered together and given weapons, their beliefs are almost beside the point, except that they provide the targeting mechanism used by those doing the organizing.
We should all be extremely suspicious about any event when a man such as Rupert Murdoch is quoted afterward saying, “Muslims must be held responsible for jihadist cancer,” as he was in The Independent. In case you forgot, Murdoch is a man whose news organizations for years lied, stole, and violated a number of laws to obtain juicy tidbits for his chain of cheesy mass-circulation newspapers. Murdoch also is a man who has had the most intimate and influential relationships with several prime ministers including that smarmy criminal, Tony Blair, and that current mindless windbag and ethical nullity, David Cameron. Publicity from large circulation newspapers, which can swing at a moment’s notice from supporting to attacking you, plus campaign contributions buy a lot of government compliance. Murdoch also is one of the world’s most tireless supporters of Israel’s criminal excesses.
And speaking of David Cameron, Murdoch’s made man in Britain, David felt compelled to chime in on the Hebdo publicity extravaganza with, “Muslims face a special burden on extremism….” Now, why would that be? No less than Murdoch’s creepy words, Cameron’s statement is an indefensible thing to say.
Who has a special burden for the massacre of students at Columbine High school in Colorado? Who has a special burden for Israeli Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Palestinians as they worshipped? Do Noweigians bear a special burden for Anders Breivik, who shot 69 people, mostly children, perhaps the most bizarre mass murderer of our times? Does the American Army bear a special burden for Timothy McVeigh’s horrific bombing in Oklahoma City, killing 168, he and his associates having met in Fort Benning during basic training, two of them having been roommates? Perhaps, in both these latter cases, Christianity bears a special burden since these people were exposed to that religion early in life? As was Hitler, as was Stalin, as was Mussolini, as was Franco, as was Ceaușescu, as was Pinochet, and countless other blood-drenched villains?
The late Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, was responsible for a great many murders, including about a hundred people bombed in a terror attack on the King David Hotel. He also was responsible for the assassination of the distinguished Swedish diplomat, Count Folke Bernadotte, and he started the invasion of Lebanon which eventually left thousands dead, but you’ll have a hard time finding him described anywhere as a “Jewish terrorist” or finding prominent people asking who has a special responsibility for his extraordinarily bloody career.
There is something hateful and poisonous in conflating the religious background of a criminal or mentally unbalanced person and his violent crime. We seem to do this only in cases involving violent men with Muslim backgrounds. Why? How is it possible that even one decent Muslim in this world has any responsibility for the acts of madmen who happen to be Muslim? This gets at one of the deep veins of hate and prejudice in western society today, Islamophobia, a vein regularly mined by our “free” press and by our ‘democratic” governments. Our establishment having embraced Israel’s excesses and pretensions, we have been pushed into worshiping the mumbo-jumbo of Islamic terror, a phenomenon virtually invented in Israel and perpetuated by Israel’s apologists as a way of stopping anyone from asking why Israel does not make peace, stop abusing millions of people, and return to its recognized borders.
Well, we do have an entire industry exploiting every event which may be imagined as terror. I read an interview with the great cartoonist, Robert Crumb, who happens to live in France. When asked if any other journalists had approached him on the topic of controversial cartoons, he said that there weren’t any journalists in America anymore, just 250,000 public relations people. That is precisely the state of American journalism. It digs into nothing, at least nothing of consequence, working full time to manage the public’s perceptions of government and its dreadful policies, from murdering innocents with drones and remaining quiet on the many American and Israeli atrocities of recent decades to manipulating fears of “terrorism” and saying little about such domestic horrors as the many hundreds of citizens shot dead by American police every single year.
The French government is reported to have been quite concerned about Benjamin Netanyahu showing up at the Paris march and making volatile speeches, and they specifically asked him not to come. At first, Netanyahu’s own security service, Shin Bet, agreed that he should not go because the parade in the streets represented a difficult security situation. But neither the host government’s formal request nor the security service’s concerns can stop a man like Netanyahu. France was advised he would come, and the French made their displeasure clear by saying they would then also invite Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestine Authority to the parade, which they did.
Netanyahu not only marched for the cameras at the front rank of a parade where he had no business, he made arrangements with the families of four Jewish victims for an all-expense-paid showy funeral in Jerusalem. None of the victims was even an Israeli citizen, yet at this writing they have all been buried there with pomp and plenty of publicity. But Netanyahu didn’t stop there, he went on to make speeches that the French and other European Jews should leave their countries, riddled with anti-Semitism, and come to Israel, their true homeland. In diplomatic terms, this was what is termed unacceptable behavior which in almost any other case would get you thrown out of a country. In ordinary terms, it was outrageous behavior, much like seeing a seriously drunken guest loudly insulting his host at a party to which he was not even invited.
The ineffectual current President of France, François Hollande, sent notice to Jerusalem that the four dead shop victims were being awarded the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor. The nation’s highest honor, founded by Napoleon over two hundred years ago for exceptional contributions to the state, awarded for the act of being murdered by thugs? Simply bizarre.
I don’t pretend to understand everything involved in this complex set of events, but it is unmistakable that we are being manipulated by a number unscrupulous and unethical people who use murder victims and the public’s natural sympathies for them as board pieces in some much larger game.
There is even a trivial side to these bloody events with many Parisians carrying signs which read “Je suis Charlie,” surely the kind of asininity posing as deep feeling that long has been established in the United States where Walmart teddy bears and plastic flowers with cheap slogans are regularly tossed in piles here and there as memorials to this or that. Perhaps Euro-Disney has had a more devastating influence on French culture than I realized.
Freedom of speech is a French myth
By Firoz Osman | MEMO | January 12, 2015
Years of taunts, insults and humiliating caricatures of the revered Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and immigrants, by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has resulted in what the French authorities have long warned against, an explosion of violence leading to the tragic deaths and injuries of more than 20 people.
President François Hollande described the carnage as an assault on secular French values, democracy, freedom of speech and expression; he condemned “Islamic terrorists” for such heinous crimes.
The bloodbath in Paris, though, had nothing to do with freedom of speech nor, indeed, Islam.
The deliberate provocation of six million Muslims in France and their 1.8 billion co-religionists worldwide through constant racial vulgarity and indignity directed at the Prophet and Islam under the guise of freedom of speech is reckless and reprehensible. Do French “values” and democracy really confer the freedom to denigrate someone who is cherished so deeply by fellow human beings?
It is now being promoted that the French media is free to publish anything as a fundamental right without restrictions of any kind; this is a myth. For example, French law does not permit the publication of material that promotes the use of drugs; hatred based on race or gender; insults about the national flag and anthem; or questions about the Nazi Holocaust. Dieudonné M’Bala, a French comedian and satirist, was convicted and fined in a French court for describing Holocaust remembrance as “memorial pornography”.
In fact, in 2008, one of Charlie Hebdo’s famous cartoonists, Siné, wrote a short note citing a news item that former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s son Jean was going to convert to Judaism to marry the heiress of a prosperous appliance chain. Siné added the comment, “He’ll go far, this lad.” For that, Siné was sacked on the grounds of his “anti-Semitism”.
When Sarkozy was the Interior Minister he ordered the sacking of the director of Paris Match because he had published photos of his wife Cécilia Sarkozy with another man in New York. He even had rapper “Joestarr’s” song censored because it criticised the politician.
A French court banned Closer magazine from re-publishing or distributing photographs in France of Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing topless. Despite this, Muslim women have been ostracised and forbidden to wear the headscarves in educational institutions and are ridiculed, arrested and fined for wearing the face veil in public.
The “Quenelle” hand sign has been described as anti-establishment and anti-Zionist by French youth and famous footballer Nicolas Anelka. It has stoked serious controversy in France since first being used by anti-establishment comedian M’Bala in 2005. He has been barred from many theatres and convicted a number of times for exercising his “freedom of speech” and using the Quenelle.
Protests by Muslims about blasphemous films and cartoons have been banned by the French authorities; France was the first country in the world to ban demonstrations in support of the Palestinians massacred in Gaza. This has led to the further marginalisation of France’s Muslim and African minorities in the political and social life of the nation and increasing anti-Muslim bigotry and hate-crimes.
Many have seen through the hypocrisy of a nation outraged at the murder of 12 people at Charlie Hebdo’s office, and yet complicit with Israel in the murder of 17 journalists and 2,300 men, women and children in Gaza last year.
France’s support for the “war on terror”, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and its pivotal role in Libya and Mali, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, adds to the grievance and disaffection of French Muslims. The humiliation, suffering and injustices felt for their co-religionists makes for a common cause.
There is undoubtedly political motivation underlying the vile, racist and vulgar cartoons lampooning Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) which is fuelling the climate of Islamophobia. Claims by defenders of Charlie Hebdo that other religious icons have been vilified disregard the fact that the targeting of Muslims has been more systematic and consistent. Instead of maligning the rich and powerful in society, the magazine’s cartoonists satirise the weak and marginalised, adding fuel to an already volatile fire.
When Muslims are mocked and insulted, and their Prophet, whom they love more than themselves, is dishonoured in an appalling way under the guise of “freedom of speech”, it has to be a factor in the explosion of violent fury in Paris. Freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to defame or malign a Prophet except, it seems, in Europe.
There has been a near-universal condemnation by Muslim leaders of the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Muslims have been urged to follow the Prophet’s example of never retaliating against those who insulted him personally. Islam emphasises that the rights of each individual are limited by the rights of others and society at large. These rights do not merely include freedom of speech, but equally the basic right to dignity, privacy and respect, and the right not to be subjected to degrading or inhuman treatment. Perhaps the French and their European and Western counterparts (including those in the supposedly Muslim world) need to imbibe Islamic values of tolerance, respect and honour if the obvious application of double standards is to be avoided in future.
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Truth, History and Integrity
By Gilad Atzmon | March 13, 2010
… As devastating as it may be, at a certain moment in time, a horrible chapter was given an exceptionally meta-historical status. Its ‘factuality’ was sealed by draconian laws and its reasoning was secured by social and political settings. The Holocaust became the new Western religion. Unfortunately, it is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, no nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse. … Read full article
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