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Saturday 17 May 2008

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Sunday, 27th April 2008

Europe's surrender

9:59pm

 

Blistering piece in City Journal by Bruce Bawer – author of While Europe Slept – about the progressive crumbling of European resistance in the face of creeping sharia-isation. These Westerners have begun, he says, to internalise the strictures of sharia, and thus implicitly to accept the deferential status of dhimmis -- infidels living in Muslim societies as second-class citizens:

The Western media are in the driver’s seat on this road to sharia. Often their approach is to argue that we’re the bad guys… In June 2005, the BBC aired the documentary Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic, which sought to portray concerns about Islamic radicalism as overblown. This ‘stunning whitewash of radical Islam,’ as Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson put it, ‘helped keep the British public fast asleep, a few weeks before the bombs went off in London subways
...

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The Hamas hudwinka

9:35pm


Question: when is a ceasefire not a ceasefire?
Answer: When it is a tactic of war.
 
Khaled abu Toameh reports in the Jerusalem Post
that the head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, said of his six month hudna, or ‘truce’, offer:
'…it is a tactic in conducting the struggle. ... It is normal for any resistance that operates in its people's interest ... to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit. ... The battle is to be run this way and Hamas is known for that.’ He also warned of an explosion of violence in Gaza if Israel rejected the truce.
Elsewhere, more of Mashaal’s remarks were reported:
Hamas has been negotiating with Egyptian officials for a six-month ceasefire period during which Hamas would halt its terrorist attacks and Israel would stop all counterterrorism operations. Nothing would prevent Hamas from continuing to import and manufacture weapons and train terrorists.
Of course not. It’s only the dimmest dhimmi dummies such as Jimmy Carter who fail to grasp that a hudna is actually a hudwinka.
 

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Thursday, 24th April 2008

On their knees in the Temple

1:29pm

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s infamous lecture on sharia was the launch event of a series of discussions at Temple Church under the heading ‘Islam in English law’. The very title of this series might well raise an eyebrow among those who believe naively that the law of the land is the law for all minorities, since it assumes by definition that the extent to which Islam may or may not be accommodated by English law is an issue to be discussed. Now Temple Church – the church of the Inner and Middle Temple, the Inns of Court -- is publicising its next event in this series:

Can Moral or Religious Obligation ever justify the Use of Force Inadmissible under Secular Law?
The line up is as follows:

Chair: Sir James Craig

(Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
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Grave of academe

1:00pm



For a flavour of the thuggish atmosphere on campus in Britain today as renewed attempts are made to introduce an academic boycott of Israel, this guest post on Harry’s Place  (along with some of the readers' comments)
provides a shocking taster.

 

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What he never learned about Belfast

10:14am


Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff and a key architect of the Northern Ireland appeasement process, is obviously not quite as aloof as he appears. In the current issue of Prospect, he has been stung into writing a riposte to the profound criticism of that process levelled by Dean Godson, Charles Moore, myself and others. Naturally, he carefully labels it from the start a ‘right-wing critique’, thus warning everyone that it is beyond the pale (see my post below for an analysis of this mindset). However, he singles out only one element of the criticism: that the process destroyed the moderate parties in Northern Ireland and brought the extremes to power. Apart from denying this by blaming the moderate politicians themselves, his reasoning on this one point is deeply troubling. He writes:

Any peace process must
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Questions for the west

9:24am

Here is a remarkable article by an Iranian, Daniel Shaysteh, a former Muslim who has now converted to Christianity. He describes a childhood upbringing in which his religion taught him to hate those who were not Muslims, and how he eventually came to reject Islam altogether. What jumps out of the article, however, is his scathing condemnation of the west for failing to grasp what he knows from first-hand experience to be the truth: 

Why are some leftist groups and individuals standing alongside radical Islamic leaders in order to fight democratic values in the West?  Why are many western leaders, politicians, media and various groups silent towards the threat of Islam against their societies?  What is keeping these people quiet in such a significant time when a religious group challenges not just their democratic values
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Search this blog

 

Melanie's Published Articles

Whatever has happened to girls?

Brown crumbles; but do the Tories get it?

Happy 60th birthday, Israel — well done for surviving

With such self-destruction, who needs enemies?

All roads lead to Iran

When the political music stops

The human rights jihad

The new class war

Talking to terrorists

If this isn’t a conscience issue, then what is?

Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'Londonistan', published by Encounter and Gibson Square.

For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here

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