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Then yesterday, a guy called Mark wrote to me, pointing out an even uglier statement by Spengler, on May 8, in an online forum Spengler leads:
The hidden premise of Islam is that Israel is chosen; that is why it [Islam] had to invent a "final revelation" to replace Hebrew Scripture, substitute Ishmael for Isaac, etc. etc. The nations desire Eternal Life, of which they first heard from the Jews, and covet God's promise to the Jews, who never can "unchoose" themselves, because no-one ever will believe them. The Arabs are a dying culture and Islam is a dying religion, and the only sensible thing to do is keep death at a distance.
So: more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please! [emphasis mine]
Who is this murderous person? Wikipedia informs that Spengler has not been forthcoming about his religion, ethnicity or identity. My new friend Mark told me that he thinks Spengler also writes under the pseudonym "Shushon." Here are Mark's first couple of emails to me [and I will freely interpolate my comments within his, in brackets]:
I'd like to draw your attention to an article in the current issue of First Things, a monthly journal of "religion, culture and public life" [edited by neoconservative Father Richard John Neuhaus]. The article is entitled "Zionism for Christians" and is written by "David Shushon". I put the author's name within quotation marks because I think it's a transparent pseudonym, almost certainly for the anonymous internet gadfly "Spengler." First Things once previously published an article by Spengler under his Spengler pseudonym ("Christian, Muslim, Jew" - October 2007), and anyone familiar with his style and thought will recognize "Zionism for Christians" as his work.
[In a rapid hunt of the 2 pieces, I find that both quote extensively from Franz Rosenzweig, including his statement that Christians and Jews are "laborers at the same task," and both speak of anti-semitism as a form of neopaganism, i.e., not Christian. This guy Mark is making sense to me.]
The idea of this most recent article is to persuade Christians that support for the state of Israel is theologically mandated by their faith. What does "support for the state of Israel" mean, from the Spengler perspective? Perhaps the best way to summarize that phrase from Spengler's point of view is to quote a recent comment he made on his forum--the kind of comment he avoids in the urbane pages of First Things. [And here Mark quotes the "barbed wire" comment from above]
Obviously, such comments are difficult to make under a true name in mainstream media, so Spengler has been making them pseudonymously. For more polite audiences he has now found a forum at First Things, where he couches his ideology in pseudo-theological terms.
The bottom line is that Spengler is seeking to convince Christians that support for the Greater Israel agenda that you decry is hardwired into Christian theology. He is also probably trying to bolster the flagging Jewish support for this ideology.
First Things touts the article in these terms: "The issue features, as well, David Shushon’s “Zionism for Christians.” That’s this month’s free article, available even to non-subscribers–but, then, why are there any non-subscribers, when you could read in the print version Shushon’s fascinating essay, which begins: 'Israel always matters. Biblical scholars have devoted endless pages to ancient Israel as a religious idea, and pundits have penned endless newspaper columns about modern Israel as a geopolitical entity. The deeper implications, however, have received less attention than they deserve in recent years, overshadowed by the exigencies of Middle Eastern politics. Indeed, real questions remain: What does the sheer existence of the modern state of Israel mean for theology–particularly for Christian theology? And what does that theology mean for the continuing existence of Israel?'"
What, in effect, Spengler is attempting is to persuade the Catholic Church--or, at least and less grandiosely, influential intellectuals and opinion shapers within it--to sanction a specific form of nationalism: Zionism. The practical benefit Spengler sees would be an increase of support for a radically Zionist Israel within influential Catholic circles, and the Catholic Church remains the largest and most influential single Christian grouping in the West.
Spengler's attempt rests upon a fundamentalistic reading of the Bible, specifically of the Abraham and Exodus stories. While one might expect the Catholic Church to be immune from such a fundamentalist appeal, that is not the case. Catholic scriptural theology has been deeply infected with fundamentalist readings since the Reformation--essentially, they were put on the defensive by the Reformers and are unsure how to distance themselves from fundamentalism without seeming to renounce scriptural authority. I speak on a popular level--the official statements of the Church do struggle to effect this distancing, but very cautiously and not entirely coherently, for fear of the "modernists" among them. So, Spengler's appeal could well be considerable among the "conservative" Christians (including Catholics) especially in America.
By the way, as you may know, in Jewish mysticism the "shushon/shushan flower" seems to be a symbol for Zion - six points/petals to the flower. [Didn't know that. By the way, Switchboard lists nobody with the last name of Shushon in the U.S., suggesting that it is a madeup name] So, for those in the know, the pseudonym Shushon may be a code for Zionist.
[I asked Mark what's wrong with Spengler, whoever he is, using pseudonyms.]
First Things has given Spengler/Shushon a forum to try to recruit Catholics to the Zionist cause. Spengler/Shushon presents Zionism in a theological way, whereas Spengler's real interests are very practical. He conceals what may be entailed for those who are deluded into believing that support of the state of Israel is a matter of fundamental theology for Catholics: once on board with that concept, they may (if Spengler has his way) be called upon to support "more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please!" (Reminds me of the bar scene in Fawlty Towers.) After all, if support of the Zionist cause is written into the Creed, so to speak, there's no backing away from the implications: the end will justify the means at that point. For that reason, I think Neuhaus owes it to his readers to reveal who the author Shushon is, so they can be aware that his agenda is not academic theology but power politics.
[Weiss again: I think the sale of Zionism to evangelical Christians gets at one of my big problems with Zionism. Because Israel has depended from the start on the west and Zionists generally believe as an article of faith that gentiles won't protect Jews when it comes right down to it, Zionism's advocates have often tried to market Zionism as being in the west's best interest, and at times that claim feels like so much snake oil. During the Cold War it made realist sense, to some, to overlook the landgrabs. Since then it's been problematic. The whole idea of "Islamofascism" clearly helped--the claim that the U.S. and Israel are in the same war (a claim that Trita Parsi has said was dreamed up by Israelis in the '90s). But this idea hasn't worked out very well in Iraq, not in the blue states anyway, and meantime the American Jewish interest in Zionism has weakened: young Jews don't feel they have to flee to Tel Aviv, not when they're marrying privileged gentile peers.
[I raised the snake-oil issue with Mark.]
It's precisely the snake-oil aspect of what he's peddling--his effort to couch his product in terms that will appeal to the intellectual pretensions of the Christian chattering classes--that needs to be addressed. You don't have to be a Christian to have grave doubts as to the compatibility of "more war, more barbed wire, more killing, please!" with what are generally supposed to be the tenets of Christian faith, nor for that matter do you have to be Jewish to have the same reservations regarding the compatibility of what he's saying with the best in the very diverse Jewish tradition.
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thanks oarwell, lovely
Perusing
a few more of Spengler's recent (burnt)offerings, we find, from the
Oct. 30 2007 AT, "When you can't deal with the devil." Guess who the
devil is?
(Spengler's mask has slipped since last I read him--now he just dishes up straight Krauthammerian paranoiac propaganda)
"In February 2006, I argued that a few sorties by American aircraft
could put the Iranian problem to rest, but that the window for a clean
military operation would not last long.
The longer Washington dallies, the more resources Tehran can put in place, including:
Upgrading Hezbollah's offensive-weapon capabilities in Lebanon.
Integrating Hamas into its sphere of influence and military operations.
Putting in place terrorist capability against the West.
Preparing its Shi'ite auxiliaries in Iraq for insurrection."
...
"In early 2006, I predicted "war with Iran on the worst terms", and that is what the West is likely to get. I warned at the time, "if Washington waits another year to deliver an ultimatum to Iran, the results will be civil war to the death in Iraq, the direct engagement of Israel in a regional war through Hezbollah and Hamas, and extensive terrorist action throughout the West, with extensive loss of American life. There are no good outcomes, only less terrible ones. The West will attack Iran, but only when such an attack will do the least good and the most harm."
...
"Deals with the devil simply do not work, even in the ethically challenged world of foreign policy. The devil will act according to his nature, whatever bargain one attempts to make with him."
...
"Western civilians well may pay a heavy price for the excision of Iran's nuclear program in the form of terror attacks. The price may be steep, but it's worth it."
The West has no choice but to attack Iran, because Iran believes
that it has no choice but to develop nuclear weapons. Make no mistake:
this attack will destabilize the entire region, past the capacity of
the king's horses and king's men to reassemble it. The agenda will
shift from how best to promote stability, to how best to turn
instability to advantage."
------
Spengler's recommendations form a blueprint for Hell. He confuses the cause of the West's sickness, centralized government militarism in concert with imperialist corporatism, with the cure. We don't need to smash Islam with an iron fist, we need to reembrace the things that, historically, have made the West preeminent: Aristotelianism, Judeo-Christian ethical advances, and the inviolable dignity of the individual in relation to the State.
More war will only lead to more war, and the further destruction of authentic Western values.
Spengler, though he denies it, is, like his namesake, a pessimist: he can see no future for the West that does not entailing mass murder.
Like Neuhaus, Spengler's great intelligence is no protection against profound error.
I noticed that Midge Decter leads the list of the members of the Editorial Board of FT.
Ambitious Jews bent on power and control on a massive political and geographical scale have always been limited by the relatively tiny number of Jews within the crucible from whence they came, and so have sought after masses of gentile useful idiots who can be used as troops. They have drawn-in these useful idiots with ideologies open to everyone and theoretically beneficial to everyone, which are then used to primarily advance the interests of the Jewish core.
In the 20th Century, Communism was this ideology; in the 21st, it is Neoconservatism. Naive Christian Zionists are the useful idiots of today, just as naive, eager, idealistic collectivists were the useful idiots of yesterday.
Maybe there is a Darwinian element to this; those individuals foolish enough to be hoodwinked by Organized Jewish Chicanery (OJC) end up as canon fodder, just as whole societies foolish enough to be hoodwinked by OJC end up with the kinds of problems that now afflict America, including terrorist attacks because of support for Israel, open borders/cheap labor to enrich OJC, massive deregulation of OJC controlled industries, and a generally politically correct governing class that refuses to address the OJC elephant in the living room.
What OJC amounts to is a Jewish oligarchy bent on extracting as much nourishment and as many resource as it can from any given society or country before the cadaver finally collapses, as did the Soviet Union. OJC will then move on to fresh meat elsewhere.
Canada, Australia, Oceania…be afraid…be very afraid.
Will BushCo bomb Iran before he leaves office, or leave it to the replacement? If that's Obama, it will not happen; otherwise, it will. Is that the practical sum of it?
Just wanna know how much I will be paying for gas. And, wanna know if there will be US military draft.
Anybody got a clue?
RE:'More Barbed Wire, More War, Please'
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Regarding regime change in Iraq, in 2002 Ledeen criticized the views of former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, writing:[20]
He fears that if we attack Iraq "I think we could have an explosion
in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a cauldron and
destroy the War on Terror."
One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please.
Friedmanism may be more comparable to Marxism as a world movement than is Christian Zionism.
The Christian Zionists are probably more like the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox peasant, who put so much effort into making pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the late 19th century. One can easily imagine that Jabotinsky wanted to harness such naive religious fervor to serve his movement.
When he finally visited the USA to recruit Jews to his form of
Zionism, he also found Christians with just the right combination of
zeal and gullability in white racist premillennial dispensationist
Confederate irredentists of the American South. Jabotinsky consciously
canvassed their leaders in order to inject Zionism into their
eschatology.
Friedmanism may be more comparable to Marxism as a world movement than is Christian Zionism.
The Christian Zionists are probably more like the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox peasant, who put so much effort into making pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the late 19th century. One can easily imagine that Jabotinsky wanted to harness such naive religious fervor to serve his movement.
When he finally visited the USA to recruit Jews to his form of
Zionism, he also found Christians with just the right combination of
zeal and gullability in white racist premillennial dispensationist
Confederate irredentists of the American South. Jabotinsky consciously
canvassed their leaders in order to inject Zionism into their
eschatology.
MICHAEL LEDEEN ON NRO:
February 07, 2005, 8:50 a.m.
Faster, Please
Iran needs change. We need to help — now.
"...to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own
liberty, America stands with you." — President Bush, in the State of
the Union Address
SALON:
Iranian regime change: "Faster, please!"
Neocon Michael Ledeen, long a proponent of "democratic revolution" in Iran, weighs the odds of military action by the U.S.
By Alex Koppe
As
France celebrated victory in Europe on 8 May 1945, its army was
massacring thousands of civilians in Sétif and Guelma - events that
were the real beginning of Algeria’s war of independence.
By Mohammed Harbi THE massacres in the Sétif and Guelma regions on 8 May 1945, described at the time as events or troubles in north Constantine, marked the beginning of the Algerian war of independence. This episode in the Algerian tragedy is one of the great turning points in colonial history. The ensuing upheavals dominated the political life of Algeria, which grew increasingly independent of political developments in France as the nationalist movement gained momentum. Each time France was at war, in 1871, 1914 and 1940, militants hoped to exploit the situation to win reforms or free Algeria from colonial rule. There were uprisings in the Kabyle region and eastern Algeria in 1871 and in the Aurès mountains in 1916. But May 1945 was different. There were widespread fears of another uprising but, despite claims, there is no evidence that it was on the agenda. The defeat of France in June 1940 changed the terms of the conflict between the colonial power and Algerian nationalists. The French colons felt threatened by the Popular Front, even though it had yielded to pressure and abandoned its plans for Algeria, and welcomed the Pétain government and the way it dealt with Jews, freemasons and communists. After the US landings, the climate changed. The nationalists believed the democratic and anti-colonialist rhetoric of the Atlantic Charter (12 August 1942) and felt they must set aside their differences and unite. The pro-assimilation movement broke up. The battle lines were drawn: on one side, the Algerian Communist party and the Amis de la démocratie, which advocated unconditional support for the Allied war effort; on the other, the Algerian People’s party (PPA), under its charismatic leader Messali Hadj, which was not prepared to sacrifice the interests of Algeria to the fight against fascism. The PPA and its supporters were joined by one of the most impressive political figures of the day, Ferhat Abbas. He had dismissed the idea of an Algerian nation in 1936 but now, although he still claimed to be firmly rooted in French and western culture, he was in favour of “an autonomous Algerian republic in federation with a new, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist French republic”. When Pétain came to power, Abbas sent memorandums to the French authorities but received no reply. In desperation, he turned to the US and, with the support of the PPA and the ulemas, dispatched the document, signed by 28 deputies and financial advisers, that was to become the Manifesto of the Algerian People on 10 February 1943. History’s pace quickened. The French authorities continued to overestimate their ability to control events and Charles de Gaulle failed to understand the strength of the nationalist movements in the old colonies. Contrary to what is often claimed, his speech at Brazzaville on 30 January 1944 did not promise emancipation or autonomy, even within the countries concerned. Pierre Mendès France wrote to André Nouschi that “this was clear from the order issued on 7 March 1944, which revived the 1936 Blum-Violette project, granting some 65,000 people French citizenship and allowing Algerians to hold two-fifths of the seats on local councils” (1). Too little, too late. These tiny reforms, granted as a favour, did not affect French domination or the preponderance of the colons. This was a serious political situation calling for genuine discussions with the Algerian nationalists, but Paris would not negotiate with them. Their response to the order came a week later. Following discussions between Messali Hadj, speaking for the pro-independence PPA, Sheikh Bachir al-Ibrahimi for the ulemas, and Ferhat Abbas for those in favour of autonomy, the nationalists joined forces in a new movement, the Friends of the Manifesto and Freedom (AML). Although the PPA was part of this movement, it retained its independence. Its militants had more political experience, they knew how to play the Islamic card and they concentrated on challenging the legitimacy of colonial rule. The more activist and politically sophisticated young people in the cities followed suit. There were increasing signs of civil disobedience across the country. Positions hardened on both sides. European colonists and Algerian Jews lived in fear. At the AML congress in May 1945 the PPA took over. The nationalist leaders’ original plan to seek autonomous status in federation with France was scrapped. The majority now opted for a separate state, united with the other Maghreb countries, and proclaimed Messali Hadj the undisputed leader of the Algerian people. The administration was aghast and pressed Ferhat Abbas to dissociate himself from his partners. The confrontation had been brewing since April. On the nationalist side, the PPA leaders - to be precise, party activists led by Lamine Debaghine - were delighted at the prospect of revolt. They hoped the rise of millenarianism and calls for jihad would speed the success of their cause, but their unrealistic dreams came to nothing. On the colonial side, there were fears that the Algerians would drive the Europeans into the sea, and the plot to remove the AML and PPA leaders, hatched by the authorities at the instigation of a senior government official, Pierre René Gazagne, was gradually consolidated. On 25 April 1945 Messali Hadj was abducted and deported to Brazzaville following incidents at Reibell, where he was under house arrest. This lit the fuse. Some people, including the Islamic scholar Augustin Berque (2), feared that a show of strength by the nationalists might lead to US intervention. The PPA, furious at the seizure of its leader, was determined to secure his release. The party decided to march in a separate contingent with its own slogans in the labour day procession on 1 May, since the largest trade union, the CGT, and the French and Algerian communist parties had remained silent on the nationalist issue. In Oran and Algiers police and some Europeans were upset by the nationalists’ slogans and opened fire. There were casualties, dead and wounded, and many arrests, but the nationalists continued to mobilise. North Constantine, bounded by the towns of Bougie, Sétif, Bône and Souk-Ahras, was under army control at the time. On VE day people in the region were preparing to celebrate the Allied victory in response to a call from the AML and the PPA. The instructions were clear: there were to be peaceful demonstrations to remind France and its allies of the Algerian nationalists’ claims. There was no order to start an insurrection. So why were the events confined to the Sétif and Guelma regions? Why the riots, the massacres? The war had raised hopes of an end to colonial rule and these were encouraged by international developments. The nationalists, particularly the PPA, wanted to force the pace and hasten the natural course of events. All the available political resources were employed to mobilise the people: calls for an end to poverty and corruption, to defend Islam. Annie Rey-Goldzeiguer has pointed out rightly: “The only safe haven, common to all sections of society, was religion, with jihad as a weapon of civil rather than religious war. The call to jihad induced a state of religious terror that found an outlet in warfare” (3). Political maturity did not rank high in rural society, where people followed their instincts. On the European side, vague anxiety was succeeded by real fear. Despite all the changes, the idea of treating Algerians as equals was intolerable, to be avoided at all costs. Even the lesser threat in the order of 7 March 1944 terrified them. Their response to the Algerian claims was to call for militia to be formed and demand repressive measures. They found a sympathetic ear in Pierre René Gazagne, the prefect of Constantine, Lestrade Carbonnel, and the sub-prefect of Guelma, André Achiary, who undertook to lance the boil. In Sétif the trouble started when police tried to seize the PPA flag, now the Algerian flag, and banners calling for the release of Messali Hadj and Algerian independence. It spread to the surrounding countryside, where tribes rose up. In Guelma the events were triggered by arrests and the actions of the militia, which provoked tribes to take revenge on local settlers. The European civilians and the police responded with mass executions and reprisals against entire communities. To remove all traces of their crimes and prevent investigations, they opened mass graves and burned the bodies in the lime kilns at Heliopolis. The army’s actions caused a military historian, Jean-Charles Jauffret, to say that its conduct “resembled a European wartime operation rather than a traditional colonial war” (4). In the Bougie region about 15,000 women and children were forced to kneel before a military parade. The final toll is speculative, as the French government closed the commission of inquiry directed by General Tubert and the killers were never tried. We know all about the judicial measures that were taken and the number of Europeans who died, but the number of Algerian victims is a mystery and is still debated among Algerian historians (5). The figures released by the French authorities are not reliable. Pending impartial investigations (6), we must agree with Rey-Goldzeiguer that, for 102 European dead, thousands of Algerians paid with their lives. There were many repercussions: any hopes of a deal between the Algerian people and the European colony were off. In France the political forces of the wartime resistance movement failed their first test on decolonisation, allowing themselves to be taken over by the pro-colonial party. The architect of the repressive measures, General Duval, warned: “I have secured you peace for 10 years. If France does nothing, it will all happen again, only next time it will be worse and may well be irreparable.” The French Communist party, which described the nationalist leaders as “paid Nazi agitators” and called for “the ringleaders to be shot”, was generally considered to be in favour of colonial rule, although it subsequently changed tack and called for an amnesty. In Algeria, after the AML was disbanded on 14 May, the pro-autonomy faction and the ulemas accused the PPA of playing with fire, and the nationalist camp broke up. The PPA activists set a date “for mounting a new kind of challenge” and called on their leaders to set up a national paramilitary organisation. They emerged on 1 November 1954 as leaders of the National Liberation Front. But the Algerian war really began at Sétif on 8 May 1945. |
|
 See alsoTranslated by Barbara Wilson
(1) André Nouschi, “Notes de lectures sur la guerre d’Algérie”, in Relations internationales, no 114, 2003. (2) Father of the great Islamic scholar, Jacques Berque. (3) Rey-Goldzeiguer, Aux origines de la guerre d’Algérie 1940-1945, La Découverte, Paris, 2002. (4) Jauffret, La guerre d’Algérie par les documents, Services historiques de l’armée de terre , Paris. (5) Redouane Ainad Tabet, Le 8 mai 1945 en Algérie, OPU, Algiers, 1987; Boucif Mekhaled, Chronique d’un massacre, 8 mai 1945: Sétif, Guelma, Kherrata, Syros, Paris, 1995. (6) There is an early hint of such investigations in the current work of Jean-Pierre Peyrouloux. See Rétablir et maintenir l’ordre colonial, by Mohammed Harbi and Benjamin Stora. |
|
Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said that his movement supports the united Palestinian position that calls for the establishment of a fully sovereign state within the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem, and refugees’ right to return.
In an interview published yesterday in Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, Meshaal referred to the 2006 prisoners’ document as proof of this. “There is a Palestinian document and in it all organizations say they agree to a state in the 1967 borders.”
The prisoners’ document, also known as the National Reconciliation Document, was drafted by members of different Palestinian factions held in an Israeli prison, including Fatah and Hamas. It calls for the “establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital on all territories occupied in 1967.”
The Damascus-based leader said the Palestinian position had received a vote of consensus during the national accords of 2006 and that this position is considered acceptable to the Arab world. He called on ordinary Israelis to pressure on their government to stop aggression against the Palestinians in light of this document.
When asked about claims by Israel and the United States that Hamas is seeking to destroy Israel, Meshaal said his movement has committed itself to a political plan, which it follows, and called on America, Europe and other international entities to conduct themselves in accordance with this political truth, and to judge Hamas based on its political plan, not on what people imagine.
The Hamas leader also said there had been several Israeli attempts to contact him, but he had turned them down. He explained in the interview that Hamas is interested in a complete ceasefire in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but that Israel is willing to agree to such a deal only in the Gaza Strip. He said secret contacts are under way with the Europeans and that the Americans are applying pressure to keep these contacts from broadening.
Regarding the prisoner exchange deal for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Meshaal said that it is not linked to the ceasefire and that negotiations are not progressing at this point. He said the Egyptians are still mediating and that some Europeans are contributing — something that the Egyptians know about.
Meshaal said Israel continues to refuse to release prisoners who have been sentenced to life terms, even though it changed its criteria for releasing prisoners with “blood on their hands,” an Israeli term used for those who kill Israelis.
Two months ago, Meshaal said an agreement was reached with Egypt for the initial release of some 350 prisoners in exchange for the transfer of Shalit to the Egyptians and that 100 more prisoners would be released when Shalit reaches Israel. During the second stage of the deal, another 550 prisoners would be released.
Meshaal said he was surprised that Israel rejected most of the names on the Hamas list of prisoners, adding that jailed Fatah leader Marwan Al-Barghouthi was on this list.
Meshaal was also asked about Israel’s claims that he is no longer in charge of Hamas and that he lost control to Ahmed Al-Jaabari, head of the group’s military wing, Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades. He responded by saying Israel’s views are like the stock market: Sometimes Khaled Meshaal is responsible for Hamas and sometimes he has lost control. “I laugh, since they do not know Hamas or its decision-making processes,” he said.
In Cairo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would withhold any assessment of the peace process with Israel until the two sides start putting a draft accord on paper. “I can’t speak of progress as long as we have not started to edit a draft. When we start drafting we will feel we have started to make progress,” he told reporters yesterday after meeting Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak.
So far, Abbas said, the two sides aiming for a peace deal by the end of 2008 as targeted by Washington have only had “exchanges of ideas, a dialogue ... in depth.” The Palestinian leader stressed that the contacts since the peace process was revived at a US-hosted conference in November had homed in on core issues and final-status points of dispute.
“We are now in a process of negotiations in which we are discussing key issues. We are tackling questions linked to the final status,” Abbas said.
“These are serious discussions ... between all the parties concerned — Palestinians, Israel and also Americans — on the fact we must use 2008 to seal an accord with Israel on the final status” of the Palestinian territories
http://dictatorshipwatch.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4620&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
The latest crime “in the name of social customs and religious rules.”
A young Saudi Arabian woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook, it has emerged.
The unnamed woman from Riyadh was beaten and shot after she was discovered in the middle of an online conversation with a man, the al-Arabiya website reported.
The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as an example of the “strife” the social networking site is causing in the Islamic nation.
Saudi preacher Ali al-Maliki has emerged as the leading critic of Facebook, claiming the network is corrupting the youth of the nation.
“Facebook is a door to lust and young women and men are spending more on their mobile phones and the Internet than they are spending on food,” he said.
The woman was murdered in August but her death was highlighted following Maliki’s comments.
Social customs and religious rules oblige women in Saudi Arabia to cover their head and figure with a veil so that men are not distracted by the female form.
Critics also allege that Facebook is an avenue for the promotion of homosexual relations in Saudi Arabia. More than 6,500 people have signed the online petition in a bid to stop the conservative Muslim kingdom following Syria in banning access to the network from local internet servers.
There are estimated to be more than 30,000 Facebook users in the oil-rich kingdom. Many Saudi women use nicknames and post comic images or drawings on their pages instead of photographs. Some Saudi bloggers have dubbed the network “Faceless”.
Women users’ contact details and email addresses are often pseudonymous. The popularity of sites for singles has broken taboos on people making contact outside family and class connections.
One of the most popular Facebook groups among Saudi Arabian youth is Single and Looking in Saudi Arabia, which has 1,823 members and hosts many sexually explicit images. [Source]
I just hopes this is not “April’s Fool”, but even if it is, I have no doubt that sooner or later this will happen!
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Article Tags>> Facebook | Human Rights | Saudi | Women
with the Guidance of Qur'an & Sunnah
Muslim women perform a morning prayer marking the start of the Islamic feast of Eid al-Fitr, at Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta, Oct. 13, 2007. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country. (AP Photo/Irwin Fedriansyah)
Find out more about the beliefs, practices and history of some of the world's major religions.
(AP)
"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook.
He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population - a stable percentage - while Muslims were at 19.2 percent.
"It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer," the monsignor said.
Formenti said that the data refer to 2006. The figures on Muslims were put together by Muslim countries and then provided to the United Nations, he said, adding that the Vatican could only vouch for its own data.
When considering all Christians and not just Catholics, Christians make up 33 percent of the world population, Formenti said.
Spokesmen for the Vatican and the United Nations did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Sunday.
An important post for anyone who still assigns weight to 'First Things.' I gave up on Asia Times several years ago, mainly because of the neocon pugnaciousness of Spengler, who I assumed was acting as vicarious amanuensis for the website owner. Same reason I gave up on pedantic, prolific Richard Neuhaus: apologias for neocon wars ain't Christian; the Good (converted) Father can line up rhetorical angels on the head of his pin till they are tumbling off the edges, but that doesn't make Iraq a just war under Catholic doctrine. Neuhaus should be obedient to Rome and the clearly expressed intent of the recent Popes; he isn't, his defense of unjust war (which becomes a defense of murder)is a disgrace to any thinking Catholic. What a disappointment from the (then-Lutheran) author of 'The Naked Public Square.'
(A nice rebuttal of his "Christian militarism" thesis can be read here:)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/paul-w1.html
Rosenzweig's a complicated figure, and it's an eccentric chink in Spengler's churlish armor that he remains so devoted to him. From Wikipedia:
"Rosenzweig, while critical of Jewish scholar Martin Buber's early work, became close friends with him upon their actually meeting. This friendship lasted despite their differences of political opinion: Buber was a Zionist, while Rosenzweig was a strong defender of the German-Jewish heritage and felt that a return to Israel would embroil the Jews into a worldly history they should eschew (this position was given a tragic tone by the death of Rosenzweig's wife in a concentration camp long after he himself had perished of disease)."
...
"Rosenzweig's final attempt (he was dying from ALS) to communicate his thought, via the laborious typewriter-alphabet method, consisted in the partial sentence: "And now it comes, the point of all points, which the Lord has truly revealed to me in my sleep, the point of all points for which there—". The writing was interrupted by his doctor, with whom he had a short discussion using the same method. When the doctor left, Rosenzweig did not wish to continue with the writing, and he died in the night, the sentence left unfinished."
Posted by: Oarwell | May 20, 2008 at 01:47 PM