By Vic Rosenthal
The Fresno Bee reports that a local (Clovis, CA) teacher has been accused of “making anti-Muslim statements” by the director of the local Islamic Cultural center.
Archive for February, 2007
“Islamophobia” in Clovis?
Friday, February 16th, 2007The BBC’s point of view
Friday, February 16th, 2007As everyone knows, the Palestinians have been struggling to stop shooting each other and get back to shooting us. Here’s how the BBC sees it:
The vast majority of Palestinians are desperate for the government to come together smoothly and succeed.
They want to see their leaders form a united front in their confrontation with Israel and the effort to end its occupation of their land.
And even more pressingly, they have been appalled and frightened by the violence in recent months between forces loyal to Hamas and Fatah. — BBC (my emphasis)
Choudhury trial postponed
Friday, February 16th, 2007
Some time ago I wrote about Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, the editor of the Bangladeshi English-language newspaper The Weekly Blitz. Choudhury was to be tried for his life, accused of sedition, treason, espionage and blasphemy. His specific crime was that he attempted to go to Israel to give a speech on interfaith cooperation — apparently anathema in some Muslim circles.
His trial, which was supposed to take place last month, has been put off until February 28. A resolution to urge the government of Bangladesh to drop charges against him has been proposed in the US Congress — H.Res.64 (also here). US readers, please contact your representative and ask him or her to support this resolution!
More details about Choudhury can be found here.
Also, please read the comment from Rabbi Sue Levy.
Technorati Tags: Choudhury, Bangladesh
The Mughrabi Gate mess continues
Thursday, February 15th, 2007Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has agreed to a Turkish inspection of the construction work at disputed holy site in Jerusalem, the Turkish prime minister said Thursday.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Olmert had shown him photographs of the construction work, but had failed to convince him [my italics] that it would not harm the holy sites there. — YNet (AP)
So the words and photographs presented by the Prime Minister of the sovereign state of Israel, in regard to work being done in Israel’s capital city, were not enough to convince the PM of genocidal Turkey. Inspections are needed. And if the results are not satisfactory, then what?
The Church of Antisemitism
Thursday, February 15th, 2007By Vic Rosenthal
A German court on Thursday convicted far-right activist Ernst Zündel of incitement for denying the Holocaust, and sentenced him to the maximum five years in prison.
The 67-year-old, who was deported from Canada in 2005, was convicted on 14 counts of incitement for years of anti-Semitic activities, including denying the Holocaust, a crime in Germany, in documents and on the Internet. — Jerusalem Post
What can one say about a man who wrote a book called The Hitler We Loved and Why?
Possibly that he’s religious, in some sense. What is faith if not an obsessive insistence on maintaining a belief against all reason and logic, and doing one’s best to promulgate it in every possible way?
There are differences, of course, between the Church of Antisemitism and other religious faiths. For example, most organized belief systems generally recognized as religions do not consider bringing harm to a particular group of people a primary goal, and many (but not all) of them actually preach tolerance.
Zündel’s point of view, actually, seems to be a kind of devil worship (where Hitler is the closest thing most secular people have to a devil). Zündel, creative and intelligent, is also unquestionably evil.
Evil is an unfashionable concept these days, but it’s easy to understand it and impossible to deny its reality once you look at people like Zündel. One doesn’t have to be a religious person oneself to see this. And although as an American I place great value on freedom of speech (and of course Zündel’s actions would not be a crime here in the US), I certainly am pleased to see him punished by the Germans, who, like many Jews, learned something about the reality of evil from the war.
I’m convinced that evil is real, objective and not simply a way to characterize ‘the other side’. Creatures like Zündel and Arafat are proof of that.
Technorati Tags: Zundel, Zündel, evil, Holocaust denial, antisemitsm
