Just one question: are boys ever “honor killed”? Does their behavior—oh I don’t know, torching cars, throwing Molotov cocktails, fighting with police, harassing and beating Jews—ever rise to the level of dishonor? Or is that sort of thing tolerated and even condoned? When was the last time a Muslim male was beaten and suffocated by having a plastic bag shoved down his throat?
Nine white men are found guilty of grooming young Asian girls, aged between 13 and 15, whom they picked up on the streets of London. The girls were lured with free fish and chips before being raped or pimped as prostitutes. One Asian girl from a children’s home was used for sex by 20 white men in one night. Police insist the crimes were not “racially motivated”.
Imagine if that story were true. Would you really believe that race was not a factor in those hateful crimes? Do you think that, despite conclusive DNA evidence from a girl raped by two men, the police would have hesitated to press charges because the suspects were white and it could make things a bit sensitive in the white community? Would the Crown Prosecution Service have refused to prosecute, allowing the child-sex ring to flourish for three more anguished years?
OK, now let’s try switching the ethnic identities round. Change the fish and chips to kebabs, London to Rochdale, white to Asian and vice versa and you have the case that ended yesterday at Liverpool Crown Court. Nine British Muslim men were jailed for a total of 77 years for rape and trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation. The whole case made for disturbing reading, but somehow it was the tiny, paralysing details that made it real. Like the fact that one of the convicted men, father-of-five Abdul Rauf, was a religious studies teacher at a local mosque. Rauf asked his 15-year-old victim if she had any younger friends, and drove some of the girls to meet other men, who had sex with them despite knowing they were under-age.
As if the facts of the case aren’t bad enough, the implications are possibly even worse:
Turning a blind eye to appalling, illegal practices because “it’s their culture” is what has brought our country to this obscene pass. I have watched it unfolding since I did my teaching practice in 1982 in Southall, west London. I remember being encouraged to “teach the children their own culture” even as I found myself wondering why British Muslim girls couldn’t be taught the enlightened beliefs of the egalitarian land in which they lived.
When it comes to women’s rights, not all cultures are created equal, particularly those whose attitudes are frozen some time in the mid?14th century. But we weren’t allowed to say that. Actually, we weren’t even allowed to think that.
…
Rochdale girls who were living in what is imaginatively known as “care” were recruited into sexual factory farming by Muslim men described as “pure evil” by detectives. The 59-year-old ringleader was banned from court for calling the judge a “racist bastard”. His barrister explained that his client “had objected from the start to being tried by an all-white jury. He believes his convictions have nothing to do with justice but result from the faith and race of the defendants.” In other words, a racist who treats poor white girls as sub-human seriously believes it is he who is the victim of racism, when he is called to account for organising the gang-rape of under-age females. To be fair, it takes 40 years of well-intentioned multiculturalism to achieve that kind of moral mess.
The layers of denial run so deep that it’s important to try to be clear where we can. First, it is an insult to Hindus, Sikhs and decent, integrated Muslims to classify those brutes under the catch-all title of “Asian males”. All but one are Pakistani Muslims who come from a patriarchal peasant culture that obviously regards young white British girls as easy meat. Those children were considered fair game for degrading sexual acts on an almost industrial scale. The men took a calculated gamble that no one gave a damn about the girls. And you know the worst thing? They were right.
…
So the case turns out to be a tale of two cultures. On the one hand, we have white girls, raised in a godless, under-parented, over-sexualised society, who have little respect for themselves or their bodies and – even worse – no adults taking responsibility. On the other, we have a different kind of “respect”, the warped creed of a sub-section of unreconstructed, brutally over-parenting men. Their own daughters and young female relatives must not be violated or they will lose their market value, so why not take out your sexual frustration on the despised native slappers instead? It’s as simple as that.
It’s not just the Pakistani men who considered their prey to be beneath contempt. “I think the attitude of the local authorities for many years was that these chaotic girls were not held in very high regard,” explains Simon Danczuk, the MP for Rochdale, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t know if it’s political correctness, but the attitude was, ‘These are the life choices the girls are making’.”
Life choices? Dear God, they were raped for years. One girl left a letter for the staff at her children’s home saying she was being abused. It was ignored. So the poor kid wrote another. It was only when a teacher spotted that one pupil was pregnant and a suspicious number of Asian-looking men were picking her up at the school gate that the alarm was raised.
This does not indict all Pakistani men, of course, nor all Muslims. But the values (or distinct lack thereof) expressed above are taken as fact by some men in that community. And young British girls were abandoned to them.
What a world, what a world.
Good, I’d like to add a few categories to the list myself:
A majority of [British] doctors support measures to deny treatment to smokers and the obese, according to a survey that has sparked a row over the NHS’s growing use of “lifestyle rationing”.
Some 54% of doctors who took part said the NHS should have the right to withhold non-emergency treatment from patients who do not lose weight or stop smoking. Some medics believe unhealthy behaviour can make procedures less likely to work, and that the service is not obliged to devote scarce resources to them.
However, senior doctors and patient groups have voiced alarm at what they call “blackmailing” of the sick, and denial of their human rights.
Ever the voice of reason, may I offer a compromise? Instead of allowing no denial of service, or only a limited, narrowly selected group, why not broaden it? If enough people are deemed to be a waste of resources, then the burden of premature death is spread fairly and evenly. Call it the “individual death-date”.
I’ve already selected my category: fanatic exercisers, whose obsession with heart rate and lung capacity leads to expensive knee and hip replacements and a host of other physical complaints. Tell them to take it easy, or they can just hobble home from the ER, discharged without being seen. It’s not just your ailments I can’t stand; it’s your sanctimony. Good bye!
But I’m sure my wacko environmentalist friends would add global warming skeptics to the queue. We’ve already been likened to Holocaust deniers; why waste even a penny on us? I would also add so the SOL-roster the cast of Jersey Shore, Lindsay Lohan, King Shabazz Shamir, and anyone who says “I” when they mean “me”. It’s an eclectic list, but you can make your own.
Who am I kidding? If the Supreme Court doesn’t shut this racket down, we’ll all be on someone’s list. I’ll flip you for the red pills, Aggie. Loser takes blue.
And Jews will always be unwelcome:
Supermarket chain the Co-Operative Group is extending a boycott of goods from Israeli settlements and will now shun any supplier known to source from these areas, a statement said Saturday.
“Following an audit of the Group’s supply chain, it will no longer do business with four companies, accounting for £350,000 worth of sales, as there is evidence that they source from the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories,” the statement said.
The Co-Op, Britain’s fifth-largest food retailer, has not bought goods from the settlements since 2009, it said, but does trade with about 20 Israeli businesses that do not source from the settlements.
“The Group will also continue to actively work to increase trade links with Palestinian businesses in the occupied territories,” it added.
Israel was clearly broken up by the news:
Israel subsequently decided to legalise another three settlements in the West Bank, a move that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said left him “deeply troubled”.
The three outposts will now join some 120 official settlements dotted across the occupied West Bank that are home to more than 342,000 people.
Your loss, Britain. More arugula and beets for the rest of us.
But Britain won’t take that lying down:
Until Monday morning, the official website of the 2012 London Olympics portrayed Israel as a country without a capital, while Jerusalem was listed as the capital of “Palestine.”
The website appears to have been fixed to show Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as well.
The fix may have been the result of a request by online advocacy group My Israel to its members, to demand that Jerusalem be listed as Israel’s capital.
Last week, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rejected a request from the families of the Israeli athletes who were murdered by Arab terrorists at the 1972 Munich Games to organize an official commemoration on their behalf.
Ankie Spitzer, whose husband, Andre, was one of the 11 Israelis killed, said the IOC did not want to enrage Arab countries by mentioning the tragedy at high profile events.
Heh-heh, Israel, it was just a little joke. Where’s your sense of humor?
Those who argue that the Olympics should be without politics are as ignorant of the games as they are of politics. Thanks a lot, Britain.
Lord Ahmed, 53, who in 1998 became the first Muslim life peer, was reported to have made the comments at a conference in Haripur in Pakistan.
A Labour Party spokesman said: “We have suspended Lord Ahmed pending investigation. If these comments are accurate we utterly condemn these remarks which are totally unacceptable.”
According to Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper Lord Ahmed offered the bounty in response to a US action a week ago.
The US issued a $10 million reward for the capture of Pakistani militant leader Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, who it suspects of orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people died as terrorists stormed hotels and a train station.
The British peer reportedly said: “‘If the US can announce a reward of $10 million for the (capture) of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of £10 million (for the capture of) President Obama and his predecessor, George Bush.”
Look, if you really want to do some good, Lord Ahmed (which I can’t type with a straight face), you could donate the money to a the Republican National Committee or a super-PAC. There are ways to get rid of a guy that don’t involve capture or violence.
Though I’m not surprised they didn’t occur to you:
Lord Ahmed, who was born in Pakistan, became Baron Ahmed of Rotherham at the age of 40. In 2007 he was highly critical of the awarding of a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, claiming the author had “blood on his hands.”
In 2009 he was jailed for dangerous driving after sending and receiving text messages minutes before being involved in a fatal motorway crash. The Court of Appeal later suspended his 12-week jail sentence.
In 1968, Enoch Powell MP delivered the infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech, decrying unchecked immigration. It marked him for the rest of his days.
As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
I wonder if this is what he meant?
We were among those who covered the shameful attempt to censor an Israeli theater company at London’s Globe Theatre for the crime of being Israeli.
Turns out, there are consequences, even in Britain [hat tip reader Yerushalimey]
Author Howard Jacobson has weighed into a debate over whether Israel’s national theatre company, Habima, should be banned from performing at the Globe in London as part of next month’s Cultural Olympiad event, saying art should never be censored.
Habima was invited to perform The Merchant of Venice in Hebrew as part of an ambitious programme to stage 37 Shakespeare plays, each in a different language, during the six-week festival. Yet a letter signed by 37 leading actors, directors, producers and writers – including Emma Thompson, Mike Leigh and Mark Rylance – published in the Guardian last week, called for the invitation to be withdrawn because Habima had performed in Israeli settlements.
The letter, also signed by Miriam Margolyes, Richard Wilson and Jonathan Miller, said: “We ask the Globe to withdraw the invitation so that the festival is not complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land. By inviting Habima, the Globe is associating itself with policies of exclusion preached by the Israeli state and endorsed by its national theatre company.”
…
[Jacobson] said: “If there is one justification for art… it is that it proceeds from, and addresses, our unaligned humanity. Whoever would go to art with a mind made up on any subject misses the point of what art is for.
“So to censor it in the name of political or religious conviction… is to tear out its very heart. For artists themselves to do such a thing to art is not only treasonable, it is an act of self-harm.
“With last week’s letter to the Guardian, McCarthyism came to Britain. You can hear the minds of people in whom we vest our sense of creative freedom snapping shut.”
Jacobson’s comments follow a letter from actors Simon Callow, Steven Berkoff and Maureen Lipman, and the playwright Arnold Wesker, which said that an attempt to ban Habima was tantamount to Nazi-era book burning.
The Globe theatre’s management said that it was standing by its decision, and that the Habima performance was a key part of its eclectic Cultural Olympiad, running from 21 April to 9 June.
I’m especially glad to read the last part: when we reported the story, the Globe was reconsidering its position. It certainly helps to get the backing of some big names in British theater, even if all except Callow are Jews. (I checked—some are quite lefty, but still denounce antisemitsm in their midst.)
Jacobson’s entire letter:
If there is one justification for art – for its creation and its performance – it is that art proceeds from and addresses our unaligned humanity. Whoever would go to art with a mind already made up, on any subject, misses what art is for. So to censor it in the name of a political or religious conviction, no matter how sincerely held, is to tear out its very heart.
For artists themselves to do such a thing to art is not only treasonable; it is an act of self-harm. One could almost laugh about it, so Kafkaesque is the reasoning: The Merchant of Venice, acted in Hebrew, a troubling work of great moral complexity (and therefore one that we should welcome every new interpretation of), to be banned not by virtue of itself, but because of where the theatre company performing it had also performed.
But the laughter dies in our throats. With last week’s letter to the Guardian, McCarthyism came to Britain. You could hear the minds of people in whom we vest our sense of creative freedom snapping shut. And now we might all be guilty by association: of being in the wrong place or talking to the wrong people or reading the wrong book. Thus does an idée fixe make dangerous fools of the best of us.
Howard Jacobson
That’s going to leave a mark.
Britain is really just half a step ahead of us.
The government will be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK under new legislation set to be announced soon.
Internet firms will be required to give intelligence agency GCHQ access to communications on demand, in real time.
The Home Office says the move is key to tackling crime and terrorism, but civil liberties groups have criticised it.
Tory MP David Davis called it “an unnecessary extension of the ability of the state to snoop on ordinary people”.
Attempts by the last Labour government to take similar steps failed after huge opposition, including from the Tories.
‘Unprecedented step’A new law – which may be announced in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech in May – would not allow GCHQ to access the content of emails, calls or messages without a warrant.
But it would enable intelligence officers to identify who an individual or group is in contact with, how often and for how long. They would also be able to see which websites someone had visited.
In a statement, the Home Office said action was needed to “maintain the continued availability of communications data as technology changes”.
Etc. It is liberal fascism, but Europe does have a self-inflicted terrorism problem.
- Aggie
So, the champagne socialists, the tea-and-crumpet Trotskyists, don’t want a Jewish (Israeli) theater company to perform Merchant of Venice, featuring the best-known (if most notorious) Jewish character in all literature.
An irony even Shakespeare would reject as too ham-handed (heh):
Leading British actors, directors and authors have been pressing Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London to withdraw its “Globe to Globe” festival invitation extended to Israel’s Habima Theater, over its “shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian Territory.”
In a letter published in The Guardian newspaper Friday, actors, directors and authors such as Emma Thompson, Mike Leigh, David Calder, Trevor Griffiths and Miriam Margolyes, to name a few, called on Shakespeare’s Globe Theater to take back the invitation “so the festival is not complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonization of occupied land.”
Habima Theater is set to perform a Hebrew rendition of William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” as one of Shakespeare’s 37 plays, which are to be performed at the festival in 37 different languages.
“We notice with dismay and regret that Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London has invited Israel’s National Theatre, to perform The Merchant of Venice in its Globe to Globe festival this coming May,” the letter read.
“The general manager of Habima has declared the invitation ‘an honorable accomplishment for the State of Israel’. But Habima has a shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Wow! So what’d they do? Attack Arabs with fake swords? Slap them in the face with a rubber chicken? Apply grease paint to unmentionable places?
Worse. Far worse:
The letter further read that “last year, two large Israeli settlements established “halls of culture” and asked Israeli theater groups to perform there. A number of Israeli theatre professionals – actors, stage directors, playwrights – declared they would not take part. By inviting Habima, Shakespeare’s Globe is undermining the conscientious Israeli actors and playwrights who have refused to break international law.”
Regarding the Hebrew language the artists wrote that “inclusiveness is a core value of arts policy in Britain, and we support it. But by inviting Habima, the Globe is associating itself with policies of exclusion practiced by the Israeli state and endorsed by its national theatre company.”
The text of the letter is here. It seems the signatories are upset with Hadima for performing. For other Israelis. In places like Kiryat Arba where Britons think they don’t belong.
If that doesn’t look like your idea of a “settlement”, it’s because Kiryat Arba has been around for more than 40 years—making it older, interestingly enough, than Canary Wharf and the other redevelopment projects in the London Docklands; older than the relocation of Covent Garden; older than the decommission of the Battersea Power Station; older than the Jubilee underground line—and countless other building and development projects in London alone. Kiryat Arba dates from four years after the first (or was it second?) attempt by the Arabs to exterminate “the Zionist entity”, and two years before the second attempt (or was it third?).
I would call these bigots ignorant, but they are the crème de la crème of British theatrical royalty, many Ox-bridge educated. So they know very much what they do, and forgiveness should be meted out sparingly.
PS: In case anyone asks:
In regards to the letter, the Globe Theater management has decided to hold a discussion on theater and politics following the Habima performance at the festival.
Ilan Ronen, the artistic manager of Habima Theater told Ynet that “the letter is filled with halved truths. Habima Theater doesn’t hold any political policies, and any attempt to present it in such a light just harms the artists.”
“Habima Theater is a democratic and pluralistic theater. Some of the plays performed at our theater are controversial and some even criticize the Israeli society, including the government’s policies in the settlements,” he said.
Na-na-na! Can’t hear you! Jew cooties! Jew cooties!
A British MP says he fears for his life after receiving death threats for defending Israel in an exchange with a constituent.
The Conservative MP for Henley, John Howell, has been offered police protection for meetings with voters after an email exchange with the constituent was posted online.
He has also been forced to remove the details of his district offices from his website.
Pro-Palestinian activist Harry Fear, from Watlington in Oxfordshire, sent Howell an email on March 10 asking what he was doing “to see that Israel halts the military actions that are taking place in defiance of international law and basic human decency.”
A photograph of a building exploding accompanied the email with a caption stating: “Only a few hours ago, Israel felt it necessary to inflict this destruction and death on the [Gaza] Strip.” The photo was in circulation back in 2009 and is completely unrelated to recent events in Gaza.
Responding to the email, Howell said: “And what is your position, Harry, on the 100 rockets which have landed in Israel over the weekend?” Fear posted the question, together with the MP’s reply, on his blog and Facebook page. He included the MP’s contact details and instructed people write to Howell “civilly, expressing discontent with his conduct.”
The Conservative MP said he received around 30 emails; some were “worrying.”
“There are a huge number of emails from pro-Palestinian and Arab fanatics, some from the UK and some clearly not, some equally threatening,” Howell said.
One email said: “You will suffer the consequences of this corruption and callousness.”
There was also a series of emails from some calling himself “Jihad Alshamie,” who told him: “It is people like you who deserve to die.”
“The last thing I want to appear as is a drama queen, but you have to take seriously a threat when it says, ‘I would like to see you dead,’” Howell said.
“It is not just a question of me, it is my family and my staff. All it takes is one person out there who is weird enough, with a distorted view of life, to make an attempt to carry this out.”
In 2010, Labor MP Stephen Timms was stabbed at a constituency meeting by Roshonara Choudhry, who was said to have been inspired by radical websites, for his support of the Iraq war. She was found guilty of attempted murder and jailed for life.
Last year, members of the Muslims Against Crusades group made death threats against Conservative MP Mike Freer for his support of Israel, when he visited constituents at a north London mosque.
“I have been helped by the House authorities in Parliament, who are assessing the level of risk, and also by Thames Valley Police, who have provided extremely good security advice. If I feel at all unsafe there can be a policeman with me at a surgery [district office],” Howell said.
….
Continuing to pursue the issue, Fear said that the MP’s response was “deeply disturbing” and “latently abusive,” as Howell “did not extend me the professional practice (or even human courtesy) of writing a proper and serious reply.”Fear has sent a complaint to Parliament and the Conservative Party. He has also sent the correspondence to The Guardian and The Independent.
Hatred is easy to create and very difficult to diffuse. Europe has always had problems with Jew hatred (to put it mildly), and now we see that when someone stands up to it, even in a period of peace in democracy in the host country, that person is threatened with death.
- Aggie
How did Prime Minister Netanyahu put it yesterday?
“Any territory we step upon, for these murderers, is occupied territory. We have no place in the world. Anywhere we are is illegitimate.”
The UK has banned advertising promoting a book on northern Israel that includes a map showing the Golan Heights as part of Israel. The ad, which also includes parts of “Judea” and “Samaria” on the map, was published in November and produced by Israel’s Government Tourist Office.
Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority claims it has received 350 complaints about the ad, “including from supporters of Palestinians,” according to a report by the Associated Press.
The agency ruled Wednesday that the ad cannot reappear in its current form. The ad reportedly cannot imply that any territory restored to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War has been internationally recognized as part of the State of Israel, nor can it imply universal acceptance of “contentious claims.”
The British agency used similar language in a nearly identical ruling on an ad promoting holy sites in Jerusalem two years ago, acting on an complaint whose source it never disclosed. The agency claimed the ad was misleading because it implied that the part of Jerusalem in which the holy sites are located – the Old City — are part of the State of Israel.
That’s okay, Nigel. Take your usual holiday in Torquay: pint of Stella, chips with vinegar, maybe a commemorative tea cup to remember your adventure. You wouldn’t like it in Israel anyway: that’s where the Jews are.
PS: In case you don’t know where “beyond the pale” comes from.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve exists to… well, let them tell you:
If hurricanes or other unexpected physical conditions disrupt either crude oil imports or domestic production, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is ready to make replacement oil available to the extent approved by the President and/or the Secretary of Energy.
I suppose Obama’s dimming reelection chances would qualify as a “unexpected physical condition”:
Britain has decided to cooperate with the United States in a bilateral agreement to release strategic oil stocks, two British sources said, in an effort to prevent high fuel prices derailing economic growth in a U.S. election year.
A formal request from the United States to the UK to join forces in a release of oil from government-controlled reserves is expected “shortly” following a meeting on Wednesday in Washington between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, who discussed the issue, one source said.
Britain would respond positively, the two sources said.
Another random act of journalism (see post below)! Election year politics motivates Obama to raid the emergency supply of oil (which currently would meet our demands for just five weeks)!
Just hope Iran doesn’t do anything crazy in the meantime—anything else crazy, that is.
This from a president who turns up his nose at Canadian oil, Alaskan oil, Gulf oil. Now he’s practically up to his elbows in the stuff, like a modern day Beverly Hillbilly.
Y’all contribute to my PAC now, hear?
That’s the lesson of this address (with thanks to reader Carol for sending it to us).
The sound you hear at the end of the clip is a groan from some Euroweenie after getting a rhetorical kick in groin.