Bloodthirsty Liberal

Three stories (vaguely related) in one, just to get rid of some open windows on my desktop.

Story number one:

An Egyptian court has sentenced 12 Christians to life in prison and acquitted eight Muslims in a case that is likely to stoke religious tensions in the country’s south.

The Christians were found guilty of sowing public strife and shooting dead two Muslims in April of last year in Minya province after a scuffle with Muslim protesters.

The eight Muslims on trial in the same case had been charged with possession of illegal weapons and burning down dozens of Christian-owned homes and stores after the shooting.

Egyptian rights researcher Ishak Ibrahim called the verdict “faulty and unfair.”

Yeah? So?

Story number two:

A Toronto native living in Jerusalem literally got away with his life when Arab school students smashed the windows of his car and tried to attack him Monday morning.

The near-deadly rock-throwing attack occurred as Ephraim Silverberg was making his annual pilgrimage to the Mount of Olives Cemetery for the anniversary of the death of his grandfather, who was brought to Israel for burial after he died in Toronto.

He was driving from Mount Scopus to the Mount of Olives via the A-Tur Arab neighborhood. Silverberg, armed with a hand gun, took the precautions of locking his doors and turning on his mobile phone.

“About midway through the trip, there was a traffic jam, and the traffic slowed to a halt near the entrance of a boy’s high school with the pupils just arriving for a day of studies,” he told Arutz Sheva.

“A few yards beyond the entrance to the school grounds, I heard a boom and immediately realized that a rock had struck my side of the car. At that point, I called emergency services on my cell phone and reported that I was under attack,” he related.

“The first rock was followed by many others as well as youths coming up and kicking the car. The traffic jam started to ease and I managed to move slowly forward. I informed emergency services that I was not attempting to exit the car but rather move forward as best as I could … I heard the sound of shattering glass and realized that the rear window and perhaps others were gone.”

What’s a country to do when surrounded by countries hostile to itself and any ideology different from its narrow interpretation of Islam?

Thank G-d for Israel:

The Knesset plenum on Monday passed in second and third reading a bill to amend the Income Tax Act, by which those who donate to settlements will enjoy tax benefits.

The initiator of the bill, Coalition Chairman MK Zeev Elkin (Likud), said that it aims to make amends for the lack of legislation that supports the settlement enterprise, although the government declared it as a top national priority.

“Organizations that wish to construct new mosques – like the Islamic Movement or other charity groups that funnel money to Hamas – receive tax breaks, while organizations that want to settle the Negev and Galilee fall between the chairs,” he said.

“The bill,” MK Elkin explained, “wishes to make amends for this injustice.”

There you go, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Stephen King—you want to pay more taxes? Here’s your chance. I’ll join you. For once, I’ll agree with Joe Biden: paying taxes is patriotic.

To paraphrase Anita Bryant, breakfast without humiliation is like a day without sunshine:

Egyptian forces on Saturday seized two vehicles in the Sinai peninsula with fuel destined for the Gaza Strip, security sources said.

The vehicles had broken through a checkpoint between the city of El-Arish and Sheikh Zweid before Egyptian security fired at their tires, bringing the vehicles to a halt.

One of the vehicles was carrying 1,100 liters of fuel in nine barrels and 10 jerrycans. The other vehicle contained 900 liters of petrol destined for sale on the black market.

The drivers admitted to police that they were delivering the fuel to smugglers who would transport it into the Gaza Strip.

Last week, Egyptian security forces seized four vehicles transporting unlicensed fuel in the northern Sinai.

In early May, security forces confiscated a truck in the Sinai carrying 10 thousand liters of fuel headed to tunnels under the border with Gaza Strip.

Egypt moved in February to shut down fuel deliveries to Gaza via the tunnel network — used to bring goods into the blockaded coastal strip — sparking a fuel shortage that caused widespread blackouts.

Officials have already agreed to stave off the electricity blackouts by upgrading the sole power plant, a project due for completion this month.

Odd that a so-called friendly country, Egypt, is restricting access to fuel when there’s a shortage.

How does a hostile country handle such a situation?

These deliveries and transfers are made every week, week after week, except when the crossing points are under fire, or so threatened. Let me drop the coy act: Israel is described as an occupier of a god-forsaken (fly) strip it turned judenrein seven years ago, yet has seen fit to supply since that time.

And Egypt is, well, Egypt.

Any questions?

Even in exile!

Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric in exile Wagdi Ghoneim, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 11, 2012.

Our enemies are keeping our youth busy with nonsense, in order to turn them into idiotic fools. They wrote it all down in a book called The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. We call it The Protocols of the Ignorant Elders of Zion – we don’t call them “learned” because they are not.
[…]
The [Israelis] enter Egypt without a visa, bringing with them drugs. They bring heroin. Their girls who go to Sinai – to Sharm Al-Sheik and places like that – transmit AIDS to our youth. These girls wear shorts, and then they get naked, and fornicate with an Egyptian boy, leaving him a message: “Welcome to the AIDS club.”

Your Egyptian boys should be so lucky, Wagdi. AIDS would be a small price to pay for one night with Bar Rafeli.

You have to laugh at his insult. Like Jews will be offended by his jibe toward a forgery.

PS: But really, how crackers a cleric do you have to be to get your ass exiled from Egypt? Statements like this one are practically an industry over there.

So, is Obama still boasting about bringing in the Arab Spring? Huh, B-HO, are you?

Egyptian women have urged the country’s Islamist-dominated parliament not to pass two controversial laws on age at marriage and sex after death.

The two laws include provisions that would void the rights of women to obtaining education and employment due to religious standards.

One of the laws would drop the minimum permissible age of marriage to age 14. The other would permit a husband to carry out conjugal relations with his wife within six hours following her death.

I highlighted the provision on education and employment because, necrophilia and statutory rape notwithstanding, I thought it was more important.

“This is unbelievable. It is a catastrophe to give the husband such a right! Has the Islamic trend reached that far? Is there really a draft law in this regard? Are there people thinking in this manner?”

They are in Egypt! Obama said Mubarak had to go, and now you’ve got “Weekend at Bernice’s”. Go crazy, fellas! (No cuddling after!)

I can’t say this is terribly edifying—another Egyptian takes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as gospel—but it’s a slow news day:

Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian TV host Hussam ‘Aql, which aired on Al-Nas TV on March 23, 2012:

…

Whoever does not believe me can look at The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This is no book of poetry or stories. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a matter of undisputable science.

There was a meeting of the Freemasons in France, and a French woman managed to smuggle out some dangerous documents, which circulated in the meeting.

Oh, I see. Freemasons held a meeting in France, and a woman smuggled out some notes. I’m convinced! QED!

A French woman managed to smuggle out these documents, which serve as the backbone of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

When the world read these documents… A Russian scholar called Sergei Nilos was the first to read these documents. He looked at the documents in front of him, and then examined the political situation around him, and realized how the leaders of the Zionist entity were playing with the money, and with the means of pressure, and how they were trying to take over regimes and governments, as well as the nascent regional forces.

Look how Tel Aviv cannot keep its mouth shut when it sees Egypt on its way to become a regional power, and to restore the momentum of its activity and to lead the region. Tel Aviv cannot possibly keep its mouth shut. We do not want to be stupid or naïve.

Sergei Nilos issued a warning and wrote research. Then in the early 20th century, along came Victor Marsden and translated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. We have read The Protocols, and we have detected the despicable, hellish, and Satanic plan to dominate the world and to humiliate the peoples and the nations.

Look out behind you! There’s a despicable, hellish, Satanic Elder of Zion holding two fingers over your head in humiliation! Don’t be stupid or naive!

Move over “clerics” and “scholars”, this Egyptian “writer” wants her say:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian writer Sanaa Al-Said, which aired on Sada Al-Balad TV on March 20, 2012.

Interviewer : What was [Pope Shenouda's] position regarding The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

Sanaa Al-Said : He read The Protocols, and talked about them openly.

Interviewer : What did he say?

Sanaa Al-Said : He said the The Protocols demonstrate the Jews’ hegemony over the entire world. [They claim] that the Jews are unique and have blue blood, whereas the rest of the world is worthless. They portray the Jews as wolves and the rest of the world’s people as cattle. They state that God made a mistake and that He is not infallible. This is all written in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He read The Protocols and talked about this courageously, which angered the Americans. They sent him former US ambassador to Egypt Ed Walker, who said… This is what [Shenouda] told me, when I interviewed him. The interview caused a furor, and in a later interview he said: Did you see what happened?

Interviewer : All because of you…

Sanaa Al-Said : He told me that he had met with the US ambassador, who told him that he was writing things against the interests of the Jews, that this was offensive to them, and that The Protocols had been falsified and fabricated. [Shenouda] answered that they are not falsified or fabricated.
[...]
Sanaa Al-Said : Do you know what the [Jews] wanted to do, according to The Protocols? They wanted to attack the Vatican and destroy it.

Interviewer : No!

Sanaa Al-Said : Yes. They wanted to completely destroy Christianity.

Interviewer : When did this happen?

Sanaa Al-Said : No… It’s written in The Protocols.

Interviewer : Oh, it’s a plot in The Protocols.

Sanaa Al-Said : that is what they wanted to do. These protocols were written in 1897, if I’m not mistaken.

Mistaken, you? Perish the thought!

BTW, don’t you love the incredulous interviewer? No! When did this happen? Oh, it’s a plot.

Now, I can’t find any confirmation that Pope Shenouda believed the Protocols were genuine (they are genuine—genuine forgeries by the Czar’s secret police), but he did have some… shall we say “uncharitable” beliefs:

Back in 2007, Pope Shenouda III denounced Western churches for exonerating Jews for Christ’s death. Jews were “Christ-killers” because “the New Testament says they are.”

And whether or not he believed in the Protocols, others of his stripe do:

George Saliba – the Syriac Orthodox Church’s Bishop in Lebanon when asked by Al-Dunya TV,who was behind the Arab Spring, responded “the source… behind all these movements, all these civil wars, and all these evils” in the Arab world is nothing other than Zionism, “deeply rooted in Judaism.” The Jews, he says, are responsible for financing and inciting the turmoil in accordance with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Last fall, the world was shocked by the horrific attack on a Baghdad church that left 58 dead and 67 wounded. Despite the fact that Muslim fanatics had posted threats on the Internet for weeks prior to the slaughter, Melkite Greek Patriarch Gregory III Laham said the terrorist attackers were certainly not Muslims, but probably those trained and supervised “by global Zionism.” It was part of “a Zionist conspiracy against Islam,” the Christian leader declared, adding that, “All this behavior has nothing to do with Islam… but it is actually a conspiracy planned by Zionism…and “is also a conspiracy against Arabs and the predominantly Muslim Arab world that aims at depicting Arabs and Muslims in Arab countries as terrorist and fundamentalist murderers…”

Many observers have tended to give a pass to expressions of anti-Jewish hate by leaders of religious minorities in the Middle East, including Pope Shenouda III the spiritual leader Egypt’s embattled Coptic Christians, as mere tactical rhetoric by endangered religious minorities.

…

For Bishop Saliba, Jewish conspiracies are “only natural” because the Jews repaid Christ for his miracles by crucifying him.

Let me put some positive holiday spin on this story by pointing out that Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, are freer in Israel than anywhere else for about a thousand miles in any direction (779 miles, to be exact—the distance from Jerusalem to Athens, where it’s probably a toss-up).

You read that correctly

White House officials held talks with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington this week, as the Islamist group threw itself into the fray in Egypt’s presidential election.

The meeting on Tuesday with low-level National Security Council staff was part of a series of US efforts to broaden engagement with new and emerging political parties following Egypt’s revolution last year, a US official said.

The White House pointed out that Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and other US lawmakers and officials had also met with Brotherhood representatives in Egypt and elsewhere in recent months.

“We believe that it is in the interest of the United States to engage with all parties that are committed to democratic principles, especially nonviolence,” said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.

“In all our conversations with these groups, we emphasize the importance of respect for minority rights, the full inclusion of women, and our regional security concerns.”

Put on your waders. This is deep.

By the way, this is the fault of the US government – our President and our State Department.

- Aggie

The Powers That Be in Egypt are still functioning sanely at some level

Iran had planned to bomb an Israeli ship while it crossed the Suez Canal, the prosecution in Egypt’s state security court said, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Saturday.

According to the report, two Egyptians were recently arrested and investigated for allegedly planning an attack on an Israeli ship in the Suez Canal.

The investigation of the two found that they had received their instructions from Iranian agents, and that the two asked a third person, by the name of Mohamed Zakri, to carry out the act in exchange for 50 million Egyptian pounds.

The two denied the accusations against them.

In the past, Hezbollah terror cells that planned terror attacks, including in the Suez Canal, were found in Egypt. Moreover, Israeli officials have recently warned that Iran is setting up terror infrastructure on Egyptian soil to ready the ground for an operation.

So Iran is trying to provoke a war between Egypt and Israel? Is that what this means?

- Aggie

This time, about Christians!

Following are excerpts from a statement by Egyptian cleric Wagdi Ghoneim, which was posted on the Internet on March 18, 2012 :

Praise be to Allah. With the grace of Allah, the head of unbelief and polytheism, known as Shenouda, died yesterday, may Allah exact revenge from him. God’s worshippers and the trees and the animals were all relieved by his death. Egypt is relieved by his [death], because he generated sectarian strife.
[…]
This dead accursed criminal, known as Shenouda, was told that the Koran says, in Surat Al-Maida: “And [beware the day] when Allah will say: Oh Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people: Take me and my mother as gods beside Allah?” [Shenouda] said: “We don’t take Christ and his mother as gods beside Allah. He Is God.”

…

Are we supposed to send condolences or be sad about someone like this? We should be happy that he died. Let him go to Hell. May Allah exact revenge from him in the Hellfire – from him and from all those who follow his path.

Yeah, but how do you really feel?

And when they get together, the sparks fly!

Following are excerpts from Al-Rahma TV featuring Egyptian clerics discussing the Jews, which aired on March 6, 2012:

Egyptian cleric Gharib Ramadhan: There are very many traits that characterize the Jews, and the Koran focused on a few of them, such as the violation of commitments, from which we suffer to this day. Not just us in Egypt – the entire world suffers from this.

Another trait is their hard-heartedness, God forbid. If you want to know what true hard-heartedness means, go to the Jews. You will find a lot of it there.

…

Wherever they go they get deported and then they return. For example, they went back to France and to Hungary, and were deported again. If they are good people, how come people get rid of them?

Allah punished them by transforming them into apes and pigs, and by prohibiting them from eating several edible things. He forbade them to eat anything with claws – animals and birds that do not have cloven hooves, like camels, geese, ducks… They are prohibited from eating ducks.

…

Shihab Al-Din Abu Zahu: …

US President Benjamin Franklin said: “A great danger threatens the United States of America. That danger is the Jewish danger. In whichever land the Jews have settled, they have corrupted the morals, and lowered the level of commercial honesty. They always isolate themselves and never mix with others. For more than 1,700 years, they have been lamenting their fate, because they were expelled from the lands of their forefathers.

…

The values of the Jews are not the same of those of the Americans, and will not be the same even if the Jews live among us for ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. The Jews will pose a danger to America, if they are allowed freely in. They will destroy US institutions, and the Americans must deport by the Constitution.” These are the words of US President Franklin.

…

Egyptian cleric Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sawi: In the Koran, Allah called the Jews “donkeys.” Donkeys. They are donkeys. What can you do with a donkey? Allah said: “Those who were charged with the Torah, but failed [in this obligation], are similar to a donkey carrying books.” These are the Jews, right? They failed in the obligation to carry the Torah.

…

A man was sitting in his home, when all of a sudden, in walked a donkey. What was he supposed to do with this donkey? He began screaming: “Donkey, get out! Get out!” But the donkey wouldn’t leave. “Don’t you understand? Get out,” he said, but the donkey wouldn’t budge. What was he to do? He grabbed a microphone, and screamed: “People, I have a donkey in my home, and he must leave.” But the donkey would not move. He brought all the neighbors, and they all began shouting: “We denounced the donkey for entering your home.” But the donkey wouldn’t leave.

The man said to the donkey: “The apartment has three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living room. Take one room, and leave the rest to us.” The donkey twitched its ear, but wouldn’t leave. The man said: “Donkey, take two rooms,” but the donkey wouldn’t leave. “Take the room, and we will live in the bathroom.” To no avail. Finally, the people began to scream: “The donkey won’t leave!”

A little boy heard them, walked in with a small stick, and began beating the donkey until it got out. Beat a donkey, and it will immediately jump. That’s what you do with donkeys.

…

[The Jews] support all the means of corruption. They support whorehouses. They support satellite dishes in order to air whatever they like. Birth control pills and devices are supported by the Jews. Dr. Shihab quoted President Franklin, who was US president 40-50 years ago.

…

Egyptian cleric ‘Alaa Said: The [Jews] are treacherous. Allah, who created them, told us so. We must be resolute and fill hearts with hatred and These are people hated and loathed by Allah.

[…]

Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sawi: I want our children to be raised on this notion. When I give a child a toy, I give him a gun, not a football. Enough with the football. I give him a gun and tell him: Shoot, but don’t shoot your brother. Shoot the Jews.

You think these guys care whether Israel agrees to ’67 borders with mutually agreed land swaps? Neither do I. These guys, and a lot of people they represent, are bat[bleep] crazy.

PS: My understanding of duck is that Jews who keep kosher can eat it if it was killed properly. Blasting one out of the sky with a shotgun doesn’t count.