Carrera said:
I'm sure the film may have been inflammatory but I notice Michael Howard hasn't tried to assassinate the Labour Party spin merchants who played on the anti-semitism theme (by casting Howard in the roll of Fagin) - in their publicity posters against the Conservatives.
Michael Howard (who happens to be of Jewish descent) recently plucked up the courage to tackle the issue of immigration; thus, the Labour Party figured they'd suck up to Moslem voters by having a dig at Howard's ethnicity. This is after the Labour Party had attempted to brainwash people into taking the view anyone who disagrees with their ideas on mass immigration is a racist.
I find that quite staggering to be honest. I mean, after preaching to the rest of us about "chalkboards" and the like, the Labour Party go ahead with an anti-semitic election campaign that would have seen ordinary people brought to the courts had they made condescending remarks about Islam.
I see the Daily Mail carries news that Howard, who's real name is Michul Hecht, admitted that his Romainian Jewish father, may have been an illegal
immigrant to Britian !
That's an aside (I thought the DM was a Tory paper ?).
This is a complex issue - is Judaism a race or a religion, or both ?
The Labour party wanted to draft posters of pigs flying and the Tories complained that this was being racist against Howard.
Howard, on the other hand says that he wants to clamp down on immigration.
To be honest, I think they're both playing the racist card - and both sets want to appear to be tough on immigration.
Carrera said:
It's O.K. for radical mullahs to preach hatred of the West in London mosques but when Kilroy dares to take a poke at Arab repression in a speech, he's sacked by the BBC.
However the case may be, there was no hand-wringing from Howard in this case. And I guess I take the view that if Moslems in Holland don't like free speech and criticism they should either leave, or learn to put up with the values we have in free societies - freedom of speech.
.
I happen to agree with you.
i think if you live in a society - you ought to respect the tenets of that society, especially if you are not from that society.
The Muslims should tolerate free speech - however I think that the film your referred to earlier was extremely provocative.
I do not in any way condone the murder of that film maker - in fact I condemn utterly his murder.
But, in a free society, the film maker could have been less provocative in his portrayal of the subject in question.
Carrera said:
I take the point about the Jews having caused problems for themselves throughout history but I think all groups who remain separate experience such problems. For example, the Romans persecuted Christians since it was believed they were guilty of "odio generis humanis". Philosophers and alchemists were likewise persecuted as well as gays at different points of time.
The difficulty here is that, although you correctly point out the Jews have suffered pogroms in countries such as Russia or Germany, you skipped over the fact that these days Europe is experiencing worse problems with Islamic immigrants who oppose western, democratic values. Again, if you take a look at the situation in France it was chiefly the Moslems who protested over the prohibition of veils and skull-caps in secular schools. In Spain, extremist groups of Islamic fanatics carried out the train bombing atrocity, not Jewish radicals. In Holland, there have been far worse problems than in France and Belgian police had to control an Arab riot in the streets over the staging of a beauty contest for women. In Russia a small group of cowardly so-called Islamic warriors took a school full of children hostage, hid behind them as human shields and then shot them in the back while Russian security forces attempted to get the hostages out. As I recall the Russian troops were ordered to sacrifice their own lives if it meant sparing one of the children.
Now, sure, I agree with you that the Israelis shouldn't have degraded the Palestinian settlers in the way they have done and I agree the Israeli army is far too heavy handed. However, there have been no cases of Israeli soldiers hiding behind women and children as human shields or sheltering in their religious temples during conflict. And I'm not saying all Moslems behave in such a way, of course. But I do think your conclusion that the Jews are the cause behind the present unrest seems to totally ignore the reality that certain branches of Islamic fanaticism lies at the heart of many woes.
The greatest Moslem of all Muhammad Ali condemned all these terrorist groups as do many other Moslems.
Finally you concluded that history doesn't favour Judaism but here there is a kind of irony. I basically lived in countries such as Russia where there is a good deal of anti-Jewish sentiment. However, I always found it strange that Russian people would queue up for hours to take a look at Lenin's body in Red Square and they still revere him as a great political figure. Yet, Lenin was part Armenian, part Jewish. Later there was a big joke about all of this when the biggest anti-semitic in Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, found out he was of Jewish bloodline (after having proclaimed anti-semitism throughout his campaign).
I do not support the taking of life by Muslim terrorists or anyone else for that matter.
I think that Beslan, 9/11, Madrid were terrible acts.
I think that the invasion of Iraq was a terrible act too.
So no side comes to this issue with clean hands.
There may well be cultural tensions between some elements of extreme Muslims living in Europe and main stream Europe.
The bombing in Madrid, we were told was because Spain supported the illegal US invasion of Iraq.
This brings me to the concept of Ummah.
I haven't got the literal translation of Ummah - but I'll paraphrase.
Essentially, Ummah is the concept of Islamic territory : it holds that if an infidel occupies Islamic land, the infidel violates the concept of Ummah.
Outmoded as this concept may well be - it is invoked by BinLaden & Co.
Thus the invasion of Iraq - according to Al Qaeda - violates the concept of Ummah.
Spain - historically known as Anduluscia in Islam - was also part of the Ummah, under the Moors (we discussed this when talking about Zaragoza and Cordoba, previously).
Thus, because the concept of Ummah was violated by the US ,and assisted by Spain, Spain therefore made itself a target.
From an extremists viewpoint, Madrid and 9/11 were not crimes.
Because of the US presence in Saudi, iraq, Afghanistan, Ummah has been violated.
The only surefire way to solve this entire problem is to get the USA out of all Muslim countries and for all non-Muslim countires to seal their borders to Muslims.
Neither of these options will happen.
So we have to try to work through a solution.
I think that there are extremists on both sides (in the West, and, separately within Islam).
Neither set of extremists will win because it's an unwinnable war for both sides.
I recognise militant Islam.
I also recognise Israeli's State terrorism and US State terrorism.
I hear a lot of posters here waffling on about Islamo-fascists and other Islamo-phobic stuff (not you, it has to be said).
Then I hear them squeal anti-semiticism when their own kind are criticised.
They have a blind spot about criticisning their own kind.
I am big enough to say "yes, there is a problem with Islamic terrorism" but I am also big enough to recognise that "yes there is a problem too with US/Israeli terrorism".
Which brand of terrorism poses is a bigger threat ?
They're symbiotic.
One feeds of the other.
Which is Bush's biggest crime - in reality, his entire raison d'etre is Binladen.
In turn, Binladen's raison d'etre is Israel/US.