Atlas Shrugs

Post-American Presidency: Pamela Geller on Fox and Friends

Post-American President: Obama Wants FBI Access to Records of Your Internet Activity

Here again, more evidence of what has been meticulously documented in my just-released book (written with Robert Spencer) The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America -- Obama's war on free speech. 

This is an ongoing campaign being waged here at home (ie hate speech) and in the UN (Obama co-sponsored a resolution with Egypt to restrict free speech and make "defaming Islam" a crime).

If Bush tried to pull this subversive act, he would have been pilloried.

White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity Washington Post

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user's browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the "content" of e-mail or other Internet communication.

But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret. They are the mechanism the government would use to obtain the electronic records.

Stewart A. Baker, a former senior Bush administration Homeland Security official, said the proposed change would broaden the bureau's authority. "It'll be faster and easier to get the data," said Baker, who practices national security and surveillance law. "And for some Internet providers, it'll mean giving a lot more information to the FBI in response to an NSL."

ENERGY: Obama's War on American Business

Once again, Obama the socialist internationalist is at war against America, as is meticulously researched and evidenced in my book The Post American Presidency, The Obama Administration's War on America.

The Obama administration has proposed tax increases for US energy companies, while our foreign competitors would continue to receive taxpayer funded subsidies. The mainstream media has been purposely misleading the American public to garner support for the bills circulating on Capital Hill. More journolist malfeasance and subterfuge. See an internal copy of the environmental group Clean Energy Works memo detailing their plan to use the New York Times to promote their agenda here: Clean-Energy-Works-Memo.

Here again we are witnessing left wing political operatives on Journolist working to shape news coverage.
August 6 is the cap and tax vote in Congress. Are they going to ram this through as they did socialized healthcare?

Breaking: Obama Behind UK's Cameron's Anti-Israel Attack

Cameron's speech in Turkey slammed Israel. The British Foreign Office was blamed, but they're claiming they were as surprised as anyone.

Behind the scenes I hear from good sources that it was Obama's people who put the slamming of Israel into Cameron's speech. This ties right into my book (just out this week).

Just as Blair was Bush's "puppy," Cameron is Obama's lapdog.

This, once again, points to Obama's obsession with destroying the Jewish state. Obama is warring against Israel. When Sean Hannity asked me on his show if I thought Obama was an anti-semite, I said yes. He is.

The JCcom here:

[...]

No, it was the comments about Israel that were so mind-blowingly ill-informed.

Cameron said “the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable” and went on to refer to Gaza as a “prison camp”.

Israeli troops tried to board the Marmara peacefully after it ignored many warnings not to head to the Gaza Strip. Cameron forgets that five boats docked peacefully in Ashdod. Only the Marmara disobeyed the warnings. But then it was full of Turkish-backed IHH terrorists who wanted (and we have the recording) to perpetrate terror against Israel.

Cameron also forgets that those armed terrorists on the Marmara who attempted to lynch and kidnap the Israeli commandos who boarded the boat and who did not use violence until they themselves were attacked.

As for Gaza being a ‘prison camp’ (with the implication from the context that it is Israel’s fault) – why does Cameron ignore the thousands of tons of food and necessities that go into Gaza every week? And the sick who come out to be treated at Israeli hospitals? The only reason why free movement is not permitted between Gaza and Israel is because of Hamas terror in Gaza. It is not Israel who throws Fatah members blindfolded off roofs to a certain death. And it is not Israel who is holding Gilad Shalit and depriving him of everything to which he is entitled as a Prisoner of War -- It is Hamas.

As one who campaigned for the Conservatives I believe they are the party that will be the fairest for Israel. But this Cameron speech hardly fills me with confidence.

UPDATE: I may have maligned the FCO who reportedly were as surprised as anyone to see the Cameron comments about Israel. It seems that Obama may have been the one who fed him the drivel -- and that he willingly swallowed

Click below for a cursory look at Obama's war on Israel:

SIOA TRADEMARK LAWSUIT: Position Paper on Fighting Sharia (Islamic Law)

As you may recall, I applied for a trademark registration for SIOA. It was rejected (here) because the trademark office defined “Islamisation” to mean “Islamic” and said “stop” suggests there is reason to stop Islam simply and Muslims qua Muslims. Thus, the trademark, ruled the “Office Action,” disparaged Muslims and linked them to terrorism. The sharia (Islamic law) has infected American rule of law every which way you can imagine, and those you can't.

I engaged David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center to pursue this matter legally. Once again, these legal warriors did not hesitate to take the case pro-bono. They have filed the following response (first step in the administrative appeal process). The whole thing (exhibits and all) is available at the trademark website (and by then typing in the application no: 77940879).

This position paper is timely and necessary, especially now with advancing sharia. This position paper is the template for our side, the side of freedom.

David Yerushalmi explains, "Essentially, what they do is  make the very cogent argument that Islamisation is NOT simply a conversion of an individual or even a whole society to the religion of Islam or being even more culturally Islamic. Rather, the threat of Islamisation is the process of implementing Shariah into a society to convert the society to a Shariah-compliant Islamic state. The paper begins by showing the connection of the word to the Muslim Brotherhood, actually using their own documents. We then point to how the professional and academic literature uses the word. Bottom line: Stopping Islamisation and linking this doctrine to terrorism does not implicate good, patriotic, loyal Muslim Americans only those who seek our constitutional Republic’s demise."

Here is the entire document: Download EnceLetterreResponsetoTrademarkRegistrationRefusal_Final

Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C. 
Washington, D.C.
David Yerushalmi: Licensed in Washington, D.C., New York, California & Arizona
Of Counsel to the Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies
General Counsel to the Center for Security Policy
July 26, 2010
Maria-Victoria Suarez
Trademark Attorney
Law Office 102
571-272-9264
maria-victoria.suarez@uspto.gov FILED via TEAS (courtesy copy via email)

Re: Trademark Application No. 77/940879; Response to Office Action Trademark
Application Refusal

Dear Ms. Suarez:
I am legal counsel to the applicant, Pamela Geller, regarding the trademark application
referenced above. Please consider this letter and its exhibits as evidentiary support of my
client’s Response to Office Action Trademark Application Refusal filed via TEAS.
Specifically, my client objects to USPTO’s Office Action refusal to register (“Office
Action”) the trademark “Stop the Islamisation of America” (“SIOA”) on the grounds that
it violates 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a), and specifically that the trademark “includes matter
which may disparage or bring into contempt or disrepute persons, institutions, beliefs or
national symbols.”1 Even more particularly, my client objects and responds to the Office
Action refusal to register the trademark on the grounds that the trademark “consists of
1 Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are quotes from the Office Action available
online here.
Letter to Maria-Victoria Suarez, Trademark Attorney
July 26, 2010
Subject: Trademark Application No. 77/940879; Response to Office Action Trademark Application
Refusal
Page 2 of 14
matter which may disparage or bring into contempt or disrepute Muslims and the Islamic
religion.”
I. INTRODUCTION.
The Office Action refusal to register my client’s trademark predicates its ruling on two
grounds: (1) that the meaning of the word ‘Islamisation’ combined with the word ‘Stop’
refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that
conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to
cease; and (2) that my client’s trademark, which identifies informational services (i.e.,
“providing information regarding understanding and preventing terrorism”), “implies that
Islam is associated with violence and threats.”
My client objects to these two grounds for the following reasons: (1) the Office Action
improperly and too generally defines ‘Islamisation’ as referring to Muslims and Islam;
(2) the Office Action fails to identify what specific group of Muslims would be
disparaged by the trademark; (3) there is no showing that terrorism is not in fact
associated with ‘Islamisation’; and (4) refusal to grant the trademark is a violation of my
client’s right to Free Speech guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the
U.S. Constitution.
II. THE OFFICE ACTION IMPROPERLY AND TOO GENERALLY
DEFINES ‘ISLAMISATION’ AS REFERRING TO MUSLIMS AND
ISLAM.
The Office Action premises its refusal to register based upon the following faulty
polysyllogism:
Premise 1: ‘Islamisation’ refers to converting to Islam or becoming more
Islamic.
Premise 2: ‘Islam’ and ‘Islamic’ refer to Muslims.
Premise 3: ‘Stop’ disparages that which it seeks to render inactive.
Proposition: ‘Stop the Islamisation of America’ (“SIOA”) disparages Muslims.
The Office Action then applies the proposition of its syllogism to draw the conclusion
that because (a) SIOA provides services relating to information of and about terrorism,
then (b) SIOA links Muslims qua Muslims to terrorism.
First, the Office Action’s proposition that SIOA disparages Muslims, and its further
conclusion that SIOA links Muslims qua Muslims to terrorism, both flow from the first
premise which is patently false. ‘Islamisation’ does not refer to an individual or even a
society simply converting to the faith of Islam or even becoming more Islamic. The
Office Action, in defining ‘Islamisation’ as merely the conversion to Islam or becoming
Letter to Maria-Victoria Suarez, Trademark Attorney
July 26, 2010
Subject: Trademark Application No. 77/940879; Response to Office Action Trademark Application
Refusal
Page 3 of 14
more Islamic, has improperly relied upon an online dictionary called Dictionary.com (see
Office Action Attachments 1-3). The problem with using this online dictionary definition
is twofold: (1) the Dictionary.com definition does not properly characterize how Muslims
themselves use the word ‘Islamisation,’ nor does it describe how professional and
academics in the relevant disciplines use the word; and (2) The Office Action ignores the
dominant and prevailing meaning of the term, which is actually provided by
Dictionary.com as a second meaning. This alternative definition is closer to how
Muslims use the word and how relevant professionals and academics apply the word in
the literature of their respective disciplines. Thus, Dicitonary.com recognizes that the
word can mean “To cause to conform to Islamic law2 or precepts.” (emphasis added.)
(See Office Action Attachment 2.) But even this definition is woefully inadequate
because ‘Islamisation’ does not just mean “to cause to conform to [Shariah],” but
includes the entire politicalization of Shariah so that it controls all aspects of political,
social, economic, and religious life.
Formally, the proper and widely understood definition of ‘Islamisation’ (alternatively
spelled ‘Islamization’) is the political movement prevalent in a society or societal unit
which seeks to embrace a political doctrine that calls for the application of Shariah (i.e.,
Islamic law) as the supreme law of the society. While Islamisation and the call to create
a Shariah-adherent political order does include the call to convert non-Muslims, that is
not what marks Islamisation as a political and social order, and it is not how Muslims
themselves understand the word, nor is it how professionals and academics in the
relevant disciplines use the word.
Rather, Islamisation is specifically the politicization of a Muslim’s religious faith in that
Shariah, in its classic and extant form, demands that a society’s laws must all be
predicated upon and subservient to Shariah and its legal jurisprudence called fiqh.
Islamisation even in its “moderate” form demands that no secular law may contradict any
Shariah dictate. The prototypical examples of this form of Islamisation are the
constitutional or legal provisions in Muslim-dominated countries that include a “Shariahsupremacy”
clause providing that no secular law passed by the political branches may
contradict Shariah.
In short, the Islamisation of a society is the conversion to a theocratic political order
organized and enforced by the dictates of Shariah. Per Shariah, there is no possibility of
a “separation of mosque and state.” Shariah applies to all political, social, religious, and
military institutions within a society that has undergone Islamisation.
2 Islamic law is Shariah. Shariah, formally, is both Islamic law and Islamic
jurisprudence. For a thorough discussion of Shariah, see David Yerushalmi, “Shari’ah’s
‘Black Box’: Civil Liability and Criminal Exposure Surrounding Shari’ah-Compliant
Finance,” 2008 UTAH L. REV. 1019, 1024-1032, attached hereto at Exhibit 4(a).

Christian Science Monitor (!) Shills for Death Penalty for Apostates

Thousands of apostates (converts out of Islam) have been slaughtered across the world under the sharia (Islamic law.) Apostasy is the most egregious of Islamic crimes. Here is the Quran on apostasy.

The above fatwa was issued at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the most important institution of islamic law in the sunni world, and where Obama made his speech to the Muslim world. (More on Obama's speech here and here.) Obama described Al-Azhar University this way: "For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt’s advancement."

The most revered Islamic scholars on apostasy:

Sahih al-Bukhari 6878—Narrated Abdullah: Allah’s Messenger said, “The blood of a Muslim who confesses that La ilaha illallah (none has the right to be worshipped but Allah) and that I am the Messenger of Allah, cannot be shed except in three cases: (1) Life for life; (2) a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse, and (3) the one who turns renegade from Islam (apostate) and leaves the group of Muslims.

Sahih al-Bukhari 6921—Ibn Umar, Az-Zuhri and Ibrahim said, “A female apostate (who reverts from Islam), should be killed.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 6922—Narrated Ikrima: Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to Ali; and he burnt them. The news of this event reached Ibn Abbas who said, “If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah’s Messenger forbade it, saying, ‘Do not punish anybody with Allah’s punishment (fire).’ I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Messenger, ‘Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.’”

Sahih al-Bukhari 6923—Narrated Abu Burda: Abu Musa said, “I came to the Prophet along with two men (from the tribe) of Ash’ariyun, one on my right and the other on my left, while Allah’s Messenger was brushing his teeth (with a Siwak), and both men asked him for some employment. The Prophet said, ‘O Abu Musa, O Abdullah bin Qais.’ I said, ‘By Him Who sent you with the Truth, thse two men did not tell me what was in their hearts and I did not feel (realize) that they were seeking employment.’ As if I were looking now a his Siwak being drawn to a corner under his lips, and he said, ‘We neve (or said, ‘we do not’) appoint for our affairs anyone who seeks to be employed. But O Abu Musa!’ or said, ‘Abdullah bin Qais! Go to Yemen.’ The Prophet then sent Mu’adh bin Jabal after him and when Mu’adh reached him, he spread out a cushion for him and requested him to get down (and sit on the cushion). Behold! There was a fettered man beside Abu Musa. Mu’adh asked, ‘Who is this (man)?’ Abu Musa said, ‘He was a Jew and became a Muslim and then reverted back to Judaism.’ Then Abu Musa requested Mu’adh to sit down but Mu’adh said, ‘I will not sit down till he has been killed. This is the judgment of Allah and His Messenger (for such cases),’ and repeated it thrice. Then Abu Musa ordered that the man be killed, and he was killed.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 6930—Narrated Ali: Whenever I tell you a narration from Allah’s Messenger, by Allah, I would rather fall down from the sky than ascribe a false statement to him, but if I tell you something between me and you (not a Hadith) then it was indeed a trick (i.e., I may say things just to cheat my enemy). No doubt I heard Allah’s Messenger saying, “During the last days there will appear some young foolish people who will say the best words but their Faith will not go beyond their throats (i.e., they will have no Faith) and will go out from (leave) their religion as an arrow goes out of the game. So, wherever you find them, kill them, for whoever kills them shall have reward on the Day of Resurrection.”

Sahih Muslim 29—It is narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that when the Messenger of Allah breathed his last and Abu Bakr was appointed as his successor (Caliph), those amongst the Arabs who wanted to become apostates became apostates. Umar b. Khattab said to Abu Bakr: Why would you fight against the people, when the Messenger of Allah declared: I have been directed to fight against people so long as they do not say: There is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was granted full protection of his property and life on my behalf except for a right? His (other) affairs rest with Allah. Upon this Abu Bakr said: By Allah, I would definitely fight against him who severed prayer from Zakat, for it is the obligation upon the rich. By Allah, I would fight against them even to secure the cord (used for hobbling the feet of a camel) which they used to give to the Messenger of Allah (as zakat) but now they have withheld it. Umar b. Khattab remarked: By Allah, I found nothing but the fact that Allah had opened the heart of Abu Bakr for (perceiving the justification of) fighting (against those who refused to pay Zakat) and I fully recognized that the (stand of Abu Bakr) was right.

Sahih Muslim 4154—Abdullah (b. Mas’ud) reported: Allah’s Messenger stood up and said: By Him besides Whom there is no god but He, the blood of a Muslim who bears the testimony that there is no god but Allah, and I am His Messenger, may be lawfully shed only in case of three persons: the one who abandons Islam, and deserts the community, and the married adulterer, and life for life.

Sunan Abu Dawud 4337—Ikrimah said: Ali burned some people who retreated from Islam. When Ibn Abbas was informed of it, he said: If it had been I, I would not have them burned, for the Apostle of Allah said: Do not inflict Allah’s punishment on anyone, but would have had killed them on account of the statement of the Apostle of Allah. The Apostle said: Kill those who change their religion. When Ali was informed about it he said: How truly Ibn Abbas said!

Sunan Abu Dawud 4338—Abd Allah (b. Masud) reported the Apostle of Allah as saying: The blood of a Muslim man who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Apostle of Allah should not be lawfully shed but only for one of three reasons: married fornicator, soul for soul, and one who deserts his religion separating himself from the community.

Sunan Abu Dawud 4340—Abu Burdah said on the authority of Abu Musa: I went to the Prophet while two men who were Ash’aris were with me. One of them was on my right and the other on my left side. Both of them asked him for employment. The Prophet was silent. He asked: What do you say, Abu Musa, or Abd Allah b. Qais (Abu Musa’s name)? I replied: By Him Who has sent you with truth, they did not inform me of what they had in their hearts, and I did not know that they would ask for an employment. He said: I have the scene before my eyes that he had his toothstick below his lip which receded. He (the Prophet) said: We will never or will not put in charge of our work anyone who asks for it. But go, ye, Abu Musa, or Abd Allah b. Qais. He then sent him as a Governor of the Yemen. After him he sent Mu’adh b. Jubal. When Mu’adh came to him, he said: come down, and he put a cushion for him. He saw that a man was chained with him. He asked: What is this? He replied: He was a Jew and he accepted Islam. He then converted to his religion, an evil religion. He said: I will not sit until he is killed according to the decision of Allah and His Apostle. He said: Yes, be seated. He said: I will not sit until he is killed according to the decision of Allah and His Apostle. He said it three times. He then commanded for it and he was killed. Both of them then discussed the question of prayer and vigilance at night. One of them, probably Mu’adh, said: So far as I am concerned, I sleep and I keep vigilance; I keep vigilance and I sleep; I hope for the same reward for my sleep as for my vigilance.

Sunan Abu Dawud 4345—Ibn Abbas said: Abd Allah b. Abi Sarh used to write (the revelation) for the Apostle of Allah. Satan made him slip, and he joined the infidels. The Apostle of Allah commanded to kill him on the day of Conquest (of Mecca). Uthman b. Affan sought protection for him. The Apostle of Allah gave him protection.

Sunan Abu Dawud 4346—Sa’d said: On the day of the Conquest of Mecca Abd Allah b. Sa’d b. Abi Sarh hid himself with Uthman b. Affan. He brought him and made him stand before the Prophet, and said: Accept the allegiance of Abd Allah, Apostle of Allah! He raised his head and looked at him three times, refusing him each time, but accepted his allegiance after the third time. Then turning to his Companions he said: Was not there a wise man among you who would stand to him when he saw me that I had withheld my hand from accepting his allegiance and killed him? They said: We did not know what you had in your heart, Apostle of Allah! Why did you not give us a signal with your eye? He said: It is not advisable for a Prophet to have tricks that deceive with the eyes.

Sunan Abu Dawud 4347—Jarir reported the Prophet as saying: When a slave runs away and reverts to polytheism, he may lawfully be killed.

Jami At-Tirmidhi 1458—Ikrimah narrated that Ali burnt some people who apostatized from Islam. This news reached Ibn Abbas, so he said: “If it were me I would have killed them according to the statement of the Messenger of Allah. The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Whoever changes his religion then kill him.’ And I would not have burned them because the Messenger of Allah said: ‘Do not punish with the punishment of Allah.’” So this reached Ali, and he said: “Ibn Abbas has told the truth.”

Sunan an-Nasa’i 4022—It was narrated that Amr bin Ghalib said: “Aishah said: ‘Do you not know that the Messenger of Allah said: It is not permissible to shed the blood of a Muslim, except a man who committed adultery after being married, or one who reverted to Kufr after becoming a Muslim, or a life for a life.’” Sunan an-Nasa’i 4024—Abu Umamah bin Sahl and Abdullah bin Amir bin Rabi’ah said: “We were with Uthman when he was under siege and we could hear what was said from Al-Balat. Uthman came in one day, then he came out, and said: ‘They are threatening to kill me.’ We said: ‘Allah will suffice you against them.’ He said: ‘Why would they kill me? I heard the Messenger of Allah say: It is not permissible to shed the blood of a Muslim except in one of three cases: A man who reverts to Kufr after becoming Muslim, or commits adultery after being married, or one who kills a soul unlawfully. By Allah, I did not commit adultery during the Jahiliyyah or in Islam, I never wished to follow any other religion since Allah guided me, and I have never killed anyone, so why do they want to kill me?’”

Sunan an-Nasa’i 4025—It was narrated that Arfajah bun Shuraih Al-Ashja’I said: “I saw the Prophet on the Minbar addressing the people. He said: ‘After me there will be many calamities and much evil behavior. Whoever you see splitting away from the Jama’ah or trying to create division among the Ummah of Muhammad, then kill him, for the Hand of Allah is with the Jama’ah, and the Shaitan is with the one who splits away from the Ummah, running with him.’”

Sunan an-Nasa’i 4039—It was narrated from Anas that some people from Uraynah camped in Al-Harrah and came to the Messenger of Allah. The climate of Al-Madinah did not suit them, so the Messenger of Allah told them to go and stay near the camels that had been given in Sadaqah, and to drink their milk and urine. Then they killed the herdsman and apostatized from Islam, and drove off the camels. The Messenger of Allah sent (men) after them, then he had their hands and feet cut off, and their eyes gouged out, and let them in Al-Harrah. Anas said: “I saw one of them biting at the ground from thirst, until they died.”

Sunan an-Nasa’i 4040—It was narrated that Anas bin Malik said: “Some Bedouin from Uraynah came to the Prophet of Allah and accepted Islam, but the climate of Al-Madinah did not suit them; their skin turned yellow and their bellies became swollen. The Prophet of Allah sent them to some milk camels of his and told them to drink their milk and urine until they recovered. Then they killed their herdsmen and drove off the camels. The Prophet of Allah sent (men) after them and they were brought back, then he had their hands and feet cut off, and their eyes were branded.” The commander of the Believers, Abdul-Malik, said to Anas, when he was narrating this Hadith: “Was that (punishment) for Kufr or for sin? He said: “For Kufr.”

Sunan An-Nasa’i 4062—It was narrated from Ibn Umar that Uthman said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah say: ‘It is not permissible to shed the blood of a Muslim except in three cases: A man who commits adultery after having married; or one who kills intentionally, in which case he deserves retaliation; or one who apostatizes after having become Muslim, in which case he deserves to be killed.’”

Sunan An-Nasa’i 4068—It was narrated that Al-Hasan said: “The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Whoever changes his religion, kill him.’”

Sunan An-Nasa’i 4069—It was narrated from Anas that Ibn Abbas said: “The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Whoever changes his religion, kill him.’”

Sunan An-Nasa’i 4071—It was narrated from Abu Burdah bin Abi Musa Al-Ash’ari, from his father: “That the Prophet sent him to Yemen, then he sent Mu’adh bin Jabal after that. When he arrived he said: ‘O people, I am the envoy of the Messenger of Allah to you.’ Abu Musa gave him a cushion to sit down, then a man was brought who had been a Jew, then he became a Muslim, then he reverted to Kufr. Mu’adh said: ‘I will not sit down until he is killed; this is the decree of Allah and His Messenger,’ (saying it) three times. When he was killed, he sat down.”

Sunan Ibn Majah 2533—It was narrated from Abu Umamah bin Sahl bin Hunaif that Uthman bin Affan looked at them and heard them when they spoke of killing. He said: “Are they threatening to kill me? I heard the Messenger of Allah say: ‘It is not lawful to shed the blood of a Muslim except in one of three (cases): a man who commits adultery when he is a married person, then he should be stoned; a man who kills a soul not in retaliation for murder; and a man who apostatizes after becoming Muslim.’ By Allah, I never committed adultery either during Ignorance days nor in Islam, and I have never killed a Muslim soul, and I have not apostatized since I became Muslim.”

Sunan Ibn Majah 2535—It was narrated from Ibn Abbas that the Messenger of Allah said: “Whoever changes his religion, execute him.”

Sunan Ibn Majah 2540—It was narrated from Ubadah bin Samit that the Messenger of Allah said: “Carry out the legal punishments on relatives and strangers, and do not let the fear of blame stop you from carrying out the command of Allah.”

Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik 36.18.15—Yahya related to me from Malik from Zayd ibn Aslam that the Messenger of Allah said, “If someone changes his religion—then strike off his head!” The meaning of the statement of the Prophet in our opinion—and Allah knows best—is that, “If someone changes his religion—then strike off his head!” refers to those who leave Islam for something else—like heretics and suchlike, about whom that is known. They are killed without being called to repent because their repentance is not recognized. They were concealing their disbelief and making their Islam public, so I do not think that one should call such people to repent and one does not accept their word. As for the person who leaves Islam for something else and divulges it, he is called on to repent. If he does not turn in repentance, he is killed. If there are people in that situation, I think that one should call them to Islam and call on them to repent. If they repent, that is accepted from them. If they do not epent, they are killed. That does not refer as we see it, and Allah knows best, to those who convert from Judaism to Christianity or from Christianity to Judaism, nor to someone who changes his religion from any of the various forms of religion except for Islam. Whoever comes out of Islam to something else and makes that known, that is the one who is referred to, and Allah knows best!

Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik 36.18.16—Malik related to me from Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Abd al-Qari that his father said, “A man came to Umar ibn al-Khattab from Abu Musa al-Ash’ari. Umar asked after various people, and he informed him about them. Then Umar inquired, ‘Do you have any recent news?’ He said, ‘Yes. A man has become an unbeliever after he was Muslim.’ Umar said, ‘What have you done with him?’ He replied, ‘We let him approach and then struck off his head.’ Umar said, ‘Didn’t you imprison him for three days and feed him a loaf of bread every day and call on him to repent that he might turn in repentance and return to the command of Allah? Then Umar said, ‘O Allah! I was not present and I did not order it and I am not pleased since it has come to me!’”

Anyone who is against the Leaving Islam? bus ads supports the death penalty for apostates (converts out of Islam.) It's just that simple.

The suggestion that I am urging Muslims to leave Islam is fallacious. The ads do not say "Leave Islam!" The ads read "Leaving Islam?," and are directed to Muslims in danger. Are they not entitled to religious freedom? Are they not entitled to equal rights? Are their lives worth less than those of the Islamic supremacists who would keep them held in prison against their will?

Islamic law mandates death for apostates.

Now, having ingested that, read this article by Stephanie Rice in the Christian Science Monitor. How careless and callous she is with human life in deference to Islamic supremacists. The opposition to these ads (CAIR, ICNA, ISNA, dhimmi journalists, et al) -- the defense of free speech, the freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for all people, all of which is denied by Islamic law -- she characterizes as hate. I don't.

Look at the headline. What is "anti-islamic" about saving a life?

'Anti-Islamic' bus ads appear in major cities

A group called 'Stop Islamization of America' is promoting ads on major city public transportation that urge people to leave the Muslim faith. The anti-Islamic campaign is sparking thought about the religion's place in American society.

The growing debate over Islam's place in America, which is escalating in light of plans to build a mosque near ground zero, is increasingly playing out on city streets across the country. On the sides of buses, to be precise.

What does this have to do with the Ground Zero mega mosque? This campaign began long before the Ground Zero mega mosque reared its ugly head.

Several groups are engaging in something of a religious ad war over the merits and misconceptions of Islam, a religion that remains a mystery to many Americans.

If Islam "remains a mystery" to most Americans, it because of dhimmi clowns like Rice.

Ads by a group calling itself Stop Islamization of America, which aims to provide refuge for former Muslims, read: "Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers!"

IN PICTURES: Billboards around the world

Those ads, appearing on dozens of buses in the San Francisco Bay Area, Miami, and New York, are a response to ones from a Muslim group that say, "The way of life of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Islam. Got questions? Get answers."

The Islamic supremacists' ads were proselytizing by the Muslim Brotherhood front ICNA. Those ads urged non-Muslims to convert to Islam.

In New York, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community sponsored this campaign: "Muslims for Peace. Love for All – Hatred for None."

She is writing from San Francisco, so Rice deliberately avoided reporting that the majority of the ads were run by ICNA. The Islamic supremacism ads ran in a huge campaign in San Francisco.

The ads are part of a larger conversation over Islam's image, which Muslim organizations say has been hurt by extremists both at home and abroad. But many conservative groups say that concern about the spread of Islam isn't alarmist, pointing to evidence of imams in this country inciting militancy and a growing number of American Muslims arrested for plotting terror attacks.

A self-described "anti-jihadist," Pamela Geller is the conservative blogger and executive director of Stop Islamization of America who conceived of the "Leaving Islam" ad campaign. Her bus posters, she says, were partly inspired by the ongoing Florida case involving a teenage girl who ran away from her Muslim parents after converting to Christianity. The girl, Rifqa Bary, made headlines last year when she claimed her father threatened to kill her for becoming a Christian.

Ms. Geller described her campaign as "a defense of religious freedom," in an e-mail response to questions. The goal, she says, is mainly "to help ex-Muslims who are in trouble" and also "to raise awareness of the threat that apostates live under even in the West."

But some religious rights organizations contend that the real intent is to incite fear about a faith that, according to recent studies, remains misunderstood. A 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 38 percent believe Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions.

I can assure you, Islamic supremacists do not know what is in my heart or what my intent is. As if .....

"In this post-9/11 world … it's almost like there's some political and spiritual currency to be gained by being anti-Islamic," says Steve Spreitzer, programs director for the Detroit-based interfaith group Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.

RefugeFromIslam.com, the website promoted on Geller's ads, contends that Muslim Americans who "long to be free" of their religion are in danger of being killed, and offers protection, including "safe houses," for those who want out. Muslim rights groups and religious leaders say there is no penalty for leaving Islam and that the Koran condemns killing as a sin.

Germany and EUROIDS Revisit Fascism: Berlin Politician Faces Expulsion for inviting Geert Wilders

As I have often said, truth is the new hate speech. And so Germany takes a giant step backwards into their darkest period, of the mid-twentieth century.

Berlin politician gets flak from Eurodhimmis for inviting Geert Wilders Jihadwatch

I had the great pleasure of meeting Rene Stadtkewitz when I spoke for Pax Europa in Berlin last year. He is a measured, intelligent, well-spoken politician who is deeply aware of the nature of Sharia and the threat of the global jihad. But when he has tried to raise awareness of those things among his fellow citizens by bringing in Wilders to speak, he has been targeted by the slaves who are choosing slavery. "Berlin Politician in Trouble for Inviting Dutch Populist Wilders," from Spiegel, July 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

CDU politician Rene Stadtkewitz is in trouble with his party for a provocative invitation.

A local Berlin politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives is under fire for inviting Dutch populist Geert Wilders to a meeting on Islam on October 2. Rene Stadtkewitz, who is known for his anti-Islamic views, has refused to cancel the invitation, and now faces eviction from his party's parliamentary group in the city assembly.

A local Berlin politician is in trouble for inviting Dutch right-wing populist Geert Wilders, who is known for his provocative positions on Islam and immigration, to a political event in Berlin.

Rene Stadtkewitz, 45, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), looks set to be excluded from the CDU's parliamentary group in the Berlin city assembly after inviting Wilders to Berlin on October 2 to discuss integration and Islam. He had also discussed founding a branch of Wilders' Freedom Party in Germany.

Frank Henkel, the CDU's regional parliamentary group leader, gave Stadtkewitz an ultimatum: Withdraw the invitation by July 26 or face the consequences.

Stadtkewitz refused in an open letter in which he also suggested that the CDU should be doing more to combat Islam politically. Up until now, public debate about the Islamic faith had been "too timid" in Germany, Stadtkewitz wrote. He added that the debate should focus on the defense of freedom and of Christian values, including concerns about "countless young women, who are forced into arranged marriages, enslaved and who sometimes become victims of so-called honor killings."

'No Place in Our Party'

Henkel responded Monday by saying that he would propose a motion to exclude Stadtkewitz from the parliamentary group because he had distanced himself from "the goals of the conservatives."...

What are those goals? Islamization? Sharia? Dhimmitude?

Panties in a Wad Over Panties: Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas Imposes Sharia (Islamic Law) in Gaza

If you didn't know...Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious and political organization founded in Egypt with branches throughout the world...........The Hamas Charter says it is the Muslim Brotherhood for "Palestine."

Hamas, the genocidal organization, is imposing the sharia (Islamic law) in the terror statelet of Gaza. They say, of course, that they are not, but we know that this is what the Brotherhood does: it lies to sabotage and deceive (see Imam Rauf).

Hamas Principles

The principles of the Hamas are stated in their Covenant or Charter, given in full below. Following are highlights.

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

Obama is holding secret negotiations with these mass murderers.

Hamas targets women's underwear in modesty drive Reuters (hat tip Weasel)

GAZA (Reuters) - The Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip have ordered lingerie shops to display more modesty.

A week after banning women from smoking water pipes in public places, the Hamas-run police force has told stores selling women's underwear to remove scantily-clad mannequins and any posters of racy undergarments.

"These measures have stemmed from complaints and pressure by ordinary people. They have to do with upholding our traditions," police spokesman Ayman Al-Batniji said on Wednesday.

Hamas leaders have repeatedly denied any intention to impose Islamic law on the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians.

But Hamas police have broken up a hip-hop concert in the territory and tried -- unsuccessfully -- to force women lawyers in court and female school students to wear traditional Muslim clothing, a step that drew a public backlash.

Hamas's modesty moves were widely seen by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as attempts to mollify more conservative Islamic factions that have accused the movement of failing to uphold Islamic Sharia law.

Geller on Hannity, Lou Dobbs et al on Blockbuster New Book, The Post-American Presidency

Have you gotten your copy yet?

My book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America, launched yesterday, and I have been talking about it on TV and radio. In case you missed my appearance on Hannity last night (which is why I had to bolt the Ground Zero  mosque community board meeting early), here's the clip.

I did Fox and Friends this morning, I hope to have a clip later.

Also huge thanks to Lou Dobbs for featuring my book on his website. He had me on his show yesterday........... you can listen to the show here.

And coming up 11:34am-11:44am ET Westwood One, National LIVE—The Dennis Miller Show And more on Jaime Allman in the morning, Jaz McKay, News & Views” Hosts: Larry Bates and Chuck Baker, Phil Valentine, The Lars Larson Show and more radio tomorrow. 

Tomorrow night, I am out on the Island to speak at a Candidates Forum at temple Hillel in Woodmere. I will be signing books as well as speaking...........

And don't miss our book signing in Saturday, July 31, Book Revue in conjunction with Premiere. C-Span Book TV will be there:

Join me and Robert in Huntington, New York at Book Revue, 313 New York Avenue, Huntington. It's Saturday night, come!

UPDATE: I will be on Hannity's radio show today as well.

Ground Zero Mega Mosque Community Board Landmarks Meeting UPDATE: CB Votes No to Landmark Status

Most voters in New York (58%) oppose the building of an Islamic mosque near Ground Zero in New York City.

Video thanks to Pamela Hall of my remarks and Robert Spencer's at the Community Board landmarks meeting last night:

Tonight I attended another meaningless dog and pony show put on by the ill-used tools on the community board. The room at the auditorium was packed; so packed, in fact, that there were many left outside waiting to get in.

There was little to no media there.

The room was 95% opposed. But the will of the people is ignored. Last I heard from Pamela Hall, a vote was taken...but then they stalled and stalled...not giving us a tally. I had to cut out to make my Hannity appearance. 

It bears noting that there was no Muslim presence at the hearing and that is, in and of itself, extraordinary.

When they have anti-Israel antisemitic protests they fill the streets with haters and agitators, every time. When they have to fill a hall to support the jihadist Saudi Islamic Academy, there is not an empty seat in the house.

But not one at the meeting save Gamal. It is, once again, pure deceit, pure show, pure manipulation.

It is so calculated - the control of the violence, hate and intimidation.

Pamela Hall is posting all the video -- will update with the link when they go live.

Negeen Mayel, one of the four Christians who were arrested and their cameras confiscated at an Arab festival for passing out leaflets.

Robert Spencer, Negeen Mayel, David Wood (another Christian who was arrested for passing out leaflets at the Muslim festival), and Helen of Americans for a Safe Israel.

Packed house, lots of folks from Staten Island, fresh off their victory against the Muslim Brotherhood mosque.

Hindus were out in full force.

Great Americans who were denied entry waited outside in opposition to the mosque.

On the left is Imam Rauf's dhimmi Jewish lawyer (pathetic) and on the right, the new face of what was once called  Cordoba House (symbolic of Islam's conquest of the West), but which has now been rebranded as 51park: Sharif el-Gamal, CEO of SoHo Properties. Rebranding.... they think we are so stupid.

Above photo: Much thanks to Ilya from Citizens Magazine who just sent this to me. His participation and coverage of the Staten Island Muslim Brotherhood mosque victory was spectacular.

We will hold a service and protest the mega mosque on September 11th at 2pm at Park Place (between Church and West Broadway) near Ground Zero. Join us.

Here are Barbara P's (one of the leaders of the Staten Island fight) observations about the meeting:

First, Bill thanks for attending, 555 you too – nice to finally meet you, Bay People, what a group you are, I know you will win your battle too – so nice to see you again. Ilya from www.citizensmagazine was there and I’m sure will do a fantastic job of reporting on the event as usual – very nice to meet you too. So proud to see Staten Island and Brooklyn so well represented.

The press was present, but not to the degree expected. As many of us as possible gave interviews – they make me nervous but it has to be done. Pamela Geller is on Hannity tonight along with Andrew McCarthy, repeats at midnight – try to tape it, it’s a good discussion on ground zero and the jihad threat against all Americans.

Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller were at the top of their game, as usual. They are so good at speaking for a limited amount of time and getting everything they want to say said.

I tried to yield some of my time to them when I spoke so they could explain to everyone the differences in Imam Rauf’s book as published for Americans and the version that’s far more sinister and published under the same title for Muslims in Arabic. The Chairwoman wasn’t going to let me have the full 2 minutes I should have had to speak. I did submit the 5 page statement outlining all of the reasons to landmark and stating that all testimony about building the mosque must be disregarded as irrelevant - and I submitted the copy of the request for a 9/11 historic district to be created that would include the Burlington Building. While it was accepted, they vote tonight, I doubt it will make a bit of difference.

John Press, the leader of the Brooklyn Tea Party spoke and did a fantastic job too.

Brett Joshpe, an attorney who along with Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice are representing a 9/11 fireman, (and a group of others) in the fight to stop the mosque at ground zero. He had the crowd cheering too. Check out his website www.brettjoshpe.com and the ACLJ – http://www.aclj.org – both are extremely good.

So many people were there on our side. It was more than obvious though that the Community Board was not on our side – in fact I was told by 2 women on the Board that they want the mosque. So much for objectivity and doing what they know the community wants, what the majority of New Yorkers want and what the majority of Americans across the country wants – they’ve heard from people from all over America who are against this mosque.

While the focus should have been the building, it was the damn mosque.

Gamal, the owner, was there and after introducing himself he said he was there as a resource. No one was interested in him – he saw the anger New Yorkers voiced and couldn’t care less. I couldn’t help staring him down and didn’t let up until he bowed his head.

Maybe 3 people spoke in favor of the mosque – all of them were shouted down until they left the microphone.

Every speaker on our side did well.

I have to tell you what I was told. It’s more than likely that the Landmark Committee will vote against landmark status for the building. The next step in the process after the vote is to submit the Committee’s recommendations to the Landmarks Preservation Commission – which usually does what the Committee recommends.

Those who know far more than I do told me that it’s believed that Obama let Bloomberg know he wants the mosque and Bloomberg, being the fame and power hungry person that he is (remember he wanted the vice presidential spot on Obama’s ticket & didn’t get it) is doing what Obama wants. Also explains why Schumer, Gillibrand and Mahoney aren’t saying a word. So the expectation is that we will lose this battle at this level – but – The ACLJ is ready to take them to court over this, and they believe they should win. Give these guys as much support as possible.

After they cut off speakers and turned to their normal business we started to leave. We went back into the room when we heard they were discussing the original landmark vote that took place. Believe it or not, members of the board were questioning the panel (the Board’s leadership) as to how they arrived at the vote against landmark status. They were going over the points in the resolution and insisting on answers. A good sign, but….

We had to leave, we’ll know in the morning how this turned out. While I was encouraged by the questioning, I could tell by the look on this panel’s faces when we spoke and how they cut off our side that this panel would need a gun held to their heads in order to vote for preservation.

I hope I’m wrong.

UPDATE: The community board voted NO for landmark status for the building hit by a piece of plane's  landing gear that took out the World Trade Center in the largest attack ever on American soil.

The Community Board voted 24 - 13 in favor of NOT land marking the Ground Zero Mosque.

UPDATE: Ilya of Citizens Magazine has sent lots of pics. Click below to view:

Obama's Terror Pal Rashid Khalidi Calls for Funding for Next Jihad War Convoy Flotilla, "Audacity of Hope"

“Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, reportedly has signed an appeal for funds to outfit a ship–to be named The Audacity of Hope–that will challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza in September or October. Khalidi and his wife (who also signed the appeal) became friends and occasional dinner companions of Barack Obama when Khalidi was on the faculty of the University of Chicago. Khalidi also contributed to the education of Obama on issues relating to the Middle East. Just before Khalidi moved to Columbia, at a dinner honoring Khalidi, Obama saluted the rabidly anti-Israel professor for “offer[ing] constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases.”

Obama and Rashid Khalidi go way back. Obama babysat Khalidi's kids; Khalidi did a fund-raiser for Obama in 2001; and Obama sat on the board of the Woods Foundation with terrorist Bill Ayers and gave Khalidi $40,000 and $30,000 grants respectively.

For those of you unfamiliar with Rashid Khalidi, go here.

• Professor of Middle East Studies at Columbia University
• Former PLO operative
• Has justified as legitimate Palestinian “resistance” that results in death of armed Israelis
• Rejects the possibility of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (from Atlas, March 2008)

Obama attended a dinner for Khalidi. The LA Times has the tape. Now more than ever, under FOIA, the LA Times must release the tape of Obama speaking and toasting Rashid Khalidi. Here is an account from a journalist who saw the tape:

Saw a clip from the tape. Reason we can't release it is because [of] statements Obama said to rile audience up during toast. He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying "Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine" plus there's been "genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis."

OBAMA, KHALIDI AND THE ART OF BEHEADING DANCE -- Atlas Shrugs

Here is an excerpt on Khalid from my book which launched today. Buy it, there's more.

Rashid Khalidi

In 2005, Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi taught a fifteen-week course on Middle Eastern politics at Columbia’s Middle East Institute. The New York Sun reported that the Saudis “funneled tens of thousands of dollars” into the institute’s programs. However, New York City’s schools chancellor, Joel Klein removed Khalidi from the program after it came to light that Khalidi had justified jihad terror attacks against Israeli civilians: “Killing civilians is a war crime, whoever does it. But resistance to occupation is legitimate in international law.” Martin Kramer, a trenchant critic of the anti-Israel and pro-jihad bias that prevails in American academia, explained: “If you’re a Saudi, it’s very convenient for Rashid Khalidi to claim that the source of America’s problems in the region is not their special relationship with Saudi Arabia, but their special relationship with Israel. All he has to do is say it’s Palestine, stupid.”

That wasn’t all. Reports indicate that Khalidi was a director of WAFA, the official press agency of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in Beirut from 1976 to 1982. According to journalist Aaron Klein, “Rashid Khalidi at times has denied working directly for the PLO but Palestinian diplomatic sources in Ramallah told WND he indeed worked on behalf of WAFA. Khalidi also advised the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference in 1991.” What’s more, “during documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an ‘apartheid system in creation’ and a destructive ‘racist’ state. He has multiple times expressed support for Palestinian terror, calling suicide bombings response to ‘Israeli aggression.’ He dedicated his 1986 book, ‘Under Siege,’ to ‘those who gave their lives ... in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon.’ Critics assailed the book as excusing Palestinian terrorism.”

In 2001 and 2002, the fiercely anti-Israeli Arab American Action Network (AAAN), headed by Khalidi’s wife Mona, received $110,000 in grants from the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization. One of the members of the Woods Fund board of directors at that time was Barack Obama, Khalidi’s former colleague back in the 1990s, when they both taught at the University of Chicago. Like Ayers, Khalidi also took a financial interest in Obama’s political career: in 2000, he held a fundraiser for Obama’s unsuccessful run for a seat in the House of Representatives. In October 2008, the Los Angeles Times obtained a video of a 2003 AAAN dinner attended by Obama, Ayers, Dohrn, and Khalidi. The Times refused to release the video, leading to angry accusations of journalistic bias from the McCain campaign, since it was widely rumored that the video showed Obama making or at very least assenting to anti-Israel statements.

One thing that the Times did reveal that Obama spoke warmly at the banquet about his numerous conversations with Rashid and Mona Khalidi, saying that they had served for him as “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation – a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table,” but on the big stage of “this entire world.”

Times reporter Peter Wallsten noted that “the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor’s going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say. Their belief is not drawn from Obama’s speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.” One of those was the 2003 AAAN dinner, at which “a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, ‘then you will never see a day of peace.’” Another speaker compared the “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” – to whom Obama as president has been notoriously hostile – to Osama bin Laden. Obama is not recorded as having contradicted these remarks, although he did, according to Wallsten, adopt “a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground.”

In any case, whatever was said on this notorious video, no smoking-gun videotape was really necessary to establish Obama’s close ties to haters of Israel. The evidence was already there in abundance.

He's Worse Than Brown

The Brits can't catch a break. I never thought I'd say it, but despite having defeated the leftist Brown and elected the Conservative party candidate, David Cameron, who would have thought he'd be .....worse. 

Yesterday Cameron made shocking and disastrous remarks, the implications of which are disastrous for freedom-loving peoples of the world. First, Cameron's vigorous insistence that Turkey be granted membership in the EU. Turkey would be the first Muslim majority country granted admittance into the EU. This would, in one stealth action, result in the radical islamization of the EU. Larger states have more votes than smaller ones in the EU and Turkey would be the largest, most populated country in the organization.

When decisions are not being taken by consensus, votes are weighted so that a country with a greater population has more votes within the Council than a smaller country (although not exact, smaller countries have more votes than their population would allow relative to the largest countries) .....more here

Fait accompli.

Further, EU members must have democratic, free market governments together with the corresponding freedoms and institutions, and respect the rule of law. Clearly Turkey's continued aggressive hostilities with Greece and Cyprus preclude that. And the rapid re-islamization of Turkey, the move away from Ataturk's reforms of secularization, should make Turkey's denial of membership a foregone conclusion.

Cameron speaks of "an extreme" Islam, what he actually is referring to is pure Islam, original Islam. Prime Minister of Turkey Erdogan said back in 2007,

"First of all, the 'moderate Islam' concept is wrong. The word 'Islam' is a simple word -- it is only Islam. If you say 'moderate Islam,' then an alternative is created, and that is 'immoderate Islam.' I cannot accept such a concept as a Muslim"

And he said this:

"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and Muslims our soldiers…” said the Prime Minister of the increasingly Islamic Turkey Recipe Tayyip Erdogan, as he publicly read an Islamic poem.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's position is that the EU should offer Turkey a "privileged partnership" instead of full membership. Turkey has dismissed that offer. French President Nicolas Sarkozy also opposes Turkey joining the EU. And rightly so.

Turkey must join EU, says Cameron: 'Those who are against are playing on fears of Islam'

David Cameron today accused critics of Turkey’s membership of the EU of playing on fears of Islam - as he pledged to ‘pave the road from Ankara to Brussels’.

In a speech in the Turkish capital the Prime Minister promised to ‘fight’ to help the Islamic state achieve its 50-year goal of EU membership.

He said that, by embracing the moderate Muslim nation, the EU can improve relations with the rest of the Islamic world.

And he hit out at those who ‘wilfully misunderstand Islam’ in order to oppose Turkey’s membership.

Pushing for EU membership: David Cameron with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara today

He said: ‘They see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists.

‘They think the values of Islam can never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies or cultures.

‘All these arguments are just plain wrong. I want us to be at the forefront of an international effort to defeat them.’

Mr Cameron’s words put him at odds with France, Germany and Tory Right-wingers who believe Turkey may be incompatible with the EU.

EU countries are in a position to use their veto to block a move for Turkish accession. But they are now coming under pressure from the U.S. as well as Britain.

The Prime Minister hit out at ‘protectionists’ who see Turkey as an ‘economic threat’.

And he criticised those who see the world as a ‘clash of civilisations’ in which Turkey must choose sides.

So do we not defend our civilization? Do we just acquiesce? Is this what the Brits elected when they ushered in the new era of the Conservatives?

But Cameron did not stop there. He launched into an attack on the Jews (what Muslim trip is complete without a good dose of Islamic anti-semitism?).

Did Cameron not see the the video? Did Cameron not view the bloody attacks on the Jewish soldiers? Is Jewish self defense now a crime in the modern era of the new barbarians?

The thing is, the bloody jihad convoy flotilla was launched in Turkey by the IHH. The State department will be designating the IHH a terrorist organization. What is Cameron doing? And who is he serving?

David Cameron today described Gaza as a 'prison camp' and appealed to the Israeli Government to allow the free flow of humanitarian goods and people in and out of the Palestinian territory.

An open air prison camp? More of the Islamic anti-semitic narrative. Britain is an open air prison!

There's an obesity problem in Gaza, for pete's sake. Check out the embarrassment of riches.

Gaza is free. Perhaps if they removed their teeth from Israel's neck and set about to live, work, create, invent, etc., and left the Jews alone, all would be well.

'The situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.

'The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable. And I have told PM Netanyahu we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous.'

The Prime Minister said he hoped that direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians would take place within the coming weeks and urged Turkey to press the parties to come together by 'making the case for peace'.

He said: 'Turkey's relationships in the region, both with Israel and with the Arab world, are of incalculable value."

Previously at Atlas:  More Chubby Starving Gazans Living the Life of Luxury.

Terror Statelet Gaza: Whining Amidst An Embarrassment of Riches.

Road Trip Gaza!

UPDATE: Cameron is lecturing the Jewish people but has not trouble with this:  The forgotten Holocaust: The Armenian massacre that inspired Hitler

English Defense League Jewish Division Deleted From Facebook

Facebook continues to stupefy good, decent people and work with the forces of evil. Last week I reported on and was proud to be a supporter of the EDL Jewish Division on Facebook.

Facebook, for no reason and without notice, deleted the group.

Roberta and Shoshanna tell me they are starting it up again. Please join. Fight these quislings everywhere.

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be ..... Winston Churchill.

Growing Islamization in America: Maryland: No student tests on, no sports the night before Muslim holidays

More islamization of the secular ........ imposing sharia ( islamic law) on non-muslims. Over at Creeping:

Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Creep Creep. Wait until Muslims make up 20% of the population. This article is drooling with dhimmitude. via No student tests on two Muslim holidays, HometownAnnapolis.com:

No tests will be scheduled in the county’s public schools on two Muslim holidays this year: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

School officials finally complied in the calendar for next year, acknowledging that it makes sense in light of the growing number of Muslim students.

“We don’t collect information on religions, but we do know, obviously, that the Muslim religion is growing in the western part of the county,” said Teresa Tudor, director of school and family partnerships for county schools. “You can see that when you go to the schools.”

TODAY!

Today, today won't be just any day: today the book will hit your bookstores! Yes, after 9 months of hard labor, Atlas has given birth to a one-pound red baby. And it too can be yours.

So exciting. So on your lunch hour, go, run, don't walk to your local book store and get your hot copy, right off the presses, of the must-read book of the year, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.

Check out the book website here: The Post American Presidency

Our first book signing will be July 31 at Book Revue and CSpan -- Book TV will be televising.

• Saturday, July 31st, 7:00 pm
  Book Revue
  313 New York Avenue
  Huntington, NY 11743

Here is a list of my appearances.

SIOA Honor Killing Taxi Ads Hit New York City

Today the SIOA honor killing victims awareness and aid campaign rolled out in New York City.

Stop Islamization of America's (SIOA) next campaign to reach and educate the American people has already hit the streets of Chicago, which was the first city in a nationwide campaign: taxitops! I thought it was a perfect medium to get our message to the people who are hungry, tired of the lies and starving for information that the media is too afraid to provide.

HONOR KILLING AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

The taxis are a powerful medium to pull the curtain back on the obfuscation and deception on honor killings. Kudos to Jeff at the Verifone Company for understanding this new use of an old medium to spread the truth.

Phase III of SIOA's (Stop Islamization of America) pro-freedom ad campaign is twofold. Primarily it is to help girls in trouble, but it is also meant to raise awareness of the rise of honor killings in the West. Young Muslim girls must know that there is an escape from their homemade concentrations camps. This is a sub-campaign and logical follow-up to the "Leaving Islam?" bus campaign, which is soon to break in another major US city.

A couple of weeks ago, a beautiful young Muslim actress, Harry Potter star Afshan Azad, was badly beaten, but thankfully escaped death when her father and brother attempted to honor murder her. She was dating a non-Muslim.

It is important to note that “both [Azad’s] parents were born and educated in the U.K.” They were not unassimilated immigrants, which the media and the apologists always associate with honor killings in the West.

What does Islamic Law dictate as punishment for a parent who kills his or her child?

Consider Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law: here

FACTS

91 percent of honor killings worldwide are done by Muslims

84 percent of honor killings in US done by Muslims

These girls will not have died in vain. These girls are not invisible. Their terrible, miserable existences will be known, and their stories will save the lives of other girls and boys in trouble. Such misogyny was unheard of this country 30 thirty years ago -- the appeasement of Islam and the sharia will only serve to advance this grotesque ideology.

And according to one expert, honor killings are on the rise.

And while we see in rare instances in other cultures, it is clear that the Islamic legal toleration for honor killings leads to an increased rate of such killings among them.

This is  growing problem that is being hidden and obfuscated by the big liberal press. It needs the spotlight of truth to expose the ugly terrible reality behind the wretched existence of these girls living under siege. The West is reluctant to speak of it, media whitewashes it, but knowing what we know about Aqsa Parvez's homelife (read the whole horrible account here) and Amina and Sarah's wretched home life (read here), it is time we stood up for these girls. This cannot stand in America.

We must give these girls shelter from the storm.

Don't be afraid. Fight back. We have people who can and will help. Today we launched a freedom campaign in Chicago for victims and potential victims of honor killings in the West.

Here are the first in a series of ads targeted at girls who are at risk of death, Gulsum, Banaz, Noor, Amina and Sarah .............. there are  thousands of tragic victims. Needless to say, the ads went through a number on "edits" before the taxi company would run them, but I drew the line at removal of the phrase "honor killing victims." We will not kill these girls again by remaining silent -- attempting to whitewash and remove that distinction invariably means that ........... you support gender apartheid. We are raising money for these ads and we will go nationwide.

Amina and Sarah Said ran away from their brutal home life and their "devout father," only to be lured back by their mother on Christmas day and then brutally tortured and murdered not 24 hours later, in an honor killing on New Years day. Autopsy here. Full Atlas coverage here.

 

Noor Almalaki was run over in an honor killing last November in Arizona by her father for being "too Americnaized" and not Muslim enough. She hung on to dear life for three days before succumbing to her wounds.

 

Gülsüm Semin was severely beaten (repeatedly), scared to death of her family (and rightly so), and ultimately brutally beaten beyond recognition and "honor" murdered because she refused forced Islamic marriage in Turkey.

Banaz Mahmood was killed in her apartment in London by her father, Mahmood, and his brother Ali Mahmood and 4 others because they didn't approve of her boyfriend. She had dishonored her Muslim  family by falling in love with the "wrong" man. So they stomped on her, then strangled her to death. Her body was then moved 100 miles to Birmingham, where she was buried in a suitcase in a garden behind a house. They had tried to kill her before. Watch this video of Banaz days before her death, telling of the attempts to kill her.  

Banaz had reported to the police 4 times that her family was trying to kill her.

Her sister, who narrowly escaped death herself and now lives in fear of her life, breaks her silence. Every time Bekhal Mahmod leaves the safety of her home, she wears the hijab with a black veil covering her face -- even though she would give anything for the freedom not to have to.

The stories are endless, and these girls have nowhere to go. Why in the case of Tulay Goren did police send her home to die at the hands of her violent father? Tulay Goren, a Muslim schoolgirl, was murdered by her father in an "honour killing." She repeatedly told police in the days before her death how she was being threatened and assaulted.

Please contribute to this campaign -- Robert and I cannot undertake these initiatives without your dollars. It is YOU who make Atlas, FDI and SIOA go. We receive no big money contributions -- the big money is comfortable giving to folks who do a lot of talking, talking talking over lunches, teas and nonsense.

That's not us. And I make no apology for my uncompromising stand on our freedoms and my abhorrence of the radically intolerant sharia. Not in my country.

Donate to SIOA

Much thanks to Kamala for scanning these pages from one of the most important English-language sources for the content of Islamic law: Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law:

It is certified by Al-Azhar University as a translation that "corresponds to the Arabic original and conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni Community...":

It's Good to be the King!

Illustration: imaksim:

And "so on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread:" (from the poem Richard Cory)

Michelle Obama, daughter Sasha to vacation separately in Spain -- over president's birthday...

'All activities are closed press'...

30 rooms at 5-star hotel...

The Ritz?...

5-day trip to follow weekend on FL's Gulf Coast, precede 10-day vacation on Martha's Vineyard... (hat tip Van via Drudge)

"Let them eat ....... crude oil!"

SIOA Exposes the Islamic Supremacists, Foreign Agents, Subversives: Unindicted Co-Conspirator, Hamas-Linked CAIR Hate Group Attempts to Impede FBI

They can hide from us no longer. CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, MSA, MAS.............all the Brotherhood proxies. We are on to the enemies within this country who are seeking to "destroy western civilization from within." They will be brought to justice.

These are foreign agents working to silence and criminalize the American patriots who are fighting to save this great and free nation:

This "explanatory memorandum," as it's titled, outlines the "strategic goal" for the North American operation of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan). Here's the key paragraph:

The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack.

SIOA: Islamic Supremacist Hate Group Attempts to Impede FBI, JTTF Counterterrorism Training

For background, see this post and CAIR's defamatory press release. Honest Ibe Hooper and his henchmen have been churning out sleazy propaganda like that press release for years, and have gone unchallenged. But now a group has arisen that is unafraid to tell the truth about CAIR and to call Hooper on his fascist intimidation tactics: SIOA!

From Yahoo News:

NEW YORK, July 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The human rights group Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) today called on the FBI and Virginia's Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force to resist efforts by an Islamic supremacist hate group to intimidate state and federal law enforcement officers and dictate how they are to be trained about the Islamic jihad threat.

On Saturday the Hamas-linked Islamic supremacist hate group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the FBI and Virginia's Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force to explain why they invited Islam expert Robert Spencer to offer training to state and federal law enforcement officers. SIOA respectfully requests that the FBI and the Tidewater JTTF repudiate this attempt by CAIR to interfere with these agencies and impede counterterrorism training.

The Associate Director of SIOA, Robert Spencer is a highly acclaimed expert on Islam and Sharia, the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Spencer is a weekly columnist for Human Events and FrontPage Magazine, and has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, and the U.S. intelligence community - as well as the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force on previous occasions.

Spencer is the coauthor of Pamela Geller's The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War On America, which is set to be released this week by Simon & Schuster Publishers.

Bat Ye'or, the pioneering historian of dhimmitude, the institutionalized mistreatment of non-Muslims in Islamic societies, said: "Robert Spencer incarnates intellectual courage when, all over the world, governments, intellectuals, churches, universities and media crawl under a hegemonic Universal Caliphate's New Order. His achievement in the battle for the survival of free speech and dignity of man will remain as a fundamental monument to the love of, and the self-sacrifice for, liberty."

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, a Senior Fellow at National Review Institute, called Spencer "America's most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism." The New York Times noted that Spencer's work is "widely read in conservative foreign policy circles."

CAIR, by contrast, is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case -- so named by the Justice Department during the trial of the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation.

CAIR has previously attempted to intimidate numerous government agencies and citizens' groups into dropping events featuring foes of international jihad activity, including SIOA's Executive Director Pamela Geller, ACT for America's Brigitte Gabriel, and others. In the summer of 2010 it has embarked upon a concerted campaign of intimidation and defamation to silence public figures who speak out against jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), the Rev. Franklin Graham, Florida Congressional candidate Dan Fanelli, and Connecticut Congressional candidate Rick Torres.

CAIR's attempt to intimidate the FBI and JTTF and dictate their choice of speakers contained numerous false charges, defamation, distortions, and outright lies about Spencer, SIOA, and Geller.

CAIR has a long record of duplicity and deception. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.

Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to Islamic supremacist and jihad groups. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.

Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:

* Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians
* Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.
* Randall Royer, CAIR's former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.
* Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.
* Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR's co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.

CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

SIOA is one of America's foremost organizations defending human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the United States.

The New Hollywood: The New Nazi Narrative, Oliver Stone, Hitler's New PR Guy

And while it is astounding, it is not surprising. If you live in a world void of reality, where there is no good or evil, right and wrong, well then...........Hitler can be seen in "context." I am sure all the JINOs and Jewicidals in Hollywood will be lining up to finance the nazi Stone.

And props to the NY Times Crimes for hiding this rancid filth behind their paywall.

This is the slippery slope of the left. The trains will be leaving the station sometime in the near future.

Oliver Stone: 'Jewish-Dominated Media' Prevents Hitler from Being Portrayed 'in Context' Newsbusters

Director Oliver Stone belittled the Holocaust during a shocking interview with the Sunday Times today, claiming that America's focus on the Jewish massacre was a product of the "Jewish domination of the media."

The director also defended Hitler and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and railed against the "powerful lobby" of Jews in America.

Stone said that his upcoming Showtime documentary series "Secret History of America," seeks to put Hitler and Communist dictator Joseph Stalin "in context."

"Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support," Stone told reporter Camilla Long during the interview, which can be found behind the paywall on the Sunday Times' website.

Stone said that, "Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed]."

The Sunday Times interviewer then asked why there was such a focus on the Holocaust.

"The Jewish domination of the media," responded Stone. "There's a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years."

The director, who recently met with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, also slammed the U.S. policy toward Iran as "horrible."

 "Iran isn't necessarily the good guy," said Stone. "[B]ut we don't know the full story!"

The Scarface screenwriter had even more encouraging words for socialist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who Stone called "a brave, blunt, earthy" man. The director has recently been promoting his Chavez-praising documentary called "South of the Border."

When the interviewer pointed out that Chavez has had a less-than-stellar record on human rights, Stone immediately dismissed the criticism.

Recent Paladino Allegations................

Recently some allegations have come to my attention that Carl Paladino has sent out obscene and racist emails. I expect Mr. Paladino to address these allegations. I wrote in support of him before those allegations were made known to me, and I completely repudiate the sentiments expressed in those emails. If it turns out that Mr. Paladino did indeed send those emails, I will withdraw my support from him completely and unequivocally, while continuing to support the use of eminent domain to designate 45 Park Place a war memorial. I would hope in that event that another politician will take up this cause.

I will keep you posted..............

SIOA AND FDI SEPTEMBER 11TH SOLEMN PROTEST AGAINST MEGA MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO

Please join SIOA and FDI in our solemn protest against the 911 mega mosque at Ground Zero on September the 11th in the afternoon, after the memorial services -- exact time and date to be determined.

World leaders, prominent politicians and 911 family members will be speaking. This is a solemn protest. Please, no inflammatory signs. "Ground Zero is sacred ground." "Ground Zero is a war Memorial." "Ground Zero Mosque is Radically Insensitive."

We will begin with interfaith prayer and the playing of "Taps" for the 911 victims.

Please mark your calenders. Come to NYC on September 11th and then pack up and go to DC for the 912 rally. For those looking for rides to the protest or from the Ground Zero protest to the 912 rally in DC on Sunday, please connect here. If you prefer, you can catch the train to DC from Penn Station in NY. It is very easy.

If you feel this mosque is an insult, a stab in the eye to those Americans who lost their lives in the largest attack on American soil in history, now is the time.

Also, if you are in Manhattan tomorrow evening, please come to the next Community Board 1 meeting concerning the Ground Zero mosque site at 6:00 PM at Dance New Amsterdam, 280 Broadway, 2nd Floor (entrance on Chambers and Elk Streets). We need to be there.

Obama's Bold-Faced Lie: Backed Release of Jihadi Lockerbie Mass Murderer -- Demand Special Investigation, File Charge of Treason

Photo: Al Megrahi's hero's welcome back in Libya following his transfer (The Guardian)

Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. On Wednesday 21 December 1988, the aircraft flying this route—a Boeing 747-121 named Clipper Maid of the Seas—was bombed killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members.^[1] Eleven people in Lockerbie, southern Scotland, were killed as large sections of the plane fell in and around the town, bringing total fatalities to 270. As a result, the event has been named by the media as the Lockerbie Bombing.

The Lockerbie Muslim bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer and the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), was convicted of the murder of  270 people. Last September, he was released  ........... to cheers and crowds and open arms of Libyan President Qadafi. Heinous.

Back in September 2009, when the jihadi mass murderer, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, was released when he should have been executed, I called for Obama's impeachment, knowing full well that the Obama administration had to have known, had to have signed off on it, had to have approved it. At the time, the Obama spin was that Megrahi's release blindsided Washington, and that it was appalled by the decision.

LIE. This is another terrible betrayal and crime against the American people by the Post-American president.

Today, the Australian reported that the Obama administration secretly advised Scottish ministers that it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than to jail him in Libya. More of  Obama's  transparency.

Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.

He knew. He knew. He didn't stop it. This would never happen under Bush.

Obama bold-faced lied. Where are our leaders calling for a special investigation into this? Where are the good and the decent and honorable elected officials who took an oath to protect and defend the American people? Who is watching out for the people? Americans were murdered in one of the most notorious  Islamic attacks  on America and the West, and Obama is compassionate to the jihadi?

Embrace: Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, (right), who was found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, is greeted by Libyan leader Gaddafi in Tripoli (photo here)

Here is what I said in September:

How striking that Obama would be seeking to prosecute CIA agents for keeping this country safe after the the most heinous attack on American soil in US history. It is breathtaking that Obama weeps immoral tears at the mass murderers that planned the invasion and takeover of the USA on 911. Now, 8 twisted years later, Obama will begin criminal proceedings to jail great patriotic Americans who worked to stop the next wave of 911 attacks on the greatest nation. Obama will appoint a special prosecutor; Holder, his chinless hatchet man, is on it.

What does it say about your President that he signed off on the release of a Muslim terrorist who took down Pan Am flight 103, killing 270 people, while at the same time going after CIA agents protecting this nation?

Here is what John Bolton said back in September:

Given this history, America obviously had a profound and continuing stake in Megrahi's status, after the conviction as well as before. Indeed, because of the Clinton concessions allowing for Scottish jurisdiction, the US victims' families were assured at that time that Megrahi would serve his sentence in Scottish jails -- not in a specially created "UN prison," as some proposed, and certainly not in Libya.

Now Megrahi's commutation from any incarceration makes a mockery of all these supposedly good-faith arrangements.

It is simply inconceivable that Britain and Scotland would free Megrahi if President Obama had clearly and forcefully articulated his opposition.

Here, the White House's public explanation has been inconsistent. First, spokesmen quickly asserted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had worked for "weeks and months" to avert Megrahi's release, and that Attorney General Eric Holder heard about clemency for Megrahi as early as June. Some contend that Obama's national-security transition team was briefed well before the inauguration.

Yet now the administration spin is that Megrahi's release blindsided Washington, and that it is appalled by the decision.

Obama White House backed release of Lockerbie jihad bomber Jihadwatch

Find out why this is completely unsurprising in The Post-American Presidency. "White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi," by Jason Allardyce and Tony Allen-Mills in The Australian, July 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya.

Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.

What about compassion for the 270 people al-Megrahi murdered in the name of Islamic jihad?

The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer.

The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to undermine US President Barack Obama's claim last week that all Americans were "surprised, disappointed and angry" to learn of Megrahi's release.

Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as "half-hearted" and a sign it would be accepted.

The US has tried to keep the letter secret, refusing to give permission to the Scottish authorities to publish it on the grounds it would prevent future "frank and open communications" with other governments.

In the letter, sent on August 12 last year to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and justice officials, Mr LeBaron wrote that the US wanted Megrahi to remain imprisoned in view of the nature of the crime.

The note added: "Nevertheless, if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose."...

UPDATE: Alex Salmond calls for release of Lockerbie files

The Scottish first minister has called on the UK and US governments to publish all of their documents relating to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

The Sunday Times claimed to have seen a letter from the US administration to the Scottish government before the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

It said the US government did not want Megrahi released from prison.

But it said a compassionate release would "preferable" to transferring Megrahi to a jail in Libya.

Alex Salmond said the documents would "vindicate" the Scottish government.

RLTV VIDEO: Pamela Geller vs "Palestine Center" Rap Artist, Debate Staten Island Mosque Victory, "Mosques in America"

Russian Language Television had me in the ring with Will Youmans, hip hop rapper from the Palestine Center. Got that? It was very contentious, to say the least. Nothing he said was remotely accurate. Who will they have me debate next? Nasrallah?

The Palestine Center is virulently anti-semitic -- cf. a recent lecture for legitimizing the genocidal jihad group Hamas: "The Requirements for Co-Existence with Hamas" by Robert Pastor (2009) or "Legacy of the 1948 Catastrophe" by Dr. Michael Fischbach -- (Palestine Center). And most recently they hosted the notorious Jew-hater and academic revisionist, John Mearsheimer.

The Muslim "rap artist" denies that the Muslim American Society is the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., but the Muslim Brotherhood's own website carries the Chicago Tribune expose from 2004 that identifies the MAS as the Brotherhood's arm in the U.S.: "In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews." -- Chicago Tribune, 2004, via the Muslim Brotherhood's English-language website, Ikhwanweb. And according to a captured internal document, the Muslim Brotherhood's "work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- Mohamed Akram, "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America," May 22, 1991, Government Exhibit 003-0085, U.S. vs. HLF, et al. P. 7 (21).

Pipes/Chadha: CAIR's Hate Crimes Nonsense:

http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=8559

Other anti-Muslim hate crimes that turned out to have been fabricated by Muslims:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/hamas-linked-cair-trumpets-another-anti-muslim-hate-crime-that-was-faked-by-a-muslim.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/10/dayton-mosque-attack-hoax-update-can-of-pepper-spray-was-found-inside-the-mosque.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/10/chicago-area-muslim-student-fabricates-anti-muslim-hate-crime.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2004/08/washington-state-muslim-grocer-set-fire-to-his-own-store.html

EXPLOSIVE: Masking Mega Mosque Terror Ties, New Jihadist Same As the Old Jihadist, Only Worse

A  screenshot of the Perdana page on the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Perdana is the single largest funder of the IHH jihad warship convoy (aka flotilla): Imam Rauf is a prominent figure in this hate group and terror sponsor. He is ranked second, right behind Mahathir Mohammed, the notorious Jew hater from Malaysia who famously said: "Jews control the world by proxy"."

Too much has been exposed about Imam Rauf's deceit, terror ties and real agenda, with much still to be revealed. And so the morphing mosque narrative is taking on a new direction. I debate these shadowy figures, and the narrative changes everyday.

The new front for the Islamic Supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero is Sharif El-Gamal, the developer of Soho Properties. The Imam is "out of town," or at least that's what New York news outlets have been told.

The new face is the businessman and pragmatist, Sharif El-Gamal. But on preliminary analysis, Sharif El-Gamal may be worse than Rauf.

Suleyman Schwartz in this week's Weekly Standard exposes and debunks all the Muslim lies. He got the goods on Rauf, Daisy Con and SOHO (the developer). Sharif El-Gamal is CEO of Soho Properties, Inc., a commercial real estate investment firm he founded in 2003. His partner is Nour Mousa, another guiding figure in the Ground Zero mosque effort and the nephew of Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League. Amr Moussa was the first major Arab leader to go to Gaza and affirm support for Hamas.

This should sink the project, once and for all. Enough. Over at the Weekly Standard: (hat tip Armaros)

Rauf scheme is also associated with financing and support from other doubtful individuals and entities in addition to Perdana, which is led by the notorious Jew-baiter Mahathir bin Mohamad, former prime minister of Malaysia.

The idea of building an Islamic peace memorial in lower Manhattan was circulating as early as 2003. Its early proponents were two Iranian brothers, M. Jafar "Amir" Mahallati, who served as ambassador of the Iranian Islamic Republic to the United Nations from 1987 to 1989, and M. Hossein Mahallati. Amir Mahallati had served with Rauf in the leadership of an obscure nonprofit, the Interfaith Center of New York, for which Rauf was a vice chair and Mahallati a board member. The two had also participated in a 2006 radio program, "From Turmoil to Tourism: Following the Path of Abraham."

Hossein Mahallati had experience of his own in the intersecting New York worlds of charitable giving and property management. He was director from 1983 to 1992 of the Alavi Foundation, set up in 1973 by the government of the shah of Iran as the Pahlavi Foundation, but taken over and renamed after the Khomeini revolution. The Alavi Foundation is currently the subject of a federal civil action seeking forfeiture of assets, including an office building at 650 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and four Shia mosques and schools in New York, California, Maryland, and Texas.

While U.S. sanctions on the Alavi Foundation, announced in 2009, received little notice, the government's charges are disturbing. They include control of Alavi by the Tehran dictatorship through its diplomats at the United Nations, and transfer of income from the office building at 650 Fifth Avenue to Bank Melli, the Iranian national financial institution. Bank Melli had been designated a "Weapons of Mass Destruction proliferator" by the U.S. Treasury Department. Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey noted, "The international community has recognized the proliferation risks posed by Iran's Bank Melli." In late 2009, the Alavi Foundation's last head, Farshid Jahedi, pled guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice for destroying documents about the Alavi-Melli relationship that had been subpoenaed in the investigation, which continues. Jahedi was sentenced on April 29 to three months' imprisonment, six months' supervised release, and a $3,000 fine.

Hossein Mahallati was the subject of an unsuccessful federal inquiry in 1992 regarding an alleged conspiracy to export biological warfare materials to Iran. His predecessor as Alavi director, Manoucher Shafie, who managed the foundation's transition from serving the shah's government to that of Ayatollah Khomeini, was charged with conspiring to export prohibited U.S. technology to Iran. Neither was prosecuted.

Hossein Mahallati remains an enthusiastic supporter of Rauf's Ground Zero enterprise, especially since an Egyptian property developer, Sharif El-Gamal, who appears to be the real leader of the effort, using Rauf as his public face, put up $4.85 million in cash to purchase the location. El-Gamal is chief executive officer of Soho Properties, Inc., a commercial real estate investment firm he founded in 2003. His partner is Nour Mousa, another guiding figure in the Ground Zero mosque effort and the nephew of Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League. Amr Moussa was the first major Arab leader to go to Gaza and affirm support for Hamas, in mid-June, after the recent blockade-running assault.

El-Gamal has kept a low profile in the dispute over the appearance of an Islamic institution near Ground Zero, although last week he appeared before a hearing of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to announce that Cordoba House will now be known as Park51. He and Rauf have both taken to downplaying the religious character of the proposal, preferring that the building be called a "community center."

So far, then, the Ground Zero Islamic facility rests on a support network linked to the anti-Jewish Mahathir and the Perdana-supported Gaza raiders, some notable servants of the Iranian clerical dictatorship, and an Egyptian property developer associated with the pro-Hamas chief of the Arab League.

But the questionable aspects of the Ground Zero Islamic project do not end there. Feisal Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, executive director of ASMA, has been one of the most assiduous promoters of the lower Manhattan mega-mosque. She spoke on July 6 to the Chautauqua Institution, celebrating the double heritage she claims: "The first, the American faith-based social activism, a legacy that included the abolitionists, women's suffrage movement, and the civil rights movement. Second, I have inherited the tradition of my faith, a faith that has inspired positive social change for over 1,400 years."

Hundreds of millions slaughtered........ is not my idea of positive social change -- unless you are an Islamic supremacist.

Rauf's wife failed to mention another feature of her background: She is the niece of Dr. Farooq Khan, formerly a leader of the Westbury Mosque on Long Island, which is a center for Islamic radicals and links on its website to the paramilitary Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the front on American soil for the Pakistani jihadist Jamaat e-Islami.

Pamela Geller, American Thinker: The Man Who Would Stop the Ground Zero Mosque

Read in full my oped in today's American Thinker on NY Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino. And remember to mark your calenders for our next solemn protest against the Ground Zero mega mosque on September 11th. We will rally on September 11th, one year to the day before Islamic supremacists intend to open the mosque: September 11, 2011.

The Man Who Would Stop the Ground Zero Mosque Pamela Geller, American Thinker

"As Governor," Paladino said Wednesday in a radio ad, "I will use the power of eminent domain to stop this mosque and make the site a war memorial instead of a monument to those who attacked our country."

I like this guy. I really like this guy. If the Supreme Court could rule, in the notorious 2005 decision Kelo v. City of New London, that the government could seize private property for a private developer and then never develop the property, surely Americans should be able to use eminent domain to designate the Burlington Coat Factory building a war memorial.

That building is a war memorial since part of one of the 9/11 airplanes crashed into it, causing severe damage. That makes the building a war memorial, no less than Gettysburg or Pearl Harbor. There should be no mosque there, and nothing there but a memorial to the people that America lost to that heinous Islamic jihad attack on September 11, 2001.

Instead of a mega-mosque at Ground Zero, we should build on that site a museum dedicated to the 9/11 victims. That will give us the opportunity to redress yet another insult: the current plan for a 9/11 museum is several floors underground, like a dungeon. In contrast, the plan for the "Islamic center" at the Burlington Coat Factory site calls for the mosque to be on the top floor of a thirteen- or fifteen-story building, looking down triumphantly on the burial ground of Ground Zero.

I don't think so.

The Burlington Coat Factory building must be designated a war memorial, a historic landmark. It is part of American history. To do anything less would be sacrilege, let alone build a 15-story mosque. And so far only Carl Paladino has the guts to say so. Three thousand good and decent Americans did not die in vain on September 11, 2001. And we have not forgotten them, even if Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg and the rest of the New York political establishment have. The fact that they ignore the historical significance of the building is outrageous, and disrespects the victims of 9/11.

"I've been driving land-use issues for 40 years," says Paladino, "and I understand the full powers of the governor. If the ACLU or anyone else wants to challenge me in court, I'm ready for the fight."

There's more. Read it all.

Sharia (Islamic) Law in New Jersey Court: Muslim husband rapes, beats, sexually abuses wife, judge sees no sexual assault because Islam forbids wives to refuse sex

Here. Now. Sharia law in New Jersey. When Obama went to Al Azhar University to speak to the ummah (worldwide Muslim community) last June and made the outrageous statement that "the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life," little did we know what a warning it was. How prescient. It's here, the degradation and subjugation of women under the sharia. Foreign law, the most vile, in our nation's courts.

Luckily, the appellate court overturned this decision, and a Sharia ruling by an American court has not been allowed to stand. This time.

"Cultural Defense Accepted as to Nonconsensual Sex in New Jersey Trial Court, Rejected on Appeal," by Eugene Volokh in The Volokh Conspiracy, July 23 (thanks to CameoRed):

Robert posted this:

Sharia in New Jersey: Muslim husband rapes wife, judge sees no sexual assault because Islam forbids wives to refuse sex

Muhammad said: "If a husband calls his wife to his bed [i.e. to have sexual relation] and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning" (Bukhari 4.54.460).

He also said: "By him in Whose Hand lies my life, a woman can not carry out the right of her Lord, till she carries out the right of her husband. And if he asks her to surrender herself [to him for sexual intercourse] she should not refuse him even if she is on a camel's saddle" (Ibn Majah 1854).

And now a New Jersey judge sees no evidence that a Muslim committed sexual assault of his wife -- not because he didn't do it, but because he was acting on his Islamic beliefs: "This court does not feel that, under the circumstances, that this defendant had a criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault or to sexually contact the plaintiff when he did. The court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited."

More here.

Further, I wanted Atlas readers to get David Yerushalmi's take. David is my outstanding lawyer in my Detroit free speech case and a leading expert on sharia law. Here are his observations:

OK, the court didn’t actually say Shariah, but “his culture” and “his perception of his religion”. Here’s the story in a nutshell (the lengthy appeals court decision is attached and I’ve excerpted it below):

Young Moroccan couple wed in arranged marriage (remember Morocco is supposed to be super modern with super reformed Islam with super benevolent western educated king [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_VI_of_Morocco]). Almost immediately, the young couple come to America where husband (H) is accountant. Apparently his doting mother is here already or comes with the young couple (if you read the opinion, you’ll see this is one classy mother-in-law who was very much a part of the abuse). H immediately begins “punishing” his wife (W) and sexually assaulting her during intercourse. In effect, he sexually assaults her (the term for raping your wife) because she refused to be abused during relations and said “no”. 

During the sexual assaults and beatings, W is given refuge by Pakistani nurse from hospital where she was treated. The nurse subsequently initiated a reconciliation between W and H through the couples’ imam when she learns of W’s pregnancy. The very day W reconciles and returns to H, the beatings continue and imam takes in W. At that time, but all within a few weeks—the marriage lasted only a few months, H tires of W and “divorces” his wife per Shariah via witnesses [DY: H had earlier that day divorced W via oral declaration alone but this type of Shariah divorce must wait until the now pregnant W gives birth; thus, divorce is redone with witnesses w/the imam to have it take effect immediately].

While criminal complaint is pending, W brings action in civil court per NJ statute protecting women from domestic violence and seeks restraining order. Evidentiary hearing is held.

Trial court finds: [1] man sexually assaulted wife but [2] court will issue no restraining order because man did it thinking he could abuse his wife if she misbehaved and refused his sexually demands per Islamic law.

In other words, the court held that man’s religious beliefs were sufficient to avoid the effects of NJ law to protect battered women. Nice, huh?

The kicker: during the trial, H’s attorney apparently called the Imam as H’s witness (what would you expect, an Imam to testify for this beaten/raped woman?) but apparently the trial judge was not happy with W’s attorney’s cross examination and asked a few of his own questions. Here is how the appellate court describes the Imam’s testimony to the judge’s queries:

 

At the conclusion of this testimony, in response to the judge's questions, the Imam testified regarding Islamic law as it relates to sexual behavior. The Imam confirmed that a wife must comply with her husband's sexual demands, because the husband is prohibited from obtaining sexual satisfaction elsewhere. However, a husband was forbidden to approach his wife "like any animal." The Imam did not definitively answer whether, under Islamic law, a husband must stop his advances if his wife said "no."

[Note: I am willing to bet W’s attorney knew nothing about Shariah and was afraid to penetrate this line of questioning or to provide any expert of his own.]

Now, I believe I know why per Shariah the imam equivocated if you assume he was not just hiding the ball from the court (a big assumption I grant you but I’m feeling charitable this evening). Thus, giving the imam the benefit of the doubt, per Shariah a women is obligated to satisfy her husband’s sexual demands: “It is obligatory for a wife to obey her husband as is customary in allowing him full lawful [DY: there are times when Shariah prohibits marital sex—e.g., relating to menstrual cycle] sexual enjoyment of her person.”  (See, e.g., Reliance of the Traveller, Marriage, m10.12 and commentary from Jordanian Mufti, Sheikh Nuh ali Salman, at N(3).)

An obligation or wajib is the highest order or rubric of affirmative Shariah dictate (there are the less affirmative duties, which fall under the category of ‘praiseworthy’ and the Shariah-neutral rubric of ‘permissive’ as well as the prohibitive rubrics of ‘forbidden’ and ‘disliked/abhorred’).  Insofar as the woman has a wajib/obligation to satisfy her husband, the resulting ruling follows per Shariah’s fiqh (jurisprudential rules): a wife is “rebellious” if she refuses her husband’s sexual demands (because she refuses to comply with a wajib) if she if physically able and there are no Shariah-based impediments. The next step in the Shariah rulings also flows logically from the antecedent ruling that a wife must obey her husband even to the point that a wife may leave the home only with the husband’s permission (Reliance, Marriage, m.10.3-10.4). Finally, Shariah’s fiqh combines the two concepts (the wife’s wajib and the man’s control over her) into one by providing a husband some leeway if not encouragement to beat his “rebellious wife” to bring her into compliance (note that neither the husband nor court may force a wife to “service” her husband through cooking and cleaning; only sex is obligatory). (Reliance, Marriage, m.10.12 (commentary N [Jordanian Mufti Nuh] (4)(c)))

 

Again, granting the imam a sizable benefit of the doubt, his equivocation on the question whether the husband is allowed to force himself on his wife I believe stems from the fact that there is no explicit source in Shariah for “permitting” a husband to force sex on his wife (at least not one I can find—although there are some individual fatawa [Shariah rulings from individual imams] that permit it—but there is nothing approaching ijma or consensus so these fatawa are just individual rulings that the Shariah faithful can accept or not).  However, it is clear that there is no penalty for it which of course is the source of authority for the fatawa I have seen permitting marital rape. You can see the same equivocation more clearly in the form of misdirection represented here in this IOL response to the straightforward question posed whether Shariah recognizes marital rape or sexual assault. http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503545650 Bottom line: no, there is no penalty for marital rape. (The IOL answer is presented as a “good Shariah marriage should never come to this” but in truth the answer remains, no. A man cannot be punished for raping or otherwise sexually assaulting his wife as long as it is “permissible sex” under Shariah [e.g., not during menses].)

On the appellate court’s constitutional analysis: I think the court’s analysis of First Amendment Free Exercise law, while technically correct, was absurd and wholly out of place. It takes all of five seconds to analyze whether a free exercise claim would prevent the state (through the court) from imposing a restraining order on a violent husband. This is not akin to a polygamy or peyote free exercise claim where there is no third party victim (in polygamy cases of old there was typically no claim by an earlier wife of harm—all parties were practicing Mormons). This would be akin to a court analyzing whether our good friend and champion Andy McCarthy’s prosecution of the Blind Sheikh violated the imam’s free exercise rights because the Sheikh was religiously obligated to do what he did. Absurd. (State imposed criminal punishments and civilly imposed restraining orders would pass muster even under the so-called Strict Scrutiny analysis: a compelling state interest and a narrowly tailored law to achieve the state interest.) I assume this court felt it necessary to go through this absurd exercise because it was ruling against Shariah and Muslim custom and wanted to liken it to Mormons and polygamy and American Indians and peyote, another sign of the PC gymnastics we as a defensive society/nation go through to impose our own mores/values (assuming they exist any longer in concrete form). Thankfully, the appellate court reached the right result.

 

On a lengthy note bene in the form of a short comparative law analysis: it should be stressed that this is another classic example where Islam/Shariah departs radically from the Judeo Christian tradition. Now, I cannot speak directly to Catholic canon on this subject or Christian Ecclesiastical law (although we do know that English common law, carried to the US, has long had a spousal rape exception—that is, husbands cannot be charged with raping their wives), but at least the Judeo portion of the Judeo Christian tradition is absolutely clear.

 

According to Jewish law, any form of coerced sexual relations between married couples is absolutely forbidden. (Talmud Bavli, Eruvin 100b: Rami b. Hama citing R. Assi further ruled: “A man is forbidden to compel his wife to the [marital] obligation, since it is said in Scripture: ‘Without consent the soul is not good; and he that hurries with his feet sins’” (Prov. 19:2).  (Ba’ailei ha-Nefesh, Sha’ar ha-Kedushah; Code of Jewish Law, Hil. De’ot 5:4; Even ha-Ezer 25:2.)

 

Thus, even if the wife is not forced outright, as long as she is not amenable to intercourse, sexual relations are prohibited. (From authoritative Ashkenazi ruling on the Code of Jewish Law: Magen Avraham, Orah Hayyim 240, no. 7; from the leading Jewish mystical source, Kabbalah, Zohar, Bereshit 49b, 148b, Va-yikra 225b.)  The greatest Jewish legal authority, the Sephardic Maimonides (known by his Hebrew acronym to Jews as the Rambam), rules, “[Her husband] should not coerce her [to have relations] when she does not desire to do so. Rather, [they should engage in intercourse only] when there is mutual desire and pleasure.” (Maimonides’ Code of Jewish Law, the Mishne Torah, Hil. Ishut [Laws of Women] 15:17.)   Further, even if the wife is ambivalent about her desire, relations are forbidden. (Masekhet Kallah Rabbati 1:11; Tur, Orah Hayyim 240 and Even ha-Ezer 25.)  Keep in mind that Maimonides is from the 11^th-12^th centuries and even the most recent of these (Code of the Jewish Law) is from the 15^th-16^th centuries.  Old law is not necessarily bad law and “progressive law” is not necessarily good law.  Shariah is not bad because it is old. It is bad because it is bad. 

 

[An important digression: I make this latter point about old vs. new law because we often hear the criticism of Shariah that it is bad and primitive because it is “Medieval law” as if that is enough to condemn it. But by implication, the person who makes this criticism, is in effect embracing the “progressivist” or Hegelian teaching that Time/History is the one transcendence that saves us from the nihilism of relativism (all morals are relative except that a new moral is better than an old one), which allows the Leftist/Elites to clamor on about “progress” and the latest version of this, “hope and CHANGE”.  And, if you give it a half-second’s worth of thought, you’ll realize why the progressivism of the Elite is tyranny [hint: there are no transcendent boundaries only time as a measure of progress].  It also impacts our constitutional jurisprudence. If old is bad simply, then granting the Supreme Court the authority (to which Marbury v Madison effectively opened the door) to “re-interpret” [read: re-write or amend by judicial fiat] the Constitution to mirror the “progress” and “change” in society must be a good thing. That kind of hollows out the originalist/conservative view of the Constitution, no?]

 

One of the most authoritative Jewish legal minds of the 12^th-13^th centuries, also Sephardic, was Nachmanides (common Hebrew acronym, Ramban), who wrote this stirring “Holy Letter” (Iggeret HaKodesh) on the question of conjugal relations:

 

When a man has relations [with his wife] he should not do so against her will and he should not rape her; the Divine Presence does not abide in such unions in as much as his intentions in opposition to hers, and she does not consent to his desire. He should not quarrel with her or strike her concerning marital relations. Behold, the Sages said ([Talmud Bavli] Pesahim 49b), “Just as a lion tears [his prey] and devours it and has no shame, so an ‘am ha-‘aretz (ignorant boor) strikes and cohabits and has no shame.” Instead, he should entice her with kind and alluring words and other appropriate and reputable things. He should not have relations with her while she is sleeping because their intentions are not united and they are not of the same mind. Rather, he should wake her and arouse her with conversation. The bottom line is this: when a man is sexually aroused he should make sure that his wife is aroused as well [before having intercourse].

 

[Note: I highlight the fact that the two legal and Jewish philosophical giants, Maimonides and Nachmonides, were Sephardic because they lived among Muslims at a time when Islam was ascendant and indeed when Islam was undergoing its own version of “reformation” in large parts of the Muslim world toward a greater adherence to Shariah. This serves to highlight the fact that Shariah, as a philosophic and legal matter, is of no kin to Jewish law/dogma.]

 

Now, what is interesting, is that there is a concept of a “rebellious wife” in Jewish law. But once again, like martyrdom, lex talionis, and other subjects I have written on in the way of comparative law between Shariah and Halachah, the Shariah authorities turned the earlier extant Jewish legal concept on its head and distorted it to the point of evil perversion (e.g., a Jewish martyr may not commit any of the three cardinal sins [idol worship, murder, sexual offense] and must be willing to die in passive resistance rather than commit one of these sins—but there is no martyrdom for death in battle or even self-defense—which if done justly are called heroic (the person is not a martyr but a gibor).  Thus, the first thing to note is that in Jewish law, unlike in Shariah, there is a parallel concept of a “rebellious husband”. (See, e.g., Code of Jewish Law, Even ha-Ezer 77:1.)  The principle at work in the “rebellious husband/wife” concept is that a marriage includes implied mutual promises, one of which is a free and loving conjugal relationship. Thus, according to most Jewish legal authorities, Jewish law empowers a couple (husband and wife equally) to negotiate almost every aspect of their relationship and, for example, set as a condition of marriage that they will have no financial responsibilities or household obligations to each other. However, they cannot set as a precondition to marriage that they will not engage in intimate relations. (Talmud Bavli, Ketubot 56a; Code of Jewish Law, Hil. Ishut 6:10; Even ha-Ezer 38:5 and 69:6. See, however, authorities that hold that a marriage is valid under some conditions even if there is an agreement to abstain from conjugal relations; see, Teshuvot Tashbetz I:94; Ramban to Baba Batra 126b; Havot Ya’ir to Rif, Baba Mezi’a VII, 54a.)

According to Maimonides, a woman who tells her husband that she no longer permits him to have conjugal relations (as a permanent condition) is classified as a “rebellious wife” (“moredet”).  But now look at the difference between Jewish law and Shariah. In Shariah, this state of rebelliousness grants the husband the right to beat his rebellious wife and even to rape her with impunity. In Jewish law, according to Maimonides:

 

If a woman prevents her husband from having sexual relations with her, she is called a rebellious wife. [The court] inquires of her as to why she rebelled. If she said, “I am repelled by him and cohabitation with him is impossible for me,” [the court] forces him to divorce her [if she demands a divorce] because a wife is not a prisoner who must consort with a person whom she despises.

Mishne Torah, Hil. Ishut 14:8.  Cf., Code of Jewish Law, Even ha-Ezer 77:2 (where the Jewish court attempts first to effect a reconciliation and then grants a divorce).

In no case is the woman who refuses to have conjugal relations with her husband forced to do so. Maimonides’ view in this matter is controlling. Thus, R. Moshe b. Yosef of Trani, known as Mabit, states that a woman cannot be compelled to submit to her husband because “she is unlike a captive woman who can be compelled to submit to sexual relations with a man she does not desire.” He compares her conjugal rights to those of food and clothing which her husband is also obligated to provide, and which she can also reject. He also points out that the Torah speaks of “her conjugal rights” (Bible, Book of Ex. 21:10) and not simply of “conjugal rights;” those rights are hers and not her husband’s.  (Kiryat Sefer to Hil. Ishut 14.)

Finally, rape in Jewish law is clearly defined as a crime of violence and not one of the sexual crimes, as we now in “modern society” recognize it to be; specifically, ḥabalah (assault ).  (Teshuvot Divrei Yeziv, Even ha-Ezer no. 77; see also Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 74a (where rape is analogized to murder.))  The civil penalties imposed for assault include damages for actual damages, pain, healing, lost wages, and shame.  (Talmud Bavli, Baba Kama 83b) The various penalties imposed by Jewish law for assault do not exempt a husband who assaults his wife. While Shariah appears to permit a husband to beat his wife and even to rape her with impunity, and while the English common law might exempt a husband from rape, Jewish law does not.