Religious Propaganda and Holy War in the 12th Century: The Friday Sermon following Saladin's Conquest of Jerusalem in 1187

The more I delve deeper into the medieval ages kids, the more I'm understanding how life was so interconnected in the first 500 years of the second millennium. It's one of the time periods that was dark but also was showing signs of change that would form the world of today. The winning back of Jerusalem by Saladin from the crusaders is one of those spectacular events. Remember geopolitics. The reason Muslims celebrated the recapture so hugely is because Jerusalem was sacred to them. And the Christian hordes were barbarians truly. The crusades were simply a series of massacres. Truly tragic set of affairs. But Jerusalem was recaptured by Saladin and big celebrations. Some parts of the Muslim world don't like losing their territory. Witness the fulminations against Spain! Or India or Israel and Jerusalem. There's a constant whine of moans. But read the khutbah. It tells you what drove them and what they want. These sentiments are echoed down to today son. When Isis takes over secular Syrian places, they place their arguments on exactly these kinds of arguments. 

History is indeed a vast early warning system. Stuff that was done centuries back echo now. 

Love

Baba

Religious Propoaganda and Holy War in the 12th Century: The Friday Sermon following Saladin's Conquest of Jerusalem in 1187

https://ballandalus.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/religious-propoaganda-and-holy-war-in-the-12th-century-the-friday-sermon-following-saladins-conquest-of-jerusalem-in-1187/

(via Instapaper)

The khutba or Friday sermon, delivered in the al-Aqsa mosque immediately following the conquest of Jerusalem by Salah al-Din Yusuf b. Ayyub (d. 1174-1193) in 1187, is preserved by Ibn Khallikan in his biography of Muḥyiddīn ibn al-Zakī. Ibn Khallikan (1211-1282) served as chief qāḍī of the Shāfi‛īs in Damascus. His greatest achievement is his biographical dictionary of some 800 famous Muslims entitled Wafayāt al-a‛yān wa-anbā’ abnā’ al-zamān (Obituaries of the Notables and News of the Sons of the Age), fully translated here: https://ia601406.us.archive.org/17/items/ibnkhallikansbi00slangoog/ibnkhallikansbi00slangoog.pdf

Translation

Abū al-Ma‛ālī Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥya ibn ‘Alī ibn ‘Abd al-‛Azīz ibn Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Qāsim ibn al Walīd ibn al-Qāsim ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ‘Abban ibn ‘Uthmān ibn ‘Affān [the third caliph], a member of the tribe of Quraysh and surnamed Muhyiddīn but generally known by the appellation of Ibn al-Zakī, or son of Zakī al-Dīn, was a native of Damascus and a jurist of the Shāfi‛ī school. He displayed acquirements of the most varied kinds, being versed in the law, general literature, and other sciences, and having composed some fine poetry, khutbas (sermons), and epistles. On Wednesday, the 20th of Rabī‛ al-Awwal 588 (5 April 1192) he was appointed Chief Judge of Damascus; so, at least, I have found it written in the handwriting of al-Qādī al-Fāḍil, and the same place had been previously filled by his father and grandfather, as it was subsequently by two of his own sons.

Ben-Hur and Lew Wallace: How the scapegoat of Shiloh became one of the best-selling novelists in American history

I have to admit Kannu that I never read the book. The film itself made a huge impact on me. Judah Ben hur was such a heroic man, going through huge trials and tribulations. Then wins through. Takes revenge over his enemies. Becomes wealthy. Finds god. For I had seen the movie as a teenager. My aunt took me to see this in Calcutta. Big impression. Do see it if you can. 

But the backstory is perhaps more interesting. Didn't know the link to the carnage of the civil war. 

Fascinating. 

Love

Baba

Ben-Hur and Lew Wallace: How the scapegoat of Shiloh became one of the best-selling novelists in American history. - Slate Magazine
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2013/03/ben_hur_and_lew_wallace_how_the_scapegoat_of_shiloh_became_one_of_the_best.single.html

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Gen. Lew Wallace, circa 1861. Courtesy of Brady-Handy Photograph Collection/Library of Congress

You can also listen to John Swansburg read this piece using the player below:

I.

Lew Wallace was making conversation with the other gentlemen in his sleeper car when a man in a nightgown appeared in the doorway. The train was bound for Indianapolis and the Third National Soldiers Reunion, where thousands of Union Army veterans planned to rally, reminisce, and march in a parade the New York Times would later describe as “the grandest street display ever seen in the United States.” It was Sept. 19, 1876, more than a decade since the Civil War had ended. Wallace had grayed a bit, but still wore the sweeping imperial moustache he’d had at the Battle of Shiloh. “Is that you, General Wallace?” the man in the nightgown asked. “Won’t you come to my room? I want to talk.”

Robert Ingersoll, also a veteran of Shiloh, was now the nation’s most prominent atheist, a renowned orator who toured the country challenging religious orthodoxy and championing a healthy separation of church and state. Wallace recognized him from earlier that summer, when he’d heard Ingersoll, a fellow Republican, make a rousing speech at the party’s nominating convention. Wallace accepted his invitation and suggested they take up a subject near to Ingersoll’s heart: the existence of God.

Ingersoll talked until the train reached its destination. “He went over the whole question of the Bible, of the immortality of the soul, of the divinity of God, and of heaven and hell,” Wallace later recalled. “He vomited forth ideas and arguments like an intellectual volcano.” The arguments had a powerful effect on Wallace. Departing the train, he walked the pre-dawn streets of Indianapolis alone. In the past he had been indifferent to religion, but after his talk with Ingersoll his ignorance struck him as problematic, “a spot of deeper darkness in the darkness.” He resolved to devote himself to a study of theology, “if only for the gratification there might be in having convictions of one kind or another.”

But how to go about such a study? Wallace knew himself well enough to predict that a syllabus of sermons and Biblical commentaries would fail to hold his interest. He devised instead what he called “an incidental employment,” a task that would compel him to complete a thorough investigation of the eternal questions while entertaining his distractible mind. A few years earlier, he’d published a historical romance about the Spanish conquest of Mexico, to modest success. His idea now was to inquire after the divinity of Christ by writing a novel about him.

It took four years, but in 1880, Wallace finished his incidental employment. He called it Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It’s one of the great if little known ironies in the history of American literature: Having set out to win another soul to the side of skepticism, Robert Ingersoll instead inspired a Biblical epic that would rival the actual Bible for influence and popularity in Gilded Age America—and a folk story that has been reborn, in one medium or another, in every generation since.

How the British and Turks killed 768 people

I just heard and read about SS Struma. I quote:

The Struma was a ship chartered to carry Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to British-controlled Palestine during World War II. The engine gave out several times after the Struma set sail from Constanţa, on the Black Sea on 12 December 1941 and it was towed to Istanbul on 15 December 1941. On February 23, 1942, with its engine inoperable and its refugee passengers aboard, Turkish authorities towed the ship from Istanbul harbor through the Bosphorus out to the the coast of Şile in North Istanbul. Within hours, in the morning of February 24, it was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine Shch 213, killing 768 men, women and children, with only one survivor, a 19 year old man, making it the largest exclusively civilian naval disaster of the war in Black Sea

You know what I found ironic? This single survivor served in North Africa for the British Army in WW2. Sad.

Not the finest hour for Turkey or United Kingdom.

Ultra Orthodox Jews do want jobs

I was always told and knew that Ultra Orthodox Jews didnt want to do work and just wanted to study. And were responsible for Sun Spots, problems in Malaysia and the state of the rain forest in Brazil (joke!). Anyway, this article made me blink.

“Well, to find a job, like everyone else here,” was Ya’akov’s smiling answer to the question of what brought him to Sunday’s haredi employment fair in Jerusalem.
The 31-year-old Jerusalem resident was one of an estimated 4,000 ultra-Orthodox men and women who flocked to Binyanei Ha’uma to be exposed to a variety of frameworks offered to haredim seeking to enter the employment force. Booths representing a plethora of employers ranging from Bezeq to Beit Shemesh Engines and the Jerusalem Municipality were stationed alongside a few military and national service representatives, who provided information about the unique programs they offered haredi men, with the colleges and vocational training institutions scattered throughout.

And not just men for those thinking this is just a patriarchal element.

Meller estimated that over 2,000 women arrived for the first part of the day – which was divided between men and women – vying for some 600 positions offered by employers.

The Indian Schindler

We all have heard about the Schindler List, a movie which talks about Oskar Schindler who saves thousands of Jews from the concentration camps. But not many people know the history of India taking in refugees. The land has a very long history of welcoming persecuted people from other lands and giving them succour. Think back about the Parsi’s or the Zoroastrians who fled the fanatical Muslim invaders who had invaded Iran. They settled in India and are now one of the most advanced components of Indian society. The second example are the Tibetans who with Dalai Lama, escaped from Tibet and settled in India. The next example is that of the Sri Lankan Tamils who escaped the civil war in Sri Lanka and then settled back in Tamil Nadu. Another example are the Bengalis who escaped the genocide and persecution of the Pakistani’s and settled in India. India also offered Palestinian and Afghanistan leaders a safe place and many leaders and their family know India as a safe place to live and raise their kids. Hamid Karzai, the current Afghan President studied and lives in India for a long period of time.

But I did not know about Sassoons. The Sassoon family and the Prime Minister of Cochin state (now Kerala) offered to harbour Jewish Refugees. So at a time that USA and UK were actively stopping the relief of Jews who were desperately trying to escape the Nazi’s, a small corner of India was welcoming them with open arms. Here are some references. Incidentally, some Indian Jews in North East India are claiming to be Jews and are emigrating to Israel. Now that the Church, bloody hypocritically, is whining about losing adherents. When the shoe is on the other foot and all that.

Anyway, found this quite interesting about how India welcomed refugees.

The Auschwitz Album

This old photo album really got me going. The power of a photograph reaches out despite decades having had passed since it was taken at Auschwitz. This album shows the people  arriving at the concentration camp, getting processed into those who would be workers and those who would be gassed immediately. The black and white photographs throw a seriously blunt light on this truly horrible time.

Here’s one example of the arrivals. The faces are numb. Look at the faces of the children, innocent and uncomprehending.

Once they arrived, they were then selected according to what the SS officers felt as to their working capability, old men, women and children were more than likely to be sent straight into the gas chambers. The piles of clothing in the right back were reprocessed. In the top far left is a line which has already been processed and are heading towards the gas chambers (see air picture below).

These are 2 boys. Notice the Star of David on the greatcoat of the boy on the right, the Jews were identified that way.

Old men being led to the gas chambers, again notice the Star of David.

The same fate awaited old women and children.

Women and men who were fit for forced labour were deloused, had their heads shaven and were then moved to the labour part of the camp.

A photograph of a line of prisoners being lead to the gas chambers. These reconnaissance photographs were taken by the allied forces. In many cases, they did not even know what this was, or rather what the camps really were used for (or at least that's what was being claimed then).

and how the Germans then tried to hide the evidence.

it is all bloody painful…
The above related to the victims, but what about the Germans? Here’s another photo album from the other side.

There are more photographs of how the SS officers enjoyed their lives, as if they were on holidays, eating blue berries with cream and singing along with accordions. I get into frequent arguments with TBS about why the Holocaust is considered so extra special. Well, it's the efficiency with which this large scale killing happened, the scale and scope, the rabid ideology, and and and, which all lead us to hope that it will not happen again. And despite this, we have seen Bangladesh, Rwanda, Cambodia, etc. Some said, we need to educate people more. In one of the next posts, I will be exploring why its the educated lot who actually drive or commit these monstrous crimes against humanity.

A Jesus Era house excavated in Nazareth

Now here’s an interesting item which caught my eye. I knew the history of Jesus of Nazareth where he grew up, but my mental image of Nazareth was always what was illustrated in Nativity Plays, Bible books, paintings and such like. Very clean, idealised village which would not be out of place in modern day Britain. Here’s an example:

here’s another painting, Nazareth by William Gale.

Anyway, you get the idea. But then this announcement popped up. I quote:

The remains of a small house that can be dated back to the time of Jesus have been found in the past days during excavation works in progress in Nazareth, guided by a team of Israeli archaeologists. According to the scientists, this is the first house from that era ever uncovered.  "The building that we found is small and modest and it is most likely typical of the dwellings in Nazareth in that period," the archaeologist added, suggesting that "Jesus and his childhood friends may have known this house".

Click on this site and this to see 2 photographs of the currently excavated site which shows the foundations of the house and the walls. The hamlet, unlike what has been portrayed in the paintings and books, was a dirt poor tiny hamlet of not more than 50 families. Interestingly enough, the archaeologists have found a water harvesting system on the roof. What a change and as the LA Times says:

…not far from the spot where the Archangel Gabriel is said to have revealed to Mary that she would give birth to the boy. Today the ornate Basilica of the Annunciation marks that spot, and Nazareth is the largest Arab city in northern Israel, with about 65,000 residents. Muslims now outnumber Christians 2 to 1 in the noisy, crowded city. The archaeological find shows how different it was 2,000 years ago: Christianity and Islam did not yet exist; the Jewish Temple stood in Jerusalem; and tiny Nazareth was near a battleground between Roman rulers and Jewish guerrillas….

There is obviously no Jewish presence now, the number of Christians is dropping precipitously in Palestine and the Jewish state is busy having fun with the Muslims. The archaeologists also found a hidden entrance to a grotto which could have been used by the Jews to escape from the Romans. And Palestine now has underground tunnels to smuggle people and goods in and out of Palestine. In certain cases, not much has changed now has it? And what also surprised me was that nobody has done any politicking on this yet as archaeology in the holy land is inextricably linked with politics down history.

But what has changed is the image of Nazareth in my mind. Instead of the bucolic, green and peaceful town that was imprinted in my mind, it has now converted into a parched, drought ridden, desperately poor, quite dirty, fearful tiny little village of no importance back then. Merry Christmas everybody.

Ataturk was a Jew

I am now finally educated and understand why Ataturk was such a great man and delivered so many things to his country, not least self respect, modernity and got rid of the grasp of the medieval mullahs and thieving bloodsucking royalty. It was because he was a Jew. I know you are reeling from shock and awe and horror, but its true, my friends, i read it on the internet. I quote from this fascinating site:

Until the end of the Independence War of Turkey against the Europeans who occupied the Ottoman land after WWI, Mustafa Kemal seemed an observant Muslim. He was praying in mosques with Muslims.. He was giving sermons at Friday prayers in mosques.. He was swearing he would fight to save the Khilafah (Califate). He was praising Islam and the Prophet all the time.. He was calling the Qur'an "the most Perfect Book." He was saying that the Qur'an was the Constitution.. And he was saying all these in the newly opened National Grand Assembly in Ankara during the Independence War...

So the Muslims trusted him... And he was given full power during the War.. After Turkey was liberated, he was elected as the President of Turkey by the Assembly..

After a while, he started, slowly, his anti-Islamic reforms.. The man who had been saying that "The Qur'an was the Constitution" was now saying "We do not receive our laws from the sky" referring to the Qur'anic revelations... In order to achieve his anti-Islamic reforms, he did not hesitate to use force, terror, gallows, torture, prison, etc...

How could that happen?.. How could a man who had been praising Islam abolish the Khilafah and start his anti-Islamic reforms suddenly?..

The Secret Jews, Joachim Prinz, 1973, pp. 111-122

..... In December 1686, more than three hundred families converted to Islam in Salonika. Like Shabtai and other Marranos, they continued to attend Jewish services secretly and observed certain Jewish customs in their homes.

This was the origin of the most important group, numerically and historically, of Islamic Marranos. The faithful Mohemmedans call these hidden Jews 'doenmehs', the renegades. ..... Over the years the 'doenmeh' movement became firmly established in Asia Minor. In the nineteenth century the sect was estimated to have twenty thousand members. Salonika remained its main seat until that city became Greek in 1913. Although the Jewish community remained there under Greek rule, the 'doenmehs' moved to Constantinople.

The revolt of the Young Turks in 1908 against the authoritarian regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid began among the intellectuals of Salonika. It was from there that the demand for a constitutional regime originated. Among the leaders of the revolution which resulted in a more modern government in Turkey were Djavid Bey and Mustafa Kemal. Both were ardent 'doenmehs'. Djavid Bey became minister of finance; Mustafa Kemal became the leader of the new regime and he adopted the name of Ataturk. His opponents tried to use his 'doenmeh' background to unseat him, but without success. Too many of the Young Turks in the newly formed revolutionary Cabinet prayed to Allah, but had as their real prophet Shabtai Zvi, the Messiah of Smyrna.

Also see this site.

My friends, we are now faced with the Axis of Drivel :)

Technorati Tags: Turkey,Conspiracy Theory,Jews

The Holocaust gets compared to the strangest things

This made me gibber a bit.

Jews supporting Fascists? WTF?

This blew me away, how on earth can the Roman Jewish population support a fascist? I quote:

Rome’s election last week of its first rightwing mayor since the time of Benito Mussolini has been celebrated by fascists as a historic victory over the left. Packs of young, thuggish supporters of Gianni Alemanno greeted the new mayor’s appearance at the Campidoglio city hall with straight-armed “Roman” salutes, shouting abuse at communists and immigrants.

Rome’s Jewish voters, numbering about 9,000, explain their shift to the right in various ways, most often because they see the National Alliance as firmly pro-Israel.Michel Bokhobza, whose family fled from Libya to Rome in 1967 in the wake of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day war, says Italy’s centre-right is much closer to Israel than the pro-Arab bias of the centre-left.“Even if his past was very close to fascism and ex-fascism, Alemanno belongs to the coalition guided by [Silvio] Berlusconi and [Gianfranco] Fini,” he said, referring to the People of Liberty alliance that also swept national elections last month.

I nearly fell out of my chair, this is unbelievable. Getting into bed with monsters will end in tears, if you do not believe me, ask the left who is in bed with the Islamists. This is frankly stupid.

Galloway warns that "Jewish lobby" is working against Livingstone

How amusing. Indefatigable Galloway warns about the Jewish Lobby. This man is loopy, seriously stupid, but its clear that he is doing it for pandering to his lobby. How amusing, principled politics, my hairy patootie.

Technorati Tags: United Kingdom,Politics,Jews

Jewish Intelligence and Race, the debate continues

Jews are an extraordinarily amazing people, the more I read about them, the most amazing I find them and their history. For example, they are admired for their intelligence. We have email after email going around praising them and wanting to copy their intelligence and smartness based upon some weird relationship between being Jews and say Nobel Prize winners or scientists (see here for a previous treatment of this topic). Then we have people who claim that Jews are responsible for Porn. (I got to read it via an email on a yahoogroup - I have it stored, so if you cannot access it, let me know and I will paste/send). So on one hand, one wants to copy the Jews and on the other hand, they are bad as evidenced from the increasing levels of anti-Semitism.

But to go back to the argument, the UK has been debating the benefits of immigration for a long time and it has become quite heated recently. (See here, here and here for example) Whether they are beneficial or not, whether they add value or not, whether they are benefit scroungers or not, etc. etc. It is good to see that this kind of debate has not changed for decades.

See this paper for example about immigration and Jews. The paper talks about comparative intelligence of Jews and non-Jews, and all this to influence the debate over the level of immigration of Jews into the United Kingdom (one of the crucial aspects to remember is the last line of the abstract, for those who try to use ethnic or religious exclusivity as a way of defence actually end up making things worse as I pointed out in my essay on Islamophobia, I quote: He also considers the role of the British Jewish community in funding and challenging studies of Jewish intelligence, arguing that the community's defensive strategy against negative racial labelling was the cause of discord and change during this period.). While the paper actually is talking more about Racial Science and how it developed, the patterns of prejudice that it throws up is clear.

But given the unique nature of the Jews, they created problems with this emerging field of Racial Science or the future of Anthropology. See this article about how race was determined as a theory in anthropology and how it tried to fit Jews into the picture in the late 19th century. Are Jews white? or are they a minority? Are they an oppressed minority? Or a majority? Which race do they belong to - Caucasian, Mongolian, Negro or Amerindian? Almost two centuries later, and we are still seeing debates about these issues.

There is serious confusion about race, nation, ethnicity and religion (some of which I explored in the Islamophobia article) and the various dimensions of anti-Semitism, dealing with Jews and emergent fields of study are curiously fascinating.

Technorati Tags: Jews,United Kingdom,Immigration

The Jews dammed Saudi Arabia

hehehe, sorry, couldnt resist, I know this is a groaner but check out the text and photo here. But serves them right, why would it matter? its bizarre

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Europe and Jews few centuries ago

A very interesting post here about how the Christians treated the Jews in their midst. And then they have the gall to talk... But this was good and I quote:

There are two Jews in front of a firing squad and the officer asks them if they want blindfolds. One Jew says “You can take your blindfold and stick it up your arse” The other Jew says “Shush, don’t cause trouble”

Technorati Tags: Jews,Judaism,Europe,History

The Star of David on the Moroccan Flag (thanks, Larry

Thanks to my good friend, Larry Schwartz, this very interesting factoid came to my attention. Did you know that the Moroccan flag had the star of david emblazoned on it? and the reason why they had it was because all wanted to lay claim on the ancestery of Solomon the wise King.

And here's a new word for you, Vexillology, from the Latin vexillum, which, in Roman times, designated the standard of the army, is the study of flags.

read and wonder.



All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Jews in Mecca & Medina?

It didnt take long to get a reaction to the US House Resolution 185 which talked about the Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands. I quote:

It is a “ploy to give Israel a share in every Arab country” and force the Arabs to drop Palestinians’ “right to return” from their negotiations with the Israelis, Sheikh Hilal Mabrouq told the congregation during his sermon at the Najma mosque yesterday.
“It is very clear that the resolution is one step forward to strengthen Israel’s existence in the region,” he said.
“Each Arab country had a Jewish community which lived in peace with the Arabs before the establishment of Israel. I think it is only meant for finding a share for Israel in each Arab country,” he said.

But the best part was this one which I didnt not consider:

“I will not be surprised if the US Congress came up with another resolution tomorrow, claiming the right of the Jews who had left the Arab peninsula after the appearance of Islam to return to both Makkah and Al Madina and establish a Jewish community there,” he said.

Lol, well, me being evil, i can very well think, well, why not? if length of stay and presence on land is indeed the case, right of returns cuts all ways... What will Israel and the assorted Arab League countries do?

US House resolution 185 would declare Jewish, Palestinian 1948 refugees equal

This should set the cat amongst the pigeons. If equality does work, then, curious to see what will happen to the right of return and compensation.... This is a right mess.

 

April 3, 2008, 8:52 AM (GMT+02:00)

It was introduced Tuesday by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Mike Ferguson (R-NJ).

From 1948, 850,000 Jews were attacked, dispossessed and expelled from 10 Arab lands, where some Jewish communities had existed for 2,500 years. The number of Jewish refugees exceeds Arab refugees from Israel by more than 100,000 (United Nations Conciliation Commission, October 23, 1950).

All prior UN resolutions referred only to Arab refugees. The new nonbinding resolution affirms for the first time that the U.S. government must now recognize that all victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict must be treated equally. It further urges that, as a member of the Middle East Quartet, the President and U.S. officials ensure that any reference to Palestinian refugees must henceforth "also include a similarly explicit reference to the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries."

Technorati Tags: Jews,Palestine,Israel,World War II

Why are Jews so powerful?

Now this is about a fascinating argument which I keep on seeing floating around. The sheer intellectual challenge behind this argument is so powerful that I think it just slips people by. Some questions?

1. What is the link between Judaism and success? What are the Jews doing according to Judaism that the Muslims are not doing? Since the factor of identification is religion, then there is something obviously better in Judaism than in Islam, no? Or did I get that wrong? or was the author wrong in slicing people by religion?

2. If being successful is that easy to belong to Judaism, then a simple answer, just convert to Judaism, and bingo, you will immediately become rich, famous and successful. No?

3. If Judaism is indeed the common factor and reason for all these being rich and famous, then why is Islam missing it? Surely that's the common element that these authors miss?

4. Gosh, what happened to the Christians and Hindus and Buddhists? I suppose their religions are also not good, eh?

5. But looking at say most of the Nobel Prize winners, they are Christians, so the Jews should convert to Christianity and so should the Muslims and the Buddhist.

I can go on, but I suppose you get the point. By pointing to human scientific progress and charitable giving as being purely linked to religion, these people condemn their own people to a lifetime of failure. Why? because they will look for answers in their religion. No, that is not the case, science, knowledge and success is religiously independent. Speak and talk to people in China if you want to learn and be successful. The author identifies the problem and the cause but because his eyes are simply focused on Muslims, his answer and solution are useless.

And this keeps on happening, again and again, wake up, Muslims (and others who want to be successful and knowledgeable) get away from these religious peddlers of false hope. If you dont believe me, then try to imagine the link between Jesus, Albert Einstein, Israel and US Foreign Policy. Soft brains, I tell you, bizarre. Here is a version of this document which are floating around, but the email added this bunch of rot.

To be certain, Washington is the capital that matters and in Washington the lobby that matters is The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Washington knows that if PM Ehud Olmert were to discover that the earth is flat, AIPAC will make the 109th Congress pass a resolution congratulating Olmert on his discovery.

William James Sidis, with an IQ of 250-300, is the brightest human who ever existed. Guess what faith did he belong to?

So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer: GOAL, DISCIPLINE, EDUCATION, UNITY & NETWORKING are their KEY to POWER...  All including Jews agree that Muslims are more intelligent but AREN'T TEAM PLAYERS and a have short sightedness problem.
WHAT IS YOUR BELIEF? DO YOU HAVE ANY GOAL, ANY MISSION? ANY OBJECTIVE?
There must be a reason for our Existence!!! WHAT is it? THINK AND DISCUSS WITH FELLOW MUSLIMS WHO KNOW MORE THEN YOU "HOW CAN YOU CONTRIBUTE IN YOUR PERSONAL CAPACITY TO MAKE MUSLIMS POWERFUL"
!!! THINK AND PLAN!!!!
--------- --*EDUCATE MUSLIMS *----------- --------- -------
Forget about being Sunni, or Shia, just work hard to become an educated and EXAMPLARY MUSLIM an icon of HUMANITY.  GET GOOD EDUCATION FOR YOURSELF AND YOURS WARDS, PLAN FOR THE COMMON AND COLLECTIVE INTEREST OF THE MUSLIMS, HAVE UNITY AMONG OURSELVES, WORK FOR THE WELFARE OF THE WHOLE COMMUNITY AND YOUR NEIGHBORS -  NOT ONLY FOR SUNNIS, SHIAS, ARABS & NON-ARABS.
*Make a 5, 10, and 20 and 25 years Plan but it must start from today.
MAY ALLAH BLESS THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY

Technorati Tags: Judaism,Islam,Jews,Muslims

Bhutto And The Jews: A Love Story

I suppose this was inevitable, sighs. Pond Life?

Technorati Tags: Conspiracy Theories,Pakistan,Judaism

What did ordinary German Soldiers think about the Holocaust?

An absolutely fascinating research paper came to hand. I am taking the liberty to quote it liberally.

This article details research about the knowledge of German soldiers concerning the mass executions of Jews in Eastern Europe during the Second World War, as it can be discerned from their letters.1 It examines the soldiers' perceptions and justifications of criminal missions committed by their own comrades or in which they were actually involved, and their interpretations of the facts and rumours they heard about the extermination of the Jewish population.

....

Up here you see many prison camps assigned to do construction work and other things. There are Jews coming here, that is to say, to Auschwitz, seven or eight thousand a week who die a "hero's death" before long. You see, it's quite good to get around a great deal.

There's not much new to tell from here; during the last couple of days the ghetto got smoked out. Unfortunately some of the Jews managed to skedaddle; and from time to time we have some minor shoot-outs

You know our mood isn't improved very much by all these actions, nor by the lack of work. Currently a new action against Jews is making some impression on us; I prefer to spare you the details of what I saw today while walking past the affected quarters

In the old citadel 1000 Jews will be shot dead on this day. This is a reprisal for the 2800 Ukrainians who were shot in Bolshevik times. In return, 5600 Russians will now give their lives. Two officers, whom I sent out searching for wire and iron, reported that the Jews died without making any sound. After this human tragedy, which is unfortunate but a necessary measure to discourage the uprising insurgents, we experienced over the following days how a large section of the looters simply left their stolen goods on the street.

Here the Jewish issue is solved somewhat differently. The Romanians drove all the Jews together and shot them dead regardless of whether they were men, women or children. At the beginning it was the other way round.

The many hundred kilometres we have covered showed us the roughness and the cruelty of this battle. It is impossible to describe all the details, but it is a matter of life and death. The deeper we got into Russia, the more we met Jews. These guys are just as cheeky as in the most peaceful times. One should put even more of these guys against the wall than has been done so far.

One just notices here how beautiful our home country is. The social deficiencies are impossible to describe. Dirt and mud. A great percentage of inhabitants are Jews.

And then the "solution" follows:

All the more urgent was the solution of the Jewish question. It is now pushed forward energetically by the Hungarian government according to the German model. A complete elimination is just necessary to give the miserable Russian people better living conditions.

The thing a physician needs to accomplish must be the complete elimination of the Cholera, what our people need to accomplish must be the complete elimination of the Jews

I am concerned about the nutrition of our Polish civilians whose work efficiency is decreasing rapidly. We only get so much food for them as to provide for a meagre soup five times a week with 60 hours of labour. The extra supply they get from the city's civil service is absolutely insufficient. It is even worse for the Jews, some of them just collapse of hunger during urgent street construction. No flogging or shooting will solve that.

The people here do not mean well to us Germans. The city of Dünaburg is half in ruins. 75% of the population used to be Jewish. They themselves - mostly before the Germans arrived - blew up or burned down their houses. Subsequently 30 000 Jews were shot not far from the city. In addition we executed other people over nothing. For these reasons, the population don't like to see the Germans anywhere. People are suspicious.

In Bereza - Katuska, where I stopped at noon, they had just shot 1300 Jews the day before. They were taken to a pit outside the city, then men, women and children had to take off all their clothes and were finished by shots to the neck. The clothes were disinfected and then reused. I am convinced, if the war lasts longer, it will become necessary to make sausages out of the Jews and feed them to the Russian prisoners of war or the trained Jewish workers

Remember these are ordinary Germans. And in an email exchange I had with some Canadian Muslims, I found the similar feelings, if you were a Jew, you were automatically thought to be anti-Muslim or anti-Iran. Evidence to the contrary like the Iranian Jews was ignored totally. But sadly familiar, the Jews have indeed seen this before and are seeing it again. The tragedy is that these Muslims will face the same behaviour very soon from the Christians in the West.

Ironical and sad.

JO - Journal of Genocide Research
PB - Routledge
AU - Kipp, Michaela
TI - The Holocaust in the letters of German soldiers on the Eastern front (1939–44)
SN - 1462-3528
PY - 2007
VL - 9
IS - 4
SP - 601
EP - 615

Technorati Tags: Muslims , Jews , Genocide , Germany , Holocaust , World War II