Saudi school teaches Jews are monkeys and Christians are pigs

School’s books are racist, says sacked teacher Clare Dyer, legal editor
The Guardian, Tuesday 6 February 2007

A Saudi-run school in London uses textbooks which describe Jews as monkeys and Christians as pigs, according to papers filed with an employment tribunal by a former teacher.

Teaching materials used at the King Fahd school in Acton, west London, translated from Arabic for an unfair dismissal claim against the school, say Jews “engage in witchcraft and sorcery and obey Satan”, and invite pupils to “name some repugnant characteristics of Jews” and to give examples of worthless religions, such as Judaism and Christianity.

Colin Cook, 57, a British convert to Islam who taught English at the school for 19 years until he was dismissed last December, said pupils had been heard saying they wanted to kill Americans, that 9/11 was good, and that Osama bin Laden was a hero. He is claiming £100,000 compensation for unfair dismissal, race discrimination and victimisation.

The school was originally set up to educate the children of Arab diplomats, but most of its 750 pupils are now British Muslims. It teaches Wahhabism, the dominant faith in Saudi Arabia, which is an extreme form of Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Qur’an.

Mr Cook’s solicitor, Lawrence Davies, said he was taking the “extraordinary step” of issuing a statement because British pupils were being put at risk. “We are concerned at the fact that these racist textbooks are being taught in a Saudi-funded school to British pupils and to date no school inspection by Ofsted has identified this appalling practice.”

The teacher, who earned £35,000 a year, says he blew the whistle to Edexcel, the examinations body, after children were allowed to refer to their annotated texts in an English language exam in breach of the rules. The school denies his allegations and claims he was rightly dismissed for misconduct. His tribunal hearing is expected to be held later this year.

69 page dossier on Mumbai terror attack (Nov 26-29, 2008)

The complete scanned copy of the 69 page dossier on Mumbai terror attacks is contained in three pdf files  published by the Hindu newspaper.

Click here

Chilling phone transcripts of Mumbai terrorists with their Lashkar handlers

For the 69 page full dossier on the terror attacks click here

Taj Mahal Hotel

Conversations as published by the Indian newspaper, The Hindu. All on 27 November 2008

0108 hours

Pakistan caller: How many hostages do you have?

Mumbai terrorist: We have one from Belgium. We have killed him. There was one chap from Bangalore. He could be controlled only with a lot of effort.

Pakistan caller: I hope there is no Muslim amongst them?

Mumbai terrorist: No, none.

0126 hours

Pakistan caller: Are you setting the fire or not?

Mumbai terrorist: Not yet. I am getting a mattress ready for burning.

Pakistan caller: What did you do with the dead body [on the boat]?

Mumbai terrorist: Left it behind.

Pakistan caller: Did you not open the locks for the water below? [Thought to be a pre-arranged plan to sink the vessel.]

Mumbai terrorist: No, they did not open the locks. We left it like that because of being in a hurry. We made a big mistake.

Pakistan caller: What big mistake?

Mumbai terrorist: When we were getting into the boat, the waves were quite high. Another boat came. Everyone raised an alarm that the Navy had come. Everyone jumped quickly. In this confusion, the satellite phone of Ismail got left behind.

n 0137 hours

Pakistan caller: The ATS (Anti-Terrorist Squad) chief has been killed. Your work is very important. Allah is helping you. The Vazir (Minister) should not escape. Try to set the place on fire.

Mumbai terrorist: We have set fire in four rooms.

Pakistan caller: People shall run helter skelter when they see the flames. Keep throwing a grenade every 15 minutes or so. It will terrorise.

0310 hours

Mumbai terrorist: Greetings!

Pakistan caller: Greetings! There are three ministers and one secretary of the cabinet in your hotel. We don’t know in which room.

Mumbai terrorist: Oh! That is good news! It is the icing on the cake.

Pakistan caller: Find those three, four persons and then get whatever you want from India.

Mumbai terrorist: Pray that we find them.

Pakistan caller: Do one thing. Throw one or two grenades on the Navy and police teams, which are outside.

Mumbai terrorist: Sorry. I simply can’t make out where they are.

Oberoi Trident Hotel

0353 hours

Pakistan caller 1: Brother Abdul. The media is comparing your action to 9/11. One senior police official has been killed.

Mumbai terrorist 1: We are on the 10th/11th floor. We have five hostages.

Pakistan caller 2: Everything is being recorded by the media. Inflict the maximum damage. Keep fighting. Don’t be taken alive.

Pakistan caller 1: Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.

Mumbai terrorist 2: We have three foreigners, including women. From Singapore and China.

Pakistan caller 1: Kill them.

(Voices of gunmen can be hearddirecting hostages to stand in a line, and telling two Muslims to stand aside. Sound of gunfire. Sound of cheering voices.)

Nariman House

1945 hours

Mumbai terrorist: Greetings! What did the major-general say?

Pakistan caller: Greetings. The major-general directed us to do what we like. We should not worry. The operation has to be concluded tomorrow morning. Pray to God. Keep two magazines and three grenades aside, and expend the rest of your ammunition.

Pakistan caller: Keep in mind that the hostages are of use only as long as you do not come under fire because of their safety. If you are still threatened, then don’t saddle yourself with the burden of the hostages. Immediately kill them.

Mumbai terrorist: Yes, we shall do accordingly, God willing.

Pakistan caller: The army claims to have done the work without any hostage being harmed. Another thing: Israel has made a request through diplomatic channels to save the hostages. If the hostages are killed, it will spoil relations between India and Israel.

Mumbai terrorist: So be it, God willing.

Pakistan caller: Stay alert.

2226 hours

Pakistan caller: Brother, you have to fight. This is a matter of prestige of Islam. Fight so that your fight becomes a shining example. Be strong in the name of Allah. You may feel tired or sleepy but the Commandos of Islam have left everything behind. Their mothers, their fathers, their homes. Brother, you have to fight for the victory of Islam. Be strong.

Mumbai terrorist: Amen!

Transcript: Mumbai gunmen were commanded by phone
By SAM DOLNICK –

NEW DELHI (AP) — The gunman said into the phone, “We have three foreigners, including women.” The response was plain and brutal: “Kill them,” the man said. Gunshots rang out inside the Mumbai hotel, followed by a round of cheering.

The ruthless exchange comes from a transcript of phone calls intercepted during the Mumbai attacks that was part of a dossier of evidence India handed Pakistan this week.

New Delhi says the evidence, which also included photographs of recovered weapons, data gleaned from satellite phones, and details from the interrogation of the lone surviving gunman, proves that the Mumbai siege was launched from across the border.

Pakistani authorities have dismissed the evidence as “a propaganda offensive” designed “to whip up tensions” in the region.

The transcripts, which were obtained by the newspaper The Hindu, show that the 10 gunmen who carried out the attacks were in close contact with their handlers throughout the siege. India says the handlers directing the attacks that left 164 dead were senior leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group.

“There are three ministers and one secretary of the cabinet in your hotel. We don’t know in which room,” the handler told a gunman inside the Taj Mahal hotel at 3:10 a.m. on the first night of the attack.

“Oh! That is good news. It is the icing on the cake!” he said.

The handler told him to find the government officials “and then get whatever you want from India.”

The handlers in Pakistan told another team of gunmen who had seized a Jewish center to shoot the hostages if necessary.

“If you are still threatened, then don’t saddle yourself with the burden of the hostages. Immediately kill them,” he said.

He then added, “If the hostages are killed, it will spoil relations between India and Israel.”

“So be it, God willing,” the gunman replied.

Six Jewish foreigners, including a rabbi and his wife, were killed inside the Jewish center.

Later in the night, nearly 24 hours after the attacks began, the handlers urged the gunmen to “be strong in the name of Allah”

“Brother, you have to fight. This is a matter of prestige of Islam. You may feel tired or sleepy, but the commandos of Islam have left everything behind, their mothers, their fathers.”

The gunmen were told several times not to kill any Muslim hostages.

They were ordered, “Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.”

Excerpts from Times of India report
The conversations are chilling and show that the attackers were intent on causing maximum damage, did not want to take any hostages and were brutal in the extreme.

Here’s a sample of a chat between the Pakistani handlers and the terrorists at Taj Hotel:

Caller (from Pakistan): “There are three ministers and a secretary of cabinet in your hotel, we don’t know which room. Keep looking.”
Receiver (terrorist in Mumbai): “That’s icing on the cake.”
Caller: “Find these three or four persons then get whatever you want from India.”

Later, the caller is also heard telling the terrorist that the “wazir” (minister) should not get away. The minister, if there was one in the hotel, did.

At one point, the caller rang again. “Throw one or two grenades on the Navy and police teams. They are outside.”

But the terrorist at the Taj was confused. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I can’t make out where they are.”

The Pakistani handlers obviously couldn’t get enough of the action in Mumbai and were glued to TV, whose blow-by-blow coverage actually helped the terrorists.

‘Under fire, don’t saddle yourself with hostages, kill them’

During a conversation at the Oberoi, the handler told the terrorist, “Keep your cell phone on. We want to hear the gunfire.” Then again, “Everything being recorded by media. Inflict maximum damage. Keep fighting. Don’t be taken alive,” instructed the handler.

During another conversation, he says, “Brother Abdul, the media is comparing your action to 9/11. One of the senior police commissioners has been killed.” Abdul Rehman clearly had other problems in his mind. “We’re on the 10th-11th floor. We’ve five hostages.”

The caller was clear. “Kill all hostages, except Muslims.”

The terrorists had to take permission. “We’ve three foreigners, including two women from Singapore and China.” The answer was brutal. “Kill them.”

Even the terrorists had their troubles, particularly from a certain man from Bangalore who put up a huge fight. “He could be controlled with a big effort.” In all the killing, the handlers tried to make sure no Muslims were killed, but even as the terrorists tried their best, they inflicted huge damage on Indian Muslims killing many at CST and Cama Hospital.

But even the Pakistani handlers were taking orders from a certain “major-general” who is not identified and could be a senior LeT leader. During a conversation in Nariman House, the terrorists asked their handlers for instructions from the “major-general”.

“The major general directed us to do what we like. We shouldn’t worry.” Two factors unexpectedly helped India during the attacks. One was a serendipitous discovery by Indian officials and second was a costly mistake by the terrorists themselves.

Indian officials had been monitoring certain SIM cards that they believed had fallen into terrorist hands in what they thought was an unrelated case. But during the attacks, some of these came alive, which helped them trace the conversations on a real-time basis.

The terrorists’ mistake will cost Pakistan dear. During one conversation, the handlers checked with the “boys” whether they had set fire to the boat or not. The young man replied he had not.

The boss asked, “What did you do to the dead body?” (this would have been the boat owner Solanki.)

The terrorist replied they had left it behind. They had to leave the boat in a big hurry and “we made a mistake.”

“What mistake?” said his handler, ominously. It turned out that neither did they open the bottom locks of the boat which would have sunk it in the sea, nor did they toss the dead body or set the boat on fire.

“When we were getting into the boat the waves were quite high. Another boat came. Everybody raised an alarm that the Navy had come. Everybody jumped quickly. In this confusion, the satellite phone of Ismail got left behind.”

That has turned out to be crucial evidence.

The SIM cards were also important to the investigation. The calls were routed through several SIM cards, one a virtual number in the US, from a company called Cellphone X, owned by one Kharak Singh. The others were from Austria.

It appeared many things were on the planners’ minds. Certainly the India-Israel relationship was high on their calculations. At one stage, the handlers said, “Keep in mind the hostages are of use only if you don’t come under fire. If you are under attack don’t saddle yourself with the hostages. Immediately kill them.”

The handler also reminded the terrorists that “the Army claims to have done their work without any hostage being harmed”.

Another thing: “Israel has made a request to save the hostages. If the hostages are killed it will spoil relations between India and Israel.”

In Florida, Hindu, Jewish and Christian groups unite against Islamic terrorist attacks in Mumbai

Dec 16, 2008 – Hundreds in South Florida participated in a Peace Rally and candlelight vigil last evening to show solidarity with the victims of Jihadi terrorist attacks in Mumbai India. The rally was attended by a cross section of people from Jewish, Hindu, Christian, Buddhists, Jain and Sikh communities. The peace rally started at about 4PM at Las Olas Blvd in Ft. Lauderdale and the mourners marched towards Beach Place shouting slogans against Jihadhists. Shanti (Peace) Mantras and Har Har Mahadev, slogans were chanted during the procession.

“It is an ideology of hatred and violence, a method of committing the most heinous acts known to man, all in the name of a religion, all in the name of Islam. Mumbai wasn’t just about Pakistanis seeking retribution against India’s Hindus, because if that were the case they wouldn’t have targeted and tortured and murdered Jews. So let us call Mumbai what it is, Islamic terrorism — Islamic terrorism.” said Joe Kaufmann the chairman of ‘Americans against Hate’ with a loud applause from the attendees.

Full report and photos click here

Israel declares all out war against Hamas

If the Arabs would lay down their weapons, there would be peace in the Middle East      If Israel laid down her weapons, Israel would cease to exist

“The (Israeli defence) minister quoted Obama as saying: “had anyone fired rockets against my home while my two daughters were sleeping I would have done everything to stop him and I assume the Israelis would do the same thing.”

Israel declares ‘all-out war’ against Hamas
29 Dec 2008, 1551 hrs IST, AFP

JERUSALEM: Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that Israel was in an “all-out war against Hamas” as the Jewish state continued its
massive bombardment of the Islamist movement’s installations in Gaza.

“We have nothing against Gaza residents, but we are engaged in an all-out war against Hamas and its proxies,” he said.

“This operation will expand and deepen as much as needed,” he said. “We went to war to deal a heavy blow to Hamas, to change the situation in the south.”

“We will avoid as much as possible hitting civilians while the people of Hamas and other terrorists deliberately hide and operate within the civilian population.”

“We do not want to hit children and women and we will not prevent humanitarian aid” from reaching the besieged enclave, he said.

Barak said that Israel’s massive operation was in self-defence to ongoing rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, which has been under Hamas rule since the Islamist movement violently assumed power there in June 2007.

He recalled a conversation with Barack Obama during the US president-elect’s June 2008 visit to the Israeli city of Sderot that is regularly targeted by Gaza militants.

The minister quoted Obama as saying: “had anyone fired rockets against my home while my two daughters were sleeping I would have done everything to stop him and I assume the Israelis would do the same thing.”

“That is what Obama said and that is what we are doing,” Barak said.

Israel unleashed on Saturday a massive bombardment on Hamas targets in Gaza, in a blitz that has killed more than 310 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,400 other, according to medics.

Two Israelis have been killed and some 20 other wounded in retaliatory rocket attacks from Gaza.

Israeli assault targets symbols of Hamas power

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writers Ibrahim Barzak And Matti Friedman, Associated Press Writers

Israeli soldiers work on a tank at a staging area near Israel’s border with the AP – Israeli soldiers work on a tank at a staging area near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern …

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel’s air force obliterated symbols of Hamas power on the third day of its overwhelming assault on Gaza on Monday, striking a house next to the Hamas premier’s home, devastating a security compound and flattening a five-story building at a university closely linked to the Islamic group.

The three-day death toll rose to 315, including seven children under the age of 15 who were killed in two separate strikes late Sunday and Monday, medics said. Israel launched the deadliest attack against Palestinians in decades on Saturday in retaliation for rocket fire aimed at civilians in southern Israeli towns.

Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak told Israel’s parliament in a special session that Israel was not fighting the residents of Gaza “but we have a war to the bitter end against Hamas and its branches.”

The strikes appear to have gravely damaged Hamas’ ability to launch rockets but a medium-range rocket fired at the Israeli city of Ashkelon killed a man there Monday and wounded several others. It was the second fatality in Israel since the beginning of the offensive and the first person ever to be killed by a rocket in Ashkelon, a city of 120,000.

Seventeen people have been killed in Israel in attacks from Gaza since the beginning of the year, including nine civilians and eight soldiers, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

On Sunday, Hamas missiles struck for the first time near the city of Ashdod, twice as far from Gaza as Ashkelon and only 25 miles from Israel’s heart in Tel Aviv.

At first light Monday, strong winds blew black smoke from the bombed sites in Gaza City over deserted streets. The air hummed with the buzz of pilotless drones and the roar of jets, punctuated by the explosions of new airstrikes.

A Hamas police spokesman, Ehab Ghussein, said 180 members of the Hamas security forces were among the dead. The United Nations agency in charge of Palestinian refugees said at least 51 of the dead were civilians. A rise in civilian casualties could intensify international pressure on Israel to abort the offensive.

Israel’s intense bombings — more than 300 airstrikes since midday Saturday — wreaked unprecedented destruction in Gaza, reducing buildings to rubble. The military said naval vessels also bombarded targets from the sea.

One strike destroyed a five-story building in the women’s wing at Islamic University, one of the most prominent Hamas symbols. Another attack ravaged a compound controlled by Preventive Security, one of the group’s chief security arms, and a third destroyed a house next to the residence of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister.

Like other Hamas leaders, Haniyeh is in hiding.

Late on Sunday, Israeli aircraft attacked a building in the Jebaliya refugee camp next to Gaza City, killing a woman, a toddler and three young teenage girls, Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said.

In the southern town of Rafah, a toddler and his two teenage brothers were killed in an airstrike aimed at a Hamas commander, Hassanain said. In Gaza City, another attack killed a man and his wife.

Shlomo Brom, a former senior Israeli military official, said it was the deadliest force ever used in decades of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

In the most dramatic attacks Sunday, warplanes struck dozens of smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, cutting off a lifeline that had supplied Hamas with weapons and Gaza with commercial goods. The influx of goods helped Hamas defy an 18-month blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt and was key to propping up its rule.

Gaza’s nine hospitals were overwhelmed. Hassanain, who keeps a record for the Gaza Health Ministry, said more than 1,400 were wounded over two days of fighting and casualties were now being taken to private clinics and even homes.

Abdel Hafez, a 55-year-old history teacher, waited outside a Gaza City bakery to buy bread, one of the few people visible outdoors. He said he was not a Hamas supporter but believed the strikes would only increase support for the group.

“Each strike, each drop of blood are giving Hamas more fuel to continue,” he said.

In Jerusalem, Israel’s Cabinet approved a call-up of 6,500 reserve soldiers Sunday in apparent preparation for a ground offensive. The final decision to call up more reserves has yet to be made by the defense minister, Ehud Barak, and the Cabinet decision could be a pressure tactic.

Israel has doubled the number of troops on the Gaza border since Saturday and deployed an artillery battery. Several hundred reservists have already been summoned to join their units but no full combat formations have been mobilized so far.

Military experts said Israel would need at least 10,000 soldiers for a full-scale invasion.

Since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year military occupation, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the territory to hunt militants firing rockets at Israeli towns. But it has shied away from retaking the entire strip for fear of getting bogged down in urban warfare.

The assault has sparked diplomatic fallout.

Syria decided to suspend indirect peace talks with Israel, begun earlier this year. The United Nations Security Council called on both sides to halt the fighting and asked Israel to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza. Israel opened one of Gaza’s border crossings Monday and about 40 trucks had entered with food and medical supplies by mid-day, military spokesman Peter Lerner said.

The prime minister of Turkey, one of the few Muslim countries to have relations with Israel, called the air assault a “crime against humanity” and French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned “the provocations that led to this situation as well as the disproportionate use of force.”

The carnage has inflamed Arab and Muslim public opinion, setting off street protests in Arab communities in Israel and the West Bank, across the Arab world and in some European cities. On Monday, a Palestinian stabbed and wounded four Israelis in a West Bank settlement before he was shot and wounded. It was not immediately clear if the attack was directly connected to the events in Gaza.
___

Associated Press Writer Matti Friedman reported from Jerusalem.

Pakistani Americans elated over Mumbai massacre, spew extreme hatred and venom towards Hindus and Jews — must read

Source: The below remarks in an online forum are from a well respected Indian Muslim community leader in the United States

Dear xx sb,
Obviously Daniel Pipes is an extreme Muslim basher who is trying his best to harm Muslims.

Yet, let me tell you that just a few days ago in a gathering of mostly Pakistani Muslims I heard some of the worst denial about the direct involvement of Pakistani Muslim terrorists in the Mumbai massacre. Those people also spewed the worst hatred trowards Jews and Hindus to me. While condemning terrorism per se they also indirectly provided alibi and rationale for the Mumbai massacre. They said point blank to me that Jews and Hindus are the worst enemies of Muslims who have been killing and oppressing them for long time so the killing of Hindus and Jews in Mumbai was just poetic justice. They told me that in India Muslims are constantly oppressed and treated like slaves by Hindus so why am I feeling sad at their killing in Mumbai. They said Jews are massacring Muslims so why am I sad that some Jews were killed in Mumbai.

They told me that America is trying its best to get Pakistani Muslims humiliated at the hands of Hindus, whereas these are the people who have hurt Muslims so much for so long. All of them are very well educated and professional people. I was shocked that they had so much venon against Jews and Hindus, and they were drawing some satisfaction from the killing of Jews and Hindus in Mumbai.

In fact these Pakistani Muslims asked me that among Hindus I should defend Pakistan against the false American/Indian charges of harboring terrorists in their country.

In the American Muslim political scene Pakistanis are dominant. Now you can imagine how their strong bias against Jews and Hindus hurts the efforts of the American-Muslim community in trying to get into mainsatream US political secene.

XX

Mumbai terror: Jews get killed, but Muslims feel vulnerable! — must read

Jews get killed, but Muslims feel vulnerable
By MARK STEYN
Syndicated columnist
Friday Dec 5, 2008

Shortly after the London Tube bombings in 2005, a reader of Tim Blair, The Sydney Daily Telegraph’s columnist wag, sent him a note-perfect parody of a typical newspaper headline:

“British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow’s Train Bombing.”

Indeed. And so it goes. This time round – Mumbai – it was the Associated Press that filed a story about how Muslims “found themselves on the defensive once again about bloodshed linked to their religion”.

Oh, I don’t know about that. In fact, you’d be hard pressed from most news reports to figure out the bloodshed was “linked” to any religion, least of all one beginning with “I-” and ending in “-slam.” In the three years since those British bombings, the media have more or less entirely abandoned the offending formulations – “Islamic terrorists,” “Muslim extremists” – and by the time of the assault on Mumbai found it easier just to call the alleged perpetrators “militants” or “gunmen” or “teenage gunmen,” as in the opening line of this report in The Australian: “An Adelaide woman in India for her wedding is lucky to be alive after teenage gunmen ran amok.”

Kids today, eh? Always running amok in an aimless fashion.

The veteran British TV anchor Jon Snow, on the other hand, opted for the more cryptic locution “practitioners.” “Practitioners” of what, exactly?

Hard to say. And getting harder. For the Wall Street Journal, Tom Gross produced a jaw-dropping round-up of Mumbai media coverage: The discovery that, for the first time in an Indian terrorist atrocity, Jews had been attacked, tortured and killed produced from the New York Times a serene befuddlement: “It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene.”

Hmm. Greater Mumbai forms one of the world’s five biggest cities. It has a population of nearly 20 million. But only one Jewish center, located in a building that gives no external clue as to the bounty waiting therein. An “accidental hostage scene” that one of the “practitioners” just happened to stumble upon? “I must be the luckiest jihadist in town. What are the odds?”

Meanwhile, the New Age guru Deepak Chopra laid all the blame on American foreign policy for “going after the wrong people” and inflaming moderates, and “that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster” in Mumbai.

Really? The inflammation just “appears”? Like a bad pimple? The “fairer” we get to the, ah, inflamed militant practitioners, the unfairer we get to everyone else. At the Chabad House, the murdered Jews were described in almost all the Western media as “ultra-Orthodox,” “ultra-” in this instance being less a term of theological precision than a generalized code for “strange, weird people, nothing against them personally, but they probably shouldn’t have been over there in the first place.”

Are they stranger or weirder than their killers? Two “inflamed moderates” entered the Chabad House, shouted “Allahu Akbar!,” tortured the Jews and murdered them, including the young rabbi’s pregnant wife. Their 2-year-old child escaped because of a quick-witted (non-Jewish) nanny who hid in a closet and then, risking being mowed down by machine-gun fire, ran with him to safety.

The Times was being silly in suggesting this was just an “accidental” hostage opportunity – and not just because, when Muslim terrorists capture Jews, it’s not a hostage situation, it’s a mass murder-in-waiting. The sole surviving “militant” revealed that the Jewish center had been targeted a year in advance. The 28-year-old rabbi was Gavriel Holtzberg. His pregnant wife was Rivka Holtzberg. Their orphaned son is Moshe Holtzberg, and his brave nanny is Sandra Samuels. Remember their names, not because they’re any more important than the Indians, Britons and Americans targeted in the attack, but because they are an especially revealing glimpse into the pathologies of the perpetrators.

In a well-planned attack on iconic Mumbai landmarks symbolizing great power and wealth, the “militants” nevertheless found time to divert 20 percent of their manpower to torturing and killing a handful of obscure Jews helping the city’s poor in a nondescript building. If they were just “teenage gunmen” or “militants” in the cause of Kashmir, engaged in a more or less conventional territorial dispute with India, why kill the only rabbi in Mumbai? Dennis Prager got to the absurdity of it when he invited his readers to imagine Basque separatists attacking Madrid: “Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous.”

And yet we take it for granted that Pakistani “militants” in a long-running border dispute with India would take time out of their hectic schedule to kill Jews. In going to ever more baroque lengths to avoid saying “Islamic” or “Muslim” or “terrorist,” we have somehow managed to internalize the pathologies of these men.

We are enjoined to be “understanding,” and we’re doing our best. A Minnesotan suicide bomber (now there’s a phrase) originally from Somalia returned to the old country and blew up himself and 29 other people last October. His family prevailed upon your government to have his parts (or as many of them as could be sifted from the debris) returned to the United States at taxpayer expense and buried in Burnsville Cemetery. Well, hey, in the current climate, what’s the big deal about a federal bailout of jihad operational expenses? If that’s not “too big to fail,” what is?

Last week, a Canadian critic reprimanded me for failing to understand that Muslims feel “vulnerable.” Au contraire, they project tremendous cultural confidence, as well they might: They’re the world’s fastest-growing population. A prominent British Muslim announced the other day that, when the United Kingdom becomes a Muslim state, non-Muslims will be required to wear insignia identifying them as infidels. If he’s feeling “vulnerable,” he’s doing a terrific job of covering it up.

We are told that the “vast majority” of the 1.6 billion to 1.8 billion Muslims (in Deepak Chopra’s estimate) are “moderate.” Maybe so, but they’re also quiet. And, as the AIDS activists used to say, “Silence=Acceptance.” It equals acceptance of the things done in the name of their faith. Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush’s foreign policy. He was murdered in the name of Islam – “Allahu Akbar.”

I wrote in my book, “America Alone,” that “reforming” Islam is something only Muslims can do. But they show very little sign of being interested in doing it, and the rest of us are inclined to accept that. Spread a rumor that a Quran got flushed down the can at Gitmo, and there’ll be rioting throughout the Muslim world. Publish some dull cartoons in a minor Danish newspaper, and there’ll be protests around the planet. But slaughter the young pregnant wife of a rabbi in Mumbai in the name of Allah, and that’s just business as usual. And, if it is somehow “understandable” that for the first time in history it’s no longer safe for a Jew to live in India, then we are greasing the skids for a very slippery slope. Muslims, the AP headline informs us, “worry about image.” Not enough.

©MARK STEYN

Video: Pakistan TV channel says Mumbai terror hatched by Hindu Zionists — must read,watch

Must Watch the video here

Pak TV channel says 26/11 hatched by Hindu Zionists
2 Dec 2008, 2216 hrs IST, Nandita Sengupta, TNN

NEW DELHI: Mumbai’s 26/11 was actually a plan hatched by “Hindu Zionists” and “Western Zionists”, including the Mossad, said a self-styled Pakistan
security expert on a Pakistan news television show, uploaded on http://www.hotklix.com.

” Inki shaklein Hinduonwali hain, jis zabaan mein guftagoo kar rahein hain, woh zabaan koi Pakistani istemaal nahin karta hai (They look like Hindus. No Pakistani speaks the language they chatted in),” said Zaid Hamid while referring to the terrorists on the show Mujhe Ikhtilaf Hai (I differ) on Pakistan’s News One channel. The sensationalist channel was launched in November last year.

Hamid said that it was a “badly planned” operation that had gone horribly wrong. “9/11 jo Americans ne kiya tha usko bahut khoobsurat camouflage kiya tha. Unhone media mein perception management bahut acchha kiya . Indians ne wahi game repeat karne ki koshish ki, lekin akal to hai nahin . In ahmakon ne complete disaster kiya isko handle karne mein . (The Americans executed the 9/11 attack perfectly. They managed the media very well. The Indians tried to repeat the formula but goofed up. The idiots made a complete mess of it).

He said that the attackers wore saffron Hindu Zionist bands, which no Muslim would tie. Hamid also said that within the first 5 minutes of the attack, the three ATS policemen investigating the network of terror within India’s security agencies and radical right were killed.

That ensured that those investigations reach a dead end. Anchor Qudsia Qadri added that with their killings, the investigations into the Samjhauta Express carnage would be halted. The killings also immediately shifted attention from India’s domestic terrorists to Pakistan, said Hamid.

Marvi Memon, glamorous Pakistan Muslim League member, on the same programme, was appalled at the Pakistan government’s expansion of the “India-appeasement package” by initially agreeing to send ISI chief to India. “I just don’t get it,” she exclaimed in exasperation.

She wondered how can you send the ISI chief to a ” mulk jiske sath jang chal raha hai …at a different level…,” mentioning Kashmir and accusing India of blocking Pakistan’s waters. Memon said, “They (Indians) are quite obsessed with anti-Pakistan speak and that unites them,” she said. Memon also spoke about India’s separatist movements and believed that India was only reaping the bitter harvest of the poisonous seeds it had sowed.

Blogger daily.pk writes in pakalert.wordpress.com, “India has been relapsing into religious extremism and numerous separatist movement have mushroomed due to official patronage …I see the Mumbai bombings as the desperate move of separatists who want to blame everything on Muslims.”

It’s not only random voices railing against fingers pointing to Pakistan. Blogger and journalist Farrukh Khan Pitafi is miffed. “For years I have been advocating peace between India and Pakistan,” he wrote. But he, too, says that India was out of its mind in naming Pakistan as the source of violence without identification of the perpetrators.

He wrote: “During such a long coverage of the mishap not a single outlet pointed out that Hemant Karkare… was the same man whose dismissal was Narendra Modi’s biggest demand. Or that he was the man on the verge of uncovering the home-grown terror franchise of the Hindu extremists. No channel mentioned Colonel Purohit once during the live telecast, no not even CNN, BBC or CBS. It is sad.”

Islamic terror in Mumbai: What can India learn from Israel? – must read

The Region: India and Israel: The parallels
Nov 30, 2008 20:27 | Updated Dec 2, 2008
By BARRY RUBIN

For years, India has been subjected to periodic terrorist attacks throughout the country. But what happened in Mumbai is something new and different: a full-scale terrorist war.

This is the kind of threat and problem Israel has been facing for decades. What are the lessons for India from Israel’s experience?

First, India needs and has the right to expect international sympathy and help. It will get sympathy but will it get help? Once it is clear that other countries must actually do something, incur some costs, possibly take some risks, everything changes.

If the terrorists came from bases or training camps in Pakistan, India would want international action to be taken. Pakistan must be pressured to close such camps, stop helping terrorists and provide information possessed by Pakistani intelligence agencies.

But will Western countries make a real effort? Are they going to impose sanctions on Pakistan or even denounce it? Will they make public the results of their own investigations about responsibility for the terror campaign against India?

NOT LIKELY. After all, such acts would cost them money and involve potential risks, perhaps even of the terrorists targeting them. Moreover, they need Pakistan, especially to cooperate on keeping down other Islamist terrorist threats, not spread around nuclear weapons technology too much and cooperate on maintaining some stability in Afghanistan.

This parallels Israel’s situation with Syria, Lebanon and Iran. For decades, the US and some European countries have talked to the Syrian government about closing down terrorist headquarters in Damascus. The Syrians merely say no (though sometimes they have just lied and said the offices were closed). The US even did impose some sanctions. But by being intransigent, pretending moderation and hinting help on other issues, Syria has gotten out of its isolation.

So, despite all the pious talk about fighting terrorism, in real terms, India – like Israel – is largely on its own in defending itself from terrorism.

ANOTHER PROBLEM India faces, like Israel in the case of Lebanon, is that it is dealing with a country that lacks an effective government. Pakistan is in real terms a state of anarchy. Even within the intelligence apparatus, factions simply do as they please in inciting terrorism. Given popular opinion and Pakistan’s Islamic framework, even a well-intentioned government would be hard put to crack down.

In Israel’s case, the whole rationale for regimes such as those in Iran and Syria is radical ideology. So pervasive is the daily supply of lies and incitement to hatred that popular opinion supports the most murderous terrorism. Murder of Israeli civilians brings celebrations in the Arab world. Appeals to law and order, holding governments responsible for their actions, shaming them or going over their heads to turn to the masses on humanitarian grounds simply don’t work.

So what’s a country to do? It might consider cross-border raids against terrorist camps or retaliation to pressure the terrorist sponsor to desist. Sometimes it will actually take such action. But can India depend on international support for such self-defense measures or will it then be labeled an aggressor? How much is India willing to risk war with Pakistan even though it has a legitimate casus belli due to covert aggression against it by that neighbor country? And let’s not forget that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, a situation which Israel may soon face in regard to Iran.

Now we can see the logic of terrorism as a strategy by radical groups and countries pursuing aggression by covert means. Their victims are not only put on the defensive but have to make tough decisions about self-defense.

FINALLY, THERE is the dangerous “root cause” argument. Many Western intellectuals and journalists – as well as some governments – are ready to blame the victim of terrorism. In Israel’s case, despite desperate efforts to promote peace – concessions, territorial withdrawals and the offer of a Palestinian state – it is said to be the villain for not giving the Palestinians enough.

The terrorists and their sponsors use this situation to their advantage. By being intransigent – demanding so much and offering so little – they keep the conflict going and are able to pose as victims simultaneously.

Will some suggest that if India merely gives up Kashmir and makes various concessions, the problem will go away? This might not happen but it is worth keeping an eye on such a trend.

The Indian government is thus going to have some very tough decisions to make. How will it mobilize real international strategic support and not just expressions of sympathy for the deaths and destruction? How can it destroy terrorist groups, including installations outside its borders, and deter their sponsors?

Israel’s experience offers some lessons: Depend on yourself, be willing to face unfair criticism to engage in self-defense, take counterterrorism very seriously, mobilize your citizens as an active warning system and decide when and where to retaliate.

Defending yourself against terrorism is not easy. Unfortunately, even in an era of “war against terrorism” those truly willing to help in the battle are few and far between.

Since radical Islamists really believe their own propaganda, however, they tend to minimize their allies and maximize their enemies. You don’t want to make 900 million Hindus and additional other Indians, in South Asia and elsewhere, mad at you. There are about as many Hindus and Sikhs as there are Muslims and, as one Indian reader put it, “There is a Hindi saying: One and one makes 11. It is time for India and Israel to become allies. It is a jihad we are both facing.”

The writer is director of Global Research in International Affairs Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal.

http://www.gloriacenter.org

Savage attack on Nariman House due to hatred of Jews

‘Hatred of Jews spurred Nariman House attack’

Sunday, 30 November , 2008, 19:58

New Delhi: Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday said the hatred of Jews spurred the terrorist attack at Mumbai’s Nariman House, home to a Jewish organisation, and vowed to step up cooperation with Indian intelligence agencies to avert such strikes.

The Israeli leadership and sections of the Israeli media, however, criticised India for its handling of the hostage crisis in the aftermath of the November 26 strikes that killed at least 183 people, including nine Jews.

“The hatred of Jews, the state of Israel and Jewish symbols are still a factor that spurs and encourages such murderous acts,” Olmert said in a statement widely quoted in the Israeli media. He stressed that the images from the Chabad House, also called the Nariman House in south Mumbai, including pictures of the murdered victims wrapped in prayer shawls, “are shocking and take us back to events that we pray never recur”.

Israel would work together with Indian authorities and “would be happy to provide any and all information or specific assistance that we might be asked to give,” Olmert said.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, however, was critical of India’s refusal to accept Israeli assistance in ending the hostage crisis at the Nariman House and two luxury hotels nearby. “All in all, it was a difficult spectacle,” Barak was quoted as saying by the Internet edition of the Haaretz newspaper. “I’m not sure it had to last three days, but that’s what happened,” he said.

Top Israeli officials, quoted by Israeli dailies, said Israel had offered all manner of help to India, including assistance, but India said “a polite no” to the Israeli offer. Danny Yatom, a former head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad, said the attacks revealed major lapses in Indian intelligence as they “involved dozens of terrorists enjoying the support of numerous sympathisers”.

“It is vital that the Indian security services draw the necessary lessons,” Yatom told public radio.

Nitzan Nurieli, the head of Israel’s counter-terrorism department, said: “We have to acknowledge that in the Mumbai case our intelligence services did not have adequate advance knowledge and nor did the Indian security services.” He also urged Israeli tourists to avoid travel to northern India.

The Israeli foreign ministry said on Saturday that nine people – most Israelis, some dual citizens but all of them Jews – were killed in a terrorist attack on the Chabad house, one of 10 sites hit by terrorists in a string of coordinated attacks that left at least 183 people dead and hundreds wounded.

Six of the victims have been identified. The bodies of 29-year-old Gavriel Holtzberg, an Israeli-born American rabbi, and his wife Rivka, 28, who lived in the Nariman House would be buried on Monday, a Chabad spokesman told the Haaretz.

The Haaretz reported that an Israel Air Force plane carrying medical and forensic experts had already landed in Mumbai on Sunday to help in the identification of the remaining victims.

IB denies failure on its part | Special: Mumbai terror attack

The Jerusalem Post expressed solidarity with the Indian victims of the Mumbai terror attacks, but singled out “the murders of our compatriots and coreligionists” which has outraged Israel. The Post also reinforced the view that the Jews were specifically targeted by terrorists. “There will be time to reflect on each individual life that was taken. But even now, one thing is plain: Those killed at the Chabad House were murdered because they were Jewish or Israeli,” it said.

“All that really mattered was that they were living representatives of Jewish civilization,” the daily said. “This time the assault came in India, next time it will come somewhere else. The enemy is Islamic extremism,” the Post said. “Its immediate goal is to vanquish – by any means necessary – Western symbols and values from those parts of the world it claims as Muslim,” the daily added.