Statement from the Canadian Coalition for Democracies

Toronto, Canada - Sunday, March 12, 2006 - Nathan Sharansky argued in this book, The Case for Democracy, that we need leaders with the moral clarity to see evil. March 10, 2006 may prove to be the day in which Canada moved from being a follower of the world’s tyrants and appeasers to a principled leader at the United Nations.

On the first of this year’s many anti-Israel resolutions that will be tabled at various UN forums, Canada shifted its vote at the UN Economic and Social Council from ‘abstain’ to ‘no’, standing against a tide of 41 out of 43 representatives on that forum who voted to censure Israel.

As Canada’s new government prepares to evaluate our foreign policy, many are asking, “How should Canada vote on these anti-Israel resolutions?” Put simply, we at the Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD) are strongly urging Canada to vote ‘no’ on every anti-Israel resolution tabled at the UN, regardless of the resolution’s content and regardless of whether or not Israel deserves criticism.

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SMCCDI (Information Service)
March 11, 2006

The NITV satellite channel broadcasted, on Friday morning, footage of a demonstration, held in Tehran, by hundreds of women who were celebrating the “International Women’s Day”, and a brutal raid by the Islamic regime’s security agents to break up the rally. The broadcast of the footage, by the popular NITV, has shocked many non-political Iranians who have been astonished by the degree of the brutality used, by Islamists, against helpless women.

The gathering took place, on Wednesday March 8th, at the Tehran’s Laleh Park where tens of women, including Simin Behbahani - a famous female poet - were beaten by security agents.
http://daneshjoo.org/publishers/smccdinews/article_4525.shtml

Dozens of female protesters and their male supporters were arrested, as, they resisted attempts by the Islamist militiamen to disperse the demonstrators. Many of them have been reported as being transferred to the infamous Evin Political Jail located in north Tehran.

NITV’s satellite programs were interrupted few hours later and following financial problems that have created great concerns among many Iranians. Most of them are relying on this trusted network for a better understanding of the situation and the coordination of the civil actions and protest actions against the Islamic republic regime, such as, at the occasion of the banned “Tchahar-Shanbe Soori (Fire Feast) on March 14th.

The network’s management hopes to resume its satellite programming, from Monday, in case of collecting necessary financial support from individual donors.

NITV continues to broadcast, live, on the Internet (http://www.pamtv.us), but only 10% of Iranians, living inside, have access to the Internet. Many sites are blocked or controlled by the regime’s intelligence services.

The footage of the March 8th event were provided, to the network and others in abroad-based Iranian TV networks and opposition websites, by amateurs located inside and who used the www.zshare.net service on the Internet.

The footage can be seen by downloading them from the following links:

http://www.zshare.net/video/1-wmv-hjw.html
http://www.zshare.net/video/2-wmv-mf6.html
http://www.zshare.net/video/3-wmv-wwe.html
http://www.zshare.net/video/4-wmv-xwx.html

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

An American member of the Christian Peacemaker Team, Tom Fox, was found murdered in Iraq today. He was kidnapped by the Islamist-oriented group known as the Swords of Righteousness Brigades on November 26. Iraqi police reported that Fox had “gunshots to his head and chest and signs of torture on his body.” This incident begs the question: Do the Islamist terrorists respect all the appeasement offered them by leftist peace activists like Tom Fox? The answer is a categorical “no,” “non,” “nein,” “nyet,” “nr” — and “la” (Arabic).

After all that has happened, the Left still ignores the threat of Islamism, appeasing militant Muslims just as Chamberlain and Lindberg placated Hitler. The appeasers are sticking their heads in the sand not because of noble sentiments. In reality, they are afraid, very afraid, of being blown up, and their fear overwhelms all sense of rationality.

Tom Fox went to Iraq to grovel before Iraq’s ultra-violent Islamist “insurgents,” seeking to convince them to give up a “cause” that they have no intention of ever abandoning. Fox could have done a cursory review of the current state of Islamism using a Google search before going to Iraq, but he went anyway. One may argue that he was brave — not afraid — but he was, in truth, utterly misguided and foolish.

Islamists massacred 344 civilians — half of them children — in Beslan, North Ossetia. They killed 62 in Delhi, India; murdered 50+ in Turkey; and have killed tens of thousands in Indonesia, Algeria, and Nigeria. Al-Qaeda slaughtered 88 innocent Egyptians last July 23.

1,095 innocent Israelis have been killed by Palestinian terrorists since September 2000. Thirty-thousand Iraqis, mostly Muslim, have been slaughtered by Islamist terrorists since the country’s liberation.

9/11 (3000 dead). Madrid (200 dead). London (50 dead). Bali (200 dead). Amman (57 dead). Three-hundred trampled to death in this year�s Hajj; 1,426 killed in the 1990 Hajj; 251 in 2004; etc. Sudanese Muslims have slaughtered 180,000 black Africans. Kuwaitis ethnically cleansed 400,000 Palestinians in 1991.

The bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report determined:

But the enemy is not just “terrorism,” some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism — especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.

Before Fox was tortured and murdered by the people he fantasized as friends, he betrayed his white-guilt-inspired feelings:

It has become increasing evident to me that after stripping away all the rationales for the US invasion of Iraq, what is left is the reality that the current U.S. Administration felt compelled to invade from a basis of hate.

Note that Fox seemed unconcerned about Sunni/Wahabi/al-Qaeda Muslim hatred of Shiite Muslims. Iraq’s Islamist terrorists call Shiites the “idolatrous infidels, traitorous apostates, and those turncoat deviants” and “enemies of Islam.” 30,000 of Iraq’s Shiites have been killed by other Muslims for being the wrong type of… Muslims. There have been no leftist rallies to condemn this slaughter, only hand-wringing about whether Korans are being handled correctly at Gitmo.

So Fox went to Iraq to fight supposed American hate. But he ended up getting killed by people (Islamists) he presupposed as “victims” without hate, yet who are driven first and foremost by hatred. What an awful irony and what foolish appeasement.

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By Ted Belman, Israpundit

Proponents of withdrawal both before Gaza and now, argue that it will save money. They also argued that Israel will be more secure, but that’s another story.

Israeli acting PM Olmert has gone so far as to say that his party, Kadima, will no longer spend money on the settlements east of the fence (dividing the West Bank from Israel). In so doing he is reinforcing the message that the settlements and or the occupation are a financial burden, a waste of money that could be better spent on Israelis rather then settlers. Fair enough, but where is the proof? What are the facts?

On an issue as important as this, I would expect to see a study which compared the future expenditures if Israel did not withdraw or if it did. Not only is there not such a study, so far as I know, nobody is talking about it in an detailed way other then to simply declare money would be saved.

Kadima is saying it will maintain a military occupation of Yesha. Will this take more troops with the removal of settlements or less? Israel ran from such an occupation in Lebanon. Will it be able to remain in Yesha without the settlers?

An Israeli expert recently wrote to me

“The 1994 “disengagement” from Gaza quadrupled the number of security persons stationed in/around the Gaza area, but the public is uninformed about it. When you’re inside Gaza, you enhance intelligence, deterrence and operability, and therefore you can manage with fewer personnel. When you’re out of Gaza, you regress on all these accounts; hence you need to offset the damage by increased personnel/budget.”

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Slobodan Milosevic, the last “socialist” leader of Yugoslavia, was found dead today in his prison cell in The Hague. Good riddance. I only have 2 regrets: 1) Milosevic’s trial for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide will never be completed with him in attendance; and, 2) The Hague is very selective about who it goes after — we’ll probably never see trials to find justice for all the communist war criminals now hiding safely in and ruling Russia, for Sudanese Muslims slaughtering 180,000 black Africans, or for Kuwaitis ethnically cleansing 400,000 Palestinians.

Let’s not forget Milosevic’s legacy, after he became president of Serbia in 1990:

Serbia, with a population of 10 million, was the big kid on the block in Yugoslavia – the bully – just as Russians were in the old Soviet Union. Major Serbian bullying got under way in 1991 when the Slovenians declared independence from the Yugoslav federation. Yugoslav forces tried to quell the innate desire for independence, but failed, thank goodness. 100 people were needlessly killed. Slovenia is now free, and a charter member of both NATO and the EU. The Serbs didn’t want that. They wanted to dominate the Slovenes and siphon off their wealth and resources. Yugoslavia wanted to drag all the Balkans down to the lowest common denominator of “socialism” (e.g., centralized power and the enrichment of a chosen few like Slobodan Milosevic and his repulsive wife).

As the Yugoslav/Serbian bullies failed to demolish Slovenia, they turned their attentions to the Croats. Croats aren’t without sin. Some helped Hitler in WWII. No group is without sin, but Croats still deserve self-determination. Starting in 1991, the Yugoslav/Serb bullies tried to quell Croatia’s bid for independence. Both Serbs and Croats committed war crimes in the ensuing struggle, and are paying for their sins. But the Croats finally won their independence, thank goodness.

Not satisfied with trying to quell the autonomous urges of two nations, the Serbs turned their wrath against Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992, where they kicked their genocidal intentions into high gear. Serbs murdered 250,000 Bosnian citizens. The Serbs killed 7,000 Muslim boys and men in a single incident at Srebrenica. This isn’t conjecture. This is fact. A former Bosnian Serb army commander, Dragan Obrenovic, confessed to taking part in the massacre. Serbia-Montenegro’s president apologized (admitted guilt) to the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina for atrocities committed by Serbs during the 1992-1995 war. I admire his integrity for such a step. This proves not all Serbs are guilty of anything.

Failing to quell the free aspirations of a third nation, the Serbs turned their genocidal intentions against Kosovo in 1999. Serbian forces murdered between 5,000 and 12,000 Kosovo Albanians and deported 800,000. Only a sustained NATO bombing campaign, of course led by the U.S. over the objections of the European chicken-hearts, stopped the decade-long Serbian campaign of bullying.

Bye, bye, and good riddance, Slobodan.

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By Ted Belman, Israpundit

Prof Talia Einhorn writes

…under public international law, Israel is not obliged to accept or support the establishment of a sovereign Arab state west of the Jordan River.

But GERSHOM GORENBERG, in an NYT article, Israel’s Tragedy Foretold , wrote,

[..] (after the ‘67 war) The legal counsel of the Foreign Ministry, Theodor Meron, was asked whether international law allowed settlement in the newly conquered land. In a memo marked “Top Secret,” Mr. Meron wrote unequivocally, “My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

In the detailed opinion that accompanied that note, Mr. Meron explained that the Convention — to which Israel was a signatory — forbade an occupying power from moving part of its population to occupied territory. The Golan, taken from Syria, was “undoubtedly ‘occupied territory,’ ” he wrote.

Mr. Meron took note of Israel’s diplomatic argument that the West Bank was not “normal” occupied territory, because the land’s status was uncertain. The prewar border with Jordan had been a mere armistice line, and Jordan had annexed the West Bank unilaterally.

But he rejected that argument for two reasons.

The first was diplomatic: the international community would not accept it and would regard settlement as showing “intent to annex the West Bank to Israel.”
The second was legal, he wrote: “In truth, certain Israeli actions are inconsistent with the claim that the West Bank is not occupied territory.”
For instance, he noted, a military decree issued on the third day of the war in June said that military courts must apply the Geneva Conventions in the West Bank.

There is a subtext here. In treating the West Bank as occupied, Israel may simply have been recognizing legal reality. But doing so had practical import: if the land was occupied, the Arabs who lived there did not have to be integrated into the Israeli polity — in contrast to Arabs within Israel, who were citizens.

Eshkol and other Israeli leaders knew that granting citizenship to the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would quickly turn Israel into a binational state. In effect, the Meron memo told Eshkol: you cannot have it both ways. If the West Bank was “occupied” for the Arab population, then neither international law nor Israel’s democratic norms permitted settling Jews there.

Before accepting that opinion holus bolus one must read the opinion of Professor Talia Einhorn, Adjunct Professor of Law, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Management/Professor of Law, Sha’arei Mishpat College of Law, Hod Ha-Sharon, Israel; former Editor-in-Chief, as of 2003 member of the Advisory Board of European Business Organization Law Review (2000-). She published a contrarian opinion in Nativ, The Status of Palestine/Land of Israel and Its Settlement Under Public International Law

In 1967, following the Six Day War, the territories of Yesha, which had been originally designated for the Jewish national home according to the Mandate document, returned to Israeli rule. Leading international law scholars opined that Israel was in lawful control of Yesha, that no other state could show better title than Israel to Yesha’s territory, and that this territory was not “occupied” in the sense of the Geneva Convention, since those rules are designed to assure the reversion of the former legitimate sovereign which, in this case, does not exist.11 Israel was therefore entitled to declare that it has exercised its sovereign powers over Yesha. In practice, however, for political and other reasons, Israel exercised its sovereign powers only with respect to East Jerusalem. Regarding the rest of Yesha, Israel’s official position was that Israel was entitled to annex them, and that, since they had not been taken from a legitimate sovereign, the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Hague Regulations 1899/1907 were inapplicable there. Nonetheless, Israel chose voluntarily to observe and abide by the humanitarian provisions included therein.12

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Americans received great news on the employment front today (unless you’re one of those bond market ghouls who worry excessively about inflation). One Federal Reserve official believes the U.S. is at or near full employment. Translation: those looking for work are finding work. From CNNMoney:

Job growth picked up in February, topping forecasts on Wall Street, according to a government report Friday.

The economy generated 243,000 new jobs last month, up from a revised 170,000 in January, the Labor Department reported. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a gain of 210,000 jobs.

It marked the second best gain in U.S. payrolls over the last 12 months, trailing only November, when job growth bounced back after being depressed by the impact of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Here’s what the Fed is thinking, from FOXNews:

In December, Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said that while the jobless rate could drift a bit lower, he didn’t see a “major movement” ahead — adding that the then-5.0 percent unemployment rate was “consistent with a relatively full utilization of resources right now.”

In other words, the economy was pretty much at full employment, and wage pressures were on the horizon.

But some economists say that while the job market is tighter than a year ago, it’s still not inflationary.

Another translation: The Federal Reserve tries to regulate the U.S. money supply to prevent inflation, which is an increase in the prices of goods and services. Obviously (or not so obviously when hearing econo-speak), higher prices hurt citizens. So if everyone seeking work is finding work, companies may have to increase wages to competitively attract new workers from a smaller pool of available workers. If companies have to increase wages, they may pass this cost on to their customers in terms of higher prices. Then consumers have to pay higher prices, etc., etc. Inflation can become an awful, endless spiral — as in the 1970’s. I doubt we’re headed for anything like that.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

The BBC calls it a “test of the Netherlands’ tough new anti-terror legislation:”

A court has convicted nine Muslims of belonging to a terrorist group and planning to attack Dutch politicians. …

The complex legal ruling, which took five hours to deliver, said most of the accused were guilty of promoting a violent ideology.

“Anyone who preaches hate and violence lays the basis for committing crimes directed at instilling fear among the people and destroying Dutch democracy,” the ruling said.

“Threatening terrorist crimes strikes public order at its heart.”

We’ve yet to see if the Western World is truly committed to combating Islamism, but there are some positive signs.

Notes: Several of the convicts:

…worked together during a confrontation with police in November 2004, in which a hand grenade was thrown, injuring five officers.

One of those convicted, and the ring-leader, was none other than Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who savagely murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. Theo dared make a film about the mistreatment of women in Muslim societies.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Hey Osama Bin Laden, your niece, Wafah, is planning her own reality TV show. She doesn’t wear the veil, and is rather cosmopolitan. Osama, have you issued a fatwa? Will you blow up your own niece; slit her throat? From today’s FOXNews.com:

Call it “Growing up bin Laden.”

Wafah Dufour bin Ladin, niece of Usama, wants to be a reality-TV star and has inked a deal with powerhouse publisher/TV producer Judith Regan for a show.

Wafah, whose side of the family spells its surname with an “I,” became the second best-known bin Laden last year when The Post broke the story of her living in New York trying to be a pop star — and tracked her for months with features and gossip items about her life, family and aspirations.

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by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha
Middle East Quarterly*
Spring 2006
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3437
* Cross-posted with permission

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), headquartered in Washington, is perhaps the best-known and most controversial Muslim organization in North America. CAIR presents itself as an advocate for Muslims’ civil rights and the spokesman for American Muslims. “We are similar to a Muslim NAACP,” says its communications director, Ibrahim Hooper.[1] Its official mission — “to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding” — suggests nothing problematic.

Starting with a single office in 1994, CAIR now claims thirty-one affiliates, including a branch in Canada, with more steadily being added. In addition to its grand national headquarters in Washington, it has impressive offices in other cities; the New York office, for example, is housed in the 19-story Interchurch Center located on Manhattan’s Riverside Drive.

But there is another side to CAIR that has alarmed many people in positions to know. The Department of Homeland Security refuses to deal with it. Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat, New York) describes it as an organization “which we know has ties to terrorism.”[2] Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat, Illinois) observes that CAIR is “unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect.” Steven Pomerantz, the FBI’s former chief of counterterrorism, notes that “CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups.” The family of John P. O’Neill, Sr., the former FBI counterterrorism chief who perished at the World Trade Center, named CAIR in a lawsuit as having “been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism” responsible for the September 11 atrocities. Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson calls it “a radical fundamentalist front group for Hamas.”[3]

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Don’t worry everyone, Hollywood’s Sharon Stone “has offered to kiss ‘just about anybody’ if it ends conflict in the Middle East.” It was nice for her to visit Israel, all humor aside. From the BBC:

She told a press conference: “I would kiss just about anybody for peace in the Middle East.”

She also wants peace talks to include more women, saying women consider thoughts and feelings better than men. …

She also jokingly answered questions about whether she would appear naked her forthcoming film Basic Instinct 2 with a resounding “yes”.

Stone kissed former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who is a decent man, and certainly has honestly tried to bring peace to the region.

On the other hand, I wonder if she’ll go to the Palestinian territories and kiss members of Hamas, whose “founding charter commits the group to the destruction of Israel, the replacement of the PA with an Islamist state on the West Bank and Gaza, and to raise “the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.”

By Andrew L. Jaffee

Our children are subject to brainwashing — only if it is of the right, er, ah, Left kind. School teachers are on the march, trying to convince our sons and daughters that Bush is Hitler. But I doubt you’ll hear similar leftist brainwashing concerning the real evils in our world now, like those of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, or crimes committed in the name of “socialism.” From FOXNews.com:

In New Jersey, a high school teacher named Joseph Kyle decided it was time to hold a war crimes trial with President Bush as defendant. The principal approved the project.

A student played President Bush. He had a defense team. There were prosecutors. Five teachers sat as the “International Tribunal.”

The teachers union not only approved it but also thought the teacher was completely justified. …

Same thing with this geography teacher in Colorado. A student taped him giving his lecture, which posited the notion that Bush’s State of the Union address employed the rhetorical tactics of Hitler.

More from the The Sunday Times on the Colorado incident:

“Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say,” Jay Bennish told his class. “We’re the only ones who are right, everyone else is backward and our job is to conquer the world.”

Mr Bennish called the US “probably the single most violent nation on Earth”, saying that it had committed more than 7,000 “terrorist sabotage acts” against Cuba.

But why bother teaching students about communism’s murder of a 100 million people, or Castro’s execution and jailing of dissidents, or Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s urging that Israel be “wiped off the map,” denial that the Holocaust ever occurred, calling for Israel’s Jews to be moved to Europe (ethnically cleansed), and hosting a conference to “prove” that Hitler’s extermination of Jews (and gypsies and gays) was a “myth?”

Perhaps the Left is so eager to demonize Bush so as to deflect criticism from its own historical criminal history. Sorry for the psycho-babble, but my diagnosis is that leftists may be afflicted with what Freud called “projection.”

By Canadian Coalition for Democracies

TORONTO — Toronto residents will demonstrate at the city’s Danish consulate March 11 in support of freedom of expression.

Denmark’s interests around the world have been targeted for attack following the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.

Nav Purewal, an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, and Daniel Dale, an undergraduate at York University, organized the rally in response to what Purewal called a “grave affront” to the principles of pluralist democracy.

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SMCCDI (Information Service)
March 7, 2006

The Islamic regime has enforced its Cultural and Nationalistic Symbols’ Cleansing Policy and is increasing its repressive actions against Iranians who are intending to celebrate some of Iran’s cultural heritage and nationalistic symbols in the days ahead. The main targets are the “Tchahr-Shanbe Souri” (Fire Feast), on March 14th, the “Nowrooz” (meaning new day and which is the start of Persian New Year and the official beginning of spring), on March 20th, and the “Sizdeh-Bedar” (traditional Persian picnic marking the end of the Persian New Year’s celebration ceremonies) on April 1st.

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By Daniel Pipes
New York Sun*
March 7, 2006
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3436
* Cross-posted with permission

Michael Jackson, the king of pop, is “on the verge” of converting to Islam, CBS News reported last week. If that’s true, it fits into a recurring and important African-American pattern.

Rumors of Mr. Jackson’s conversion first surfaced in November 2003, a month after his arrest on child-molestation charges. Saeed Shabazz, a reporter for the Nation of Islam’s publication, The Final Call, announced that Mr. Jackson had joined the organization. He added that NoI’s leader, Louis Farrakhan, “sees a lot of spirituality in Michael.” But the Nation of Islam denied this connection and the topic quickly faded.

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