I'd like to see Prof. Pearl have a televised sit down meeting with Obama, Carter, and Pat Buchanan so we can all hear them explain what constitutes terrorism.
Posted on 02/03/2009 9:33:09 AM PST by Cinnamon Girl
(excerpt) Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance." Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I'd like to see Prof. Pearl have a televised sit down meeting with Obama, Carter, and Pat Buchanan so we can all hear them explain what constitutes terrorism.
Wonderful post - to lose a son this way is unimaginable. I am a UCLA grad and have never been excited about that claim (except for the hospital) until now. Surprised and gratified to know Prof Pearl teaches there. Husband and father are USNA grads and are constantly embarrassed by Carter who the Academy Alumni Asso slobbers over. Thanks again and God Bless the Pearl family.
He’s mistaken in his analysis, though. “Terror” is just a tactic. Even if they did not use terror, the Islamists would still be our enemies.
Daniel Pearl knew more than he has been given credit for knowing. And if people listened, we may not be where we are today.
Much-smuggled gem aids al-Qaida November 16, 2001
Excerpt:
KENYAN CONNECTION
Magyane, whose government title is regional mine officer, says some of the stones bought by the Muslim militants are smuggled through “rat routes” to the Kenyan city of Mombasa. That city is a stronghold of al-Qaida sympathizers and was a base for the 1998 embassy bombings.
Throughout the embassy-bomber trial this year in New York, several bin Laden associates or former ones, both state witnesses and defendants, referred to dealings in tanzanite in the mid-1990s. Testimony described how the stones moved through Kenya to Hong Kong via one of two al-Qaida companies, Tanzanite King or Black Giant, set up by defendant Wadih el Hage, a gem dealer and former personal secretary to bin Laden. El Hage is serving a life sentence for his role as the bombers’ financial facilitator.
Bin Laden supporters trading tanzanite today face no interference from Tanzanian authorities. “We have no proof they are involved in terrorist activities,” says the mining area’s regional governor, Daniel Ole Njoolay.
Adadi Rajabu, head of Tanzania’s counterterrorism police, adds that “before 1998, we never knew there were people smuggling gemstones on behalf of a terrorist group. But it is not an area we have looked at carefully. Most of our attention since 1998 has been focused on operatives who were likely to be engaged in activities like bombings, not business.”
Next Excerpt:
Al Qaeda operatives settled themselves into several communities along Kenya’s East Coast. In 2004, US Marine Brigadier General Martin Robeson, then commander of the regional US led antiterror task force based in Djibouti warned that hundreds of new Al Qaeda members had been recruited in Kenya, despite stepped up antiterrorism efforts. U.S. intelligence officials mentioned repeatedly, that apprehended suspects included members of Al Qaeda and Al Itihaad al Islamiya, considered the most powerful radical band in the Horn of Africa, which has been funded by Al Qaeda. Counter terrorist intelligence reports have identified the Dabaab refugee camp on the Somalia- Kenya border as a training ground for Islamic extremists, through a Muslim charity, called al Haramain, that sponsored religious schools and social programs
ping
ping
Very good question, huh?
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history. The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
Thank you for posting that. I’m struck by the resolve and clarity.
If you'd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
Jew-Hate at UCLA
By Eric Golub
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, February 02, 2009
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=A4C55979-6CF5-468B-9D95-E5B81AF19F28
A “Gaza and Human Rights” symposium hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)’s Center for Near Eastern Studies instructed attendees on how best to spread anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism.
Attendees advocated for many unrelated leftists, from Lenin to Che Guevara, while students were busy texting, Twittering, and checking Facebook.
Moderator Susan Slyomovics, the director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, offered typical leftist academic condescension.
“I have done extensive research on Israel and Palestine. After all, this is not Fox TV. This is UCLA.”
She must have meant the Fox News Channel, unless she was comparing her research abilities to Homer Simpson.
UCLA history professor Gabriel Piterberg followed. He described an “Israeli onslaught on Gaza Palestinians” and labeled IDF soldiers “war criminals.”
He alleged the “forced removal of the indigenous people in favor of the settler nation-state,” with Palestinians supposedly being the former and Israelis the latter.
He cited Karl Marx, referencing popular revolts in China and India and the Algerian struggle against France as examples of the proletariat overthrowing oppressors. Palestinians would rise up next, he predicted.
He repeated the debunked charge that Israel has killed Gazans using white phosphorous.
Lisa Hajjar, University of California, Santa Barbara Law and Society Program Chair, was up next. Considering her biases, Hajjar’s eloquence made her the most dangerous speaker.
She falsely claimed that “Israel violates the Fourth Geneva Convention.” Moreover, like al-Qaeda, the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to Palestinians. Neither are nations.
Israel was repeatedly labeled an “occupier” of “occupied territories,” the Gaza Strip and West Bank, when the proper terminology is “disputed territories.” The fact that Israel left Gaza in 2005 didn’t seem to register either.
She conceded, to the audience’s consternation, that, “War is permissible. Not all war is illegal,” and later, “Collateral damage alone is not necessarily a war violation.” Yet, she went on to state, “Civilians have a right to immunity. Intentionality is key.”
She repeated the lie that Israel deliberately targets civilians, as well as the white phosphorous falsehood. As she put it, “Israel should only target what’s necessary.”
“Denying food and water is inhumane. It’s a war crime” and Israelis, Hajjar added, “are war criminals.”
She concluded her nonsense about “proportionality” with the bizarre, irrelevant statement: “Dick Cheney is the enemy of all mankind.”
Next came Richard Falk, University of California, Santa Barbara Professor of Global and International Studies and 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Falk is the newly created UN “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories” and was recently denied entry into Israel for his biased and morally repugnant statements.
He declared Gaza an “unequal war,” as if Hamas’s ineptitude should be treated as the war equivalent of affirmative action.
He claimed Hamas initiated the Egyptian-mediated June 2008 cease-fire to avoid cross-border violence. He called the ineffectual cease-fire “a diplomatic initiative that would have ended the conflict.”
He seemed to think that because Hamas’s attempts to violate the cease-fire failed to murder Israelis, Israel had no retaliation rights.
Falk described Hamas’s daily firing of into Israel as “wrong, imprudent, and immoral,” but added that “the rockets did little damage, and were not a significant threat.”
He alleged “Israeli aggression against a defenseless society,” moments after justifying rockets.
Falk’s litany culminated with the outlandish statement: “America and Israel are most addicted to reliance on moral superiority. They practice genocidal geopolitics.”
UCLA English professor Saree Makdisi, who spoke last, peddled numerous fallacies.
He stated that “dropping ordinances is not okay,” neglecting to mention that Israel also drops evacuation warnings in order to save civilian lives.
He declared Gaza a “child prison” and said that, “the goal of Israel is to deliberately starve children.”
Makdisi later thundered, “If you want to stop rockets into Israel, Israel must end the occupation!”
Audience questions demonstrated a complete and utter disinterest in Gaza. “Democracy Now,” the “Leninist Workers Revolutionary United Party,” Dennis Kucinich, and even Kitty Dukakis were mentioned.
Ludicrous ramblings included the statements, “Iran needs nukes to protect itself against America and Israel,” and “Israel has violated norms of civilized behavior. Palestinian resistance is the non-violent alternative.”
I then calmly asked my question.
“When are any of you going to ask Palestinians to take personal responsibility for their own corruption and failures, and admit they’re entirely responsible for their own miserable lot in life by choosing suicide bombings and terror over protecting their own children?”
Lisa Hajjar replied that it’s pointless to argue about “who started it.” “Occupation was the issue. Oppressed people must fight oppressors.”
I interrupted her by asking, “What about suicide bombings?”
Forgetting the event was being filmed, Hajjar lost her cool and retorted, “If you think I favor suicide bombings, then that Zionist hat on your head is screwed on way too tight!”
I replied that my hat was a Fedora, not a Chasidic hat. An “educated” woman would know the difference, although her lack of knowledge about hats was secondary to her bigoted statement. I told her “Your comment was out of line, bigoted and racist.”
She acknowledged such comments hurt “her cause” from a public relations standpoint, employing the same tacit language used to describe suicide bombings as “not helpful.” She backed down, apologizing twice, yet reiterating that everything else she had said was justified.
The final incredulous moment came when Makdisi, asked to condemn Iran for supplying Hamas with weapons, claimed, “Hamas is a political group. I have no idea where they get their weapons.”
This symposium sent a pair of clear message: Hamas and the Palestinians are identical. The academics involved absolved them both while blaming Israel alone. They neither distinguished self-defense from murder, nor disavowed murder. No mention was made of Israel’s right to exist.
Luckily, the students on hand appeared to be more indoctrinated by Blackberry video games than the apologists for terrorism on the podium. Then again, those games also involve blowing stuff up.
My goodness. I never made the connection between Professor Pearl of probabilistic AI and the slain journalist. His indictment of the end-justifies-the-means approach of the terrorist sympathizers participating in public and academic discourse appears quite accurate.
See post 13
When Daniel z”l was kidnapped, Prof. Pearl was desperately trying to get everything taken off the web about himself and their family so that the captures wouldn’t know that Daniel was Jewish, and his parents Israeli.
How long before the majority of Americans are brainwashed by their professors into thinking like Jimmy Carter?
I had no idea about that, either. Professor Pearl has for so long been a leader in the probabilistic-reasoning field. I first began reading his work 20+ years ago, and was late to the game even then. It appears that he and the rest of his family have been embodying the values much of the rest of the world aspires to, or chooses, for whatever reason, to ignore.
Under a slab in the church floor lies the salted hide of a Venetian ambassador who was sent to negotiate with Islam, in an attempt to lift the siege of some Venetian city or other.
After the negotiation, the ambassador's salted hide was all that made it back to Christendom, with a note explaining that it was done while the ambassador was alive and that he withstood the final meeting with great bravery, and that of course his companions were butchered.
Islam in general, not "radical islam," or "Muslim Fanatics," simply needs a really sharp, Battle of Vienna, or Lepanto-type-smackdown every once in a while. They havent had one since the Balkan Wars of 1911-1913. The Worthy Oriental Gentlemen's lessons are past due.
While a few million of them are on Haj might be an excellent opportunity to administer the lesson. Awfully difficult to assume the Islamic "Monkey Mating with a Football" prayer pose and maintain a vigilant eye skywards at the same time.
Pardon these uncharitable and un-Christian thoughts as we go into Lent, I shall pray that we wrap up the Crusades once and for all, or at least buy us a century of Muslim-free peace in our own lands.
AMEN !!!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.