Free Republic

Kidnapped Fox reporters "convert to Islam" on video Sun Aug 27, 2006 5:20 AM EDT By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - Two kidnapped journalists for the American Fox News Channel appeared on a new videotape released by their captors on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, saying they had converted to Islam. Palestinian Interior Minister Saeed Seyam said efforts were under way to secure the release of Fox correspondent Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American, and New Zealand-born cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, within hours. Both journalists appeared to be in good health in the new video. They were seized on August 14...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Two FOX News journalists were released by their kidnappers Sunday, nearly two weeks after they were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip. Steve Centanni, 60, and Olaf Wiig, 36, left Gaza and have since crossed into Israel after their release. The men left Gaza through the Erez border crossing. The freeing of Centanni, a correspondent, and Wiig, a cameraman, ends the longest-running drama involving foreign hostages in Gaza. The two journalists were dropped off at Gaza City's Beach Hotel by Palestinian security officials and appeared to be in good health. A tearful Centanni embraced a...

Two Fox News journalists freed by militants Sunday described a harrowing two weeks of captivity during which they were blindfolded, tied in painful positions and forced at gunpoint to say on a video that they converted to Islam. After their release, the men met with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and left Gaza, but first appealed at a brief news conference for foreign journalists not to be deterred from covering the plight of the Palestinians in the volatile coastal strip. "I hope that this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover the story because the...

Islam enjoys a large and influential ally among the non-Muslims: A new generation of “Useful Idiots,” that Lenin identified as those who lived in liberal democracies and furthered the work of communism. This new generation of Useful Idiots also lives in liberal democracies but serves the cause of Islamofascism—another virulent form of totalitarian ideology. Useful Idiots are naïve, foolish, ignorant of facts, unrealistically idealistic, dreamers, willfully in denial or deceptive. They hail from the ranks of the chronically unhappy, the anarchists, the aspiring revolutionaries, the neurotics who are at war with life, the disaffected alienated from government, corporations, and just...

Heinrich Heine once wrote a clever poem titled "Marie Antoinette," in which the ghost of everyone's favorite French queen entertains her guests with "strictest etiquette." The irony of the poem is that neither Antoinette nor her guests realize that their heads are missing. They were all beheaded during the French Revolution, but without their heads, they don't have the brains to acknowledge their headlessness. Islam is currently in a similar situation. Muhammad's empire of faith has managed to thrive in the modern world for one simple reason: Muslims have kept Muhammad's dark past a secret. Indeed, they have gone beyond...

The differences between the sessions were striking. Clearly the second session was a recruiting session. Were the women aware of what was being taught in the first session? Certainly those women who spoke Arabic should have been. The reason for concern is obvious: Two different doctrines are being promoted. One peaceful, friendly, warm and fuzzy doctrine is being used to draw people in, with a focus on the well-being of their children. But the Arabic-speaking sessions clearly have an anti-American tone. It shows clearly that as much as we'd like to pretend it hasn't, jihad has reached Small-Town, USA. This...