Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Robert Spencer at Dhimmi Watch reports that Muslim members of the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights in Geneva disrupted a speech by David Littman (Bat Ye'or's husband, by the way) in which Littman was attempting, in the name of three international NGO's to get the commission to condemn killing in the name of religion. Littman was unable to complete the speech.
I have included the press release in the extended entry.
(Someone should tell The Day's editorial staff.)
IHEU today attempted to call on the United Nations to condemn
killing in the name of religion, but were prevented from doing so by the heavy-handed intervention of Islamic representatives. The IHEU call, at today's meeting of the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, follows moves by Islamic clerics to legitimise the current wave of terror attacks.
At this afternoon's meeting, IHEU representative David Littman attempted to deliver a prepared text in the joint names of three international NGOs: the Association for World Education, the Association of World Citizens, and IHEU, but was prevented from doing so by the intervention of Islamic members of the Sub-Commission. After repeated interruptions he was unable to complete his speech.
The Islamic members of the Sub-Commission objected to the speech as an
attack on Islam. The text however is a report on recent critical comment on Islamist extremism by a number of notable Muslim writers and is a call to the UN Human Rights Commission by the NGOs "to condemn calls to kill, to terrorise or to use violence in the name of God or any religion".
The text referred to recent decisions by high-ranking Muslim clerics
confirming that those who carry out suicide bombings cannot be treated as apostates and remain Muslims(1), a fatwa by a Saudi cleric that innocent Britons were a legitimate target for terrorist action(2), and remarks by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, dean of the College of Sharia and Islamic Studies at Qatar University who has visited Britain, that terror attacks are permissible.
Commenting on this censorship, Roy Brown, President of IHEU said:
"This is part and parcel of the refusal by the Islamic representatives at the UN to condemn the suicide bombers, or to accept any criticism of those who kill innocent people in the name of God.
These actions follow the refusal of the Islamic states at the meeting of the Commission in April to condemn those who kill in the name of religion, and to categorise their attempts to criticise Islamic terrorists as "defamation of religion".
"It is high time", Mr Brown insisted "that the Islamic States at the UN recognised that the suicide bombers are acting in the name of their
religion, and to unequivocally condemn their actions."
The Day still hasn't published a single letter pointing out out the errors in Fouda's column. They do, however, keep printing letters urging them to continue to publish anti-Israel commentary.
Published on 7/27/2005
Letters To The Editor:
With all the misinformation in our newspapers and TV screens, it was refreshing to read the op-ed piece by Hassan Fouda titled “The real double standard on Islam,†published July 24.
I hope The Day will heed Mr. Fouda's advice and hire regular columnists who do not have pro-Israel and anti-Muslim agendas.
John Villano
New London
Is there some agenda with that paper? Do they have a particular market they're pandering to?
Why is it that the assumption among the hysterically anti-Israel seems to be that anything else is the product of bias and a media conspiracy? I'm seriously asking -- because I've gotten that reaction. (i.e. that European news sources are even handed while American news sources are biased toward Israel -- when I hear European news sources often distort facts on the issue. For example, the characterization of Arafat as a peacemaker because of the land for peace formula. This is not the formula of someone who wants peace; it says, quite literally, you give me the land that I want, and I'll let you have the peace that you want. If that were believable, it might be an OK deal -- but it still wouldn't make Arafat a man of peace.)
I don't know why The Day has this agenda; I do know that it has a terrible track record. Al-Awda is not a respectable organization. It advocates the violent destruction of Israel "by any means necessary" and applauds suicide bombers. Yet the Day regularly prints op-eds and letters to the editor by its leaders.
Al Awda is supported by several Congregational and Episcopal Churches in the area, but the area overall is not all that liberal. There are all those Navy (Groton sub base) and Coast Guard Academy men and women, and the district often goes Republican.
At a guess, the editor, Gary Ferrugia, is on the left-wing Israel-is-a-colonial-racist-state page. He stays carefully off the record, but he publishes more outright anti-Semitic propaganda on his op-ed page than any other American daily with which I am familiar.
In answer to Will Spotts question, the far left is best conceptualized as anti-capitalist. It views America and Great Britain not as the children of 1,000 years of parliamentary government and civil liberties, not as free societies that have produced the greatest degree of personal liberty and of personal well-being and wealth in the history of the world. The left views America and Britain as monstrous incarnations of racism and imperialism, as societies that oppress non-Westerners and, worst of all, as societies that owe our wealth not to good fortune, hard work, and the diligent efforts of our parents, but to the cruel exploitation and expropration of resources that belong to others.
In this formulation, we do not live in comfort because our ancestors invented internal combustian engines and because our fathers went to engineering college to learn how to build and maintian an industrial infrastructure; we live in comfort because we steal oil from oppressed third world peoples.
Arafat, by this formulation, is a member of one of the oppressed peoples of the world. The details do not matter so much as the greater truth that America and Europe unjustly exploit these oppressed peoples. Because Arafat is one of the oppressed, he is by definition the one that has been wronged, stolen from, and is owed reparation.
Even if a middle class Presbyterian in Louisville has lived a blameless life and stiven to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with his God, he is to be numbered among the guilty oppressors.
Even if a Palestinian has stolen, lied, and committed mass murder (as Arafat did) he is among the unjustly oppressed and is to be excused for his crimes. They are not is fault, they are to be laid at the doors of those who oppressed him.
The irresponsible left, men like Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick and Rev. Rich Ufford-Chase, really do see the world this way. Would you shake hands with an unrepentant mass-murderer? At least one recentModerator of the Presbyterian Church USA has done so.
What follows form all this is that anything that contravenes these assumptions about who is to blame and who is to be indulged in even Arafat level of evil-doing, is that the media are in thrall to their greedy capitalist owners, who supress the "truth." anything favorable to Israel is, of course, seen as the rpoduct of this media conspiracy to promote capitalism, imperialism, and European rascism.
Thanks Anna for that response. I have been unable to identify a single factor in this phenomenon in the Presbyterian Church (and other Christian denominations), but anti-capitalism does characterize a lot of the public stances of the leadership of these denominations -- so that rationale makes sense.
Other ideas that also seem to come up are:
That it is a product of an internal debate within Christian denominations between liberals and conservatives / moderates -- so that the views of conservatives and moderates are rejected out of hand. (In this case moderates and conservatives tend to be fairly supportive of Israel. Some of the materials prepared for consumption by Presbyterians are attacks on conservative and moderate views.)
That it is a product of anti-Semitism rather than any actual honest analysis. I can't rule this out as many of the statements do have strong anti-Jewish elements.
That it is the result of a few activists who have acquired disproportional influence in the bureaucracy of the church.
That initiatives like divestment were initiated by people who meant well, but who were so out of their depth in their desperation to appear relevant that they grossly erred and became propaganda tools for those seeking the destruction of Israel.
I don't know which of these, or which combination of them is the case. It is apparent, though, that in the PC(USA), the UCC, the DOC, the UMC, the ELCA -- that there were procedural irregularities on issues related to Israel, that there was great internal dishonesty (i.e. biased presentation of facts), that it is not a natural outgrowth of the views of ordinary members. It remains to be seen whether the members of these denominations will react, and if so whether they will be able to accomplish any change.
Will, I am sure that there is a combination of factors. the ones you list are certainly powerful
with the leftish parishes of mainline churches in particular, however, I think it is important to note two things.
first, the frustration an individual must feel about devoting a professional life to an institution and an ideology that attracts fewer parishoners and has less importance in the world with every passing year. I remember one communication - I think it was from Kirkpatrick - in the early weeks after the GA divestment vote that said, and I paraphrase form memory, something to the effect of : Wow! look at all the headlines we're making! They're really paying attention to us now!
This, of course, missed the important distinction between being famous and being infamous. Desperation to be noticed, to be important in the world, can drive men like Kirkpatrick to support bad ideas - like divestment.
The second thing is that, sadly, while the more evangelical churches continue to attract some of their finest youth to the pulpit, the mainline churches do not. For over a generation now the seminaries of the mainline churches have become the resort of the second-rate minds of our youth. Really. The brightest kids who grow in Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches go to law school, pursue the PhD, and more often than not, leave the church altogether. This is pretty blunt speaking, but for decades now, prabably since the fifties, the PCUSA has filling its pulpits and its head office with second rate minds until we see a Church led by the likes of Rev. Ufford-Chase, a sad comedown indeed from the days of Jonathan Edwards and John Witherspoon.
With so many of the jobs held by such dim bulbs, it would be foolish to expect much light.