HOLOCAUST DAY MARRED BY 'RACIST' STONE-THROWING.
THE Holocaust Memorial Day marking the genocides of the 20th century was marred on Sunday when a gang of youths stoned Jewish tourists on a guided tour of London's East End. A group of 96 visitors looking at sites of Jewish interest were attacked by youths hiding behind a fence in a back street in Whitechapel.
Two were struck by the missiles, an American woman just starting a new post at London's Metropolitan University and a Canadian lecturer. The woman had blood pouring from her head and needed hospital treatment. The tour was organised by leading local historian Clive Bettington, who was later asked by police if he wanted officers to accompany him in future, but declined.
"That would be admitting there are 'no go' areas," he said. "I won't be intimidated. We have a right to walk our streets unmolested."
He has now written to Tower Hamlets chief executive Martin Smith for an urgent meeting... [] ...An eye-witness said: "Stones started to come down on us and some in the group were scared and ducked. "I looked over the fence and saw four Asian youths throwing stones. They were laughing, then ran away." The woman who was injured, a New Yorker now living in London, started her job running the IT department at the Met University the following day.
"It wasn't exactly a nice welcome to the East End," she said. "You're just so surprised standing in a large crowd like that being pelted with stones. I was shocked and didn't know what happened at first, then realised I was bleeding and knew I had been hit. My head was cut open."
She was treated at the Royal London Hospital and had to miss an inter-faith mdmorial service she was going to at the East London Central synagogue. Her friend, Canadian Eric Litwack was hit by a missile, but did not need stitches. He said: "It was obviously we were being targeted on a tour talking about Jewish history."
...
There was condemnation across the political spectrum at the multi-faith service at the synagogue later. The Mayor of Tower Hamlets blamed it on "narrow religious views" in the community. "It's horrifying this could happen in the East End in this day and age, on Holocaust Memorial Day of all days," Cllr Ann Jackson told the Advertiser. "We must mediate between the narrow religious views of some in the Bangladeshi community. [emphasis mine] There is narrow mindedness in all communities. Everyone must realise ours is a tolerant society."
"There is narrow-mindedness in all communities." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I guess some people just need to be nuked before they will finally realize they have been fuked.
It seems I may have been a tad too optimistic a few months ago when I gave a fairly optimistic assessment of the UK's Gordon Brown government. Take David Miliband e.g., Brown's Foreign Secretary. Since assuming the job he has blamed Israel for the 2006 war in Lebanon's south, suggested that the EU include also - as member states - Russia, Middle Eastern North African countries, and scoffed at the US's role as the backbone of NATO. The Higher Education minister, John Denham, is a blunt idiot who is of the opinion that Israel's policy makes the UK a target for terror and who resigned from the Blair government over the UK's participation in the liberation of Iraq. The Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN is Sir Mark Malloch Brown, a fiercely anti-American former UN official who downplayed the "Food for Oil" scandal and is Vice President of the Quantum Fund, an organization headed by George Soros.
But perhaps the prize for Prime Gaga Minister in Golden Brown's cabinet should go to Jacqui Smith, Britain's Home Secretary. Believe it or not, but halfway January this lady had the honour of announcing the UK's official renaming of muslim terrorism. According to Mrs. Smith, from now on islamic terrorism will be called "anti-islamic activities". The inimitable Mark Steyn, currently being prosecuted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission because the Canadian Islamic Congress launched human rights complaints against him for writing this "America Alone" exerpt, is his usual godlike self in "First They Came For Piglet":
My favorite headline of the year so far comes from The Daily Mail in Britain: "Government Renames Islamic Terrorism As 'Anti-Islamic Activity' To Woo Muslims."Her Majesty's Government is not alone in feeling it's not always helpful to link Islam and the, ah, various unpleasantnesses with suicide bombers and whatnot. Even in his cowboy Crusader heyday, President Bush liked to cool down the crowd with a lot of religion-of-peace stuff. But the British have now decided that kind of mealy-mouthed "respect" is no longer sufficient. So, henceforth, any terrorism perpetrated by persons of an Islamic persuasion will be designated "anti-Islamic activity." Britain's Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, unveiled the new brand name in a speech a few days ago. "There is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorize, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief," she told her audience. "Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic."
Well, yes, one sort of sees what she means. Killing thousands of people in Manhattan skyscrapers in the name of Islam does, among a certain narrow-minded type of person, give Islam a bad name, and thus could be said to be "anti-Islamic" — in the same way that the Luftwaffe raining down death and destruction on Londoners during the Blitz was an "anti-German activity." But I don't recall even Neville Chamberlain explaining, as if to a five-year old, that there is nothing German about the wish to terrorize and invade, and that this is entirely at odds with the core German values of sitting around eating huge sausages in beer gardens while wearing lederhosen.
Still, it should add a certain surreal quality to BBC news bulletins: "The Prime Minister today condemned the latest anti-Islamic activity as he picked through the rubble of Downing Street looking for his 2008 Wahhabi Community Outreach Award. In a related incident, the anti-Islamic activists who blew up Buckingham Palace have unfortunately caused the postponement of the Queen's annual Ramadan banquet."
Yeah well right, Anti-Islamic Activities huh. So, if I follow the good Home Secretary, with that stone-throwing at Jews on Holocaust Memorial Day we simply witnessed an Anti-Jewish Anti-Muslim Activity. That makes sense.
Not.
This is Outlaw Mike reporting for DowneastBlog from the European Loonybin, erm, Union.
MFBB.
With this letter I wish - also in my capacity as a Fortis client - to protest against the fact that you - presumably out of commercial interests - offer these sharia investment products to your clients. By selling these products, you legitimize the ideology of muslim fundamentalism, the ideology that strives for a society based on sharia law. The teachings of sharia are, by the way, fundamentally incompatible with our western values of democracy and rights and freedom. Sharia stands amongst others for an inhumane judicial system with corporal punishments, prosecution of other religions, female inferiority and a total rejection of whatever kind of distraction. By promoting these sharia investment funds, you simultaneously promote the rise of muslim fundamentalism and you seriously hamper efforts by moderate muslims who are willing to integrate and are themselves no advocates of sharia. Indeed, you foster the notion that one can only be a good muslim when one obeys sharia rules. In the meantime, I took the trouble to check out which islamic theologians have a seat in the 'Sharia Supervisory Board' which determines whether a share fulfills the requirements of the 'Dow Jones Islamic Index' (and thus also your Fortis-sharia investment fund). They are: Sheikh Nizam Yacubu from Bahrein, Sheikh Mohd Daud Baker from Malaysia, Sheikh Justice Muhammed Taqi Usmani from Pakistan, Sheikh Mohamed A. Elgari from Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah from Syria and Sheikh Yusuf Talal DeLorrenzo from the United States. Apparently you let fatwas from fundamentalists determine which shares you offer, by means of your investment funds, to your clients.