British National Party Anti-Jihad News Bulletin w/c December 18, 2006
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1. PARENTS ANGERED AS PUPILS FORCED TO EAT HALAL MEAT

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news

Halal meat is being served to pupils in state schools without their knowledge, even if they believe the religious slaughter is cruel. Parents have reacted furiously after being sent letters telling them their children's school dinners have been all-halal for 'some time'. To conform with Jewish and Muslim religious tradition, animals are prepared for halal products by having their throats slit while conscious - a method many people believe is inhumane and which the RSPCA has condemned. The meat was introduced at four schools in the Reading area with a high proportion of Muslim pupils. But parents of non-Muslim pupils - between 20 and 50 per cent of the schools' roll -say they were not consulted. Coach driver Andrew Weston, 37, who has a son and daughter at St John's primary school, said: ‘We received a letter saying only halal meat was being served and had been for some time. I was shocked. ‘The way the animals are killed for this meat is barbaric and cruel. Our children should have a choice.’ Abdul Dean, ethnic minorities officer for the Christian Peoples Alliance, said: ‘Christian children should be given an equal chance to have non-halal meat. The school should have explained the situation to parents at the outset.’ Last month, a head teacher in Rotherham caused an outcry when she said she intended to replace traditional turkey with halal chicken to create an 'integrated Christmas'. Jan Charters, head of Oakwood School, backed down after complaints by MPs. A spokesperson for Reading Borough Council said: ‘The decision was taken several years ago. Schools thought it was the appropriate choice for their multi-cultural community. We are increasing options at the four schools by offering fish each day.’ The other schools where only halal meat is served are New Town, Oxford Road and Alfred Sutton primary schools. Earlier this year, an RSPCA pamphlet stated: ‘Muslim communities in the UK should review their slaughter practices. Research demonstrates that slaughter of any animal without stunning can cause unnecessary suffering.’

2. FAKE MUSLIM CHARITY FUNDS HAMAS TERRORISTS

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/global.php?id=491661

The US Treasury designated Interpal as a terrorist entity (Executive Order 13224) on August 23, 2003. The Treasury decided that the British-based charity, which purports to send money to alleviate poor social conditions amongst Palestinians, was a conduit for Hamas funding. Interpal was founded in 1994, as an offshoot of the Manchester-based Palestine and Lebanon Relief Fund (PLRF), which was run by Essem Yussuf (Essam Salih Mustafa Yussuf). The PLRF was forced to freeze its activities, as it was not registered with the British Charity Commission. Essem Yussuf relocated the charity to Kilburn, west London and legally registered it under its new name. Interpal or the ‘Palestinians Relief and Development Fund’ – registered charity number 1040094 - has been investigated twice by the Charity Commission. The first time was in 1996, at the request of Britain’s then home secretary, Michael Howard.

Another investigation took place in 2003, completed on September 6, 2003. Both investigations claimed Interpal had no links with supporting Hamas. When Interpal was first operating, its representatives appeared to admit that some of their funding sent to Palestinian charities went indirectly to Hamas. Essem Yussuf said in early 1996 that though no money went to Hamas, it was possible that Interpal funding went indirectly to families of Hamas activists. On August 7, 1997, the Guardian newspaper carried an interview with Ibrahim Brian Hewitt (pictured) of Interpal, who said it was possible that some of Interpal’s funds were invested for specific purposes in the PA-administered territories, which were pre-determined by Hamas. He justified this by claiming that Hamas’ social wing was separate from its military wing. According to the Center for Special Studies in Israel, Essem Yussuf also runs the Union of Good (‘I’tilaf al-Khayr) an umbrella organization of 56 so-called charities.

It began operations in October 2000, to channel money to Palestinians in need. However, it also channeled funds to the families of suicide bombers, via the charity Al-Tadhamun in Nablus. The official head of the Union of Good is the ‘spiritual leader’ of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Yussuf al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi has issued a fatwa declaring that it is permitted for Muslims (including women) to commit suicide attacks against Israel. Qaradawi has said of the Israel-Palestinian conflict: ‘We must plant the love of death and the love of martyrdom in the Islamic nation.’ When recently asked by BBC journalist John Ware if his Union of Good website supported Hamas, Essem Yussuf denied this, even though it carries an image of Sheikh Yassin on a page called the ‘al Yassin fund’. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as Gaza leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded Hamas in 1987. Yassin was killed by an Israeli target strike on March 22, 2004. John Ware produced an extraordinary documentary for the BBC’s Panorama strand, called ‘Faith, Hate and Charity’, exposing the links of Interpal to Hamas. Ware traveled to the PA territories to see where Interpal’s money had gone. Originally broadcast on July 30 2006, ‘Faith Hate and Charity’ can be viewed directly here, or from the BBC Website here. Ware’s findings were presented to Kenneth Dibble, of the UK Charity Commission.

As a result of Ware’s investigation, the Charity Commission is now deciding whether to mount its third investigation into the activities of Interpal. Ibrahim Hewitt is now the chairman of Interpal. A convert to Islam, he runs the Al-Aqsa Primary School in Leicester. He seems to compare the Israeli government’s attempts to protect its citizens to the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, in which at least 6 million Jews were killed. Last year, Muslim advisers to Britain’s government suggested that the Holocaust Memorial Day should be scrapped, because it ‘excluded Muslims’. Hewitt then said: ‘There are 500 Palestinian towns and villages that have been wiped out over the years. That’s pretty genocidal to me.’ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad employs such tactics in Iran as do other Muslim Holocaust deniers. When the Charity Commission conducted its 2003 inquiry into Interpal, it claimed ‘The US authorities were unable to provide evidence to support allegations made against Interpal within the agreed time scale.

The commission concluded that in the absence of any clear evidence showing Interpal had links to Hamas's political or violent militant activities, Interpal's bank accounts should be unfrozen and the inquiry closed.’ Despite this, the inquiry found that Interpal had received funds from the Al-Aqsa International Foundation, a group based in Germany, which is banned in Britain for its links to Hamas. The US Treasury designated Al Aqsa on May 29, 2003. The Telegraph stated that the commission was only handed ‘press-cuttings’, which were not considered as evidence. When the Charity Commission decided to unfreeze Interpal’s accounts, the move stunned US officials. At a Senate Hearing on September 25, 2003, David Aufhauser, General Counsel at the US Treasury, said: ‘What happened with Interpal in Britain is really quite chilling. This - these were the best of our friends.

If we cannot convince them to join us against one of the primary funders of Hamas, in the millions of dollars, within weeks after the designation by the EU of Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization, it gives you some taste of how difficult it is to get other, less friendly, nations to join us.’ The Charity Commission did not visit the Palestinian Territories to see how Interpal’s money was spent. Since then, information gathered by the Israelis under its ‘Defensive Shield’ operations of 2002 has become declassified. Many documents from Interpal are presented at the Center for Special Studies website, which clearly show donations being made to ‘charities’ in the Palestinian territories which support terrorism. These charities include the Bethlehem Orphan Care Society, founded in 1997, and outlawed by Israel in 2002. Run by Dr. Ghassan ‘Issa Mahmoud Harmass (Abu Tayib), a leading Hamas activist, this charity specifically gave support to the families of suicide bombers. Another Interpal-funded charity on the Center for Special Studies’ files is the Al-Islah Charitable Society. During Operation Defensive Shield, two documents were found in its Bethlehem office, showing that $33,800 was sent by Interpal to the Ramallah branch of Al-Islah. The money was sent via the City Bank, New York to the Al-Aqsa Islamic Bank in Ramallah. The transfer documentation was signed by Jamal Muhammad al-Tawil on January 23, 2001.

Tawil was a leading Hamas activist. Tawil was jailed for three years on November 9, 2003. He had admitted setting up the Ramallah bank account to provide a legal cover for illicit transfers of funds. He admitted that he provided financial aid for imprisoned Hamas members and their families and transferred funds to those in charge of Hamas’ terrorist-operative infrastructure in Ramallah. Another document found in Bethlehem relates that Al-Islah with assistance from Interpal organized donations of $100 to be given to the families of suicide-bombers as a special Eid al-Fitr gift. An Interpal-funded kindergarten for girls, the Al Khalil Al Rahman Girls' Society, has video of its pupils singing: ‘Give me the Kalashnikov if you are thinking of giving up the fight. For the sake of glory to religion we give our blood. Fasten your bomb belt oh would-be martyr and fill the square with blood so that we get back our homeland. We will sacrifice ourselves for our country. We answer your call and make of our skulls a ladder to your glory.. a ladder.. Rise with us to liberate Palestine through the path of the Islamic dawah. Whoever abandons the path of Muslims will live under humiliation and slavery.’ The Al Sharia Girls' School and Orphanage, run by the Islamic Charitable Society of Hebron (funded by Interpal) has flags of Hamas at its entrance.

When searched by the Israeli army in August 2004, a computer was retrieved. Its hard drive was filled with graphic promotional material, praising Hamas suicide bombers. The issues of Interpal’s funding of Hamas have not entirely gone away in the United States. The subject was brought up on April 27, 2005, at a hearing before the House of Representatives, on Islamic Extremism in Europe. Here, the 2003 inquiry by the UK Charities Commission was lambasted: ‘…the Charity Commission's failure to account for the plethora of open source evidence linking Interpal to Hamas was only half the problem. The Commission did not investigate whether Interpal funded Hamas charities or organizations, only whether Interpal was linked to the group's ''political or violent militant activities.'' Though Interpal’s leaders appear to be supporters of the ‘Islamic agenda’ as promoted by Hamas, they are quick to threaten lawsuits to silence any opposition. The Board of Deputies of British Jews suggested that Interpal was a ‘terrorist organization’ in an article it published in 2003 on its website. Rather than face the exacting costs of a High Court action, on December 17 last year it published an official apology, stating ‘We would like to make it clear that we should not have described Interpal in this way and we regret the upset and distress our item caused.’ The findings of John Ware appear to support the assertions made by the US Treasury - that Interpal sponsors charities that are fronts for Hamas. Ware stated that Interpal has funded the Abdul Nasser mosque in Ramallah, which he states is ‘quite obviously influenced by Hamas’. The mosque had a banner of the latest ‘martyrs’ hanging in front of it. At the Dura Islamic Society for Orphans near Hebron, Israelis found framed posters made by children that glorified local Hamas ‘martyrs’.

Appearing on Qaradawi’s Al Jazeera TV show in 2002, Interpal’s vice-chairman and founder Essem Yussuf said: ‘Greetings to the Sheikh of the Mujahideen… But my biggest salutation is to the Mujahideen, to the heroes of the Palestinian people who are sacrificing everything that is precious.’ Yussuf is also an associate of Yemeni citizen Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moyad. He met him in Yemen. Moyad was arrested in Frankfurt on January 10, 2003, and on November 16 he was extradited for trial in the US. The Federal Court of Brooklyn gave him a 75-year jail sentence for funding terrorism on July 28, 2005. Moyad had met with Bin Laden and provided over $20 million to al Qaeda. He had also funded Hamas. FBI surveillance film played at Moyad’s trial showed him in a Frankfurt hotel where he met with undercover FBI agents. Moyad was demonstrating how he could raise money for jihad. He had four receipts with him, one of which was from Interpal, for $70,000, ostensibly for benign purposes. On the surveillance video, Moyad stated; ‘This one, for instance, we deliver it to Hamas. This one we deliver it to the interior. This one we send it to the martyrs. But when we are in front of our government?’ He then laughed. The BBC investigation by John Ware triggered a surprised reaction from Kenneth Dibble of the Charity Commission when screened. However, since August 15, there has been no further move by the Commission to state whether or not it will investigate the damaging claims that Interpal is knowingly funding charities linked to Hamas. It is not enough for the Commission to say it is ‘looking into’ these issues.

Aaron Klein of WorldNet Daily wrote that a security source has said: ‘The [British] authorities are afraid of the large Muslim community. Britain's failure to close Interpal and take action against Hamas' charities is coming from internal politics.’ There is a lack of will power on the part of many civil servants in Britain to even question the activities of Islamist groups. Most of Britain’s Muslim ‘representatives’ have a clear political agenda, and the UK government has encouraged such perspectives, even when they openly support acts of terror against Israel. As long as these groups do not advocate terrorism on Britain’s soil, they are allowed to operate freely. The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, was officially endorsed as a candidate by the Blair government. Yet Livingstone has welcomed the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘spiritual leader’ Qaradawi to London, even though the Sheikh has condoned suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and openly supports Hamas. One of the most ardent supporters of Interpal in Britain is George Galloway of the ‘Respect’ party. When he appeared on ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ in January, he demanded that his fee be given to Interpal. The UK Charity Commission can be contacted by telephone on (+44) 0845 3000218. Letters can be sent to: Charity Commission Direct, PO Box 1227, Liverpool, L69 3UG, United Kingdom.

3. BAE INQUIRY DECISION FACES LEGAL CHALLENGE?

Allowing our system of justice to be bought, by a crime syndicate of religious fanatics jumped up as a government, is bad enough. What is worse, is the short-sightedness of failing to understand that Britain's reputation as an honest place to do business is worth many billions more, in the long run, than one aircraft deal. This is no joke: many nations around the world, most famously in Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, are widely known to be economically-handicapped by their corruption. If this decision stands, it will cost more jobs in the long run than it saves.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1973072,00.html

Tony Blair today defended the decision to drop a criminal inquiry into alleged bribery linked to a multi-billion-pound arms deal with Saudi Arabia, as a pressure group said it was considering a possible legal challenge to the move. The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, yesterday announced that the Serious Fraud Office had halted its probe into allegations that a slush fund was used by BAE to pay Saudi dignitaries to secure multi-billion-pound deals. Speaking in Brussels today, Mr Blair said that he took ‘full responsibility’ for advising Lord Goldsmith that it was not in Britain's national interests for the inquiry to continue.

The prime minister - who also insisted he was unworried by yesterday's police interview about their cash-for-honours inquiry - said a continued investigation would have produced months or years of ‘ill feeling’ between Britain and a key ally in the Middle East, probably to no purpose. The decision prompted accusations of naked political interference in a criminal case in a bid to protect BAE Systems' commercial interests. The company's share value soared by nearly £900m after the announcement was made. Lord Goldsmith's statement in the House of Lords was unusual in that it did not refer to the claimed threats to British jobs, but instead concentrated on ‘national security’.

The attorney general told the House of Lords that he had consulted the prime minister, the defence secretary, the foreign secretary and the intelligence services, and they had decided that ‘the wider public interest ... outweighed the need to maintain the rule of law’. The statement did not elaborate on the nature of the threat. A pressure group indicated today that it may challenge the decision in court. ‘We are looking into all possibilities, including legal options,’ Symon Hill, a spokesman for Campaign Against the Arms Trade, told Guardian Unlimited. Aswini Weereratne, a barrister with Doughty Street Chambers, a leading human-rights chambers, said that judicial review was legally feasible but tricky. ‘It is possible to judicially review the decision of the prosecuting authority not to prosecute,’ she said. ‘The courts do not like interfering with decisions relating to national security but there are signs that they are becoming more willing to challenge the government on national security, as with the issue of control orders.’ Additionally, anyone challenging the decision has to show that they have sufficient direct interest in case, or ‘standing’. ‘To have sufficient interest to apply for judicial review a body would probably need to show that they had either been adversely affected by the decision or that they are raising an issue of public interest warranting judicial review and that they are the appropriate body to pursue such an application,’ Ms Weereratne said. ‘On that basis it is arguable that even a national newspaper might have sufficient interest; alternatively an appropriate pressure group might do so.’ At BAE Systems, staff were celebrating the decision to drop the inquiry. The Saudis had threatened to pull out of a new deal to supply Eurofighter jets unless the investigation was abandoned, threatening thousands of jobs.

Shares in BAE fell by as much as 10% in the last month as investors feared the worst for the Eurofighter deal, but the company value today soared from £12.79bn to £13.65bn. Norman Lamb MP, the chief of staff to the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, described dropping the inquiry as an ‘outrageous and disgraceful’ decision. ‘Coming straight after a threat from the Saudis to withdraw from future business, this completely undermines the UK's reputation on good governance,’ he said. ‘How on earth can we lecture the developing world on good governance when we interfere with and block a criminal investigation in this way?’ He added: ‘I think pressure has been applied. I think it's because the inquiry has been making substantial progress that it's been brought to an end.’ The Lib Dems' constitutional affairs spokesman, Lord Goodhart, said that it was clear that ministers had forced the decision upon the SFO's director, Robert Wardle. ‘We were told yesterday that there had been discussion the day before with the SFO. The director of the SFO was given the night to think about it and came back yesterday morning and agreed,’ he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. ‘So it's clear that it was not the SFO's own decision. It was not instigated by the SFO. This came from the top.’ But Lyndsay Hoyle, a Labour MP with many constituents who work for BAE in Lancashire, said that they were celebrating ‘an early Christmas present’. ‘Quite rightly they were happy with the news,’ he said, adding that it was a boost to a wide range of companies including Rolls-Royce, which builds engines. ‘Tens of thousands of jobs were put at risk by a 1980s issue.’ He said that the investigation had been going on for too long and there was no evidence of any wrongdoing.

‘Jobs would have gone,’ he added. BAE and the Saudi embassy had frantically lobbied the government in recent weeks for the long-running investigation to be discontinued, with the company insisting it was poised to lose out on a third phase of the Al-Yamamah deal, in which the Saudis would buy 72 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft in a deal worth £6bn. The Saudis had also hinted that they would do a deal with the French instead if the inquiry pushed ahead. A 10-day ultimatum was reportedly issued by the Saudis earlier this month. This came at a time when the SFO appeared to have made a significant breakthrough, with investigators on the brink of accessing key Swiss bank accounts. A PR campaign headed by Lord Bell saw MPs from all parties urging the dropping of the investigation, citing fears that jobs would be lost in their constituencies. But in its statements last night the government said that commercial considerations had played no part in the decision. Mr Wardle issued a terse statement saying that he had dropped the Saudi end of the investigation ‘following representations that have been made both to the attorney general and the director of the SFO concerning the need to safeguard national and international security’. The destruction of its inquiry will be a severe blow to the SFO which has spent more than £2m on what was its most extensive current investigation, and taken hundreds of pages of statements from witnesses. David Lee, who was assistant director of the SFO from 1989 to 1991, voiced his concern about the way the inquiry had been dropped. ‘It seems to me a very unusual thing to happen. I have certainly never seen it before,’ he told the Today programme. ‘The timing is rather unfortunate next to the lobbying that has been going on.

We could all do with more detail on the reasons. ‘Additionally we have some concerns ... Is the right message being sent about the attitude to the potential for corruption and in particular what kind of precedent might be being set for other cases which are being investigated? ‘Indeed, are we actually seeing interference by political or diplomatic factions in the judicial and investigatory process?’ BAE, in a statement, said it welcomed the dropping of the inquiry. But the company and its executives may not yet be out of the woods. The attorney general has allowed investigations to continue into BAE activities in Romania, Chile, the Czech Republic, South Africa and Tanzania, which legal sources say are making strong progress. The UK made overseas bribery illegal in 2002, under US pressure. Labour ministers subsequently claimed they were determined to stamp out corruption, but in practice no prosecutions have taken place under the new law.

4. JIHADISTS EMBRACE HOLOCAUST DENIAL

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/holocaust-conference-sparks-outrage/2006/12/13/1165685730562.html

The Islamist government of Iran, which has openly threatened to nuke Israel, recently held a global conference of Holocaust deniers. Although we are obviously not the target of this particular offensive, this is relevant to us because it makes clear the genocidal ambition of the jihadists. They believe in subjugating the entire world to Islam, and believe God gave them the right to kill anybody who gets in their way. Because of our party's unfortunate past, let us be quite clear: the Holocaust is a bald historical fact, the denial of whose existence belongs in the same lunatic-fringe category as those who think the moon landings were faked. (Historians' arguments about the details do not prove the whole thing was invented.) What we must deny, is not that it happened, but that it somehow proves we must all embrace multicultural liberalism because anyone who doesn't is somehow a ‘Nazi’. The exploitation of this genocidal tragedy by power-hungry liberals trying to morally bully the rest of us is the real scandal today. Yes, Holocaust deniers have the right to free speech, just like Marxist traitors, people who think pigs have wings, and everyone else. Free societies don't put people in jail for saying stupid things. But this doesn't make them true, morally admirable, or useful to our cause, so the BNP will not associate with such persons.

The United States and Britain led a chorus of Western disgust today at an Iranian conference on the Holocaust, which the White House labelled as an ‘affront to the entire civilised world’. British Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned as ‘shocking beyond belief’ the meeting of revisionist historians in Tehran seeking to cast doubt on the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews during World War II. The event, Blair argued, was a ‘symbol of sectarianism and hatred’ and an indictment of the policies being pursued by its organiser, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ‘What further evidence do you need to have that this regime is extreme?’ Blair told reporters. In Washington, White House spokesman Dana Perino offered an equally unequivocal denunciation of the conference -- attended by various high-profile Holocaust-deniers like French professor Robert Faurisson, German-born Australian Fredrick Toben and former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke. ‘The gathering ... in Tehran is an affront to the entire civilised world, as well as to the traditional Iranian values of tolerance and mutual respect,’ Perino said. Iran has defended its decision to hold the conference, which entered its second and final day today, styling it as a scientific forum to examine questions posed by Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly cast doubt on the truth of the Holocaust. Israel has spearheaded the international outcry over the meeting and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on an official visit to Germany, said it only served to underline the security threat posed by Iran. ‘The statements of the Iranian leadership at the conference underline once again the unacceptable character of the Iranian policy and underline the danger to Western civilisation as a whole from such a state,’ Olmert said.

Earlier today, the prime minister had laid a wreath at a Berlin train station from which 50,000 Jews were herded onto trains heading for the Nazi death camps. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, addressing a joint press conference with Olmert, rejected ‘in the strongest terms’ the denials of the Holocaust made at the Tehran event. ‘Germany will never accept this and will use all possibilities at its disposal to oppose it,’ Merkel said. The Vatican also issued a related statement that stressed the ‘appalling tragedy’ of the Holocaust and warned of the dangers of denying historical evidence. ‘The memory of these terrible events must remain as a warning to consciences in order to eliminate conflicts, to respect the legitimate rights of all people, to plead for peace with truth and with justice,’ the Holy See said. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy drew applause in parliament when he condemned the resurgence of revisionist ideas on the Holocaust as ‘unacceptable’ -- a judgment echoed by his Italian counterpart Massimo D'Alema. EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini expressed shock at any attempt ‘to deny, trivialise or minimise’ the massacres perpetrated by the Nazis and stressed that the European Commission would use all its influence to fight such ‘repugnant phenomena’. Historians specialising in the Third Reich, basing their figures on original Nazi documents, generally believe around six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, although some estimates are slightly lower or higher. Hitler's regime also killed millions of non-Jews. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in a dozen European countries, including Germany and Austria.

5. JIHAD: ALL NATIONS IN IT TOGETHER

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18420

You have a problem. It’s a problem shared by Jews in Hebron, Serbs in Kosovo, Hindus in the Kashmir, Catholics in Lebanon, and Americans walking the streets of New York. Consider the inter-connectedness of the following incidents, all of which took place in the past few months: In Indonesia, three Christian schoolgirls were beheaded. In Iraq, a Syrian Orthodox priest was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. In Somalia, a nun was shot to death as she left the hospital where she worked, tending the sick and dying. In Lebanon, just days ago, a cabinet minister was assassinated. In Britain, authorities uncovered a conspiracy in which native-born Brits plotted to blow up several trans-Atlantic flights, killing as many as 3,000. In Afghanistan, suicide bombers are at work again. In Iraq, they never stopped.

Additionally, the week before last, a group of worshippers were abducted from a mosque, doused with gasoline and burned to death in what’s described as ‘sectarian violence.’ In France, a high school philosophy teacher is in hiding after very credible death threats following publication of a September 19th commentary in Le Figaro. Some 139 people died in riots in Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan, and Afghanistan -- following the publication of Danish cartoons. Europe is experiencing the worst wave of anti-Semitic violence since Kristallnacht. The former director of the U.S. Holocaust Museum reports there an average of 12 assaults a day on Jews in Paris. In Kosovo, 90 percent of Serbs gave been ethnically cleansed from the province since 1999. The rest live in a state of siege.

In Mumbai, India, a series of blasts killed almost 200. In Gaza, terrorists recently celebrated the latest ‘ceasefire’ by raining more rockets on southern Israel. And the leader of more than a billion Catholics received death threats and demands that he convert after giving a speech in which he called for a balance of faith and reason, and quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor. What do the foregoing have in common? To quote columnist Mark Steyn, in his excellent book America Alone: The End of The World As We Know It, it begins with an ‘I’ and ends with a ‘slam.’ I am not saying that all Muslims are terrorists. I am saying that almost all terrorists are Muslims -- the mother of all no-brainers -- and that Islam is a faith that is, shall we say, terrorism-friendly. I challenge you to name another faith in which your entry into Heaven is assured by killing those of another faith in a holy war. I am not saying that Muslims are inherently bad people. Most Muslims are like most people everywhere. I am saying that there are elements in Islam that incline adherents to commit the crimes detailed a moment ago. I am saying -- and let me be clear about this -- that a faith embraced by as many as 1.3 billion people worldwide contains within it the seeds of the evil we see all around us -- seeds which require only the right conditions to germinate.

It all goes back to the Koran. Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the midst of a world war, one every bit as deadly as the Cold War, and with a potential for devastation to rival World War II. Actually, the Cold War is a bad analogy. For perhaps the 20 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, almost no one was willing to die for Communism.