Pick One

ap - Osama's niece poses in racy photo shoot.

December 23, 2005 ◊ Osama bin Laden's niece, in an interview with GQ magazine in which she appears scantily clad, says she has nothing in common with the al-Qaida leader and simply wants acceptance by Americans.

"Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him," Wafah Dufour, the daughter of bin Laden's half brother, Yeslam Binladin, says in the January edition of the magazine, referring to the al-Qaida leader.

"I want to be accepted here, but I feel that everybody's judging me and rejecting me," said the California-born Dufour, a law graduate who lives in New York. "Come on, where's the American spirit? Accept me. I want to be embraced, because my values are like yours. And I'm here. I'm not hiding."

Dufour, who adopted her mother's maiden name after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that have been blamed on bin Laden, appears in several provocative photos in the magazine.

The pictures are likely to be considered obscene by conservative Muslims in and outside of Saudi Arabia where women are required to be veiled.

Asked if she would like to perform her music in the Middle East, Dufour says her mother, Carmen Dufour, would be too afraid that "someone would want to kill me."

"Listen, I would love to raise consciousness. Maybe women could hear the songs and realize that I'm doing my dream and hopefully they can, too," she said.

Yeslam and Osama are among 54 children of the late Saudi construction magnate Mohammed bin Laden and his 22 wives. The extended family includes several hundred people.

Binladin, who received Swiss citizenship in 2001, has condemned his half brother "for his acts and his convictions." He intentionally spells his name differently from his half brother.

In the interview, Dufour says she would not date a fundamentalist Muslim and that she cried hysterically when she witnessed the attacks on New York while staying with her mother in Geneva.

heraldsun - Bikini? No, burqini.

December 25, 2005 ◊ ITSY-BITSY, teeny-weeny bikinis are common -- but now multicultural Australia has head-to-foot "burqinis".

Designer Aheda Zanetti calls the outfit an "Islamic bikini" because it has pants and a top.

She said the costume, marketed under the name Ahiida and available on the internet, covered everything except hands, feet and face.

She said it had a "hijood", named after the traditional hijab. Mother-of-four Adeeba Nabulsi said the outfit allowed her to swim with her children in mixed-sex public pools.

The Fallout of Political Correctness

latimes - 'No Contact' a touchy issue at middle school.

Matthew Almodovar likes holding his girlfriend's hand during lunch or when they're walking to class. But at Culver City Middle School, that display of affection could land the couple in trouble.

At the only public middle school in Culver City, it is against school policy for students to hold hands, hug or kiss on campus. Perhaps more important, the "no contact" rule also prohibits students from hitting, shoving or pushing classmates.

Schools nationwide have policies to prevent violence and sexual harassment, but some go further -- such as creating a rule against touching. In March, one middle school student in Bend, Ore., was sent to detention after repeatedly defying a teacher's warning to refrain from hugging another student. A similar situation occurred at a junior high in Euless, Texas, in 2003.

Many educators say the policy teaches students what is -- and isn't -- appropriate behavior at school, which they say is especially important during the middle school years. What's OK at the mall or the movies, some educators say, isn't necessarily OK at school, where the focus should be on academics.

There are others, however, who say that although in theory the policy could be effective, it is nearly impossible to implement because enforcement is subjective and inconsistent.

The policy came out of a meeting two years ago when administrators, counselors and teachers discussed bullying, a topic that former Principal Patricia Jaffe said was "extremely important" at middle schools everywhere. Jaffe was principal at the 1,739-student school until October and is now an assistant superintendent of the Culver City Unified School District.

Whether the policy has been effective in decreasing on-campus violence is unclear. Principal Jerry Kosch says the number of suspensions related to fighting, bullying and sexual harassment has declined, but some students and parents say fights regularly break out at or near the school.

Kosch emphasized that the no-contact policy is just one of many campus programs to combat fighting, bullying and sexual harassment.

The policy is basically an unwritten rule, Kosch said. Nowhere does it appear in the school's Student/Parent Handbook, distributed at the beginning of each academic year.

Rather, he said, the no-contact rule is a "catch phrase for administrators, teachers and security to say to the students [that is] short and to the point."

Most infractions of the policy result in a warning; but more serious behavior, such as fighting or kissing, could result in calls home or even suspension.

But enforcing the policy is difficult because teachers and students interpret it differently.

Some students said it was their understanding that all hugs, even between friends, were banned; others said they believed only contact between boyfriends and girlfriends was forbidden. (Administrators say hugging between friends is permitted.)

"We can't touch each other. We couldn't even do this," eighth-grader Brenda Esquivel said as she put her arm around a friend's shoulder.

During a recent lunch, various couples on campus were holding hands; most declined to talk to a reporter, fearing they would get in trouble.

If Assistant Principal Hiram Celis saw them, they'd get an earful.

"When I'm out there and see something inappropriate, I'll let them know. I don't think parents know they have boyfriends and girlfriends," he said, adding that he believes holding hands could "lead to more intimate situations."

Kosch agreed. "You let them hold hands, next thing they're on the grass" kissing, he said. When he sees two students holding hands, he said, he usually gives them a funny look or simply says, "no contact."

But Claudette DuBois, an eighth-grade social studies teacher, said she wouldn't reprimand students for holding hands.

The policy "is not about public displays of affection. Kissing behind the trees will go on forever," she said. Rather, it is designed to curb "inappropriate touching," DuBois said.

Matthew Almodovar, the seventh-grader who likes to walk hand in hand with his girlfriend, Taylor Lankford, said they had never been scolded. Likewise, seventh-grader Stephanie Lozada also said she and her boyfriend had not gotten in trouble for walking with their hands locked.

Inconsistency in enforcing the policy could undermine it, said Paul Chung, assistant professor of pediatrics at UCLA who also works at the UCLA/Rand Center for Adolescent Health Promotion.

"When you're trying to extinguish a behavior, the trick is to be absolutely consistent so that every time the behavior is experienced, they get knocked down.... They know they're never going to get away with it," he said.

Michael Carr, a spokesman for the National Assn. of Secondary School Principals, said the assumption that holding hands would lead to sexual behavior was far-fetched.

"At some point, they're going to hold hands. If they don't do it in the building, they'll do it at the mall or going home or at the ice-skating rink," Carr said. "You're not going to stop hand-holding. You're going to have to teach them what's appropriate so that when they're faced with a choice, they make the appropriate choice."

The middle school holds an assembly at the beginning of each academic year to discuss school rules, including those dealing with violence and sexual harassment. There are also grade-specific programs; for example, the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center runs workshops for seventh-graders.

Students' reactions to the no-contact policy vary.

"I know why they made the rule: Guys are touchy-feely types of people," said eighth-grader Lauren Carter. "It's gross when you see people kissing or making out."

Rachel Lewis, an eighth-grader, said the rule is "heard and said but not enforced."

Sandra Hernandez, a 10th-grader at Culver City High, said she remembers seeing up to three fights a week when she was in seventh grade. A year later, after the policy was created, she said, she didn't see as many incidents.

Still, she said she and her friends didn't take the policy seriously.

"Kids were making fun of it," she said.

Even today, the rule causes some laughter.

At the end of a recent lunch period, eighth-grader Erica West left the table for a minute. When she returned, she bumped into a friend, and said, "Oh, no contact, no contact."

Both girls laughed.

Virtual Jihad

sciam - The Internet as the ideal terrorism recruiting tool.

If you read Arabic and want a degree in jihad, click on www.al-farouq.com/vb/. If you're lucky -- the site disappears and reappears -- you will see a post that belongs to the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF). It announces the "Al Qaeda University of Jihad Studies." According to Ahmad al-Wathiq Billah, the GIMF "Deputy General Emir," students "pass through faculties devoted to the cause of the caliphate through morale boosting and bombings," and the site offers specialization in "electronic, media, spiritual and financial jihad."

The Internet has long been essential for terrorism, but what has surprised experts is the growth of such Islamist (radical Islam) and jihadist sites. Their continuing rise suggests that recruitment for a "holy war" against the West could proceed unabated, despite capture of key leaders.

According to Gabriel Weimann, a professor of communications at the University of Haifa in Israel, the number of all terrorist Web sites -- those advocating or inciting terrorism or political violence -- has grown from a dozen in 1997 to almost 4,700 today, a nearly 400-fold increase. (By comparison, the total number of Web sites has risen about 50- to 100-fold.) The enumeration includes various Marxist, Nazi and racist groups, but by far the dominant type, according to Weimann, is the Islamist-jihadist variety, which accounts for about 70 percent.

The war in Iraq provides plenty of motivation for radicals, and the Internet appears to be facilitating them, even if legitimate governments shun them. "We are talking about groups that are opposed and persecuted all over the Arab and Muslim world, so the Internet becomes the only alternative to spread their messages," says Reu ven Paz, director of PRISM (Project for the Research of Islamist Movements), a watchdog group in Herzliya, Israel. The spread "is like an attempt to create a virtual Islamic nation."

Scott Atran, a research director at the Jean Nicod Institute of the CNRS in Paris, studies the group dynamics of terrorists. He notes that the attackers of Madrid, London and Bali were autonomous groups, like "swarms that aggregate to strike and then vanish." The open, anarchic structure of the Internet supports this "chaotic dynamics" modus operandi as a way for militants to recruit new members and look for goals or inspiration. "Without the Internet, the extreme fragmentation and decentralization of the jihadi movement into a still functioning global network just would not be possible," Atran argues. "I think we can expect more independent attacks by autonomous groups because of the Internet."

Atran cites the Madrid train bombings on March 11, 2004, as a good example: a computer of one of the attackers showed evidence of systematic downloading from the same site that delivered a document entitled "Jihadi Iraq: Hopes and Dangers," which had circulated on the Net some months before the massacre. Among other charges, the document called for attacking Spain to force a withdrawal of that nation's troops from Iraq.

Atran, who has interviewed several radical jihadists, says that the Internet has spread a homogenized, flat notion of Islam, one that has little to do with Islamic tradition. The militants express a message of martyrdom for the sake of global jihad as life's noblest cause. "I was very surprised to find, from the suburbs of Paris to the jungles of Indonesia, that people gave to me basically the same stuff, in the same words," Atran says.

Combating the problem might come at the expense of the freedom expected on the Internet. Weimann has argued that data mining could sniff out jihadists or remove information before would-be terrorists see it. Marc Sageman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and a former CIA officer, notes that the nature of Islamist-jihadist sites could be turned against them. "In jihad, with so many Web sites, you have many potential messages, and you do not know what is true," he remarks. This lack of authenticity, he notes, could serve as a basis for a misinformation campaign to foil jihadists.

Atran thinks it may be possible to fight the virulent ideas not just with a fist but also with an outstretched hand. The chat room could serve as a forum for life-affirming ideas as it does for terrorist ones. Convincing jihadists of alternative values would be a long process, he admits. But "I have seen groups of mujahedeens" transformed from fighters to community helpers. If that conversion works in physical space, he says, "I do not see any reasons why we cannot do that in cyberspace."

"Die with Fallaci"

hnn - Islamic 'honor' killings: Another example of Islam's death cult status.

All the liberals are ranting about Bush lying and spying -- not necessarily in that order -- but where is the outrage from my left-leaning friends about the so-called Muslim honor killings, exemplified by a particularly horrific recent example in Pakistan.

West Virginia's equivalent of Pravda in the former Soviet Union, the Charleston Gazette, played the story on the front page of the Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005 edition, albeit below the fold. Pakistani authorities professed to be "shocked" at the murders committed by 40-year-old laborer Nazir Ahmed. He slit the throats of his three young daughters and his 25-year-old stepdaughter while his wife looked in frozen horror. In captivity, he says his only regret is he didn't kill the lover of his stepdaughter!

The AP story under the byline of Khalid Tanveer noted that "Hundreds of girls and women are murdered by male relatives in this conservative Islamic nation, and rights groups said...such 'honor killings' willl stop only when authorities get serious about punishing perpetrators."

The line about Pakistan being "shocked" reminds me of the classic line of Captain Renault, played by Claude Rains, in "Casablanca," where he is "shocked, shocked " to find gambling going on in WWII Casablanca, French Morocco. He then proceeds to collect his winnings.

Meanwhile, in Italy, distinguished journalist Oriana Fallaci is on trial for telling the truth about the real Islam, a misogynistic, hate-filled cult. If there are peaceful Muslims, they're awfully silent. They're probably afraid of having their throats slid by Islam's equivalent of the "executioners" of Nazi Germany.

The 75-year-old cancer sufferer first faced charges in 2002 in France -- a hotbed of anti-Semitism -- that her book The Rage and the Pride promoted "racism," the plaintiffs apparently unaware, according to the account in FrontPageMagazine.com that "Muslim" is not a racial designation. (Fallaci supported Operation Iraqi Freedom to give Arabs the gift of self-determination.)

According to the web magazine: "Two years later, she learned she would face similar charges in her native Italy, over the same book. In April 2004, an Italian leftist judge allowed the Muslim-instigated lawsuit to go forward on the grounds that her works were "without doubt offensive to Islam and to those who practice that religious faith." However, FrontPage Magazine columnist Robert Spencer has examined the allegedly "offensive" passages that "defame Islam" -- 18 in all -- and found each one undeniably rooted in Islamic theology and history."

Again from the web magazine: "The plaintiff, Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy, could as easily be charged by the loose anti-religious discrimination statute that has snared Fallaci. He calls on fellow believers in the Religion of Peace to 'eliminate' and 'die with Fallaci.' He also refers to Christianity as a 'criminal association' and has demeaned the Crucifix as a 'miniature cadaver.'"

At the end of the year, I'm shocked to find that France and Italy, while giving a pass to radical IslamoFascists in their midst, are attacking a brave woman for telling the truth about a religion that desperately needs to undergo a reformation. Frankly, I don't think that would do much good, as long as hate, rather than love, is the basis for Islam. Forcing people to join your cult and denying freedom of choice to stay or leave, treating women and blacks like third-class citizens is no way to run a world-class religion. Liberals, progressives, where is your outrage?

Terrorbusiness as usual

jpost - PA Muslim sects battle over control of mosques.

The conflict between the Muslim sects of the Palestinian Authority worsened overnight Friday as violence ensued over control of West Bank mosques.

Several stabbing incidents occurred in the West Bank in relation to the conflict, Israel Radio reported.

ap - Gunmen storm government offices in Gaza Strip.

Dozens of Palestinian gunmen stormed several government offices and briefly took over one of the buildings Saturday, demanding jobs, security officials and witnesses said.

The armed men fired in the air, burned tires and blocked the main road of the town during the takeover. It was the latest sign of growing lawlessness in Gaza and the challenge being mounted to the leadership of Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Abu Iyad, the leader of the gunmen, who are affiliated with Abbas' Fatah party, said the takeover was a message to the Fatah leadership and part of "a series of protest steps" against its employment policies.

"This is a message to Abu Mazen to take an immediate decision to employ the brothers like they did in other cases. In the case they don't, we will escalate our protests," he said.

Religion of Peace World Tour

star - Honour killings not part of Islam.

As an educated and ...

... and bla.

Pictures of the Prophet and possible undesired Consequences

cphpost - Arabic League criticises government.

Foreign ministers from the 22 Arabic League nations criticised the Danish government on Thursday for its actions following daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten's decision to publish twelve drawings of the prophet Mohammed.

The foreign ministers also decided that the league's secretary-general, Amr Moussa, and secretary-general for the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, would take up the issue with the Danish government.

After Jyllands-Posten printed the drawings of Mohammed this September, raising the ire of the Muslim community in Denmark, ambassadors from 11 Muslim nations protested to the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, asking him to meet with them to discuss the tone of the debate over Islam in Denmark.

Rasmussen refused to meet with the ambassadors, calling it a matter of freedom of speech, which he had no influence over.

Rasmussen instead told the ambassadors that if they felt Jyllands-Posten had broken Danish laws, they could bring the matter up before the courts.

In their declaration on Thursday, the foreign ministers expressed their 'surprise and indignation over the Danish government's reaction, which was disappointing, despite the political, economic, and cultural bonds with the Muslim world'.

At the same time, the league also criticised 'European human rights organisations for not having distanced themselves from the situation'.

Other Muslim organisations have previously criticised the Danish government in the matter, but the declaration from the Arabic League is seen as the most serious response so far.

Although it takes the matter seriously, the criticism will not cause the government to change its position, according to Troels Lund, foreign affairs spokesman for the prime minister's Liberal Party.

'Now it is important to stand our ground and say that we have a separation of powers in Denmark and something called freedom of expression,' Lund said.

Islam in Norway

aftenposten - Homicide victim was terror recruiter.

The quay worker killed in Oslo in November allegedly tried to recruit people for terrorist activities.

The Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) had information about the man's activities and had begun to investigate him when he was killed, newspaper VG reports.

The victim was linked to a radical Oslo mosque, and the newspaper claimed that while working on the Oslo waterfront he had tried to recruit people to take part in terrorist acts.

A police investigation into the man's stabbing death concluded that it was the result of a trivial dispute with a workmate. The man had been living for several years in Norway under a false identity.

Police captain Finn Abrahamsen at Oslo's violent crimes division said that cases where a homicide victim turns out to have been living in Norway under a false identity is a growing problem.

"We cannot release a body before someone can produce proper identification papers. When a person dies relatives come with ID documents that show that the person is someone other than they have claimed to be," Abrahamsen told VG.

Abrahamsen also pointed out that homicide suspects are also increasingly often found to be living under a bogus identity in Norway.

Islamic Hatred - Threatening to bomb 31 Churches

aki - Phone bomb threat to churches in West Timor.

A cellphone text message has been sent to Suara Timor radio station in Kupang, West Timor, threatening to bomb 31 churches in the city on New Year's Eve.

The message was sent by somebody claiming to be a leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terrorist group. The Indonesian authorities have deployed police at Christian churches to thwart possible attacks during the 24 December -- 4 January period and the country's largest Muslim organisation is also helping protect churches.

"We repeatedly tried to call back the number, but the phone was turned off so we reported it to the police," a radio spokesman said on Wednesday after receiving the text threat.

A spokesperson for the East Nusa Tenggara Police, Comr. Marthen Radja, said police would increase security in Kupang ahead of New Year's celebrations.

"People have no reason to panic because the police are working to secure strategic areas, including places of worship," Marthen said.

Kupang, located in West Timor, is the capital of East Nusa Tenggara, the island chain at the south-eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago.

Terrorists have frequently targeted churches in Indonesia. During the 2000 Christmas period 19 people were killed and over a hundred were injured when bombs exploded at 29 churches.

Civilian guards from Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) have been helping secure churches throughout the country during Christmas and New Year's celebrations. The move is a goodwill gesture towards the country's Christian minority, after recent threats of terror attacks by the al-Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiya (JI) militant group against a range of targets in Indonesia and other Asian nations.

The NU guards, called Banser -- from the organisation's youth wing -- have agreed to back the police in ensuring the peaceful celebration of Christmas and New Year.

Some 17,000 police will guard churches, malls and amusement centers, particularly in big cities and closed-circuit television monitors have been installed at big churches in major cities across Indonesia.

How to Jihad™

fpm - Georgetown's jihad.

Never let it be said that the American college educational system ever missed an opportunity to promote the aims of terrorists and their allies when it came to money. Stop the ISM has received notification that the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM), the name the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) uses for its member groups in the United States, is going to have its fifth annual conference at a major American university-this time Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

The following announcement was put out to ISM activists in the United States:

Palestine Solidarity Movement
Announcement

Fifth Annual Divestment Conference
("Fifth Annual National Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement")

Georgetown University

February 17 -- 19, 2006

More information to come.

A quick call to President George DeGioia of Georgetown University netted no response or comment from his office or staff about the event. Another call placed to the campus office of communications to verify the event was actually scheduled was also met with no response. According to Fabiola Joubert in the campus Office of Communications, she could not confirm or deny the event and said she had no idea where to find a schedule of campus events for the Washington campus. She referred this reporter to Eric Smulson, campus press officer, who was "in meetings" and "unavailable."

The Palestine Solidarity Movement has held national conferences on major university campuses four out of the last five years, first at UC Berkeley, then U Michigan, Ohio State and Duke University. At the last conference held at Duke University in 2004, Huwaida Arraf, one of the PSM's main organizers, admitted that the Palestine Solidarity Movement works with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all illegal terrorist groups per the US state department. That particular event was also found to be an anti-Semitic hate fest which also produced articles in the campus newspaper later attacking Jews in America as a "privileged class." At the earlier event at U Michigan, chants of "Kill the Jews" were heard among the attendees. Divestment from Israel is a major theme, an attempt to hurt the Israeli population and force it to capitulate to PLO demands; in other words, an extension of the Arab boycott against Jews in the Middle East for having their own country. Public reaction to the 2004 Duke event no doubt made finding a venue for another conference difficult which might explain why there was no such conference held at a major university in 2005.

The organizers at the Duke conference had planned to stage their 2005 event at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where the PSM's head organizer, Fayyad Sbaihat, is based along with other key organizers, Mohammed Abed and Nasser Abufarha of the Alternative Palestinian Agenda (APA). Sbaihat would appear to be a professional student since he has been a senior majoring in chemical engineering at U Wisconsin for more than three years. U Wisconsin may have decided to pass after word leaked out and due to the bad press the Duke University event generated.

In addition, information has come to light since the Conference held at Ohio State that Fayyad Sbaihat's brothers are members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). APA's platform follows the platform of the PFLP, that all of Israel must become Palestine ruled under a Socialist Arab Muslim majority. The PFLP was founded by the Christian communist wing of the PLO.

Why, Georgetown?

For one thing, the area is headquarters for many of the PSM's big players and activists like Fadi Kiblawi, a PSM leader and activist, who once wrote an article about his desire to be a suicide bomber and who is now a law student at George Washington University. Fatima Ayub, another major PSM organizer, is based nearby at Johns Hopkins University as a student at the School of Advanced International Studies. At an earlier PSM Conference at Ohio State, she tried to prevent this member of the press from attending and praised the "freedom fighters" fighting US soldiers in Afghanistan. Adam Shapiro, an apostate Jew and one of the originators of the International Solidarity Movement with the cooperation of Yasser Arafat in December, 2000, is a graduate of Georgetown and a doctoral student at nearby American University.

Georgetown's Arab studies department has always had an anti-Israel slant due to wealthy Saudi and Palestinian Arab donors. Middle East Studies professor John Esposito, who frequently speaks as an apologist for militant Islamic groups, is based at Georgetown. He heads Georgetown's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. That fits nicely with the new theme of the PSM: instead of just falsely accusing Israel of being an apartheid state as in the past to urge divestment, PSM activists are now trying to deconstruct Christian support for a Jewish homeland.

Muslim persecution that exists in the Middle East against Christians is to be twisted at Gerogetown to portray Arab Muslims as friends of Christians, and the Jews of Israel as their persecutors. The goal is to dupe American audiences that the PLO is holding this event at a predominantly Christian private college in order to work with anti-Israel Christian groups around the country that have joined in on urging divestment from Israel. The simple fact is that Christian Arabs are persecuted by the Muslim majority in the Middle East and the conference will serve as a propaganda tool to negate the truth. This complete reversal of facts, sanctioned and promoted at Georgetown, a college founded by Jesuits, is a disgrace.

One of those Saudi donors to Georgetown is the omnipresent Prince Alaweed Bin Talal. Bin Talal was the Saudi sheik who accused Israel of "slaughtering the Palestinians" as he offered a ten million dollar check to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuiliani at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center disaster. Giuliani refused to accept the check. Bin Talal is one of the major financiers of Hamas, having contributed over 400 million dollars to date to the terrorist organization.

That Georgetown would look the other way comes as no surprise. One of Bin Talal's "gifts" to Georgetown University was the second largest one in the University's history-20 million dollars. No doubt after Duke, the PSM had trouble finding an American university willing to host such a venue again, but money talks and Georgetown listens.

Organizers at these conferences try to pass themselves off as being intellectuals who are trying to find a peaceful solution to the Israeli conflict with the Arabs. But at each conference, attendees are advised they must agree unconditionally to the "right of return," a euphemism for overwhelming Israel's Jewish population with five million additional Arabs to ultimately dismantle the Jewish state. "Strategy sessions" include lectures on how to infiltrate and defraud Jewish organizations in America to pay for ISM activists' trips to the West Bank and Gaza to interfere as human shields against the anti-terrorist operations of the Israeli army, hardly an academic enterprise. To that end, the press is always prevented from attending and reporting what really goes on.

And what goes on is intellectually sanctioned support for terrorism. The PSM/ISM couches this by stating as a policy of the conference that as a solidarity movement it is not their place to criticize the tactics (that is, suicide bombings and terrorism) of the Palestinian Arabs. And lying and deception are still in full force as part of their credo, "By any means necessary." A follow-up announcement by PSM spokesman Nadeem Muadi stated, "Bringing the annual conference to our nation's capitol is a natural step for our movement, and one that expresses the fact that divestment from Israel has become an issue of national prominence. Because Palestinians, like all people, are an equal component of international civil society, they deserve to live free of subjugation to a state sanctioned and institutionalized system of apartheid. Our aim is to realize this goal by calling attention to both Israel's discriminate policies and the non-violent channels through which they may be overcome."

The last PSM conference erupted into cheers when a resolution to condemn suicide bombings was defeated. This PSM conference will try to deceive the American public, while terrorist group attendees lobby and strategize for Hamas, PFLP, and Iraqi groups killing US soldiers.

Given that Israel is the only democratic state in the region that does not practice apartheid, as the Palestinian Authority does against non-Muslims, holding such a conference on a university campus in America uses the American college system not as a learning environment, but as a sounding board for totalitarian regimes in the Middle East. Shame on Georgetown.

As mentioned, the University would neither confirm nor deny the event for February. But then again, Duke University also followed this pattern. And you can bet with so much of Bin Talal's money flowing around on campus, the administration will probably look the other way no matter what goes on. Nevertheless, write to Georgetown President DeGioia's office and ask him why Georgetown is hosting an organization that admits it works with terrorist groups: president@georgetown.edu.

1001 Miracles of Muslim Justice

pti - Malaysian court rules Indian be given Islamic burial.

An ethnic Indian was on Wednesday buried according to Islamic rites after the Malaysian High Court rejected his Hindu widow's claim over his body, saying the Shariat court has ruled he was a Muslim.

The body of 36-year-old M Moorthy, who was part of Malaysia's 1997 team which scaled Mount Everest, was lying in a Kuala Lumpur hospital after it was caught in a legal battle since his death on December 20 after seven years of paralysis.

Insisting that Moorthy died as a Hindu, his wife Kaliamaal Sinnasamy had moved the court claiming his body for last rites according to Hindu rituals. She was told by Moorthy's colleagues that the former armyman had converted to Islam last year and changed his name to Mohammed Abdullah.

Ending the legal battle, the High Court accepted the plea of the Islamic Affairs Department that he was a Muslim as the Shariat court had last week ruled that he had converted to Islam. It said it had no jurisdiction in the Shariat court ruling.

Following the court's ruling, officials of the Islamic Affairs Department took the body and washed it according to Islamic rites and buried it.

Kaliammal's lawyer, A Sivanesan, said Moorthy's widow felt that anybody could take the body, but her husband's soul "is still with us."

Sivanesan said the ruling was a "setback" for non-Muslims in the country.

Haris Mohamad Ibrahim, a lawyer representing Malaysia's Bar Council, said the verdict was a "human tragedy."

The case has drawn the attention of the media and the public in Malaysia where its minority population of Chinese and ethnic Indians freely practice their own religion.

A Question to moderate Muslims (Day 253)

Quran 009:029 says:

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

The "People of the Book" are primarily Jews and Christians.

What should moderate Muslims say to Muslims who include Jews and Christians among "those" who should be "fought" on the basis of this verse?