WarSclerotic

Subway Ad Calling Jihad ‘Savage’ To Appear In New York City Stations (IMAGE).

( Islamophobic?!  Support of civilization against Jihad?  Please comment on this disgusting Huffpo story and let them know what you think. – JW )

Islamophobic Ad Coming To NYC Subway Stations

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While outrage continues in the Middle Eastover the incendiary film, “The Innocence of Muslims,” a new pro-Israel ad denouncing Jihad as “savage” will soon make its debut in New York City’s subway system.The ad reads, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”

The ads are expected to appear at ten subway stations as early as next week.

The New York Times reports MTA officials initially rejected the American Freedom Defense Initiative’s controverisal ad, but ultimately lost in court after a judge cited First Amendment rights.

Ron Meier of the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement, “We support the court’s conclusion that the ad is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, yet we still strongly object to both the message and the messenger. We believe these ads are highly offensive and inflammatory. Pro-Israel doesn’t mean anti-Muslim. It is possible to support Israel without engaging in bigoted anti-Muslim and anti-Arab stereotypes.”

In August, the American Freedom Defense Initiative launched a similar ad campaign with an Islamophobic billboard at a Metro-North station, which declared, “19,250 DEADLY ISLAMIC ATTACKS SINCE 9/11/2001. IT’S NOT ISLAMOPHOBIA. IT’S ISLAMOREALISM.”

In response, local politician Paul Feiner suggested the MTA use profits from the ads to combat further discrimination.

Arabs sense weakness – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Analysis: Lack of serious American threat encourages Muslim rioters

The wave of anti-West riots that is sweeping through the Muslim world will gradually subside, mostly because the regimes in Muslim countries, from Indonesia to Algeria, realize that this wave threatens them more than it does the West.

This is why they have regained their composure and have begun taking measures to curb the riots: Access to western diplomatic missions has been blocked; large forces have been deployed in sensitive areas; and clerics, as well as Islamist politicians are urging the public to respect foreigners.

When the riots erupted after the anti-Islam filmwas posted on YouTube with Arabic subtitles, the regimes in the Muslim countries displayed sympathy and understanding with the rage and violence of the masses, and they refrained from taking any measures to protect the US, British and German embassies. The street sensed that it had the government’s support and went wild.

Now the moderate Islamist leaders, including Egypt’s Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, are taking action because they realize that this wave threatens them as well.

The riots erupted, among other things, due to genuine rage in the Arab world over the movie, which was justifiably viewed as an intentional insult to the prophet Mohammed and an attempt to tarnish Islam’s image. Every Islamic child is taught that the prophet and the Quran are sacred, so any attack on them, such as the Coptic film, stirs among Muslims a sense of an almost existential threat, as well as fear and frustration. All of these feelings were expressed in an outbreak of rage and violence.

Riots in Afghanistan (Photo: AFP) (צילום: AFP)

Another reason is what is referred to as the frustrating “cognitive dissonance” Muslims all over the world have been experiencing for the past 200 years or so. On the one hand they are taught from birth that Islam is a source of greatness and achievements in all fields – as was the case during the religion’s golden age. On the other hand, the frustrating reality is that despite their oil reserves, the Muslims cannot integrate into the modern world and succeed in it. They are having trouble feeding their children when the heretics in the West boast unimaginable achievements in every field. According to Professor Dan Schueftan, all this creates feelings of insecurity, inferiority and sensitivity to any insult to the Arab honor – be it real or fictitious.

The third reason relates to the situation created as a result of the turmoil in the Arab world. Suddenly, the street became a dominant factor that imposes its will on the new Arab regimes, which are cautious not to anger it for fear they will meet a fate similar to, let’s say, Mubarak’s. This is apparent in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Jordan and even in the Palestinian Authority. If in the past the Arab dictatorships imposed their will on the people by way of draconian coercion and enforcement, today, in the aftermath of the revolutions, the Arab street imposes its will on the regimes. The regimes in Egypt, Libya and Yemen went as far as justifying the rage and violence of the masses in response to the anti-Islam film.

Organized and armed terror groups inspired by global jihad and the Salafi movement took advantage of the chaotic situation created by the riots. It happened in Libya last Tuesday, and then in Sinaiand Afghanistan. Over the past two years these groups, which consistently fight the West, the US and the secular Arab regimes have amassed weapons and power mainly because the regimes that once limited their activity are no longer. Now they are threatening the moderate Islamist regimes, which are aware of this threat and have begun to act.

The fifth cause of the Muslim riots is the weak response from the West and the US Administration in particular. The statement from the White House and State Department, which was adopted by German Foreign Minister Westerwelle, condemned the insult to the Muslim religion’s values and also said, in very soft rhetoric, that there is “no justification for this kind of senseless violence.”

Such a statement may be taken seriously in London or Berlin, but in the Muslim world it was interpreted as an admission of guilt by the US, which, from the Muslims’ perspective, legitimizes violence. The lack of a threat allowed the masses to go wild.

Despite the ObamaAdministration’s mistakes, including extremely lax security at the US Consulate in Libya and the appeasing, almost Chamberlain-esque response to the violence, it is not too late to rectify the situation. Experience has shown that the US can still apply effective pressure on the new Arab regimes, including the Islamist ones, which are in need of Washington’s aid. There is already an indication that the White House’s policy is moving in this direction.

Another option is to boost US military presence (in the air and on the ground) near or right above the sensitive zones and have Marines secure the diplomatic missions. Such measures have been proven to have a moderating effect on incited masses.

EU-Iran nuclear talks ‘useful and constructive,’ Iranian envoy reports | The Times of Israel.

Saeed Jalili hopes his meeting with Catherine Ashton will ‘bring the common points closer together’

EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton, left, speaks with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili during May talks in Baghdad (photo credit: Hadi Mizban/AP)

ISTANBUL (AP) — Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator on Wednesday reported progress in talks aimed at restarting negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, calling a meeting with European foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton a day earlier “positive and fruitful.”

Saeed Jalili offered few concrete details about Tuesday’s meeting with Ashton in Istanbul, but said the two had assessed some “common points” reached by technical teams looking into the issue and had discussed “what can be done for a new cooperation.”

“We discussed common points found by the experts and technical teams … so that they may be brought closer together and that a framework for future talks can be drawn,” Jalili said. “We hope (our) talks can help bring the common points closer together.”

Earlier, the EU released a brief statement saying the talks that ended early Wednesday were “useful and constructive” and “an important opportunity to stress once again to Iran the urgent need to make progress.” The EU said Ashton would brief representatives of the US and five other world powers next week in New York about her efforts to restart negotiations that fizzled in June.

“We are awaiting the result of the six powers’ assessment,” Jalili said.

Efforts for a breakthrough on restarting talks over Tehran’s nuclear program have gained new urgency with fear that the failure of negotiations could prompt Israel to make good on a threat to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.

Iran denies it is making nuclear weapons.

On Monday, its nuclear chief, Fereydoun Abbasi, said that “terrorists and saboteurs” might have infiltrated the International Atomic Energy Agency in an effort to derail his nation’s atomic program.

Author of IBM Holocaust book, eyed as movie by Brad Pitt, says corporations are again aiding in potential genocide | The Times of Israel.

Amid reports that Pitt aims to film bestseller on computer giant’s aid to the Nazis, author Edwin Black warns of similar processes unfolding today with Iran’s nuclear drive

IBM and the Holocaust

Investigative journalist and author Edwin Black was Wednesday referring all inquiries about reports that Brad Pitt plans to make a movie of his 2001 bestseller “IBM and the Holocaust” to his agents at William Morris. But in a telephone interview with The Times of Israel, Black said his meticulously documented tale of the computer giant’s key role in enabling the Holocaust holds vital lessons for today about the dangers of corporate complicity in genocide.

Specifically, as the Iranian regime speeds toward a nuclear bomb, Black said, corporations complicit with Tehran included Nokia Siemens, “which provided the cellphone tracking codes to the Iranian regime” as it suppressed the Green Revolution in 2009, as well as “the multi-national banks financing the acquisition of nuclear equipment, and the manufacturers providing the technology to produce a nuclear bomb.”

Brad Pitt at Cannes in May 2012 (photo credit: CC-BY Georges Biard/Wikipedia Commons)

Pitt has reportedly held the film option for the book for some years, and it was in development at HBO. Now, though, it is said to be back with Pitt, for possible development as a feature film.

Black said all of his projects would make good movies because of his insistence on factual integrity. “IBM and the Holocaust,” he said, exposed what had been “the overlooked saga of how an American corporation became a central player in the Holocaust in all six phases.” He listed these as “the identification of the Jews; their exclusion from society; the confiscation of their assets; their ghettoization; their deportation; and even many parts of the extermination of the Jews.”

IBM, he noted, “had a customer site, known as the Hollerith Department, in almost every concentration camp” to sort or process punch cards and track prisoners. IBM also “opened subsidiaries in Europe in cadence with the Nazis.”

Edwin Black (photo credit: Courtesy)

Black’s book details IBM’s strategic alliance with the Nazis starting from 1933, soon after Adolf Hitler came to power, and continuing deep into World War II. “As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step,” according to the book’s official website. “IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.”

Reports in recent days have suggested that Pitt might star in the movie as well as producing it, and it has been reported that various A-list directors and actors are being contacted over possible roles in the production.

Fars News Agency :: Iranian Army Warns Enemy of All-Inclusive, Crushing Response to Aggression.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian Army in a statement on Wednesday warned enemies to avoid threatening Iran, reiterating that any aggression against the country will be reciprocated with a crushing response.

“The Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran … declares that, in obedience to Muslims’ Leader and Commander-in-Chief Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, the Army, along with other armed forces, is monitoring all the internal and external moves of the enemies with maximum strength and power and will give an all-around and crushing response to any hard and soft threat of the enemies,” the Army said in a statement on the occasion of the Sacred Defense Week.

September 21 is the start of the Sacred Defense Week in Iran which marks the anniversary of the beginning of Iraq’s imposed war against the country in 1980.

Israel and its close ally the United States accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Both Washington and Tel Aviv possess advanced weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads.

Iran vehemently denies the charges, insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Both Israel and the US have recently intensified rhetoric against Iran, saying an attack on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear site is impending.

Iran has, in return, warned that it would target Israel and its worldwide interests in case it comes under attack by the Tel Aviv.

Iran has also warned that it could close the strategic Strait of Hormuz if it became the target of a military attack over its nuclear program.

Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the strategic Persian Gulf waterway, is a major oil shipping route.

Syria accuses West of nuclear double stand… JPost – Middle East.

( Assad’s in a great position to “shame” the West at the moment.  He’s his own ironic parody.  – JW )

Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski

PressTV – Anti-Islam film aims to force Obama support Israel attack on Iran.

( For anyone who may not know, PressTV is an official outlet of the Iranian gov. –  JW )

AIPAC praises Obama’s ‘… JPost – 2012: The US Presidential race.

Photo: Yuri Gripas / Reuters

WASHINGTON – In a rare statement and at a time of sharp Republican criticism of US President Barack Obama’s Israel record, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee thanked elected leaders including the president for “steadfast” support of Israel.

“With Israel and America facing unprecedented threats and challenges in the Middle East, we deeply appreciate the close and unshakeable partnership between the United States and Israel. President Obama and the bipartisan, bicameral congressional leadership, have deepened America’s support for Israel in difficult times,” said the statement issued shortly before Rosh Hashanah started on Sunday afternoon.

“Under the leadership of Democrats and Republicans, working together, US-Israel security cooperation has reached unprecedented levels,” the statement said.

The statement comes during an election season in which Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president, and his surrogates have repeatedly accused Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus” for differences with Israel over peacemaking with the Palestinians and more recently for not heeding Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s calls to issue clear red lines Iran must not cross with its suspected nuclear weapons program, or face US military action.

The AIPAC statement cites by name only two leaders: Obama and Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the speaker of the US House of Representatives.

It emphasizes what it says is the need to further pressure Iran to end its nuclear weapons program, but stops short of calls for military action.

“As Rosh Hashanah nears, AIPAC — its leadership and staff — extends to Israel’s strongest supporters heartfelt appreciation for the work of this administration and Congress to strengthen the US-Israel relationship,” the statement concluded. “We stand ready to work together in the year ahead to enable both countries to meet the serious challenges we face, especially preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities.”

Fearing violent backlash to Muhammad cartoons, France to close 20 embassies Friday | The Times of Israel.

( Dieu bénisse le peuple de France. – JW )

Officials defend satirical magazine’s right to publish caricatures mocking response to controversial anti-Islam film

A French policeman stands guard outside the headquarters of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Wednesday, September 19, 2012 (photo credit: AP Photo/Michel Euler)

France stepped up security at some of its embassies on Wednesday and announced that it would be closing 20 embassies across the Arab world on Friday, fearing a violent backlash after a satirical Parisian weekly published crude caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The prime minister said he would block a demonstration by people angry over a movie insulting to Islam as the country plunged into a fierce debate about free speech.

The government defended the right of magazine Charlie Hebdo to publish the cartoons, which played off of the US-produced film “The Innocence of Muslims,” and riot police took up positions outside the offices of the magazine, which was firebombed last year after it released an edition that mocked radical Islam.

The amateurish movie, which portrays the prophet as a fraud, a womanizer and a child molester, has set off violence in seven countries that has killed at least 28 people, including the US ambassador to Libya.

Government authorities and Muslim leaders urged calm in France, which has western Europe’s largest Muslim population.

CFCM, an umbrella group for French Muslims, issued a statement expressing “deep concern” over the caricatures and warning that “in a very tense context, it risks exacerbating tensions and provoking reactions.”

It urged French Muslims to “not cede to provocation and… express their indignation in peace via legal means.”

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said organizers of a demonstration planned for Saturday against “Innocence of Muslims” would not receive police authorization.

“There’s no reason for us to let a conflict that doesn’t concern France come into our country,” Ayrault told French radio RTL.

Paris prosecutors have opened an investigation into an unauthorized protest last Saturday around the US Embassy that drew about 150 people and led to scores of arrests.

The tensions surrounding the film are provoking debate in France about the limits of free speech.

The small-circulation weekly Charlie Hebdo often draws attention for ridiculing sensitivity around the Prophet Muhammad, and an investigation into the firebombing of its offices last year is still open. The magazine’s website was down Wednesday for reasons that were unclear.

One of the cartoonists, who goes by the name of Tignous, defended the drawings in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press at the weekly’s offices, on the northeast edge of Paris amid a cluster of housing projects.

“It’s just a drawing,” he said. “It’s not a provocation.”

The prime minister said freedom of expression is guaranteed in France, but cautioned that it “should be exercised with responsibility and respect.”

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, speaking on France Inter radio, said the principle of freedom of expression “must not be infringed.”

But he added: “Is it pertinent, intelligent, in this context to pour oil on the fire? The answer is no.”

He said he had “sent instructions to all countries where this could pose problems. We are taking specific security measures.”

On the streets of Paris, public reaction was mixed.

“I’m not shocked at all. If this shocks people, well too bad for them,” said Sylvain Marseguerra, a 21-year-old student at the Sorbonne. “We are free to say what we want. We are a country in which freedom prevails and… if this doesn’t enchant some people, well too bad for them.”

Khairreddene Chabbara disagreed. “We are for freedom of expression, but when it comes to religion it shouldn’t hurt the feelings of believers.”

Israel Hayom | A slap on the US’s cheek.