. A commenter on B-BBC, Thomas, aka Grumpy Troll, has got a result from BBC Newswatch regarding the now more widely known BBC omission of coverage concerning Iran’s condemned-to-death rape victim (please check out the horrific details if you haven’t yet heard about it properly- we’re not talking about something in doubt here)
I notice that Mr Jolly (the BBC Newswatch man who responded) tries to excuse it by saying the story broke over the weekend, and then says effectively that failure to cover a story initially is reason enough for ignoring it permanently. Another interpretation is that the Beeb ignores stories that are presented to it by the online rabble (stories, in other words, that the Beeb are late to, ignorant of and culpable for omitting from their coverage).
It’s preposterous. Whatever happened to ‘the public interest’- or even a young girl’s? The coverage cited by the Newswatch man is just one instance of BBC coverage, five months back, reliant on one of their beloved transnationals, Amnesty, who voice ‘growing concern’. The rest (following links) tends to be generalised, infrequent, involving criticism mostly by proxy – and they turn up their nose at a specific example!
The Beeb’s Newswatch response:
‘Thomas,
I don’t think we have covered this story and to be honest, there’s no one reason why that’s the case. For one thing it became known on a weekend, and might not not have got picked up as quickly as it might have done during the week. Also, try as we might, it is impossible to cover every story, and we try to avoid running items simply because they have already been covered widely elsewhere.
To be fair, this particular story seems to have been covered largely on blogs and specialists websites, so may never have made it into mainstream media. However, the fact it isn’t running shouldn’t be seen as an act of censorship – we have covered the issue of Iran’s human rights in the past:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world…ast/ 4184598.stmI hope that goes some way to answering your question. I’ll pass your
e-mail on to our Middle East editor so he can check what the latest
situation is.Kind regards,
Ian Jolly
NewsWatch
‘In the past’- oh, ok, we only bother with Iran as a kind of academic, history exercise. It’s not like their business is news or anything. And it was the weekend- the three billions of public money just couldn’t cover that
Thomas’s initial comment:
—–Original Message—–
…
Sent: 24 January 2006 16:06
To: News General Feedback
Subject: Feedback [NewsWatch]…
COMMENTS: I am writing to ask why the story of a 17-year-old Iranian girl sentenced to death by hanging for having caused the death of one of her three rapists has seemingly not been covered by BBC News, at least not on the BBC News website.
(Story reported at the following URL:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Anno…601081013.htm.)I would appreciate an answer and do excuse myself should the story have been covered and missed by my searches.
(This blog mentioned the Iranian girl’s case via links to other sites- here and here, the latter post going back to Jan 11th, just a week after the sentence was handed out.)
And the BBC tackles Ian Blair’s question of why some stories receive more coverage than others here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4655064.stm
The reporter interviews a former editor of the News of the World, who explains that some stories have more of a commercial hook than others. Nowhere does the report suggest that the BBC itself prioritises stories in the same way, despite it not being subject to commercial pressures by virtue of its funding. The report mentions bias in “the media”, but we are not supposed to think of the BBC as “the media”.
“The president of the National Black Police Association, Keith Jarrett, said it was not just the amount of coverage that differed on racial lines, but its nature.
“When Victoria Climbie was murdered by her evil aunt and uncle, about the same time there was a white family that jumped on the stomach of their baby. The two incidents, the killing of two children, were reported very differently.”” – but neither Jarrett nor the report explains why or how they were reported differently; and I had never heard of the latter case until reading this report, whereas I knew about Victoria Climbie.
In fact, I remember the incompetent social worked in the case – who was black – claiming that she was being persecuted out of racism rather than because she had essentially abetted the slow torture of a little girl by failing to recognise her own incapacity and handing the case to someone else.
On a tangent, it’s amusing that Ian Blair and Tony Blair has the same surname, as it means that headlines for the former appear to be headlines for the latter.
Ian Blair has been the top news story for all of today. Is this the most important story of the day? Or is it actually the one that is most useful for the BBC, because it can be used to bash “the media” – which does not include the BBC – with the accusation that it is institutionally racist?a
Archduke posted the following comment.
Spotted on the site’s sidebar: Discussion Board on BBC Bias.
thanks grumpy.
Ashley – is it just me or is this ian blair thing an utter non-story. the friggin thing lead the six o’clock news – ABOVE the Hamas stuff.
honestly – which is really more important to the world today?
BBC News can use it as an excuse for reporting only murders of ethnic minorities by white people.
By the way, aren’t murders of white people by ethnic minorities more common?
It is obvious that ALL murders should be posted on a Website and on BBC Ceefax – this will avoid charges of racism and allow the public to see just how little men like Sir Ian Blair are doing to make the streets safe and preserve human life.
An interesting ‘debate’ on the BBC website on bias within the corporation. Please contribute to the discussion with gusto!!! Also, people may find it interesting to make use of the BBC websearch facility, which proudly claims to filter out ‘unsuitable’ material. Try typing in ‘Biased BBC’ and other phrases and see what you get. Maybe China could get some tips… http://www.doctorvee.co.uk/2005/02/28/biased-biased-bbc
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4655652.stm
More arrests, more charges: 17 plumbers have now been charged in total.
Maybe London’s self-styled mayor, Ken Livingstone, should arrange a PlumberExpo in London to educate the public on blocked drains and u-bends.
No bloody wonder the UK is short of plumbers. They’re all in nick!
Ashley:
You may have read it already, but for the full 20 megawatt glare on the tragic case of Victoria Climbie read this:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_2_oh_to_be.html
I advise anyone to read it. When you have finished, read all of Mr Dalrymple’s other essays. He is the clearest and finest writer since George Orwell.
from the latest BNP on trial blogpost
disclaimer : i am not a bnp supporter – not even close to it.
“Nick comes on to the case of Lee Martin, the young soldier who came home from Iraq and was subsequently kicked to death by Muslims. He states that is the kind of human interest story you would think the media would love, a soldier come back from Iraq and is killed by the kind of Muslim fundamentalists he has just been fighting overseas. Yet the story received no national media publicity.”
Is this true? Or a BNP exaggeration?
http://freespeechontrial.blogspot.com/2006/01/day-8-wednesday-25th-january.html
i certainly dont remember the BBC covering it. Does Nick Griffin have a point?
i’d be curious to see if anyone reading this blog could dig up any more info on that story.
“I advise anyone to read it. When you have finished, read all of Mr Dalrymple’s other essays. He is the clearest and finest writer since George Orwell.”
good god Rob. that has to be one of the most horrific accounts of political correctness i have ever read in my entire life. unbelievable stuff
Mr Darlrymple again:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_suicide_bombers.html
the most clear cut, clear minded analysis of the motives of the July suicide bombers , and how they were driven to doing it.
Read the article – it makes a heck of a lot of sense.
After reading it you’ll realise that all this “Islam” stuff on the BBC (and that “IslamExpo” stuff) wont make a blind bit of difference to future suicide bombers. In fact , our bending over backwards to them will only encourage it.
Yes, you don’t need to have a lot of positive things to say for Griffin or the BNP but this trial is interesting nonetheless. If he can open the eyes of some people to the dangers of (radical) islam it’s a good thing. I’m really curious how this is going to play out.
disillusioned_german wrote:
“If he can open the eyes of some people to the dangers of (radical) islam it’s a good thing. I’m really curious how this is going to play out.
Blimey a B-BBC message board contributor talks aout the dangers of Islam but qulifies it by putting the word “radical” in brackets thus implying Islam in itself is not dangerous but only the radical form.
disillusioned german – was this qualification deliberate? If so you display a degree of objectivity seldom seen on this message board. Islam (nor any other religion) in itself is not a danger – it is when religion is tiwsted and distorted by bigots that it becomes dangerous.
a lurker – i disagree.
read the Koran.
“Islam (or any other religion) in itself is not a danger – it is when religion is twisted and distorted by bigots that it becomes dangerous.”
That’s like the argument that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. It’s technically true, but certain theories seem to invite certain actions more than other theories.
Take for example the computer game Doom. It is possible to complete large parts of the game without attacking any of the monsters – I have seen this done, it is very impressive. But very few people have the restraint necessary to do this. The purity of essence. It is tempting to whizz up the chainsaw and carve some meat because the chainsaw is there in your hands, and you are in a dangerous environment filled with monsters, and some people enjoy cutting people up, especially in a world filled with monsters. The monster-haunted world.
The impression I get from the second of Darlrymple’s essays above is that some people believe they are living in a Doom level, and that they are surrounded by monsters – and that these monsters are you and I. As in Doom, the ‘monsters’ don’t fight back very effectively. They are uncordinated and shambling, and some of them – being former human zombies – probably mistake the player for one of them.
When I play Doom I usually only stop because I have been killed or because I become bored. I would hate to have to rely on a real-world terrorist threat becoming bored with killing me.
I imagine a buddhist sees the world as Ecco the Dolphin or something equally sweet and ambient. Some philosophies seem to lend themselves to a negative world view.
“Islam (nor any other religion) in itself is not a danger – it is when religion is tiwsted and distorted by bigots that it becomes dangerous.”
What a bizarre statement. So a religion that openly advocates murder for anyone wishing to leave is “in itself not a danger”? Was the Jim Jones People’s Temple also in itself not a danger? How about The Solar Temple or Charles Manson’s Family?
Please learn a little bit more about islam, its history and most importantly, a bit about its founder as described by islam’s own sacred text. He certainly was NOT some sort of Gandhi of the desert figure.
More a cross between Attila the Hun and Al Capone.
I’ve learned enough about Islam in the past couple of years. And Abu Hamza is right, it’s all in the koran. That’s why Griffin’s got a point and I hope he’s going to prove it – not for his sake but for all our sakes.
As Robert Spencer regularly puts it: “Why does nobody believe the radical muslims when they say that they just follow the instructions of the koran closely?”
By the way, here’s another gem from the “How should the World deal with hamas?” (D)HYS:
“Democracy is democracy. I think you should all respect the people’s choice. It seems that you know nothing about the Palestinian cause.Try to seek the facts with open minds. Don’t let Israeli and Imperialist media mislead you. If you don’t have the chance to visit us in Palestine and live the miserable life we lead because of occupation, ask those who visited us and lived with us. What would you do if someone came to you, and confiscated your land, and expelled you from your hove. Would you make them a cup of coffee and leave? No one did it throughout history. Why do you want the Palestinians to give up?
A-Jabbar, Nablus – Palestine”
And, by the way, Lurker… the topic of this thread is the planned execution of a teenage girl in Iran who defended herself against her rapist by stabbing him.
Because of that she’s been sentenced to death – according to what sharia law says!
(And sharia / islamic “law” is in place in the Islamic Republic of Iran, my friend. And no, it’s not the Radical Islamic Republic of Iran!)
Sorry, people… I’m going mental – I can’t believe how ignorant some people are! B******s!
Great comment from Dumb Jon of House of Dumb on the Nick Griffin/Abu Hamza trials:
The real equivalence between these two is that one is being prosecuted for telling the truth about Islam and the other is being prosecuted for telling the truth about Islam.
Hilarious!
Archduke – I suspect the judicial system decides on verdicts then holds trials to see if prejudices can be confirmed – I mean in a general sense. I have been amazed at just how sloppily prepared cases are and how readily judges allow barristers to get away with distortion and downright lies and how procedure is twisted.
The judicial system is basically run for the benefit of insiders who collude to damage and entrap citizens and pretend it is somehow a national institution. It might have been in the days of Anglo-Saxon Land Courts but now it is just another monolithic state industry controlled from London.
A large number of these barristers live off the taxpayer but none enjoys the public respect accorded to an NHS Surgeon because people know one is out to lie and cheat and the other to heal and care; but have you noticed how the media speaks of “brilliant” lawyers – when in fact it probably just means they recite better fiction to keep the judge awake and it is hard to believe that impartial justice is present in the English legal system
It is also The Islamic Republic of Pakistan – how nicely they treat christians there –
I suppose it is simply Hobbes v. Locke
A Lurker posted the following comment.
Please read the following Surahs copied from the English Shakir translation of the Qur’an.
There are other such surahs.
This is an invaluable source of info on the Koran. They’ve done the Bible and the hilarious Book of Mormon too.
Pick a few pages of the Koran at random and see all the red skull-and-crossbones in the annotation column, indicating cruelty and violence. It really is as bad as the critics say.
The Old Testament is nowhere near as bad. And the New Testament has very little of the nasty stuff.
Back to what this thread started out as: the practically unreported plight of a 17 year old Iranian girl.
Ian Jolly of Newswatch responds: “For one thing it became known on a weekend…”
Do me a favour! Personally speaking I eat, belch, sleep, and carry on less polite bodily functions on a weekend. Since when does man-made time have anything to do with the news? I suppose all the beeboids keep regular hours for their gargantuan salaries. They should regard themselves as an emeragency service, and if they can’t hack that, then get out of the business. “Sorry Mr Taxpayer. Could you hold off on your heart attack until Monday morning!”
Grumpy Troll
Thanks for the quotes from the Koran – yes I am well aware that the Koran stuff in it like this. My point is that many religious texts have such violent or distasteful passages but thaty does not stop the the majority of the devotees of the religion being violent.
Contributors from this forum run with the following argument.
1. The Koran has violent and distateful parts in it.
2. There are radical Muslims who commit violent acts
3. All Muslims are dangerous and violent.
Clearly a nonsense argument that is refuted by the evidence of millions of Muslims around teh world who live in peace.
Just because I see the practising Christians George Bush and Tony Blair as war mongers I don’t make the connection that all Christians are war mongers.
Tho if I looked in the Bible I could find extracts that were distasteful that some bigots could use to further their own ends. But I would realise that religious texts were written in a different time and should be read allegorically and metaphorically. I would also understand that some parts of the text were culturally and socially constrained and these bits coule effectively be ignored.
A couple of bits of the bile that I’ve read recently:
Nahum 1
1:1 The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. 1:2 God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
This doesn’t sound like the loving and benevolent God that Christians refer to
Leviticus 20:9
For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him.
Seems a little extreme.
Matthew 10:34 (Jesus speaking)
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Makes Jesus sound like a war monger not a man of peace.
1 Corinthians 14:34 (Written by Paul)
Women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says.
Possibly a little sexist?
Depsite me railing against the majority of the com,ments on the forum I’#ve got to say that I found Susan’s comments
“Great comment from Dumb Jon of House of Dumb on the Nick Griffin/Abu Hamza trials:
The real equivalence between these two is that one is being prosecuted for telling the truth about Islam and the other is being prosecuted for telling the truth about Islam.”
It did make me laugh. The real issue about the Griffin trial is whether:
(a) he said things about Islam that were untrue
(b) whether he tried to incite racial / religous hatred and violence.
I don’t have the transcript of what ihe said so I can’t make a comment. I have no doubt, like many on this forum ,he will have selectively quoted from the Koran to suuport his argument that Islam is a “bad” religion. But he’s not teh only person who selctively quotes sources to bolster an argument, folk from all parts of the political spectrum use this trick.
I’m annoying liberal who thinks the far right should not be banned from spouting their bigoted nonsense – it shouold be heard and challenged publicly.
However, if his speech was intended to incite people to hate or cause violence then it has got to be dealt with by the law – and indeed this is the question before the court.
Lurker- For Christians the Ten Commandments generally speaking trumps everything in the Bible. There are no absolute instructions such as “Do not kill” in the Quran.
FWIW, I think Griffin, Collett and Hamza will all be found guilty but Hamza will get the lightest sentence. I just do not believe you are allowed to state the truth about Islam any more in this country.
@ Lurker’s comparative Bible quotes above, the difference is that the Koran is supposedly the literal word of the moon-god, whereas the Bible is acknowledged as being the words of God’s disciples as they understood him.
It is this difference that has meant Judaim and Xtianity can have things like the Reformation, and can move out of the Middle Ages.
If an Old Testament prophet says that God will have this revenge, first of all he didn’t say we should exact it for him; and second, maybe Nahum got the wrong end of the stick there. He was just a lesser prophet reporting what he thought he heard. It’s at least possible.
If Jesus says someone who is disrespectful of his parents should be put to death, well, first off, how authentic is that quote? It might be in the NT but there is lots in the NT acknowledged to be non-factual, such as the Xmas story. Somebody once looked into this and assigned a sort of ‘historicity score’ to all Christ’s attributed utterances and came to the conclusion that a lot of them were not reliably his.
Second, if he did say that, Jesus didn’t say ‘you, you, and you – God says go kill so-and-so for being what he is.’ He didn’t instil into his followers the sort of bloody self-righteousness that we see in followers of the moon-god. For the first 500 years of their existence, Christians’ role in life was not to dish it out but to take it from other, less morally competent people.
And finally, as a human, with a demonstrated sense of humour and able to be angered and killed, he was also presumably able to be misinterpreted.
None of the above applies to Islam. If Mohammed thought his food was talking to him (and he did), that it was OK to pork a 9-year-old girl (and he did), that hell was full mostly of women (and he did) and that anyone disgreeing with his murderously loony take on the moon-god needed to be killed (and he did), there is no room for doubt, interpretation, or common humanity.
Well said the_camp_commandant.
One thing which has to be constantly kept in mind is the fact the for Muslims the Koran is the word of God and is not open to interpretation.
This essentially negates the tired old argument that violence is to be found in all religious texts. The fact that not all Muslims follow the violent ways does not necessarily mean anything. For the Wahhabists, these peope are almost as bad as the infidels – the idea is to first get them all over to wahhabism and then to take on the world.
Nonetheless, for Islam to be a danger one doesn’t need all Muslims to be radicalised – a few million would be more than enough (which is already the case).
Unless Islam can get over the hurdle of no longer viewing the Koran as the literal word of Allah, there will always be a strong possibility that Islam will remain a threat to the rest of mankind.
If I recall correctly, there have been attenpts to move in this direction – unfortunately, any theologian who dared take this tack was executed forthwith (I seem to recall a chap in Pakistan – can’t remember his name just yet).
So essentially we are faced with a problem which won’t go away any time soon – and no amount of wishful thinking is going to change the facts on the ground.
Deepdiver
Andrew Paterson,
It’s do not Murder.
Jesus was a Torah-Observant Jew – Mohmmed was not.
The whole moral codex of the New Testament was mainline Judaism of Hillel .
The Reformation was simply the desire to stop paying taxes to a foreign prince ie. the Pope; and a recognition that The State Church of The Roman Empire ie. Roman Catholicism had acquired pagan symbols and practices from Rome which were not biblical and once Martin Luther went back to the original Greek and Hebrew he rediscovered the judaic aspects of Christianity which Constantine had perverted in ritualism and paganism.
There are those that believe Islam cannot have a “Reformation” simply because it began as paganism
For Christians the Ten Commandments generally speaking trumps everything in the Bible.
The Ten Commandments are Judaic – they come from Leviticus. Nothing Jesus said was not rooted in Leviticus or the Torah.
Christians are required to observe The Noachide Laws http://fisheaters.com/jc2.html
OT Jim Muir on Hamas in FOOC. It’s, er… stunning.
The New Testament tells us:
Jesus didn’t lead any armies, didn’t fight any wars, didn’t raid any caravans, didn’t break any treaties, didn’t personally ordered people killed, didn’t take or rape any slaves and didn’t marry a child.
Can the same be said of Mohamed, the very founder of islam?
That’s the difference.
“The real issue about the Griffin trial is whether:
(a) he said things about Islam that were untrue
(b) whether he tried to incite racial / religous hatred and violence.”
As I understand it the first issue is moot; the court is not supposed to judge on whether Nick Griffin told the truth. I assume this kind of law was designed a long time ago in order to stop working-class agitators from drumming up support for communist revolutionaries. It doesn’t matter if there is a real grievance, what matters is the incitement to non-lawful acts.
The second issue is whether he tried to incite hatred or violence; but what is hatred? How does it differ from dislike? Is there a difference between blind hate and informed hate? It is possible to hate something because it is genuinely awful and worth hating; some people hate tyranny and injustice, there’s nothing wrong in that.
I am reminded of the quote about wanting to be rid of a meddlesome priest; at what point does suggestion and implication become overt? Presumably the only answer is in the minds of the audience, in which case this trial will have to look into people’s minds in order to read a judgment.
My God, DFH. I’ve just read the Jim Muir piece and it’s UNBELIEVABLE in it’s one-sideness. He makes the islamists sound like modern day saints who would never hurt a fly. It is one of the most objectionable whitewashs of terrorism I’ve yet seen on the BBC. Any child reading this would get the idea that the Israelis are the most evil people in the world who murder “Old men in wheelchairs” just for the hell of it. How this can be justified as “balanced” reporting is beyond me. The BBC deserve to get truly clobbered on this one.
Ashley – the issue becomes the previous use of the Act and what was said in those trials and in briefing notes and court judgments – it is not just the letter of the law but the interpretations in previous cases
Yes, DFH. The BBC’s appointed Middle-East ombudsman is obviously working around the clock.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1510_accuracy/page7.shtml
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/260804/BBCs_Muir_switches_fromTehran_to_Cyprus
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/Scapegoating_Israel_-_Part_2.asp
PS,
BBC’s bias is perhaps summed up best by one of its own employees, Fayad Abu Shamala, the BBC correspondent in Gaza for the past 10 years. Speaking at a Hamas rally on May 6, 2001, he declared:
“Journalists and media organizations [are] waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people.”
I predict that Griffin will do jail time and Hamza will walk — despite Hamza’s clear instructions to his followers that they can kill a non-Muslim whenever they like, for whatever reason – Griffin did not speak about murdering anybody. That is how political correctness seems to be going in the West, especially in Britain. It’s not much different from sharia — under both systems, “the plumbing community” has greater rights and privileges than other people.
Let me offer my version – Griffin will be fined but no custodial sentence or maybe even just bound over with a probationary sentence
Hamza will be found guilty on some charges and recommended for deportation……..but he will never go
Good links relating to Muir. Hope you don’t mind but I’ve added a couple of them to my blog bit.
From that Jim Muir apology for terrorism: “Inspired by the relatively benign Muslim Brotherhood in neighbouring Egypt” (!!!!) Relatively benign!!! That says it all about Hamas, when even the Muslim Brotherhood are “relatively benign” in comparison.
Jim Muir will go a long way in the BBC with “reporting” like this. I see a nice cushy posting to the BBC’s new mega-billion Middle East investment coming up.
Don’t be surprised by the ludicrous slant of that article – it was written for “From our Own Adolescent”, a weekly broadcast on BBC Radio 4 which is unbelievably, relentlessly left-wing.
Jim Muir – The second coming of Tim Llewelynn.
Re Griffin aka ‘nasty nick’.
He’s too useful on the outside as the L3 multi-culti’s bogeyman.
Hamza, however, might be given the ‘bum’s rush’ out of the country as proof that the judiciary is tough on: militants/extremists/plumbers/market traders/inciters of religious-racial murder(please select the epithet of your choice).
This of course, enables said judiciary to sit on its collective plum duff and polish its new found credibility while ignoring the rest of Hamza’s ilk.
Further prediction: The new Hamas “government” will end up killing far more of their own people than of us infidels. Little girls hanging from building cranes, gays stoned to death in the public square, Israeli “collaborators” torn to pieces by fanatical mobs. . .get ready for it (not that we’ll hear about any of this from the Beeb, mark my words!)
“Inspired by the relatively benign Muslim Brotherhood in neighbouring Egypt,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutb
“Qutb offered his own explanation in Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq, arguing that the serious problems of humankind – materialism, poverty, tyranny, immorality, and ignorance – could only be solved through submission to God’s sovereignty, as fulfilled in Islam. Qutb believed that Islam could only be realized as a COMPREHENSIVE, THEOCRATIC SYSTEM.”
thats, er, “benign” according to Mr Muir.
well, at least now we know of his contempt for Western democracy and values.
Susan -> read this:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20060125/PALESTINIANS25/TPInternational/Africa
its about Palestinian Christians, and their fears of a Hamas victory (written pre election).
interesting snippet – christian population in ramallah has gone down from 10% to 2% in the face of increasing Islamisation. they are literally just getting the hell out of there.
Iran part 2 is coming to the Gaza Strip.
How ironic – the only people capable of defending Arafat & PLO supporting Christian Arabs from the onslaught of Hamas – are the Israelis.
My prediction? Iran Mark 2 is implemented. Hamas implement Sharia Law. Fatah supporters flee across to Israel – and join the IDF.
crazy i know – but thats the way its heading…
its going to be one hell of vicious civil war.
good god… as predicted:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060128.wxhamas0128/BNStory/Front
“The incoming Hamas government will move quickly to make Islamic sharia ?a source? of law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip”
“The armed struggle against Israel will continue as long as Israel continues its occupation of Palestinian lands, he added.”
“?The No. 1 thing we will do is take sharia as a source for legislation. Sharia has a soul in it and is good for all occasions,? Mr. Abu Teir said in an interview with The Globe and Mail”
i wonder if the BBC will mention any of this – probably not.
And when the Israeli tanks invade Gaza to overthrow the new Sharia state in order to reinstate some semblance of normal civilisation, we’ll get all the usual bad-bad-bad-Israeli crap.