The Solomonic State Censors Speech

Free Speech, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Lebanon

Thanks to reader Dr. Frank Zavisca for sending a link to what appears to be an endorsement here of the arrest of “Javed Iqbal, suspected al-Manar TV agent,” for broadcasting al-Manar television from his home.

According to the New York Times, Iqbal’s

“house and storefront were raided by federal agents, and Mr. Iqbal charged with providing customers services that included satellite broadcasts of a television station controlled by Hezbollah — a violation of federal law.
Yesterday, Mr. Iqbal was arraigned in Federal District Court in Manhattan and was ordered held in $250,000 bail. The Hezbollah station, Al Manar — or ‘the beacon’ in Arabic — was designated a global terrorist entity by the United States Treasury Department in March of this year. Hezbollah was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department in 1997.”

Al-Manar, as footage provided by Michelle Malkin clearly demonstrates, is unadulterated, vicious propaganda — a one-stop shop for every anti-Semitic canard in the book. However, and as Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit notes, “There’s a pretty good argument that this sort of prosecution violates the First Amendment.”

Although “The Beacon” does appear to be far and away worse than MTV, reader Frank’s libertarian (American) instincts are alive and well: “If you believe in freedom of speech,” he writes, “you would have to support [the right to access this channel].”

The notion that government (often pressured by sectional interests) should decide what speech Americans access is offensive and un-American, although it’s in the best of European and Canadian traditions, where the state has long since adjudicated speech. That Americans have accepted government’s role in screening such subject matter is even more disturbing.

Compiled by Malkin for “Hot-Air,” the horrible segments al-Manar broadcasts are indeed atavistic — a medieval throwback. But it’s good for people to see this stuff for themselves.

Avi Jorisch, author of “Beacon of Hatred: Inside Hizballah’s al-Manar Television,” warns that “al-Manar’s programming puts American lives at risk, both in Iraq and elsewhere, and hinders the prospects for peace and stability throughout the region.” Jorisch wants Washington to “expand its efforts to alter or silence the station’s message.”

Most Americans will recognize al-Manar’s message for what it is. That we have a sizeable community in the US that believes or is open to this message — that Jews use Muslim children’s blood to make matzoth, or that Israel was behind 9/11 — is a separate matter, to be tackled through immigration policies, not by limiting American liberties.

Israelis Confound Bush Babes

Israel

Israelis have a different attitude to their leaders than do Americans. No sooner had our local war harpies lined up to can-can for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, than the Israeli people were calling for his canning. How embarrassing!

Here Gideon Levy complains that his countrymen’s complaints against the Lebanon war and its prosecutors are not sufficiently principled. They’re already at the stage of critiquing the critiques. Kudos!

Back here at home, Bush’s Stepford Wives (new ones have cropped up since that was written) continue to stand by their man, leveling that childish accusation — “Bush hater,” or traitor — at anyone who dares to suggest the king’s in the mental buff.

On a less optimistic note: Israel says it may have to take on Iran alone. Now there’s an idea: After the Israeli Defense Forces defeated Hezbollah with such ease (not!), why not take on those responsible for training that remarkably capable terrorist organization?

From Bondage to Freedom

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Media, Middle East

Fox Correspondent Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were freed, after being held in Palestinian captivity for two weeks. Hostage taking is a developing industry in the PA, an import from “liberated” Iraq, it would seem. Better that than, say, working for a living.

I don’t mean to criticize the two men. They had to placate their captors. I fully understand and sympathize with that. I’m just not quite clear on the conclusions Centanni and Wiig drew from their harrowing ordeal:

Said Centanni: “the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kind-hearted,” a sentiment Wiig reiterated by expressing his fear that the plight of the Beauteous Ones would be left untold if such unlovely acts proliferated. (No such luck: the most rehashed story ever will continue to be rehashed, and the resolution of the so-called Palestinian problem tied to every treaty or agreement imaginable. I hear Pigmy tribes won’t parcel out a piece of rain forest without a promise that the plight of the Palestinian people be solved.)

Centanni related that they “were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint.” But incase viewers took issue with Centanni’s use of the word “forced,” or if they understood him to mean he would not have converted voluntarily, Centanni quickly qualified: “Don’t get me wrong here,” he told Fox. “I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns…”

Despite the oddly inverse conclusions the two freed media men drew from the experience, they hastily departed for Israel through the northern Erez border crossing. As the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.

Letter of the Week: Muhammedan Vs. Mosaic Achievement

History, Human Accomplishment, Islam, Judaism & Jews

BAB reader Linda has forwarded these self-explanatory facts (she credits a friend for collating the data). The information about Jewish accomplishment has been gleaned from the Jewish Virtual Library. As Charles Murray has written, “Until the end of the 18C throughout Europe, and well into the 19C in most parts of Europe, Jews lived under a regime of legally restricted rights and socially sanctioned discrimination as severe as that borne by any population not held in chattel slavery.” Remember that when you make excuses for Muslims:

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000, or 20% of the world population.

They received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature
* 1988 – Najib Mahfooz.

Peace
* 1978 – Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
* 1994 – Yaser Arafat

Physics
* 1990 – Elias James Corey
* 1999 – Ahmed Zewail

Medicine
* 1960 – Peter Brian Medawar
* 1998 – Ferid Mourad

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000, or about 0.02% of the world population.

They received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature
* 1910 – Paul Heyse
* 1927 – Henri Bergson
* 1958 – Boris Pasternak
* 1966 – Shmuel Yosef Agnon
* 1966 – Nelly Sachs
* 1976 – Saul Bellow
* 1978 – Isaac Bashevis Singer
* 1981 – Elias Canetti
* 1987 – Joseph Brodsky
* 1991 – Nadine Gordimer
* 2001 – Imre Kertesz
* 2005 – Harold Pinter

World Peace
* 1911 – Alfred Fried
* 1911 – Tobias Michael Carel Asser
* 1968 – Rene Cassin
* 1973 – Henry Kissinger
* 1978 – Menachem Begin
* 1986 – Elie Wiesel
* 1994 – Shimon Peres
* 1994 – Yitzhak Rabin
* 1995 – Joseph Rotblat

Chemistry
* 1905 – Adolph Von Baeyer
* 1906 – Henri Moissan
* 1910 – Otto Wallach
* 1915 – Richard Willstaetter
* 1918 – Fritz Haber
* 1943 – George Charles de Hevesy
* 1961 – Melvin Calvin
* 1962 – Max Ferdinand Perutz
* 1972 – William Howard Stein
* 1977 – Ilya Prigogine
* 1979 – Herbert Charles Brown
* 1980 – Paul Berg
* 1980 – Walter Gilbert
* 1981 – Roald Hoffmann
* 1982 – Aaron Klug
* 1985 – Herbert Hauptman
* 1985 – Jerome Karle
* 1989 – Sidney Altman
* 1992 – Rudolph Marcus
* 2004 – Avram Hershko, Aaron Ciechanover, and Irwin Rose

Economics
* 1970 – Paul Samuelson
* 1971 – Simon Kuznets
* 1972 – Kenneth Arrow
* 1973 – Wassily Leontief
* 1975 – Leonid Kantorovich
* 1976 – Milton Friedman
* 1978 – Herbert A. Simon
* 1980 – Lawrence Robert Klein
* 1985 – Franco Modigliani
* 1987 – Robert M.. Solow
* 1990 – Harry Markowitz
* 1990 – Merton Miller
* 1992 – Gary Becker
* 1993 – Robert Fogel
* 1994 – John Harsanyi
* 1997 – Myron Scholes
* 2001 – Joseph Stiglitz
* 2001 – George A.. Akerlof
* 2002 – Daniel Kahneman
* 2005 – Robert Aumann

Medicine
* 1908 – Elie Metchnikoff & Paul Ehrlich
* 1914 – Robert Barany
* 1922 – Otto Meyerhof
* 1930 – Karl Landsteiner
* 1931 – Otto Warburg
* 1936 – Otto Loewi
* 1944 – Herbert Spencer Gasser
* 1944 – Joseph Erlanger
* 1945 – Ernst Boris Chain
* 1946 – Hermann Joseph Muller
* 1947 – Gerty Cori
* 1950 – Tadeus Reichstein
* 1952 – Selman Abraham Waksman
* 1953 – Hans Krebs & Fritz Lipmann
* 1958 – Joshua Lederberg
* 1959 – Arthur Kornberg
* 1964 – Konrad Bloch
* 1965 – Francois Jacob & Andre Lwoff
* 1967 – George Wald
* 1968 – Marshall Nirenberg
* 1969 – Salvador Luria
* 1970 – Julius Axelrod & Bernard Katz
* 1972 – Gerald Maurice Edelman
* 1975 – David Baltimore & Howard Temin
* 1976 – Baruch Blumberg
* 1977 – Rosalyn Sussman Yalow & Andrew V. Schally
* 1978 – Daniel Nathans
* 1980 – Baruj Benacerraf
* 1984 – Cesar Milstein
* 1985 – Michael Stuart Brown & Joseph Goldstein
* 1986 – Stanley Cohen & Rita Levi-Montalcini
* 1988 – Gertrude Elion
* 1989 – Harold Varmus
* 1994 – Alfred Gilman & Martin Rodbell
* 1997- Stanley B.. Prusiner
* 1998 – Robert Furchgott
* 2000 – Paul Greengard
* 2002 – H. Robert Horvitz & Sydney Brenner

Physics
* 1907 – Albert Abraham Michelson
* 1908 – Gabriel Lippmann
* 1921 – Albert Einstein
* 1922 – Niels Bohr
* 1925 – James Franck & Gustav Hertz
* 1943 – Otto Stern
* 1944 – Isidor Issac Rabi
* 1945 – Wolfgang Pauli
* 1952 – Felix Bloch
* 1954 – Max Born
* 1958 – Igor Tamm & Il’ja Mikhailovich Frank
* 1959 РEmilio Segr̬
* 1960 – Donald A.. Glaser
* 1961 – Robert Hofstadter
* 1962 – Lev Davidovich Landau
* 1963 – Eugene Wigner
* 1965 – Richard Feynman & Julian Schwinger
* 1967 – Hans Bethe
* 1969 – Murray Gell-Mann
* 1971 – Dennis Gabor
* 1972 – Leon Cooper
* 1973 – Brian David Josephson
* 1975 – Benjamin Mottleson
* 1976 – Burton Richter
* 1978 – Arno Allan Penzias & Pyotr Kapitsa
* 1979 – Stephen Weinberg & Sheldon Glashow
* 1988 – Leon Lederman & Melvin Schwartz & Jack Steinberger
* 1990 – Jerome Friedman
* 1992- Georges Charpak
* 1995 – Martin Perl & Fredrick Reines
* 1996 – Douglas D. Osheroff & David M. Lee
* 1997 – Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
* 2000 – Zhores I.. Alferov
* 2003 – Vitaly Ginzburg & Alexei A. Abrikosov
* 2004 – H. David Politzer & David Gross

The Jews are not demonstrating with their dead on the streets, yelling and chanting and demanding revenge. The Jews are not promoting the brain washing of children in military training camps; teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims.

The Jews don’t hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, the Jews don’t traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels. The Jews don’t have the economic strength of petroleum, nor the possibilities to force the world’s media to see “their side” of the conflict.

Perhaps if the world’s Muslims could invest more in normal education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems, we could all live in a better world.