From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Sounding Off at the Saudis--II
Just a reminder that tomorrow is the demonstration in front of the Saudi Embassy
in Washington to demand freedom for Amjad Radwan, an American citizen whom the
Saudis are holding captive with the compliance of the U.S. State Department
(we first noted
it Friday). Here's the vital information:
When: 10 a.m. Thursday, July 25
Where: Saudi Embassy, 601 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, between the Watergate and Kennedy Center
For more information: Call Rep. Frank Wolf's office, 202-225-5136.
Multiculturalists
to Rape Victims: You Had It Coming
Yesterday we
noted a New
York Times article in which reporter Sarah Lyall opined that a Turkish immigrant's
murder in Sweden of his 26-year-old daughter because she "dishonored"
the family by adapting to Swedish mores is a "tragic emblem of a European
society's failure to bridge the gap in attitudes between its own culture and
those of its newer arrivals"--not of Islamic immigrants' failure to conform
to civilized norms. Writing in Partisan Review, Bruce Bawer tells a story that
shows where this kind of thinking leads:
In September 2001 (only five days, in fact, before the destruction of the World Trade Center), the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported that 65 percent of rapes of Norwegian women were performed by "non-Western" immigrants--a category that, in Norway, consists mostly of Muslims. The article quoted a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo (who was described as having "lived for many years in Muslim countries") as saying that "Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes" because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative.
One reason for the high number of rapes by Muslims, explained the professor, was that in their native countries "rape is scarcely punished," since Muslims "believe that it is women who are responsible for rape." The professor's conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: "Norwegian women must realize that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it."
Osama
Who?
"An American Muslim activist who authorities believe took computer equipment
to an Al Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan has been taken into custody,"
the Associated Press reports. Thirty-six-year-old James Ujaama hasn't been formally
charged but is being held as a material witness. Ujaama's brother, Mustafa,
was also briefly detained, though he denies any terror link, telling the AP:
"I've never even heard of Al Qaeda."
James Ujaama runs an anti-American Web site, StopAmerica.org, which says it is an "an officially registered non-governmental organization (NGO) in Pakistan."
Ujaama was arrested in Denver Monday. The next day, the Rocky Mountain News reports, the City Council of nearby Boulder passed a pro-terrorism resolution under which "the city's police force will be strongly discouraged from cooperating with federal authorities who invoke the provisions of anti-terror legislation."
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports from Dearborn, Mich., that "a federal grand jury [yesterday] indicted a Jordanian-born man who is under investigation for possible ties to terrorist groups on charges that he smuggled $12 million in counterfeit cashier's checks into the United States." Omar Shishani was arrested last week at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
Why
He Had to Go
The Jerusalem Post reports on why Israel killed Hamas leader Salah Shehada:
Shehadeh, 40, was in the midst of planning a wave of terrorist attacks against soldiers and civilians that was unprecedented in size and scope, security officials said. . . . The plans included rigging a truck with 600 kilograms of explosives to blow up the recently constructed Gush Katif bridge, the sole route used by hundreds of Israelis daily to travel to and from their communities.
He also planned to massacre residents of Gush Katif communities by carrying out an attack during the celebrations currently under way there, and was planning to have suicide bombers infiltrate Israel for a number of bomb attacks to be carried out in populated areas in Beersheba. They said Shehadeh was also planning to abduct soldiers and civilians to gain the release of Palestinians in Israeli jails, and planned to rig a boat with explosives to be blown up on one of the beaches used by residents of the Gush Katif communities.
The Middle East Media Research Institute translates a May interview with Shehada that appeared on the Web site Islam Online. (The original is in Arabic, so remember to read from right to left.) The man behind the Passover massacre claims that "we do not target children, the elderly, and places of worship, although these places of worship incite to murdering Muslims" and that "our motto is: 'We are not fighting the Jews because they are Jews, but because they occupy our land. We are not fighting them because of their religion but because they have usurped our land. If we kill a child it is not intentional.' " A more honest account of Hamas's account comes in the New York Times, which quotes a statement from Hamas's Qassam Brigades: "We will not rest until we have our revenge, until we see Zionist body parts in every restaurant, bus stop, buses and sidewalk."
The Council on American Islamic Relations has a press release on the Israeli strike, which reaches new heights of brazen dishonesty:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today strongly condemned Israel's use of American taxpayer-supplied weapons to massacre at least 11 Palestinians, including women and children, in an attack on a residential building in the Gaza Strip.
Nowhere in the statement does CAIR mention Shehada or Hamas.
The New York Post's John Podhoretz notes that Israel's attack was in compliance with the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, which stipulates in Part 3, Article 28 that "the presence of a protected person [civilian] may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations."
You
Don't Say--I
"Extreme Views Guide Hamas Militants"--headline, Associated Press
dispatch, July 23
Arabs
Mau-Mau Kirsanow
Peter Kirsanow, the member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission who was seated
only after the Bush administration won a court battle against commission chairman
Mary Frances Berry, is under fire from Arab-American organizations, the New
York Times reports:
In response to testimony on reports of widespread civil rights violations against Arab-Americans, Peter N. Kirsanow, a recent appointee to the panel, said, "If there's another terrorist attack, and if it's from a certain ethnic community or certain ethnicities that the terrorists are from, you can forget civil rights in this country."
Referring to a case from 1944, Korematsu v. United States, in which the Supreme Court upheld the right to intern Japanese-Americans in the interest of national security, Mr. Kirsanow ended his comments saying, "I think we will have a return to Korematsu, and I think the best way we can thwart that is to make sure that there is a balance between protecting civil rights, but also protecting safety at the same time."
Kirsanow makes clear he means to warn against, not endorse, "a return to Korematsu." But the Times quotes Imad Hamad of the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, as saying: "For someone in his position to even entertain the idea of detention camps, it is like he is making it an acceptable debate."
Uh, excuse us, but who brought up the detention camps? Well, the Muslim Public Affairs Council for one, whose president, Sam Hakim, gave a speech to Japanese-Americans entitled "You Understand Our Pain" on April 27. The Council on American Islamic Relations and Hamad's own Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee have also cited the internment when it suited their purposes.
Then of course there's Transportation Secretary Norm Mintea, who has said his childhood stay in an internment camp somehow leads him to think it's an injustice for airport-security officials to look more suspiciously on young Arab men than on blond grandmothers. Plainly Kirsanow's real sin in the eyes of Hamad & Co. is not that he mentions the internment to make a point, but that he favors the judicious use of "profiling" to prevent another Sept. 11.
A
Religion of Peace
"Four Pakistani militants confessed to a parish priest yesterday that they
murdered 17 members of his congregation in a machine-gun attack," the London
Daily Telegraph reports. Father Roccus Patras, who met the killers in their
jail cell, tells the paper: "They said they were satisfied with what they had
done. They said it was because of the American attack on Afghanistan. They said
a lot of Muslims were killed there but nobody was taking any steps to protest,
so that's why they planned to kill Christians here in Pakistan."
Khatami
on Wry
Is he being ironic or just Iranic? Iran's "president," Mohammad Khatami,
tells a news conference in Malaysia: "Any interference into the domestic affairs
of Iraq would be against the interest of the people of Iraq, the interest of
the countries of the region and it would be against the peace and tranquility
of the region and the world." In today's Wall Street Journal, Clinton peace
negotiator Dennis
Ross outlines Tehran's contributions to regional "stability."
Another
Victory for America
Sri Lanka's prime minister says "that a U.S. cutoff of fund transfers from
Tamil expatriates in the United States since September 11 has forced the Tamil
Tigers to sue for peace after a 20-year struggle in which 80,000 people died."
Dinosaur
Vomit
"Former President Bill Clinton took several swipes here Tuesday at the
Bush administration for focusing on the war against terrorism at the expense
of the deepening AIDS epidemic," the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Pierre
Pressure
"Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle quietly slipped into a spending bill
language exempting his home state of South Dakota from environmental regulations
and lawsuits, in order to allow logging in an effort to prevent forest fires,"
the Washington Times reports. Congressmen from other Western states, which have
suffered devastating wildfires, are outraged. "We're trying to rebound from
the worst fires in our history--hundreds of homes, thousands of lives shattered--we're
on emergency footing in the White Mountains of Arizona trying to rebuild people's
lives," Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona tells the Times. "Believe me, if we had
the option to take advantage of this for Arizona, you better believe we would
have."
Honey, I Shrunk
the Portfolio
The declining stock market may be having a salutary effect: reducing the divorce
rate. The Wall Street Journal reports that many marriages have turned rocky
because one spouse invested in stocks over the other's objections when the market
was high. But here's the good news: "Bickering stock losers often have
no choice but to stay together. Matrimonial lawyers say many clients can no
longer afford to get divorced; there's not enough money left to split."
But then again: "Others headed for divorce are perversely gleeful about the market's fall. 'People say, "This is a good time to split up the assets. My spouse will get less," ' says Ronald Bavero, an attorney in White Plains, N.Y."
You
Don't Say--II
"Ending a serious relationship is an incredibly stressful experience."--Prof.
David Sbarra, professor of clinical psychology, University of Virginia, quoted
by the Orlando Sentinel's Eric Edwards, July 19
Turn
On, Tune In, Drop Out
City governments perform certain essential services: policing the streets, putting
out fires, picking up the trash. San Francisco may add to this list producing
illegal drugs. Supervisor Mark Leno is sponsoring a bill that "would urge
city officials to explore growing cannabis and distributing it to seriously
ill patients who have an OK from their doctors--in apparent defiance of federal
law," the San Francisco Chronicle reports:
"Leno envisions growing cannabis on vacant city property and says the program could double as agriculture job training for the city's unemployed," the paper adds. Maybe they could have the unemployed smoke the stuff, too. Then they'd lose all interest in finding a job, so that they'd no longer show up in the unemployment statistics.
Sheep
Ape Lemmings
"More than 400 sheep leapt to their deaths this weekend in mountainous
southeastern France--likely a panicked attempt to escape from a pack of wolves,"
the Associated Press reports from Nice.
Life Imitates the Smothers Brothers
"I fell into a vat of chocolate."--Smothers Brothers sketch, 1962
"Factory Worker Dies After Being Submerged in Chocolate Vat"--headline, Associated Press dispatch, July 24
Ahead
of the News
"Like Father, Like Son: George Bush Will Not Serve a Second Term."
So says a headline in the broken-English edition of Pravda. But the article
by Vasily Bubnov doesn't actually deliver what the headline promises. Bubnov
cites a Zogby poll finding that only 47% of Americans say they'd vote to re-elect
Bush if the election were held today. But he goes on:
However, the results of the poll are not trustworthy. And I will explain you why. Zogbi [sic] International is an independent organization that specializes in polls. . . . The company was founded by John Zogbi, who is a Christian of Lebanese extract. However, his brother James Zogbi is more notable.
James Zogbi is president of the Arab-American Institute. In 2000, James Zogbi was appointed senior adviser to the election campaign of Al Gore and Joe Liberman, which, however, did not prevent him from expressing sympathy with Hesbollah. As a result, he was accused of "anti-Semitism." Therefore, there are reasons to suppose that the Zogbis do not like the US president too much. Therefore, Zogbi International only relatively reflects the tendency of the George Bush's decreasing popularity.
The results of another poll carried out by Newsweek seem to be more credible. According to these data, about 65 percent of Americans approve of George Bush's job as the President; however, a couple of months ago, his popularity was 80 percent. Therefore, there or no reasons for despair or optimism, however you see it.
Another Russian news service reveals that picking your nose is good for you.
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to N.V. Fitton, Mark Chenoweth, S.E. Brenner, Richard Minter, Kevin Kelly, Robert LeChevalier, Zabelle Huss, C.E. Dobkin, Elliot Ganz, Yehuda Hilewitz, Carl Sherer, Michael Segal, Randy Schwartz, Rosanne Klass, Natalie Cohen, Yisrael Medad, Lyle Katz, Amir Agam, Raghu Desikan, Manny Saltiel, Mara Gold, Rosslyn Smith, Boris Shrayer, John Hartness, Chris Nicastri, Damian Bennett, Richard Haisley, Michael Williamson, Roger Bournival, David Johns, Frank Natoli, John Lott, Andrew Cooper, Jeremy Winer, Don Walker, James Lucier, Peter Melvoin and Chris Hallinan. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Dennis Ross: Iran and Syria try to open a second Mideast front.
- Collin Levey: A country song celebrates a man who betrayed his country.
- Pete du Pont: Do Senate Democrats want a prescription plan or an issue?
