'Arab Spring' Scorecard--So Far, So Bad

"Results to date," writes David Meir Lev:

no democracy, no elections, no stability, no security; and instead the strengthening of the Muslim Brotherhood​, al-Qaeda and Iran.

And if you think that's bad, imagine how much crappier things will be once the UN signs off on Palestinian statehood.

Hug a Jihadi

In light of a UN report which claims that Israel used excessive force in dealing with a boatful of Turkish jihadis, er, sorry, activists (a UN report slamming Israel— what are the odds, eh?), Turkey has informed Israel's ambassador that his absence is requested.

You see— all this unpleasantness could have been avoided had Israel heeded the peopleforgood.ca campaign and met the "humanitarians" with hugs instead of harshness. ;)

"Hug a Stranger"

That's what the billboard atop a building at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton implores us to do. Beneath that message is the name of the folks behind this odd-bordering-on-the-deranged request ("hug a stranger"? in midtown Toronto? are you freaking nuts?): peopleforgood.ca.

What the heck is that? I'll allow them to 'splain for themselves via this newswire release:

TORONTO, July 11, 2011 /CNW/ - Want to feel better while making Canada a better place? Open the door for a stranger! People for Good, a social movement encouraging Canadians to be nicer to each other, is taking Canada by storm - one good deed at a time.Led by a team of creative and media experts and introduced through a multifaceted advertising campaign, People for Good is a coalition formed to promote the generosity of spirit among Canadians. People for Good believe everyday good deeds like giving up your seat on the subway or buying a coffee for a co-worker will not only make you happier, but will also make for a better Canada.

This social movement, launched on June 29 across Canada, was co-founded by Mark Sherman, Executive Chair of Media Experts, a media strategy and negotiation company with offices in Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver, and Zak Mroueh, President & Creative Director of Zulu Alpha Kilo, a Toronto-based advertising agency specializing in rebranding. Mr. Mroueh and Mr. Sherman saw the campaign as an opportunity to use their collective talents to harness the power of creativity and the media for the collective good.
"Caught up in our hectic lives and routines, coupled with the stresses and distractions of modern living, many of us have stopped noticing those around us. We've stopped caring," says Mark Sherman of Media Experts. "When something is not right, we tend to rely on someone else - our neighbour, our boss or our government - to fix it. But the truth is, anyone can help change the world. Companies can harness the power of their collective to heal and improve our society. We took stock of what we could do as two business owners. If every Canadian business did the same, the potential for change is limitless."

"Each of us can do something to make Canada a better place with a simple donation of kindness, one good deed at a time," says Zak Mroueh of Zulu Alpha Kilo. "Harnessing our creativity through the People for Good campaign, we harness the power of the collective by touching every Canadian with a simple message - care about people around you, be nice to each other, do good. Small good deeds - even as basic as genuinely saying ''thank you'' to someone who helped you, smiling at a stranger or helping out a co-worker - make a big difference in creating social capital, the glue that holds us together as a community."

Mr. Mroueh and his team at Zulu Alpha Kilo brought the People for Good campaign to life by spearheading all aspects of its creative development. Mr. Sherman and Media Experts designed and executed a high-impact media strategy spanning traditional and new media.

This collaborative campaign was made possible with the support of an array of partners who donated their time and capabilities, including Martin Belanger working through Zulu Alpha Kilo on all the materials for the Quebec Market. Other partners included Terry O'Reilly at Pirate Radio & TV, Radke Films, MAVERICK PR and TANK. Thinking Box helped produce the Mobile App. Countless media suppliers and vendors donated space for the initiative.

About the People for Good campaign The People for Good campaign was launched through a multifaceted, bold and creative advertising program. Kicking off on June 29 across major Canadian cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Montréal and Halifax, the program will run through to August 21. The creative, using a mix of humorous, engaging and highly interactive messages and images, challenges Canadians to be nice to each other and do good through simple acts of generosity, such as cutting the grass or shovelling snow for one's neighbour.

"Advertising is often seen as an intrusion, asking us to buy something or buy into something," says Mr. Mroueh. "The People for Good campaign is certainly intrusive, too, but we intrude with a different kind of message. Simply put, that message is - be aware of those around you, be nice to them. We place it where people can see it: on the subway, on a highway billboard, in the newspaper or online."
The creative execution of the campaign includes outdoor, interactive, print, guerrilla and online advertising.

"Our partners - from production houses to printing companies to media advertisers - have joined hands with People for Good by donating their capabilities to a project that, we believe, will make a difference not only in the marketplace, but also in the hearts and minds of Canadians," says Mr. Sherman of Media Experts.
People for Good ten tips for good deeds

1. Smile at a stranger - or wave at your fellow subway passenger
2. Open and hold the door for someone
3. Give up your seat on the subway, bus or streetcar
4. Buy a coffee for your co-worker
5. Surprise your colleagues with freshly baked brownies
6. Cut grass or shovel snow for your neighbour
7. Help a stranger change a tire on the road - or put in a coin in expiring parking metre for someone you don't know
8. Return a grocery cart after someone has used it or let a stranger ahead of you in a store line
9. While on Facebook, just pick up the phone and give your friend a call
10. Simply say ''Thank you'' to someone who helped you - and really mean it

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for being a kind, considerate, helpful person; heck, I like to think that I'm one myself. It's just that I can help but feel that this sort of campaign, one that aims to spark a "social movement," one that has a "manifesto" (my rule of thumb: be wary of manifestos and those who write them), is creepy, silly, self-important and intrusive.

Hug a stranger? Thank you, I think I'll pass--and I really mean it.

"Now, If You've Got a Situation Where Police are More Concerned About Ordinary Citizens Videotaping a Rally But are Okay With Hezbollah Flags Being Flown, Then We've Got Something Seriously Wrong in This Country"

Tarek Fatah spells out the problem (catastrophe, really) of kafir inattention to the Islamist agenda (currently making great inroads here in Canada--how else do you think Zion-loathers who want to wipe Israel off the map get a pass to spew in front of the Ontario legislature?) to Sun TV's Brian Lilley.

Springtime for Sharia Law and Germany

Betcha didn't know that a parallel "justice" system based on sharia is up and running in Germany. Here's a Der Spiegel interview with Joachim Wagner, a journalist who has written a book about sharia in Deutschland and how it imperils the regular, secular justice system:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Wagner, you spent nine months researching the Islamic shadow justice system. What kind of a world is it?

Wagner: Very foreign, and for a German lawyer, completely incomprehensible at first. It follows its own rules. The Islamic arbitrators aren't interested in evidence when they deliver a judgment, and unlike in German criminal law, the question of who is at fault doesn't play much of a role.

SPIEGEL: What laws do the arbitrators follow?
Wagner: First, they get an idea of the facts. They talk with the perpetrator's family, who are generally the ones to have called the arbitrator, and with the victim's family. They ask: Why did this happen? How bad is the damage? How serious is the injury? But for them, a solution to the conflict, a compromise, is the most important thing. Who's right and wrong, guilt and atonement, these aren't particularly relevant.

SPIEGEL: What's wrong with two parties attempting to resolve a dispute between themselves?
Wagner: Nothing, initially. The problem starts when the arbitrators force the justice system out of the picture, especially in the case of criminal offenses. At that point they undermine the state monopoly on violence. Islamic conflict resolution in particular, as I've experienced it, is often achieved through violence and threats. It's often a dictate of power on the part of the stronger family.

SPIEGEL: How prevalent is the phenomenon?
Wagner: As far as I know, very prevalent...

Covert Zionist Operative Captures Khomeinists' Zesty Zionhass on Tape

The "new" Canadian Jewish advocacy organization--the one that consolidated diffuse efforts under one umbrella and included out the squishy CJC--has already demonstrated that it's on the right track. Unbeknownst to me, Sassy and BCF, CIJA had an operative filming the Khomeinists' Queen's Park Seethe-a-thon this past Sunday. (Go figure--we thought we were the only ee-ville Zionists there.) Both BCF and FFF have the Jews' footage.

Trillium Recipient Defends Polygymy, Deplores Secular Ed for Muslim Moppets

When Ontario's Trillium Foundation agreed to give a whole pile of shekels to the North American Muslim Foundation so it could build a "culturally sensitive" gym, was it aware that NAMF is synonymous with an ultra-conservative mosque--yes, that's right, a mosque--that is dedicated to some decidely un-Canadian values? Here's how it was described in a National Post story from earlier this year:

More than 600 people showed up at the North American Muslim Foundation on a recent Saturday to hear a debate over secular liberalism in Islam.

It would have been something of a face-off. The prospective debaters, Tarek Fatah, author and self-described secular Muslim, and Sheharyar Shaikh, president of NAMF and a conservative imam at Masjid Qurtabah, are known polemicists who have not shied away from very public disagreements in the past.

In fact, the event only came about after an open challenge to Mr. Fatah was published late last year by Mr. Shaikh, who called on the controversial author to publicly defend his moderate views, which have been called unIslamic by some in the Canadian Muslim community. Mr. Shaikh — who has openly defended polygamy and opposed secular education for Muslims — is among them...

And you mean to say that the Trillium Foundation has no problem giving these folks money to build a sharia-compliant, er, sorry, a "culturally-sensitive" gym?

Some little Trillium bureaucrat really messed up--big time.

Update: Found this info online:

About Masjid Al-Qurtaba

35000 S.Ft. industrial unit recently acquired by North American Muslim Foundation (NAMF). Presently only Jummah prayers are held at 1:00 PM. facility is big and part of it is used as Muslim Kids junior school. A Gym will be added shortly. Youth are welcome to participate in games/sports that will become a regular activity in near future. Please support NAMF to make it a dynamic and vibrant organization.

Update: Jewish, Hindu and Christian organizations also received money from Trillium, but the recent offical announcement rather misrepresents the NAMF grant:

North American Muslim Foundation 

$150,000 over one year to renovate industrial space in Scarborough for use as a gymnasium to make it available to the broader community, as well as for several ethnocultural communities. Current users include those who wish to have recreational activities in their first language, such as Urdu, Hindi, Mandarin and Somali.

That "industrial space in Scarborough," as we know, is a mosque. But why try to hide it, and why make it sound as though non-Muslims will make use of a "culturally sensitive" mosque gym?

The Canadian Charger's Bizarro 'Wine' Whine

The Canadian Charger wants to join the Hallelefty chorus in lamenting the passing of the Jack Layton, but it doesn't quite know what to make of Jack trying to muzzle loopy Libby Davies. As a result, it resorts to some bizarre, pretzel-twisting feats of logic and metaphor-deployment:

Politics is the art of the possible, but it is also a matter of, to use the French expression, how much water to put in the wine. Put too much in and it loses its essence. Too little and only the real connoisseurs–the died-in-the wool adherents–will drink it. Layton jumped up and down on Libby Davies when she referred to injustices to the Palestinians back to 1948 rather than just 1967. Was his reaction due to the “wine”, firm conviction, or the “water”, concern for continuing support of his Jewish constituency, largely Zionist?

To stretch the metaphor further, beyond the issue of how much water is added is the question of what is in the wine. 

Er, my thoughts exactly when I read the above, as in, "What on earth are you people drinking?"

(Layton's "Jewish constituency" "Zionist"? Fat chance. Being of the leftish persuasion, NDP Jews are far likelier to be of the J-Street or Not  In Our Name ilk--the ilk which would cheer loopy Libby's efforts. Such an accusation is nothing more than undisguised Jew-hate.)

Update: But wait, there's more CC lunacy. It has composed an "open letter" to the mosqueteria-lovin' Toronto school board advising it on the best way to commemorate an upcoming 10th anniverary (i.e. by focusing on kafir infamy while accentuating the postives and eliminating the negatives re Muslim involvement/complicity in the horror) (h/t Sassy).

No need to worry, CCers. The TDSB is already completely in synch with your worldview.

Update: From the TDSB's "Teaching About Human Rights: 9/11 and Beyond":

4. Discuss with all students how we might best understand the events of September 11 and its consequences for our local, national, and international communities. Refer students to their completed Appendix 1.6. Explain that some of these issues will be the basis of further study in Activities 2, 3, 4, and 5. Finally, ask how the events of September 11 have affected people’s lives across the globe with respect to:

• racism 

• violence and war 

• loss (of family members, homes, safety, etc.

• heightened security measures such as racial profiling or restricted movement 

• human/civil rights violations

Yup, it's fully simpatico with the Canadian Charger p.o.v.

Lefto-'slamist Rag Canadian Charger Hypes the Tahrir Debacle

An honest evaluation of the Canada Gaza Boat's adventures would have to conclude that it was a bust--all fizzle and no sizzle. But to the Canadian Charger it was a rip-roaring success.

How mirth-inducing, and at the same time, how pathetic.

Tony Blair's Nutty Sister-in-Law Joins the Khomeinists' Al Quds Day Seethe-a-Thon in London

But Arutz Sheva reports that this year's hatefest may be the last:

Laura Booth, sister-in-law of Quartet envoy Tony Blair, has called on “Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt liberate Al-Quds [Jerusalem].”

The former British prime minister’s family member has previously sailed illegally to Gaza on a flotilla boat. She joined an anti-Israel rally in London Trafalgar’s Square, where another protest today (Sunday) may be the last as the mayor London vows to crack down on the incitement as the date for the next Olympics approaches.

"The Mayor believes that intolerance of our fellow citizens and hate crimes against specific communities are totally unacceptable, particularly in a city like London and especially in 2012 when the eyes of the world will be on the capital,” said a spokesman for Mayor Boris Johnson, the London Jewish Chronicle reported.

The spokesman added, “The Greater London Authority will not be authorizing political rallies in Trafalgar Square during the Olympic and Paraolympic Games."

The Trafalgar Square rallies against Israel have featured Hizbullah flags.

Hey, just like the rallies against Israel at Queen's Park. But I digress...:

During last week’s demonstration, Booth went on another rant against Israel. “We say here today to you, Israel, we see your crimes and we loathe your crimes. And to us your nation does not exist, because it is a criminal injustice against humanity. We want to see Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt go to the borders and stop this now. Liberate Al Quds! March to Al Quds!”

Another speaker claimed, somewhat myopically as far as historical accuracy goes, that “the only time that land has seen peace between Muslim, Christian and Jew living side by side was when sincere Islamic rulers ruled with justice.”...

Sounds just like daffy Zaffy who claimed at the Queen's Park rally that Jews have never--never!--been persecuted in the Muslim world. (Andrew Bostom's scholarly tome, a real door-stopper, tells a different--a more truthful--story).

Different venue; different players; same kooky, hate-fueled taqiyyah.

Hip Hop Jihadi

German authorities are concerned about a popular German rapper who is gaining a whole new audience with his "Allahu Akbar!" riffs. From the New York Times:

BERLIN — The man German security officials call a major security risk looks like a figure from a rap video, especially with the tattoos on his hands. The right one says “STR8,” and the left one “Thug.”

“This is from the days when I lived the life of an unbeliever,” said the man, Denis Mamadou Cuspert, as he clenched his fists and looked at the tattoos. “Allah will erase them from me one day.”

Mr. Cuspert, once a popular rapper in Germany, today is one of the best-known singers of nasheeds, or Islamic devotional music, in German. Security officials say, though, that he is an influential figure who incites violence and unrest through inflammatory videos and fiery speeches that praise terrorists and attack the West.

German authorities say people like him inspired the fatal shootings of two American airmen at the Frankfurt airport in March. The 21-year-old man accused of the killings, Arid Uka, whose trial began in Frankfurt on Wednesday, has said he opened fire on a busload of American service members after seeing a video that claimed to show Muslim women being raped by men in United States military uniforms. American officials have said the video — which Mr. Cuspert acknowledged posting on his Facebook page, and which Mr. Uka copied — was staged by militants.

Mr. Uka said he was listening on his iPod to nasheeds calling for opposition against occupation forces and the West as he traveled to the airport just before the shootings. “It made me really angry,” Mr. Uka told the judge on Wednesday, referring to the songs’ lyrics. During a tearful confession, he said that Islam had given him strength after a period of depression, but that he now realized that “I have damaged my faith.”

German terrorism investigators see Mr. Cuspert, 35, as a threat who provokes young people angered by what they see as a Western campaign against Islam; some even likened him to Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born preacher now in hiding in Yemen who is also accused of promoting violence through speeches and videos.

“After establishing rapport through music, he introduced radical ideology to an audience already receptive to him,” said Raphael F. Perl, who runs the antiterrorism unit for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

In an interview at a mosque here, Mr. Cuspert denied any direct connection to Mr. Uka, though he said he supported his actions. “The brother hasn’t killed civilians,” he said. “He has killed soldiers who had been on their way to kill Muslims.”

That is similar to the message in videos posted on YouTube and jihadi Web sites that have made Mr. Cuspert popular among Al Qaeda supporters in Europe and elsewhere. As evidence of his reach, a man who goes by the name Abu Bilal in the tribal areas in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region said of Mr. Cuspert: “The brother’s voice has reached the hearts of many people here, too.”

Mr. Cuspert gives speeches all over Germany, and young people are drawn to elements of his personal story, including his membership in Berlin street gangs — he said he used to be a “real bad boy” — and the notion that he finally found the “right way.”

Mr. Cuspert says that Shariah, the legal code of Islam based on the Koran, permits self-defense. “My duty is to use my voice for telling people the truth, and the truth is, jihad is a duty,” he said...       

If there's a German version of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, I bet it would claim that when Cuspert says jihad is a duty, he doesn't really mean that that kind of jihad (the bad kind) is a duty.

Here's Cuspert's bio on the website Global Jihad, an invaluable source of info. And here's the rapper performing a number in his previous, non-jihadi--albeit already quite violent--incarnation.