Update

Good news - Palestinian Media Watch reports that their YouTube account has been restored. A small victory, but nevertheless sweet.

Unbelievable

Here's a new twist on the effort to suppress 'hate speech': Palestine Media Watch (PMW) is an Israeli organization that monitors Palestinian media and, among other things, posts excerpts from various Arabic-language programs on YouTube with English subtitles.

YouTube has apparently closed down PMW's main video account - for propagating hate speech. Yes, the stuff they're posting is full of murderous hate and vitriol, but that's because that's common fare on Palestinian TV. Titles of the excerpts that YouTube found objectionable:

1. "Hamas TV teaches kids to kill Jews"

2. "Jews are a virus like Aids"

3. "Farewell video before suicide attack of Hamas suicide bomber Adham Ahmad Hujyla Abu Jandal"

4. "Hamas suicide farewell video: Jews monkeys and pigs; Maidens reward for killing Jews"

5. "PA cleric: Kill Jews, Allah will make Muslims masters over Jews"

6. "Hamas suicide terrorist farewell video: Palestinians drink the blood of Jews"

YouTube is merely shooting the messenger. The governmental authorities in Palestine, both Fatah and Hamas, indoctrinate their people to convince them that Israel must be wiped off the map. (In fact, Israel has already been wiped off the maps in Palestinian schoolbooks).

Hiding this fact won't help - in fact, ignoring it has done tremendous harm to everyone, including all those young kids being pumped full of hate.

What about the Arabs?

Sara asked me to comment on this article in the Christian Science Monitor by Walter Rodgers entitled, "The Arabs' worst enemy: themselves." She also wondered asked how I thought the absence - or presence - of Osama Bin Laden affected current Muslim/Mideast/Western relations.

Rodgers argues that the Arabs are their own worst enemies because they blame anyone but themselves for their problems and shortcomings. He argues that this makes it very difficult for them to achieve the maturity necessary to, for example, operate a functioning democracy in Iraq.

I think Rodgers is basically right, although it's very unfair for any American to decry the political dysfunction in Baghdad when you look at what's going on in Washington. Let's see: we have the world's most powerful post-industrial democracy teetering on the brink because no one knows what the tax rates will be January 1; tonight President Obama begrudgingly acknowledges the possibility of a ....'framework agreement' on same sometime in the near future. Nor has the Congress passed either a budget resolution or a single appropriations bill for fiscal year 2011 ... which started over two months ago. What was that about incompetence?

Rodgers also ignores another factor that contributes to dysfunction in the Arab world, and which I refer to in today's other entry: the Muslim world is fed an alarming diet of hatred and violence by its spiritual leaders. And, gee, what part of the world displays more hatred and violence? I think that's hardly a coincidence.

So does Osama Bin Laden's presence or absence affect this equation? Since I assume he's alive, that question becomes: if he were dead, would things improve? I have to say, I don't think so. He's the one who said the Arabs love a strong horse. When the United States appears strong, things go well for us. When we appear weak, they don't. I don't know if killing Bin Laden would appear as a sign of our strength, or whether he would simply become a martyr. But I know that our uncertain policy and lack of attention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine hurt us tremendously, regardless of whether Bin Laden lives or dies.

Ah, that Religion of Peace!

As The Jerusalem Post reports, not all Arabs are pleased that some of their brethren helped Israel battle its forest fire. Some quotations:

"May Allah punish all Arabs who helped put down the fire.We pray to Allah that the fire will grow and spread to oil wells in the Arab world.”

“O Allah, burn them [Jews] before the Day of Judgement.O Allah, destroy them and all the enemies of Islam.”

“May Allah take revenge against them and displace them together with our corrupt [Arab] governments.”

There are plenty more quotes in the article, but you get the drift. So much for Islamic peace, tolerance and respect for non-Muslims, particularly if they happen to be Jews.

Islamophobia, Shislamophobia

David Russin of Islamist Watch reports here on the latest statistics for hate crimes in the United States. The numbers refute all those claims that attacks on Muslims will surely increase if people criticize various aspects of Islam. Some startling facts for 2009, courtesy of the FBI:

• Incidents of hate crime driven by anti-Jewish bias (931) were 8.7 times as numerous as those driven by anti-Islamic bias.
  
• Incidents of anti-Islamic hate crime were dwarfed not only by anti-black incidents (2,284), but also by anti-white incidents (545).
  
• There were nearly as many anti-Christian hate crimes (89 anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant incidents) as anti-Islamic hate crimes.
  
• There were more hate crimes motivated by bias against "other religion" (109 incidents) than by bias against Islam.
  
• People were killed ("murder and nonnegligent manslaughter") for being black, white, Native American, Hispanic, and gay, but nobody was killed for being Muslim.

Especially when you remember that 2009 saw several attacks and attempted attacks by radical Muslims on innocent civilians, this is an astonishing record.

QE2 dissected

From Joe comes this link to a video that, as he notes, is the best explanation out there of the Federal Reserve's 'QE2', or second quantitative easing. The video lasts just less than 7 minutes; recommend you watch it all. But have your Kleenex ready; it's a sad tale.

Great storm pictures

I got this link from a friend yesterday but unfortunately can't remember who s/he was. But if you want to see some absolutely spectacular storm pictures, click here. They look like science fiction but apparently are real, and somebody was nuts enough to take them!

American Nazi-hunters

Before he died in May 2009, my friend Mark Richard worked hard to get the Department of Justice to release a detailed history of its Office of Special Investigations (OSI), the office set up in 1979 to pursue Nazi war criminals. The Justice Department had repeatedly blocked publication of the report; a private group, the National Security Archive, in November 2009 submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the report that was denied.

The Archive then filed a lawsuit in May 2010. In response to that request, according to the its website: "The Department of Justice censored dozens of pages of a candid history of Nazi-hunting (and Nazi-protecting) by the U.S. government to such a self-defeating extent that former officials leaked the entire document to the New York Times this week, instead of fulfilling the Freedom of Information request and lawsuit filed by the National Security Archive and its counsel David Sobel."

This is an incredible story, in and of itself quite shameful. The good news, however, is that Mark's report is now in the public domain. It's over 600 pages, so I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I look forward to doing so. (You can access it through either of the above links.)

Mark, who pushed so hard to get the report compiled and served as its editor, was an individual of great integrity and, as a result, his 'warts and all' approach seems to have irritated Justice potentates. Many, many thanks to Sheila for telling me about this latest turn of events.

You gotta read this

I've been reading Stanley Kurtz' new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, thinking I'd post a review of it on this blog. But I decided I can't wait until I finish it. Here's why. I got to pp. 45-49, to a section describing the ideas of Peter Dreier, a long-time prominent socialist who served as an advisor to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.

Way back in 1979, Dreier recommended a two-part strategy for turning the United States socialist. First, groups like ACORN must worm their ways into various sectors like the banking system, public utility commissions, etc.

Then, according to Kurtz: "The second part of the strategy involves 'injecting unmanageable strains into the capitalist system, strains that precipitate an economic and/or political crisis.' ... Dreier's plan is to gradually expand government spending until the country nears fiscal collapse. At that point, a public accustomed to its entitlements will presumably turn on its capitalist masters when they propose cutbacks to restore fiscal balance." (p. 47)

If any of this sounds familiar, think back to what Obama has done since elected. Radical-in-Chief has made me wonder if those huge surges in deficit spending were intentional. The only good news in this story is that Dreier and Obama never thought average Americans would demand fiscal discipline. Long live the Tea Party! And read Kurtz' book!