Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

A Paris court Monday rejected a request by three Jewish brothers to ban Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" on the grounds it would foment anti-Semitism in France.

...

"To make the death of Jesus into the major motivation of anti-Semitism that leads to secular persecutions against Jews would stem from a narrow view of Mel Gibson's film," judge Florence Lagemi wrote in his decision.


The Benlolo brothers - Patrick, Gerard and Jean-Marc - presented their case Friday before going to a screening of the film with a lawyer for the movie's French distributor. They plan to appeal.

[Israelis] see that when we try to make nice and compromise we get terror attacks. And when we're tough and aggressive we get terror attacks. Nothing we do seems to lower the motivation to slaughter Israeli civilians -- men, women, or children -- and in the case of Hamas, to see the state of Israel destroyed. So since there's absolutely nothing to lose by getting Yassin, and something to possibly gain -- at least temporarily derailing the Hamas leadership structure, and hopefully weakening it long-term -- so why not go ahead and do it?

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With nothing left to lose, let's try to do what we can to protect ourselves. That's the sentiment of the man on the street.

"I had to get rid of Hitler," said museum director Inna Vollstaedt on Friday. "My landlords have cancelled my lease and told me to close from today. I'm very disappointed."

Vollstaedt said the bank was worried about being associated with the Nazis and wanted her out as soon as possible.

"They were tired of being continually hassled on the phone. Apparently people have been out on the streets protesting about the figure in Israel," said the Russian-born Vollstaedt.

In some Muslim countries, however, support for a U.N. role was far less enthusiastic. In Jordan and Morocco, pluralities said that neither the United States nor the United Nations could do best in helping Iraqis form a stable government. Respondents in those countries also questioned whether the removal of Saddam Hussein would improve life for Iraqis.

The relative fat-to-protein content of a Big Mac is considerably healthier than classic French snacks such as quiche lorraine and better than many other sandwiches or fast foods on the market, the authors say.

Derbyshire doesn't link "all homosexuality to pederasty." He says two things:

1) Boys organizations are likely to attract pederasts.
2) The proposition "homosexuality and pederasty are utterly different things, not related to each other in any way, shape or form whatsoever" is false.

I know that most homosexuals are not child molesters. Many homosexuals read my column, and engage in calm and intelligent discussions. But just because you consider NAMBLA scum doesn't mean much, when there is so much evidence that homosexual activists are split about whether NAMBLA and similar child molestation advocacy groups are a legitimate part of the gay movement.

"Rich: I recently read Tim Jeal's excellent biography of Robert Baden-Powell (title: "The Boy-Man"), founder of the Boy Scouts. Jeal shows how the Boy Scout movement was, from its very beginnings, plagued by pederasts. Baden-Powell's first two appointees to the post of medical director at the movement's main camp, for instance, both had to be dismissed for "gross misconduct" with the boys. Only a society as willfully stupid and sunk in dogma as our own could imagine that an organization for boys would NOT attract the attention of pederasts. To insist on the "right" of homosexuals to serve as scoutmasters is to pour gasoline on a smouldering fire. (And before anyone e-mails in to tell me that homosexuality and pederasty are utterly different things, not related to each other in any way, shape or form whatsoever: I DON'T BELIEVE YOU.)" - John Derbyshire, equating homosexuality with child abuse. It is the oldest, most sickening piece of bigotry around, used against Jews in one era just as it is now used against homosexuals. There is no more logical connection between homosexuality and pedophilia than heterosexuality and pedophilia, or heterosexuality and rape. Look, there are legitimate public policy disagreements about how we treat homosexuals in society. But linking gays with child-molesters, in this way, and asserting it as a matter of faith, immune to any argumentation, is simply bigotry.

Then there are the strained analogies with the civil rights struggles of the 1960s...Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were private citizens and they did not put themselves above the law. On the contrary, they submitted to arrest in order to gain the public support needed to change the laws.

As private citizens, neither Mrs. Parks nor Dr. King wielded the power of government. Their situation was very different from that of public officials who use the power delegated to them through the framework of law to betray that framework itself, which they swore to uphold as a condition of receiving their power.

The real analogy would be to Governor George Wallace, who defied the law by trying to prevent black students from being enrolled in the University of Alabama under a court order.

The people of Iraq, striving to reclaim their freedom, which was usurped by the previous tyrannical regime, rejecting violence and coercion in all their forms, and particularly when used as instruments of governance, have determined that they shall hereafter remain a free people governed under the rule of law.

These people, affirming today their respect for international law...

...especially having been amongst the founders of the United Nations, working to reclaim their legitimate place among nations, have endeavored at the same time to preserve the unity of their homeland in a spirit of fraternity and solidarity in order to draw the features of the future new Iraq, and to establish the mechanisms aiming, amongst other aims, to erase the effects of racist and sectarian policies and practices.

This Law is now established to govern the affairs of Iraq during the transitional period until a duly elected government, operating under a permanent and legitimate constitution achieving full democracy, shall come into being.

The system of government in Iraq shall be republican, federal, democratic, and pluralistic, and powers shall be shared between the federal government and the regional governments, governorates, municipalities, and local administrations. The federal system shall be based upon geographic and historical realities and the separation of powers, and not upon origin, race, ethnicity, nationality, or confession.

Islam is the official religion of the State and is to be considered a source of legislation. No law that contradicts the universally agreed tenets of Islam, the principles of democracy, or the rights cited in Chapter Two of this Law [Articles 10 through 23] may be enacted during the transitional period. This Law respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights of all individuals to freedom of religious belief and practice.

(C) The right of free peaceable assembly and the right to join associations freely, as well as the right to form and join unions and political parties freely, in accordance with the law, shall be guaranteed.

(D) Each Iraqi has the right of free movement in all parts of Iraq and the right to travel abroad and return freely.

(E) Each Iraqi has the right to demonstrate and strike peaceably in accordance with the law.

(F) Each Iraqi has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief and practice. Coercion in such matters shall be prohibited.

(G) Slavery, the slave trade, forced labor, and involuntary servitude with or without pay, shall be forbidden.

The right of free expression shall be protected.

Each Iraqi has the right to privacy.

The individual has the right to security, education, health care, and social security. The Iraqi State and its governmental units, including the federal government, the regions, governorates, municipalities, and local administrations, within the limits of their resources and with due regard to other vital needs, shall strive to provide prosperity and employment opportunities to the people.

No civil law shall have retroactive effect unless the law so stipulates.

(A) Public property is sacrosanct, and its protection is the duty of every citizen.

(B) The right to private property shall be protected, and no one may be prevented from disposing of his property except within the limits of law. No one shall be deprived of his property except by eminent domain, in circumstances and in the manner set forth in law, and on condition that he is paid just and timely compensation.

(C) Each Iraqi citizen shall have the full and unfettered right to own real property in all parts of Iraq without restriction.

It shall not be permitted to possess, bear, buy, or sell arms except on licensure issued in accordance with the law.

There shall be no taxation or fee except by law.

Neither the Iraqi Transitional Government nor the governments and administrations of the regions, governorates, and municipalities, nor local administrations may interfere with the right of the Iraqi people to develop the institutions of civil society, whether in cooperation with international civil society organizations or otherwise.

If, in the course of his work, an official of any government office, whether in the federal government, the regional governments, the governorate and municipal administrations, or the local administrations, deprives an individual or a group of the rights guaranteed by this Law or any other Iraqi laws in force, this individual or group shall have the right to maintain a cause of action against that employee to seek compensation for the damages caused by such deprivation, to vindicate his rights, and to seek any other legal measure. If the court decides that the official had acted with a sufficient degree of good faith and in the belief that his actions were consistent with the law, then he is not required to pay compensation.

The enumeration of the foregoing rights must not be interpreted to mean that they are the only rights enjoyed by the Iraqi people. They enjoy all the rights that befit a free people possessed of their human dignity, including the rights stipulated in international treaties and agreements, other instruments of international law that Iraq has signed and to which it has acceded, and others that are deemed binding upon it, and in the law of nations. Non-Iraqis within Iraq shall enjoy all human rights not inconsistent with their status as non-citizens.

During a 1972 trip to North Vietnam, Jane Fonda propagandized on behalf of the North Vietnamese government, declared that American POWs were being treated humanely and condemned U.S. soldiers as "war criminals" and later denounced them as liars for claiming they had been tortured.

The most serious accusations in the piece quoted above -- that Fonda turned over slips of paper furtively given her by American POWS to the North Vietnamese and that several POWs were beaten to death as a result -- are proveably untrue. Those named in the inflammatory e-mail categorically deny the events they supposedly were part of.

"It's a figment of somebody's imagination," says Ret. Col. Larry Carrigan, one of the servicemen mentioned in the 'slips of paper' incident. Carrigan was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and did spend time in a POW camp. He has no idea why the story was attributed to him. "I never met Jane Fonda."

The tale about a defiant serviceman who spit at Jane Fonda and is severely beaten as a result is often attributed to Air Force pilot Jerry Driscoll. He has repeatedly stated on the record that it did not originate with him.

The story about a POW forced to kneel on rocky ground while holding a piece of steel rebar in his outstretched arms is true, though. That account comes from Michael Benge, a civilian advisor captured by the Viet Cong in 1968 and held as a POW for 5 years. His original statement, titled "Shame on Jane," was published in April by the Advocacy and Intelligence Network for POWs and MIAs.

In 1988, sixteen years after denouncing American soldiers as war criminals and tortured POWs as possessed of overactive imaginations, Fonda met with Vietnam veterans to apologize for her actions. It's interesting to note that this nationally-televised apology (during which she attempted to minimize her actions by characterizing them as "thoughtless and careless") came at a time when New England vets were successfully disrupting a film project she was working on. It's also interesting that not only was this apology delivered sixteen years after the fact, but it has not been offered again since. More than a few have read a huge dollop of self-interest into Fonda's 1988 apology. (Finally, in an interview in 2000, almost thirty years after the fact, Fonda admitted: "I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft carrier, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.")

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."

John Kerry called terrorist leader Yasser Arafat a "role model" and a "statesman" in a 1997 book "that Kerry cites as proof of his own foresight about foreign policy," the New York Post's Deborah Orin revealed today.

Kerry's latest flip-flop: He "expressed the opposite view eight days ago, when he told Jewish leaders in New York that he shares President Bush's belief that Arafat must be isolated because he's not a 'partner for peace' - much less a statesman."

In his book "The New War," which like his scandalous 1971 book, "The New Soldier," is out of print, Kerry claimed: "Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman."

He added that terrorists "whose only object is to disrupt society require no such 'role models'" as Arafat.

Yet another flip-flop: Kerry told Arab American Institute in July that Israel's security fence was "provocative" and a barrier to peace. But he told Jewish leaders last week that the fence was "necessary to the security of Israel."


And still another waffle to add to Kerry's supersized stack: Jim Zogby, a member of Democratic National Committee who backs Kerry, says Kerry's aides told him the Massachusetts Democrat objected to the location of the fence.

Okay, so Kerry is waffling again. But, hey, at least he learned something in the meantime, perhaps. Lots of people thought ol' Yasser was worth something before the second intifada, and if Kerry wised up (as I did), good for him.

Yasir Arafat has never been less than clear about his goals - at least not in Arabic. On the very day that he signed the Oslo accords in 1993 - in which he promised to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel - he addressed the Palestinian people on Jordanian television and declared that he had taken the first step "in the 1974 plan." This was a thinly-veiled reference to the "phased plan," according to which any territorial gain was acceptable as a means toward the ultimate goal of Israel’s destruction.

In his book "The New War," which like his scandalous 1971 book, "The New Soldier," is out of print, Kerry claimed: "Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman."

He added that terrorists "whose only object is to disrupt society require no such 'role models'" as Arafat.

Well, look at that! Kerry didn't say the Palestinian terror-master was a statesman or a role model. He criticized other people for saying so.

...who heard cases in the same jurisdiction now dealing with the matter of Rush Limbaugh's addiction case - was hooked on OxyContin and although removed from the bench, was never subjected to the kind of investigation now leveled at Limbaugh to determine if he obtained the pills legally, Matt Drudge revealed today.

According to the Drudge Report, 18 months ago Schwartz was "involuntarily retired" and removed from the bench after he checked himself into a treatment center for addiction to the painkiller OxyContin - the very same drug at the center of the Limbaugh probe.

One of President Josiah Bartlet's (played by Martin Sheen) aides informs him early on that three bible-carrying Christian Relief Workers in northern Sudan were arrested for proselytizing: "Sir, these are Christians doing work in a drought-stricken, civil war-ridden nation." And here is precisely where the problem begins.

To the unknowing, hearing the phrase "civil war" automatically brings forth an assumption that there are two or more sides involved in a domestic dispute. But in the case of Sudan this is factually incorrect. In Sudan one side has been brutally attacked and made war against by the other. One side is heavily armed, the other is not. One side has seen its people brutalized and massacred, and hard as it is to believe in the 21st Century, had tens of thousands of its women and children put into chattel slavery. Only one side suffered from famine because they were denied access to relief supplies. In every instance the victims in Sudan have been the black Christians and animists who mainly populate the southern half of Sudan, while the perpetrators are the Arab Muslim jihadist rulers of Khartoum in the north.

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"If I didn't think a charter school was necessary, these letters have convinced me the high school was not doing an adequate job in teaching English language arts." – Massachusetts State Board of Education member Roberta Schaefer, referring to a student letter-writing campaign opposing a proposed charter school in Marlboro. Many of the letters contained spelling and punctuation errors. The board approved the charter. (February 25 Boston Herald)

Not long ago, every Western leader, starting with President Clinton, fumed against Saddam's WMD. Now almost no one remembers that after General Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, defected to Jordan in 1995, he helped us find "more than one hundred metal trunks and boxes" containing documentation "dealing with all categories of weapons, including nuclear." He also aided UNSCOM to fish out of the Tigris River high-grade missile components prohibited to Iraq. That was exactly what my old Soviet-made "Sãrindar" plan stated he should do in case of emergency: destroy the weapons, hide the equipment, and preserve the documentation. No wonder Saddam hastened to lure Kamel back to Iraq, where three days later he was killed together with over 40 of his relatives in what the Baghdad official press described as a "spontaneous administration of tribal justice." Once that was done, Saddam slammed the door shut to any UNSCOM inspection...

Soon after I was granted political asylum in the US, Gaddafi staged a fire at the secret chemical weapons facility I knew about (the cellar underneath the Rabta chemical complex). To be sure the CIA satellites would notice that fire and cross that target off its list, he created a huge cloud of black smoke by burning truckloads of tires and painting scorch marks on the facility. That was written in the Sãrindar plan. To be on the safe side, Gaddafi also built a second production facility, this time placed some 100 feet underground in the hollowed-out Tarhunah Mountain, south of Tripoli. That was not in the Sãrindar plan.

In 1964 the first PLO Council, consisting of 422 Palestinian representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Palestinian National Charter—a document that had been drafted in Moscow. The Palestinian National Covenant and the Palestinian Constitution were also born in Moscow, with the help of Ahmed Shuqairy, a KGB influence agent who became the first PLO chairman...This new PLO was headed by a Soviet-style Executive Committee made up of 15 members who, like their comrades in Moscow, also headed departments. As in Moscow—and Bucharest—the chairman of the Executive Committee became the general commander of the armed forces as well. The new PLO also had a General Assembly, which was the Soviet-inspired name given to all East European parliaments after World War II.

Based on another "socialist division of labor" [whereby the Kremlin delegated some of its geopolitical activities to Warsaw Pact satellites], the Romanian espionage service (DIE) was responsible for providing the PLO with logistical support. Except for the arms, which were supplied by the KGB and the East German Stasi, everything else came from Bucharest. Even the PLO uniforms and the PLO stationery were manufactured in Romania free of charge, as a "comradely help." During those years, two Romanian cargo planes filled with goodies for the PLO landed in Beirut every week, and were unloaded by Arafat's men.

"Tovarishch Mohammed Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, nom de guerre Abu Ammar," was built into a Palestinian leader by the KGB in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day Arab-Israeli War. In that war Israel humiliated two of the Soviet Union's most important allies in the Arab world of that time, Egypt and Syria, and the Kremlin thought that Arafat could help repair the Soviet prestige. Arafat had begun his political career as leader of the Palestinian terrorist organization al-Fatah, whose fedayeen were being secretly trained in the Soviet Union. In 1969, the KGB managed to catapult him up as chairman of the PLO executive committee. Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was also a Soviet puppet, publicly proposed the appointment.

Soon after that, the KGB tasked Arafat to declare war on American "imperial-Zionism" during the first summit of the Black International, an organization that was also financed by the KGB. Arafat claimed to have coined the word "imperial-Zionism," but in fact Moscow had invented this battle cry many years earlier, combining the traditionally Russian anti-Semitism with the new Marxist anti-Americanism.

Falling back on the discredited claim that the film is anti-Semitic, French movie moguls say they fear the impact viewing "The Passion" might have on audiences, and want to wait and see how the rest of Europe reacts to it before allowing it to be seen in La Belle France, according the Chicago Sun-Times.