Jihad9: Muhammad, Schuman and the Limits to Free Speech

On 7 January 2015, France, Europe and the West were faced with people who killed rather than let journalists expose an unpopular truth. Shouting ‘Allah is great‘, three gunmen with automatic weapons launched an attack on the satirical publication, Charlie Hebdo, killing a dozen journalists and others and wounding many more.
News sources recorded reactions of horror. Almost immediately there were also reactions of joy and congratulations at the killings and woundings.  ‘This news quenches the thirst for revenge,’ said one. ‘France was [once] part of the land of Islam and will return to be the land of Islam‘ said another. Some newspapers in Turkey and elsewhere blamed the deaths on the journalists themselves.
Who is responsible for the cold-blooded murders? It was not the pope’s Vatican Swiss guard armed with pikes or orthodox Jews wielding prayer books that sent a death squad. Both the pope and Jews were satirized mercilessly by Charlie Hebdo. What are the limits to what I can say? Can I criticize just the blameworthy, murderous religious leaders and expose them and their books as frauds?

The duty of every human being is to search and find the truth about himself and about society. It is a fundamental to life. Each individual also has the duty before God to seek the truth about the Creation and the Creator.
Truth is not only the foundation of a stable society. It is the enemy of dictatorships, rascals, mafias, conspiracies and villains. The pantheistic Roman emperors decreed that British and Gaulish druidic Kelts should be put to death if found in Rome. Why? They worshipped one supreme being and began all their meetings with their recitation: ‘Truth against the world!‘ Julius Caesar records with some consternation that at their colleges in Britain they trained their youth in sciences, theology and philosophy for twenty years. Rome also decided to destroy all the Jews, and then Christianity. Instead it was pagan Rome that collapsed.
Today, in certain societies it is not always wise to speak the truth out loud. On the southern flank of the Mediterranean from the Atlantic to Egypt and Gaza, it is difficult to find a free distribution of the Bible in Arabic. Under Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, curiously underwritten by the EU, Coptic Christians were islamized by force, or even crucified. Bible shops were burnt. Further east, Christians are killed as soon as they are identified as such by the Islamic State. Thus the attack is much deeper and broader than just a ‘freedom of speech‘ issue.
Democracies should be different.
Democracies, according to Robert Schuman, the founder of the European Community, are based on Judeo-Christian principles. The search for truth requires both tolerance and the means to exchange information, knowledge and wisdom. His own life experience also showed an intolerance to those, like the Nazis and Communists, who used the tolerance of democracies to subvert them.
What are the limits to free speech? This is what Schuman wrote in Pour l’Europe, p75.

In an authentic democracy, there is but one limit to freedom: the institutions of the State and society must remain protected from violence and from destructive operations. Every reform, every claim can be not only the object of free discussion, but by individuals or collective activities in relation to public authorities in the framework foreseen by law.

Violence must be outlawed, not discussion. What then is the end result of this ‘free discussion‘? Will it lead to confusion, disputes, anarchy? Clearly not. Nor did Schuman mean the rootless, modern liberalism that would not recognize truth if it stared it in the face. Because someone declares an opinion to be true, does not make it true. Discussion cannot be stopped by ‘political censorship‘ by declaring a topic to be not ‘politically correct‘. Truth has to be tested. Both the Kelts and the Jews demonstrated the method.
Democracies are instruments to search for what Schuman called supranational values: justice, truth, science and authentic communalities that bring together a Community.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said: ‘Today’s murders are part of a larger confrontation, not between civilizations – no – but between civilization itself and those who are opposed to a civilized world.’
What is this ‘civilization‘? It involves rational, patient discussion, and the analysis of all dogma. How does one judge what is dogma and what is truth? Schuman continued:

There is no place here for the sort of dogmatism that can only be claimed by unchangeable and absolute truths, revealed and sanctioned by God, who is the unique Master and Judge of our consciences.

The killing of those who trouble consciences is a heinous violation of this principle.
Schuman further warned of the dangers of theocracy, the combination of religion and politics.

Theocracies fail to recognize the principle of separation of the spiritual and the profane. A theocracy causes a religious idea to take on responsibilities that do not belong to it. Under such a regime political differences are likely to degenerate into a religious fanaticism. Holy war is the most dangerous expression of a bloody exploitation of people’s religious proclivities. (p65)

Those like the Muslim Brotherhood who make an idol of the Koran make the double mistake: that of the book’s infallibility and that of confounding the realms of religion and politics into Sharia law. That governs every aspect of a human’s life. It includes death as a slave for Allah as its highest aspiration. The Egyptian people could not stomach the Muslim Brotherhood or Morsi’s deceit.
Recently, President of Egypt al-Sisi told Egypt’s top clerics and scholars at Cairo’s Al-Azhar university that they must change their {political} ideology and bring the seventh-century religion up-to-datAe with realities. The ideology had become ‘hostile to the entire world.‘ He asked: ‘Is it conceivable that 1.6 billion Muslims would kill the world’s population of 7 billion, so they could live on their own?‘
What of those who believe the Koran is written in heaven and has intolerance to kaffirs (unbelievers) written as its marching orders? Such beliefs in a movement started by an illiterate person cannot be much countered rationally by other uneducated, illiterate people. Islamic and Arabic countries are among those with the highest levels of illiteracy. Saudi Arabia did not have a single high school until 1930. (But it had the petroleum the West needed!)

For a ‘civilized person‘ to follow Koranic texts without understanding their context and after logical and historical analysis is as illogical as to assume that two, out-of context Christian texts such as ‘Judas went and hanged himself‘ and ‘Go thou and do likewise‘ represent the essence of a well-founded religion.

Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on pinterest_shareMore Sharing Services0

IOC1: SHAME on the Olympics! SHAME on Europe! SHAME on Germany!

Renew the Olympic spirit of peace in sport! Athletes from around the world, inside and outside the stadium at London, and the general public watching the Olympic opening events can all help. It started to go wrong forty years ago.

In a terrorist attack at the Olympics in Munich in 1972, eleven Israeli athletes were murdered.  A German policeman also lost his life. The German organizers failed to provide security safeguards for their new democracy. Unwilling to have their Olympics dubbed an authoritarian operation with allusions to Hitler's 'Nazi' Olympics in Berlin in 1936, they showed scant sensitivity to real dangers posed by terrorist groups. The Arab terrorist group, Black September, linked to Fatah of the PLO of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas was responsible for taking the athletes hostage and the subsequent  massacre. It was further responsible for hijacking Belgian Sabena and German Lufthansa aircraft, killing high European, Jordanian and US officials, letter bombs and other bombings of energy plants in Germany and the Netherlands, plus other outrages in Athens and New York.

At the service after the killings of the athletes, the President of the Olympics Committee failed even to mention them by name in his remarks. 'The games must go on. We must proceed with our efforts to keep them pure and praiseworthy. We declare, therefore, this day as a day mourning and we will continue all events as planned, one day later.' he said. Thus was truth and the conscience of the world smothered.

In 1896 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic ideal to build on the ancient Greek example that wars should be forbidden while the Olympic sports took place. Its present Charter says: 'Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on ... the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.' The IOC took no notice of the warning made that day 'the entire fabric of international life is in danger of tearing apart and disintegrating.'

The Olympics is supposedly about principles and PEACE between nations and peoples. The next year saw war and Europe impoverished by more terrorism including the Oil Weapon. IOC action remains unprincipled. For FORTY years the International Olympics Committee has miserably failed to address this issue at the CORE of its existence. It had another opportunity this year. The London Olympics open on 27 July.

A widow has tried for nearly forty years to have the International Olympics Committee agree to recognize this affront to the Olympic spirit by just one minute's silence. The IOC was formally requested to reaffirm its peaceful principle by the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and US Congressmen representing the widows of slain athletes. They asked the IOC President Jacques Rogge and the Committee to hold one minute's silence at the opening of the Olympics in memory of those slain athletes. They said it should act as a reminder about the purpose of the Olympics.

The IOC REFUSED.

Mr Ayalon retorted: 'Unfortunately, this response is unacceptable as it rejects the central principles of global fraternity on which the Olympic ideal is supposed to rest.' In a statement Ayalon said: 'The terrorist murders of the Israeli athletes were not just an attack on people because of their nationality and religion; it was an attack on the Olympic Games and the international community. Thus it is necessary for the Olympic Games as a whole to commemorate this event in the open rather than only in a side event.'

On 8 June 2012 the US House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed Resolution 663 urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to institute a minute's silence at every future Olympics Opening Ceremony. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee asked for the IOC to think again.
Mrs Ankie Spitzer, widow of slain fencing master and team coach Andre Spitzer, started an online petition. It now has more than 72,000 signatures. 'One minute of silence will clearly say to the world that what happened in 1972 can never happen again,' Mrs Spitzer says in the petition. 'Please do not let history repeat itself.'

But where is Europe? Where is Germany in this? Where is the Olympics organizer, Great Britain?  What is the attitude of the European Institutions? Why are they SILENT?

During World War Two, six million of Europe's nine million Jews were exterminated by a Nazi regime that had overthrown democracy. Robert Schuman and the founding fathers of Europe said 'NEVER AGAIN!' They created the Council of Europe. This defined the New Europe. Membership was only allowed to nations and peoples who respected the European Convention of Human Rights.

The Statutes of the Council of Europe where signed in London in May 1949. Only nations that are members of the Council of Europe can become members of the European Community or the European Union.

The aim of the Council of Europe, originally to be called the European Union, was according to their Statutes the 'safeguarding and realizing the ideals and principles which are their common heritage' recognizing the 'rule of law and that every person placed under its jurisdiction should enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms.' This step, said Schuman, 'created the foundations of a spiritual and political cooperation, from which the European spirit will be born, the principle of a vast and enduring supranational union.'

His colleague Pierre-Henri Teitgen told the Council of Europe that recognition of the principles was necessary because:

'An honest man does not become a gangster in 24 hours. Infection takes time. In thought and in conscience, he has to let himself be drawn into temptation. He gets used to the fault before he commits it. He descends the stairwell step by step. One day, he finds evil has beaten him and he has lost all scruples. ... Evil progresses in an underhand way, with a minority operating to seize what amounts to the levers of power. One by one, freedoms are suppressed, in one sphere then another. Public opinion is smothered, the worldwide conscience is dulled and the national conscience asphyxiated. ... Intervention is needed before it becomes too late.'

Today the EU has its own diplomatic service, called the European External Action Service. It should act based on European values, supranational values, like Human Rights and the respect of law.
Where is the External Action Service? What on earth is it doing if it has not made clear it should act Europe's fundamental values and that all the EU rejects terrorism? Why has Europe not put all its diplomatic weight behind supporting the call of the widows and the other government leaders?

The leaders and the EU have a short time to act. If they do not act formally the people of Europe and around the world can. All who deplore the IOC's irresponsibility and the slide to lawlessness can act independently and collectively.

The Israeli government together with support of all sympathetic governments, organizations and friends should set a TIME during or at the end of the opening ceremony. At this moment  all who wish can observe a minute’s silence can do so, regardless of what the IOC has decided. Many athletes who deplore sectarian killing of athletes can show the lead. At the Olympics Opening ceremonies all athletes are free to follow this recommendation and shame the IOC. The US presidential candidates should be asked if they support this ‘INFORMAL’ minute’s silence. So should all Europe's leaders.

The programme for the opening cermonies on 27 July has been announced. It provides an ideal opportunity to add a minute's silence in a natural way.

Part of the theme will be William Blake's poem 'Jerusalem' -- with the music by Hubert Parry which many consider to be a sort of English anthem. It is sung at the Last Night of the Proms and many other occasions, including sporting events.

Many people will sing the words. The last stanza is:
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

Those who support the Olympic ideal that the Games should be free of wars, killings and ideological battle should re-affirm it. They can do so by publicizing their intention to remain standing after the singing for an extra minute in silence.  This should act as a renewed remembrance that the Olympics is supposed to be about peace between people and nations. Nations should denounce terrorism and killing at a world sport event.

What is required is for all friends of peace to make their intentions known. Both in the stadium and outside the stadium. Wherever they can, let all people around the world remain silent for one minute after this anthem.

Jihad4 : Europe must reverse its Nazi-like support for Holocaust-denial, Jew-hatred and jihadi terrorism!

Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa? The European Union is going the right way -- the extreme right way -- to encourage Nazi ideology all along its southern borders. It spends millions of tax-payers' money in supporting a regime that is outrightly anti-Semitic and jihadist, that follows the Nazi model on racial supremacy and glorifies the extermination of the Jews as part of its programme.

THIS MUST STOP!! I M M E D I A T E L Y !! THIS IS POLICY MADNESS! IT IS NOT BEING DONE IN MY NAME OR IN THE NAME OF MILLIONS OF FAIR MINDED EUROPEANS.

IT IS TOTALLY AGAINST ALL THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY WAS FOUNDED: HUMAN RIGHTS, DEMOCRACY AND THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND RELIGION.

Consider! THINK!

* If one of EU's Member States demanded that all Jews down to the last man, woman and child must be cleared out of its territory, would it get EU funding for the project?

Yet this is exactly what the EU is doing abroad. The Council of Ministers gives political and diplomatic support and millions of euros -- European taxpayers' money -- to do so.

* If an EU Member State named a football tournament after a jihadist who had hijacked a bus and then murdered the passengers, 37 people including 12 children, would the EU continue its political support and funding?

Yet abroad EU politicians are strongly propping up this regime with diplomatic support and the Europeans' own money.

* If an EU member State refused to recognize another member State, let us say Denmark, Luxembourg or the Netherlands, or even a neighbour like Switzerland and said it should be part of greater Germany or an aggrandized France, would it get EU funding and support?

Yet this is exactly what the EU is supporting abroad with all the political and diplomatic power at its elbow.

* If a member State had official textbooks that preached hatred and war against another member State or a minority inside its borders, would it get OFFICIAL EU funding?

Yet this is exactly what official EU Foreign Policy supports. Other funding is coming directly from Member States budgets.

* If a terrorist organisation was found to be largely sustained because of public funding inside the EU, would it get extra aid and encouragement from Brussels? If the entire population of a region voted in elections to declare war and kill the population of a neighbouring country, would it get EU funding? Is that democracy?

Yet this is what is happening abroad according to EU policy.

* What would the EU do if one of the political parties in the European Parliament made a political merger with a terrorist organisation responsible for countless deaths, bombings and stabbings? Would it continue to give them support, pay its 'politicians' and expect them to attain high office in government?

Yet that is exactly what the EU is doing abroad.

Let us take those points one by one.

1. The EU is providing half a billion euros to support 'ministries' and 'administrations' of what could be the latest neo-Nazi racist and apartheid state. The Palestine Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said that if he had a state 'I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land". He would exclude any European of Jewish origin setting foot in 'HIS' territory. In published sources he is quoted by the official Palestinian agency, Wafa as saying: '"I'm willing to agree to a third party that would supervise the agreement, such as NATO forces, but I would not agree to having Jews among the NATO forces, or that there will live among us even a single Israeli on Palestinian land.” This makes it clear that when Abbas says Israeli he does not mean Israeli Arab, Israeli Christian or Israeli Baha'i. He means Jew.

Later Wafa published the following correction: ' I will not agree that an Israeli, even if he is a Muslim, will be present on my land.' That implies war against any who collaborate with Jews. This is worse than any apartheid state. It is pure racism of the Nazi type -- Judenrein, free of Jews. That is the term the Nazis gave to conquered territories where all the Jews had been murdered or sent to concentration camps elsewhere. Is the Council of Ministers now funding this Nazi policy abroad? Why is there no debate on the subject? Will the EU demand that Abbas repudiate all of these statements before he gets another cent in support?

In any European Member State Abbas would not be allowed even to be a politician. Why then is he recognized at all? What are the EU's rules for talking to anti-Semites? Where has the European External Action Service published its rules? Abbas is the author of a Holocaust denying thesis, passed in Moscow in Cold War days. It says that Zionist leaders conspired with Nazis in the killing of thousands of fellow Jews. It describes as “the Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed”. It maintains that the gas chambers were built and used for disinfection and control of disease. The Palestinian Authority has steadfastly refused to remove this Holocaust-denying book from all its libraries. It is scarcely surprising that so many Arabs deny the Holocaust. Is the EU also encouraging this in supporting Abbas and 'former' terrorists, now residing in their plush villas? Abbas was once elected but when his term expired declared himself an extension. That puts him in the same category as a dictator, following the German pattern in history. In any EU State he would be boycotted for fraud.

2. Yes, the Palestinian football tournament is named after a bloody murderer, whose war name was Abu Jihad, or Khalil al-Wazir. He was a founder of the Fatah terrorist group which saw killing of defenceless children and civilians as the type of combat to which he was best suited. He was acclaimed by the Palestinian 'peace' leaders as prince of the shahids or martyrs. This is not unusual. The Karate championships are named for Abdallah Daoud who was responsible for many terror attacks. It is sponsored by an organisation wanting the 'repatriation' of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Daoud was one of the terrorists who stormed the Church of the Nativity in 2002, continuing to fight against Israel for several weeks while using the monks and the religious site as shields

What is the EU's policy on such 'sport' ? Does it encourage interchanges with people who glorify the idea of using force against churches? Christians, mainly educated Arab Christians, who used to be the majority of around 75% in Bethlehem have now mainly disappeared to around 23% under the PA 'administration'.

Why is the EU supporting regimes that glory in the destruction of synagogues and churches and anything that opposes a dictatorial Islam? Why is the EU supporting an Arab Palestinian entity that has declared that it wants a state totally dominated by Sharia law where all other religions are banned or subjugated to Islam? All members of any Palestinian parliament would have to be Islamic sectarians and swear allegiance before 'Allah'. "I swear by Allah Almighty to be faithful to the Homeland, and to preserve the rights and interests of the people and nation, and to respect law and perform my duties in the best manner, as Allah is my witness". That is the equivalent term jihadis and other politically brainwashed Islamists use when killing, maiming or stabbing those who disagree with them -- Allahu Akhbar, the takbir, used by various killers including those suicidal jihadi maniacs of 9/11, and the bombers in Europe's capital cities.

Do these so-called Arab 'democrats' expect Europeans, do the expect ME or anyone else, to pay them from our taxes for such bigotry? After they have already eliminated any Arab wanting real friendship with Jews, do they expect EU support? Why? What if someone believes this 'Allah', is a false god. The name is used for bloody and bigoted conflict that also permits witnesses to lie. It is clear, he says, it has nothing to do with the true God, the creator of the universe, who says: you shall not bear false witness. Must that honest person lie or submit to be part of this bigoted, sharia state? Such a constitution is a recipe for increasing aggressive Middle Eastern politics-- which will envelop Europe in more bloody wars.

3. We have already quoted the self-proclaimed 'President' Abbas on the Judenrein Palestine. What is its policy towards Israel, a full member of the UN? The PA issues maps where the State of Israel has been left out altogether. All the land is Palestine, according to the PA. That rather makes nonsense of any peace process. Amendments to the Palestinian Covenant of the PLO that denies Israel's right to exist have been promised many times. The articles on a new Holocaust have never been revoked. Despite promises by Arafat to the press conference that it was 'caduc' and misleading statements by others such as US President Clinton, Palestinians and their documents confirm that all they have agreed to is that sometime in the future they might amend the articles on their policy of Israeli ethnocide. In the meantime such murderous sentiments as were written into the covenant dating back to PLO's Nasserite origins remain. Why is the EU supporting an entity whose official policy is still the extermination of the Jews?

4. According to a monitoring report by EUfunding.org, research which is confirmed by other organisations, the EU and its Member States are funding hatred in school books. Five key points are listed:

* Palestinian children are forced to learn from inflammatory material, much of it containing hidden and/or violent directives. This is an abuse of their basic student rights, as laid down by UNESCO.

* It is evident that the texts are designed not to include the name of Israel. When this rule is breached, Israel is only referred to in a negative context. Any connection between Jews and the Holyland is denied emphatically.

* The result is that the Palestinian children are encouraged to hate their neighbors. This culture not only fans the flames of violence; it significantly reduces the chances for peace among the next generation.

* These books are funded by foreign governments and respected international agencies; in particular Belgium, Italy and UNESCO.

* The institutions of the United Nations, in particular UNESCO and UNRWA, are clearly providing services, which only deepen the fostering hatred directed at Israel.

What about teaching Human Rights in Arab schools? Do the teachers and the workers in Palestinian Arab schools learn the facts about the Holocaust? It is forbidden! Verboten! This is what the Arab daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, published on 14 April 2011.

Headline: "The [UNRWA Workers'] Union emphasized its opposition to teaching the Holocaust of the Jews as part of the curriculum in the [UNRWA] Agency's schools..."

"The [UNRWA] Workers' Union emphasized its adamant opposition to teaching the Holocaust of the Jews within the educational curriculum of UNRWA schools, as part of the topic of human rights. The union said, 'We emphasize our adamant opposition to confusing the thinking of our students' by means of Holocaust studies in the human rights study curriculum ... (emphasis added)

Confused from what? Perhaps the constant encouragement of young people on television and throughout the media to prepare themselves as shahids that is suicide bombers, martyrs and guerrillas against civilians, like Abu Jihad.

5. The EU is sustaining and has sustained this squalid political mess where terrorists -- not democrats -- run the administration. The PLO terrorized any Arab who wanted to collaborate or had collaborated with the Israelis. Why did the EU let that happen? Then the EU encouraged elections in Gaza between two terrorist organizations, the PLO and Hamas, which is still on the EU's terrorist list. Hamas states its goal as Jewish ethnocide. As discussed in the earlier commentary, Hamas sets their goal as the destruction of Israel and the subjection to the whole population to militant Islam 'which will abolish {Israel} as it abolished all that preceded it.'

UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, is mainly paid for by the EU. It pays nearly two-thirds (62%) of its budget. Europe has been paying for more than 60 years! Why? because the Arab refugees in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan refuse to be integrated into those States and the States refuse to integrate them. That was the case when Egypt was in charge of Gaza from 1948 to 1957 and when also Jordan had invaded and controlled Samaria and Judea. They did absolutely nothing for the refugees and kept them in tents.They could have solved the problem then. They refused.

Who are the refugees? They are like no other refugees in the world and they get more more per capita than the really needy elsewhere. They are also permanent. In 1948 there were an estimated 8 million Indian refugees expelled from Pakistan following the independence conflict between Pakistan and India. Where they re-settled? Yes. Is the Palestinian Arab problem an issue about Islam? No. There were six million Islamic refugees from India who went to Pakistan. Were they re-settled? Yes.

Those 14 million refugees have all been re-settled. So have the millions and millions of refugees in Europe after World War 2. But not the much smaller number of Arab Palestinians, half a million maybe three-quarters. Why? Because the other Arab States wanted to create a permanent problem for Israel. They did so because of the humiliating defeat of their seven national armies illegally invading the sovereign State of Israel in 1948. There are now some 4 million refugees!

They created a special definition of 'refugee' like no other in the world. An UNRWA refugee can not only be the person seeking refuge but his children and his children's children and so on ad infinitum. It will never end. UNLESS the EU and democrats take the problem in hand. A Nazi-like Judenrein State with no agreed borders, with terror weapons financed from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and perhaps Egypt is no solution. It is an invitation for disaster for Europe too. Europe needs to use its influence to create a real DEMOCRATIC solution based on the European Human Rights Convention.

What defines a refugee? He has to be displaced from a dwelling -- where he lived less than TWO years -- before 1948. They had to be in residence from June 1946. An UNRWA refugee is one whose "normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict." And now this is 'inherited' by his many, many children, unlike other refugees.

Many of the original refugees were itinerant workers from Egypt, Syria and neighbouring countries. That definition was not a serious proposition in 1950s. It is ridiculous today where we see the scores of great grandchildren of one wandering agricultural worker from Syria claiming they are Palestinians. Yasser Arafat, despite his claims to the contrary, was born in Egypt as his birth certificate proved.

At the beginning there were many Jews who had been displaced. Some had lived there for generations, despite long persecution under the Ottoman empire, and then through the British Mandate -- the system where the nations of the world promised the conquered land from the Ottomans to the Jews as a national home. All coins and all stamps during the British Mandate period (1922-1948) already bore the designation in Hebrew for Land of Israel, in conformity to the international law of the League of Nations. This law had been passed by all Member States of the League and ratified by all their parliaments. It was re-confirmed by nations joining the United Nations.

The score of Arab States, some immensely rich from oil and including those that illegally invaded the land of Israel, did not deal with the Arab refugee problem. All the Jewish refugees under UNRWA were long resettled -- half a century ago. So have the 900,000 Jewish refugees expelled at that time from Arab lands of the North Africa and the Middle East.

6. The Fatah is taking a two stage solution of trying to obtain concessions and undermine Israel's security and delegitimize it by any means. That will make it weaker for armed attack. That is proved by their refusal to remove the following articles and others from its Covenant:

Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.

Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation - peoples and governments - with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland.

The PLO also want apply their peculiar version of Arab anti-capitalism, coordinate all the destructive forces of Arabs worldwide and to re-write history, presumably also in the law texts of Europe.

Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the right to self-determination.

Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

Article 21: The Arab Palestinian people, expressing themselves by the armed Palestinian revolution, reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine and reject all proposals aiming at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its internationalization.

Hamas has the simple idea of destroying all of Israel by terrorism, with the thousands of rockets it has fired and the support of the jihadist network of the Moslem Brotherhood, plus bombs, rockets and hate from Shi'ite Iran.

If the EU recognizes and pays for part of the Palestinian Authority, a covert terrorist organisation, should it continue to do so if it combines with an overtly terrorist group like Hamas? Does adding more poison make a bilious drink more appetizing? Hamas is already on the terrorist list of the EU. If Fatah wants to blow its cover and join forces with an openly terrorist group, then the only question to ask is:

Why hasn't the EU placed Fatah and the PA, open collaborators in Hamas terrorism on the terrorist list too?

It is time for the EU to take stock of their policies. Appeasement with terror in Czechoslovakia in 1938 strengthened the Nazis and led to World War. The EU has ample means to act. The EU is paying for the Palestinians. It should now begin to expect them to implement democratic practices. If politicians have forgotten what they are, they include:

Human Rights, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Assembly ... in fact why don't they just check the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It was created at the initiative of Robert Schuman and the Founding Fathers of modern Europe.

Why did they create it? To stop States and governments becoming like Nazis. They experienced that. Unless a determined moral stance is made a democratic government can slide from bad to worse. It becomes a gangster state, threatening everyone.

Don't just believe me -- listen to what Schuman's friend and colleague, Pierre-Henri Teitgen, said when he introduced the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Council of Europe.

'Democracies do not become Nazi countries overnight. Evil progresses in an underhand way, with a minority operating to seize what amounts to the levers of power. One by one, freedoms are suppressed, in one sphere then another.

Public opinion is smothered, the worldwide conscience is dulled and the national conscience asphyxiated.

And then, when everything fits in place, the Führer is installed and this evolution continues right on to the deadly gas ovens of the crematorium.

Intervention is needed before it becomes too late. A conscience must exist somewhere which will sound the alarm to the minds of a nation threatened by this spreading gangrene, to warn them of the peril and to show them that they are committing themselves to a crooked road leading far, sometimes even to Buchenwald or to Dachau. An international jurisdiction within the Council of Europe, a system of surveillance and guarantee, could be this conscience, of which other countries also maybe have special need.’

EUROPE MUST ACT NOW -- BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE !

Jihad2: Iran's warships to transit Suez on 'anti-pirate' mission. Is it really Mission Europe?

For the first time in decades, two Iranian warships plan to transit the Suez Canal on route for Syria. Israel has denounced this as a provocation. At a time when Egyptians are in a delicate state of political and religious turmoil this is a brazen signal of growing Persian outreach. It is directed at the popular revolts igniting regime-changes across the southern Mediterranean.

Iran wants to show itself powerful and sympathetic to the religious masses. But not at home. Iranian mullahs have ruthlessly crushed popular demonstrations in Iran. Their aim is to stoke up problems elsewhere and train aggressive bandit regimes like Hamas in Gaza, HizbAllah (Party of God) in Lebanon (armed to the teeth with missiles and rockets) and spread war tensions in Syria and Jordan and now boost its influence in Egypt. Non-Iranian cargo ships loaded with Iranian missiles, arms and ammunition have previously been stopped for violating UN resolutions against this traffic.

It has a clear goal to antagonize Israel. But is it part of a larger goal -- Europe and whole of the European Sea, the Mediterranean?

The ships -- a frigate and a supply ship -- are symbolic of Iran's entry into the area where it has been banned or barred for thirty years. It has little military significance but huge propaganda value. It reinforces a religious message that is at the same time a political one. As exposed in the last commentary, Iran resumed plane flights to Egypt after three decades. The resumption occurred just a few months before President Mubarak was forced to resign. It indicated Iranians had already grabbed new powers to change policy inside Egypt. Mubarak was loud and outspoken about the 'Persians' who he called the greatest enemy of the Arabs. Some Iranians have a dream — 1500 years ago Persians under Darius 1 once controlled the pre-Suez Canal linking the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. A continuous struggle for supremacy occurred under competing Islamic flags.

For Iran, which today holds the chairmanship of the oil cartel OPEC for the first time in 36 years, the latest story has had a very profitable effect. Oil prices moved to their highest in more than two years, rising 2.40 dollars in a single day. That rise was more than a whole barrel cost before oil became the plaything of the cartel. In 1973 oil was transformed into the Oil Weapon in the war against Israel and the West.

Why does the Iranian regime say it wants to make an armed naval entrance into the Mediterranean? Hold your breath! Ostensibly to tackle bandits -- that is pirates. Have the Iranian captains lost their way? The pirates in question are 5000 km away — off the African coast of Somalia.

"During the mission the Iranian Navy cadets are due to be trained and prepared for defending the country's cargo ships and oil tankers against the continued threat of attack by Somali pirates," the semi-official Iranian Fars report said.

Why don't they try 5000km in the opposite direction -- the Antarctic?

Will the presence of Iranian gunships help the Mediterranean States build democracy? Will it help build respect for human rights and religious harmony?

If we turn to the source of the Iranian religio-political philosophy, it is clear that Europe is in the middle of an ideological war. Europeans with wishy-washy ideas are in no position to fight. The European Community is based on firm, supranational values, that is, absolute values such as telling the truth in national statistics, honest money, correcting corruption and requiring democratic backing for public decisions. Robert Schuman the founder of European democracy said that it must be based on Judeo-Christian foundation such as the search for truth, not dogmatism. A clash is inevitable.

This is what the Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini said:

'We know of no absolute values besides total submission to the will of Almighty.

(He meant his own ideas of the Almighty, his politics and human conduct.)

'People say: 'Don't lie!' But the principle is different when we serve the will of Allah. He taught men to lie so that we can save ourselves at moments of difficulty and confuse our enemies.'

The WikiLeaks indicate that the Gulf States -- now under pressure again -- recognize this mendacious Iranian tongue. 'Don't believe one word in a hundred of what the Iranians say.' That was what thirty years of experience taught the emir of Qatar. The world has only to observe the reality of today's Iran.

World peace requires either peacefully agreed common values or armed and verbal resistance against untruth. Human rights and responsibilities are a goal to attain for all societies. In Europe, the first legal convention for free States was created in 1950 when Robert Schuman and other Founding Fathers signed the Council of Europe’s Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Europe’s initiative arose because in WW2 much of the Continent was under a slave system — forced labour, extermination camps and destruction of religious values. Slavery was applied under both the neo-pagan Nazi regime as well as the atheistic Soviet regime. Those two systems had their own propaganda systems that twisted and distorted the truth. In the West many people were duped in the years before WW2 and during the Cold War. Free media including electronic media help make that difficult today.

The Convention guarantees that all signatory States must assure freedom of religion and the freedom to be able to change one’s religion as well as the freedom of conscience and the freedom of communication including criticizing religious and political ideas.

Schuman maintained that only a society based on Christian principles that recognized the potential of all individuals for salvation provides the basis for equality under law or democracy. A society based on Christian principles allows open discussion for Atheists, Jews, Christian sects, Muslims, animists, Buddhists and Hindus. The same applies to the Jewish State of Israel where there is freedom for Christians, Baha’is and Muslims and all who do not revert to violence. This contrasts starkly with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza. Both demand a Jew-free territory with a death penalty to any Muslim or Arab who would sell a house or land to a Jew.

Atheism treats religious believers of all types as second-class citizens. Nazism treated Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the confessing Lutheran Church as enemies to be destroyed. Islamic States are in the logical impossibility of maintaining a democracy because non-believers in Islam are treated as second-class citizens, either as outright infidels or at best people of the Book, (the Hebrew Bible which is not generally read or available in Islamic societies, only mixed ones). They are then granted second-class citizenship involving higher taxes etc as dhimmis. That is not democracy.

While one can applaud a call for freedom, one should also be aware that too often in history the removal of one ‘tyrant’ leads to another sort of tyranny and the loss of freedom again. The criterion in Egypt is that the Muslim community should recognize the possibility of individual Muslims changing their religion to that of the Coptic Church. According to a recent survey, four out of five Egyptians are of the opinion that any so-called Muslim ‘apostates’ should be executed. That is far from democracy.

Tyrants do not like free media. Religious tyrants are especially edgy and cry blue murder when critical questions are raised proving that they are talking rubbish. Today we have the extra facilities of the electronic media but we should be under no illusion that this will provide a freer society in dictatorships. Egypt was able to close down Internet in the first days of the popular revolt. This is also a possibility in many of the Mediterranean despots, such as Syria.

Europe's leaders are fast asleep while a major attack on European values is under way. The Suez Canal is vital for 8 per cent of world trade and 5 per cent of its oil. China is now making massive purchases for future oil. That alone would render oil much more expensive for Europe. According to WikiLeaks Saudi government say their oil reserves are possibly overstated by 40 %. The world’s largest exporter of crude will not be able to bail Europe out much longer. An oil crunch is inevitable.

If together with this easily foreseeable price hike, oil is again used as a religio-political weapon as it was in the 1970s, Europe could find itself in dire, dire straits.

Energy shortage is Europe's most urgent danger. It needs to establish energy independence. It can do it within a decade. Energy penury lays us open to energy blackmail. The extra short European Council on Energy of 4 February 2011 will go down as one that refuse to provide a vision. It created a new sleeping pill. Instead of initiating something real like a supranational Energy Community to mobilize the whole population, it devalued the whole idea. An energy community was a ‘brand name’ in the words of President Jerzy Buzek of the European Parliament. In other words it is an unrealistic dream of the inter-governmentalists. They have no intention of opening their eyes to the mortal danger Europe is facing, and acting. They are afraid of proposing the new, democratically-agreed treaty that is necessary for a real Energy Community.

Is energy more important than the euro crisis? Listen to what the International Energy Agency told the European Commission at a meeting inside the Commission’s Berlaymont recently. 'The rise in price of oil in 2010 cost the EU more than the combined budget debt of Greece and Portugal!' That was when oil rose from the 75s to the 90 a barrel mainly in the last quarter. Now it is above one hundred dollars and still rising.

The rise in oil prices in 2010 amounted to an additional cost for Europeans equivalent to HALF of the entire budget for the European Union in 2010. That is the RISE, not the total cost. Imported Energy (oil and gas) amounts to two and a half times the entire EU budget.

Oil is on a move upwards which represents a theft from the pockets of every European. Why theft? Because it is not a free market. It is being run by a multiple cartel system that ensures that the cartel-owners get the maximum price. In the early 1970s oil price was $2 a barrel. It was quadrupled by a political decision in 1973 using the oil weapon against Europe. In 1979 it was quadrupled again using the same method. A free market is when everyone is free to supply the demand on the market without secret cartels switching off the tap. All cartels involve theft by restricting supply, production, transport, financing, refinement and outlets. The Suez Canal is vital for Europe. It is becoming another tool for a global cartel.

Why has the European economy hit the doldrums? Part of it is dishonest politics and economic cheating. The other part is that the European economy is being sucked dry by ever-rising energy prices. Europeans need to use their native intelligence to create both energy independence and foreign policy independence. Strength comes through the democracy of the supranational Community system not inter-governmentalism.

Over the past year the oil import costs for the 34 mostly rich countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have soared by $200bn to $790bn at the end of 2010, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency. It cost the USA $72 billion, the EU $70 billion.

The increase, due to high crude prices, is equal to a loss of income of about 0.5 per cent of OECD gross domestic product, according to the IEA. Oil consuming nations, meanwhile, need to accelerate their efforts to reduce their reliance on oil, especially for transportation, the IEA said.

Europe’s first priority must be to cut oil and gas imports. I asked the director of one of Europe's most advanced technological firms the following question:

'If politicians and the people set as their goal to have energy independence in ten years, is it attainable?'

His answer is quite different from politicians and others who think they know.

He said that it was possible that over the course of the year Europe could be energy import neutral. That is on average it could cut its imports to zero. In the winter it would need some energy but at other seasons it could export energy.

Which politician has told you that? None that I know. Why? Is it possibly because the extra billions from the oil price scam is being used to persuade them that it is not possible?

Who would gain most if Europe ran out of power? Consider the exaltation of Iran in the Arab world if it did it. Europe should be aware! Iran is not a coy friend. What does a child do if you take away its toys. It tries to take yours. Europe has been talking to Iran about stopping its bomb-making programme. It has tried sanctions. Some of the Iranian nuclear programme has been sabotaged by the Stuxnet computer worm malware.

Will Iran take this lying down? Are the Iranians worried if European sanctions ruin their own country? Do they want to launch some sort of religio-political malware against Europe in revenge? Politicians assume sanctions would stop the mullahs in their religio-political goals. They should not rely on wishful thinking. They should rely on the facts.

How do you influence people who are mass-murderers of children? Consider the words of the leader who sent hundreds of young children to march through mine fields to explode them. Khomeini ordered half a million plastic keys to give to such children. Tied round their neck the key was a symbol to open the gates of paradise. Did he sacrifice other families' children for Iran or for a religious idea? War with Iraq he said was 'a divine blessing'.

‘We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another word for paganism. I say let this land burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam triumphs in the rest of the world.’

That world, that target, includes Europe.