It's come to this: Belfast pastor faces prison for 'defaming Islam'
A 78-year old Belfast pastor is facing prison time for 'defaming Islam.'
James McConnell, 78, is facing up to six months in prison for
delivering a sermon in which he described Islam as "heathen" and
"satanic." The message was streamed live on the Internet, and a Muslim
group called the police to complain.
According to Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service (PPS), McConnell violated
the 2003 Communications Act by "sending, or causing to be sent, by
means of a public electronic communications network, a message or other
matter that was grossly offensive."
Observers say that McConnell's prosecution is one of a growing number of examples in which British authorities — who routinely ignore incendiary speech by Muslim extremists — are using hate speech laws to silence Christians.
McConnell, who turned down an offer to avoid a trial, says the issue
of Christians being singled out for persecution in Britain must be
confronted, and that he intends to turn his case into a milestone trial
"in defense of freedom of speech and freedom of religion."
...
"The God who we worship and serve this evening is not
Allah. The Muslim God, Allah, is a heathen deity. Allah is a cruel
deity. Allah is a demon deity. A deity that this foolish government of
ours ... pays homage to, and subscribes financial inducements to curry
their favor to keep them happy....
"While in Muslim lands Christians are persecuted for their faith;
their homes burned, their churches destroyed, and hundreds of them
literally have given their lives for Christ in martyrdom. A lovely young
[Sudanese] woman by the name of Miriam, 27 years-of-age, because she
has accepted Christ as her Savior, will be flogged publicly and hanged
publicly. These fanatical worshippers are worshippers of the god called
Allah. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a fact and it cannot be denied and
it cannot be refuted.
"I know the time will come in this land ... and in this nation to say
such things will be an offense to the law. It would be reckoned
erroneous, unpatriotic. But I am in good company, the company of
[Protestant Reformers] Luther and Knox and Calvin and Tyndale and
Latimer and Cranmer and Wesley and Spurgeon and such like him.
"The Muslim religion was created many hundreds of years after Christ.
Mohammed, was born in 570. But Muslims believe that Islam is the true
religion, dating back to Adam, and that the biblical Patriarchs were all
Muslims, including Noah and Abraham and Moses, and even our Lord Jesus
Christ.
"To judge by some of what I have heard in the past few months, you
would think that Islam was little more than a variation of Christianity
and Judaism. Not so. Islam's ideas about God, about humanity, about
salvation are vastly different from the teachings of the Holy
Scriptures. Islam is heathen. Islam is satanic. Islam is a doctrine
spawned in Hell."
McConnell's comments about Islam comprised less than ten minutes of a 35-minute sermon that focused on Christian theology.
Some day, historians will marvel at the way Western society destroyed itself. Or maybe they won't. By then, the Caliphate may not look kindly on such 'nostalgia' and history will have become too politically correct to discuss it.
When George Mitchell was President Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, he was constantly comparing the Israeli-'Palestinian' conflict to Northern Ireland. Now that he is no longer in the White House, look what he says in this piece in which he says that the 'Palestinian' bid for unilateral statehood at the UN hurts the 'peace process.'
Mitchell previously served as a US special envoy to Northern Ireland, where he helped broker a peace deal that established a Protestant-Catholic power-sharing government. But attaining peace in the Middle East is a bigger challenge, he said.
"By comparison the Middle East is a much more complicated, difficult situation," he said. "There are many more factors involved."
Either Mitchell took way too long to get it, or he was letting Obama cue him on what to say while he was working at the White House. If the latter is the case, you have to wonder how and why he put up with it for two years.
President Obama spoke to the United Nations on Wednesday morning. The full text of his remarks is here (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). Here's part of what he had to say about Israel and the 'Palestinians.'
Let's go to the videotape.
Here's the full text of what Obama said on Israel and the 'Palestinians.' A few comments follow.
Now I know that for many in this hall, one issue stands as a test for these principles – and for American foreign policy: the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.
One year ago, I stood at this podium and called for an independent Palestine. I believed then – and I believe now – that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own. But what I also said is that genuine peace can only be realized between Israelis and Palestinians themselves. One year later, despite extensive efforts by America and others, the parties have not bridged their differences. Faced with this stalemate, I put forward a new basis for negotiations in May. That basis is clear, and well known to all of us here. Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state.
I know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. So am I. But the question isn’t the goal we seek – the question is how to reach it. And I am convinced that there is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN – if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now. Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians – not us – who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on refugees and Jerusalem.
Peace depends upon compromise among peoples who must live together long after our speeches are over, and our votes have been counted. That is the lesson of Northern Ireland, where ancient antagonists bridged their differences. That is the lesson of Sudan, where a negotiated settlement led to an independent state. And that is the path to a Palestinian state.
We seek a future where Palestinians live in a sovereign state of their own, with no limit to what they can achieve. There is no question that the Palestinians have seen that vision delayed for too long. And it is precisely because we believe so strongly in the aspirations of the Palestinian people that America has invested so much time and effort in the building of a Palestinian state, and the negotiations that can achieve one.
America’s commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable, and our friendship with Israel is deep and enduring. And so we believe that any lasting peace must acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces every single day. Let’s be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile, persecution, and the fresh memory of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they were.
These facts cannot be denied. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors. And friends of the Palestinians do them no favors by ignoring this truth, just as friends of Israel must recognize the need to pursue a two state solution with a secure Israel next to an independent Palestine.
That truth – that each side has legitimate aspirations – is what makes peace so hard. And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in each other’s shoes. That’s what we should be encouraging. This body – founded, as it was, out of the ashes of war and genocide; dedicated, as it is, to the dignity of every person – must recognize the reality that is lived by both the Palestinians and the Israelis. The measure of our actions must always be whether they advance the right of Israeli and Palestinian children to live in peace and security, with dignity and opportunity. We will only succeed in that effort if we can encourage the parties to sit down together, to listen to each other, and to understand each other’s hopes and fears. That is the project to which America is committed. And that is what the United Nations should be focused on in the weeks and months to come.
Obama still thinks that the Israeli-'Palestinian' dispute is like the conflict in Northern Ireland. It is not.
This prophetic article from 2004 shows how the British (and Tony Blair in particular) have been trying to bring Northern Ireland-type 'conflict resolution' to the Israeli-Arab 'Palestinian' conflict and why all Israelis had better pray that it not work here. Here's the bottom line with some comments about why it's so bad for Israel interspersed.
The arguments for indulging insurgent, revolutionary movements are wonderfully flexible. In the first phase, the "oppressors" must indulge the "moderates." [That would be Fatah. CiJ] As time goes on, that changes to the "pragmatic hardliners," [Hamas. CiJ] who are the only faction that can deliver. There are vague echoes here of the mission of Alistair Crooke, the former MI6 officer who served in Northern Ireland and who has been seeking to bring Hamas into the fold as the only people who can "deliver" on a settlement. Judging by past form, future British and EU diplomatic efforts may focus increasingly upon influencing the less "ideological" element within Likud [That would be Kadima. This was written a year before Kadima broke off from the Likud. CiJ]. Many British officials see Hamas and Likud as mutually reinforcing "hardliners."
A key theme in this mindset is that there can be no purely military defeat of insurgents [Is this why Israel was pressured not to finish the job in Gaza? CiJ]. If this is true, then one has to make a massive number of political concessions. Some of the more robust elements within the British system believe that the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the police force which was at the cutting edge of the struggle against terrorism, was stopping between 7 and 8, and in some cases even 9 out of 10 IRA operations during the latter years of the Troubles. Indeed, year by year we learn just how riddled the IRA was with British informers [Just like Israel has put an almost total stop to 'Palestinian' terror originating in Judea and Samaria since 2003. CiJ]. But notwithstanding that achievement, the British government decided to give disproportionate political concessions to ensure that the IRA never had "an excuse" to go back to armed struggle. In other words, they believe that the IRA, like the Palestinians, has a great number of very good excuses to go back "to war." That process, of depriving the insurgents of "excuses," inevitably comes at the expense of Unionists and the Israelis.
But what is the definition of victory in Northern Ireland? The British do not define "victory" as the military defeat of the IRA. Firstly, they do not believe it was possible, but even if it was possible, they do not believe in such a defeat as a matter of principle. Victory, as far as they see it in Northern Ireland, is to persuade Sinn Fein/IRA to accept the use of democratic methods. In other words, they have a methodological definition of victory, but have no particular end point of a settlement in mind (which reinforces instability by convincing Republicans that "one last heave," whether politically or militarily, will do the trick).
Indeed, one unique aspect of policy in Northern Ireland is that the British state is well-nigh unique in advertising, quite openly, that it does not really mind if it is dismembered - subject, of course, to the consent principle. All it wants is that the IRA and the Republican movement - in the main - abandon full-scale violence, and then all other roads are open. To ensure that abandonment of violence, the British will maintain the pace of concessions, at least for as long as the Unionists are prepared to tolerate them. And because the British have been working on the Unionist community for so long, they reckon that they have a very good chance of maintaining that grip on events.
This all sounds familiar, doesn't it? If it doesn't, I think I have pointed out enough striking similarities for you. Do we really want Israel dismembered?
Read the whole thing to understand what is apparently the Hopenchange administration's 'new approach.' And keep in mind that radical Islam is not the Irish Republican Army's ideology. The IRA didn't have suicide bombers.
As to South Sudan, the jury is out as to whether the separation will succeed, or whether the North will allow them to live in peace. But here are three other key elements. First, unlike the South Sudanese, no one has polled the 'Palestinians' as to whether they want a 'state.' The question at least deserves to be asked. Second, Abu Mazen rejected the division of Sudan as an 'Israeli-American conspiracy.' And third does anyone really know whether Sudan wants both its own territory and South Sudan's? Because we do know that 'Palestine' hopes to replace Israel.
At least he's learned that Israel is our historic homeland and not a place that the World awarded to us as compensation for the Holocaust. He doesn't seem to have learned a whole lot else in the last three years.
Asaf Romirowsky places a fair amount of the blame for the failure of the 'peace process' on departing Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell.
Mitchell symbolized the Obama Administration’s determination to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict against all odds. The tenacity he used in Northern Ireland proved futile in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Apparently, Mitchell was inept in his attempt to convince the White House that Obama’s speech next week must include a detailed plan for peace in the Middle East.
Even Obama understands that the timing is bad for announcing such plan when there is hardly a peace process in place. Furthermore, Obama would be seen as weak on the heels of the Palestinian threat of a unilateral declaration of statehood and the fake Fatah- Hamas marriage. As such, Obama will be joining Netanyahu in next week’s AIPAC policy conference - the largest gathering of the pro-Israeli community in North America to reaffirm the bond between the US and Israel.
If anything, the latest “Arab Spring” has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the core of the problems in the Middle East does not reside within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More specifically, it is not about settlements or Jerusalem. However, Mitchell’s naïveté was too entrenched in his success of Northern Ireland, which prevented him from seeing the limitations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Again, this is the reason why he kept advocating for 100% construction freeze in Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank as a prerequisite for peace talks. Such freeze is impossible for any Israeli government and had never previously been viewed by Palestinian leaders as a prerequisite. Abbas himself acknowledged it in a recent interview, where he slammed President Obama for pushing him to follow this course and now makes him look foolish.
While the Irish certainly have an identity connection to the land, it is not talismanic. The Irish people do not see Dublin as a divinely chosen conduit to God. Jerusalem, however, is the single most important place for all Jews, and, though unnamed in the Koran, has become the third most holy place for Muslims. Understanding the Jewish and Irish perceptions of their own ethnicities is critical to understanding the outcomes in these two arenas: Ethnic perceptions allowed success in Northern Ireland and virtually ensured failure in the Middle East.
I agree that Mitchell drew too close a comparison between the Israeli Arab conflict and Northern Ireland. But I also predicted that would happen on the day that Mitchell was appointed. In fact, it was already in the cards by then. Others were drawing the same comparisons.
But I don't believe that it was Mitchell who decided to press for the 'full settlement freeze including Jerusalem.' Mitchell has been around - and been around this region - for too long to believe that would ever have a chance of working, especially with a Right wing government in power in Israel. Moreover, I don't believe that Mitchell who kept clinging to the freeze idea nor that he resigned because Obama refused to present a Middle East 'peace plan' in Thursday's address (Mitchell's resignation letter is dated April 6).
Harry Truman famously kept a sign on his desk in the White House. That sign said, 'the buck stops here.' Truman knew who takes credit when things go right and who gets the blame when things go wrong.
In December, responding to a piece that Elliott Abrams wrote calling for Mitchell to be fired, I wrote:
I disagree. It's not that I'm enamored of Mitchell - I'm not. But I don't believe that Mitchell is the problem.
The problem is the Obami's approach - an approach that has assumed that Israel has only to give and the 'Palestinians' only to receive. The problem is that when the President was on shaky ground with Israeli Jews before he ever took office, he compounded the problem by starting his administration with a splashy appeal to the Muslim world - an appeal that has gone unanswered.
I don't believe peace is possible here right now - except for the relative quiet maintained by the status quo. The 'Palestinians' have yet to signal that there is a single concession they are willing to make.
I believe that the Obami should fold up shop, give the parties the White House's phone number and tell them to call when they're ready to talk. Just like Bush I, except this time with the onus on the 'Palestinians' - who were offered everything and gave nothing in return - and not on Israel. I don't expect Obama to do that. After all, there's a 'fierce moral urgency' to establishing a 'Palestinian state' during his first (and hopefully last) term. So I guess we'll have two more years of ups and downs in which nothing is accomplished, whether Mitchell keeps his position or whether it goes to Dennis Ross or someone else.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who pushed for the 'settlement freeze.' If the President doesn't like the policy, he's the man in charge, and it's his job to change it. As much as George Mitchell was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm not sure anyone else would have been any more successful, particularly with an impatient ideologue at the top leading the charge.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
