A new scarecrow term that has emerged recently, specially in right wing media and the Bush administration's rhetoric. The term is the caliphate.

In this article, I mention some facts on the caliphate, and what the above rhetoric is.

As the saying goes : Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day ...

Little Green Footballs is a political blog that often has an Islamophobic tone. It often gets anonymous tips of important news.

It broke the word on Dan Rather's flop with G. W. Bush's army service letter.

It also broke the news on photoshopped pictures from Beirut freelance photographer Adnan Hajj. See the CBC coverage as well.

The Yesha Rabbinical Council, commenting on the Qana massacre, has said that during the time of war, there are "no innocents".

Yesha Rabbinical Council: During time of war, enemy has no innocents

The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna that "according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy."

All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians," the statement said. (Efrat Weiss)

(07.30.06, 17:37)

Two recent polls do not give a comforting picture.

The first shows that 18% of Canadians are uneasy in the presence of Muslims, compared to 5% saying the same for Jews, and 31% for born-again Christians.

The second says that one quarter of Canadians see Muslims negatively, compared to 10% only for Jews and Christians.

On Sunday, a man reportedly shot and killed one person at a Seattle Jewish center, and wounded six more, while reportedly shouting: "I am an American Muslim and I am angry at Israel".

His name is Naveed Haq, and is of Pakistani ancestry.

What is emerging though is that Naveed had converted to Christianity and underwent baptism in December 2005. Moreover he was rarely at the mosque, despite his father being a founder.

Hindu extremists have rioted in Mumbai. The reason: a statue of the late wife of a political leader was found vandalized. The party is called Shiv Sena, and is (unsurprisingly) right-wing, and the statue belonged to Bal Thackeray, the party's leader.

The riots torched at least one bus and forced several shops to close.

The sad part is that a former speaker of the Parliament, Manohar Joshi of the Shiv Sena party, has declared this act as vandalism against Hindus and Hindusim.

Seven black people have been arrested in a poor area in Miami, Florida yesterday. The plot allegedly invovled bombing the Sears tower in Chicago, as well as FBI offices in Miami and elsewhere. An FBI agent posing as an Al-Qaeda operative gave them money, supplies and weapons. You can read the full indictment.

Are they Muslims?

The accused are mostly of Haitian descent. Although reports initially said they are Muslims, it later became obvious that this is not the case. They are members of something called the "Seas of David". Most of the suspects have non-Muslim nicknames which are more Biblical, e.g. Levi, although others were said to have names like "Brother Sunni". The one called "Brother Levi" is also called Brother Levi-El", the -El suffix being a Moorish Science Temple mark from Noble Drew Ali.

The Calgary Sun had an article by Licia Corbella, where her premise is that Multiculturalism threatens Canada.

She quotes one Dr. Mahfooz Kanwar of  Mount Royal College in Calgary, whom she describes as a "devout Muslim" and "Pakistani-born". He says: "Multiculturalism has been bad for unity in Canada. It ghettoizes people, makes them believe, wrongly, that isolating themselves and not adapting to their new society is OK". Kanwar justified alleged mistreatment in prison because "for accused terrorists, this should be expected". Kanwar also advocates that covering one's face should be illegal.

Here is yet another example that extremism and militancy can be in any culture or religion, as well as the commercialisation of religion is a common ever occuring theme.

There is a a Christian computer game called Left Behind: Eternal Forces based on the Left Behind series of novels by Tim LaHaye and  Jerry Jenkins, portraying an end of times scenario.

In the games, Christians shoot Jews, Muslims, Catholics, gays  and other "infidels" while shouting "Praise the Lord!".

In September 2005, The  Jyllands-Posten right wing conservative newspaper publish 12 cartoons, including some of Prophet Muhammad. These images are deeply offensive to Muslims, since most of them portrayed him as being the cause of terrorism or violence.

The Cartoons

While some of the images are fairly neutral, some are indeed very offensive. The most offensive images are:

• Showing him as the typical Hollywood evil Arab with menacing features, with his turban as a bomb about to explode.
• Showing him as a man who has a halo that is also two horns, associating Muhammad as a devil or as Satan.
• Showing him as a bushy browed, unruly beard and with two veiled woman (implying polygamy). This also has the stereotypical menacing evil Arab look, and holding a scimitar.
• Showing him at the gates of heaven telling incoming suicide bombers "Stop! Stop! We ran out of virgins".

These images are very offensive to a Muslim, since they mock a person held in high regard and central to the religion. They are more offensive since they directly associate contemporary terrorism and violence with the prophet himself, saying indirectly that  he is main cause of Muslims being uncivilized savages, barbarians, ...etc. rather than attributing terrorism to its real root causes.
 
The Jyllands-Posten newspaper insisted that it is a Danish tradition to lampoon religious figures, and that they would do that to any religion, despite recent revelations that they refused to publish cartoons of Jesus.