Palestinian Christians live in constant fear

You think only Israelis suffer from the terror of Hamas and other jihadists? Think again.

Presenting the "silent sufferers" - the Palestinian Christian minority.

There is no free press in Gaza. Outside reporters, whether Israeli or foreign, cannot move about freely and pursue such stories. Foreign reporters in particular need extensive handlers, as they do not know the local language, the local geography or the local leaders. It is much easier to stay in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem and rewrite press statements about the visit of the latest foreign dignitary.

Even if the reporters came, what would they be told? It is well known that Christian Palestinians who have been subject to firebombings, seizures of homes and businesses, assaults and death threats still tell foreign visitors that they have excellent relations with their Muslim neighbours. After the foreigners go home, these Christians must remain, and are loath to give any reason for jihadist extremists to think that they are stirring up trouble.

And so it goes -- news trickles out about one outrage or another, but it gets lost if it gets noticed at all. Meanwhile, Christians in Gaza and the West Bank try to live quietly, never knowing whether a newspaper in Denmark or a papal speech in Germany or nothing in particular might be the pretext for violence coming to their doors.

It is an awful way to live. It is more awful still that so few know, or care about it.

Read the full piece here.

Palestinians - the second largest importer of Israeli goods after U.S.

Here are some economic implications for both Israel and Palestinians if total blockade on Gaza becomes a fact:

* In 2006, total Israeli exports to the 60 million or so residents of France stood at slightly more than $1 billion. Israeli exports to the same amount of people in Italy stood at just below $1 billion.

* But total exports to both of these countries, which rank among the eight richest countries in the world, are equal to Israel's exports to the 3.5 million people of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. This is more than 6 percent of all Israeli exports, excluding diamonds. Despite all the intifadas, the Palestinian Authority is the second biggest customer of Israeli exports, after the United States.

If the blockade becomes permanent policy, Israel will lose a large part of its "captive market" - a stock phrase which in this case literally describes Gaza. "Israel benefited from its relations with the Palestinians," says Dan Catarivas, head of the foreign commerce branch of the Manufacturers Association and a former senior official in the finance and industry ministries. "And at the end of the day, it will lose if these ties are cut."

Whatever the 1.5 million people in Gaza need to live comes to them from Israel - from milk products to diapers, from medicine to cement. Even the humanitarian aid from international organizations is bought almost entirely from Israeli companies. Israeli firms also earn money as middlemen. Gas for cars is bought in Gaza via an Israeli intermediary at a tidy fee. About 5 percent of all freight that passes through the Ashdod port is earmarked for Gaza. This is to say nothing of the customs fees Israel is supposed to collect for the Palestinian Authority as part of the Paris Agreement signed in the 1990s, when everyone believed in a future of cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians. This money represents hundreds of millions of dollars that Israel put aside so it could eventually serve as a whip against the Palestinians.

An estimate by the Palestine International Business Forum shows that cutting off economic ties between Israel and the Palestinians would bring down the standard of living in the PA by one-third. Income per capita would fall to $500, the lowest in the Arab world, even lower than Sudan or Yemen.

Israel, according to this research, would lose around $2 billion per year. Some 76,000 jobs would be lost. Catarivas does not know whether these data are correct, but it is clear to him that Israel will be hurt. To his regret, he does not think that anyone really cares about this damage. "The system will adapt in the long run," Catarivas says. "Economic considerations will not have the upper hand over diplomatic considerations."

based on a report by Meron Rapoprt, Haaretz Correspondent

British Archbishop says sharia law unavoidable

The Archbishop of Canterbury has today said that the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the
UK is "unavoidable" and that it would help maintain social cohesion.

Rowan Williams told BBC Radio 4's World At One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that
some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

He says that Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with
in a Sharia court. He added Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark
alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".

Dr Williams said there was a place for finding a "constructive accommodation" in areas such
as marriage - allowing Muslim women to avoid Western divorce proceedings.

Other religions enjoyed such tolerance of their own laws, he pointed out, but stressed that
it could never be allowed to take precedence over an individual's rights as a citizen.

He said it would also require a change in perception of what Sharia involved beyond the
"inhumanity" of extreme punishments and attitudes to women seen in some Islamic states.

Dr Williams said: "It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of
Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are
bringing in an alien and rival system.

"We already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of
religious communities is recognised by the law of the land as justifying conscientious
objections in certain circumstances."

He added: "There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some
aspects of Muslim law as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law.

"It would be quite wrong to say that we could ever license a system of law for some
community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are
guaranteed to them as citizens in general.

"But there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an
alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them.

"In some cultural and religious settings, they would seem more appropriate."

But his views were condemned today by senior Tory MP Peter Luff, who said: "This is a very
dangerous route which we should not go down. You can't be a little bit pregnant. You can't
have a little bit of sharia law.

"We should not start introducing new different legal systems alongside ours."

But the Archbishop defended his position saying people needed to look at Islamic law "with a
clear eye."

"They should not imagine, either, that we know exactly what we mean by Sharia and just
associate it with ... Saudi Arabia, or whatever," he continued.

"Nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that
has sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states: the
extreme punishments, the attitudes to women."

There were questions about how it interacted with human rights, he said.

"But I do not think we should instantly spring to the conclusion that the whole of that
world of jurisprudence and practice is somehow monstrously incompatible with human rights
just because it doesn't immediately fit with how we understand it."

Dr Williams said Orthodox Jewish courts already operated in the UK, and anti-abortion views
of Catholics and other Christians were "accommodated within the law".

"The whole idea that there are perfectly proper ways the law of the land pays respect to
custom and community, that's already there."

He said the issue of whether Catholic adoption agencies would be forced under equality laws
to accept gay parents showed there was confusion on the matter.

"That principle that there is only one law for everybody is an important pillar of our
social identity as a Western democracy.

"But I think it is a misunderstanding to suppose that means people don't have other
affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and that
the law needs to take some account of that."

He said he accepted people might be surprised by his call but urged them to consider the
wider question.

"What we don't want is a stand-off where the law squares up to people's religious
consciences, on something like abortion or indeed by forcing a vote on some aspects of the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the Commons ... we don't either want a situation
where, because there's no legal way of monitoring what communities do, making them part of
the public process, people do what they like in private in such a way that that becomes
another way of intensifying oppression within a community."

Sharia law was originally more enlightened in its attitude to women than other legal
systems, he pointed out, but did now have to be brought up to date.

"But you have to translate that into a setting where that whole area of the rights and
liberties of women has moved on.

"The principle and the vision which animates the whole Islamic legal provision needs
broadening because of that."

Responding to comments by one of his senior bishops that Islamic extremism was creating
communities with "no-go areas" for non-Muslims, he said it was "not at all the case that we
have absolute social exclusion.

"But we do have a lot of social suspicion, a lot of distance and we just have to go on
working at how that shared citizenship comes through."

The Bishop of Rochester, The Rt Rev Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said last month that non-Muslims
faced a hostile reception in places dominated by the ideology of Islamic radicals.

Dr Williams said the use of the phrase "no-go areas" had sparked controversy because it
reminded people of Northern Ireland.

"I don't think that was at all what was intended; I think it was meant to point to the silo
problem, the sense of communities not communicating with each other.

"Many Muslims would say that they feel bits of British society are no-go areas for them."

Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, welcomed the comments.

"These comments further underline the attempts by both our great faiths to build respect and
tolerance.

"Sharia law for civil matters is something which has been introduced in some Western
countries with much success; I believe that Muslims would take huge comfort from the
Government allowing civil matters being resolved according to their faith.

"We are however disappointed that the Archbishop of Canterbury was silent when Mr Nazir-Ali
was promoting intolerance and lying about no-go areas for Christians in the UK by Muslim
extremists.

"Unless he speaks out against this intolerance, Muslims will take his silence as
authorisation and support for such comments.

"The Ramadhan Foundation will continue to work with the Church of England to build
understanding and respect for our two communities."

Dr Williams's comments are likely to fuel the debate over multiculturalism in the UK.

But he insists that Sharia law needs to be better understood.

At the moment, he says "sensational reporting of opinion polls" clouds the issue.

THE EVENING STANDARD

Obama: Dhimmi Democratic candidate reveals his Muslim Summit Agenda

comment by Jerry Gordon
http://www.actforamerica.org

Senator Barack Obama, who appears to be sprinting in the pre Super Tuesday polls appears to have pulled off a real shocker. He revealed that he is a dhimmi Democrat. In a Paris Match interview yesterday, he indicated that one of the first things that he would do if elected would be to convene a summit with the leaders of the world's Muslim nations and enlist their aid in the war on terrorism.

Here is what Obama said in the Paris Match interview as translated by Reuters.

"Once I'm elected, I want to organize a summit in the Muslim world, with all the heads of state, to have an honest discussion about ways to bridge the gap that grows every day between Muslims and the West," Thursday's edition of Paris Match quoted Obama as saying,

"I want to ask them to join our fight against terrorism. We must also listen to their concerns."

Really. Sounds like appeasement to us. That amounts to letting all of the Islamic camel into the tent to eat our lunch. It's bad enough that we have Cultural Jihad and Sharia finance breaking on these shores, big time. Now, we have a possible presumptive Presidential candidate who doesn't realize that it is not the war of terrorism. It is the war against Political Islam that we are engaged in: the long war. Whether it is Jihad, the tag line from GOP contender Governor Romney,or,the war against radical Islamic extremism of Sen. McCain, at least they 'get it'.

Here's what Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition said in a news release, today:

"We are deeply troubled by Senator Obama's desire to 'hold a summit in the Muslim world, with all heads of state' -- many of whom have yet to renounce terrorism or refrain from anti-Semitic incitement," said Brooks. "Nowhere in the Paris Match article does Senator Obama affirm Israel's right to exist. Nor does he condemn the repeated terrorist strikes against Israel -- the only stable democracy in the region."

"Further in his interview, Senator Obama said he wanted to listen to the 'concerns' of these nations. For many, their biggest concern is Israel's existence. It's worrisome that Senator Obama wants to 'listen' to those calling for Israel's destruction. It's also worrisome that he didn't use this interview to call on Muslims to stop teaching hateful anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda in their schools and textbooks."

"By asking Muslim nations, some of whom actively train and fund Hezbollah and Hamas, to 'join our fight against terrorism,' Senator Obama once again demonstrates his shaky foreign policy judgment and raises questions about his commitment to Israel's security. For all those who care about Israel, Senator Obama's Muslim nations summit is a cause for alarm and concern," said Brooks.

So where is Obama getting the idea that he should be engaged in dialogue with Muslims, who hold him and us in contempt, as kaffirs-"unbelievers"? Is it his half brother, a Luo tribesman in Kenya? Or his commiseration with Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga who cut a deal with the National Muslim Leaders Forum in Kenya to abet sharia?

At any Summit with leaders of the Organization of Islamic Conference, all they will do is spew out is nothing but taqiyyah-religiously sanctioned dissimilitude and suggest that a 'hudna' or cease fire, is all that is needed. A cease fire so they can regroup and attack us when we least expect it.

Many think that Obama has been listening to his racist and anti-Semitic pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ who has sucked up to Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan and Libya's crazed Muammar Gaddafi.

Perhaps, Obama has been taking advise from foreign policy advisers like the father Zbigniew Brzezinski and son Mark, former President 'Jimma' Carter and Tony Lake, former, Clinton aide. Or perhaps it is the eminence grise financier, hedge fund mogul and anti-US hegemon advocate, George Soros.

As Muslims consider Obama a murtadd or apostate, I wouldn't advise his attending any Muslim summit. They might have Imams, Mullahs and Ayatollahs issue a fatwa against him.