Akko riots were planned

The rioting by Muslims that took place in Akko two days ago appears to have been planned. According to the October 10 issue of Makor Rishon, which debunked an initial claim that stones were thrown by Jews at an Arab-owned car, it appears that all that really happened was that some passers-by brushed against the car while going by it, and this was all inflated into a planned blood libel.

The Muslim rioters have cost tons of money in damages to property. But who knows if any are going to pay for their crimes.

Iran appoints successor to Mughniyeh

If anyone out there thinks Hezbullah is something other than an Iranian proxy, please consider this. Italy's Corriere della Sera reported in Thursday's editions that Iran has appointed a successor to slain Hezbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh. And the Italians are in a position to know.

According to the report in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Hizbullah's new chief military commander is Muhammad Riza Zahdi, aka Hassan Mahdawi, who in the late 1980s served in the Iranian Embassy in Beirut.

According to the report, Zahdi will be in charge of coordinating weapons smuggling to Hizbullah from Syria as well as the construction of military positions in southern Lebanon. The paper said that the appointment was part of an Iranian plan to restructure Hizbullah in the wake of the Second Lebanon War.

...

"There is a real Iranian command now over Hizbullah," a top IDF officer said at the time. "This doesn't mean that Nasrallah is a puppet, but it does mean that whenever he pops his head out of his bunker he sees an Iranian official standing over him."

Reports of Iranian discontent with Nasrallah began to surface following the 2006 war, which Teheran reportedly was not interested in seeing erupt at that time.

Several reports in the Arab press claimed that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ousted Nasrallah from his post as Hizbullah secretary-general and replaced him with the Naim Qassem, Hizbullah's second in command. Iran has denied the reports.

Iran's consolidation of its control over Hizbullah is seen as an attempt to gain the ability to fully direct its military forces in the event of a conflict in the Middle East. If Iran is attacked by the US or Israel, it may now be able to order Hizbullah to retaliate on its behalf. In the past, the IDF's Military Intelligence has speculated on what Nasrallah would do in such a scenario and had even raised the possibility that Hizbullah wouldn't necessarily attack Israel.

We can't let that happen now, can we?

Cross-posted to Israel Matzav.

Washington, D.C.: Moslems Attack A Gay Student

Here's the video:



(hat-tip to Islam In Action '08)

Yes but they are off the Terrorist list - North Korea said to work at secret Teheran site on Iran's nuclear warheads

For all those who think talking is better than, and can accomplish more than not talking, or that there is nothing to lose by same.....

East-Asia-Intel.com, October 3, 2008

North Korea helped Iran develop nuclear warheads for missiles, according to an Iranian opposition group.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an anti-Iranian government organization, said last week that Iran set up a secret facility in the suburbs of Teheran for dozens of North Korean experts to design rockets and warheads.

According to the group, the North Koreans used an improved version of the Shihab-3 missile, modeled after North Korea's No-Dong missile. Its warhead is said to be compatible with that of the No-Dong.

The group first disclosed details of Iran's nuclear program in 2002.

U.S. officials have said that the nuclear supplier network headed by Pakistani A.Q. Khan provided blueprints of nuclear missile warheads to Libya. The blueprints, in Chinese, were found during Libya's denuclearization program.

U.S. officials suspect that the Khan network also supplied warhead blueprints to Iran and North Korea.

Ever wonder what advantages could have accrued to US intelligence reliability, and therefore freedom of action had George Bush FIRED EVERYONE at the CIA for missing 9/11? Or after the Iraq invasion and discovery of no WMD?

What The Hell Is Happening?

Yesterday

Berlusconi Says Leaders May Close World's Markets 

White House Dismisses Berlusconi's Remark

Today

Bush: US will work with partners on credit crisis

WASHINGTON - President Bush emerged from a meeting with foreign financial officials on Saturday and said they were cooperating on a global response to the credit crisis that will lead toward a "path of stability and long-term growth."

Bush announced no new strategies to attack the economic woes circling the globe, stressing instead, "We will do what it takes to resolve the crisis and the world's economy will emerge stronger as a result."

Bush spoke in the Rose Garden outside the White House, joined there in a show of solidarity not long after daybreak by finance officials from the so-called G-7 — Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada, in addition to the United States. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also attended.

"The United States has a special role to play in leading the response to this crisis," the president said. "That is why I convened this morning's meeting here at the White House and it is why our government will continue using all the tools at our disposal to resolve this crisis."

He added, "We've all agreed that the actions we take should protect our taxpayers and we've agreed that we ought to work with other nations ... As our nations carry out this plan we must be sure the actions of one country do not contradict or undermine the actions of another."

It was only eight days ago that Congress approved a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry, and the Fed has pumped billions of dollars into the economic systemhoping to provide greater access to credit for potential borrowers.

On Friday, Paulson announced the Treasury would begin buying part ownership in American banks, the first time the government has taken such action since the Depression of the 1930s.

The G-7 officials discussed the global economic crisis for three hours on Friday and issued one of the shortest communiques in the history of the group. It pledged to take "all necessary steps to unfreeze credit and money markets" to end the crisis.

Earlier this week, Britain had moved to pour cash into its troubled banks in exchange for stakes in them — a partial nationalization. Paulson said the U.S. program would be designed to complement banks' own efforts to raise fresh capital from private sources.

Look for the European Union to attempt to exploit this situation as an opportunity to usurp power against the will of the people of Europe.

I'll see your Alinksy and raise you a Cloward-Piven - or - Why the world is circling the drain

With a huge frightening hat tip to Michelle of LHAWKS, and a chill to Discover the Networks, on a paper presciently written in 1970 about overwhelming free capitalistic societies with economic crisis.

UPDATES AT BOTTOM, THNX TO PASTORIUS AND Anon

"Cloward-Piven Strategy"

First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called "crisis strategy" or "Cloward-Piven Strategy," as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when "the rest of society is afraid of them," Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would "the rest of society" accept their demands.

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven's early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. "Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one.

The authors noted that the number of Americans subsisting on welfare -- about 8 million, at the time -- probably represented less than half the number who were technically eligible for full benefits. They proposed a "massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls." Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces ... for major economic reform at the national level."

Their article called for "cadres of aggressive organizers" to use "demonstrations to create a climate of militancy." Intimidated by threats of black violence, politicians would appeal to the federal government for help. Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of "a federal program of income redistribution," in the form of a guaranteed living income for all -- working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act. This was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse movements -- mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. The flood of demands was calculated to break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown -- providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.

Cloward and Piven recruited a militant black organizer named George Wiley to lead their new movement. In the summer of 1967, Wiley founded the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). His tactics closely followed the recommendations set out in Cloward and Piven's article. His followers invaded welfare offices across the United States -- often violently -- bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law "entitled" them. By 1969, NWRO claimed a dues-paying membership of 22,500 families, with 523 chapters across the nation.

Regarding Wiley's tactics, The New York Times commented on September 27, 1970, "There have been sit-ins in legislative chambers, including a United States Senate committee hearing, mass demonstrations of several thousand welfare recipients, school boycotts, picket lines, mounted police, tear gas, arrests - and, on occasion, rock-throwing, smashed glass doors, overturned desks, scattered papers and ripped-out phones."These methods proved effective. "The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley's wildest dreams," writes Sol Stern in the City Journal. "From 1965 to 1974, the number of single-parent households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city's private economy."As a direct result of its massive welfare spending, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975. The entire state of New York nearly went down with it. The Cloward-Piven strategy had proved its effectiveness.

The Cloward-Piven strategy depended on surprise. Once society recovered from the initial shock, the backlash began. New York's welfare crisis horrified America, giving rise to a reform movement which culminated in "the end of welfare as we know it" -- the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which imposed time limits on federal welfare, along with strict eligibility and work requirements. Both Cloward and Piven attended the White House signing of the bill as guests of President Clinton.

Most Americans to this day have never heard of Cloward and Piven. But New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to expose them in the late 1990s. As his drive for welfare reform gained momentum, Giuliani accused the militant scholars by name, citing their 1966 manifesto as evidence that they had engaged in deliberate economic sabotage. "This wasn't an accident," Giuliani charged in a 1997 speech. "It wasn't an atmospheric thing, it wasn't supernatural. This is the result of policies and programs designed to have the maximum number of people get on welfare."

Cloward and Piven never again revealed their intentions as candidly as they had in their 1966 article. Even so, their activism in subsequent years continued to rely on the tactic of overloading the system. When the public caught on to their welfare scheme, Cloward and Piven simply moved on, applying pressure to other sectors of the bureaucracy, wherever they detected weakness.

In 1982, partisans of the Cloward-Piven strategy founded a new "voting rights movement," which purported to take up the unfinished work of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Like ACORN, the organization that spear-headed this campaign, the new "voting rights" movement was led by veterans of George Wiley's welfare rights crusade. Its flagship organizations were Project Vote and Human SERVE, both founded in 1982. Project Vote is an ACORN front group, launched by former NWRO organizer and ACORN co-founder Zach Polett. Human SERVE was founded by Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, along with a former NWRO organizer named Hulbert James.

All three of these organizations -- ACORN, Project Vote and Human SERVE -- set to work lobbying energetically for the so-called Motor-Voter law, which Bill Clinton ultimately signed in 1993. The Motor-Voter bill is largely responsible for swamping the voter rolls with "dead wood" -- invalid registrations signed in the name of deceased, ineligible or non-existent people -- thus opening the door to the unprecedented levels of voter fraud and "voter disenfranchisement" claims that followed in subsequent elections.

The new "voting rights" coalition combines mass voter registration drives -- typically featuring high levels of fraud -- with systematic intimidation of election officials in the form of frivolous lawsuits, unfounded charges of "racism" and "disenfranchisement," and "direct action" (street protests, violent or otherwise). Just as they swamped America's welfare offices in the 1960s, Cloward-Piven devotees now seek to overwhelm the nation's understaffed and poorly policed electoral system. Their tactics set the stage for the Florida recount crisis of 2000, and have introduced a level of fear, tension and foreboding to U.S. elections heretofore encountered mainly in Third World countries.

Both the Living Wage and Voting Rights movements depend heavily on financial support from George Soros's Open Society Institute and his "Shadow Party," through whose support the Cloward-Piven strategy continues to provide a blueprint for some of the Left's most ambitious campaigns.

Correlative data

HERE

and HERE

The Third Jihad - Trailer

Joerg Haider (BZÖ Austria) dies in car crash

Austrian BZOe leader Joerg Haider died in a road accident on Saturday.

"The governor of Carinthia and leader of the BZOe (Alliance for Austria's Future) Joerg Haider died after a car accident early Saturday in Klagenfurt," the capital of his home state, the agency said.

Haider, 58, was at the wheel of his official car in the south of Klagenfurt when it veered off the road for unknown reasons after overtaking another vehicle.

He suffered serious head and chest injuries as his car flipped over several times and died shortly after the accident.

He had been expected to attend a family celebration Saturday marking his mother's 90th birthday.

"For us this is the end of the world," BZOe deputy leader Stefan Petzner told the Press.

Haider, Austria's most notorious post-war politician, headed the Alliance for Austria's Future since late August after turning the country's right Freedom Party (FPOe) into a political force in the 1980s and 1990s and prompting EU sanctions against Austria in 2000.

Perpetually tanned, athletic and stylish, he had been transformed from a young firebrand to an experienced politician in the past decade, helping his young BZOe party, only founded in 2005, to its best result in general elections last month.

Whit him goes some of our hope in europe concerning the ideology of death islamofascism.

To sign the condolences book

Saudi-Funded Textbooks Being Used In American K-12 Schools

From CBN News:

Several recent studies have shown that American students are alarmingly ignorant about U.S. history and world events.

Experts have contributed the problem to everything from failing schools to substandard teachers.

But what about content?

For instance, did you know that Muslims discovered America? Or that Jerusalem is an Arab city? That's just some of the "history" that students in America's K-12 classrooms have been taught in recent years--with the help of taxpayer money.

A new report by the non-profit Institute for Jewish and Community Research finds that American high school and elementary textbooks contain countless inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism, Israel and the Middle East.

The Institute examined 28 of the most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America. It found at least 500 errors.

One book ignored the Jewish roots of Christianity, saying the faith was founded by a "young Palestinian" named Jesus.

Another stated as fact that the Koran was revealed to Mohammed from God.

Yet another said ancient Jewish civilization contributed "very little" to to the arts and sciences.

Textbooks like these are used by millions of schoolchildren in all 50 states. Sandra Stotsky--now an endowed chair at the University of Arkansas--has seen some of them firsthand.

Stotsky was a commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Education from 1999 until 2003. In that role, she helped set standards for students and teachers on the K thru 12 level. Stotsky wrote a book about her experience called "The Stealth Curriculum."

"We heard from a number of groups who were outraged because they didn't want what they called a 'Euro-centric' version of history," said Stotsky. "They literally wanted an Islamo-centric version of history. Which means you look at the world from the perspective of Islam and you don't talk about any negative aspects of Islam."

After the 9/11 attacks, Stotsky and the Massachusetts board organized a special seminar for K-12 teachers to learn about Islamic history and the Middle East.

Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies helped organize the seminar. Stotsky said she was shocked by the Center's suggestions:

"They ranged from having students make prayer rugs; describe what it would be like to go on a hajj--a pilgrimage; learn and memorize the five pillars of Islam; listen to and learn how to recite passages from the Koran; dress like a Muslim from a particular country.it was, to me, a clear violation of ethics involved in how one would expect children to learn about another culture. That they would literally go through the memorization and the learning of religious beliefs."

"These are unacceptable practices in a public school," she added. "In fact, they would be unacceptable academic practices in any school."

Harvard is one of 18 universities that receives government funding under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965. To qualify for that funding, the universities are required to conduct outreach to K-12 teachers, helping them to shape lessons for schoolchildren. Elementary and secondary teachers have taken full advantage of the arrangement: after all, they believe they're getting expert insight on Islam and the Middle East from distinguished university scholars.

"You have a lot of politically naive teachers--well intentioned teachers who do want their students to learn more about Islamic history," says Stotsky. "It has not been well covered in most history courses they've ever taken, so they do genuinely want to learn more for themselves and teach their students more."

In some cases they may be getting more than they bargained for: the Saudi government has donated millions of dollars to Middle East Centers at universities that receive Title VI funding.

The Harvard Middle Eastern Studies Center--whose recommendations to the Massachusetts Board originally drew Stosky's concern--is one of them. As CBN News reported earlier this year, the Harvard Center received a $20 million donation from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in 2005. Georgetown University--another title VI recipient--also received $ 20 million from the Prince that same year.

It's through these Title VI university centers--all of them government-sanctioned and taxpayer supported--that Saudi-funded materials find their way into K-12 classrooms.

"Saudi donations to American universities should be seen in a much larger picture of Saudi promotion of a Saudi point of view," said Daniel Pipes, Director of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia. "Whether it be Islamic or political, the Saudis have a point of view. And they have been very clever and very generous over the decades to promote that point of view."

Among the textbooks the Saudi-funded Harvard Center recommends for schoolchildren is the Arab World Studies Notebook. The book is published by a New Mexico-based group called Arab World and Islamic Resources , which was founded in 1990 with funding from organizations that include Saudi Aramco, a Saudi government-owned oil company.

The Notebook has come under fire for negatively portraying America and Israel while whitewashing Islam. It's been banned by some school districts.

"It's very difficult to find any discussion of ancient Israel--that it actually existed in time as a country,' Stotsky said of the Notebook. "That it had a king, that it had kings. That King Solomon existed, that Jerusalem was established as their capital city. It would discredit even the founding of the state of Israel by claiming that it was imposed by European or Western powers."

One of the Notebook's most controversial claims was that Muslim explorers beat Columbus to the New World. Older versions state that some Native American chiefs even had Muslim names, like Abdul-Rahim. These passages were eventually removed after widespread criticism from scholars and Native American groups. The Notebook's editor, Audrey Shabbas, did not respond to our requests for an interview.

The Middle East Policy Council--a pro-Arab advocacy group in Washington, D.C.--also conducts teacher training programs for K-12 teachers and has promoted the Arab World Studies Notebook as an ideal educational tool.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal donated $1 million towards the Council's teacher training programs last year. The group did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

Stosky says there needs to be stronger standards for K-12 curriculums to help offset the influence of outside pressure groups. That's traditionally been a job for local governments.

"State governments have not been given the power to set curriculum," she said. "No, this is a local responsibility. It was devised this way by our framers. You know, the local governments, local communities, would develop their own curricula, decide what they would want to teach their children. State governments could assess, as they now do, but they can't prescribe curriculum for local communities. And the federal government certainly can't prescribe a curriculum. That's why we're having a battle over where national standards are going to come from."

The standards Stotsky helped craft for Massachusetts schools include what she calls "politically incorrect but historically accurate" lessons about the Islamic slave trade, Islamic expansionism and treatment of women in Islam.

"What state governments can do--which to me, is the path we were taking in Massachusetts--is to make sure that the standards you create for a subject have been thoroughly vetted by first rate scholars--and a range of first rate scholars," said Stotsky.

The battle over Title VI has also reached Capitol Hill. In August, Congress approved revisions to the Higher Education Act of 1965--which includes Title VI. Universities must now explain how their Title VI funds will be used--and K-12 schools are now required to reflect a wide range of views on global issues in their lesson plans. Whether the Saudi point of view is still among them remains to be seen.

Hijacked Ship A Dirty Bomb Meant For Israel?

We've been reporting on this story here at IBA for the past week or so.

The news reports say that Somali "pirates" "hijacked" two ships, one of them Iranian and the other Ukranian.

The Iranian ship was carrying something that caused the men aboard, including the "pirates" to die, with symptoms
which included skin burns and hair falling out.

That sounds like radiation poisoning to me.

I put the word hijacked and pirates in quotes, because I have a hard time believing such an important ship was simply hijacked. Instead, I believe a cargo was being delivered to Jihadis for use in war.

I believe it could be that the Iranians needed plausible deniability.

I don't know what the Ukranians had to do with it. Likely nothing, but that hijacking happened at approximately
the same time, and so we reported on it.

Hijacked Iranian Ship was a Dirty Bomb Meant for Israel on Yom Kippur

On August 21st, 2008, the MV Iran Deyant, 44,458 dead weight bulk carrier was heading towards the Suez Canal. As it was passing the Horn of Africa, about 80 miles southeast of al-Makalla in Yemen, the ship was surrounded by speedboats filled with members of a gang of Somalian pirates who grab suitable commercial ships and hold them and their cargos and crews for ransom. The captain was defenseless against the 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades blocking his passage. He had little choice other than to turn his ship over to them. What the pirates were not banking on, however, was that this was no ordinary ship.

The MV Iran Deyanat is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) - a state-owned company run by the Iranian military that was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on September 10, shortly after the ship's hijacking.

According to the U.S. Government, the company regularly falsifies shipping documents in order to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments to avoid the attention of shipping authorities, and employs the use of cover entities to circumvent United Nations sanctions to facilitate weapons proliferation for the Iranian Ministry of Defense. The MV Iran Deyanat departed Nanjing, China, July 28, and, according to its manifest, planned to sail to Rotterdam, where it would offload 42,500 tons of iron ore and "industrial products" purchased by an unidentified “ German client”. The ship has a crew of 29 men, including a Pakistani captain, an Iranian engineer, 13 other Iranians, 3 Indians, 2 Filipinos, and 10 Eastern Europeans, stated to be Albanians.

The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. The Somali pirates attempted to inspect the ship's seven cargo containers but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the "access codes" and could not open them. Pirates have stated they were unable to open the hold without causing extensive damage to the ship, and threatened to blow it up. The Iranian ship’s captain and the engineer were contacted by cell phone and demanded to disclose the actual nature of the mysterious “powdered cargo” but the captain and his officers were very evasive. Initially they said that the cargo contained "crude oil" but then claimed it contained "minerals." Following this initial rebuff, the pirates broke open one of the containers and discovered it to be filled with packets of what they said was “a powdery fine sandy soil” ....

Within a period of three days, those pirates who had boarded the ship and opened the cargo container with its gritty sand-like contents, all developed strange health complications, to include serious skin burns and loss of hair. And within two weeks, sixteen of the pirates subsequently died, either on the ship or on shore.

News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. and they witnessed some of the deaths due to exposure to ‘something on that ship.’

The Somali pirates initially set the ship's ransom at $2 million and the Iranian government provided $200,000 to a local broker "to facilitate the exchange." The $2 million dollar ransom agreement, which was supposedly secured on September 6th, never took place for reasons unknown. After September 10th, sanctions on IRISL were applied specifically because the company was said to engaged in illicit operations on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Serious negotiations were broken off completely. Iranian authorities subsequently denied that it agreed to the price nor had paid any money to the pirates. Nevertheless, after sanctions were applied to IRISL on September 10, Osman says, the Iranians told the pirates that the deal was off. "They told the pirates that they could not come because of the presence of the U.S. Navy." The region is patrolled by the multinational Combined Taskforce 150, which includes ships from the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. Subsequently, it was disclosed that the U.S. government had offered to pay $7 million to the pirates to "receive entry permission and search the vessel." Officials in the Pentagon and the Department of State have consistently refused to comment on the situation.

The exact nature of the cargo remains officially a mystery but officials in Puntland and Baidoa are convinced the ship was carrying weapons to Eritrea for Islamist insurgents. "We cannot inspect the cargo yet," Osman said, "but we are sure that it is weapons."

The US Navy (and the French and the Russians) have been hove to off the coast of Eyl, going anywhere once released, it will be seized once it gets to sea. The specific clauses that have been approved in both the UN and in Congress would allow the US Navy to seize the ship under the suspicion clause. The claims that there are weapons onboard, and the possibility there might be chemical weapons, has insured there is at the very minimum, an inspection of the ship by outside authority will be mandated. At this writing, the MV Iran Deyanat is at anchor, watched closely by American, French and Russian naval units.

Although American intelligence and government sources are maintaining a strictly observed silence, the same does not apply to the Russians and so it is that we learn the real story of the MV Iran Deyanat. She was an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel. The entire cargo of radioactive sand, obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.

Given the large number of deaths from the questing Somali pirates, it should be obvious that when the contents of the ship’s locked cargo containers finally descended onto the land, the death toll would be enormous. This ship was nothing more nor less than the long-anticipated Iranian attack on Israel. Not the expected rocket attacks (which could be intercepted by the Israelis) but an even more deadly and unexpected attack by sea.. It is very interesting to note that the Israeli government has in the past few weeks, been loudly demanding that the United States establish a naval blockade of Iran.

The reason for this blockade would be to prevent any more Iranian ships with deadly cargos from attacking either Israel or other targets from the sea.

What Islam Is Not

The following video is the best one I've ever seen that shows the progression of the Islamic invasion. First they immigrate and increase their numbers. Once the population gets large enough, they agitate for concessions. And they keep progressing, one stage at a time until they take over the government. This is a video to share with everyone.



When we share this, we must also share what can be done about it or it's too scary to confront. Here are posts to "what can be done:"

What's The Cure?

Stop The Muslim Invasion

What Can a Civilian Do To Stop Islam's Relentless Encroachment?

Without Firing a Shot... ?

Interesting analysis of the financial crisis by Walid Phares. Phares acknowledges that "blame can be leveled in two directions" for the real estate market crisis. "First, towards those politicians who threatened political retaliation if the financial system didn’t lend beyond rational limits; and second, Wall Street financiers who risked breaking the financial system by relying on poor judgment regarding the public’s ability to overcome economic challenges." But, as he points out, the last straw that you should excuse the expression broke the camel's back may have come from outside the U.S.:

A thorough psycho-economic observation of the public’s financial behavior, however, tells us that there may be more to the crisis. It reveals that an outside “push” – I now coin it economic terrorism - may have been the tipping point of the collapse. For monitoring how and why buyers massively abandoned their plans shows that it followed, or coincided, with an abrupt rise in the cost of gas dividends. With the numbers at the pumps going ballistic, the cost of living suddenly rose, goods became less attainable and the price of enjoying, let alone using, the newly purchased properties soared. Hence, undoubtedly the lifestyle that was sought by the tens of millions of homes buyers wasn’t possible to achieve anymore; thus they surrendered financially in droves, taking the system down with them.

Economists will tell us if this diagnosis stands up. But if it does, then we cannot avoid investigating the factor that caused the strategic stress in real estate, which turned into economic chaos. In bypassing a narrow economic analysis, we can detect clearly the connection between the dizzying ups in petrol pricing and the slowing of American buying capacity. Stunningly, one can conclude that while it is sadly true that both Wall Street’s corruption and politicians’ abuse of the system handed the tools of doom to the middle class, Main Street’s rapid disenfranchisement was manufactured overseas, thousands of miles away, at the hands of OPEC, or perhaps in some quarters of the oil-producing Cartel.

As usual, Phares is insightful without overstating his case. It is certainly not stretching credibility to assume that OPEC members and the Islamic world in general have been keeping close watch on the U.S. economy, waiting for the right moment to throw a monkey wrench into the works. This sure as hell is the right moment: if Phares is right, their actions will help to propel their favored candidate into the Presidency of this country. "Economic terrorism" indeed -- and without firing a shot.

Forging a New Tool

I loaned the DVD, Obsession, to a woman I work with last week. I brought up the subject by telling her that someone sent out 28 million copies of the movie. That really impressed her and made her want to see the movie.

I loaned her the movie, and the very next day, she got one of the free ones in her mail (not in her newspaper, which is how I thought they were being delivered). She brought it in for me to see. And by the way, she and her boyfriend watched it and were blown away by it. There are two more voters who will not be susceptible to taqiyya any longer.

When I looked at the free version, I thought, "Now here's something I could really use!" It is flat, small, and is basically like a brochure you open up with a DVD inside. On the brochure/case it says, "How Can You Help Fight Radical Islam?" And it gives four ideas and URLs. On the other side are quotes by authorities saying the DVD is worth watching.

The whole thing is a great little package. My wife said, "They should make these available to buy in packets of ten so we could share them with people."

What a great idea. I would love to be able to buy these in bulk to give away, if they were fairly inexpensive. And why wouldn't they be? They're already giving them away.

So I wrote to both the Clarion Fund and also RadicalIslam.org and urged them to make these DVD/brochures available in packs of ten or a hundred, or alternatively, to provide a service we could pay for that would send these to particular people.

I have found Obsession the easiest of all the DVDs to share because of the title. It is not offensive right off the bat to people who know nothing about Islam. And it has better production-values than my favorite DVD, Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

And in this new shorter version in a smaller package, it is even more shareable. It seems like a smaller commitment. It seems it would be easier for people to accept, and the brief information in the brochure-like "case" makes it even more so.

If you would like these to be available in packs of ten or fifty or a hundred, please join me in requesting it. Contact either or both of these places to urge them to make the packs available to the general public:

The ClarionFund.org:
media@clarionfund.org
Tel: 888-610-2221

RadicalIslam.org:
info@obsessionthemovie.com
Tel: 646-308-1230

Tell them who you are. Let them know you are influential, you're an active participator in this fight, you run a blog, you do a radio show, or whatever else you can tell them to convince them you're worth listening to. Let's get this tool available to us.

UK: Xenophobic British Government Oppresses Muslims

Council workers sacked over jobless Afghan mother of seven who got £1.2million council house

Million dollar quote:

It is much smaller than our house in Afghanistan. Some of the rooms in England we would not even put our chickens in because they are so small.

I hope I have not posted a "racist" image to illustrate this story.

B-b-b-b-bwahhhkk!

Wisconsin voter taps the fury, and shows what McCain lacks

"It's time that you two are representing us, and WE are MAD. So go get'em"

John McCain, why aren't you thundering this message?
John McCain where is the outrage?

Why are the people still leading ?

Your next President?

Why have the democrats selected hyper partisanship over country?

At a time that now seems months ago, on the day John McCain suspended his campaign I really expected that in recognizing the moment of peril the people faced, the elected representatives would act in the interests of the people.

Instead we got a display of the gross weaknesses of our system.

We got Nancy Pelosi's literally incredible speech. We got Harry Reid who now answers criticism with outrageous and disgusting charges of racism. We got Barney Frank's astonishing GALL and chutzpah in not only avoiding any responsibility in this fiasco ENTIRELY of the government's making whether by lack of oversight, or legal entanglement in stupid over-regulation, but also in seeking to put the blame onto 'de-regulation' - clear code for 'blame the greedy businessmen all of whom are republicans'.

Worst of all we get critcism of Barack Obama answered by movement towards criminalizing and silencing such actions by those who blithely snicker at Bushitler, and yet perform as the opening acts of an Obamastalin so cocksure their goals are so worthy, as contrated to their opponents', that their descent is worthy and unnoticed.

At first I didn't understand why the nation's interest and the people's welfare were so second placed to something else. How could party interest take primacy over economic (and therefore ultimately National Security and Military) disaster for the people?

I can UNDERSTAND conservative republican reluctance to fund a buyout/bailout of anyone. I can understand liberal and progressive democrats in seeing a buyout/bailout of such dimensions of bankers, professional gamblers, and gigantic businesses being reluctant to move forward unless those not so paid as these others were given what they considered to be equal shrift.

But I cannot understand bringing resolute movement to a complete halt to blame the other.

I have only ONE explanation left to me.

It's not just an election. There have been Democratic presidents before

It's outright systemic corruption that causes them to act in such a manner.
Fear of being uncovered added TO radical left politics for the 'greater good'. But the latter, you can be sure, is just cover to some.

Americans, it's time to warm up the tar, regardless of party.
There is plenty of blame to go around, but the feathers are for those who took money, discounts, and favors, with a wink and a nod, and thought they actually were serving the nation year after year, while doing the people more damage than any Islamist could imagine.

This furious nation has every right to get ready for it.

Chris Dodd heading down Constitution Avenue covered in tar and feathers with his discounted Countrywide 'special customer' mortgage stapled to his three piece. The Board of AIG, and Franklin Raines (with his deed for his brand new $5 million condo). The entire banking and finance committee of the House, with those who spoke of holding back the regulators taking special precedence. The head of the SEC.

CORRUPTION. Not errors.

Amid the news of market after market crashing out of control of any government, central bank or group of governments, Iceland itself in complete collapse, to see Nancy Pelosi try to blame the republicans as if that helps ANYTHING is to see the factionalism the founding fathers warned against win out over the goodwill of American citizens, and the progressive democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank and Harry Reid are it's Kings and Queens.

Tyrants of our destruction.

It's time for a party to GET RID OF THEM ALL.

And why oh why have the 'reformers' been pecking at the edges instead of going for the heart of all this?

These people have brought us to all the way back to THIS MOMENT IN TIME.
It will be up to us to make certain we have all learned something in 2100 years.

IAF jets scramble on Lebanese border

A good year to everyone.

Thirty-five years to the day of the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, IAF jets scrambled on the Lebanese border after a suspicious aircraft was detected approaching the border.

Two jets and an attack helicopter were scrambled to the border one hour before the fast ended after an unidentified aircraft was spotted flying very close to the border. The aircraft, together with ground forces, conducted searches on the ground and shortly later returned to base after the plane turned around and flew back north into Lebanon.

The IDF was on a general high level of alert throughout the country over the holiday and particularly in the north, where intelligence officials have said it is possible that Hizbullah will carry out a cross-border attack during the holiday season to avenge the assassination of arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh earlier this year.

A similar incident occurred in April when fighter jets were scrambled to Acre after an unidentified aircraft was spotted over the city raising fears that an enemy plane had infiltrated Israeli airspace. The plane turned out to be an Israeli civilian aircraft that had forgotten to coordinate its flight plan with aviation authorities.

While the IDF is concerned that Hizbullah will try to kidnap soldiers - as it has done in the past - current fears are that terrorists will cross into Israel, fly an explosives-laden drone into Israel like it tried during the Second Lebanon War or infiltrate a border community like Shlomi and barricade themselves inside a home with civilians.

The defense establishment is concerned that Hizbullah will use the holiday season, as well as the switchover in government - from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Kadima Party head Tzipi Livni - to launch an attack.

There's plenty to worry about, especially with both Olmert and Livni being gun shy and having zero deterrence value.

Cross-posted to Israel Matzav.

What the American election is about

Wednesday morning's 7:00 AM Israel Radio news opened with a clip from Tuesday night's Presidential debate in the US. It was McCain and Obama on Iran. John Sidney McCain asked bluntly what the US would do if it were in Israel's position - being threatened with annihilation by another country who refers to it as a 'stinking corpse.' He accused his opponent of wanting to talk, talk, talk to Iran. And he said that at the end of the day, we cannot allow a second Holocaust. Democrat Barack Hussein Obama said that we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon and that he would never take the military option off the table. But he never said he would use it. He said that we can't give the UN a veto, but that we have to do more diplomatically. We have to 'talk, talk, talk.' A more 'nuanced' version of what he said before. As you might imagine, Israelis hang on every word in this discussion. Let's go to the videotape.

Farrakhan calls Obama "The Messiah"

From Discerning Texan at the Astute Bloggers:

I am still stunned at the seeming epidemic of suicidal cluelessness which is seemingly so widespread in this country (far be it for the media to overstate Obama's true popularity. 

Voting is a privilege, not human birthright; yet most Americans seem blissfully unaware that their votes are a 50/50 shot to be rendered worthless, should the Obammunists win. It is quite evident that they are spending money (foreign money?) massively trying to rig the game via ACORN and their other surrogates; just imagine what they can rig once they got to the catbird seat. 

People seem to think that things cannot get any worse than they are now. Right.
Things could get a LOT worse, and not just economically. If America does not collectively snap out of it, and wake the hell up from this nightmare over the next three weeks, an economic crisis of confidence could quickly become an existential one.

And the most frightening thing is that Obama just the guy who can bring about that outcome; worse, the terminally clueless and their media cheerleaders seem poised to "make it so."

There is still time, but it is becoming very precious. As is, I fear, our very freedom itself.

Feds Investigate County Sheriff For Saying Obama's Middle Name

They're investigating him for Ethics Violations

From Yid With Lid:

Obama's Brown Shirts 

Are Marching 

On Your Right

To Free Speech

Earlier this week, Lee County Shereff Mike Scott referred to the Junior Senator from Illinois as Barack HUSSEIN Obama and now he is being investigated for ethics violations. FOR SAYING THE GUY'S MIDDLE NAME. If the Senator doesn't like his middle name, he should go to court and change it.

Lee County Sherff Scott ethics inquiry to take weeks

Will settle whether Sheriff Scott violated federal act

By Rachel Myers
rmyers@news-press.com

Federal and state investigations into allegations that Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott acted illegally or unethically by speaking at a political rally while on duty and in uniform could take weeks - or possibly months - to complete.

Scott has denied any wrongdoing after he referred to the Democratic presidential candidate by his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, at a rally for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Monday.

Critics say that by doing so, Scott implied Obama is a Muslim. Obama, who is named for his Kenyan father, is a Christian.

UK: Almost Half Of Teachers Against Muslim Headscarves

From Western Resistance:

A report from the Daily Telegraph discusses findings from a recent YouGov poll amongst British teachers. The poll was commissioned by Teachers TV, a digital TV channel linked to its own website which was launched on February 8, 2005.

More than 70 per cent of the poll's respondents were in favour of promoting "Britishness" in schools. 46% also thought that allowing children to wear religious symbols was contrary to British values, and potentially undermined schemes to promote racial and religious harmony.

The head of Teachers TV, Andrew Bethell, was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the poll showed a "shift away from multiculturalism" in "post 7/7 Britain....There seems to be an increasing feeling among teachers that simply embracing difference is no longer enough. Pupils need a sense of common identity and 'Britishness' is a big part of this."

The newspaper also noted that in July, a school which had banned a Sikh girl who wore a bracelet for contravening its jesellery regulations, was overruled by a court. In November, 2007, Sarika Singh of Aberdare School in South Wales had been excluded for not removing her bangle. Her case had been represented by Liberty.

Previously a Muslim girl whose brother belongs to the extremist and anti-democratic Hizb ut-Tahrir group fought her school through the courts. Shabina Begum of Luton had been a pupil of Denbigh High School and in March 2005 had won a ruling against her school which would not allow her to attend while wearing a head-to-toe "jilbab". Her lawyer was Cherie Blair, wife of Tony Blair. On March 22, 2006, the school won its appeal against the ruling after petitioning The House of Lords.

Go read the whole thing at Western Resistance.

Bill Ayers Speech At The World Education Forum in Venezuela

(Thanks to Damien for sending this to me)

What does Barack Obama's friend, the unrepentant Pentagon-bombing Weather Underground terrorists think?

From Bill Ayers own blog:

Centro Interncional Miranda
Caracas, Venezuela

November , 2006

President Hugo Chavez, Vice-President Vicente Rangel, Ministers Moncada and Isturiz, invited guests, comrades. I’m honored and humbled to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings and support from your brothers and sisters throughout Northamerica. Welcome to the World Education Forum! Amamos la revolucion Bolivariana!

This is my fourth visit to Venezuela, each time at the invitation of my comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice. Luis has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I’ve come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle—I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane. Thank you, Luis, for everything you’ve done.

I also thank my youngest son, Chesa Boudin, who is interpreting my talk this morning and whose book on the Bolivarian revolution has played an important part in countering the barrage of lies spread by the U.S. State Department and the corrupted Northamerican media.

On my last trip to Caracas I spoke of traveling to a literacy class—Mission Robinson— in the hills above the city along a long and winding road. As we made our way higher and higher, the talk turned to politics as it inevitably does here, and someone noted that the wealthy—here and everywhere, here and in the US surely—have certain received opinions, a kind of absolute judgment about poor and working people, and yet they have never traveled this road, nor any road like it. They have never boarded this bus up into these hills, and not just the oligarchy or the wealthy—this lack of first-hand knowledge, of open investigation, of generous regard is also a condition of the everyday liberals, and even many of the radicals and armchair intellectuals whose formulations sit lifeless and stifling in a crypt of mythology about poor people. Everyone should come and travel these roads into the hills, we agreed then—and not just once, but again and again and again – if they will ever learn anything of the real conditions of life here, surely, but more important than that, if they will ever encounter the wisdom and experience and insight that lives here as well.

We arrived at eight o’clock to a literacy circle already underway being conducted in a small, poorly-lit classroom. And here in an odd and dark space, a sun was shining: ten people had pulled their chairs close together—a young woman maybe 19, a grandmother maybe 65, two men in their 40s—each struggling to read. And I thought of a poem called A Poor Woman Learns to Write by Margaret Atwood about a woman working laboriously to print her name in the dirt. She never thought she could do it, the poet notes, not her– this writing business was for others. But she does it, prints her name, her first word so far, and she looks up and smiles— for she did it right.

The woman in the poem—just like the students in Mission Robinson—is living out a universal dialectic that embodies education at its very best: she wrote her name, she changed herself, and she altered the conditions of her life. As she wrote the word, she changed the world, and another world became—suddenly and surprisingly—possible.

I began teaching when I was 20 years old in a small freedom school affiliated with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The year was 1965, and I’d been arrested in a demonstration. Jailed for ten days, I met several activists who were finding ways to link teaching and education with deep and fundamental social change. They were following Dewey and DuBois, King and Helen Keller who wrote: “We can’t have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.”

I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: you can change your life—whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: we must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!

I taught at first in something like a Simoncito—called Head Start—and eventually taught at every level in barrios and prisons and insurgent projects across the United States. I learned then that education is never neutral. It always has a value, a position, a politics. Education either reinforces or challenges the existing social order, and school is always a contested space – what should be taught? In what way? Toward what end? By and for whom? At bottom, it involves a struggle over the essential questions: what does it mean to be a human being living in a human society?

Totalitarianism demands obedience and conformity, hierarchy, command and control. Royalty requires allegiance. Capitalism promotes racism and militarism – turning people into consumers, not citizens. Participatory democracy, by contrast, requires free people coming together voluntarily as equals who are capable of both self-realization and, at the same time, full participation in a shared political and economic life.

Education contributes to human liberation to the extent that people reflect on their lives, and, becoming more conscious, insert themselves as subjects in history. To be a good teacher means above all to have faith in the people, to believe in the possibility that people can create and change things. Education is not preparation for life, but rather education is life itself ,an active process in which everyone— students and teachers– participates as co-learners.

Despite being under constant attack from within and from abroad, the Bolivarian revolution has made astonishing strides in a brief period: from the Mission Simoncito to the Mission Robinson to the Mission Ribas to the Mission Sucre, to the Bolivarian schools and the UBV, Venezuelans have shown the world that with full participation, full inclusion, and popular empowerment, the failings of capitalist schooling can be resisted and overcome. Venezuela is a beacon to the world in its accomplishment of eliminating illiteracy in record time, and engaging virtually the entire population in the ongoing project of education.

The great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wrote a poem to his fellow writers called “The Poet’s Obligation” in which he instructed them in their core responsibility: you must, he said, become aware of your sisters and brothers who are trapped in subjugation and meaninglessness, imprisoned in ignorance and despair. You must move in and out of windows carrying a vision of the vast oceans just beyond the bars of the prison– a message of hope and possibility. Neruda ends with this: it is through me that freedom and the sea will call in answer to the shrouded heart.

Let those of us who are gathered here today read this poem as “The Teacher’s Obligation.” We, too, must move in and out of windows, we, too, must build a project of radical imagination and fundamental change. Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education– a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation. This World Education Forum provides us a unique opportunity to develop and share the lessons and challenges of this profound educational project that is the Bolivarian Revolution.

Viva Mission Sucre!
Viva Presidente Chavez!
Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana!
Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

Sadness

News from Europe:

Dark tales from the Vienna Woods

THE ECONOMIST

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among liberal commentators after Austria's election on Sept. 28.

Two far-right parties, led by Heinz-Christian Strache and Jorg Haider, took 29 percent of the vote between them. Even more disheartening, a third of the country's new young voters (the voting age has just been lowered to 16) backed them.

Austria has form. In 1999 Haider's far-right party won 27 percent of the vote and entered a coalition government that was briefly boycotted by its European partners. This time, not least because the two far-right leaders hate each other, neither is likely to be invited into the government.

But although flavors of the far right vary widely, Austria is by no means alone. The Swiss People's Party of Christoph Blocher is the biggest party in Switzerland. Belgium's Vlaams Belang party remains strong in Flanders. Denmark's government depends on the backing of Pia Kjaersgaard's anti-immigrant People's Party. In Italy the Northern League, part of the ruling right-wing coalition, is explicitly xenophobic.

Some popular prejudices around Europe seem to have become distressingly illiberal and even racist.

Last month a shocking opinion poll by America's Pew Global Attitudes Project found that 46 percent of Spaniards, 36 percent of Poles and 25 percent of Germans had negative views of Jews; and 52 percent of Spaniards, 50 percent of Germans, 46 percent of Poles and 38 percent of French people had negative views of Muslims. In most countries, these numbers have risen significantly in recent years.

All of this is obviously to be deplored. The harder question is what to do about it. The Austrians argued that by including Haider in government they would defang him, a trick the Swiss later tried to play on Blocher.

For a time it even seemed to work (though the European boycott merely annoyed Austria's voters). But the far right has since won back even more electoral ground. Elaborate steps to exclude the far right do not seem to have been any more effective.

The Vlaams Belang has benefited from the other parties' decision to keep it out of government. In Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, extreme parties of both left and right tend to gain votes when the big parties form grand coalitions in the center.

The far right has prospered most when mainstream political parties have belittled or ignored the concerns of ordinary people about such issues as immigration. It does less well when political leaders accept its existence and try to respond to its supporters' concerns.

That points, for example, to reassuring voters that immigration is under control, not just to explaining why it can be beneficial. This is how the Conservative Party has neutralized the far-right vote in Britain.

In the 2007 French presidential election Nicolas Sarkozy did the same to the National Front's Jean-Marie Le Pen, who got into the runoff in 2002. Sarkozy ate into Le Pen's support partly by talking tough on immigration and crime.

This, however, must not include pandering to voters' racism and xenophobia. No respectable party should run on an anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim platform. Instead, political leaders should speak out loudly against all forms of prejudice.

They should try to ensure that criticism of Israel does not blur into hostility to Jewry, for instance; and, equally, they should do their best to ensure that legitimate fears of Islamist terrorism do not translate into a prejudice against Muslims.

Austria's politicians could make a useful start by dropping their strident opposition to the notion that Turkey, a mainly Muslim country, might ever join the European Union. Promoting the belief that the EU ought to be an exclusive Christian club is likely to promote racism, not quell it.