Why I love Oklahoma

These are the 7 hot (that's British for intelligent) sorority chicks and their chaperones who I befriended on a recent trip to Norman, Oklahoma.


And this is a T-shirt made specially for our rendez-vous.

Multiple counts of hypocrisy

George bloody Galloway, eh? How is it that the hard left and their friends the raving Islamofascists (the ones who got Oona King out for being Jewish despite being anti-Iraq war) still think this guy is so great? Even after he showed routine adoration for a man who repressed and killed hundreds of thousands of his fellow Muslims?

This is a man about whom even the Beeb say:

"...many will greet his performance with a wry smile and claim that, like others before it, it was just that - theatre designed to obscure fact with rhetoric and declamation."

They are referring back to Galloway's absurd appearance before the investigations subcommittee of the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in which he was accused of receiving Iraq oil kickbacks from Saddam Hussein under the UN oil-for-food programme. He managed to obfuscate his way out of that one, as no trace of funds directly to him could be found. However, plenty of questions were raised - and remain largely unanswered - about how such a die-hard Commie can afford the kind of extravagant lifestyle he leads, with his big cigars and villa in Portugal.

All the meanwhile, he takes pride in channeling funds to an organisation proscribed by the US Treasury Department as a 'Hamas-related charity' and designated 'a Specially Designated Global Terrorist', and now this latest scandal.

It is about time that the so-called moderate Muslim community and the hard left disowned this creep. All the while he has been trumpeting your causes whilst funding the kind of extremism that wants to wipe you off the planet for being liberal, feminist, pro-homo, not wearing a shroud to go shopping, meeting and falling in love with future spouses once aged 18+ and other shocking immoral behaviour. Fortunately it's the Jews' turn for a massacre first (it always is), so you have a few years...


Hopefully, the next time Mr Galloway is hoisted aloft by a crown of cheering Muslims, it will involve a noose.

Mad Mel saves time

I think "Mad" Melanie Phillips should take up the famous chant of Millwall FC of "no-one likes us, we don't care". Of course, I love her to pieces, not least because she saves me hours of having to collate articles and write an erudite commentary. Here's one recent piece, in which she is pleasantly surprised by Muslims and the left-o-media seeing through the government-backed crap about how the terror threat should not be treated as "Muslim" or "Islamic/ist" despite being perpetrated by the former in the name of the latter cause.

The War Against The Free World (5)

One of the encouraging developments of the last few disturbing days and weeks is the emergence of a growing number of Muslims who are speaking the truth about the religious nature of the attacks upon Britain and the west. Accounts such as Ed Husain’s book The Islamist and similar statements by a number of other young Muslims, particularly other former radicals who have renounced the jihad, are helping change the terms of the debate. It is simply not possible for Muslims to claim that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, or that it is enough to condemn terrorist violence, or that foreign policy is the cause, when other Muslims are pointing out the lethal dishonesty of such an approach. Here is Safraz Mansoor, for example, in the Guardian:

As tempting as it is to say ‘not in my name’ when faced with the terrifying facts of Islamic radicalism, the uncomfortable truth is that those who perpetrate and support such extremism do so in the name of Islam. It is no longer enough for British Muslims to pretend it is someone else’s problem or to retreat into the usual ritual of bashing the media. Denial is no longer an option and British Muslims need to accept that the cancer of extremism affects their entire community. They also must utterly and without equivication denounce the use of violence. One might think this would be a relatively straightforward matter but in the past even a simple denunciation has been difficult to extract from the self-appointed community leaders who seek to speak for Muslims.

If the problems lie within the Muslim community so do the answers but the seeds of the solutions lie inside the hearts of law-abiding moderate Muslims. The religion I was raised in has been hijacked; it is high time that those of us who recall when being Muslim was about personal conduct not politics challenge those who think what they are doing is in the name of Islam. This requires nothing less than a new articulation of British Muslim identity, a passionately argued and persuasive and optimistic version of what it means to be British and Muslim. It is a version of identity that reflects the way that British Islam is being practised peacefully and quietly every day rather than the poisonous political strain that has intoxicated a small minority.

Here is Asim Siddiqui, also in the Guardian:

No, it’s not foreign policy that’s the main driver in combating the terrorists; it is their mindset. The radical Islamist ideology needs to be exposed to young Muslims for what it really is. A tool for the introduction of a medieval form of governance that describes itself as an ‘Islamic state’ that is violent, retrogressive, discriminatory, a perversion of the sacred texts and a totalitarian dictatorship.

When the IRA was busy blowing up London, there would have been little point in Irish “community leaders” urging ‘all’ citizens to cooperate with the police equally when it was obvious the problem lay specifically within Irish communities. Likewise for Muslim ‘community leaders’ to condemn terrorism is a no-brainer. What is required is for those that claim to represent and have influence among young British Muslims to proactively counter the extremist Islamist narrative. That is the biggest challenge for British Muslim leadership over the next five to 10 years. It is because they are failing to rise to this challenge that the government feels it needs to act by further eroding our civil liberties with anti-terror legislation to get the state to do what Muslims should be doing themselves. If British Muslim groups focus on grassroots de-radicalisation then this will provide civil liberty groups the space they need to argue against any further anti-terror legislation.

Alasdair Palmer in the Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday:

Hassan Butt is another who spent several years as an extreme Islamist before coming to understand that the people with whom he was working were ‘evil’. Mr Butt used to act as a fund raiser - he says he raised more than £150,000 - for fundamentalist terrorist groups. He doesn’t see any change in attitude among their members. His family have rejected him for what they see as his ‘treachery’. His friends have all deserted him. Some of his former colleagues have openly told him that they want him dead. Earlier this year he was stabbed in the street for his ‘betrayal’. Last week, the windows of his house were broken, and his front door smashed, as a further attempt to intimidate him.

He believes that the moderate Muslim community is ‘in denial’ about the extremists in its midst. According to Mr Butt, many imams who preach at mosques in Britain ‘refuse to broach the difficult and often complex truth that Islam can be interpreted as condoning violence against the unbeliever, and instead repeat the mantra that “Islam is peace”, and hope that all of this debate will go away. This has left the territory open for radicals… I know, because [when] I was a recruiter, I repeatedly came across those who had tried to raise these issues with mosque authorities, only to be banned from their g rounds. Every time this happened… it served as a recruiting sergeant for extremism.’

And in the Sunday Times Shiraz Maher, a former friend of one of the Glasgow bomb suspects, Bilal Abdullah, and a former fellow member of Hizb ut Tahrir, said:

Like myself, Bilal didn’t have any non Muslim friends and the circle of Muslims he chose to socialise with was small and selective. But he certainly trusted and respected us. I think this was because he recognised we shared the same ultimate vision as him for Iraq and the wider Muslim world. We only differed over our choice of method.

And so it was through my involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir and its ideology of extremist political Islam that I came to befriend Bilal, the alleged would-be bomber. That’s why I believe it’s wrong to distinguish between ‘extremism’ and ‘violent extremism’ as the government has been doing in recent months. The two are inextricably intertwined. Without movements such as Hizb ut-Tahrir creating the moral imperatives to justify terror, people like Bilal wouldn’t have the support of an ideological infrastructure cheering them on.

These Muslims are under enormous pressure to shut up or to change their tune, and in the case of Hassan Butt at least have been physically attacked. They are extremely courageous to speak out like this, and deserve all possible support and protection.

They also make the British government, which has banned all mention of Islam or Muslims in connection with terrorism, look like imbeciles.

Scottish civil rights infringement

Of course, I do not approve of the actions of these people at Glasgow Airport. They abused the human rights of a group expressing their legitimate claims of oppression. How dare they intervene without due process? These nice young men out for a spin in their Jeep had a nasty crash and then had their civil rights infringed.

And then this nasty fascist Islamophobic taxi driver mocked their language and wanted to give them an indiscriminate beating. Disgraceful what is happening in Scotland.

I mean, we don't yet KNOW whether this was just an unfortunate accident, but everyone always jumps to conclusions. And of course it is in the Establishment's interest to have a so-called "Islamist" "terror" "attack" five minutes after Gordon Brown takes charge.

Thank goodness here in London we failed to apprehend the peace activists who left their Mercedes in Piccadilly with their industrial barbecue equipment in the boot, or who knows what terrible attack might have been wrought by members of the public against them - and on the very fabric of our free, liberal society?

HERO CABBIE: POLICE TOOK MY GOOD NIKE TRAINERS

Battling taxi driver Alex McIlveen faced down the Glasgow Airport terror suspects ... and his courage cost him his favourite pair of trainers and a £30 parking fine.

Dad-of-two Alex punched and kicked the two men after they crashed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas canisters into the door of Terminal One.

The 45-year-old booted one of the suspects, whose body was covered in flames, as hard as he could between the legs.

But the man didn't appear to feel the blow, and a police doctor told Alex later that he'd damaged a tendon in his foot.

After the drama, police confiscated Alex's trainers for forensic tests.

And when he went back to the airport to pick up his cab, he was stunned to find that he'd been given a parking ticket.

Alex said: "The police took all the clothes I 'd been wearing so I lost my Nike trainers. They're a good pair too. I didn't get out of the police station until late on Saturday night and I found the parking ticket on my cab next day. I couldn't believe it."

Alex, of Glasgow, was one of several hero Scots who took on the men who targeted the airport on Saturday afternoon.

He punched and kicked the passenger from the Jeep, believed to be Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla.

Then he went after the driver of the vehicle, even though the heavily-built man was in flames after apparently turning himself into a human torch.

Alex was dropping off a fare at the airport when the attack began. He said:

"I noticed a 4x4 sitting in the middle of the road. Then, as my passenger was paying and getting out, the Jeep rammed into the airport entrance right next to us.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The guy in the passenger seat was wearing a white T-shirt. He got out carrying what looked like a petrol bomb and seconds later the Jeep was in flames.

Then he kicked and punched a man to the ground before punching a policeman square in the face. That's when I saw red. That sort of thing just isn't on. I told my passenger to run for her life, then I went for the man in the T-shirt and managed to skelp him in the face. I followed it up by booting him twice.

By that time some other people had joined in and it seemed like the T-shirt guy was trying to get back into the Jeep. Then the driver got out of the car. He was already in flames. It was obvious he was the real psycho of the pair.

Someone was hosing him down but the flames seemed to jump up again just as it looked like they had gone out. It was obvious the driver wanted into the boot of the Jeep for something and I was worried about what it was. I thought it must be a gun.

He was going crazy, just lashing out at everyone and babbling p*sh in a foreign language the whole time. I've heard people say since that he was shouting 'Allah!' but I didn't hear that. It just sounded like a lot of c**p to me.

I ran for the guy and punched him twice in the face with pretty good right hooks. Then I kicked him with full force right in the balls but he didn't go down. He just kept on babbling his rubbish.

I couldn't believe that he was still standing. I know I would have been floored by that kind of kick."

Alex continued to take on the man, who was lashing out with his fists. He recalled:

"He was a big guy and I'm not really a fighter, but his punches were wild and I managed to dodge them and make some good strikes myself.

Luckily, more people joined in and we managed to beat the guy down. The police apparently caught the other man.

I don't think the policeman I saw at the scene drew his baton during the whole thing. He should have given it to me - I'd have leathered those guys with it."

Alex added:

"After the two guys were restrained, my memory gets a bit blurred. I think I got hit with some of the CS spray the police were firing at them.

The next thing I knew I was waiting in a room at the airport for an ambulance with another member of the public. He'd been badly beaten by the guy in the T-shirt and he had a broken leg.

But the paramedics still treated the burned guy first. He was being held by police in the next room ."

Alex spent hours at a Paisley police station telling detectives everything he could remember about the fight. He said:

"It was only after getting there that I really began to think about what had happened. I started shaking like a leaf.

A police doctor looked me over and said I had damaged a tendon in my foot as a result of the kick I gave the second guy. I've got a few pains in my back as well but apart from that I'm unscathed.

I didn't get out of the police station until late on Saturday night. An officer eventually took me home but the police insisted on taking away all the clothes I had been wearing."

Next day, Alex returned to the airport to pick up his red Skoda Octavia.

He said: "I couldn't believe it when I discovered a £30 parking ticket on my cab. Considering I got it while trying to save hundreds of people, I would hope it will be cancelled."

Alex's wife Lynn, 40, said: "He risked his life because he thought people were in danger. He is an absolute hero. If he hadn't been there, who knows what would have happened."

UPDATE...

This evil Scotsman was later treated like a hero and rewarded for his actions by a cheering mob of neo-conservative shoppers. Unbelievable. I weep for this country.

Wakey wakey, morons

Has anyone noticed that those nice liberators from Hamas have the standard Palestinian dual agenda thing going on? We're all terribly busy patting them on the back, whilst ignoring that they still have Gilad Shalit in captivity and apparently with failing health.

And they have allowed the Dagmoush militias to keep all their weapons and escape any punishment, despite proclaiming to the media that they are able to keep law and order in Gaza. Some judicial process, that.

The reason for the let-off? The Dagmoush guys have been brave blowers-up of Israeli women and children, and are therefore heroes of the resistance (to the occupier that left a year ago?!?!). As long as they just point their guns at the yids, it's all hunky-dory.

Oh, and it also transpires that some of the bean-counters for the Dagmoush were concerned that the bad name they were getting might affect their gun-running business from Egypt, so it was best to call a halt to the kidnapping before they lost too much market share.

Real nice people, those Dagmoush. Johnston called them an "aberration" amongst a whole plethora of otherwise hospitable and warm Palestinians he encountered. I am inclined to think the "aberration" to think about is the one that warps Western minds into supporting various elements of these scum, when anywhere else in the world, they have no difficulty knowing right from wrong.

And of hope...?

One thing that I have to keep reminding myself of with Israel is that for every down, there is an up.

For every horror story from my cousins about what they saw in Lebanon, there is a beautiful wedding of a dear friend. For all the maddening bureaucracy and appalling traffic, there are glorious sunsets on Gordon Beach. For all the divisions in society, there's a sense of unity when it really matters.

For each visit to my wonderful older relatives and the fear that it might be the last, there are the wonderful moments, now captured for posterity (massive thanks to Bison and the Good Man for rescuing them!), of them singing, chatting and recounting stories of their childhood, misty-eyed.

For the countless times I have thrown my hands up in despair and wondered if we will ever find a solution to any one of Israel's big dilemmas, there's an old friend with a new opinion that opens my mind again to the possibility.

That's Israel, and as always, I am wondering whether my flight back to London today is homeward bound or a leave of absence from where I belong...

The soul of Israel

Had a rather depressing chat with Uncle Avi over the weekend. He is so sick of our once-proud country failing to be anything like Ohr LaGoyim (a light unto the nations), with its endless scandals.

Firstly is the Netanyahu-driven process of encouraging wealth creation through Thatcherite incentives to invest, which are supposed to attract capital and stimilate the economy, although there is invariably a shock to certain parts of the system (the flabby Histadrut certainly needs the therapy). But in the Jewish/Israeli structure of patronage and the predominance of a handful of tycoon families, this has inevitably led to a further concentration of capital and favours amongst a small elite.

And then there's the whole string of political misbehaviour. The final straw is this let-off of the clearly guilty Katsav from most of the serious charges of rape and molestation laid against him, apparently "to preserve the dignity of the state" against the eyes of the world.

Since when has the world given us any dignity? We always get held up to impossibly high standards, but on this occasion we should be making a point of seeking them ourselves. Instead, this evasion of justice and due process is just more grist to the mill.

We are not a tinpot dictatorship (unless Gaydamak really privatises the entire electoral system). So when a slimeball like this is basically let off the hook, it's shameful on a people who believe in the call of "justice, justice, you shall pursue".

It's interesting how we have managed to battle to an effective stalemate with the Arabs, used the relative stability to rejuvenate the economy, and are still able to find ways to tear ourselves apart.

I am increasingly of the view that the battle for Israel's soul has nothing much to do with the Green Line or the Blue Line, and everything to do with the line that divides us from the nations that claim to have a monopoly on "civilised behaviour" (ie Europe), but then abuse their own citizens, manipulate the rules, abort inconvenient investigations and so on.

Israel may not always do things right but I had always assumed it would do the right thing. I guess we are just like everyone else now. Tragic.