January 5, 2009 | 12:54 pm

Moderate Muslim becomes mayor of Dutch city

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Follow me on

The Netherlands are still trying to figure out how to handle the “Islamization” of society. Moving to ban burkas on college campuses was, I would say, a bad idea. But today’s installation of a Moroccan-born Muslim moderate as mayor of Rotterdam, Europe’s busiest port city, represented a more significant step:

Ahmed Aboutaleb, who has dual Dutch-Moroccan citizenship, is the first Moroccan-born immigrant to be appointed a Dutch mayor. Some have compared his achievement to that of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

“Obama on the Maas … is maybe going a bit far,” said Jan Franssen, the Dutch queen’s representative for South Holland province, referring to the river that runs through Rotterdam. “But the significance is great. This proves that there is no glass ceiling for immigrants in the Netherlands.”

Accepting his new position, Aboutaleb immediately signaled he would work to tackle tensions between the city’s historically white Christian population and its growing Islamic immigrant community.

“Many people feel insecure in a world in which everything is changing,” Aboutaleb told aldermen at City Hall.

“There are no more jobs for life. Money can evaporate, churches disappear, mosques appear,” he said. “We must not make light of these feelings of fear and insecurity. I certainly won’t.”

Aboutaleb, a 47-year-old former journalist, resigned as deputy minister for social affairs in Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende’s government to take over in Rotterdam, which with 585,000 people has the largest proportion of immigrants of any major Dutch city.

It also was the power base of firebrand politician Pim Fortuyn, who rose to prominence on the back of his fierce criticism of Islam and was murdered in 2002 on the eve of national elections.

Before joining the national government in 2007, Aboutaleb was an alderman in Amsterdam, where he made his mark in the tumultuous aftermath of another murder — the brutal 2004 slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by an Islamist extremist.

With tensions soaring and anger toward the city’s large Moroccan and Turkish immigrant populations rising, Aboutaleb went to one of the city’s most prominent mosques with a blunt message for worshippers: integrate or leave.

January 5, 2009 | 1:23 am

Egyptian comedian blames Hamas for recent violence

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Egypt warned Hamas that sending rockets into Israel would provoke a war. Now Egyptian comedian Adel Imam, no fan of Israel, says that Hamas is getting what it had coming:

“Hamas ignored our warnings and chose to lead an asymmetrical war,” Imam said. “It’s preferable for Hamas to stop [the rocket attacks]. They should have known that Israel wasn’t going to receive the attacks with roses.”

3 Comments — Leave your comment

January 4, 2009 | 3:45 pm

Going out of existence sale

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The cover of this week’s New Yorker. Inside the magazine, Patricia Marx has an interesting article on the rabbis who confirm that China’s kosher exports really are kashrut.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

January 2, 2009 | 6:38 pm

Jesus returns on a piece of pita bread

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’d like to see the face of God, too, but this piece of pita bread, being auctioned online now from New Zealand, isn’t it. I don’t care what the seller says:

“I was tempted to eat it but for some reason I didn’t. I guess what you all want to know is whether it’s a coincidence or real apparition. I’m not really sure.”

I’m pretty sure. Like the Obama toast and the Jesus french fry, visions of messianic food stem from optimism, not divine apparitions.

17 Comments — Leave your comment

January 2, 2009 | 5:17 pm

Family full of friendly terrorists removed from flight

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

If you’ve seen “Harold and Kumar 2: Escape from Guantanamo Bay,” or if you’ve watched the trailer above, you can imagine how this whole scene went down. The end result is a familiar one: a family full of observant Muslims, meaning the men sported beards and the women wore headscarves, was kicked off a flight because another passenger mistook an innocuous statement for terrorist talk. The Washington Post explains:

Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother’s wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.

“My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security,” Irfan said. “The only thing my brother said was, ‘Wow, the jets are right next to my window.’ I think they were remarking about safety.”

Irfan said he and the others think they were profiled because of their appearance. He said five of the six adults in the party are of South Asian descent, and all six are traditionally Muslim in appearance, with the men wearing beards and the women in headscarves. Irfan, 34, is an anesthesiologist. His brother, 29, is a lawyer. Both live in Alexandria with their families, and both were born in Detroit. They were traveling with their wives, Kashif Irfan’s sister-in-law, a friend and Kashif Irfan’s three sons, ages 7, 4 and 2.

AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson agreed that the incident amounted to a misunderstanding. But he defended AirTran’s handling of the incident, which he said strictly followed federal rules. And he denied any wrongdoing on the airline’s part.

“At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn’t have made on the airplane, and other people heard them,” Hutcheson said. “Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions.”

Irfan said he and the others think they were profiled because of their appearance. I can’t imagine there is much doubt about it. Yes, security is, as an FAA spokeswoman says in the article, “everyone’s responsibility.” But so is discernment.

1 Comments — Leave your comment

January 2, 2009 | 4:03 pm

Rabbi to Madoff: You have brought upon yourself an ‘enormous curse’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Rabbi Gellman

Because it doesn’t seem you can hear enough rabbinic commentary on the Bernard Madoff affair—actually, I do find fascinating the perspectives of leaders like Rabbi David Wolpe, Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Rabbi Harold Schulweis, et al—Rabbi Marc Gellman of Temple Beth Torah in Melville, N.Y., writes in Newsweek that, as we’ve learned, Madoff has brought a great shame upon the Jewish people:

Not since Julius Rosenberg spied for the Soviet Union has one person so damaged the image and the self-respect of American Jews. I am not comfortable with the fact that so many of the articles about you specifically identify your prominent place in the Jewish community. Ken Lay of Enron shame was never identified as a “prominent Protestant energy broker.” The most aggressive accusers of the governor of Illinois seldom describe him as “the prominent Serbian-American governor of Illinois.” Yes, it is unfair that your Jewishness has become part of the storyline. But you just reminded the bigots who grew up playing The Jew Game that it still strikes a familiar chord. You wiped out Joe Lieberman’s accomplishments. You revived ancient bigotry against our people. You gave credence to the horrid accusations about Jews being untrustworthy and greedy. One offensive paper has a column called “Jews in the News,” which focuses on some Jewish criminal or other to remind their sickening readers of the legitimacy of anti-Semitism. You are not just one of the “Jews in the news” they seek. You are the apotheosis of their hate-filled world. You have given the Jew-haters material for a decade of hate gardening. You single-handedly revived the Jew game. This is what you have done.

Most of those you’ve deceived will learn to live and give in new and perhaps more modest ways. Unlike your evil, which has been stopped, nothing will stop their courage and compassion. Some of your victims will no doubt be more severely wounded in circumstance and in spirit, but none of them, I pray, will surrender to your assault. Their friends will not leave them. Their children and grandchildren will not refuse to hug them and kiss them. After their initial trauma subsides, they will, I believe, move on to cling to the blessings that cannot ever be stolen.

You, on the other hand, will lose everything—everything! From this day to the end of your life, there will be none who will trust you. To be mistrusted by everyone is an enormous curse and you have brought this all upon yourself, and for what purpose? You were supposed to be the master of risk and reward and you risked everything from everyone for what reward? You have not just made a bad calculation about how money works, you have made a bad calculation about how life works. You gave no value to what matters and all value to what does not matter at all.

Read the rest here. Hat tip: Bruce Tomaso

4 Comments — Leave your comment

January 2, 2009 | 1:59 pm

Arab-American paper: Stop ‘Jewish Nazism’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Classic propaganda

My Google Reader is set up to grab anything from Google News that includes “Jews” and “Los Angeles,” which is how I got to reading an op-ed in the Arab-American newspaper Watan. A real gem of journalism, the piece is titled “World must say ‘No’ to Jewish Nazism before it is too late” and says “Nazi and Israeli political and military leadership are nearly identical.”

The writer’s argument continues thus:

Today, Israel is decapitating Gaza while claiming that it is only fighting Hamas.  The Israeli air force is targeting and destroying schools, mosques, private homes, charities, public buildings, drug stores, colleges and universities, all under the false pretext of fighting Hamas.

This is not a war against Hamas. It is a war against the Palestinian people as is obvious from the fact that the bulk of the victims are innocent civilians.

And like all criminals, Israel is resorting to the fabrication of lies and half-truths to justify its genocidal blitz against an essentially unprotected people.

Many, probably most Jews in Israel and around the world, are bragging about the “heroic” Israeli army and its “achievements” against Hamas. Some Jews have described the slaughter as the “best Hanukah present ever.”

Some Jews have described the slaughter—and people actually believe this treyf?

As good an excuse as any, I guess.

What is happening in Gaza, for the peaceful civilians of Gaza, is a true tragedy. They are the pawns of the Arab world, and right now they are being sacrificed. I don’t agree with Israel’s tactics, and I’d like to see a peaceful resolution, um, immediately.

But firing a rocket—or in Hamas’ case firing thousands of rockets—at your neighbor is an act of war. A response from Israel was warranted. The unclear question is what response?

8 Comments — Leave your comment

January 2, 2009 | 1:16 pm

Gaza Adjacent: Living under the constant threat of rocket fire

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Remember the Bar-On family? They live on a small kibbutz between Sderot and the Gaza border, and in August 2007 I spent Shabbat dinner with Marcell and Uzi and their four children. This visit became the focus of an article I wrote about living under the daily threat of Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip:

Moments before we met, Mayan Bar-On bolted for the center of her family’s home on Kibbutz Nir-Am along the Gaza border. Away from the windows, away from the doors, in a hallway underneath a red-tile roof that couldn’t withstand a Qassam strike, she and her 9-year-old brother, Gabi, huddled and waited for the boom.

Now, though, the 12-year-old girl is partaking in a more peaceful ritual. She lights the Shabbat candles and prays

  Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haolam. Asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat.

“Shabbat Shalom,” her father, Uzi, says.

Everyone shares the sentiment and begins to pass the dinner plates, knowing that at any moment, with only a few seconds warning from a public intercom, they may have to drop everything and again—again and again—take cover.

Six seconds: That’s all the time residents of Kibbutz Nir-Am have to react. Six seconds: Less time than it took to read this paragraph ... Boom! And after they hear the boom, they know it’s safe to return to life, at least for now.

This is fast becoming tradition on the frontier of Israeli society. Between the rocket-launching Gaza fields of Beit Hanoun and the primary target town of Sderot, Nir-Am has been constantly under fire for the past six years. More than 6,000 Qassam rockets have been launched at Israeli cities and villages since September 2001, and hundreds have landed in this community of about 350.

A few months later, Marcell Bar-On wrote in a letter:

“The attacks are unprovoked, unpredictable, and continuous, and their effect has been close to catastrophical for us, both economically and psychologically. Our every action, our every waking moment, is geared toward minimizing the impact of living under enemy fire. Our first concern is always for our elderly and our children. My son Gabi, who turns ten in December, was three years old when the bombings started, and doesn’t remember life without Kassam bombs”

You can imagine then that life has felt even more precarious since Israel’s war in Gaza began last weekend. “However,” Marcell wrote in an e-mail sent to friends living around the world, “we are of high spirits and our thoughts and prayers are with our soldiers.”

She also sent a link to the above video, which features her 21-year-old daughter, Dana, talking about what it’s like to always be 15 seconds from a bomb shelter.

“I’m afraid of listening to music while I’m in the shower,” Dana says in the July recording, “because of what happens if I won’t hear the alarm.”

4 Comments — Leave your comment

January 1, 2009 | 4:43 pm

Top Hamas official killed in Israeli airstrike

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Rayyan's flattened home (Photo: AP)

“We are trying to hit everybody who is a leader of the organization, and today we hit one of their leaders,” Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said in a television interview.

What Ramon was referring to was the airstrike on the home of Nizar Rayyan, one of Hamas’ top five shot callers. JTA reports that his apartment building also served as a communications center, was stuffed with rockets and other explosives, that went off during the bombing, and that an escape tunnel was found beneath the home. Two of Rayyan’s four wives and four of his 12 children were also killed in the attack.

“Rayyan was both a religious leader of the Hamas military wing and a military commander,” JTA reported. “He became Hamas’ top religious leader after the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004.”

It’s that last line that gets me. Terrorism outfits are like gangs. The snake does not die when you cut off its head: It just grows another. So what is the point of targeting top officials when all that really does is speed up another budding terrorist’s promotion?

Israel’s war in Gaza, now in its sixth day, has been riling a lot of emotions—old fashioned Jew vs. Jew stuff—and stoking anti-Semitism: a Jewish day school in Chicago received a bomb threat in the mail; swastikas were painted on the sidewalk outside a Jewish preschool in Camarillo, Calif.; and this blog has been getting its share of “kill all Jews”—or all “Juice”—comments.

VideoJew Jay Firestone caught up Tuesday with a protest and counter-protest outside the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles that for a moment got interesting. It follows:

7 Comments — Leave your comment