Heil Dubya!

ROTFLMAO! So, in the hypocritical words of "Isidor Gunsberg", " ... Cubans,
Iranians, (North?) Koreans competitors were barred for political reasons,
because of the difficult relations that the US has with the respective
governments ... " while "Jewish players were barred from entry into
Libya because of sheer bigotry."

I get an unhappy kick out of these Europeans (including the United Statesians)
who choose to deny history; that is, that, for centuries, while European states
and populations were persecuting Jews, the ONLY safe haven for them was in
Spain and other Muslim lands. In fact, until the Europeans invented Zionism --
in order to justify invasion of the East of the Arab World -- Jews and Muslims
lived quite (meaning "fully") comfortably with each other in all of North
Africa and the East of the Arab World. Like many other European racist myths,
the "historical" antipathy between Jews and Arabs is a lie.

Once again, Jews were invited to participate in the World Championship. I do
not know whether Zionist Occupiers of Palestine ("Israelis") were invited or
not.

"Isidor Gunsberg" has posted the following:

Vladyslav Kosulin wrote in message
.. .
Bugsy wrote:

Jun. 16, 2004 0:09

Wednesday Call: Chess - not just for smart people anymore


By MIKE LEBOWITZ

Muammar Gaddafi's past two weeks haven't been a complete failure.

Sure he got busted trying to wack the Saudi crown prince. But he did
manage
to get the entire world, including the International Olympic Committee
(IOC), to ban Jews from a major competition beginning this week.
Considering
the fact that many anti-Semites could care less about a bullet-riddled
Saudi
dictator, I would say that Gaddafi will be celebrated for his
achievement.

Zionists would definitely prefer he succeed with Saudi prince action. So
what?

There is no doubt this event is FIDE worst ever achievement, not just
because
Jews can not participate, but because the top players can not either.

What really makes me crazy is when Libya barres Jews - it is a shame, but
when
USA essentially the same way barres Cuban, Iranian, Korean sportsmen from
official sports events - nobody cares.

Regards,
Vlad

If the US were to bar Cuban, Iranian, and Korean
***chessplayers*** from coming to the US to play in a FIDE event, then
FIDE should NOT award its World Championships or Chess Olympiads to
the US. There really is no justification for banning artists or
sporting competitors solely on the basis of Nationality.

I believe that when FIDE held its World Championship in Las Vegas,
several of the players who had qualified from countries such as Iran
had difficulted obtain Visas to enter the US, and ultimately did not
attend the event.

The wrong of the US in barring Cuban, Iranians, and Koreans from
various competitions does NOT, however, justify the further wrong of
FIDE holding a competition in Libya, where Israelis and Jews will be
banned.

Moreover, I should note that Cubans, Iranians, (North?) Koreans
competitors were barred for political reasons, because of the
difficult relations that the US has with the respective governments.
The sanctions against Iranian, Cuban, and Korean competitors and
artists is both counterproductive and mean-spirited. Iranians were not
barred because they were Persian, nor were the North Koreans barred
because they were Korean (after all, presumeably, South Koreans were
allowed to participate). Jewish players were barred from entry into
Libya because of sheer bigotry. Therein lies an important distinction.
Moreover, after the Dubai 1986 Chess Olympiad, FIDE had set a policy
never to hold an event in a venue where Israelis would not be allowed
to attend. Yet their undertaking gets tossed aside for the sake of
moral expediency.

Let me close by pointing out that guaranteeing access to officail
FIDE events to all qualified competitors is no easy matter. Back when
FIDE held an InterZonal in Biel,it turned out the Julio Granda Zuniga
was prevented by Swiss authorities from entering the country, which
caused him to miss the start of the event. Granda Zuniga was barred
because of racist policy on the part of the Swiss. They assumed that
because he was Peruvian that he was seeking to illegally immigrate to
Switzerland. His bona fides and documents were in order, yet the Swiss
seemed unable to believe that Granda Zuniga could be a Grandmaster
chessplayer. This travesty occurred in the country where Switzerland
is based.


Heute Uhmuhrikkka, Afghanistan, Irak und Haïti. Morgen die ganze Welt!

Uhmuhrikkka, Uhmuhrikkka über Alles!

(The more information that comes out about the attacks on the Twin Towers and
the Pentagon of 11 September 2001 the more it appears that those attacks were
organized by the rulers of the United States and were intended to have the same
effect on the people of the United States that the Reichstag fire had on the
people of Germany in 1933.)

Fight terrorism! Dissolve the CIA and disarm the Pentagon! (I have watched
the hearings of the Commission to investigate the attacks on the Twin Towers
and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001. As a result, I have become convinced
that every one of the witnesses and their four Presidents - and every one of
the Commissioners - should be tried for:
(1. Conspiracy to commit terrorism; and/or
(2. Commission of terrorist acts; and/or
(3. Conspiracy to commit murder; and/or
(4. Commission of murder; and/or
(5. Treason; and/or
(6. Suborning one or more of the above acts.)

Fraternally,

Jerome Bibuld
gens una sumus

ospam (Jerome Bibuld) wrote in message ...
Heil Dubya!

ROTFLMAO! So, in the hypocritical words of "Isidor Gunsberg", " ... Cubans,
Iranians, (North?) Koreans competitors were barred for political reasons,
because of the difficult relations that the US has with the respective
governments ... " while "Jewish players were barred from entry into
Libya because of sheer bigotry."

Bibuld, there are none so blind as those who will not see. If you
want to mantain a stance of stuborn ignorance, you are welcome to do
so. That anti-Jewish sentiments are rife throughout the Islamic world,
and are particularly intense throughtout the Arab world, is evident to
anybody with a shred of objectivity.


I get an unhappy kick out of these Europeans (including the United Statesians)
who choose to deny history; that is, that, for centuries, while European states
and populations were persecuting Jews, the ONLY safe haven for them was in
Spain and other Muslim lands.

This is a canard. The Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and and
Buddhism, were much more hospitable to Jews than were Muslim. Islam
accorded "people of the book" (eg Christians and Jews) a protected
status of being "tolerated", which was known as Dhimmitude. At BEST,
the Muslim treatment of Jews would have been quite similar to the
treatment of blacks in the South, during the "Jim Crow" era. Jews and
Christians were systematically discriminated against. Often, Muslims
engaged in pograms against the Jews. Even during the "Golden Era" in
Spain, life was rather insecure for the Jews.

In Islamdom, Jews generally avoided the depths of persecution that
they had to endure in Christian lands. However, they were also never
able to rise to the levels of status that they could occasionally
obtain in Christendom during the "good times"

In fact, until the Europeans invented Zionism --
in order to justify invasion of the East of the Arab World -- Jews and Muslims
lived quite (meaning "fully") comfortably with each other in all of North
Africa and the East of the Arab World.

What a pernicious lie! After the 14th century, things began to
take a marked turn for the worse, especially in the Arab regions.
Moreover, the treatment of Jew had gotten progressively worse,
especially by the 19th Century. This was before the advent of Zionism.

Like many other European racist myths,
the "historical" antipathy between Jews and Arabs is a lie.

Been reading Saudi propaganda again??

Once again, Jews were invited to participate in the World Championship. I do
not know whether Zionist Occupiers of Palestine ("Israelis") were invited or
not.

"Isidor Gunsberg" has posted the following:

Vladyslav Kosulin wrote in message
.. .
Bugsy wrote:

Jun. 16, 2004 0:09

Wednesday Call: Chess - not just for smart people anymore


By MIKE LEBOWITZ

Muammar Gaddafi's past two weeks haven't been a complete failure.

Sure he got busted trying to wack the Saudi crown prince. But he did
manage
to get the entire world, including the International Olympic Committee
(IOC), to ban Jews from a major competition beginning this week.
Considering
the fact that many anti-Semites could care less about a bullet-riddled
Saudi
dictator, I would say that Gaddafi will be celebrated for his
achievement.

Zionists would definitely prefer he succeed with Saudi prince action. So
what?

There is no doubt this event is FIDE worst ever achievement, not just
because
Jews can not participate, but because the top players can not either.

What really makes me crazy is when Libya barres Jews - it is a shame, but
when
USA essentially the same way barres Cuban, Iranian, Korean sportsmen from
official sports events - nobody cares.

Regards,
Vlad

If the US were to bar Cuban, Iranian, and Korean
***chessplayers*** from coming to the US to play in a FIDE event, then
FIDE should NOT award its World Championships or Chess Olympiads to
the US. There really is no justification for banning artists or
sporting competitors solely on the basis of Nationality.

I believe that when FIDE held its World Championship in Las Vegas,
several of the players who had qualified from countries such as Iran
had difficulted obtain Visas to enter the US, and ultimately did not
attend the event.

The wrong of the US in barring Cuban, Iranians, and Koreans from
various competitions does NOT, however, justify the further wrong of
FIDE holding a competition in Libya, where Israelis and Jews will be
banned.

Moreover, I should note that Cubans, Iranians, (North?) Koreans
competitors were barred for political reasons, because of the
difficult relations that the US has with the respective governments.
The sanctions against Iranian, Cuban, and Korean competitors and
artists is both counterproductive and mean-spirited. Iranians were not
barred because they were Persian, nor were the North Koreans barred
because they were Korean (after all, presumeably, South Koreans were
allowed to participate). Jewish players were barred from entry into
Libya because of sheer bigotry. Therein lies an important distinction.
Moreover, after the Dubai 1986 Chess Olympiad, FIDE had set a policy
never to hold an event in a venue where Israelis would not be allowed
to attend. Yet their undertaking gets tossed aside for the sake of
moral expediency.

Let me close by pointing out that guaranteeing access to officail
FIDE events to all qualified competitors is no easy matter. Back when
FIDE held an InterZonal in Biel,it turned out the Julio Granda Zuniga
was prevented by Swiss authorities from entering the country, which
caused him to miss the start of the event. Granda Zuniga was barred
because of racist policy on the part of the Swiss. They assumed that
because he was Peruvian that he was seeking to illegally immigrate to
Switzerland. His bona fides and documents were in order, yet the Swiss
seemed unable to believe that Granda Zuniga could be a Grandmaster
chessplayer. This travesty occurred in the country where Switzerland
is based.


Heute Uhmuhrikkka, Afghanistan, Irak und Haïti. Morgen die ganze Welt!

Uhmuhrikkka, Uhmuhrikkka über Alles!

(The more information that comes out about the attacks on the Twin Towers and
the Pentagon of 11 September 2001 the more it appears that those attacks were
organized by the rulers of the United States and were intended to have the same
effect on the people of the United States that the Reichstag fire had on the
people of Germany in 1933.)

Fight terrorism! Dissolve the CIA and disarm the Pentagon! (I have watched
the hearings of the Commission to investigate the attacks on the Twin Towers
and the Pentagon of 11 September 2001. As a result, I have become convinced
that every one of the witnesses and their four Presidents - and every one of
the Commissioners - should be tried for:
(1. Conspiracy to commit terrorism; and/or
(2. Commission of terrorist acts; and/or
(3. Conspiracy to commit murder; and/or
(4. Commission of murder; and/or
(5. Treason; and/or
(6. Suborning one or more of the above acts.)

Fraternally,

Jerome Bibuld
gens una sumus

ospam (Jerome Bibuld) wrote in
message ...
ROTFLMAO! So, in the hypocritical words of "Isidor Gunsberg", " ... Cubans,
Iranians, (North?) Koreans competitors were barred for political reasons,
because of the difficult relations that the US has with the respective
governments ... " while "Jewish players were barred from entry into
Libya because of sheer bigotry."

I get an unhappy kick out of these Europeans (including the United Statesians)
who choose to deny history; that is, that, for centuries, while European
states and populations were persecuting Jews, the ONLY safe haven for them
was in Spain and other Muslim lands. In fact, until the Europeans invented
Zionism -- in order to justify invasion of the East of the Arab World --
Jews and Muslims lived quite (meaning "fully") comfortably with each other
in all of North Africa and the East of the Arab World. Like many other
European racist myths, the "historical" antipathy between Jews and Arabs
is a lie. ...

Dear Mr Bibuld,

I am writing here only to address some points of history, *not*
to comment in particular on the FIDE event in Libya.

Here's an interview (10 May 2002) by Elliott Colla with Avi Shlaim,
an eminent Israeli historian at Oxford University:

http://www.merip.org/mer/mer223/223_...interview.html

Elliott Colla: "Is there a pattern in Israeli society for what gets
remembered and what gets forgotten?"

Avi Shalim: "In a sense, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is, on the
psychological level, a contest over who is the victim. The Israelis would
never concede to the Palestinians the status of victims, this they insist
on keeping for themselves. One example of this is the case of the 1948
(Palestinian) refugees, which Benny Morris demonstrated was the result of
Israeli pressure and outright expulsions. And yet no Israeli leader would
ever accept the moral responsibility, let alone the political responsibility,
for creating the refugee problem. They wouldn't even accept a share of the
moral responsibility for this problem. Ehud Barak at Camp David wasn't ask
to accept the right of return for the refugees. He was asked to accept that
Israel bear merely a part of the moral responsibility for this problem, which
would then be tackled by the international community. And he refused.

Israelis have a certain collective memory, which is reflected in the old
history of this conflict: Israel is in the right, Israel is pure, the Arabs
are wrong. That's what the old history says, the version that is still
taught in Israeli schools about the history of this conflict. ..."

Elliott Colla: "Is this collective memory selective?"

Avi Shlaim: "What's been called 'the lachrymose version of Jewish history'
is an Ashkenazi (European Jewish) version of Jewish and Israeli history which
is *not supported by the experience of Jews in Arab countries until 1948*.
We come from Iraq. For my parents, Iraq was the Garden of Eden. They were
very nostalgic about it. *There weren't any real problems between Jews and
Arabs until the state of Israel was established.* So the broad experience
of Jews under Arab rule does *not* support what has been called 'the lachrymose
version of Jewish history'. In a sense, Arab Jews are asked to forget their
past in order to conform with the commemoration of an Ashkenazi past, because
the political, military, economic, and above all the cultural elite in Israel
has always been and still is an Ashkenazi elite. Radical, dissenting
non-European discourse is marginal. There are a few minority voices, but
they don't effect the climate of opinion in Israel. The history which is
taught at school is an Ashkenazi history."
....
Elliott Colla: "There is talk of a boycott of Israeli intellectuals and
academic institutions. What do you think of this? Ilan Pappe has sounded
off in favor of it."

(My note: Ilan Pappe is a historian at Haifa University in Israel.)

Avi Shlaim: "I'm for a boycott of Israeli goods and against a boycott of
Israeli academics. Israel does 40 percent of its trade with the EU and
very little of its trade with the US, so EU economic sanctions would be
effective and I'm in favor of them, as well as an arms embargo. Britain
to its credit has implemented an embargo on arms sales because Israel has
violated the rule it purchased British military equipment.

A cultural and an academic boycott is an entirely different proposition:
that wouldn't hurt the (Israel's) government. On the contrary, it would play
into the hands of the government, because the government would say: 'You see,
there is anti-Semitism, there is hostility toward us as a people. We are
all in the same boat, so you should rally behind the flag.'
....
But the real problem is America's relationship to Israel, which is so partial
and so biased. America gives overwhelming support to Israel, to the tune of
billions of dollars a year....This introduces a fatal contradiction into
America's position in the peace process. On one hand, America sets itself
up as the honest broker, and on the other, it's completely beholden to one
side (Israel) in this dispute. So it can't be an honest broker."

--Avi Shlaim (10 May 2002, 'Middle East Report 223')

--Nick

Isidor Gunsberg wrote:

This is a canard. The Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and and
Buddhism, were much more hospitable to Jews than were Muslim. Islam
accorded "people of the book" (eg Christians and Jews) a protected
status of being "tolerated", which was known as Dhimmitude. At BEST,
the Muslim treatment of Jews would have been quite similar to the
treatment of blacks in the South, during the "Jim Crow" era. Jews and
Christians were systematically discriminated against. Often, Muslims
engaged in pograms against the Jews. Even during the "Golden Era" in
Spain, life was rather insecure for the Jews.

In Islamdom, Jews generally avoided the depths of persecution that
they had to endure in Christian lands. However, they were also never
able to rise to the levels of status that they could occasionally
obtain in Christendom during the "good times"

Here are a few extracts from "The History of anti-Semitism" by Leon
Poliakov, volume II (From Mohammed to the Marranos).

'The Palestinian sage Johanan ben Zakai spoke otherwise, and he was subtler
and more profound:

'"Why were the Jews exiled to Babylonia? Because their ancestor Abraham had
come from there. It is like a woman misbehaving towards her husband. To
whom does he send her? He sends her back to her father's house".

'Such was the oasis that for nearly a thousand years harbored the principal
center of Judaism, the place where the Talmud was codified in its
definitive form, the place whose influence and prestige were recognised
throughout the Dispersion. The Arab conquest, ..., helped to intensify that
predominance, and although the Seljuk invasions put an end to it three or
four centuries later, an important Jewish colony still survived in
Mesopotamia until our time-until 1950, to be exact.' (page 10)

'In southern Tunisia there were even tribes of Jewish troglodytes who lived
in caves cut into the limestone. All observers have been struck by the
poverty of the North African Jews, and the Arabs regard them with that
traditional disdain which goes back to the era of conquering Islam, when
the special laws were enacted for the dhimmis, or "protected" Jews and
Christians, meaning that they were entitled to the protection of the
Believers but were required to live in abasement.

'... several centuries before Christ, Semitic colonisers, the same ones who
founded Carthage, had imposed on North Africa their culture and also their
language-a language that was much closer to Hebrew than to Aramaic or
Arabic.

'... remarkable magic tablets have been discovered on the site of the port
of Hadrumetum, bearing the name of Jehovah, sometimes invoked alone,
sometimes invoked along with other divinities. ... from earliest times the
Jews came and settled in North Africa in the wake of the Phoenicians,
preparing the terrain for the spread of Judaism. And, consequently, for
Christianity. Thus it is easier to understand why, in the first centuries
after Christ, and before Islam, "in the period which extends from
Tertullian and Cyprian to Augustine, North Africa instructed all the
Christianity of the West."

'For their part, the Fathers of the Church, ..., often mention how ancient
and prosperous were the Jewish colonies of Mauretania, Numidia, and Libya.
Just as in other parts of the World, Judaism spread in these regions at
least as much through proselytism as through immigration-perhaps more. ...
The gradual and silent disappearance of the old Phoenician colonisers can
probably be explained precisely by their conversion to Judaism.

'...we know for sure that in the north numerous Berber tribes eventually
adopted Judaism. The cult of Jehovah was a powerful cohesive and unifying
factor for them at the time of the battles that pitted them against the
Roman Empire. When Christianity became the official religion of the
state, ... the ancient Jewish coastal colonies, ..., eventually faded and
disappeared, as did the various heretical Christian sects. The result was
that Judaism finally survived in North Africa ... among the fierce warriors
of the interior.

'When the waves of conquering Islam began to break over these regions ...
the Judaised Berber tribes put up a long and stubborn resistance to the
Arabs. Their principal stronghold was the Aures mountains, which had always
been hospitable to rebels... According to the historian Ibn Adhari, after
destroying Carthage the Arab general Hassan inquired who was the most
powerful chief in Africa ... "It is a woman named El-Kahina, who lives in
the Aures ... were she to be killed, the whole Maghreb would submit to
you ...".

'... according to a local legend, as late as the seventeenth century, the
Jews of Tilatou exacted tribute from the surrounding Moslem
peoples.' (pages 11 to 15)

'here are the terms and conditions-a dozen of them-of the famous "Umar
pact."

'There were six essential conditions:

'The dhimmis shall not make any use of the Koran in jest and shall not
falsify its text.

'They shall not speak of the Prophet falsely or contemptuously.

'They shall not speak of the cult of Islam irreverently or derisively.

'They shall not touch a Moslem woman nor seek to marry her.

'They shall not attempt to lead a Moslem from his faith nor make any attempt
against his property or his life.

'They shall not give succor to the enemy nor harbor spies.

'Breaking any of these six conditions would nullify the treaty and deprive
the dhimmis of Moslem protection.

'There were six more conditions that were regarded as desirable; violation
of these was punishable by fines or other penalties, but did not nullify
the treaty of protection:

'The dhimmis shall wear the ghiyar, a distinctive sign, which was ordinarily
yellow for Jews, blue for Christians.' (Note: for the Arabs of that time,
the colour yellow did not have the perjorative sense that it later had in
Europe.)

'They shall not ring their bells nor read their books aloud, nor what they
tell of Ezra and the Messiah Jesus.

'They shall not drink wine in public nor display their crosses or their
swine.

'They shall bury their dead in silence and not allow their lamentations or
sounds of mourning to be heard.

'They shall not ride horses, neither thoroughbred nor common; they may,
however, ride mules or asses.

'To these twelve conditions, so revealing of the mixture of scorn and
benevolence which characterised the Moslems' attitudes towards the
unbelievers, must be added a thirteenth, which was absolutely basic: the
dhimmis must pay tribute in two different forms, the Kharaj, which was the
land tax ..., and the jizya, a poll tax to be paid by adult men "wearing
the beard". The famous jurist Mawerdi commented: "It was demanded with a
degree of contempt, for it was payment demanded of the dhimmis for their
infidelity; but it was also a gentle demand, for it was renumeration paid
for the shelter we gave them".

'Thus, a sort of organic symbiosis developed between conquerer and conquered
that, with a few passing exceptions, made it possible for Jewish and
Christian districts to exist peacefully and prosperously in all parts of
the Islamic Empire until our time.' (pages 36-37)

'It would be wrong to conclude from all this that the status of the Jews
under Islam was always flourishing. In the eastern part of the empire there
were sporadic persecutions, directed at both the Jewish and the Christian
dhimmis. The best known, and perhaps the cruelest, was that of the Fatamid
caliph Hakim, who in 1012 had all the churches in Egypt and Palestine
destroyed and prohibited the practise of all religions other than Islam. It
is significant that the only way the Moslem historians could explain this
decision was to attribute it to a sudden madness of the Caliph. In the
Western part of the empire ... .In the twelfth century, first under the
Almoravides dynasty and then under the Almohades, there were fierce
persecutions from which, ..., the Jews often escaped by taking refuge in
Christian territory. .... It has been established, ..., the Shi'ites were
responsible for many of the persecutions we know about, such as those of
Yemen (one of which, around 1172, inspired Maimonides to write his
epistle, ...).' (pages 74-75)


Turning now to Moorish Spain.

'Generally speaking, the Christians under Moslem domination-the
Mozarabes-participated fully in all aspects of civilisation. ... They do
not seem to have had to wear any special insignia, ... the Mozarabes were
rarely persecuted.

'It was the same with the Jews. ... The poet Sa'id sang of Andalucia as the
land "where children and Jews are polite and honest instinctively." ...

'Born into a rich family in Cordova, Hasdai ben Isaac ibn Shaprut, the Abu
Yusuf of the Arab chroniclers, ... Abd-ar-Rahman III, the prince who assmed
the title of caliph ..., made him part of his retinue .. and availed
himself of the ability and prestige of his doctor for confidential and
diplomatic missions. In this capacity Hasdai ibn Shaprut became involved in
the disputes of the Christian kings of the north of the peninsular. ...

'... Spanish Judaism flourished ...' (pages 90-92)

'Abu-Ibrahim Samuel ben Yosef Halevi ibn Nagrela, to call him by his full
Arabic name, was born in Cordova in 993 to a rich Jewish family. .... he
gained the confidence of king Habbus. Remarkably, he was appointed to
command troops .... (page 93)

'... in 839 it was Saragossa where Bodo, the emperor's deacon who converted
to Judaism, took refuge and was circumcised.' (page 96)


Regards,

Simon.

chapman Billy wrote in
message ...
Isidor Gunsberg wrote:
This is a canard. The Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and and
Buddhism, were much more hospitable to Jews than were Muslim.
Islam accorded "people of the book" (eg Christians and Jews) a protected
status of being "tolerated", which was known as Dhimmitude.
At BEST, the Muslim treatment of Jews would have been quite similar to
the treatment of blacks in the South, during the "Jim Crow" era.
Jews and Christians were systematically discriminated against.
Often, Muslims engaged in pograms against the Jews. Even during
the "Golden Era" in Spain, life was rather insecure for the Jews.

In Islamdom, Jews generally avoided the depths of persecution that
they had to endure in Christian lands. However, they were also never
able to rise to the levels of status that they could occasionally
obtain in Christendom during the "good times"

Based on what he has written in the chess newsgroups, "Isidor Gunsberg"
evidently prefers to draw his 'facts' about Muslims and Islam from some
favourite sources--'A Cry in the Silence' by Brigitte Bardot and
'The Rage and the Pride' by Oriana Fallaci--of extremely dubious value.

"I think the hard-hitting book by Oriana Fallaci has more merit,
but I'm sure that Bardot makes some useful points."
--"Isidor Gunsberg" (11 June 2004, "Kasparov on the War in Iraq!")

Both Brigitte Bardot and Oriana Fallaci are far from being, in knowledge
or in 'objective' methods, scholars of Islam or the history of Muslims.
In fact, Brigitte Bardot was recently convicted by a French court of
'inciting racial hatred' against all Muslims in France on account of what
she had written in her book of which "Isidor Gunsberg" is "sure that (it)
makes some useful points". Oriana Fallaci's book has been denounced by
human rights watch groups, such as the European Observatory on Racism
(based in Brussels) as racist for its 'violent and insulting tone' and
content that's 'explicitly anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-immmigrant'.

"They (Muslims) breed like rats, and they **** in baptismal fonts."
--Oriana Fallaci ('The Rage and the Pride', translated from the Italian)

In response to Oriana Fallaci's book, here's an article, "The Bible of the
Muslim Haters" by Rana Kabbani (who lives in Paris) for 'The Guardian':

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...731076,00.html

Anyone sincerely interested in studying Islamic history and cultures, for both
its favourable and unfavourable points, should find far more authoritative
sources of information than the books by Brigitte Bardot and Oriana Fallaci.

Here are a few extracts from "The History of anti-Semitism" by Leon
Poliakov, volume II (From Mohammed to the Marranos).

'The Palestinian sage Johanan ben Zakai spoke otherwise, and he was subtler
and more profound:

'"Why were the Jews exiled to Babylonia? Because their ancestor Abraham had
come from there. It is like a woman misbehaving towards her husband. To
whom does he send her? He sends her back to her father's house".

'Such was the oasis that for nearly a thousand years harbored the principal
center of Judaism, the place where the Talmud was codified in its
definitive form, the place whose influence and prestige were recognised
throughout the Dispersion. The Arab conquest, ..., helped to intensify that
predominance, and although the Seljuk invasions put an end to it three or
four centuries later, an important Jewish colony still survived in
Mesopotamia until our time-until 1950, to be exact.' (page 10)

'In southern Tunisia there were even tribes of Jewish troglodytes who lived
in caves cut into the limestone. All observers have been struck by the
poverty of the North African Jews, and the Arabs regard them with that
traditional disdain which goes back to the era of conquering Islam, when
the special laws were enacted for the dhimmis, or "protected" Jews and
Christians, meaning that they were entitled to the protection of the
Believers but were required to live in abasement.

'... several centuries before Christ, Semitic colonisers, the same ones who
founded Carthage, had imposed on North Africa their culture and also their
language-a language that was much closer to Hebrew than to Aramaic or
Arabic.

'... remarkable magic tablets have been discovered on the site of the port
of Hadrumetum, bearing the name of Jehovah, sometimes invoked alone,
sometimes invoked along with other divinities. ... from earliest times the
Jews came and settled in North Africa in the wake of the Phoenicians,
preparing the terrain for the spread of Judaism. And, consequently, for
Christianity. Thus it is easier to understand why, in the first centuries
after Christ, and before Islam, "in the period which extends from
Tertullian and Cyprian to Augustine, North Africa instructed all the
Christianity of the West."

'For their part, the Fathers of the Church, ..., often mention how ancient
and prosperous were the Jewish colonies of Mauretania, Numidia, and Libya.
Just as in other parts of the World, Judaism spread in these regions at
least as much through proselytism as through immigration-perhaps more. ...
The gradual and silent disappearance of the old Phoenician colonisers can
probably be explained precisely by their conversion to Judaism.

'...we know for sure that in the north numerous Berber tribes eventually
adopted Judaism. The cult of Jehovah was a powerful cohesive and unifying
factor for them at the time of the battles that pitted them against the
Roman Empire. When Christianity became the official religion of the
state, ... the ancient Jewish coastal colonies, ..., eventually faded and
disappeared, as did the various heretical Christian sects. The result was
that Judaism finally survived in North Africa ... among the fierce warriors
of the interior.

'When the waves of conquering Islam began to break over these regions ...
the Judaised Berber tribes put up a long and stubborn resistance to the
Arabs. Their principal stronghold was the Aures mountains, which had always
been hospitable to rebels... According to the historian Ibn Adhari, after
destroying Carthage the Arab general Hassan inquired who was the most
powerful chief in Africa ... "It is a woman named El-Kahina, who lives in
the Aures ... were she to be killed, the whole Maghreb would submit to
you ...".

'... according to a local legend, as late as the seventeenth century, the
Jews of Tilatou exacted tribute from the surrounding Moslem
peoples.' (pages 11 to 15)

'here are the terms and conditions-a dozen of them-of the famous "Umar
pact."

'There were six essential conditions:

'The dhimmis shall not make any use of the Koran in jest and shall not
falsify its text.

'They shall not speak of the Prophet falsely or contemptuously.

'They shall not speak of the cult of Islam irreverently or derisively.

'They shall not touch a Moslem woman nor seek to marry her.

'They shall not attempt to lead a Moslem from his faith nor make any attempt
against his property or his life.

'They shall not give succor to the enemy nor harbor spies.

'Breaking any of these six conditions would nullify the treaty and deprive
the dhimmis of Moslem protection.

'There were six more conditions that were regarded as desirable; violation
of these was punishable by fines or other penalties, but did not nullify
the treaty of protection:

'The dhimmis shall wear the ghiyar, a distinctive sign, which was ordinarily
yellow for Jews, blue for Christians.' (Note: for the Arabs of that time,
the colour yellow did not have the perjorative sense that it later had in
Europe.)

'They shall not ring their bells nor read their books aloud, nor what they
tell of Ezra and the Messiah Jesus.

'They shall not drink wine in public nor display their crosses or their
swine.

'They shall bury their dead in silence and not allow their lamentations or
sounds of mourning to be heard.

'They shall not ride horses, neither thoroughbred nor common; they may,
however, ride mules or asses.

'To these twelve conditions, so revealing of the mixture of scorn and
benevolence which characterised the Moslems' attitudes towards the
unbelievers, must be added a thirteenth, which was absolutely basic: the
dhimmis must pay tribute in two different forms, the Kharaj, which was the
land tax ..., and the jizya, a poll tax to be paid by adult men "wearing
the beard". The famous jurist Mawerdi commented: "It was demanded with a
degree of contempt, for it was payment demanded of the dhimmis for their
infidelity; but it was also a gentle demand, for it was renumeration paid
for the shelter we gave them".

'Thus, a sort of organic symbiosis developed between conquerer and conquered
that, with a few passing exceptions, made it possible for Jewish and
Christian districts to exist peacefully and prosperously in all parts of
the Islamic Empire until our time.' (pages 36-37)

'It would be wrong to conclude from all this that the status of the Jews
under Islam was always flourishing. In the eastern part of the empire there
were sporadic persecutions, directed at both the Jewish and the Christian
dhimmis. The best known, and perhaps the cruelest, was that of the Fatamid
caliph Hakim, who in 1012 had all the churches in Egypt and Palestine
destroyed and prohibited the practise of all religions other than Islam. It
is significant that the only way the Moslem historians could explain this
decision was to attribute it to a sudden madness of the Caliph. In the
Western part of the empire ... .In the twelfth century, first under the
Almoravides dynasty and then under the Almohades, there were fierce
persecutions from which, ..., the Jews often escaped by taking refuge in
Christian territory. .... It has been established, ..., the Shi'ites were
responsible for many of the persecutions we know about, such as those of
Yemen (one of which, around 1172, inspired Maimonides to write his
epistle, ...).' (pages 74-75)

Turning now to Moorish Spain.

'Generally speaking, the Christians under Moslem domination-the
Mozarabes-participated fully in all aspects of civilisation. ... They do
not seem to have had to wear any special insignia, ... the Mozarabes were
rarely persecuted.

'It was the same with the Jews. ... The poet Sa'id sang of Andalucia as the
land "where children and Jews are polite and honest instinctively." ...

'Born into a rich family in Cordova, Hasdai ben Isaac ibn Shaprut, the Abu
Yusuf of the Arab chroniclers, ... Abd-ar-Rahman III, the prince who assmed
the title of caliph ..., made him part of his retinue .. and availed
himself of the ability and prestige of his doctor for confidential and
diplomatic missions. In this capacity Hasdai ibn Shaprut became involved in
the disputes of the Christian kings of the north of the peninsular. ...

'... Spanish Judaism flourished ...' (pages 90-92)

'Abu-Ibrahim Samuel ben Yosef Halevi ibn Nagrela, to call him by his full
Arabic name, was born in Cordova in 993 to a rich Jewish family. .... he
gained the confidence of king Habbus. Remarkably, he was appointed to
command troops .... (page 93)

'... in 839 it was Saragossa where Bodo, the emperor's deacon who converted
to Judaism, took refuge and was circumcised.' (page 96)

Simon has found some interesting excerpts from books on history.

I once met an American television presenter who was being considered to host
a local television 'special' about the roots of conflict in the Middle East.
But the amount of her ignorance and misinformation was simply overwhelming.
She told me that she believed that the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict
was the inevitable direct result of 'two thousand years of Muslims, from the
top to the bottom, hating all Jews', which completely ignored the facts that
Islam is much less than two thousand years old and broadly had a historical
record, until recently, of tolerance toward Jews than seems better than
European Christendom's.

"On Monday morning, July 18 (1921), Jewish, Christian, and Arab notables
gathered in the courtyard of the Grand Rabbi's official house (in Baghdad)...
The heavy Torah, encased in gold cylinders, was removed from the Ark and
carried first to the Grand Rabbi, who kissed it and then to Faisal, who
repeated the gesture. Next, the future Emir (of Iraq) was presented with a
gold copy of the Ten Commandments and a beautifully bound copy of the Talmud.
....
At the end of the ceremonies Faisal stood up. 'There is no meaning in the words
Jews, Muslims and Christians in the terminology of patriotism', he told the
crowd; 'there is simply a country called Iraq, and all are Iraqis. I ask
my countrymen the Iraqis to be only Iraqis because we all belong to one stock,
the stock of our ancestor Shem; we all belong to that noble race, and there is
no distinction between Muslim, Christian and Jew."

--Janet Wallach (Desert Queen, p. 314)

Here's an interview with Avi Shlaim, an Israeli historian at Oxford University:
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer223/223_...interview.html

"What's been called 'the lachrymose version of Jewish history' is an
Ashkenazi (European Jewish) version of Jewish and Israeli history which
is not supported by the experience of the Jews in Arab countries until 1948.
We come from Iraq. For my parents, Iraq was the Garden of Eden. They were
very nostalgic about it. There weren't any real problems between Jews and
Arabs until the state of Israel was established. So the broad experience
of Jews under Arab rule does not support what has been called 'the lachrymose
version of Jewish history'. ..."
--Avi Shlaim (10 May 2002)

In my view, the existence of a broad (though imperfect) historical record of
tolerance of Jews in Muslim societies is a favourable sign for the future.
If Jews, Christians, and Muslims could live together in comparative peace
before, then why cannot they do so again in the same places?

--Nick