France bombs away and not a peep as to civilian casualties

 Leaving aside the mass media which is always ready to find dead child victims of Israeli bombing (in the latest Pillar of Cloud operation the dead children were either killed by Hamas missiles falling short or 'borrowed' from Syria) there has not been even a whimper raised about civilian casualties of the French warplanes. The media seem to be cheering on the French. 

It is almost disappointing having waited in vain for the usual 'experts' to be trotted out to give the line that the sufferings of the palestinians are the root cause of the conflict, that if only Israel would disappear, so would the Malian problem. This angle has not emerged yet so I am raising it myself here in the hope that my expert services will soon be in great demand by the likes of the BBC (my fees are very modest).

Surely now that hostages have been taken and the conflict in Mali has been internationalised there must be a way to blame Israel for all the troubles in Libya? Maybe it is still a little early. It will be surprising if an Israeli angle isn't found soon.

It would also be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the White House and the Elysee Palace at the moment. Are politicians and generals kicking themselves and groaning about how stupid they were to ever think they could change things for the better in the middle east and africa? Are they bewailing the loss of Mubarak's nasty regime, replaced by a worse one that can't even pay its own bills?

Are they rethinking the arming of the islamic militants in Syria, and of the Lebanese army with heavy weapons and state of the art american sniper rifles (Hezbollah says “thank you”, two Israeli widows don't). Is Obama wondering whether he should have stayed out of the folly begun by Cameron and Sarkozy, the overthrowing of a mad but tamed ex terrorist leader of Libya?

The leaders of these countries have not previously shown any sign of having had second thoughts, about their having destabilised north africa through their regime change in Libya. So they will probably continue to be sucked into a prolonged conflict with islamist fanatics in Mali and elsewhere, or just bomb the hell out of the place knowing that their journalists are happier to write their reports about africa from five star hotels in Jerusalem (before ambling down the road to publicise the latest pallywood production).

One thing is certain, France, Britain and the USA won't get any credit for their troubles. Arabs will continue to hate western democracies, and denounce the west for colonising the area for its oil and gas......... And Al Qaida will continue to supply and resupply the terrorists in Mali from the bases kindly provided to them by the willing dupes, Britain, France and America.

It's hard to work up much sympathy for europeans, especially the french worried about having a terrorist state abutting europe. Thousands of missiles hitting Israel only find justification in european countries, as the wages of 'occupation' of the jewish ancestral homelands. France, Britain and other european countries have long been happy to harbour arab terrorists as long as they didn't threaten their own capital cities.

I pray that the european and american hostages are freed soon (Israel will even now be offering its advice on how to go about this the best way) and that the French and British will wake up to their foolishness regarding Israel, their ever readiness to bomb and kill thousands of miles away from their homes in the defence of their interests whilst attacking Israel for defending itself from attacks launched in some cases only a kilometer away from Sderot in Gaza. 

The world needs to rethink their indulging of genocidal arabs, of fanatical muslims who wish to destroy western civilisation after destroying Israel first.

Israel's fight is however the same as that of western civilisation. So it is somewhat ironical that the hopes of middle eastern christians and moderate muslims depend on Israel's survival. 

It's all very well bombing fanatics in Mali, but the enemy at home, the wahabite preachers in British mosques are more important for the defence of europe. The madrassas funded by Saudi Arabia need looking into and the British state funded schools which inculcate hatred of the 'Kuffar' (infidel) need closing down. 

Maybe it's too late, and europe really is doomed.

Unlike europe, Israel has quite a rosy future, despite the doomsayers.

No islamic nostalgia for buildings and art unless in Israel and the Temple Mount

Egyptian Sphinx given a 'nose job' by muslim iconoclasts

I'm filled with sadness when I think of so much world heritage smashed to pieces by muslim iconoclasts in years gone by. Much of ancient Egyptian art was given the islamic treatment with faces bashed out so that only the bodies are left on many beautiful statues. That beautiful monument the "sphinx"might have been so much more beautiful were it not for islamic "improvements".
So it is with little surprise that the barbaric islamists of Mali and Saudi Arabia are destroying ancient relics of islam itself. A religion that does not teach tolerance for the other, that has no possibility of updating its creed into an age of human rights and respect for other people's sensitivities and cultures will not respect its own. All that is needed is for a different islamic school such as the wahabites or salafists to come along and then previous works of even islamic art become dust.

The Saudis are bulldozing Islam's heritage. Why the silence from the Muslim world?

By Damian Thompson World Last updated: November 2nd, 2012

Imagine that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – the traditional site of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus – has been taken over by Cromwellian Puritans. The new owners of the shrine plan to send bulldozers in, replacing the old church with a monstrous building resembling a concrete spaceship. This is so pilgrims can pray without being distracted by “superstitious” icons. Also, the Old City will be buried under hotels that make Vegas look like Venice.

It wouldn’t happen, would it? Christians would fight to the death to preserve Jerusalem. So would Jews and Muslims. And, for once, they’d have the support of secular politicians and scholars, horrified by the prospect of an act of cultural vandalism unprecedented in modern times.

Unprecedented until now, that is. The long-cherished ambition of Saudi Arabia’s ruling Wahhabi sect to smash up the ancient buildings of Mecca and Medina is nearing fruition.

In Mecca, the house of one of Mohammed’s wives has been demolished to make space for public lavatories. His birthplace may disappear, too, as part of King Abdullah’s scheme to complement the skyscrapers and shopping malls with a Grand Mosque fashioned from the same materials as a multi-storey car park in Wolverhampton.

As for Islam’s second holiest place, the city of Medina, a recent article by Jerome Taylor in the Independent revealed a megalomaniac plan to pull down three 7th-century mosques. Taylor added: “Ten years ago, a mosque which belonged to the Prophet’s grandson was dynamited. Pictures of the demolition that were secretly taken and smuggled out of the kingdom showed the religious police celebrating.”

Only a small minority of the world’s billion Muslims are Wahhabis, despite the tens of billions of petrodollars spent by the Saudis propagating their creed. (Bosnia, for example, is now littered with Saudi-style mosques, replacing the graceful Ottoman architecture that Wahhabis detest.) Many pilgrims to Mecca are revolted by the marriage of Puritanism and greed they find there. Yet protests are scattered and muted. Why?

One answer is that the House of Saud, though widely hated, is also feared: its wealth and terrorist connections make it unlikely that, say, a Pakistani politician would speak openly about the desecration of the Hajj.

The West can hardly complain about such gutlessness: this year’s Hajj exhibition at the British Museum was creepily sanitised – no mention of bulldozers or the 2,000ft clock tower built right next to the Kaaba, the black cube-shaped building that is the centrepiece of Islamic devotions.

But what sticks in the craw is the hypocrisy of Muslims who throw a fit if Israeli archaeologists carry out non-intrusive work underneath the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, “Islam’s third holiest place”, as we’re constantly reminded. Such anger would be more convincing if the first and second holy sites weren’t being ploughed up by a police state. Likewise, are cartoons of Mohammed really more offensive than reducing the remains of his life to rubble?

As one Middle East expert put it to me: “Jews disturbing the Dome of the Rock fits into an anti-Western narrative, so Muslims can cope with that. The Saudi destruction of Mecca doesn’t fit into that narrative, and so there’s virtual silence.” Something worth bearing in mind, perhaps, when you wonder why the murder of Muslims by Muslims in Darfur or Syria provokes only limited outrage in the Islamic world.