HONESTREPORTING: THE SIX DAY WAR--FORTY YEARS ON. HonestReporting has a special report on The Six Day War--and a request:

Forty years have now passed since the "Six Day War" which resulted in Israeli control over the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Some media reports already refer to the fortieth anniversary of the "occupation."

The goal of this special report is to remind HonestReporting subscribers of the events of 1967 and Israel's administration of the disputed territories. We ask that you PRINT OUT AND PASS ON this special report to help you respond to some of the bias and misconceptions that will inevitably flood the international media over the coming weeks.

Read the whole thing--and pass it on.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Six Day War and HonestReporting.

CATSKILLS: NOT JUST FOR BUNGALOWS ANYMORE. Now you can go there to plot terrorist attacks too:

A remote Muslim commune nestled in the Catskill Mountains has come under the scrutiny of state and federal authorities for possible ties to terrorism, according to law-enforcement sources.

Officials say Islamberg - a wooded, 70-acre encampment in upstate Tompkins, about three hours north of the city - acts as the headquarters for an outfit called Muslims of the Americas, widely believed to be a front for Jamaat al-Fuqra, founded by radical Pakistani cleric Mubarak Ali Gilani.

Some people will just use any excuse to get out of the city...

Technorati Tag: Islamists and Catskills and Terrorism and Islamberg and Jamaat al-Fuqra and Mubarak Ali Gilani.

CAIR NAMED UNINDICTED CO-CONSPIRATOR...AGAIN. Third time's a charm.

First, Siraj Wahhaj--a member of CAIR's advisory board--was named in 1995 by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White as a possible unindicted co-conspirator in connection with the plot to blow up New York City landmarks led by the blind sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman.

Then, in 2004, CAIR was named as a defendant in a class action lawsuit in the name of John P. O'Neill, Sr., stemming from 9/11.

Now, from today's New York Sun:

Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.

Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

While the foundation was charged in the case, which was filed in 2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community. [emphasis added]

And let's not forget:

CAIR, in particular, has faced persistent claims that it is soft on terrorism. Critics note that several former CAIR officials have been convicted or deported after being charged with fraud, embargo violations, or aiding terrorist training. Spokesmen for the group have also raised eyebrows for offering generic denunciations of terrorism but refusing to condemn by name specific Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah.

In addition, one of the Holy Land Foundation defendants, Ghassan Elashi, founded CAIR's Texas chapter. CAIR's Washington office was also set up in 1994 with $5,000 in seed money from the foundation, according to congressional testimony by a researcher into Islamic extremism, Steven Emerson.

Isn't it about time that someone began to notice this trend?
[Hat Tip: Andy McCarthy (The Corner)]

Technorati Tag: CAIR.

WALID SHOEBAT ON UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE. Shoebat gave an exclusive interview to Aaron Hanscom of Pajamas Media:

former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat urges American universities to wake up to the dangers of Islamic radicalism on campus. Shoebat spoke with PJM’s Aaron Hanscom at the University of California Irvine, which has been a center of confrontation between Muslim and Jewish students.

Aaron Hanscom writes:

The unfortunate reality is that the anti-Semitic and pro-terrorism activities of UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union (MSU) have turned the southern California campus into a hotbed of radicalism. Whether it’s through calling for the destruction of Israel or wearing “Intifada” T-Shirts, MSU members have done their part to stand in the way of the campus harmony UCI administrators so desperately want to portray to the public.

Technorati Tag: Walid Shoebat and University of California Irvine and Anti-Semitism.

ROBERT SPENCER: BLOGGING THE QURAN; SURA 1. Robert Spencer starts blogging the Quran, beginning with the first Chapter--the Fatiha:

...It is for its last two verses that the Fatiha is of most concern to non-Muslims, and for which it has been in the news lately. A Shi’ite imam, Husham Al-Husainy, ignited controversy by paraphrasing this passage during a prayer at a Democratic National Committee winter meeting, giving the impression that he was praying that the assembled pols convert to Islam. Then Imam Yusuf Kavakci of the Dallas Central Mosque prayed the Fatiha at the Texas State Senate, giving rise to the same concerns.

The final two verses of the Fatiha asks Allah: “Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favoured; not the (path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.” The traditional Islamic understanding of this is that the “straight path” is Islam — cf. Islamic apologist John Esposito’s book Islam: The Straight Path. The path of those who have earned Allah’s anger are the Jews, and those who have gone astray are the Christians.

The classic Qur’anic commentator Ibn Kathir explains that “the two paths He described here are both misguided,” and that those “two paths are the paths of the Christians and Jews, a fact that the believer should beware of so that he avoids them. The path of the believers is knowledge of the truth and abiding by it. In comparison, the Jews abandoned practicing the religion, while the Christians lost the true knowledge. This is why ‘anger’ descended upon the Jews, while being described as ‘led astray’ is more appropriate of the Christians.”

Ibn Kathir’s understanding of this passage is not a lone “extremist” interpretation. In fact, most Muslim commentators believe that the Jews are those who have earned Allah’s wrath and the Christians are those who have gone astray. This is the view of Tabari, Zamakhshari, the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, the Tanwir al-Miqbas min Tafsir Ibn Abbas, and Ibn Arabi, as well as Ibn Kathir. One contrasting, but not majority view, is that of Nisaburi, who says that “those who have incurred Allah’s wrath are the people of negligence, and those who have gone astray are the people of immoderation.”

...Muslims all over the world learn as a matter of course that the central prayer of their faith anathematizes Jews and Christians

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Robert Spencer and Quran and Fatiha.

SIXDAYWAR.CO.UK: From the home page:

In 1967 Israel did not wake up one morning and decide to go to war - she woke up one morning and found she had to defend herself.
The Six Day War - Soldiers at Western Wall after capture - picture David Rubinger

2007 marks the fortieth anniversary of the war the West terms "The Six Day War". The Arabs call it the "1967 War" or an-Naksah (The Setback). It has been said that for Israel this war was a question of sheer survival; for the Arabs it was one of credibility.

Of course hindsight is a wonderful thing, offering immense clarity over what could or should have been done. It is too easy to be judgmental in retrospect. So this site has tried to turn back the clock to give you a flavour of what it was like to be in Israel at the time, living with the tensions involved with a countdown to what Israel's opponents suggested would be annihilation.

This site has gathered background information from a wide variety of sources to give a deeper understanding of how circumstances developed over the weeks and months leading up to the war. The war itself has been comprehensively documented, both in books and on the internet, so this site will concentrate more on the build-up and the aftermath.[emphasis added]

Take a look.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Six Day War.

THE WINOGRAD COMMISSION AND THE SIX DAY WAR: How does the hugely successful Six Day War compare with the disastrous war last summer? Saul Singer writes about a similarity points up the essential difference:

Careful planning and preparation, however, is not what characterized the battles that day. The soldiers sent to capture Ammunition Hill, on the way to Mount Scopus, were not expecting the Jordanians to be so heavily fortified in trenches and bunkers. Nor did they know, as the pre-dawn battle raged, that the Jordanian tanks they were being sent to ward off were being destroyed by the Israeli air force a few kilometers away.

The brigade that was sent to the Rockefeller, which did not even have enough street maps of the city, took a wrong turn on to Nablus Road, where the US consulate still stands, came under hails of Jordanian fire and took many casualties.

There are never commissions of inquiries into victories, but if there were, the Winograd Committee's standards for preparations, training and decision making would not have been remotely met by the battle for Jerusalem. Yet, as in all of Israel's wars, there were battles that were won despite everything, because each soldier knew he could not let his comrades down, and he was fighting for the existence of his family and country.

Surely the IDF knows this today as well.
Maybe it would help if they knew the Israeli government would not let them down.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Six Day War and Winograd Commission.

BEST IN KOSHER DIET FOODS: Jewish Blogmeister series on Best in Kosher Foods has a post on diet foods. He and his wife are doing Weight Watchers and he takes a look at what he refers to as Guiltless Gourmet wraps.

Technorati Tag: Kosher and Dieting and Weight Watchers.

HAVEIL HAVALIM #119 IS UP! This week Soccer Dad hosts Haveil Havalim with all kinds of interesting and thoughtful posts for a Sunday.

Upcoming hosts:
120 - June 10 - Soccer Dad
121 - June 17 - Jack's Shack
122 - June 24 - Me-Ander

You can submit entries to Haveil Havalim using the submission form at BlogCarnival--where you can also find past posts and future hosts.

You can email Soccer Dad (dhgerstman at hotmail dot com) if you'd like to host an upcoming edition.

Listed at the Truth Laid Bear Ubercarnival.

Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism.

VIDEO RESPONSE TO 'WOMEN OF THE WALL': I found this 2001 video response by "Voices of the Wall" to the group Women of the Wall on women davening at the Kotel. Jewish Virtual Library has a short history of the group.

Technorati Tag: Women of the Wall and Kotel.