Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/14/2008

• Radical Cleric Threatens to Sue Wilders
  
• Court Sees 7/7 Bomber Grooming Baby Daughter for Terror
  
• PM Discusses Fitna Film With Jordan
  
• Iran and the Problem of Evil
  
• The Hidden Face of Political Islamism
  
• The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal

Thanks to DC, Steen, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details are below the fold.
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Radical cleric threatens to sue Wilders

The radical Muslim cleric Sheikh Imam Fawaz Jneid is claiming 55,000 euros in damages from Freedom Party MP Geert Wilders for allegedly damaging his reputation. The cleric was shown in Mr Wilders anti-Qur’an film Fitna. Mr Wilders says the claim “Is the world upside down.” He says the imam “has cursed Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Theo van Gogh and Afshin Ellian and said the most terrible things.”


Unite against knife crime, police chief Alf Hitchcock tells politicians

The problem of teenage gang violence could take a generation to solve, according to the policeman given the job of devising a national knife crime strategy.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alf Hitchcock told The Times yesterday that effective policing could reduce knife attacks in the short term but would not provide a long-term solution. Mr Hitchcock said that it was “hugely worrying” that the annual number of hospital admissions for knife injuries had risen in recent years from 3,000 to 5,000 while the age of those carrying and using knives had fallen steeply.


Court sees 7/7 bomber grooming baby daughter for terror

Clutching his baby daughter to his chest and speaking in barely a whisper, the young father explains that he is off to war in Afghanistan and will never return.

[…]

“Remember me in your duas [prayers], I will certainly remember you, and, inshallah, things will work out for the best . . . Maryam be strong, learn to fight — fighting is good. Be mummy’s best friend. Take care of mummy — you can both do things together like fighting and stuff.”


Cows for Kosovo’s war widowsBy our European correspondent Matthijs Nieuwenhuis*

Generating as much financial aid as possible for economic reconstruction: that is the aim of the Kosovo donors conference taking place in Brussels on Friday. Since it declared its independence from Serbia, poverty and unemployment have been the main problems facing the fledgling state. After the war in the late 1990s, many women were left to fend for themselves, without any source of income. The Dutch organisation De Brug (The Bridge) has found a solution: a cow.

Roza Prenkaj proudly shows off her cow Balucha and one of the two calves it has produced. The war widow is delighted with the bovine addition to her household. It provides her with milk, from which she makes cheese, yoghurt and butter. Roza explains how Balucha puts food on the table for her and her three children.


PM discusses Fitna film with Jordan

Prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende used the fringes of the Mediterranean countries summit in Paris this weekend to discuss the after-effects of Geert Wilders’ film Fitna with Jordan’s premier Nader Dhahabi, Trouw reports on Monday.

A spokesman for Balkenende would only say that he had ‘outlined the Dutch position’.

Jordan wants to take Wilders to court for sewing hatred against Muslims in his film. Wilders last week described the country as a banana republic, a statement with Balkenende dismissed at the time as ‘not being helpful’.


Iran and the Problem of Evil

By Michael A. Ledeen

Many contemporaries found it impossible to see Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin for what they were. Today, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, the Iranian Khomeinists, and the Saudi Wahhabis openly proclaim their intentions to destroy us. Once again, we are not taking the threats seriously. Why is there a great reluctance to act?


The hidden face of political Islamism

It is increasingly hard to draw a line between the agendas of the violent and non-violent

by Dean Godson

Who says that Islamists can’t learn a trick or two from the West when they have to? Take a glance at the glossy brochure of Islam Expo — billed as Europe’s “biggest Islamic cultural festival” — which ended at Olympia yesterday. You could be forgiven for thinking that you were looking at the catalogue for the forthcoming Boden sale that comes to the venerable London exhibition centre in a few weeks’ time.


The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal

A Book Review by Frosty Wooldridge

Author Mark Krikorian casts an expansive net with his latest book: The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal.

Krikorian brings electrifying clarity to consequences brought about by relentless mass immigration. He exposes this devastating problem in all its complexities. He focuses on immigration’s dire consequences for the USA, which all start with our ignoring a cherished American first principle: Our government fails to live up to the basic Rule of Law set forth in Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”