Did you guys know that during the middle ages, molesting a child was a crime that earned the offender the death penalty? But did you also know, that the child was also executed. No judicial authority ever had the thought "hey, maybe the fact that the child was forced into it, makes the child innocent". Well speaking of which...
You think you've heard it all? Guess again. (Hat tip: Smooth Stone)
ABU QASH — Rofayda Qaoud — raped by her brothers and impregnated — refused to commit suicide, her mother recalls, even after she bought the unwed teenager a razor with which to slit her wrists. So Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud says she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would: restored her family's "honor" through murder.
Well I mean it was for the sake of the family honor, so of course you'll kill your victimized, pregnant child...
Armed with a plastic bag, razor and wooden stick, Qaoud entered her sleeping daughter's room last Jan. 27. "Tonight you die, Rofayda," she told the girl, before wrapping the bag tightly around her head. Next, Qaoud sliced Rofayda's wrists, ignoring her muffled pleas of "No, mother, no!" After her daughter went limp, Qaoud struck her in the head with the stick.
Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor."
What is interesting (although certainly not surprising) is the fact that the mother saw no reason to punish the brothers who were guilty of rape, incest, and well.. dishonoring the family! What I also found interesting was that while she saw pregnancy as unacceptable, she figured that murder would be all right...
I got this from my most adoreble (and informative) blogbuddy yiddishe-kop:
Sign posted outside a Denver
church in February 2004 (AP)
Now, as many of you may know, the phenomena of anti-semitism, and its roots, is something that interests me.
Next semester I will be taking a course on anthropology and religious symbolism, and I am already preparing myself for it, and for the lecture I will probably be holding. I am very excited about it. (I'm a nerd like that, I don't get excited about parties, I get excited about, well, learning).
What I decided to do was to discuss how "The passion of the christ" is a distortion of the truth. So I ordered a book by a professor of religious studies online. I'll show you what was written about it.
*Btw* At first I thought I might not publish this because offending christian friends of Israel is the last thing I want to do, but my blog is first and foremost about telling the truth, and I don't force anybody to read what I have to say.
Who Killed Jesus? : Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus by John Dominic Crossan
From Publishers Weekly In a book sure to generate both conversation and controversy, John Dominic Crossan, author of two well-regarded books on the historical Jesus, names the New Testament Gospels' insistence on Jewish responsibility for Jesus' death as Christianity's "longest lie." Crossan argues particularly against many of the theories posed in Raymond Brown's The Death of the Messiah. While Brown finds that many of the events in the stories of Jesus' last days are plausible historically, Crossan claims that almost none of the events are historical. According to Crossan, they are "prophesy historicized," accounts written by looking back at the Old Testament and other early materials and then projecting those prophecies on whatever historical events occurred.Because many of those early writers were persecuted by the Jewish authorities, they threw in a heavy dose of propaganda against the Jews. As Crossan aptly states, these gospels were relatively harmless when Christians were a small sect. When, however, Rome became Christian, those anti-Semitic narratives became, and continue to be, lethal. Well argued and highly readable, Who Killed Jesus? also includes an important epilogue stating Crossan's own faith perspectives on the divinity and resurrection of Christ. Scholars rarely go this far, yet such a confession provides another valuable entry into this fascinating material.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Description:
The death of Jesus is one of the most hotly debated questions in Christianity today. In his massive and highly publicized The Death of the Messiah, Raymond Brown -- while clearly rejecting anti-Semitism -- never questions the essential historicity of the passion stories. Yet it is these stories, in which the Jews decide Jesus' execution, that have fueled centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.
Now, in his most controversial book, John Dominic Crossan shows that this traditional understanding of the Gospels as historical fact is not only wrong but dangerous.Drawing on the best of biblical, anthropological, sociological and historical research, he demonstrates definitively that it was the Roman government that tried and executed Jesus as a social agitator. Crossan also candidly addresses such key theological questions as "Did Jesus die for our sins?" and "Is our faith in vain if there was no bodily resurrection?"
Ultimately, however, Crossan's radical reexamination shows that the belief that the Jews killed Jesus is an early Christian myth (directed against rival Jewish groups) that must be eradicated from authentic Christian faith.
Here is yet another biased reporter, Molly Moore (Moore's are up to no good!).
Check out this link to some of the headlines of Moore's article's, indicating her biased writing.
She writes's for Washington post, who are known for their anti-Israel articles. Molly Moore gets her resources from the hamas, palestinemonitor, etc. After doing a little checking I noticed that her articles are being published on "from an occupied palestine". I think it speaks for itself. Washington Post's e-mail is listed below, and I encourage everybody to write and complain.
The WashPost reporter's checkpoint story lacks essential context and accepts dubious claims as fact.
The Israeli military, like its American counterpart, has recently faced public scrutiny for alleged ethical violations. When reporting such allegations, the media can play a constructive role by conveying information in a balanced manner.
But much of the media coverage of alleged IDF wrongdoing does not meet that standard of objectivity. Rather, media outlets often take a tendentious line against the IDF by (1) omitting essential context for IDF actions, and (2) treating accusations of wrongdoing as accepted fact.
Case in point: A Nov. 29 front-page Washington Post article by Molly Moore addressed alleged IDF abuse, describing checkpoints as
concrete lanes resembling cattle shutes... [Palestinians] jammed against a narrow turnstile... a thin man... gripping his whimpering child by one arm...
At least 83 Palestinians seeking medical care have died during delays at checkpoints, according to the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group.
But as media monitor EyeOnThePost found, the report that Moore cites (itself emerging from a dubious source) does not in fact claim that this number of Palestinians died 'during delays at checkpoints.' Rather, the PHRMG report contains a list of 83 deaths
anecdotally associated in any imaginable way with checkpoints and not necessarily by virtue of any delay in seeking medical care.
For example, the PHRMG list includes a 78-year-old man who 'died at al-Hamra military checkpoint in the Jordan valley, coming back from Jordan,' and a 25-year-old Gazan who died 'as a result of being shot at by an Israeli tank.' The first death was likely from natural causes, and the second was clearly due to armed conflict. Neither appears due to 'delays at checkpoints,' as Moore states.
Major media outlets such as the Washington Post should know by now that Palestinian spokespeople have a record of fabricating Israeli 'outrages.' In one high-profile case early in this terror war, several media outlets amplified Palestinian claims that Issam Judeh Mustafa Hamed was 'tortured and burned to death by Israelis.' Pathologists brought in by the Palestinian Authority later concluded that Hamed died in a traffic accident, and Physicians for Human Rights declared that
Inaccurate information about injuries and death has the possibility of inciting more violence and further prolonging the move towards peace.
Yet Moore continues to lend credence to such allegations. In January, Moore cited the Hamas website claiming without substantiation that 'Israeli soldiers began firing weapons in the direction of Palestinian workers.' Upon realizing that it should never have drawn news from such an unreliable source, the Washington Post removed the reference from its website.
* * *
Moore also allows a fringe Israeli protest group's accusation of abusive IDF behavior appear as accepted fact:
This month, soldiers at the Beit Iba checkpoint... ordered a Palestinian to open his violin case and play for them while the lines behind him grew.
In this incident (pictured at right), the IDF at first said that soldiers asked the man to open the case and play the instrument to verify it didn't contain explosives. [It's important to recall that the terrorist who perpetrated one of the most heinous attacks ¯ the bombing of Jerusalem's Sbarros pizzeria in 2001 ¯ used a guitar case to transport his bomb.]
Yet Moore gives readers the impression that soldiers not only ordered the man to play for their own amusement, but did so as part of a larger pattern of abuse. But a video of the event, showing soldiers calmly going about their work while the man calmly plays, clearly documents that no such abuse occurred.
The IDF has since found that the man's fiddling was not upon soldiers' orders at all, but rather of his own volition.
All right. I remember how one of Hasidic Rebbele's joke's went like this: "G-d must love idiots, He made so many of them!".
But I think this is taking it a little far, don't you?
LONDON - Nearly half of Britons in a poll said they had never heard of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in southern Poland that became a symbol of the Holocaust and the attempted genocide of the Jews.
The results of the survey conducted by the BBC were released Thursday, as Britain's public broadcaster announced it will show a new series next January to mark the 60th anniversary of the concentration camp's liberation.
"We were amazed by the results of our audience research," said Laurence Rees, a producer on the series, "Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution."
"It's easy to presume that the horrors of Auschwitz are engrained in the nation's collective memory, but obviously this is not the case," Rees said.
The survey found that 45 percent of those surveyed had not heard of Auschwitz. Historians estimate that anywhere from one million to three million people, about 90 percent of them Jews, were killed there.
Among women and people younger than 35, 60 percent had never heard of Auschwitz, despite the recent popularity of films such as "Schindler's List," "Life is Beautiful" and "The Pianist," which depict the atrocities of the Holocaust.
"The name Auschwitz is quite rightly a byword for horror, but the problem with thinking about horror is that we naturally turn away from it," Rees said.
The BBC said the research was based on a nationally representative postal survey of 4,000 adults 16 and older.
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I'm sorry for what I am about to say but there is only so much my tolerance can stand.. Those idiots, those fools! I mean, I realised a very long time ago that the average person is very ignorant when it comes to history, geography and just basically facts concerning science and the world, but this is too much, just too much. I'm lost for words.
Okay, so good news, and bad news.
The good news is that a found another Scandinavian friend of Israel. Again, a Swede. A blogger called Simulev. The bad news is the fact that this blog tackles biases is Swedish media. And why is this bad? Well, because it's.. necessary...
Okay so here's a question for my beloved readers, since you guys are sooo intelligent.
I was born on April 10th 1979. What is the date in the Hebrew calendar?
I tried searching online, but all I came up with were dating services, go figure.
Well, this was in a way predictable. Marwan Barghouti has changed his twisted little murderous mind, and has decided to enter the race for palestinian presidency. (Yes! I still write "palestinian" with a small "p", despite the complaints I've received).
Imprisoned Palestinian Enters Presidential Race
ERUSALEM, Dec. 1 - Marwan Barghouti, the fiery Palestinian leader imprisoned in Israel, reversed an earlier decision and entered the race for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority tonight. The surprise move instantly transformed the Jan. 9 vote into a competitive election that is potentially divisive for the Palestinians.
Mahmoud Abbas, 69, is the official candidate of the dominant Fatah movement, and it appeared he would face only token opposition in the campaign to replace Yasir Arafat, who died on Nov. 11.
But with the window for the registration of candidates closing at midnight, Mr. Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, returned from a prison visit and announced that her husband would run for president despite his incarceration in the southern Israeli town of Beersheva.
"After receiving hundreds of letters of support from cadres and ordinary people, he authorized me to register him," said Mrs. Barghouti, who spoke at 9 p.m. outside the Central Elections Commission in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "Marwan is running in solidarity with the uprising and out of loyalty to President Arafat."
Israel has made it clear it has no intention of releasing Mr. Barghouti, who was convicted in May of involvement in the killings of five Israelis, and received five life sentences.
His candidacy raises a host of complications at a time when the Palestinians are attempting to establish a new leadership and both Israelis and Palestinians are reassessing their tortured relationship after four years of almost daily violence.
"Barghouti is a charismatic leader and many Palestinians see him as the man who orchestrated the current intifada," or uprising, said Mokhaimer Abusada, a political science professor at Al Azhar University in Gaza City. "But what will happen if he wins the election while he's in prison? I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that."
Marwan Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, filed papers today for the fiery Palestinian leader to enter the race for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. (Making a woman do it? Oh wait he can't do it himself.. Or anything else, for that matter...).
(Look how elegantly she wears that keffiah! Dashing!)
One of my greatest weaknesses is curiosity. It has now taken over, once again, and this time in our blogoverse. I found an amazing blog called "Ice Viking". At first I found that a little offensive. I thought to myself: Hey that's me, how dare he...! But then I got over it. Ice Viking is the blog of a pro-Israel man/woman (it remains a mystery) from Sweden. It's a very good, direct and informative blog. And well, the blogger is from Sweden. That's pretty unique. Swedes are generally anti-Israel.
The trouble the with Ice Viking is that he has no contact info, no personal info, no comment system, nothing, so I am not able to find out more about this person.
So Ice Viking, who are you, and how do I get in touch with you? Does anybody know?
My exam period starts tomorrow, when a 3 day "home exam" in "The ethnography of Oceania" begins. I had a shock in today's class when I realised how I've been neglecting the reading for the much discussed 'Theories in anthropology II'. This is why I've been reading like a maniac today (like every other day these days). The good thing about having read Bourdieu is that it makes you capable of reading and comprehending everything else really fast.
Blogging will be a little more limited for the next 2 weeks, since I won't have time to pay attention to what is happening in the world outside of anthropology. So please keep me informed, and wish me luck! :-)
I was delighted to find an interesting website called Catholic Friends of Israel. More of those, please!!
Another thing I'm wondering about right now (and a question for the academic reader) is the following:
Did Bourdieu actually understand his own work himself, or did he just take drugs, write a bunch of nonsense, and then end up having scholars worldwide pretend to make sense of what he's saying?
Or have I just not understood him yet?
But much of the media coverage of alleged IDF wrongdoing does not meet that standard of objectivity. Rather, media outlets often take a tendentious line against the IDF by (1) omitting essential context for IDF actions, and (2) treating accusations of wrongdoing as accepted fact.
Moore also allows a fringe Israeli protest group's accusation of abusive IDF behavior appear as accepted fact:
ERUSALEM, Dec. 1 - Marwan Barghouti, the fiery Palestinian leader imprisoned in 