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DECEMBER 2014

New ICWV video featuring Manfred Gerstenfeld


Last Jew in Pakistan Fights for Jewish Cemetery

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One of the headstones at the Jewish cemetery in Karachi. Photograph: Jon Boone/The Guardian

Engineer Fishel (Faisal) Benkhald, a Pakistani who according to his own estimation is the last Jew in the Muslim country, is struggling to preserve the Jewish cemetery in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city with a population of 20 million.

Benkhald, whose father was Muslim and whose mother was an Iranian Jew, told the British The Guardian last Friday that he grew up in Karachi and identifies as a Jew, even though his Pakistani ID lists him as Muslim.

"I want the government to recognize the Jews as a minority in Pakistan," said Benkhald, who is the only self-declared Jew in Muslim Pakistan, where anti-Semitism is rampant.

Read more Arutz Sheva
Read more The Guardian


Hidden Jewish Objects Found in Theresienstadt

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Homeowners in Terezin discover Jewish objects from World War II hidden in their closet. Items include shofars, tefillin, and photos.

House owners replacing a roof truss in the Czech town of Terezin in November discovered Jewish objects and possessions buried in the attic beams, the Ghetto Theresienstadt heritage project revealed Thursday. 

Terezin was the site of a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Tens of thousands of Jews died there. 

Among the items found were shoes, photos, teffilin (phylacteries), shofars, holy books, and papers. Some objects even had the names of their respective owners inscribed on them. 

Read more Arutz Sheva


Antisemitism in Armenia: a Clear and Present Danger

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Mordechay Navi Jewish Relegious Centre of Armenia, 
the only Jewish place of worship in the Republic of Armenia


The conflict in Syria has forced millions to leave their homes, among them many of the country’s Armenian minority. Many have fled and returned to Armenia, a safe haven for ethnic Armenians—much as Israel is for Jews around the world. So it is ironic, given this shared need for a homeland free of religious intolerance, that Armenia’s own Jewish community has been pressured and intimidated since the country attained independence.

Anti-Semitism in Armenia is an unfortunate and little-acknowledged fact. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the country’s Jewish minority and Jewish heritage—the products of a more tolerant time—have shrunk dramatically. The end of Soviet rule removed constraint, and anti-Semitic attacks rose dramatically. That, and Armenia’s ongoing economic collapse, drive the Jews of Armenia to flee the country. In just 20 years, Armenian Jewish population has shrunk from more than 5,000 to just a few hundred.

Read more JNS.org


Lebanon: Popular Children's Magazine
Touts Mart
yrdom

Hezbollah children's magazine, with 30K issue per month circulation, provides practical terror tips, how to dodge land mines.

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Read more @ Arutz Sheva


NOVEMBER 2014

UNRWA-Hamas Symbiosis Detailed in New Film

In UNRWA Goes to War, journalist David Bedein shows how UNRWA schools serve the interests of Hamas. But is anyone listening?

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Read more Arutz Sheva


Palestinian kids taught to hate Israel in UN-funded camps, clip shows

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Teachers at UNRWA summer camps filmed declaring ‘Jews are the wolf,’ telling young campers they will return to Haifa, Jaffa, Acre.

Read more Times of Israel


New UK law would ban critics of Sharia from broadcasting, protesting or even posting messages on Facebook

May 24


The last free person in Britain, if there is one, might as well turn out the lights. If this becomes law, Britain is finished as a free society. As the law would also forbid opposition to gay marriage, it would be interesting to see what would happen if a proponent of Sharia protested against gay marriage — but Muslim groups are largely for it, since it opens the door to the legalization of polygamy.

Read more JihadWatch

Read more The Telegraph


OCTOBER 2014

“Remove Israel from That Map!”

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The Saudi MBC TV network was recently forced to apologize to its hundreds of millions of viewers for using the name Israel instead of Palestine.

The apology came after viewers strongly condemned the network and threatened to boycott its programs over the use of a map with Israel's name on it.

The reason Israel appeared on the MBC's map was because of the participation of two Arab citizens of Israel in its popular Arab Idol contest. The show, based on the popular British show Pop Idol, is the most widely viewed in the Arab world.

The two Arab Israelis, Manal Moussa, 25 and Haitham Khalailah, 24, are from villages in northern Israel. They are among many contestants from all over the Arab world who are performing songs on stage in front of four judges and the public.

This is the first time that Arab Israelis have participated in the popular show.

When this season's show began in mid-September, the TV station introduced a map with the names of the contestants' countries. This year, of course, the map showed Israel as one of the countries taking part in the show.

The Saudi station and directors of the Arab Idol show quickly learned, however, that they had committed a big and unforgivable crime. Within minutes, they were flooded with requests to remove Israel from the map and apologize to all Arabs for this "serious offence."

Read more Gatestone


Palestine: Online Activists Compare Israel to Isis with Controversial #JSIL Hashtag

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Pro-Palestinian activists have launched an online campaign to liken Israel to the terror group Isis (now known as Islamic State), which has caused controversy among Israeli circles.

The campaign seeks to compare Israel to IS using the hashtag #JSIL, which stands for the Jewish State of Israel in the Levant. 

Prominent journalists Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek, both strong critics of Israeli policy, started the campaign that has now seen the hashtag tweeted more than 16,000 times in the last week.

The comparison between Israel and IS is made by the activists following the Gaza conflict, which saw over 2,000 Palestinians die during the Israel Defence Forces' (IDF) Operation Protective Edge. 

Read more International Business Times


Radical Islam, Israel and Agitprop

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Many Europeans who would laugh at the idea of negotiating with ISIS or al-Qaeda say that Israel should negotiate with Hamas.

Almost nobody sees that the invention of the "Palestinian people" has transformed millions of Arabs into a genocidal weapon to be used against the Israelis, and even, as in Europe recently, the Jews. Transforming people into a genocidal weapon is a barbaric act.

Israel was urged to find ways to coexist peacefully with people who did not want to co-exist with it. Terrorism against Israel fast became acceptable: a "good" terrorism.

Hamas's stated aim is the destruction of Israel. Its stated way to achieve this aim is terror attacks, called "armed struggle" by Hamas leaders. To this day the Palestinian Authority has not ceased praising and promoting terrorism.

If hatred of Israel is increasing in the U.S., it is largely confined to academics and other extreme radical circles, many of which are funding or receiving funding from Soviet-style agitprop organizations. Journalists are recruited to disseminate descriptions of "facts" as if they were real facts. Pseudo-historians rewrote the history of the Middle East. The falsified version of history replaced history.

Read more Gatestone


SEPTEMBER 2014


Hamas: Give Us West Bank
So We Can Destroy Israel

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Mahmoud Abbas (r) meets with the Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar, July 20, 2014. (Image source: Handout from the Palestinian Authority President's Office/Thaer Ghanem)

If the West Bank had one quarter of the weapons that the Gaza Strip has, Israel would be eliminated in one day. This is what Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told worshippers during a sermon he delivered on September 5.

Zahar, who, during Israel's Operation Protective Edge, spent his time in hiding, was speaking during Friday prayers at Martyr Abdullah Azzam Mosque in Gaza City.

Abdullah Azzam, by the way, was a Palestinian "scholar," teacher and mentor of Osama bin Laden, the slain leader of Al-Qaeda. Azzam was killed in Pakistan in 1989.

Back to Zahar, who delivered his first sermon since the Egypt-brokered cease-fire between Hamas and Israel was announced in late August: he chose to remind Palestinians and the rest of the world of his movement's dream to destroy Israel.

"If only the West Bank had one quarter of what Gaza has of resistance tools, the Israeli entity would end in one day," Zahar declared, reiterating the claim that Hamas had scored a "big victory" in the war.

Read more Gatestone


Islamic State Makes Millions
from Stolen Antiquities

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The Islamic State (IS) has been generating significant revenues from the plunder of historical artifacts in Syria and Iraq. The organization encourages digs at archaeological sites and takes a share from the sales. All artifacts are said to be passing through Turkey on their way to buyers across the world.

The plunder of history has reached an unbelievable level, with the warring parties’ indifference to historical heritage coupled with international traffickers taking advantage of authority vacuums in many areas. Millennia-old historical sites have been systematically looted. While state authorities and opposition forces exchange recriminations over the plunder and destruction, IS, the dark power of the region, has been reckless on this issue, too. IS has made the plunder of historical artifacts in Syria a systematic action, turning it into a source of revenue for itself. Concerns are rife that it will pillage Iraq in a similar way.

Read more Al-Monitor


Istanbul Store Bans Entry to “Jew Dogs”

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A shop in downtown Istanbul, Turkey, posted a sign on its window front announcing that “Jew dogs” are banned from entering, local Jewish newspaper Salom reported.

The discriminatory banner, which was spotted on Thursday, says, “The Jew dogs cannot come in here” and features an image of an Israeli tank.

The store, located in Tahtakale, an area where many Jewish businesses are situated, sells mobile phone accessories.

Read more The Algemeiner



“Anything That Happens to the Jews
They Will Exaggerate”

Israeli filmmaker heads to the West Bank to document what Palestinians think of the Holocaust.

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documentary

What do average Palestinians think about the Holocaust, if they know about it at all? Amateur Israeli filmmaker Corey Gil-Shuster, who moved to Israel from Canada 15 years ago, set out to the West Bank to find out as part of his YouTube series, “Ask an Israeli, ask a Palestinian.”

The results, unscientific though they were, weren’t especially encouraging.

There were three types of answers that surfaced during his interviews: lack of knowledge about the Holocaust, the view that the Holocaust happened but was exaggerated or is what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians now, or the idea that Adolf Hitler was right for killing Jews.

Read more Times of Israel


Just a Bit More Beheading than We Are Used To

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Who is surprised? That is one question I have most wanted to know since the video was released of the murder of American journalist James Foley. The politicians keep expressing it. And interviewers have kept asking people whether they feel it. But who can honestly say that he was surprised to learn that the murderer of the American journalist turned out to be a "British" man?Did anyone really still think that a British Islamist would not be capable of doing this? Why wouldn't he do it in Iraq or Syria if his allies had already done it in London? After all, it was only last year that two other Islamists beheaded one of our own soldiers – Drummer Lee Rigby – in broad daylight in London. And it is only twelve years since another Londoner – Omar Sheikh – arranged the abduction and decapitation of another American journalist, Daniel Pearl.

Read more Gatestone


Mosul Cultural Heritage Under Threat: News Roundup

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Mosul is a significant cultural and archaeological center. The capture of the city gives ISIS control of a wide swath of contiguous territory in both Iraq and Syria. In previous cities that have come under the control of ISIS, their fighters deliberately destroyed ancient monuments. Two eighth century BC portal lions from the neo-Hittite city of Hadatu (modern Arslantaş) which had been put on display in a park in Ar-Raqqa were smashed by earthmovers when ISIS took control of that city.

At Tell Ajaja (ancient Saddikanni), looters uncovered several large Assyrian sculptures which were then confiscated and pulverized with sledgehammers.

The above two cases received the most publicity, but in 2014 ISIS fighters have also blown up a sixth-century Byzantine mosaic in Ar-Raqqa, smashed reliefs in the Roman cemetery at Shash Hamdan, and defaced reliefs on cliffs surrounding Aleppo.

Read more Gates of Nineveh


AUGUST 2014

Are “Integrated Muslims” Integrated?

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The Gaza War has had disturbing fallout in Europe. The Gaza War has produced flagrantly anti-Semitic protests, attacks on Jews and the burning down of Jewish buildings. Those protests have come as a surprise to parts of the European public – nowhere more so than in Germany, where a hatred thought to have been disgraced for all time has found its way back onto European streets under a new guise.

As well as being a time for outrage, this also ought to be a time for re-thinking. And some of that rethinking will have to be done by those who assumed they best understood these outbursts. Certainly calls to "kill the Jews" in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy are a part of the problem, but these, as well as the outbreaks of violence against Jews across Europe, are condemned by politicians and journalists alike. To some extent it is too easy for them to do so. There is not yet any real political or other price to pay for saying that you think people should beat up rabbis in the street, send "Jews to the gas" or call openly for genocide. What is harder for people to do is address the lies that feed this violence, and the underlying hatred that the Gaza War revealed. These need attention.

Read more Gatestone


Israel discovers disturbing Hamas ‘manual on human shields’

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They’re putting their own people in the line of fire — and doing it by the book.

The Israeli military said it has captured a Hamas manual on urban warfare — called “Introduction to the City War” — that extols the benefits of civilian deaths and openly admits that Israel tries to avoid them.

The Israel Defense Forces also said the manual — whose cover shows images of militants wielding rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons — crows about the propaganda value of the deaths of innocents.

“The destruction of civilian homes: This increases the hatred of the citizens toward the attackers and increases their gathering around [to support] the city defenders,” the manual said, according to the IDF.

Read more New York Post


The empty spaces in Gaza

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   (Image source: Peace Now)


How many times have you heard on television or read in the media that the Gaza Strip is "the most densely populated area in the world"? Repeating this statement, however, does not make it true. There are dense parts of Gaza, especially Gaza City, Beit Hanoun and Khan Younis, but there are far less dense areas in Gaza between these cities. Just look at Google Earth, or this population density map.

Read more Gatestone


The Outburst of Dutch Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelis

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(Image source: Twitter: Alexander Bakker (@alexanderbakker))

 

The best way to make an interim assessment of the major aspects of the recent outburst of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in Europe is by focusing on a single country. The Netherlands serves as a good example of this for various disparate reasons. In France, for instance, the extreme violence against Jews, mainly by Muslims, overshadows all other aspects of Jew-hatred. It is there far more difficult to get a grip on its many aspects.

The explosion of anti-Semitism in The Netherlands so far has mainly manifested itself in threats and hate on the internet. Physical hatred has also been seen on the streets. According to a source which deals with the safety of Jewish citizens cars in South Amsterdam have been vandalized with swastikas. Many Jewish families have removed their mezuzah – a roll of parchment which makes them identifiable as Jews – from their doorposts, in order to avoid becoming targets of violence. Various Jews have told media that they live in fear.

Read more @ Times of Israel


Arab Riot Forces Israeli Police to Abandon Temple Mount Station, Weapons, Computers Looted

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Police Equipment Looted


After retreating from mobs of Arab rioters who swarmed the Temple Mount in Jerusalem last Friday, off-record, some frustrated and embarrassed officers are now  asking, “Why weren’t sufficient forces deployed to deal with them?”

For their part, higher-ups in the Israeli Police say, ”The decision was made judiciously,” according to Israel’s Channel 2 News.

Last Thursday night, Muslims around the world celebrated Layl al-Qadir, indicating the end of Ramadan. During this period, thousands of Muslims flood the streets of the Old City and the Temple Mount, and the atmosphere can be highly volatile.

Read more @ The Algemeiner

Read more @ Arutz Sheva


UK: HSBC Shuts Down Islamist Bank Accounts

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Anas Altikriti


In late July, HSBC, a British multinational bank, closed the bank accounts of Anas Al-Tikriti, a prominent British Islamist activist, and his family. HSBC also closed down the bank accounts of the Cordoba Foundation, of which Tikriti is the Director, and the Finsbury Park Mosque.

In response to enquiries, the bank simply stated that to continue providing services would be outside the bank's "risk appetite."

This latest round of bank account closures has come as a surprise to counter-terrorism experts and much of the media, who note that the Cordoba Foundation and the Finsbury Park Mosque have enjoyed strong political support in the past.

Read more @ Gatestone


JULY 2014

British Jihadists, Sharia Finance and “There is No Life Without Jihad”

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Islam and Islam-related issues were omnipresent in Britain during the month of June 2014. They can be categorized into three broad themes: 1) The British government's growing concern over Islamic extremism and the domestic security implications of British jihadists in Syria; 2) The continuing spread of Islamic Sharia law in all aspects of British daily life; and 3) Ongoing questions of Muslim integration into British society.

Read more @ Gatestone


Dutch city to remove ‘Palestine’ from biblical street signs

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Read more @ Times of Israel


JUNE 2014

The Future of the Babylonian Jewish Archives:
Interview with Dr. Harold Rhode by Jerry Gordon

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When we interviewed Dr. Harold Rhode, the savior of the Babylonian Jewish archives, he told the story of how he had found them in the water-logged basement of the late Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat in Baghdad in 2003 and arranged for recovery and restoration by the National Archives and Records Agency (NARA) in Washington, DC. In July 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority reached an agreement under international law with the Iraqi interim government for return of the restored Jewish archives. 

Read more @ New English Review


Temple Mount archaeological project yields treasure,
unearths conflict

Sifting through earth removed from holy site gleans rare artifacts going back thousands of years, but Prof. Gabriel Barkay’s methods stir controversy.

Read more @ Times of Israel

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MAY 2014

Professor Jansen: “Zero Points”

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Recently (05/13/14), a national Dutch news broadcast paid for by the government, Nieuwsuur (News Hour), reported that several political parties have put so called "light weight" candidates on the ballot for the upcoming EU election. The TV show argues that these candidates do not possess the skills to function properly as members of the European Parliament. These remarks were presented as scientific facts, based on research conducted by Leiden University. The politicians were given an official "score," according to their supposed abilities. Professor Hans Jansen (a friend of ICWV), number four on the list for the PVV of Geert Wilders, for example, was given a score of "zero points." This in spite of the fact that he is an internationally renowned scholar and famous opinion maker, author of a dozen books in Dutch and English. He writes a popular weekly column for the influential blog GeenStijl. This incident is a stunning example of biased reporting, though sadly not unusual in the Netherlands.

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Danny Glover pushes for Tel Aviv festival boycott

Actor and colleagues declare support for BDS, demand that their film be pulled from DocAviv festival

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Danny Glover and others actors featured in a documentary on an American social justice activist have formally protested the imminent screening of the film in Tel Aviv, and announced their support for a cultural and academic boycott of Israel. The film, “American Revolutionary: the Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs,” is due to be screened at the DocAviv festival, which is running through May 17.

In a statement, Glover and nine others featured in the film, along with Boggs, the 98-year-old philosopher and activist whose life is chronicled in the documentary, said: “We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine, and support their call for cultural and academic boycott of Israel… we were shocked to find the film slated to be screened at the DocAviv festival in Israel on May 13th and 15th. This was scheduled without our knowledge.”

Read more @ Times of Israel


ADL: More than a quarter of the world is anti-Semitic

Results of global survey are "sobering but, sadly, not surprising,” director Abraham Foxman says.

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A lot of people around the world hate the Jews. The survey, released Tuesday, found that 26 percent of those polled — representing approximately 1.1 billion adults worldwide — harbor deeply anti-Semitic views. More than 53,000 people were surveyed in 102 countries and territories covering approximately 86 percent of the world’s population.

Read more @ JTA


BDS Movement: Barbarians Inside the Gates

As you doubtless know, many in Europe loathe the United States. Their invective down the years has been an assault on reason and emotional stability, whether directed against the Vietnam war, the response to 9/11 or to the Iraq war. Yet there is no boycott of the United States.

So, despite a hatred for America -- and a perverse love of Iran, Hezbollah, and the PLO -- we come back to the Israeli exception, to the singling out of just one country. However charitable we may try to be, it is hard not to detect the reek of anti-Semitism. Am I being unfair? To people who marched through the streets of European cities chanting, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas," (and here and here at Dutch football matches) was that just simple folly -- or proof of intention?

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Read more @ Gatestone


APRIL 2014

Brandeis University accused of double standard after pulling honor of Islam critic and “friend” of ICWV Hirsi Ali

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After facing growing pressure from faculty members, students, and an outside Muslim advocacy group, Brandeis University said Tuesday that it is rescinding its decision to award an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a women’s rights activist and critic of Islam, over her “past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.”

Read more @ JNS


Taqiyya Doctrine Accepted

On 8 April at Birmingham Magistrates' Court, District Judge Ian Strongman heard a trial of racially aggravated harassment against Tim Burton, 61, a computing consultant from Birmingham and the Radio Officer of the British party Liberty GB

The reason for the charge was three tweets he sent over a period of a month from early June to early July 2013 to Tell Mama UK, a helpline organisation for victims of anti-Muslim attacks that also serves to monitor and collect data on them, whose director is prominent Muslim Fiyaz Mughal.

Read more @ enzaferreri.blogspot

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Is Islam a Race? Birmingham Trial Will Tell

On Tuesday 8 April at 10am Tim Burton's trial at Birmingham Magistrates' Court will settle the question of whether the defendant, by calling Muslim Fiyaz Mujhal "a mendacious grievance-mongering taqiyya-artist" on Twitter, committed racially aggravated harassment, as he is accused of having done by the West Midlands Police. 

Read more @ liberttygb.org

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Study shows Palestinian textbooks rife with incitement

Survey finds that 150 new Palestinian Authority textbooks continue to delegitimize and demonize Israel, and call for violent struggle instead of peace. The books claim that the Jews have no rights to Israel, including to Jewish holy sites.

Read more @ Israel Hayom

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Sharia law to be enshrined in British legal system

John Bingham reports in The Telegraph that Sharia law is to be enshrined in the legal system of England and Wales for the first time under guidelines for solicitors on drawing up “Sharia compliant” wills.

This isn't coming from agitating Muslims or Sharia-friendly legislators, but from the 200-year-old Law Society – the professional association that represents and governs the solicitors' profession and provides services and support to solicitors as well as serving as a sounding board for law reform. That the Law Society should issue guidance to its members which effectively creates a parallel legal system to that which has evolved over centuries is, as some lawyers have said, “astonishing.”

Read more @ Cranmer

John Bingham in The Telegraph

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H&M apologizes for controversial tank top

The H&M clothing chain announced that after a deluge of complaints, it was pulling from its stores a shirt depicting a skull in the center of a Star of David.

“Please accept our most sincere apologies that this has caused offense,” a company spokesperson said. “We understand the criticism and in response to this have decided to remove the T-shirt from all stores with immediate effect.”

The shirt caused a firestorm of objections, and the company acknowledged that it was pulling the item and canceling orders “because of the feedback we received.”

Read more @ Times of Israel

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New Islamic textbooks in Austrian public schools

Austria is in the process of introducing new taxpayer-funded textbooks for the formal teaching if Islam in all public elementary schools across the country.... This is the first time Islam is being taught to Austrian students in the German language.

Read more @ Gatestone Institute

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