Month: March 2009

Senator Kyl bases amendment on misinterpretation about Palestinian refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m late posting this, but better late than never. Senator Jon Kyl introduced an amendment to the budget bill:

“None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be available to resettle Palestinians from Gaza into the United States.” 

Talking Points Memo (TPM) reports that Kyl realized the threat of resettling Palestinians from Gaza here might not be real and quotes him as saying: 

There has been a suggestion that perhaps [refugee resettlement of Palestinians] might be permitted, and we simply want to make it clear that will not be permitted with any funds in this bill.

Talking Points Memo and other sites call it “an internet rumor making the rounds on the right.” A number of leftist blogs have had great fun pointing out Kyl’s error, calling it “anti-Palestinian bigotry,” “clearly discriminatory,” and the like.  The New York Times blog said:

Internet headlines and blogs had twisted the meaning of the memorandum, suggesting that Mr. Obama was financing potential terrorist migration paths.

Our posts pointing out the misinterpretation are here, here, and here.  I repeat what I said in the first of those posts a month ago:  

It is understandable that the directive would be interpreted as it was. We have learned that we cannot trust anything President Obama says or does. And he has been positively obsequious toward the Muslim world since he took office — no, since well before he took office.

And I add now that the reason the rumor became so widespread is that every day it becomes more obvious that this is something Obama wouldn’t hesitate to do if it served his purposes. So we don’t fault Senator Kyl; his staff just should have checked the facts better. Kyl is a terrific fighter for freedom, who hosted Geert Wilders and a showing of Fitna on Capitol Hill a couple of weeks ago. His other amendments to the bill are these, TPM reports:

The second of Kyl’s three amendments is arguably redundant: it would prevent any of the $900 million that Secretary of State Clinton has pledged for Gaza reconstruction from going to entities controlled by Hamas … a rule that Clinton has already set. [We’ll see how effective Clinton’s rule is. Not at all, since UNRWA is controlled by Hamas and that’s where a lot of the money is going.–JW]

Kyl’s third amendment would require the State Department to report on whether American aid to Egypt could be used to improve the counter-smuggling effort along the Egypt-Gaza border.

Senator Kyl withdrew his amendment about the refugees and his other two amendments were defeated.

(Sorry about the typefaces; sometimes WordPress translates copied text into the normal typeface and sometimes it doesn’t, and I don’t know how to change that.)

Muslim immigration killing Sweden

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 18th:  I’ve lost track of the immigrant-generated crisis in Sweden, but notice that Atlas Shrugs has a good update here.

Last week Transitionland lamented the fact that all refugees couldn’t go to benevolent Sweden where everyone lives in ethnic harmony to be cared for by a cradle to grave social welfare system.   Well, Sweden is reaping the whirlwind for its open door immigration policy.   We saw none of it in our mainstream media, but riots in Malmo, Sweden got violent  recently when an Israeli tennis team arrived for a Davis Cup Match with Sweden.

Read the whole story here.   This is the important part from our standpoint:

But what should have been a shocking loss of social order is not exactly new for Malmö. The city – Sweden’s third-largest, located at the southern tip of the country – has rapidly grown accustomed to such disturbances.

Over a quarter of its resident population is made up of immigrants, many of them from Arab countries; Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon are all in the top 10 countries of origin for immigrants, according to census data.

The writing is on the wall for Sweden, and all of Europe for that matter.   And, as for the “far-left” supporters of radical Islam, once Islamic supremacism has been assured, the naive “far-left” will be discarded like so much trash because Shariah law has no room for the “diversity” the left worships.

Political tensions boiled over in January, when a peaceful pro-Israel demonstration in the center of the city was disrupted by a counter-demonstration of anti-Israel protesters, made up primarily of Muslim immigrants and far-Left ethnic Swedes.

EU and Iraq negotiating return of Iraqis displaced in recent years

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Very encouraging news from the Turkish Weekly!    It seems that many Iraqis who fled to Europe in recent years are considering going home to Iraq.  The Iraqi government expects many to return this summer after the school year ends in Europe. 

Iraq is negotiating with the European Union on a proposed memorandum of understanding to combat illegal immigration and repatriate Iraqi refugees willing to return home.

At least one European Union country, Germany, is helping pay for the program called “incoming generation.”

Iraqi Migration and Displacement Minister Abdul-Samad Sultan told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Iraq (RFI) that Iraq has received 10 million euros ($12.5 million) from Germany in support of the ministry’s “incoming generation” program designed to help returnees reintegrate into Iraqi society.

He pointed out that in Denmark alone more than 300 Iraqi refugees wish to return and are awaiting money from the program to do that.

Sultan told RFI that the summer months are expected to see Iraqi refugees returning en masse from neighboring countries as the school year ends.

Hey, we need a plan like this one!  As I said in a previous post, lets get together an airlift home for any Iraqis unhappy with their life in America.  I don’t know it for sure, but unlike Boise, I bet the economy is booming in Baghdad.

Blogger: How Islamic Immigration Reverses Civil Rights in the West

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Using the UK as a primary example, blogger Sultan Knish has written an essay I highly recommend you read.   I’ve never seen this blog, but plan to visit frequently from now on.  Here is a paragraph to wet your appetite and to remind readers that Sweden, and Australia too, are having  really tough times coping with their large numbers of Muslim immigrants unwilling to accept Western society’s civil rights.

The epidemic of gang rapes by Muslim immigrants in Sweden, Australia and elsewhere in the West are a cultural and religious problem that goes unacknowledged. They are the outgrowth of a belief system that views first non-Muslims and especially non-Muslim women as inferior and open to the taking. But they could not continue without a political and academic climate that discourages any criticism of Islam, and presumes that Western beliefs are inherently bad and non-Western beliefs are inherently good.

And here is her (I assume Sultan Knish is a ‘she’, the eyes are too pretty for a ‘he’) concluding paragraph.

King Sharia rules across Europe, violence and brutality is his penal code, and the silence and complacency of nations is his throne. The challenge is to uproot that throne before it hardens and becomes permanent. Before custom becomes law, that generations have grown up with. And the paradox is that it is the very people aiding Muslim immigration who have the most to suffer from it. The ideal of a liberal society is incompatible with a Muslim society. The two cannot and will not co-exist for long. Either the Sword of Islam or the Guarantees of Human Freedom must prevail.

Read the whole thing here.

Shariah finance helping Muslim immigrants in Minnesota buy up foreclosed homes

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update March 10th:  Atlas Shrugs has more on this story here.

Shariah finance is something we haven’t touched on very often at RRW, mostly because this author (I’m not speaking for Judy) is a dunce when it comes to understanding this sort of special financing for Muslims.  Today the Associated Press tells us that Shariah finance, an important component of Shariah law, is creeping into the US through none other than a state government program.     Hat tip:  Mars

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – For many Minnesota Muslims, it’s been virtually impossible to buy a home, because Islamic law forbids the paying or charging of interest. To help close the home ownership gap among Muslim immigrants, the state’s housing agency has launched a new program offering Islamic mortgages.

Islamic law does make exceptions to the ban on interest, if one’s family is at stake. But the exceptions are open to interpretation and for many observant Muslims, conventional mortgages are strictly taboo.

Nawawi Sheikh is one of them. The Somali-American said he and his wife just couldn’t go against their beliefs, even if it meant giving up their dream of owning a home. Still, he grew tired of moving from one rented apartment to another.

“One thing I hated was moving. I don’t like to move all the time,” he said.

He has no plans to move again anytime soon. Sheikh is the first home buyer to get a loan through the state’s New Markets Mortgage Program. That’s because, program manager Nimo Farah said, he has all the makings of a successful homeowner.

To learn more about this form of stealth jihad, see Shariah Finance Watch blog here.  They have posted on this same AP story here.

Our previous posts on Shariah Finance are here.   Note all of our previous stories involve government sanctioning of these unusual mortgages, not purely private banking.