The beginning of the jihad in Europe?

The French have specific problems with the Arabic communities.No-one on this thread has made reference to the Algerian war in the sixties. Some posters have professed an ignorance of the details of the situation yet they continue to post.France dealt with an uprising amongst the Arabic middle class (led by university students) when they were the colonial power in the late 50s. Their reaction was almost a scorched earth policy with the support of certain assimilated Arabic groups. Schools, villages, mosques were destroyed in an effort to destroy resistance and when this failed, tried to discredit radical Muslims with set-up reprisal attacks in urban areas.When France decided to disengage and leave Algeria for good they allowed a large number of Algerians to enter the country especially those that had supported them in the war for independence. So unlike the UK or Germany the immigrants were not invited over as an economic entity, ie to fill low-paid jobs but as a political nicety as De Gualle tried to save his presidency throughout the sixties. That Arabic underclass remains, many with greivances we can only imagine as they are marginalised in the ghettoes outside Paris, Marseilles and other industrial cities of France. All it took was one spark and here we are.The people engaged in the rioting are 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants with little historical support for Islamic fundamentalism as they were the ones left behind in Algeria. Any anger is more likely aimed directly at the french government for ignoring their economic plight.

Hi Phat - if you read my post and perhaps read a little bit more about the Algerian war, you would realise that the immigrants in the 50s and 60s were 'invited' over after their home country was made a dangerous place to live for them by the French. Their support for the colonial overlords in the battle for independence made them as much a target for the radicals as the French.The reward for their support has been to be transported away from their home country and repatriated to a country that did not really want them. Over the last 40+ years they have been marginalised by successive French governments embarassed by the war that led to them being in France. Whilst western democracies are not obliged to maintain anybody's (why point specifically at immigrants?) standard of living, at least creating an environment to allow them to fulfill their potential would be a start. I have been through some of the satellite towns around Paris and they are amongst the worse living conditions in western europe that I have seen. (I could also include some eastern european countries in that too)It's this them and us attitude that marginalises sections of society and fuels the fire when incidents like those seen in France occur. Sending the army in! Is this the current US solution for everything?As an additional note, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants in France are already in their own country, surely being an American teaches you that.

The majority of the Jewish tribes were nomadic along with the majority of the peoples of what we now call the middle east. Arabs as you call them are the philistines of the bible, they were there the whole time. What you may be referring to is the occupation of Jerusalem.I am at a loss to work out what relevance Judaism,Islamism, Zionism, fundamentalism or any ..ism has to do with the riots, other than to fit in with your preconceived ideas of what Islamists / fundamentalists represent. (added note - I admit to some radicalisation in the riots in France - yet the deportations seem to reflect a large proportion of illegal immigrants, ie deport them because they are illegal immigrants and not because of some other heinous crimes)Maybe some idea of your own personal contact with moslems and jews would better help me have a context to work with, because this search engine you are using and quoting with seems highly selective.

It seems odd that you accuse others of ignoring YOUR evidence, or your hand-picked citations. The quotes you provide are no doubt true. What bothers me is that I have never heard of these people. The Muslim Council of Britain has not heard of these people.Most christians would deny that Fred Phelps speaks for them, and many do not know who the hell he is. Would an anti-christian website be within their rights to quote him , and represent the quotes as an honest representation of all christians' views?This highlights one of the problems of the internet, many people who hold views distinctly at odds with the majority can appear to represent the majority, the majority whose opinions are not radical enough to merit internet interest.I accuse you of very selective quoting, and ask you to talk to muslims and jews in your local community and find out about the issues you speak so knowingly of, and so find out how prevalent the views you speak about and quote so often.

To add, my dad is Jewish yet he is anti-Zionist.Zionism is not the pursuit of all Jews. It is the belief in the creation of a Jewish homeland in the area known as Israel. As mentioned in the Wiki article on Zionism, it refers to the continuing support for the state of Israel. My father and his whole family have no desire to a)relocate to the middle east b)encourage others to relocate to the middle east or c)perpetuate a schism in the middle east involving displaced persons displacing others.Semitic refers to a race, Jewish refers to a religion, that is I am half-semitic (jewish dad) but zero-jewish (gentile mum). The state of Israel was populated by Jews who were many generations removed from the middle east, and many generations from being semitic, and they displaced a long established semitic race from their lands.If the Israelis have a historic right to Israel so the native american Indians have in North America. I will expect to see you all at the internment camp by next sundown.This message has been edited by bobbins, 11-10-2005 09:14 PM

Daniel Pipes - I knew the name but was not sure of the context - checked on Wiki - Neocon was one of the first words. McCarthyesque comes up, with reagrds to intimidation of professors who criticised Israel.The Washington Post described his appointment to a government-sponsored U.S. Institute of Peace as a 'cruel joke'. Quote "There can be either an Israel or a Palestine, but not both. To think that two states can stably and peacefully coexist in the small territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is to be either nave or duplicitous. If the last seventy years teach anything, it is that there can be only one state west of the Jordan River. Therefore, to those who ask why the Palestinians must be deprived of a state, the answer is simple: grant them one and you set in motion a chain of events that will lead either to its extinction or the extinction of Israel."Another :"Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene...All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most."Well he sounds reasonable.Amir Taheri - well he is a tricky one, an Iranian who seems to have left in 1979. What happened in 1979? 1979 - hmm. Radical Islamic revolution!!!!! Could this possibly have any influence on his editorial stance? His editorial insight would amaze me if I could trust his bias. And yes he would be loathed by islamists, about as much as he loathes them.As for 'doing homework', this gets an 'F' for selective quoting. Cheers Buzsaw for the endorsement - it really made my mind up!

Modern Israel is questioned mainly due to its recent creation and the blatant disregard for the people who were then occupying the area. Add to that the number of times it has disregarded UN resolutions, committed terrorist attacks on it's neighbours, occupied it's neighbours and generally run roughshod over the basic human rights of Palestinians and you pretty much get the nature of Israel as it stands now.As for me being Jewish - big problem - I do not believe. And I love bacon butties.

Keep mentioning that he is much admired. I may believe it after a while!I am not sure you could contextualise a comment on the hygiene of Muslims, or their cooking or the colour of their skin.As for Campus-Watch, their founder is Daniel Pipes via the Middle East forum, their aim is to 'promote american interests' as in the mission statement of MEF - to define and promote American interests in the Middle East through research, publications, and educational outreach. The Forum's policy recommendations include fighting radical Islam (rather than terrorism), convincing the Palestinians that Israel is permanent, reducing funds going to the Middle East for energy purchases, slowing down the democratization process, and more robustly asserting U.S. interests vis--vis Saudi Arabia. In addition, the Forum works to improve Middle East studies in North America.The MEF finishes with the chilling statement - Toward this end, the Forum seeks to help shape the intellectual climate in which U.S. foreign policy is made by addressing key issues in a timely and accessible way for a sophisticated public.Now how about the public being allowed to comment openly and intelligently without the discussion being shaped by a radical Zionist. Further who defines lies with regard to the outing of Professors in US colleges. Some of the quotes I have seen highlighted by Campus Watch only seem to question US foreign policy with regard to Iraq and Israel and present Islam as being less than the evil you would have us believe.I would not go asking me to further research Pipes and MEF, I only typed his name in Wiki.I did not try to discredit Taheri, I just put his position and views in context.Is it not desparate tactics to call your foes "smelly"?

UN security council resolutions aginst Israel242,338,446,478 - all ignored.Israel even complied with 425 and 426 and then reinvaded 4 years later!Resolutions with regard to Iraq660,678,687,1284,1441 - all acted upon, or being acted upon at this moment. And other actions not endorsed by the UN.UN security council is 15 members(5 permanent) - how many are muslim?Week after week Israel ignores international calls to stop building the wall for the sake of a possible long term peace, time after time Israel has been asked to stop retaliating to terrorist attacks for the sake of a long term settlement. Israel has done little to promote stability in the middle east (and I accept that the other countries surrounding Israel have done little either - Syria, Egypt, Iran and even Saudi Arabia), but the message is loud and clear it is either Israel's way or no way.As for Israel falling foul of UN resolution-making, it is not so much the one-off resolutions, but the consistent falling foul and ignoring of resolutions.(China not-withstanding - but that is surely another topic)BTW propaganda and what it is! The UN is a bunch of well-meaning amateurs in the peace-promoting business that is all. To suggest a bias in the same post as suggesting that Palestinians are nihilist and suicidal is short sighted and a little, shall we say, biased.

seriously - is this what you mean - "If Israel truly wants to end its problem with the Palestinians, it must adopt the opposite approach: convince Palestinians not of its niceness but its toughness. This means not replanting Arab olive trees but punishing violence so hard that its enemies will eventually feel so deep a sense of futility that they will despair of further conflict."and again - "A historical analogy comes to mind: when World War I ended, German armies remained intact and their capital city unoccupied. Not convinced they had really lost the war, Germans harbored a deep discontent that led to the rise of Hitler. In contrast, Germans emerged from World War II utterly defeated and without any illusions to confuse them. This time, understanding the need for a fresh start, they turned to Konrad Adenauer and built a peaceful, successful country."The Palestinian Authority is hardly Germany, but the analogy does hold: Palestinians will not give up on their aggressive ambitions vis--vis Israel until fully convinced that these cannot succeed. Only then can they build a polity and an economy commensurate with their dignity and talent. Ironically, then, Palestinians need almost as much to be defeated by Israel as Israel needs to defeat them."He finishes with - "In brief, far from thinking the Palestinians a miserable people, I call attention to their dignity and talent, then propose how to liberate them from their demons so they can build a civil society and decent lives."So to conclude - to liberate the Palestinians (for their own sake presumably) is to defeat them so utterly and completely that all further resistance is pointless. (any similarity to this and the Borg in Star Trek is completely futile).Thank you Steve for providing me with the link.

Steve I was being sarcastic - the quotes were all from his own website. Anybody whose viewpoint is supported by statements calling for complete and utter defeat should be ashamed. [Daniel Pipes' statement about Germany is also wrong, it was humiliation in the Versailles agreement after WWI that contributed to the rise of Nazism and WWII, not the absence of defeat. Only the Nazis potrayed it as such.]The day that any moderate anybody regards his comments well is the day that I hang my head in shame for humanity. Well researched is ok, but well-researched hatred is still hatred.

I am, as well as others on this forum, are sick to the back teeth of you portraying anti-semitism as being anti-Jewish or anti-Israel. Arabs are semitic, Syria is semitic, Turkey is 99% semitic.Anti-Israel is anti-zionist.BTW what is the UN's self interest? And Kofi Annan was made Secretary-General of the UN before any of the UN security resolutions I mentioned were made.A minor point perhaps but I happen to think that he is a bit of a muppet myself, but more out of incompetence than self-interest.

Stop, for the love of Mike, stop!Where is the cynical self interest in the EU?The British government supported the war in Iraq and several cabinet members of recent years have visited Israel and offered support. France is, well, France. Germany over the last 50 years has offered more support and cover for Israeli operations than any other European nation. Italy is in the thrall to US opinion. Spain up until mid-seventies has been irrelevant and remains peripheral to EU policy up to the present day.As a political bloc they have been a lot less pro-Israel than the US, but stating that the EU is pro-palestinian terror is a bit of a stretch, more than a stretch, a downright bullshit inspired lie.

Arab oil means big business.Hmm where does that lead to?Saudi Arabia. No hands in pockets there, no self-interested parties suggest themselves.Conspiracy theories apart, which major power is currently leading an occupying force in a leading oil producer? Which leading power led an invasion to protect another leading oil producer in '90. Any finger-pointing in the big business department points only one way.Islamic nations will support other Islamic nations - so what? Christian nations tend to side with other christian nations. Like sides with like - nothing insidious or unusal with that.The non-democratic argument - well you got me there - US, lover of democracy, except when it is not their flavour. Chile, Venezuela, El Salvador. The US has favoured middle of the road and right-wing dictatorships over socialist democracies. So do not get me started on the US and its view of several post war left-wing governments in the UK.A revolution couldn't be called democratic by the way, a revolution is a revolution, a sudden overthrow of government and replacement with another. (although the election of Bush in 2000 is a contender - only kidding)European politicians vie for Muslim votes. No kidding. All politicians vie for the votes of the voters. "Vote for me, Ill do what you want!" Odd that. UK has a significant Muslim population, especially in some Labour seats. Blair sides with Bush. Blair still gets elected. I can see it now, you have opened my eyes Steve.I can almost guarantee that France would be against any pro-Israel movement whatever the muslim population. The socialists in Spain got elected after their promise to withdraw from Iraq following the Madrid bombing, yet they are struggling less than 2 years later. Whilst Germany has problems of its own, and seems to have abrogated any responsibilty concerning muslims, or war on terror (although the recent election seemed to point to a more hard-lined Blair-type approach). Italy continues, publically anyway, to support the current anti-terrorism movement.Europe has geo-political influence or it does not. If it does not and it sides with the muslim world as an expedience to curry favour, how come it has influenced an anti-Israeli stance by the UN for over 50 years? If it has already got geo-political influence, ie influencing UN resolutions these past 50 years what would be the necessity of appeasing these nations?With reference to a previous point regarding UN resolutions against China, would no resolutions have anything to do with garnering support against Russia (in the old cold war days) or economic favours in light of their emergence as a major economic player.Anyway this is probably getting boring for everybody else so hands off keyboard and go to bed. Good night all.

I'm still up and congratulate you - a single point we agree on (I think!).Israel as it stands and what it stands for is in nobody's interest, least of all the Israelis. Be that as it may, I still hope for a peaceful co-existance of Israel and Palestine. (But I think western democracies will make a terrible mistake if they side unconditionally with the current Israeli government and their current aims)