Genocide in the Making — and the World is Silent

For over thirty years, Islamist radicals have been engaging in a systematic program of ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh. When they began, Hindus accounted for somewhat less than one in five Bangladeshis; today they are fewer that one in ten. Professor Sachi Dastidar of SUNY has estimated that the number of “lost” Hindus (that is, those murdered and those never born as a result of the ethnic cleansing) could total as many as 35 million!

Nor is it only the radicals who are culpable. The first partner in crime is the succession of governments in Bangladesh. It did not matter if they were right of center, left of center, a dictatorship, civilian or military. Every one of them maintained a blatantly racist act that has been a cornerstone in the Islamist plan: The Vested Property Act (VPA). Read more

India and Israel; India is Israel

In a few days, I will leave the United States for a month in India. While the immediate purpose of my visit is to stop the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus—which already has reduced the Hindu population there from one in five to less than one in ten—it is impossible to see that outside of the larger context of our war with radical Islam. The fact that the victims are Hindu is no coincidence. In fact, they are victims because they are Hindu, and their eradication is part of the larger jihad being waged by radical Islam.

India and Israel did not establish full diplomatic relations until 1992, largely due to a nexus of issues related to the ideology that led India’s Jawaharlal Nehru to become one of the architects of the non-aligned movement in 1955. Anti-US and anti-Israel, it is no coincidence that two of its founding fathers were Gamal Nasser of Egypt (the era’s leader against Israel) and Josip Broz Tito (an anti-US communist). But in 1991, the dynamics of geo-politics changed drastically with the fall of the Soviet Union and nations scrambled to re-arrange their alliances. Read more

New Bangladeshis’ True Colors: Anti-Radical Muslim Attacked

Dhaka, Bangladesh , internationally-acclaimed journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, was attacked as he was working in the office of his newspaper, Weekly Blitz, by “a gang of thugs” from Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League. I spoke by telephone with Choudhury as he awaited medical treatment for eye, neck, and other injuries suffered in the attack. The renewed violence marks the first against him since he was abducted by Bangladesh’s dreaded Rapid Action Battalion a year ago. After Choudhury was released unharmed, the military was able to assure that he was not attacked–until today under the auspices of the self-styled “moderate” politicians in charge.

A large group stormed Blitz premises and attacked newspaper staff until they found Choudhury. At that point, he said, “they dragged me [and two staff] into the street” where they beat them “in broad daylight…looted my office and stole my laptop” with “all my sensitive information.” According to another reliable source, the attackers held Choudhury at gunpoint. As of this writing, they continue to occupy the Blitz office. Read more

“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in ourselves.”

When historians look back on our era and wonder how a relatively small group of Islamist radicals controlled the international agenda for great countries across the globe, they will ask why we failed to heed those words that William Shakespeare wrote four centuries earlier. Last week in Kolkata, India, police arrested the editor and publisher of the city’s most prestigious English-language daily for “hurting the religious feelings” of Muslims.

That’s right, we now live in an age where the state can muzzle press freedom because the newspaper hurt someone’s feelings. Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha of The Statesman were hauled before a judge on February 11 and charged under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code which outlaws “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings.” The law is unclear, as one might imagine when it comes to specific and objective criteria for determining one’s intentions. It appears that Section 295A trusts this Solomon-like task to whichever bureaucrat happens to take a fancy to pursuing a case. Read more

Are my Sources better than CNN’s?

My news sources must be so much better than CNN’s and others’ because I keep coming across things that they do not have. The most recent item was the death of an Islamic clergyman this week in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Moulana Hafez Hamidullah passed away quietly at his residence at the age of 63. He was an influential member of the Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan (BKA), a religious and political association of fundamentalist Muslims, very prominent Islamic clergyman, and Vice Principal of a madrassa. Despite the media’s seeming obsession with Islam, there was no mention of Hamidullah’s passing anywhere.

Yet, this very religious Muslim cleric was consistently outspoken in condemning “all forms of militancy in the name of religion.” He preached interfaith harmony based on mutual respect and was (along with the BKA) outspoken defenders of Bangladesh’s “Muslim Zionist,” Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, who was arrested and tortured after exposing the rise of radical Islam in his country and urging relations with Israel, continues to publish Bangladesh’s only openly Zionist newspaper. The BKA also joins with Choudhury in urging an end to Bangladesh’s prohibition on travel to Israel and in promoting relations with the Jewish State. Read more

The Real Issue in the Gaza Fighting

As people worldwide choose up sides to cheer for in the current Gaza fighting, few recognize what the real issue is, and fewer of them are willing to admit it. Distilled to its most essential ingredient, the Middle East conflict is and always was about Israel. Everything else is window dressing. Ever since Jewish halutzim (or pioneers) began reclaiming their ancient homeland and a renewed Jewish state became a reality, the official position of almost every Arab government and entity has been that a Jewish state of any size and location in the Middle East is unacceptable. That same position has been repeated ad nauseum from almost every mosque in the world; certainly every mosque in the Middle East. If many people in the world today cite blatantly anti-Jewish Quran verses as basic to Islam, you can blame those Imams who scream them out week after week at their Friday sermons. The fact that they are broadcast on official Arab government television and are never denounced by Islamic leaders and scholars only reinforces that notion in the minds of many. Read more

Does Awami League Victory Offer Hope for Real Change?

Bangladeshi elections had been put off for so long that it was difficult to predict what they might produce. On December 29, 2008, however, the people of Bangladesh answered that question clearly by giving Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) a landslide victory. That’s both good news and bad news for the left-center party good news in that it need not make any dubious deals to being other parties into its ruling coalition; bad news in that the world will hold Hasina and her party responsible for what happens next. The AL is inheriting an economy in shambles, a still-corrupt officialdom, a nation infested with Islamist terrorists, and a seemingly ineradicable tradition of minority oppression, even ethnic cleansing. Curing those ails is an enormous task, and one key to success will be actions the AL takes to secure foreign support for its effort. Read more

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