Wednesday, March 05, 2008

AlJazeerah's Apology: AlJazeera officially apologized to viewers and readers (of the site) for the episode yesterday. I told Amer yesterday that the episode of Al-Atiijah Al-Mu`akis will not be repeated (usually it is re-aired twice). The guests were Wafa' Sultan (a person who lives in California, which qualifies her to speak as an expert on Islam among Zionist groups who arranged for her speeches in Israel and elsewhere), and Tal`at Rumayh, an Egyptian Islamist. From the very beginning, you knew that Sultan was not speaking to the Arab audience: it was very clear that she was speaking to MEMRI. She came with the an agenda and no matter what the question was, she wanted to bash Islam and Muslims (she called them--all of them--backward, savages, brutal, etc), and to attack verses in the Qur'an. She did not make arguments: she simply used invectives: to her, Islam is a terrorist religion and Muslims are backward and terrorists. She called the other guest "crazy" and yet she called for rational discourse. The other guest, who usually is unrestrained, was rather subdued in comparison to her demeanor. At one point, she was asked about Israeli killing in Gaza, and she would answer by attacking Muhammad's war with the Jews of Bani Quraydha. She can't be useful (for her sponsors, whoever they are, anymore, and I am sure that she does not care as she will continue to play a role here in the US where there is a need for anti-Islam bigots who are from Muslim background, especially if they had attended Madrassssaaaaaaah in Vancouver). She was speaking without any regard to winning her audience, or even influencing them but to impress MEMRI. I expect in two days, or less, MEMRI and other Zinoists would be promoting her appearance, and sending links to watch. She was quite vulgar that she made her opponent, Tal`at Rumayh, who can be quite demagogic, appear less bad than usual. But you watch the episode and you can't sympathize with either of them. Rumayh was obsessed with disputing facts about the Holocaust. Sultan, however, has a major credibility issue that other Zionist Muslims has: that she claims to base her criticisms of Islam on "secularism" and "rationality" and yet she (and the others) carefully refrain from making any criticisms of Judaism or Christianity. She claimed that Danish cartoons are "necessary" to produce reform in Islam, and that the cartoons were based on reality? How were they based on reality? There were no grenades at Muhammad times to show him with grenades? I am glad that the host, Faysal Al-Qasim, raised the issue of Arab and Muslim disregard for other important issues and the seeming obsession with Danish cartoons. Let me predict this: Sultan, whose English is very weak and halting, will be coming out soon with a book in English on Islam. Zionist sponsors of Sultan should know that she has become unusable on Arab media after yesterday. They will find somebody else, I am sure.