Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish Articles at DanielGreenfield.org

Four members of of an organization called Christian Peacemaker Teams have been taken hostage in Iraq with their videotape on Al Jazeera. They had ironically come to aid the very terrorists who captured them by collecting 'evidence on detainee abuses.' The Christian Peacemaking Team claims to be a pacifistic organization. Their motto is, " What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war ?" Interesting question, though the Christian Peacemaker Teams has as much chance of answering it as did the Spanish Inquisition since CPT is very much about violence and hate. CPT has become notorious for confrontations with the US border patrol in Arizona and IDF soldiers at checkpoints, including inciting physical confrontations and then blaming the soldiers for the incidents. A sample of Christian Peacemaker Team's hatefulness can be garnered from the rap lyrics of one of their people (an ex-I...

Today is Thanksgiving and beyond the turkey and the parade and the sweet potatoes, what is thankfullness. To be properly thankfull for anything is to understand not only what it's like to be without it but to know that in the normal state of affairs, you would not have it. And we lack that understanding. All too often we fail to understanding that our comfortable existance in Western countries, in which we are not discriminated against and no laws are passed against us; is an aberrant state of affairs. One that has very rarely existed and not for very long. Yet we have grown used to it. So much so that when Jews once again become tarred with classic anti-semitic stereotypes, whether it's by the religious right or the liberal left we treat it as a nuisance. We have forgotten that the usual state of affairs was for Jews to briefly abide in a nation before being expelled from it. The Jews of the world look at what happened in Gush Katif with apathy and even us, those few who don...

The US has insisted that bringing democracy to Iraq would bring stability to Iraq. Iraq today is more unstable and more dangerous than ever. Its government is a collection of quarreling parties and the strongest force are the Iranian allied Shiite leaders. The US strongly insisted that Egypt democratize more and open up its electoral process. The neo-cons assured us that this would reduce support for 'islamic extremists.' Now in Egypt's elections, the Muslim Brotherhood which is the originating body for Hamas and many Muslim terrorist groups and the inspiration for Al Queda, has doubled its representation. The Muslim Brotherhood now has 30 seats to Mubarak's party's 50. Thanks to the US, the spirtual guides of Hamas are drawing closer to coming to power in Egypt. The US has insisted on Hamas participating in Palestinian elections. Diplomats, Neo-cons and Secretary of State Rice has assured us that this will promote democracy and reduce extremism. Instead the partici...

I received a rather strange email this week which had been circulated to a number of people including Arutz 7's Tamar Yonah and Worldnetdaily's Aaron Klein and Reuven Koret accusing me of really being Steven Plaut. Why Steven Plaut who has a successful career as a pundit would create an obscure blog to post long articles which he never places in media publications is unclear to me but apparently it involves my supposed involvement in a war against Barry Chamish, whose follower this person is. I've actually only written two pieces on Barry Chamish among over 400 posts in nearly a year so this blog isn't remotely Chamish centered. I have pointed out that Chamish is affiliated with Neo-Nazi holocaust deniers and is himself promoting theories that amount to holocaust denial, e.g. the Holocaust was arranged by the Jews, a form of Holocaust denial innovated by the Soviet Union and repeated by some in the arab world which claims the Zionists were behind the Holocaust. I...

In this parsha, derivations of the word yada, know, are used to indicate intimacy. When G-d decides to tell Avraham of his intentions to destroy Sdom, he says Ki Yedaativ, for I have known him. The word Yeedativ is used here to mean love, Hashem is saying that he has known Avraham that through his knowledge of him Avraham is beloved to G-d. When the men of Sdom encircle Lot's house demanding his guests, they also use a derivation of yada. They demand that the guests be brought out to the mob, Veneida Otam. Here the word also involves intimacy but their intention is rape. In both usages an intimate knowledge is meant but in the first case it involves love for another that comes through knowing another, in the second it involves an assault for personal satisfaction. In its first use G-d sees the goodness of Avraham and gives him special privileges and rewards. In the second use the men of Sdom are so threatened by generosity towards strangers, that they threaten cruelty towards them...

Muslim rioting in Paris continues, spreading across France from cities to small suburbs and into other countries including Belgium and Germany with its own large Muslim populations. Curfews have now been declared across France and there is talk of bringing in the army to stem what is now being called The French Intifada Aside from the billions in destroyed property, in torched homes and cars, people have been badly injured, especially the elderly whom in true cowardly fashion the followers of Islam prefer as their prey and whom in true cowardly fashion, the French people are happy to leave behind as they flee. A 61 year old man has died of a severe beating from Muslim rioters and an elderly disabled woman had gasoline poured on her and set on fire. Meanwhile the same media that has shrieked endlessly about Abu Ghraib treating it as the worst crime in human history on par with the Holocaust manufactures excuses for the murderous mobs. To the media women's underwear on the head i...

Stalin wannabe elected to head Israeli Labor Party. Gay cokehead chosen head of Canadian Quebecois Party Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas) doubles seats in Egyptian election

In Parshat Lech Lecha, G-d first promises Avraham that his seed will be as numerous as the dust of the earth and then as the stars in the sky. These two promises are a contradiction in contrasts, dust is low and common and stars are great and glorious. What do such promises mean? Dust is the source of human life as man comes from dust and returns to dust leaving behind nothing but dust. By contrast the light of stars endures even after the stars themselves are gone, their light shines on to distant places. Since these promises do not apply to merely one generation but the entire continuity of the Jewish people, we might consider them to be two ways of looking at what a generation of the Jewish people will leave behind after it passes on. A generation that is dust may be numerous and cover the world but what it leaves behind is mere dust. A generation that is like stars may die but the light of their greatness shines on after them in this world. It also reflects two ways of looking ...

New York City Mayor's Mike Bloomberg won reelection today by the largest margin of any politician, including the popular Rudy Guliani. The secret of his success though certainly isn't popularity or charisma but inoffensiveness. Where previous New York mayors like Ed Koch or Guliani might have positioned themselves as aggressive activists and strong leaders, Bloomberg is secure in a persona as a grey middle manager. Unlike the larger than life figures of CEOS's we encounter all too often in biographies and in court records, Bloomberg is devoid of any personality livelier than a supervisor at the DMV. He lacks any human touch or empathy but this positions him as a manager rather than a mayor of r New York. Like a manager he is devoid of humanity but also inoffensive. He is not relatable but people presume that he does a good job because his entire aura is professional and inhuman and it is that very inhumanity that gives credibility to his competence. Where other Mayors have ...

10. Riots, what riots? Hey did you hear Libby got indicted? 9. Rioting and looting are too judgemental. Can't we just call it 'disorderly shopping.' 8. I'm sure they were just protesting some story we made up about a Koran getting flushed. 7. We have no right to judge their culture, of which I'm sure looting and burning things is a key part. 6. They're just angry about being unemployed due to their chronic looting. 5. This would have never happened if Bush hadn't stolen the election in 2001. 4. This would have never happened if Israel hadn't existed. 3. I don't understand why they would riot in a socialist country instead of a pro-war red state. 2. Sometimes burning cars is the only way to convince the networks to bring back Bill Cosby. 1. Riots, what riots?

10. Protesting the impoverished burned and looted condition of their neighborhoods. 9. Too many snails, not enough camels. 8. Lack of sufficent Synagogues to torch and burn on a weekly basis. 7. Bathrooms don't dispense disposable Burkas. 6. Protesting unemployment rates by burning and destroying buisnesses to create less jobs. 5. That Cathedral in Notre Dame. 4. Hunchback refuses to convert to Islam and accept Allah 3. Eiffel Tower's height mocks Islam 2. Suspicion that French government is secretely run by Jews 1. Still angry their Nazi allies lost World War 2

For all that some Jews embrace Niemoller, he of the famous 'first they came for the communists' poem; he was a Nazi and enthusiastically supported Hitler until Hitler's policies, not those involving Jews of course, violated his Christian principles he also commanded troops in a right wing coup that predated Hitler and described Nazism as based on a 'solid moral christian foundation' He voted for the Nazi party and made speeches on behalf of Nazism and Hitler. His difference with the Nazis came not over killing Jews but killing Jews who had converted to Christianity (a position he shared with the Catholic Church) but he remained an ardent nationalist even from Dachau, he wrote a letter volunteering to serve in the navy when WW2 began. His allies attempted to pass off the letter as a forgery but when Niemoller was rescued, he admitted it was authentic and that he had "never quarreled with Hitler over political matters, but purely on religious grounds". ...

Where Parshas Bereishis begins with the creation of the world, Parshas Noach begins with the destruction and thus the re-creation of the world. The question is often asked why Noach, unlike Avraham who prayed for Sodom, did not pray for those who would be flooded. Indeed when the waters are called 'Mei Noach', the waters of Noach; it is said that he was partially responsible for them by, unlike Avraham, failing to influence his generation. Various answers are given to this question but it's worth considering the difference betweeen Avraham and Noach. Noach is described as a Tzaddik and as Tamim, perfect. Noach was the son of generations of righteous men. He was righteous but he did not understand that it was possible to be away from G-d and then to come close to him. He did not pray or try to influence his generation because he had no reason to believe it was even possible. The world until now had been one where sin was followed by punishment. Adam and Chava sinned and were...

Sefardim were named after Sefard or Spain and Ashkenazim after Ashkenaz or Germany, yet today there are virtually no Sefardim in Sefard or Ashkenazim in Ashkenaz. The old Chassidic communities of Eastern Europe and Russia are long since smashed to bits, the Jewish communities of Western Europe increasingly succumb to assimilation and the Jews of the middle east have for the most part left their lands. The old Jewish communities, the traditional places where Jews once lived have been for the most part destroyed or wither away. The geographical distinctions collapse as most Jews increasingly live in two new countries; America and Israel, and in communities where they are fairly close together. No longer do countries divide minchagim but often miles or a handful of blocks or nothing at all. The old separatism is gone along with the old communities but the customs and traditions of those communities remain and continue on. To most people a black hat is a black hat, but to those who notic...

On the heels of reports that leading Democrats had accused Italian-American Judge Alito, Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court of Mafia connections, Democrats denied that their accusations were motivated by bigoted stereotypes but a concerted effort to uncover the truth. "I personally respect the Italian-American community," Senator Schumer said, "and I would no more think of insulting them than I would of kissing them on the mouth. What we're trying to do is take a carefull look at Judge Alito's background and slander him in whatever way is available to us. If that means accusing him of being in leauge with Sacco and Vanzetti or of plotting to put the Pope in the Oval Office so be it." Democratic leaders continue to insist there is obviously nothing racist in their statements whatsoever and that their views have been taken out of context. "I respect Judge Alito's judicial background but I also hear he hangs around the fish market," Senator ...