LCCC NEWS BULLETIN
JUNE 11/2006

Below News From miscellaneous sources for 11/06/06
Cardinal is hope for future of Lebanese Christians-Catholic Online
Chirac: Syria Must Respect Resolution 1680-Naharnet
Under the Veil of Ideology: The Israeli-Iranian Strategic Rivalry-MER
Syria ties reviewed-Gulf Daily News
1967: Israel ends six-day war-BBC News
Berri in Cairo -Naharnet
Probe of Hariri Assassination to Continue-Washington Post
Diplomats: Hariri probe to ask for another year-Jerusalem Post
Where comment is not free-Guardian Unlimited
Al-Hariri probe to seek extra time-Aljazeera.net
UN commission to deliver Hariri report on Saturday-Reuters AlertNet
UN investigator to submit report to Annan-KNA
In Poll, Most Muslim Women Play Down Gender Inequality-Washington Post
Lebanon says Islamic Jihad killing suspect arrested-Washington Post
Syria behind a plot to destabilize Qatar-Counterterrorism Blog

What Did Canadians Do to Deserve This?
By Clifford D. May
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 9, 2006
Are you surprised that terrorists appear to have set their sights on such unlikely targets as the Parliament building in Ottawa and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in Toronto? Astonished that anyone would even consider sawing off the head of a Canadian Prime Minister? Are you thinking: What could anyone have against free, democratic, liberal, multicultural, diverse and tolerant Canada? The question answers itself. Freedom, democracy, liberalism, multiculturalism, diversity and tolerance – these are precisely the attributes that Militant Islamists find most offensive.
This reality is difficult for some people to fathom. It shouldn't be. The Nazis disdained liberal societies as decadent. The Communists rejected democratic values as bourgeois. Now Militant Islamists regard Western nations as blasphemous. This is old totalitarian wine in new bottles.Sayed Qutb, the Marx of Militant Islamism, stated unequivocally: "Truth and falsehood cannot coexist on earth...the liberating struggle of jihad does not cease until all religion belongs to God." Looking at the world through such eyes, freedom, tolerance and democratic values are not virtues – they are symptoms of weakness and moral decline. In the Islamist perception, Canadians have failed to distinguish between right and wrong, have refused to discriminate between monotheists on the one hand, and infidels, idolaters and polytheists on the other. And Canada awards to its citizens rights and powers that belong exclusively to God.
Those who know God's will have an obligation to spread His message to the benighted masses. That can be accomplished with sermons; or with bombs. History suggests the latter can vastly increase the persuasiveness of the former.
No doubt, Canada's Militant Islamists have other grievances as well. It has been reported that those arrested last week planned to take hostages and demand the withdrawal of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
Militant Islamists do not subscribe to the fashionable view that the smashing of the Taliban was justifiable in a way that toppling Saddam Hussein was not. On the contrary, they believe the Taliban provided just the sort of leadership nations such as Canada ought to be enjoying.
Those arrested last week were acting locally but linking globally. According to Canada's National Post, “before police tactical teams began their sweeps around Toronto on Friday, at least 18 related arrests had already taken place in Canada, the United States, Britain, Bosnia, Denmark, Sweden, and Bangladesh.” That doesn't mean those arrested are part of a global organization. It does suggest they are part of a global movement. You don't defeat such movements by forfeiting battlefields or attempting appeasement. How you do defeat such movements we are only beginning to figure out – one must hope.
The suspects arrested in Canada are all Canadian citizens or legal residents. Early reports insisted they "represent the broad strata of our society” but that description did not withstand scrutiny.
It should be obvious that most Canadian Muslims are not terrorists. It should be equally obvious that Canada's Muslim community has a serious problem to address. What were these young men taught by the religious leaders in their mosques? Did their neighbors not see where they were heading? Was it sympathy or fear that prevented them from speaking up? If it was fear – fear of whom?
Americans generally expect immigrants to adopt not just American citizenship but also American nationality: to embrace American values, to revere the U.S. Constitution and to learn to speak English. Our more multicultural neighbors to the north have demanded less of those who apply for their passports. Canadians have asked immigrants few questions about their religious and political convictions. Recently, the Canadian government has even been considering allowing Muslims to substitute Islamic Sharia law for civil law. It will be instructive to see if this episode prompts any changes in Canadian thinking.
That is not to suggest that every immigrant to Canada must attempt to become a Molson-drinking, hockey-playing, Dudley Do-Right, proudly pronouncing “z” as zed. But would it be too demanding for Canadians to insist that those who want to make their homes in the Great White North not aspire to be suicide bombers and decapitators of infidels?
Free peoples, if they are to stay free, need to exercise control over their borders. They also need to exercise discretion about who they welcome as neighbors and compatriots.

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
'Islamic indoctrination' taken to Supreme Court
Asked to review case of class that had students 'become Muslims'
Posted: June 9, 2006
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
A public-interest legal group is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals allowing a California public school to engage in a three-week intensive course for 7th graders on how to "become Muslims."
A California federal trial court and the 9th Circuit, widely considered the nation's most liberal appeals court, determined the class did not violate the Constitution.
As WND reported, the lawsuit was filed by the Thomas More Law Center against the Byron Union School District and various school officials to stop the "Islam simulation" materials and methods used in the Excelsior School in Byron, Calif.
The 2001 course had students take Islamic names and wear identification tags that displayed their new Islamic name and the Muslim star and crescent moon. They also were handed materials that instructed them to "Remember Allah always so that you may prosper"; complete the Islamic five pillars of faith, including fasting; and memorize and recite the "Bismillah," or "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate," which students also wrote on banners hung on the classroom walls.
Students also played "jihad games" during the course, which was part of the school's world history and geography program.
Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, said the "case cries out double standard."
"The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the same court that held our Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it contained the phrase 'under God,' and yet they allow a three-week intensive course on how to become Muslims, including class memorization of Islamic prayers and participation in Islamic religious rituals," Thompson said.
Edward L. White III, the Law Center's trial counsel handling the case, argued that although a public school may teach about religion, the school district "went far beyond an explanation of the historical or literary significance of Islam and placed these seventh graders into the position of becoming trainees in that religion."
"These young children were indoctrinated in Islam, which the Constitution forbids," White said.
The Supreme Court will decide within the next few months whether to review the case.
The Law Center argues the panel did not address the plaintiff's claims that their free exercise and parental rights had been violated. White says parents were never told about the Islamic program and didn't know they had the option to remove their children from such an activity.
One of the parents found out by accident, looking through her son's schoolbag after the program had finished.
In December 2003, the San Francisco court determined the school district had not violated the Constitution.
In her 22-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton determined Excelsior was not indoctrinating students about Islam when it required them to adopt Muslim names and pray to Allah, but rather was just teaching them about the Muslim religion.
But White insists a line was crossed, placing the students in the "position of being trainees in Islam, which is impermissible in a public school." When WorldNetDaily first reported the story in January 2002 – shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks committed by 19 Islamist terrorists – major controversy ensued nationwide.
The course was part of a curriculum taught to seventh-graders all over the state, included in the state's curriculum standards required by the state board of education. Although the standards outline what subjects should be taught and included in state assessment tests, they didn't mandate how they're to be taught.
At the end of the three-week course, Excelsior teacher Brooke Carlin presented a final test requiring students to critique Muslim culture. The Islam simulations at Excelsior are outlined in the state-adopted textbook "Across the Centuries," published by Houghton Mifflin, which prompts students to imagine they are Islamic soldiers and Muslims on a Mecca pilgrimage.
The lawsuit also alleges students were encouraged to use such phrases in their speech as "Allahu Akbar," which is Arabic for "Allah is greatest," and were required to fast during lunch period to simulate fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Nevertheless, Judge Hamilton ruled the program was devoid of "any devotional or religious intent" and was, therefore, educational, not religious in nature.

Lebanon says Islamic Jihad killing suspect arrested
Saturday, June 10, 2006; 10:50 AM
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon said on Saturday it had arrested a man who was a key mastermind in a car bombing that killed a senior official of a violent Palestinian militant group and who has links to Israeli intelligence.
Israel has dismissed accusations from the militant group Islamic Jihad that it was behind the May 26 attack which killed senior official Mahmoud Majzoub and his brother Nidal, also a member of Islamic Jihad, in the southern city of Sidon.
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A Poet Who 'Never Sold Her Pen or Soul' "Military intelligence was able to arrest one of the key people involved in the bombing that led to the martyrdom of the Majzoub brothers," the army said in a statement.
"Documents and equipment linked with the crime were seized with him, and he has links to the intelligence of the Israeli enemy."
A senior security official told Reuters the suspect's links with Israel were "100 percent" confirmed but declined to elaborate. There was no comment from Israeli officials. Two days after the explosion, rockets fired from southern Lebanon into northern Israel wounded an Israeli soldier, prompting the Jewish state to launch air strikes against Syrian-backed Palestinian and Lebanese guerillas.Islamic Jihad denied it had claimed responsibility for the rocket attack into northern Israel although it had earlier vowed revenge for the Majzoub killings. The group is dedicated to Israel's destruction and has killed scores of people in suicide bombings inside the Jewish state. Several Palestinian militants and officials of Lebanese-based militant group Hizbollah have been killed in Lebanon in recent years in attacks their organizations have blamed on Israel, which ended its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000.