Mali conflict: Timbuktu hails French President Hollande

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as far as i am aware, RESPECT is a predominantly socialist secular party. They have agnostic, muslim and jewish supporters. Galloway is no Muslim. Theres a tendency here to link them to extremist islam because of their grievance with Israeli policy. Guilt by association.

Socialist? Perhaps. Secular? I don't think so, given it's dropping of many liberal values - like opposition to homophobia and it's ongoing problems with anti-Semitism (the Tower Hamlets chair of RESPECT was prosecuted for assaulting an elderly Jewish man, and they have strong connections with the anti-Semitic - not just anti-Israel - Palestine Solidarity Campaign) - in order to better attract Muslim support.

Really? Galloway's not a Muslim? He uses that much Islamic-style rhetoric that many Muslims in the areas that he's courted think he has converted or think he's Muslim.

Anyway, I'm glad to see the likes of Yvonne Ridley (along with someone like Lauren Booth, she seems to be part of the hardline enthusiastic white convert to Islam club) and Lee Jasper got a good kicking from the electorate in November.

I googled that incident and between the hackneyed pro israeli sources i understand there was an aggravated altercation leading up to the incident in question. Without an unbiased source (not the jewish chronicle) i cant comment.

Sorry, by what benchmark is the PSC or its activists anti semetic? I know of individuals who would resent that comment. Not all of which are gentiles.

That's your problem there. Your partisanship. You immediately distrust the pro-Israel sources without bothering to do thinking for yourself.

In fact, I did some more searching of what went on and found this.

If you read the source, the Jewish Chronicle seems very fair and unbiased in its approach to the story. In fact, it even reads just like any other news story from any Western news organisation. Fancy that.

Hold your nose whilst you read the Zionist text, though:



Frankly, I would have let the silly bat destroy Israeli goods. She could then be done fair and square under the law.

Oh, and as for the company she likes keeping:





They seem like a grand bunch, don't they, all pally and that.



Here's a good start. It's a website that has monitored the PSC in the past, and is an interfaith group composed of both Jews and Muslims.

PSC members have:

• Openly supported the Holocaust (not to mention denied it)
• Have claimed that there is a Jewish world conspiracy
• Made repeated declarations of support for Hamas, a terrorist organisation that has in its charter a wish to kill all Jews in the world
• Frequently opposed peace - real peace - between Israel and the Palestinians and have supported continuing violence and terrorist attacks against Israelis
• PSC members have been at Hamas demonstrations,
• Pushed a conspiracy theory that put the Breivik massacre at the door of the Israeli government
• One PSC activist asserted that there are too many Jews in the UK parliament
• Another denied the very existence of a Jewish people
• At PSC demonstrations, there have been activists waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags and shouting the traditional Islamic insult for death to Jews
• Another PSC activist said - on video - that Jews are 'vindictive', 'evil' and 'parasites'...
• A man at a recent PSC demo said he wanted to kill Israelis
• Others have listed neo-Nazi websites in their articles
• Made blatantly homophobic comments to a Muslim magazine saying that he was "disgusted" that books teach about gay relationships

That is just a part of it. It started with Touaregs wanting to secede from Mali and form Azawad. Then islamist groups jumped in to support them (Ansar Dine and others). The islamists don't want to secede, they want to take control of all of Mali and turn it into an islamic state. Then they started attacking the Azawad guys as well, so it became a threeway fight between the Malian government, Azawad and the islamists.

Here on wikipedia, see belligerents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_M ... %93present)

(I tried to make a linky but failed and the internets ate my post, I'm so clueless)

I think the French and African Union intervened more to keep the islamists at bay than the Azawad people. The Touaregs that want an independant state seem sadly caught in the middle now.

Why am I not surprised?

Because they are quite stereotypical islamist rebels: in the areas they controlled they chopped off hands, flogged people for listening to music, destroyed sufi shrines and cemetaries. We knew these kind of people already, and fortunately the French know how to deal with them (with superior firepower )

The hostage takers at the gas plant in Algeria demanded the French retreat. Despite their undeserved reputation, they of course didn't.