The furore, which has been likened to the Islamic world's reaction to the publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper satirising the Prophet Mohammed, had still not been placated after the Vatican issued a statement yesterday saying the [Pope] "is very sorry some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers".

However, while the cartoons could rightly be considered an act of provocation, Pope Benedict's quotation from a 14th century Byzantine emperor certainly did not justify the frenzied reaction we have seen. Indeed, the Pope used the quotation to bolster his argument that faith should not be spread by "holy wars", insisting that "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul".

These words can just as easily be applied, in fact should be applied, to the Crusades of eight-ten centuries ago, and for which Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had apologised. They are applicable to all religious wars fought throughout the centuries, and indeed are still being fought in our own, brand new 21st century.

What the Pope delivered was an impassioned and eruditely argued case for religious tolerance. Unfortunately, even though the Islamic religion preaches compassion and charity, many Muslim observers have expressed their fear that fanatics are gaining the upper hand, thus fatally misrepresenting Islam. These fanatics, with Al-Qaeda at the forefront, in fact routinely refer to the West as "Crusaders".

The glorification of terrorism, the equation of suicide attacks killing innocent lives (including Muslims) with martyrdom, are an extreme expression of this fanaticism. Another, very troubling, aspect - not limited to a few fanatics but applied by various Islamic states - is the high degree of intolerance shown to members of other faiths.

While we in the West are proud of the religious freedom enjoyed by all believers and non-believers, with some Western authorities taking political correctness to extremes (as in the case of a magistrate in Italy who upheld a Muslim activist's request to remove the crucifix from a classroom in an Italian state school), the same freedom cannot be said to apply to native or foreign Christians in predominantly Muslim countries.

These Christians face persecution and are the targets of repeated violence in countries like Pakistan, the Sudan and Indonesia. And while we speak, even in erstwhile Catholic Malta, of a "growing Maltese Muslim community", we had the case in Afghanistan recently of a Muslim who, after converting to Christianity, was sentenced to death. He saved his skin only because he left the country and was offered asylum in Italy.

What the Catholic Church and all Christians expect is that Muslim countries show the same degree of tolerance which members of the Muslim faith are generally shown in the West. This is what the Pope's message is all about: violence goes against the very essence of religion.

Head of the northern faction of the Islamic Movement Sheikh Raed Salah said Friday that soon Jerusalem will be the capital of the new Muslim caliphate, and the caliph's seat will be there.

Salah addressed an audience of 50,000 attending the Islamic Movement's 11th annual rally in Umm al-Fahm. Caliph refers to a leader of the Muslim nation and in Arabic means the heir or substitute of the prophet Muhammad.

Salah noted that history tells of many occasions in which the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem was occupied by foreign conquerors, but the occupiers left after a short time, and thus will also be the fate of the Israeli occupation.

The Israeli occupation will leave Jerusalem soon. It will happen sooner than is thought, Salah said

PAKISTANI PARLIAMENT

The derogatory remarks of the Pope about the philosophy of jihad and Prophet Muhammad have injured sentiments across the Muslim world and pose the danger of spreading acrimony among the religions.

HAMID ANSARI, CHAIRMAN OF INDIA'S MINORITY COMMISSION

The language used by the Pope sounds like that of his 12th-Century counterpart who ordered the crusades... It surprises me because the Vatican has a very comprehensive relationship with the Muslim world".

DIN SYAMSUDDIN, HEAD OF MUHAMMAD, INDONESIA'S SECOND LARGEST MUSLIM ORGANISATION

The Pope's statements reflect his lack of wisdom. It is obvious from the statements that the Pope doesn't have a correct understanding of Islam.

AHMAD KHATAMI, IRANIAN CLERIC

It is unfortunate to see that the leader of the world's Christians is so ill-informed about Islam and speaks so shamelessly.

Muslims around the world would surely react to such weak arguments and will invite those who misunderstand Islam to learn about the religion. We say that such insults will spread the influence of Islam further.

MOHAMMED MAHDA AKEF, EGYPTIAN MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

The remarks do not express correct understanding of Islam and are merely wrong and distorted beliefs being repeated in the West.

SHEIKH YOUSSEF AL-QARDAWI, QATARI MUSLIM CLERIC AND HEAD OF ISLAMIC SCHOLARS' ASSOCIATION

Our hands are outstretched and our religion calls for peace, not for war, for love not for hatred, for tolerance, not for fanaticism, for knowing each other and not for disavowing each other.

We condemn this and we want to know the explanation of this and what is intended by this. We call on the pope, the pontiff, to apologise to the Islamic nation because he has insulted its religion and Prophet, its faith and Sharia without any justification."

ALI BARDAKOGLU, SENIOR TURKISH MUSLIM

I do not see any use in somebody visiting the Islamic world who thinks in this way about the holy prophet of Islam. He should first rid himself of feelings of hate.

SALIH KAPUSUZ, DEPUTY LEADER OF TURKEY'S RULING AK PARTY

He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world. It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades.

GRAND AYATOLLAH MOHAMMAD HUSSEIN FADLALLAH, SENIOR LEBANESE SHIA CLERIC

We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him to offer a personal apology - not through his officials - to Muslims for this false reading

ORGANISATION OF ISLAMIC CONFERENCE STATEMENT

The OIC hopes that this sudden campaign does not reflect a new trend for the Vatican policy toward the Islamic religion ... and it expects the Vatican to express its real vision of Islam.

YOUSEF AL-KHOEI, HEAD OF ISLAMIC CHARITY

He should really know better than quoting a 14th Century Christian emperor who was a political man who made his statements for a political reason... I do not know why people choose to quote things out of context when you have clear instructions in Islam which says no forced conversion. Why do we need a Christian emperor to tell us what Islam is?

DR MUHAMMAD ABDUL BARI, MUSLIM COUNCIL OF BRITAIN

One would expect a religious leader such as the Pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor's views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations. Regrettably, the Pope did not do so and this has understandably caused a lot of dismay and hurt.

A senior Pakistani Islamic scholar, Javed Ahmed Gamdi, said jihad was not about spreading Islam with the sword. Turkey's top religious official asked for an apology for the "hostile" words. In Indian-administered Kashmir, police seized copies of newspapers which reported the Pope's comments to prevent any tension.

A Vatican spokesman, Father Frederico Lombardi, said he did not believe the Pope's comments were meant as a harsh criticism of Islam.

'Abhorrent'

In his speech at Regensburg University, the German-born pontiff explored the historical and philosophical differences between Islam and Christianity and the relationship between violence and faith.

Stressing that they were not his own words, he quoted Emperor Manual II Paleologos of Byzantine, the Orthodox Christian empire which had its capital in what is now the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The emperors words were, he said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Benedict said "I quote" twice to stress the words were not his and added that violence was "incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul".

The Pope is due to visit Turkey in November and the Turkish response was swift and strong, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports from Istanbul.

Religious leader Ali Badda Kolu said the Pope's comments represented what he called an "abhorrent, hostile and prejudiced point of view".

Whilst Muslims might express their criticism of Islam and of Christianity, he argued, they would never defame the Holy Bible or Jesus Christ.

He said he hoped the Pope's speech did not reflect "hatred in his heart" against Islam.

Many Turks see Benedict as a Turkophobe and commentators call his words just before the holy month of Ramadan "ill-timed and ill-conceived", our correspondent adds.

Following Morony's presentation and a brief discussion by the council, Councilman Pat Cole said, I make the motion that we cease immediately adding fluoride to our beautiful San Felipe Springs water.

In his letter to the city requesting time to address the council, Morony recommended that Del Rio cease fluoridating its water supply.

Morony in his letter noted that in the U.S., more than 70 communities have stopped adding fluoride to their water.

He also pointed out that most European countries, Japan and China do not add fluoride to their water supplies.

"Why? Basically for two reasons: fluoridated water cannot be shown to significantly reduce dental caries (tooth decay) and it has proved to be far more toxic than previously thought, Morony wrote.

Fear is a powerful motivating factor. Fear after 9/11 led to the Bush doctrine of the pre-emptive strike. But this doctrine has not been endorsed by all.

Doubts, divisions and defections have developed among American allies. For many around the world, sympathy for the United States has changed into suspicion and, for some, even into hatred. The prisons at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the treatment of prisoners, secret prisons and rendition flights all added to this feeling. The changes just announced by President Bush - acknowledging and emptying the secret camps and other moves - might answer some criticism but not all and their overall effect remains to be seen.

Language changes to reflect policy shifts. The extent to which Iraq has influenced events can be seen by looking at the language used by President Bush before and after the invasion. On 31 August this year he told the American Legion in Salt Lake City: "This war will be long? but it's a war we must wage, and a war we will win?The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century."
His use of the future tense in "We will win" contrasts with what he said before the invasion. On 26 February 2003, he declared in a speech in Washington: "We have arrested, or otherwise dealt with, many key commanders of al-Qaeda. Across the world, we are hunting down the killers one by one. We are winning."

The change of tense shows how far any expectation of victory has been put off.

A spokesman for the police said the campaigner had not behaved in a violent or aggressive manner, but that officers arrested him because 'the leaflet contained Biblical quotes about homosexuality'.
In recent months incidents have included a Metropolitan Police warning to author Lynette Burrows that she was responsible for a 'homophobic incident' after she suggesting on a BBC Radio Five Live programme that gays did not make ideal adoptive parents.

The Met Police in London also investigated former Muslim Council of Britain leader Sir Iqbal Sacranie after he gave an interview saying homosexuality was harmful. However, no prosecution followed in that case.
The action against Mr Green came after he and a fellow member of his evangelical group, Christian Voice, tried to distribute leaflets at the gay Mardi Gras event in Cardiff.
Mr Green refused to stop distributing leaflets and was arrested, and then questioned for four hours at a police station. He was charged after refusing a caution.

The leaflets were headed Same-Sex Love - Same-Sex Sex: What does the Bible Say?, and included a series of quotations from the 1611 King James Bible, a text usually regarded as one of the foundation stones of the English language.

Aimed at demonstrating Biblical disapproval of homosexual sex, they included from the Old Testament Leviticus 18.22, 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination'.
The leaflets also quoted Romans 1:25-27 from the New Testament, to the effect that homosexuals are given to 'vile affections'.

The handbills urged homosexuals to 'turn from your sins and you will be saved'.
The charge against Mr Green is that he used 'threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby', contrary to the Public Order Act 1986.

Mr Green's Christian Voice group is regarded by other evangelicals as particularly militant and it has been heavily involved in demonstrations against theatre performances of Jerry Springer the Opera. However, Mr Green has no record of violence or intimidation.
He said yesterday: 'I am astonished that South Wales Police have a special unit dedicated to silencing those who disagree with homosexuality.'

He said that the force boasts of working closely with gay groups and added: 'Maybe they work a bit too closely when an evangelist can be victimised simply because he is giving out leaflets quoting verses from the same Bible police officers swear on in court.' There was strong support for Mr Green from other Christian groups yesterday. Colin Hart of the Christian Institute think tank said: 'This was a very gentle leaflet. There was no use of words like "perversion". I have to wonder if churches, bishops and archbishops are now vulnerable to arrest for their views on homosexuality.

'It is noticeable that police never arrest Muslims who make remarks about homosexuality. They pick on Christians because it is easy, just as they pick on middle class drivers for speeding because it is easier than catching burglars.'

In an interview with the Iranian news agency Fars, al-Din said: "No one can promise us that Israel won't attack again. Whoever lives as a neighbor to the Zionist regime is in danger and must not save any effort to obtain all of the means to defend himself. We are convinced that there still danger and the situation has not yet been solved. We must, all the time, prepare ourselves for self-defense and to plan for the next stage."

'Situation is good

"Our situation is very good, the Israelis didn't manage to strike Hizbullah's military command and our ability to launch missiles. In the first days we launched 100 missiles and in recent days we fired 350 missiles a day. So we have no problem from a military perspective," he replied.
Addressing the deployment of the Lebanese army in south Lebanon, al-Din said that his organization had no opposition to the move so long as it would not be asked to disarm. He added that there was no possibility that Hizbullah would join the Lebanese army.

"One of the reasons we didn't agree in advance to the deployment of the army in south Lebanon is that we are worried for the army, because it doesn't have the capability of dealing with Israel. If the Lebanese agree that the army deploys in the south, we have no problem. But the entrance of the army to this area is dangerous for it and we are worried from this perspective," he said.

The Golan Heights is mountainous territory captured by the Jewish state after Syria used the terrain to attack Israel in 1967 and again in 1973. The Heights looks down on major Israeli and Syrian population centers. It borders Israel, Syria and Lebanon and is claimed by Damascus.

Military officials say returning the Golan Heights to Syria would grant Damascus the ability to mount an effective ground invasion of the Jewish state.

Currently, eight Syrian Baath officials live in the Israeli-occupied sections of the Golan Heights. They can technically become Israeli residents. The Heights has a population of about 35,000 people ? approximately 18,000 Jewish residents and 17,000 Arabs, mostly Druze. The Arab residents retain their Syrian citizenship, but under Israeli law can also sue for Israeli citizenship.

The recommendation for Baath officials to purchase Golan Heights real estate follows reports that Syria is forming its own Hizbullah-like guerrilla organizations to fight Israel in hopes of "liberating" the Golan.

During the recent month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.

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What Did You Do in the War, UNIFIL?
By Lori Lowenthal Marcus
The Weekly Standard | August 30, 2006

During the recent month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.

UNIFIL--United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got.

This war was fought on cable television and the Internet, and a lot of official information was available in real time. But the specific military intelligence UNIFIL posted could not be had from any non-U.N. source. The Israeli press--always eager to push the envelope--did not publish the details of troop movements and logistics. Neither the European press nor the rest of the world media, though hardly bastions of concern for the safety of Israeli troops, provided the IDF intelligence details that UNIFIL did. A search of Israeli government websites failed to turn up the details published to the world each day by the U.N.

Inquiries made of various Israeli military and government representatives and analysts yielded near unanimous agreement that at least some of UNIFIL's postings, in the words of one retired senior military analyst, "could have exposed Israeli soldiers to grave danger." These analysts, including a current high ranking military official, noted that the same intelligence would not have been provided by the U.N. about Israel's enemies.

Sure enough, a review of every single UNIFIL web posting during the war shows that, while UNIFIL was daily revealing the towns where Israeli soldiers were located, the positions from which they were firing, and when and how they had entered Lebanese territory, it never described Hezbollah movements or locations with any specificity whatsoever.
On October 7, 2000, three IDF soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah just yards from a UNIFIL shelter and dragged across the border into Lebanon, where they disappeared. The U.N. was thought to have videotaped the incident or its immediate aftermath. Rather than help Israel rescue its kidnapped soldiers by providing this evidence, however, the U.N. obstructed the Israeli investigation.

For months the Israeli government pleaded with the U.N. to turn over any videotape that might shed light on the location and condition of its missing men. And for nine months the U.N. stonewalled, insisting first that no such tape existed, then that just one tape existed, and eventually conceding that there were two more tapes. During those nine months, clips from the videotapes were shown on Syrian and Lebanese television.

Explaining their eventual about-face, U.N. officials said the decision had been made by the on-site commanders that it was not their responsibility to provide the material to Israel; indeed, that to do so would violate the peacekeeping mandate, which required "full impartiality and objectivity." The U.N. report on the incident was adamant that its force had "to ensure that military and other sensitive information remains in their domain and is not passed to parties to a conflict."

Stymied in its efforts to recover the men while they were still alive, Israel ultimately agreed to an exchange in January 2004: It released 429 Arab prisoners and detainees, among them convicted terrorists, and the bodies of 60 Lebanese decedents and members of Hezbollah, in exchange for the bodies of the three soldiers. Blame for the deaths of those three Israelis can be laid, at least in part, at the feet of the U.N., which went to the wall defending its inviolable pledge never to share military intelligence about one party with another.

UNIFIL has just done what it then vowed it could never do. Once again, it has acted to shield one side in the conflict and to harm the other. Why is this permitted? For that matter, how did the U.N. obtain such detailed and timely military intelligence in the first place, before broadcasting it for Israel's enemies to see?

We spoke about freedom of religion," Ms Merkel told journalists following the 45-minute meeting.

She added "I underlined my opinion that we need a European identity in the form of a constitutional treaty and I think it should be connected to Christianity and God, as Christianity has forged Europe in a decisive way," according to press reports.

The Christian Democrat leader has previously spoken out in favour of reopening the debate on religion in the constitution as the EU considers how to tackle the deadlock after the treaty's rejection by French and Dutch voters last year.

Germany has been assigned by EU member states to come up with some kind of solution to the constitutional crisis during its presidency of the union in the first six months of 2007.

Like Mrs Merkel, some leading figures of the European People's Party - the federalist centre-right pan-European group - have pointed out that a possible re-drafted treaty should include clear links to Europe's Christian heritage.

During earlier negotiations on the content of the new EU charter, Spain, Italy and Poland were among the strongest supporters of a reference to God in the treaty.

But its opponents argued it could prove controversial in view of Turkey's potential membership of the EU as well as due to the strict separation of state and church in some countries, such as France.

Currently, the preamble refers to Europe's religious heritage only in general terms.

"Drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, the values of which, still present in its heritage, have embedded within the life of society the central role of the human person and his or her inviolable and inalienable rights, and respect for law," it states.

One key topic was the development of the present process of European integration and of the continent's identity, she said.

"I believe a European identity is needed, in the form of a Constitutional Treaty and, from my point of view, it should be connected to Christianity and God, as Christianity has forged Europe in a decisive way," she added, as reported by Vatican Radio.

At present, the draft of the Constitutional Treaty, which made no reference to Europe's Christian roots, is at a standstill after it was rejected in referendums held in France and Holland last year.

Merkel clarified that her meeting with the Bishop of Rome took place in her capacity as chancellor of Germany, and not as leader of the Christian Democratic Union, though it was mentioned that the party has a very good relationship with the Vatican.