Australian Islamist Monitor

Dhimwit nominations are a bit late this month - but well worth waiting for, with four high calibre candidates.

 

1. Simon Overland, Victoria's Chief Commissioner of Police
Our Dhimwit hero distinguished himself after the recent terrorism raids in Melbourne by rushing to reassure the victims (who thanks to his sensitivity training, he identified as the Islamic community) and making a plea for Australians to be more understanding:

"IMAGINE how you would feel if a member of your family was a convicted terrorist...this week's events have caused people to feel concern and even shock, none more so than in our Islamic and Somalian communities. Not only do they have to deal with their safety fears, more regrettable is that some people have jumped to the conclusion that all Somalis and Muslims have strong links with terrorism.

 ...we should all share in the responsibility by respecting and accepting diversity and difference. Not just because it enriches our lives, but because alienation is one of the biggest risks we face. Disengaged, vulnerable, marginalised people are more likely to develop the type of views that can lead to involvement in all forms of crime and antisocial behaviour, not just acts of terrorism. And vulnerable young people, who may feel a loss of their own identity or culture, are often targeted and cultivated by influential people. In a way, what we are seeing with terrorism is the extreme of this.
Islam is not the problem. Social isolation and disengagement stemming, from among other things, racism and negative stereotyping, is the real problem.
Victoria Police will continue to maintain strong and supportive relationships with the Islamic and Somali communities...To them I say that we understand the impact these types of issues have on your community. (source)

So Simple Simon thinks it is all our fault: we are not respecting the diversity of those wishing to kill us. Time was when police protected law-abiding citizens from criminals, but in Simon's topsy turvy world, it's the terrorists that need protection.

2. The Age newspaper
Al Age, as it is affectionately known, has long provided a vehicle for dhimmis to support Islam and spread anti-Western ideology. The letters page reflects this bias, with writers expressing objective viewpoints rarely getting published. Middle East correspondents, from the odious Ed O'Loughlin to the equally dreadful Jason Koutsoukis,  have wholeheartedly espoused the Palestinian narrative.  Here's a recent sample:

Obama achieved one result in hosting the first meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Abbas. Both sides have agreed to resume final-status negotiations by the second half of October.
But the rest seemed like a comprehensive whitewash for the Israelis.
...he much-talked-about freeze on building Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank has been downgraded to a meek plea that Israel ought to ''restrain'' itself from further construction.
The spin from the Obama Administration was that the US President would issue a stern reprimand to both sides.
Yet instead of having their knuckles rapped, the Israelis behaved as if they had just received a great slap on the back from their American friends.
''There are no winners and no losers,'' was Mr Netanyahu's magnanimous assessment.
The paradox for Mr Netanyahu is that in order to keep his Government intact, he must continue to feed Israel's colonial enterprise in the occupied West Bank.
But to keep his country intact over the long term as a democratic Jewish state, he must end that occupation, which is as morally corrosive to Israel's national identity as it is destructive to the future aspirations of the Palestinian people. (source)

No moral equivalence here. Koutsoukis blames Israel 100%, ignoring the fact they are victims of terrorism and attempts to destroy their country, and that neither Hamas nor "moderate" Fatah is prepared to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Funny how many countries are Islamic, but one Jewish state is just too much for these Jew haters.
And with regular contributions from Waleed Aly, Maher Magrabi, and other Muslims, Al Age has Islamophilia all sewn up. For instance, Immediately after the terrorist arrests, they published Overland's apology to Muslims, plus a piece from a Muslima, decrying the victimisation of Muslims:

Nadia Mohamed was driving to university when she heard on the radio that members of the Somali and Lebanese communities had been arrested on terror charges... The sense of alienation and victimhood that the 24-year-old had seen steadily waning suddenly waxed strong.
"I know the families of these boys. I still don't believe they can be a part of that. It seems guilt by association — maybe they are friends with people who are friends of people .
Islamic Council of Victoria president Ramzi Elsayed says Somalis are angry and traumatised
"There were two lots of anger: first, they see it as a slur on the community by association, and second, at how the arrests unfolded...(Police) were going house to house without cultural sensitivity." (source)

Age journalist, Maher Mughrabi, is given free rein to attack any who tell the truth about Islam:

Daniel Pipes is a rhetorical bomb-maker, and last weekend he struck in Melbourne...At Monash University's conference on anti-Semitism, he warned that preparations were under way for a "second Holocaust". ...to prove it Pipes picked a 2001 remark by a former Iranian president. "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in its possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world."
Does this sound like a man threatening a second Holocaust, or one pointing out the obvious, which is that Muslim acquisition of nuclear weapons would change the strategic balance in the region? Is "stalemate" really another word for "mass murder"?
We live in an era when alarm at the genuine threat of Islamist terror is allowing some states to waive the civil rights of their Muslim citizens. In this atmosphere, one might expect a scholar of anti-Semitism to insist that the principles of innocence and guilt deserve especial attention when it comes to Muslims.
Instead, Pipes has said that "all Muslims, unfortunately, are suspect" and has advocated monitoring of American Muslims on the basis that "if searching for rapists, one looks only at the male population . . . if searching for Islamists, one looks at the Muslim population".
Pipes has expressed the view that "easily half" of the world's Muslims believed the terrorist atrocities of September 11, 2001, were "a great thing". To stigmatise more than half a billion people in this way is surely not the act of someone who has studied the way in which anti-Semites of the 1920s and '30s stigmatised East European Jews as carriers of Bolshevism.
As someone who has always rejected anti-Semitism in its myriad guises ...I fear that the choice of Daniel Pipes as a keynote speaker was misguided, unless we would simply replace one repellent brand of faith-based stigmatisation and violence with another. (source)

For their consistency in pandering to Islam,  Al Age is a worthy dhimwit.

 

3. Tim Fischer     
After retiring from politics, Tim Fischer suddenly started attacking Israel while lamenting the sufferings of the Palestinians,  and becoming increasingly critical about American  policy in the Middle East:

"Israel has brutally denied Palestinian rights to statehood in a policy of escalating repression that leaves it increasingly bereft of friends. In the late 1970s, it funded and supported Islamic charities, the precursors of Hamas, as a “moderate” alternative to the PLO. " (source)

What could have changed him? Well, Tim had became involved in some business dealings with rich oil states in the Middle East. The turning point might have been when he was offered a position on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies at the Australian National University in 1994, where he helped it obtain generous funds from UAE, Iran and Turkey.

 Of course, there are always strings attached, such as toning down the rhetoric on Islam and terrorism, as well as downplaying our friendship towards Israel.

 

In 2004 Tim was appointed chairman of Tourism Australia, where he showed tremendous interest in the Middle Eastern countries, especially the UAE. Shortly afterwards, the Australian Government gave Emirates and Etihad Airlines the go ahead to boost its services between Dubai and Australia.  (AIM: Selling Out Australia Part2 ).

 

Tim is  now a firm friend of totalitarianism. He was the first to chair The Parliamentary Friends of Palestine, apparently finding nothing incongruous about Parliament supporting this violent anti-democratic regime.
James Jeffrey, in The Fisch of Tobruk, wrote:

JUST when you thought the CV of Bhutan booster, train enthusiast, ambassador to the Holy See and former deputy PM Tim Fischer couldn't possibly be extended, he has popped up in Tripoli as Australia's special representative at the 40th anniversary of the Libyan revolution (coup doesn't sound so celebration-worthy). And he's there in suitably loud company, namely Melbourne's Rats of Tobruk Memorial Pipes and Drums band, who've been doing midnight performances before Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, King Abdullah II of Jordan and others. "They were terrific," Fischer tells Strewth. Fischer and the band will head to Tobruk  this weekend for the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II. (source)

If you thought Tim couldn't possibly get lower in rushing to celebrate with Gaddafi, there's more:

Tim Fischer has been accused by Canberra insiders of meeting the infamous Lockerbie bomber during a recent trip to Libya.
Diplomatic corridors of power are abuzz with talk that Fischer met with the convicted mass murderer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who was curiously released by the UK government on health grounds but has since been air-punching his way around Tripoli at shin-digs held to celebrate his terror attack on a civilian flight over Scotland that killed 270 people. Megrahi was a Libyan intelligence officer who was convicted of 270 counts of murder due to his direct personal involvement in assembling the suitcase bomb that exploded on-board.
The Ambassador, a well-known friend of Arab dictators, was in Libya earlier this month to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of a bloody military coup that put Megrahi’s boss ColonelGaddafi in charge of the oil-rich nation.
Fischer has previously been implicated in peddling unsubstantiated allegations against Israel, including bizarre and spectacular claims that Israel deliberately attacked a US Navy ship. Few outside fanatically anti-Israel and neo-Nazi circles believe the incident was anything other than a tragic “friendly fire” error. Decades after the incident, declassified documents from the US and Israel confirmed that. Tim Fischer remains unconvinced. (source)

So let's take our hats off to totalitarian Tim, friends of tyrants everywhere!

 

4.   Professor Gary D. Bouma
Bouma, the UNESCO Chair in Intercultural and Interreligious Studies,  helped coordinate Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Centre (see Monash: Sex and Terror 101 ), which claims its mission is

to generate interdisciplinary, culturally informed research into terrorism, counter-terrorism and related forms of identity-based conflict and cooperation.  (source)

Sadly, with significant numbers of Muslims on its staff, and one of its Professors recently sacked after allegations of sexual misconduct, the credibility of the Centre's research projects is looking a little shaky.
But never fear, Bouma is on hand to solve the problem of terrorism:

"It is clear that since religion is a significant part of the problem of terror, religion must also be part of the solution and in many instances it is…I, and many in the GTReC team, consider the best policy for terror-proofing a nation is to promote policies of social justice and social inclusion of all people...Engagement through religion may help prevent resentment from individuals who feel unable to achieve their goals through legitimate means and is crucial in promoting peace and maintaining stable societies."

Sounds like he's done some good empirical research before forming the opinion that terrorism is all our fault!
Bet you Bouma’s solution of “engagement through religion” involves spending more money on privileging Muslims and increasing “interfaith” initiatives, which incidentally will result in more need for experts like him.

Bouma spoke at a Muslim students’ conference in 2007, where he claimed providing prayer rooms, halal food etc for Muslims isn’t enough and ‘all subject areas should be rewritten to incorporate an appreciation of the role of religions in Australian life’.
(AIM: Islamic Religious Tyranny draws closer)

Most of us see religion as a private matter, and let's face it, there's only one religion that insists on imposing itself onto the public.

Mr Bouma also felt '‘The new Islamic Studies Centre, to be established with an $8 million Federal Government Grant at 3 universities, was a step in the right direction.’........

Yes, if you view establishing Sharia as the right direction!

 

So, for encouraging the Islamisation of our universities, Bouma makes the dhimwit grade.