returning to the matter of the jinns

I think this is so interesting that I have decided to recapitulate my views on it. I think Islam is unique among religions East or West in that it does not regard the source of human evil, or destructiveness, to be of godlike nature. To explain this, let us start with the ancient Persian religion. For the ancient Persians, there were three main deities: a supreme god beyond good and evil (or, beyond creation and destruction); a god of goodness and creativeness; and an equal and opposite god of evil and destructiveness. For Hinduism, which derived via the Vedas from the ancient Persian religion, there were similarly three main gods, with the same three sets of attributes, though the neutral god was demoted from the position of being prior to and superior to the god of good and the god of evil, so that all three, the good, the neutral, and the evil, were equal in rank.

The ancient Jewish religion received many elements from the ancient Persian religion also, though the difference is that the god of evil became a fallen angel. Angels are the next beings in rank to the supreme god himself, so a supreme god served by angels which are divided into good and evil factions is again a triangular or tripartite scheme, for would-be monotheists. For the Gnostics, the fallen angel becomes once again a god — a fallen god, the demiurge, Yaldabaoth. Christianity inherited the tendency to ascribe almost divine status to the origin of human evil from these various sources.

Islam, as I said, is unique among religions East or West in that it does not regard the source of human evil to be of godlike nature. Islam possesses a version of the story of the dispute between Satan and God concerning the honour due to man, in which Satan (‘Iblis’, which I think is just a demotic form of the greek ‘diabolos’) is not an angel, but a Jinn (this word may come from the latin ‘genius’, which means the same as the greek ‘daemon’, i.e. an invisible but terrestrial spirit).

It seems from the story that until this dispute arose following the creation of man, the Jinn were able to visit heaven at will and sit in council with God and his angels. However, as a result of the dispute, the Jinn were banished to earth, and became unable to visit heaven any more, a fact for which understandably many of them blame man rather than blaming themselves. Thus they are stuck here on earth alongside us, and a faction of them have devoted themselves, just as in the Judeo-Christian version of the story, to tempting man into catastrophic courses of action, out of revenge, even though God has assured them that man is stronger in his own way than they are.

Jinn, as I understand it, possess a number of qualities slightly superior to our own; they are as it were one rung up from us in the ladder of creation, but definitely one rung down from the angels. They are born, they reproduce, and they die, just as we do. They are of course invisible to us, because their bodies are made of finer substance (‘fire and air’ as opposed to ‘water and earth’ to use the old, somewhat magical terms). They are essentially earthbound, though they can fly around in the lower atmosphere, not that they need to — they can travel from place to place on the surface of the earth at the speed of thought. They can read our minds, and implant suggestions in them. Time is the same for them as for us: their past, present and future run in parallel to ours, and they travel through time in the same way as us, in parallel to us and at the same speed.

Angels, on the other hand, are not born, do not reproduce, and do not die. They are directly created ex nihilo by God and continue to exist until directly destroyed by Him. Their bodies are made of ‘light’, not of ‘fire and air’. Time does not exist for them as it does for us and for the Jinns, since their home is a superior realm: their home is in Beri’ah, the World of Creation, whereas Jinn and spirits in general inhabit Yetzirah, the World of Formation, and the concrete physical world we see and touch is Assiah, the World of Action. Beri’ah has its own space and time, superior to that of Yetzirah and Assiah. God alone inhabits the highest world, Atziluth, the World of Emanation, in which there is no space, time or causality at all.

sulphur and brimstone

Some thoughts about the mephitic smell that emanates from the web-pages of David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine.

Horowitz is not the first ex-left-winger to become, effectively, a fascist. In fact, this transition was quite a common one in the 1930s, and is really quite understandable. What is not so understandable is the pretence that, just because the fascists of the 1930s were anti-Jewish, it somehow follows that Jews today cannot be the foremost fascists around, which they in general are. I say ‘Jews in general’ with some regret, but I’m afraid that the majority of self-professed and self-identified Jews today are either actively or passively colluding in the zionist project, which now clearly displays all the classic fascist symptoms, exactly like the fascist governments of the 1930s did: a frank determination to lie, to expand, to conquer, to manipulate, and to gain international ascendency by fair means or foul — frank, unashamed and completely public, since they obviously feel that the entire global mainstream press is owned by their supporters, which it is.

One might even go so far as to say that ‘Judaism in general’ is, if not necessarily and eternally fascist (which would be untrue), necessarily and eternally elitist and conspiratorial. Even secular progressive Judaism (and there is such a thing), shares these traits of elitism and conspiratorialism. Secular Judaism is basically a form of Jewish social organisation that professes atheism, but wishes to retain Jewish identity by quasi-synagogical and quasi-rabbinical means. In other words, secular Jews meet together in — what shall we call them, cells — and engage in precisely the same elitist and conspiratorial activities as all other organised Jews do. Their criteria for ‘who is a Jew’ are basically the same as those of the more liberal synagogues. Their illusion, which clarifies the nature of progressive Judaism in general, is that elitism and conspiratorialism can be good if they are applied to progressive instead of reactionary purposes.

there’s something ghoulish about the USA

Cyclone Power Technologies Responds to
Rumors about “Flesh Eating” Military Robot
CPT Press Release (pdf), Jul 16 2009

In response to rumors circulating the internet on sites such as FoxNews.com, FastCompany.com and CNET News about a “flesh eating” robot project, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. and Robotic Technology Inc. would like to set the record straight: This robot is strictly vegetarian. On July 7, Cyclone announced that it had completed the first stage of development for a beta biomass engine system used to power RTI’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATRTM),
a Phase II SBIR project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Defense Sciences Office. RTI’s EATR is an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling. RTI’s patent pending robotic system will be able to find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment. Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips – small, plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI. Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO, said:

We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission. We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.

there’s something ghoulish about zionism, too

30 Israelis suspected of human
egg trafficking arrested in Romania
Haaretz, Jul 20 2009

Some 30 Israelis were arrested in a fertility clinic in the Romanian capital Bucharest on Sunday, the Foreign Ministry confirmed. Army Radio reported late Sunday morning that 28 of the Israelis had already been released and would return to Israel the same day. The Israeli embassy in Bucharest is engaged in efforts to bring the remaining two detainees back to Israel. Channel 10 quoted a Romanian TV channel as reporting that police had raided the clinic over suspicions that eggs were being traded there. According to the report, members of the clinic’s management were among those arrested.

remember it will soon be illegal to compare zionism to nazism

The Foreign Ministry presents:
talkbackers in the service of the State
Dora Kishinevski, Calcalist, Jul 5 2009 (Hebrew)
George Malent, Occupation Magazine (English)

After they became an inseparable part of the service provided by public relations companies and advertising agencies, paid Internet talkbackers are being mobilized in the service in the service of the State. The Foreign Ministry is in the process of setting up a team of students and demobilized soldiers who will work around the clock writing pro-Israeli responses on Internet websites all over the world, and on services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The Foreign Ministry’s department for the explanation of Israeli policy is running the project, and it will be an integral part of it. The project is described in the government budget for 2009 as the “Internet Fighting Team,” a name that was given to it in order to distinguish it from the existing policy explanation team, among other reasons so that it can receive a separate budget. Even though the budget’s size has not yet been disclosed to the public, sources in the Foreign Ministry have told Calcalist that in will be about 600,000 shekels in its first year, and it will be increased in the future. From the primary budget, about 200,000 shekels will be invested in round-the-clock activity at the micro-blogging website Twitter, which was recently featured in the headlines for the services it provided to demonstrators during the recent disturbances in Iran. Elan Shturman, deputy director of the policy explanation department in the Foreign Ministry, who is directly responsible for setting up the project, said in an interview with Calcalist:

To all intents and purposes the Internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose. Our policy explanation achievements on the Internet today are impressive in comparison to the resources that have been invested so far, but the other side is also investing resources on the Internet. There is an endless array of pro-Palestinian websites, with huge budgets, rich with information and video clips that everyone can download and post on their websites. They are flooding the Internet with content from the Hamas news agency. It is a well-oiled machine. Our objective is to penetrate into the world in which these discussions are taking place, where reports and videos are published: the blogs, the social networks, the news websites of all sizes. We will introduce a pro-Israeli voice into those places. What is now going on in Iran is the proof of the need for such an operational branch. It’s not like a group of friends is going to bring down the government with Twitter messages, but it does help to expand the struggle to vast dimensions.

The Foreign Ministry intends to recruit youths who speak at least one foreign language and who are studying communications, political science or law, or alternatively those whose military background is in units that deal with information analysis. Shturman explains:

It is a youthful language. Older people do not know how to write blogs, how to act there, what the accepted norms are. The basic conditions are a high capacity for expression in English, though we also have French and Swedish speakers, and familiarity with the online milieu. We are looking for people who are already writing blogs and circulating in Facebook.

Members of the new unit will work at the Ministry and enjoy the full technical support of Tahila, the government’s ISP, which is responsible for computer infrastructure and Internet services for government departments:

They will punch a card. Their missions will be defined along the lines of the government policies that they will be required to defend on the Internet. It could be the situation in Gaza, the situation in the north, or whatever is decided. We will determine which international audiences we want to reach through the Internet and the strategy we will use to reach them, and the workers will implement that on in the field. Of course they will not distribute official communiqués; they will draft the conversations themselves. We will also activate an Internet monitoring team, people who will follow blogs, the BBC website, the Arabic websites.

According to Shturman the project will begin with a limited budget, but he has plans to expand the team and its missions:

The new centre will also be able to support Israel as an economic and commercial entity. Alternative energy, for example, now interests the American public and Congress much more than the conflict in the Middle East. If through my team I can post in blogs dealing with alternative energy and push the names of Israeli companies there, I will strengthen Israel’s image as a developed state that contributes to the quality of the environment and to humanity, and along with that I may also manage to help an Israeli company get millions of dollars worth of contracts. The economic potential here is great, but for that we will require a large number of people. What is unique about the Internet is the fragmentation into different communities, every community deals with what interests it. To each of those communities you have to introduce material that is relevant to it.

The Foreign Ministry admits that the inspiration comes from none other than the much-reviled field of compensated commercial talkback: employees of companies and public-relations firms who post words of praise on the Internet for those who sent them there, the company that is their employer or their client. The professional responders normally identify themselves as chance readers of the article they are responding to or as “satisfied customers” of the company they are praising. Will the responders who are hired for this also present themselves as “ordinary net-surfers”? Shturman says:

Of course. Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the policy explanation department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the Foreign Ministry developed.

According to Shturman, although it is only now that the project is receiving a budget and a special department in the Foreign Ministry, in practice the Ministry has been using its own responders since the last war in Gaza, when the Ministry recruited volunteer talkbackers:

During Operation Cast Lead we appealed to Jewish communities abroad and with their help we recruited a few thousand volunteers, who were joined by Israeli volunteers. We gave them background material and policy explanation material, and we sent them to represent the Israeli point of view on news websites and in polls on the Internet. Our target audience then was the European Left, which was not friendly towards the policy of the government. For that reason we began to get involved in discussions on blogs in England, Spain and Germany, a very hostile environment.

And how much change have you effected so far?

It is hard to prove success in this kind of activity, but it is clear that we succeeded in bypassing the European television networks, which are very critical of Israel, and we have created direct dialogues with the public.

What things have you done there exactly?

For example, we sent someone to write in the website of a left-wing group in Spain. He wrote ‘it is not exactly as you say.’ Someone at the website replied to him, and we replied again, we gave arguments, pictures. Dialogue like that opens people’s eyes.

Elon Gilad, a worker at the Foreign Ministry who coordinated the activities of the volunteer talkbackers during the war in Gaza and will coordinate the activities of the professional talkbackers in the new project, says that volunteering for talkback in defence of Israel started spontaneously:

Many times people contacted us and asked how they could help to explain Israeli policy. They mainly do it at times like the Gaza operation. People just asked for information, and afterwards we saw that the information was distributed all over the Internet. The Ministry of Absorption also started a project at that time, and they transferred to us hundreds of volunteers who speak foreign languages and who will help to spread the information. That project too mainly spreads information on the Internet.

While most of the net-surfers were recruited through websites like giyus.org, which was officially activated by a Jewish lobby, in some cases is it was the Foreign Ministry that took the initiative to contact the surfers and asked them to post talkbacks sympathetic to the State and the government on the Internet, and to help recruit volunteers. That’s how Michal Carmi, an active blogger and associate general manager at the high-tech placement company Tripletec, was recruited to the online policy explanation team. Carmi tells Calcalist:

During Operation Cast Lead the Foreign Ministry wrote to me and other bloggers and asked us to make our opinions known on the international stage as well. They sent us pages with ‘talking points’ and a great many video clips. I focussed my energies on Facebook, and here and there I wrote responses on blogs where words like ‘Holocaust’ and ‘murder’ were used in connection with Israel’s Gaza action. I had some very hard conversations there. Several times the Foreign Ministry also recommended that we access specific blogs and get involved in the discussions that were taking place there.

And does it work? Does it have any effect?

I am not sure that that strategy was correct. The Ministry did excellent work, they sent us a flood of accurate information, but it focussed on Israeli suffering and the threat of the missiles. But the view of the Europeans is one-dimensional. Israeli suffering does not seem relevant to them compared to Palestinian suffering.

Gilad sums up the effectiveness so far, as well as his expectations of the operation when it begins to receive a government budget:

You can never win in this struggle. All you can do is be there and express your position.

well spotted, helena cobban

WaPo bows cravenly to pro-Israel lobby
Helena Cobban, Just World News, Jul 18 2009

On Thursday, the WaPo published the following, completely craven “Correction”:

A June 26 A-section article referred to Gilo as a Jewish settlement. It is a Jewish neighborhood built on land captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and annexed to Israel as part of Jerusalem’s expanded municipal boundaries. The United Nations has not acknowledged the annexation.

So the WaPo quite simply endorses whatever Israel says is the case?? It is not just the UN that has failed to “acknowledge” the annexation / Anschluss of East Jerusalem to Israel. The United States has never either “acknowledged” or — more to the point — supported the view that east Jerusalem is part of Israel, either. And neither have just about all the other countries of the world (except, um, Micronesia… ) The International Court Of Justice, when it issued its 2004 ruling on Israel’s Apartheid Barrier, came out unequivocally against the idea that Israel could unilaterally annex any part of the land occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem. So why does the WaPo endorse Israel’s Anschluss of East Jerusalem (and Gilo)? What kind of back-stage campaign was waged between June 26 and july 16 to “persuade” the ailing newsrag to do this? This plunge in standards is all on a par with publisher/heiress Katharine Weymouth’s shameless pimping of her newsroom. But still, we should all send the paper letters of strong protest at this latest debacle.