UK Editor Calls for Nuclear Destruction in Israel [Updated]

This is the logo of a London newspaper?

Smith is not a man. He is an intelligent creature with the genes and ancestry of a man, but he is not a man. He's more a Martian than a man. Until we came along he had never laid eyes on a human being. He thinks like a Martian, he feels like a Martian. He's been brought up by a race which has nothing in common with us. - from Robert Heinlein's classic novel "Stranger in a Strange Land"

Abd Al-Bari Atwan is the editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, an Arabic language daily newspaper in London. During an interview on Lebanese television, where the topic was Iran's nuclear capability, he remarked:

"If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight...

If a war breaks out, where will the Iranians retaliate? If Iran is able to retaliate, it will burn the oil wells, block the Strait of Hormuz, attack the American bases in the Gulf and, Allah willing, it will attack Israel, as well"

In the comments section, the very first person replied:

I hope no one is surprised by this callous remark. After 9/11 many Arabs did just that [dance with delight], in case anyone has forgotten!

This is not, by any stretch, the only lunacy to come from this islamacist, who has appeared not only in his own newspaper and Al-Jazeera, but Sky News, Dateline London, BBC World, CNN World, and Fox News as well.

In 2001, during an Al-Jazeera special on Osama Bin Laden, Atwan remarked:

"If you want to talk about terrorism against a legitimate government, fine. The U.S. dropped two atom bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the victims were innocent. … This is the legitimate power you are defending. … Didn't it kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people? Can we call this government legitimate? It is a terrorist regime that has killed innocent people since 1945 to this very moment."

In March 2003, at the start of the Iraq war, if there was any doubt how deep his admiration of Saddam Hussein's Iraq went, he cast it all aside writing an article titled: "Baghdad Burns But There Is No Savior":

"I ask what the heroic Egyptian army, and we ask what the Syrian officers and soldiers are doing these days, and we inquire about the Saudi armed forces and the billions spent on their equipment with the most modern tanks and planes. If these Arab armies do not move to defend a brotherly country and a people facing death by fire, when would they [move]?"

"Silence means collaboration, and the increase in the oil production in order to lower prices is more dangerous than participation in military operations. They have refused to use the oil in the service of the Arab causes. They said that oil is a commodity and its revenues are required to serve the growth plans. But they use it to serve American aggression against Iraq."

"We are not asking the kingdom of Abd Al-Aziz to suspend the export of oil as King Faysal had done in 1973 in solidarity with Egypt and Syria in the 1973 war. But we are asking it not to increase its oil production by 1.2 million barrels [a day] as it is happening now to reduce price and support American aggression."

In 2004, he tried to convince us that the former leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq, and the world's #2 terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was no threat at all:

"Al-Zarqawi has become ... the perfect bogeyman... He is a foreigner, so it is the perfect way for the Americans to discredit the resistance and say these attacks are not coming from the Iraqi people"

This statement might have been a bit more forgivable, if it wasn't only two months after Zarkawi, on video, cut the head off of Nicholas Berg and dumped his decapitated body near a Baghdad overpass. Another inaccurate quote:

There is no real proof that he is alive. If he is supposedly moving around freely in Iraq, why haven't Iraqis spoken about him? He can't be that difficult to recognise with his wooden leg"

Since he was killed in 2006, then he probably was alive in 2004...


Most likely, the absolute epitome of his nonsense is this article, he wrote on the 5th anniversary of the terror attacks on Sep 11th. He claimed that Al-Qaida "won the war on terror" and that:

The spread of the Islamophobia phenomenon in Western societies, and the European and American ones in particular, did not lead only to the fall in the integration of at least 40 million Muslims in their new homelands but led the second and third generations of Muslim communities to lean toward extremism as a reaction to the campaigns of hatred waged against them

Apparently, it doesn't occur to him that certain terror attacks might be the reason why the "hatred" happened in the first place! Or that Arab pundits like him who function as cheerleaders of terror groups might be one of the reasons that integration within Europe is so difficult...

On the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003, he remarked:

"I wish the Iraqi president had fought and fallen martyr like his sons"

On the death of Saddam:

"We are sad and pained when we see an Arab leader approaching the noose while there is silence and indifference on the part of his fellow Arab leaders and more than 300 million Arabs spread out over five continents in the world."

Munir Al-Mawari, a moderate Arab journalist wrote of Atwan:

"The Abd Al-Bari Atwan [appearing] on CNN is completely different from the Abd Al-Bari Atwan on the Al-Jazeera network or in his Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily. On CNN, Atwan speaks solemnly and with total composure, presenting rational and balanced views. This is in complete contrast with his fuming appearances on Al-Jazeera and in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, in which he whips up the emotions of multitudes of viewers and readers.

Abd Al-Bari Atwan is part of the problem… and our problem is that it is not only America that we hate. Our Arab societies are societies of hate; we were raised to hate each other even before we hated others…"

Keep in mind that Atwan has lived in the UK since 1978, and presumably is a citizen by now. Leaving aside the remark about Israel, he is openly praising his adopted country's enemies in a public newspaper, on more than one occasion, and while they are at war. One thing that is highly disturbing here, is now many Muslims like Mr. Atwan continue to attack, trash, burn, and abuse the hospitality of host European nations that have allowed them to live there. If Middle Eastern nations are so much better, why did he leave in the first place? Why doesn't he move back? He certainly had the opportunity; he was born in a Palestinian refugee camp, but was educated in Jordan, and worked in Egypt before moving to the UK.

This is one of my biggest grievances about people like this. If the UK took me in as an immigrant, I would never trash it or aid its enemies the way this man does. Even as a US citizen, I wouldn't, and in fact, I am proud that I served alongside UK forces on more than one occasion. It's ironic that as a foreigner, I have more love and more in common with Britain than a man who has lived there for the past 19 years! This is further evidence (if you didn't need it already) that Britain's Muslim population has grown far faster than it can be responsibly assimilated (also see this earlier article here).

UPDATE 30/08/2007 10:25:00 AM: Thanks to Little Green Footballs for linking here. Also, if you want to watch the actual interview, video is available here.

Israel is certainly taking these threats seriously. They have now confirmed that they are constructing a nuclear blast shelter to protect the government ministries and military command centers.

I should also point out one great irony here. Mr. Atwan is a Palestinian by birth. But Israel is so small, with millions of Palestinians living in, near, or passing through it, that any significant nuclear strike on Israel would likely kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Palestinians as well. Does he care? Look at Munir Al-Mawari's quote above. People like this are so infused with hatred for themselves and others, that they ultimately don't care who they kill, and why.

Also, here is one amusing comment from LGF:

I can confirm (as previous posters have done so) that this wanker appears on BBC all the time as the 'sensitive' 'moderate' 'muslim' speaking for the 'Arab street'. He's always speaking jibberish and going on about the Is-ra-eeeleees 'stole my country'. As a general rule of thumb, I always tune out when ever anyone pronounces 'Israelis' that way on the news. You know they're going to be frothing genocidal morons.
Like this one, Mister I'm-gonna-slip-over-the-pigeon-shit-in-T rafalgar-Square.Of course, in the typical Arab manner, pushing for everybody else to fight and kill the 'eeeveeel Zionist Entity' as he sits on his arse. Nobody in the Middle East gives a damn about the Palestinians. If they did, the Palos wouldn't be sitting in 'refugee' cities (camps? with huge 10 story buildings? where's the camel, Achmed?) living on dole paid for by the West. They just one more of the everlasting 'grievances'.

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