TRTL,

Posts have been cut, Graham threatened it and it occurred. Accusation? Facts dear. Greed when not cutting posts? I don't follow you there? Where did you get that from please?

What's offensive is many of Irfan's statements. What about the Jesus, Mary and Joseph comment? Why does he choose to repeat the swill poured out by some of these foreigners? They surely don't have any interest in Australia other than to regrow what they escaped from.

Now they can be the big fish it's all worth recreating apparently. How is repeating that tripe non offensive? Why does Irfan choose to keep the ridiculous pointless and unresolvable arguments going? Simply to increase posts, nothing more, no real commitment to anything he has written , just for hits. I post to try and point out the pointlessness of this thread at all. Ypurself? Strong commitment to some principle or other? Or just bored?

OK, Arjay, then why do these people run this site? For you or me? I don't think so. It's to support particular points of political view, that's all. Ask where the money comes from to run it. I understand there are volunteers who do some of the work. What they get out of it is usually self satisfaction of helping others.

And yes, Irfan knows the Pavlov principle quite well. Centuries indeed but batting like Boycott I'm afraid.

Irfan, to your questions:
1) Islam has no clergy class? What are the Ayotollahs, Mullahs, Muftis and Imams? They are clergy de facto, acting that way themselves, and being regarded as such by their 'flock'. If they don't have the official title of clergy, then they are even more powerful, as there is no legitimate means of opposing them, or of getting rid of them
2) Does Hilaly speak for all Australian Muslims? The answer is yes, and no. He is a self-appointed spokesperson, who has not been effectively challenged by the Muslim community, so to that extent he is its spokesperson. Some (perhaps all) Australian Muslims will disagree with him at times, and he doesn't speak for those who do not agree. But until he can be held responsible for his statements (that is, until there is a body of Muslims the Muslim community respects which can sack him) Hilaiy will be the spokesperson for Muslims in Australia.
Hilaly was elected or appointed, and by whom? Islam likes to portray itself as being run by consensus, just as the successors of the Muhammad were decided upon by his closest supporters. The truth is that it was a real power struggle between different elements within that group, and the results were decided more by knife-work than talking. The elements were lined up according to tribal alliegence, and the results is more than they could have dreamed about - the permanent schism of the Muslim community into (eventually) Sunni and Shia who now permanently hate eachother. You would like this community to now hold an election? More knife-work is the likely response, which we have seen in Australia too.

To continue, Irfan.
How can Hilaly repersent Australian Muslims when he doesn't speak their language? Well, I've met Hilaly a few times, and his English is faulting, but not non-existent. (If he wanted to, I'm sure he could learn enough to remove the possibility of being misunderstood through being misquoted.)
But the real issue lies elsewhere - Hilaly speaks the Muslim divine language, Arabic, and as far as conservative Muslims are concerned, all other languages are optional.
Conservative Muslims want this state of affairs to continue, because it helps them keep their power. Arabic is the language of the Koran, and conservative Muslims want to assert that meaning is lost if any translation is made. Hence all conservative study of Islam is done in Arabic, and to hell (sorry for the pun) with anyone who can't keep up.
If only they (and a few others) can read Arabic, then they keep control of the interpretation of the Koran, to their benefit. Autralian Muslims, who wish to get on with their lives, have barely the time to learn a difficult language which they will only use in limited circumstances. So they have to rely on those who do know Arabic to tell them what's in their holy book. Great for the (non-existent) clergy!
This was the position of the Roman Catholic church before the reformation, and whilst it wasn't on Luther's agenda, it very quickly was on the agenda of those reformers who became the leaders of the protestant churches - the bible in the vernacular. This is one of the vital aspects of the reformation which Islam needs if it is not going to remain a prefeudal fascist organisation. But for those who would like it to stay that way...

Still the pot calling the kettle black.

Both Christianity and Islam pose threats to my way of life. Secularist, free and liberty based. Both Christianity and Islam have been fascist movements since Constantine and Mohommed. Both have been on this cycle of of sectarianism (it is sectarianism because both cults are Judeo theist constructs) since Mehmet II expoused war against the infidel as sport , not to minimise christianity's attitude that knocking off heathens was sport as far as Gregory III was concerned.

But here we are in the 21st century with the technology to feed the starving, to cure most ills we are better equipt than any god. We have found our roots in the oceans and we can literally watch the beginning of the universe. We have moved heaven out of the mountains of Africa to the sky and then blew it out of existence. We turned the world from flat to round and hell has desovled into an iron core. We have extinct the soul and found the pulse that makes our very thoughts. Meanwhile we live in our own garbage and we are killing off polar bears and we have to put an effort a thousand times greater to fix our environment than we did the last time we fought fascists.

On February 28th Irfan Yusuf posted the following:
"Western Christians have for more than 2,000 years been programmed to hate Jews. Today, many of those Christians have transferred their hatred from Jews to Muslims. Usually, the reasons for the hatred are exactly the same.

The words of people like coach or B_D are frequently mirror-images of Nazi-style anti-Semitic propaganda. As I read more and more about the Holocaust, I am convinced that the things said about Muslims today are almost exactly what has been said about Jews for some 2,000 years."

Today's Sydney Morning Herald has a small note about Kristallnacht (Page 2). It states the following:
"After a Polish Jew shot a Nazi diplomat in Paris in late 1938, a savage assault was unleashed on the Jews of Germany.

About 100 people were killed on the nights of November 9 and 10, nearly every synagogue in the nation was damaged or destroyed and about 30,000 Jewish men were taken to concentration camps.

The slang name Kristallnacht - roughly, the night of broken glass - came from the shattered shop windows that littered the streets of every German town and city."

Irfan, if there are so many parallels between the treatment of Jews by the Nazis in the 1930s and the treatment of Muslims by the West today, why weren't all of the mosques of America damaged or destroyed in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001 and many hundreds of American Muslims slain at the same time?

Perhaps because Islamic victimhood is just a vocal charade?

Betty - I asked you to come up with just one instance of Irfan being nasty - the only instance you can come up with, is the one I have repeatedly pointed out was sarcastic.
Either refute that it was sarcastic, accept you were wrong, or come up with another example of this supposed nastiness you allude to.
As it stands, all you are doing is repeating a post that quite clearly, was displaying the hypocrisy of people who fear middle easterners, but worship jesus. It was not accusing jesus, mary or joseph of being nasty.

Perhaps you just glanced over the post. Perhaps you were incapable of registering the clear sarcasm. I don't know or care, but your obstinate refusal to examine the flaws in your own argument is a little pathetic.
The jesus, mary and joseph comment was sarcastic. If this is what you are hinging your argument on, it is utterly baseless. You also appear unable to come up with any examples which actually support your claims, using only this one, which is quite clearly wrong.

My source for the greed post?:

Betty: "cheering, never has a thread been so popular but no further cutting of comments. Why? Visitor numbers, the $."

Never mind that it's a non profit organisation. Never mind that the posts may have been cut to prevent abusive posts in favour of intelligent debate.

You also say it is to support particular points of view - the large number of posters with right and left wing views who would defend the selection of materials on the site should be sufficient to prove this baseless. Or even a cursory inspection of past articles.
Again, you have nothing to back this up.

Cont'd