Monday, August 27, 2007

Ayoon Wa Azan (The Onus of Proof is On the Accuser)

Jihad el-Khazen Al-Hayat - 25/08/07

Before I start discussing today's subject, I should note that I do not
know Khaled Salem Bin Mahfouz, nor have I seen him in my life, nor did I
contact him or he contacted me. I also need to say that Al-Qaeda is a
terrorist and criminal organization, and all its members or supporters,
the verbal or financial ones, are partners in the terrorism it perpetrates.

Making this introduction is essential before I deal with a subject I
have been following up for over two years. It has to do with the
litigation involving Mr Bin Mahfouz, the former CEO of the Saudi
National Commercial Bank, and Rachel Ehrenfeld because of her vile book
Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop it that was
published in 2003. In this book the prominent Saudi banker is accused of
being a party to funding terrorism.

The reader may have noticed my description of Ehrenfeld's book as a vile
one. This is my opinion and I am free to hold it. Incidentally, I hold
the same low opinion on the Israeli government, army, settlers,
extremists, and those vindicating Israel's crimes, thus seeming like
partners in them.

Mr Bin Mahfouz filed a slander lawsuit against Ehrenfeld in Britain and
he won it, while she replied with a lawsuit in the United States under
the guise of the first amendment to the American constitution in whose
name evil's agents have committed crimes, the same way crimes were
committed in the name of freedom during the French Revolution. The first
amendment is part of the American Bill of Rights. It secures the freedom
of the press, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of peaceful
assembly. It also deals with the freedom of religion and the protection
against imposed religion, but what matters for us here is the freedom
of speech.

Ehrenfeld expects the American court to overrule the British decision. A
rightist website published a long report on her case, and upon reading
the report I stopped at the following statement made by her: 'In the
United States, he (ie Bin Mahfouz) does not have a case. As for England,
all you have to do is file a lawsuit. Then the suspected has to prove
that what he wrote is true and does not involve evil intention.'

What is wrong with this? The principle The Onus of Proof is On the
Accuser' is at the basis of each divine or positive law, including the
concerned laws all over the west.

The first amendment to the American constitution secures the freedom of
speech and not the freedom of lying. Mr Bin Mahfouz won his case in
England and he also won another case against the Cambridge Publishing
House and the book Alms for Jihad which is written by two American
professors, as Ehrenfeld did not submit documents proving that the man
financed terrorism as she alleges. Had she done so, the British court
would have convicted him. We are all against terrorism, but Israel's
supporters use it as a springboard to do harm to the Arabs and Muslims,
intimidate the opposition, and divert the attention from Israel's daily
crimes against the Palestinians.

Facing Khaled Bin Mahfouz whom I do not know there is Rachel Ehrenfeld
who seems to be a Jewish American with Israeli inclinations and who
holds a Ph.D in criminology from the Faculty of Law at The Hebrew
University. She certainly did not study about Israel's violation of laws
and human values by imprisoning 11,0000 Palestinians, and by killing day
after day to the extent that even the Israeli B'Tselem center says that
the number of Palestinian victims who are below 15 years of age is
seven times more than that of the Israelis killed by all the Palestinian
factions. We say, 'Who testifies for the girl? Her mother, her aunt and
seven people from her quarter.' The party that testifies for Ehrenfeld
is the American Center for Democracy that I place in the rank of
extremism against the Arabs and Muslims and that I consider pro-Israeli.
Frontpage is a rightist pro-Israeli website and some of its writers are
from among the deadliest enemies of the Arabs and Muslims. Daniel Pipes,
for instance, runs surveillance groups that watch Islamists and the
university campus. The website published an article by another Jewish
American named Lee Kaplan who stands by Ehrenfeld and the Weekly
Satandard, the mouthpiece of the neoconservatives.

The enemies of the Arabs and Muslims can fabricate lies as long as they
want, but they will not change the basis of the laws in question, which
simply means that the information has to be correct. As for a person's
opinion, it is a right enjoyed by its holder and making him accountable
for it is not permissible.

In my opinion, the Israeli government is a terrorist and so are the
Israeli army and the Mossad. Had I said that Ehrenfeld had received
money in return for publishing her book, it would have been my duty to
prove the accusation with an indicator or with evidence. Therefore, I
can not say this, but I rather say that the book is vile since this is
my personal opinion on it. Today, a full-time researcher can collect an
encyclopedia of publications that tackle the issue of funding terrorism
and the means to prevent it. This is a very important issue and all
parties must back every effort expended by the international community
with the aim of cutting off financial support offered to terrorists like
Al-Qaeda. But such efforts have become a pretext for Israel's supporters
who are talking about a real terrorism and another fabricated one with
the single objective of diverting attention from Israel's terrorism and
the financial, military, and political support it receives from the
United States and that enables it to persist in committing crimes.

The most serious threat is that Al-Qaeda first built its propaganda on a
lie according to which a war is waged on Muslims, and the extremists on
the other side of the spectrum are now convincing average people of the
plausibility of this lie. It is the duty of all of us to expose all the
extremists and to renounce them.


http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com/

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