What The "Two State Solution" Has to Do with the Rise of Islamic Extremism: Zero - Khaled Abu Toameh

by Khaled Abu Toameh

The "Arab Spring" did not erupt as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, it was the outcome of decades of tyranny and corruption in the Arab world. The Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans and Yemenis who removed their dictators from power did not do so because of the lack of a "two-state solution." This is the last thing they had in mind.
The thousands of Muslims who are volunteering to join the Islamic State [IS] are not doing so because they are frustrated with the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
The only solution the Islamic State believes in is a Sunni Islamic Caliphate where the surviving non-Muslims who are not massacred would be subject to sharia law.
What Kerry perhaps does not know is that the Islamic State is not interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all. Unlike Kerry, Sunni scholars fully understand that the Islamic State has more to do with Islam and terrorism than with any other conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's claim that the lack of a "two-state solution" has fueled the rise of the Islamic State [IS] terrorist group reinforces how clueless the U.S. Administration is about what is happening in the Arab and Islamic countries.

Speaking at a State Department ceremony marking the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Kerry said that the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians was vital in the fight against Islamic extremism, including Islamic State.

'Forget ISIS... let's talk more about a Palestinian state.' Above, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry greets U.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities Shaarik Zafar during an Eid al-Adha reception on Oct. 16, 2014 at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. (Image source: State Dept.)

"There wasn't a leader I met with in the region who didn't raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation," Kerry said. "People need to understand the connection of that. And it has something to do with the humiliation and denial and absence of dignity."

The U.S. State Department later denied that Kerry had made the statement attributed to him.

Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters that Kerry's comments were distorted for political gains; she pointed a finger at Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett.

"What [Kerry] said was that during his travels to build a coalition against the Islamic State, he was told that should the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be resolved, the Middle East would be a better place," Harf explained.

The Islamic State is one of the by-products of the "Arab Spring," which began as a secular revolt against Arab dictatorships and degenerated into anarchy, lawlessness, terrorism and massacres that have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims.

The "Arab Spring" did not erupt as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, it was the natural and inevitable outcome of decades of tyranny and corruption in the Arab world.

The Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans and Yemenis who removed their dictators from power did not do so because of the lack of a "two-state solution."

Nor did the Arabs revolt because of the failure of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. This is the last thing these Arabs had in mind when they took to the streets to protest against decades of dictatorship and bad government.

It is this "Arab Spring," and not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt. And it is the same "Arab Spring" that saw the emergence of Islamic terror groups such as the Al-Nusra Front, the Islamic Front, the Army of Mujahedeen, Jund al-Sham and, most recently, the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

The rise of the Islamic State is a direct result of the anarchy and extremism that have been sweeping the Arab and Islamic countries over the past few years.

The thousands of Muslims who are volunteering to join Islamic State are not doing so because they are frustrated with the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. They are not knocking on the Islamic State's doors because they are disappointed that the two-state solution has not materialized.

Kerry is anyway naïve to think that the jihadis believe in something called a "two-state" solution. The only solution the Islamic State believes in is the one that would lead to the establishment of a radical Sunni Islamic Caliphate across the Middle East where the surviving non-Muslims who are not massacred would be subject to sharia law.

Not only is the Islamic State opposed to the "two-state solution," it is also opposed to the existence of both Israel and a Palestinian state. Under the new Islamic Caliphate, there is no room for Israel or Palestine or any of the Arab and Islamic countries.

Had Kerry studied the goals and ideology of the Islamic State, he would have discovered that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not even at the top of the group's list of priorities.

In fact, the "liberation of Bait al-Maqdis" [Jerusalem] is ranked sixth among Islamic State's objectives.

The group's first goal envisages stirring chaos in the Arab and Islamic countries.

Second, the group will move on to what it calls "management of savagery" in these countries.

Third, Islamic State will embark on the process of establishing an Islamic Caliphate.

Fourth, it will proceed with "liberating neighboring countries and expanding the size of the Islamic Caliphate.

Fifth, the group will start the process of "liberating the Islamic countries," including Bait al-Maqdis.

Obviously, Kerry must have missed the speech delivered by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last July.

Al-Baghdadi did not talk about the "two-state solution." Nor did he call on Muslims to join his group because of the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Instead, al-Baghdadi told his followers that, "Allah likes us to kill his enemies, and make jihad for his sake. O Allah, give Islam victory over the disbelief and the disbelievers, and give victory to the mujahideen, in the East of this earth and its West."

What Kerry perhaps does not know is that the Islamic State is not interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all. The terrorist group did not even bother to comment on the last military confrontation between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The failure of the Islamic State to express solidarity with the Palestinians or Hamas during the war drew strong condemnations from some of the Arab world's leading columnists.

"What is shocking and strange is that the Islamic State and other terrorist groups that claim to speak on behalf of Islam did not make a single move as Israeli planes were shelling civilians inside the Gaza Strip," remarked Egyptian columnist Jamil al-Afifi. "Nor did any of their wise men come out to condemn the ruthless killings (in the Gaza Strip).

Kerry did not reveal the identity of the "leaders" who told him that the absence of peace between Israel and the Palestinians was a "cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation" in the Arab and Islamic countries.

What is clear, however, is that Sunni scholars do not seem to share Kerry's assessment.
Last month, over 120 Sunni scholars issued an open letter denouncing the Islamic State and its religious arguments. "You have misinterpreted Islam into a religion of harshness, brutality, torture and murder," the letter said. "This is a great wrong and an offence to Islam, to Muslims and to the entire world."

Needless to say, the scholars did not mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a cause for the rise of Islamic State.

That is because unlike Kerry, the Sunni scholars know that the Islamic State is completely unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And unlike Kerry, the Muslim scholars fully understand that Islamic State has more to do with Islam and terrorism than with any other conflict.


Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4801/two-state-solution-isis

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Janet Yellen Shills for the Democrats - Bruce Thornton

by Bruce Thornton

At a conference last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen recycled a shopworn Democrat talking point about the supposed crisis of income inequality and stalled economic mobility. “The extent and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concerns me,” Yellen said, going on to wonder “whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history,” especially “equality of opportunity.”

Like the mythic “war on women,” this progressive sound bite is misleading and duplicitous, based on statistical sleight of hand. Worse yet, it is a pretext for more and more government expansion and intrusion into the economy, and for more and more redistribution of income through entitlement programs. It makes one wonder what one of the most powerful government officials impacting the economy, supposedly a politically neutral technocrat, is doing recycling Democratic campaign slogans.

The “income inequality” claim depends on ignoring numerous data that contradict it. For one thing, it glosses over the mobility among the 5 income cohorts over time, assuming that the same people are rich or poor year after year. But as Stephen Moore and James Pierson point out, “In America they [the rich] don’t generally stay rich for long. A few years ago the Department of Treasury examined what happens to the wealth of families across several generations. Guess what: the poor got richer and the rich got poorer. The incomes of poor households rose 80 percent from 1987 to 1996 and then more than doubled from 1996 to 2005. The richer people were at the start of this period, the more income losses they suffered in subsequent years.”

The Treasury study indeed confirms this mobility, finding that between 1996 and 2005 over half of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile. Half of taxpayers in the bottom quintile in 1996 moved to a higher income group in 2005. Meanwhile, only 25% of the richest 1/100 of 1% in 1996 were still that rich in 2005. This mobility has indeed stalled, but not for “several decades,” as Yellen claimed, and not because of the sinister machinations of the wealthy. Its cause rather is the sluggish economic growth after the recession ended 5 years ago, and the blame for that in large part falls on Obama and the Democrats’ regulatory overreach, trillion-dollar deficits, “you didn’t build that” anti-business rhetoric, and redistributionist economic policies. Get the feds out of the way of the economy so it can grow, and we will see income growth and mobility again.

The “income inequality” meme ignores other facts as well. It focuses only on “money income,” neglecting the value of government transfers like Medicaid, Electronic Benefit Transfer cards (formerly known as food stamps and welfare checks), emergency-room health care, Section 8 housing subsidies, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, all of which boost the buying power of the statistical poor and lower middle class. For the middle class, “money income” ignores the value of employer-provided fringe benefits such as health care. As for the rich, “money income” ignores the highly progressive taxes they pay to fund those government programs. As Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution writes, “To disregard the impact of transfers and progressive taxation on the distribution of income and family well-being is to ignore America’s most expensive efforts to lessen the gap between the nation’s rich, middle class, and poor.”

Finally, consumption––how much people spend–– is more revealing than “money income” as a measurement of economic wellbeing. In fact, consumption rates of the lowest income quintile have increased over the years, reaching nearly twice of income in 2005. As a result, Kip Hagopian and Lee Ohanian write, “A family claiming $22,300 in income in 2005 would have reported about $44,000 in expenditures in that year. As noted earlier, the gap between reported income and consumption is filled by various categories of government transfer payments (including Medicaid, food stamps, subsidized housing, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, etc.), family savings, imputed income from owner-occupied housing, barter, support from family and friends, and income from the underground economy.” Indeed, if one takes into account consumption, the statistical poor enjoy living standards higher than the average European. The obsession on “money income” ignores how well all Americans live.

Yellen’s second claim, that income inequality contradicts “values rooted in our nation’s history” like “equality of opportunity,” is equally muddled. If we look at the political order of the Constitution––our most important “national values”–– income inequality was taken for granted, a reflection of an unchanging and flawed human nature. In his famous comments on “factions” in Federalist 10, James Madison wrote, “As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government [emphasis added]. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.” Hence “the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.” Income inequality is a fact of life, not a failure of government or the economy.

Indeed, the clashing interests of those with property and those without, and the political discord they create, were continually on the minds of the delegates to the Constitutional convention. New Yorker Gouverneur Morris, arguing for an appointed rather than a popularly elected Senate, frankly said, “The Rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will. The proper security against them is to form them into a separate interest. The two forces will then control each other . . . By thus combining and setting apart, the aristocratic interest, the popular interest will be combined against it. There will be a mutual check and mutual security.”

Thus the “mixed government” of the Constitution was designed not to eliminate property inequality, which is rooted in the differences of talent, hard work, virtue, and luck among people. Rather, it was created to prevent any faction, whether the rich or the poor, from taking control of the government in order to aggrandize its own power and serve its own interests at the expense of others’. Only that way can the freedom, property, and opportunity of all be kept safe.

Our “national values,” then, are for equality of opportunity, not equality of result. Yellen pays lip service to the former, yet that sentiment contradicts the whole complaint about income inequality, which is about result, not opportunity. Like most progressives, Yellen is really concerned with equality of result, something the Founders abhorred, for a tyrannical government always promises the masses equality of result, in the form of a redistribution of property, in order to secure the support of the people for centralizing and increasing government power and limiting personal freedom. But equality of result, as the sorry and bloody history of communism shows, is contrary to the reality of human nature and the unequal distribution of talent and character. As Plato wrote, it is “numerical” equality rather than “proportionate equality,” which takes into account the differences of character and virtue that exist among people, and “assigns in proportion what is fitting to each. Indeed, it is precisely this which constitutes for us political justice.”

America’s “national values” have traditionally included equality of opportunity, not equality of result. People should be free to rise to whatever levels their differing talents and virtues can take them. Differences of wealth over time and over large populations reflect those differences more than any unjust manipulation of the economy by the rich. Moreover, in a dynamic, free-market economy, the success of the well off improves the well being of the rest, whether by creating jobs or paying the trillions of dollars in taxes that fund the redistributive programs that have allowed millions of American to enjoy a material existence only dreamed of by most of the human race.

We still have equality of opportunity, whether measured by the millions of ordinary people who create and run businesses big and small, or the 11 million illegal aliens who didn’t risk their lives coming to America because it lacks economic opportunity. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve has no business indulging a progressive canard that exploits envy and resentment for electoral gain.

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/janet-yellen-shills-for-the-democrats/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Cold Turkey - Michael Curtis

by Michael Curtis

College students should be able to answer some simple questions. Which country in the Middle East has been declared guilty of “ethnic cleansing?” Which country in the area has prevented the return of refugees to their homes and former properties? Which country has flouted Article 49 of the 4^th Geneva Convention of August 1949 that prohibits an occupying power from deporting or transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies? Which country is responsible for a unilateral declaration of independence?  Contrary to what they may hear from their professors, the correct answer is that all these things are performed by Turkey.

Turkey is not the flavor of the month. To say that Turkey is a disappointment in the fight against Islamist terrorism is to state, even understate, a truism. Turkey is a member of NATO, the only Muslim member of the organization, and President Barack Obama still regards it as a regional ally, and as a symbol of Islamic moderation and liberalism.  However, in view of its behavior in recent years, no one can view it as a helpful partner to the US and the other countries prepared to counter Islamic terrorism. In 2003, before the Second Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq against Saddam Hussein, Turkey refused to allow the US to use its bases in the country.  It is still refusing to support the US led coalition to deal with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and again has prevented US reconnaissance and bombing sorties over Syria from the US air base at Incirlik.

To this unhelpful and uncooperative policy has been added even more negative behavior, the direct and indirect help given by Turkey to terrorist groups, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Islamic State, and other terrorist groups.  Turkey provided logistical support and sheltered Hamas operatives. It helped the Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. It helped the Islamic State (IS) by allowing arms, material, and personnel to pass through Turkish territory, and through black market transactions with Iran it enables IS to sell the oil from the 10 oil fields and refineries it has seized.  By these sales IS gains about $2 million a day. Erdogan denies this relationship with Iran, which is continuing, thus violating the policy of sanctions against that state.

All this is familiar and distressing. Equally well known and deplorable is the refusal of Turkish President Recep Yayyip Erdogan to allow the considerable Kurdish minority some form of autonomy or self-determination in Turkey.  He views and executes the fight by military attacks and fighter jets against Kurdish groups, especially the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that he regards as a terrorist group, as more important than the fight against the Islamic State.   Erdogan has even refused to allow US arms transfers to go to the Kurds who are really fighting the main threat to the world, the Islamic State.

What is less familiar or ignored is that Turkey is guilty of crimes as defined by international law because of its occupying of territory and encouraging settlements in a country to which it has no rightful claim. President Erdogan has been all too ready to criticize the State of Israel for occupation, its settlements, and its actions.  Sometimes this criticism is expressed mildly but more often it is in excessive and belligerent language. In May 2010 he accused Israel of “state terrorism” for preventing the flotilla organized from Turkey from sailing into Gaza.  He remarked of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in July 2014 that it was “worse than Nazi genocide…and (Israeli) barbarism has surpassed even Hitler’s.”

Erdogan’s rhetoric suggests may be a believer in “Jewish world conspiracy or Jewish power,” and even in the blood libel, ritual murder accusations of Jews killing Christians for their blood to make matzos for Passover. Either consciously or unconsciously, this kind of rhetoric echoes antisemitism. He asserted that Israel was behind the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt who was removed from power in July 2013 by Field Marshal el-Sisi. Erdogan also called on the world to stop Israel’s desire for genocide because its lust for blood would not end

Erdogan is eager to call on the world for action concerning Israel, but when the “world” speaks about his own misdeeds or those of his country he ignores it. He refuses to acknowledge the opposition of the world to Turkey’s illegal occupation of part of the island of Cyprus. The issue is a simple one. Cyprus, which had been under British administration since 1878 and had been a British Crown Colony since 1925, became an independent country, the Republic of Cyprus, in 1960, according to a Treaty of Guarantee signed by Britain, Greece, and Turkey. However, hostilities between Greek and Turkish Cypriots began in 1963. A UN force, the Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), was set up in March 1964 to help restore normal conditions following this violence. Fifty years later UNFICYP is still there, now under the leadership of a woman general from Norway, trying to maintain stability in the area.

On July 20, 1974, 30,000 Turkish troops invaded the island, and they seized and held about a third of it.  In what can be seen as Turkish ethnic cleansing, more than 180,000 Greek Cypriots were evicted from their homes in the north of the island, while 50,000 Turkish Cypriots moved to areas under the control of the Turkish forces.  Contrary to the Geneva and other international Conventions, Turkey has transferred some of its own population into the area.

On November 15, 1983 Turkish Cypriot authorities unilaterally declared the establishment of an independent state, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). The United Nations Security Council immediately considered this declaration legally invalid and called for its withdrawal. The European Union also condemned this unilateral declaration of independence. Nevertheless, Turkey has ignored this “call on the world for action,” even though no country except Turkey has recognized the legitimacy of the TRNC state.

Those concerned with Middle East issues should not be oblivious, as many have been, to the improper nature and significance of Turkish behavior in Cyprus, the illegal occupation of part of a country, the establishment of Turkish settlements in the area, the continuing presence of Turkish troops, and even the imposition of a Green Line that separates the two political entities in Cyprus. For some years the UN Security Council has been passing resolutions about this situation, the most recent one being Resolution UNSC Res. 2135 of January 30, 2014, commenting on the degree of stability along the Green Line.

But Turkey has not only defied the UN regarding its illegal occupation and settlement policies. It has blatantly denied political reality and threatened hostilities against the legitimate Republic of Cyprus. On October 13, 2014, President Erdogan reprimanded a Greek Cypriot member of the European Parliament who referred to Turkish troops in North Cyprus as “invaders.” He also refused to listen to proposals for withdrawal of Turkish troops.  When the EU admitted Cyprus as a member, Erdogan commented that it should have been admitted as “southern Cyprus….there was no country named Cyprus.” In fact the whole island had been admitted as a member, but EU common rights and obligations refer only to the part under the internationally recognized government, the Republic of Cyprus. In January 2014 Turkey refused to implement fully the customs agreement with the EU because it would include Cyprus.

Erdogan, an authoritarian and belligerent ruler, who has been accused of corruption and of undermining the independence of the judiciary, had already in September 2011 threatened to attack the Republic of Cyprus if it allowed the US based Noble Energy Company to drill for gas in the large Leviathan natural gas field that Israel is exploring. The international community, to which Erdogan so often appeals regarding the actions of Israel, should now condemn Turkey for its displacement of persons, ethnic cleansing, deprivation of the rights of individuals, and racist and ethnic discrimination against minorities that are not Muslim or Sunnis.

Michael Curtis

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/10/cold_turkey.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Obama looking to go around Congress on Iran nuclear deal? - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

The New York Times is reporting that if the US and Iran strike a deal on Iran's nuclear program, the president will do "everything in his power" to avoid allowing Congress to vote on it.

Even while negotiators argue over the number of centrifuges Iran would be allowed to spin and where inspectors could roam, the Iranians have signaled that they would accept, at least temporarily, a “suspension” of the stringent sanctions that have drastically cut their oil revenues and terminated their banking relationships with the West, according to American and Iranian officials. The Treasury Department, in a detailed study it declined to make public, has concluded Mr. Obama has the authority to suspend the vast majority of those sanctions without seeking a vote by Congress, officials say.

But Mr. Obama cannot permanently terminate those sanctions. Only Congress can take that step. And even if Democrats held on to the Senate next month, Mr. Obama’s advisers have concluded they would probably lose such a vote.

“We wouldn’t seek congressional legislation in any comprehensive agreement for years,” one senior official said.

White House officials say Congress should not be surprised by this plan. They point to testimony earlier this year when top negotiators argued that the best way to assure that Iran complies with its obligations is a step-by-step suspension of sanctions — with the implicit understanding that the president could turn them back on as fast as he turned them off.

“We have been clear that initially there would be suspension of any of the U.S. and international sanctions regime, and that the lifting of sanctions will only come when the I.A.E.A. verifies that Iran has met serious and substantive benchmarks,” Bernadette Meehan, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said Friday, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “We must be confident that Iran’s compliance is real and sustainable over a period of time.”

But many members of Congress see the plan as an effort by the administration to freeze them out, a view shared by some Israeli officials who see a congressional vote as the best way to constrain the kind of deal that Mr. Obama might strike.

Ms. Meehan says there “is a role for Congress in our Iran policy,” but members of Congress want a role larger than consultation and advice. An agreement between Iran and the countries it is negotiating with — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — would not be a formal treaty, and thus would not require a two-thirds vote of the Senate.

To the president, it's all a matter of semantics. "Treaty" or "agreement"? Or, perhaps, "understanding"? In the language of diplomats, each word has a specific meaning. The bottom line is that the US would be obligated to fulfill its responsibilities as a result of an accord with a sovereign nation. Call it what you will, Congress should have its say in the matter.

But an attempt to circumvent the Senate would have nothing to do with semantics. The president is negotiating with an enemy sworn to destroy us and has already abandoned long standing US policy by talking with Tehran while the regime continiues to enrich uranium. A clear majority in Congress have expressed the belief that Iran cannot be trusted and that any deal would be meaningless. So rather than bow to the will of the people, the president has decided that making history is more important than the democratic process and Constitutional requirements. 

No one believes that once sanctions are lifted that they can be reimposed. To do so would mean Obama admitting he made a mistake. That's not going to happen. So Iran will almost certainly get the bomb, have sanctions lifted, and proceed to play the role of regional hegemon while setting off a nuclear arms race.

Yes...but the president made history.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/10/report_obama_looking_to_go_around_congress_on_iran_nuclear_deal.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Islamic State and Islam - Raymond Ibrahim

by Raymond Ibrahim


Originally published by PJ Media.
 
What relationship does the Islamic State have to Islam?

“Absolutely nothing” is the answer almost every Western politician gives.   For example, U.S. President Obama adamantly stated in a televised speech that the Islamic State “is not Islamic.”

This begs the question: How does one determine what is—and is not—Islamic?

The traditional answer, the Islamic answer, has been as follows:

What do the core texts and scriptures of Islam say about the thing in question, call it “X”? Does the Koran, believed by Muslims to contain the literal commands of Allah, call for or justify X? Do the hadith and sira texts—which purport to record the sayings and deeds of Allah’s prophet, whom the Koran (e.g., 33:21) exhorts Muslims to emulate in all ways—call for or justify X?

If any ambiguity still remains concerning X, the next question becomes: what is the consensus (ijma‘) of the Islamic world’s leading authorities concerning X?   Here one must often turn to the tafsirs, or exegeses of Islam’s most learned men—the ulema—and consider their conclusions.  Muhammad himself reportedly said that “My umma [Islamic nation] will never be in agreement over an error.”

For example, the Koran commands believers to uphold prayers; accordingly, all are agreed that Muslims need to pray. Yet the Koran does not specify how many times. In the hadith and sira, however, Muhammad makes clear believers should pray five times. And the ulema, having considered all these texts, are agreed that Muslims are to pray five times a day.

Thus, it is most certainly Islamic for Muslims to pray five times a day.

But while both Western politicians and Islamic apologists readily accept such methodology to determining what is Islamic—prayer is in the Koran, Muhammad clarified its implementation in the hadith, and the ulema are agreed to it—whenever the thing in question deals with anything that makes Islam “look bad,” then the aforementioned standard approach to ascertaining what is Islamic is wholly ignored.

Let us consider some of the most extreme acts committed by the Islamic State—beheadings, crucifixions, enslavements, sexual predations, massacres, and the persecution of religious minorities—and put them to the test, see if they fill the same criteria, see if they are Islamic or not, especially in the context of jihad, which has its own set of rules.

Beheadings

The Islamic State beheads “infidels,” including women and children. This aspect of the Islamic State has provoked horror around the world.

Is it Islamic?

The Koran calls for the beheading of Islam’s enemies, especially in the context of war, or jihad: “When you encounter infidels on the battlefield, strike off their heads until you have crushed them completely” (47:4). Another verse states: “I will cast terror into the hearts of infidels—so strike off their heads and strike off all of their fingertips [i.e., mutilate them]” (8:12).

As for the other criteria—the example or Sunna of the prophet and the consensus of the umma—Timothy Furnish, author of the 2005 essay, “Beheading in the Name of Islam,” writes:

The practice of beheading non-Muslim captives extends back to the Prophet himself. Ibn Ishaq (d. 768 C.E.), the earliest biographer of Muhammad, is recorded as saying that the Prophet ordered the execution by decapitation of 700 men of the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe in Medina for allegedly plotting against him.  Islamic leaders from Muhammad’s time until today have followed his model. Examples of decapitation, of both the living and the dead, in Islamic history are myriad…. For centuries, leading Islamic scholars have interpreted this verse [decapitation verse, 47:4] literally…. Many recent interpretations remain consistent with those of a millennium ago.

Crucifixions

As for crucifying people, which the Islamic State has been doing regularly, Koran 5:33 asserts that “the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land.”

Accordingly, crucifixions are common throughout Islamic history.  After Islam’s prophet died in 632, many Arabs were accused of apostasy. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, launched a jihad campaign on them, and many “apostates” were crucified as an example to the rest.  In the book Witnesses For Christ: Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437-1860,  crucifixion is listed as one of the many forms thousands of Christians were executed by the Muslim Turks.

More dramatically, in her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora 
Mardiganian described how in the early twentieth century she saw 16 girls crucified, vultures eating their corpses: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands,” wrote the Armenian survivor. “Only their hair blown by the wind covered their bodies.”

More recently, people (including children) have been crucified by self-proclaimed jihadis in the name of Islam in countries as diverse as the Ivory Coast and Yemen.

Slavery and Rape

What of slavery—especially the enslavement of non-Muslim women for sexual purposes—which the Islamic State has been engaged in?

Again, from the highest scriptural authority in Islam—the Koran—to the greatest role model for Muslims—Muhammad; from Islamic history to current events, the sexual enslavement of “infidel” women is a canonical aspect of Islamic civilization.

Koran 4:3 permits men to have sex with “what your right hands possess,” a term categorically defined by the ulema as “infidel” women captured during the jihad.

The prophet of Islam himself kept and copulated with concubines conquered during the jihad.   One captured Jewish woman, Safiya bint Huyay, was “married” to Muhammad right after the prophet had tortured her husband to death to reveal hidden treasure.

And before this, Muhammad’s jihadis had slaughtered Safiya’s father and brothers.

Unsurprisingly, she later confessed that “Of all men, I hated the prophet the most—for he killed my husband, my brother, and my father,” right before marrying (or, less euphemistically, raping) her.

Khalid bin Walid—the “Sword of Allah” and hero for aspiring jihadis around the world—raped another woman renowned for her beauty, Layla, on the battlefield—right after he severed her “apostate” husband’s head, lit it on fire, and cooked his dinner on it.

Massacres 

What of wide-scale massacres? In this video, for example, the Islamic State appears herding, humiliating, and marching off hundreds of male hostages (the number often given is 1,400) to their trenches, where Islamic State members proceed to shoot them in the head—all while the black flag of Islam waves.

In fact, the prophet himself ordered merciless massacres of “infidels.” After the battle of Badr, where Muhammad and the first Muslims prevailed over their enemies, Muhammad ordered the execution of a number of hostages. When one of the hostages, ‘Uqba, implored the prophet to spare him, saying “But who will look after my children, O Muhammad?” the latter responded, “Hell.”

More famously, Muhammad ordered the execution of approximately 700 Jewish men from the Banu Qurayza tribe. According to the sira account, after the Jewish tribe surrendered to his siege, Muhammad had all the men marched off to where ditches were dug and promptly executed by beheading—just like the Islamic State marched off and executed its victims near trenches in the video.

Dhimmitude

The Islamic State is even responsible for resurrecting a distinctly Islamic institution that was banned in the 19^th century thanks to the intervention of colonial powers: “dhimmitude,” that is, exacting tribute (jizya) from conquered Christians and Jews and subjecting them to live as third-class citizens who must embrace a host of debilitating and humiliating measures, including not to build or repair churches, not to ring church bells or worship loudly, not to display crosses, not to bury their dead near Muslims, etc.

These measures are also derived from the core texts of Islam. Koran 9:29 calls on Muslims to fight the “People of the Book” (interpreted as Christians and Jews) “until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” And the Conditions of Omar—named after one of the “righteous caliphs”—explains how they are to “feel themselves subdued,” that is, the exact way the Islamic State decreed.

Past and present ulema are confirmed that Koran 9:29 and the Conditions of Omar mean what they plainly say. Thus, according to Saudi Sheikh Marzouk Salem al-Ghamdi speaking during a Friday mosque sermon:

If the infidels live among the Muslims, in accordance with the conditions set out by the Prophet—there is nothing wrong with it provided they pay Jizya to the Islamic treasury. Other conditions [reference to Conditions of Omar] are … that they do not renovate a church or a monastery, do not rebuild ones that were destroyed … that they rise when a Muslim wishes to sit… do not show the cross, do not ring church bells, do not raise their voices during prayer ….  If they violate these conditions, they have no protection.
—–
Based on the above exposition, it is false to say, as President Obama does, that the Islamic State “is not Islamic.” Indeed, even in the most savage of details—including triumphing over the mutilated corpses of “infidels” and laughing while posing with their decapitated heads—the Islamic State finds support in the Koran and stories of the prophet.

It is dishonest to accept the methodology of Islamic jurisprudence—is X part of the Koran, hadith, sira, and does it have consensus among the ulema?—but then to reject this same methodology whenever X is something that makes Islam look “bad.”

In the context of jihad, all that the Islamic State is doing—beheadings, crucifixions, massacres, sexual enslavements, and the subjugation of religious minorities—is Islamic.


Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a CBN News contributor. He is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007).  

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/the-islamic-state-and-islam/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

When the Terrorists Become “Activists” - Salman Aldossary

by Salman Aldossary


Saudi Arabia has issued a death sentence for a Saudi Shi’ite religious figure, Nimr Al-Nimr. The charges that have been proven against him are numerous and quite varied. The most prominent among them include using armed violence against the state and leading efforts to incite and support terrorists who have murdered civilians and security personnel and set fire to public property, not to mention his publicly boasting of his links with Iran and calling for the fragmentation of Saudi Arabia and for the establishment of the velayat-e faqih (rule by a supreme Islamic jurist) in “his country.”

What really stands out here, however, is the way international human rights groups and media outlets have dealt with the sentence, labeling Nimr an “opposition” figure and not a terrorist, despite his committing acts that are illegal in every country in the world. 

I am fully aware that the issue of religious minorities in Arab countries is very much a tune the West likes to whistle, and there is a widespread belief—some aspects of it true, others false—that these minorities currently suffer from persecution and discrimination in their countries. This belief, however, is based on emotion, not fact. It holds that anything these minorities do falls under the umbrella of “human rights,” while everything done to them constitutes an infringement of their basic rights as citizens. Unfortunately, there are those who belong to these minorities who exploit this, in effect harming their own countries. 

Maybe if this sentence was carried out on a non-Shi’ite it would have been considered a mere judicial one, but in Nimr’s case it has been considered by some to be political, the idea here being to transform Nimr into an “opposition figure” being hunted down by the state. But the very same court issued a very similar sentence against Al-Qaeda’s official ideologue. How can one of these men be a terrorist and the other an “opposition figure” if their crimes are virtually identical? The truth is there is only one difference between the terrorists of Al-Qaeda and those from Nimr’s hometown, Al-Awamiyah: the former are Sunni and the latter Shi’ite. It is also a truth that Saudi Shi’ites have the same rights and responsibilities as all other Saudi citizens. 

Let’s leave aside Iran and its allies and helpers for a minute—that is, Lebanese Hezbollah, the Bahraini Al-Wefaq party, and the Houthis in Yemen—for they are part of a strategic Iranian project that is very much public knowledge now. What we are concerned with here are those organizations and media outlets who have failed to realize that Nimr, despite the proven crimes which he has committed, is not so much of a threat to the Saudi state that it has to make him the target of political persecution; after all, there are others in the Kingdom who raise their voices, attacking the state with their words, sometimes even overstepping their limits, but none of them face any legal measures whatsoever. As for that broken record of “freedoms and human rights”—the perennial lifeline of transgressors of the law—the whole world understands this game now, and it has become hackneyed and boring; not even Western governments fall for it anymore. Perhaps to illustrate this point, I can turn to part of the actual sentence itself, where it says that Nimr had “gone beyond merely expressing an opinion, which the convicted [Nimr] did for years without facing any [legal] response.” In other words, the issue here is not one “opinions” or “freedom of expression” as is being reported. 

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said recently that those British citizens who had declared allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) should be considered “traitors” and tried for “high treason”—a charge which carries a life sentence. Notice here how this punishment is meted out on those who merely declare their allegiance to ISIS. Well, what about those who also support, strengthen and defend terrorist organizations? Two days ago, those terrorists that Nimr incited to commit violent acts fired on a security patrol unit in Al-Awamiyah and blew up an oil pipeline there. Who knows, we may find some people calling them “activists,” the way Nimr has been labeled an opposition figure. 

The various phenomena which have emerged from what is known as the “Arab Spring” seem endless. The most prominent of these is that of the “colorless, tasteless” political activist. The role of the activist no longer possesses, as it did before, strict guidelines that allow us to differentiate between a true activist and a mere amateur (and self-styled) activist who takes upon himself a label without even possessing the bare minimum of credibility. For at the same time we are entering the twilight of this porcelain “phenomenon of the activist,” we now have to contend with another, more inane phenomenon, one which seeks to transform terrorists into opposition figures, defying laws, convention, and even logic.


Salman Aldossary is the editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

Source: http://www.aawsat.net/2014/10/article55337727

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Are you with us or against us? - Dr. Haim Shine

by Dr. Haim Shine

A burning bomb fuse links Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zoabi, the Al-Aqsa-inciting Islamic Movement northern chapter, the people who honored former MK Azmi Bishara (suspected of aiding an enemy of Israel during wartime), and the Israeli Arabs who are joining the Islamic State terrorist group. This is a dangerous fuse, and it is stretching Israel's democracy to its limits. 

President Reuven Rivlin is absolutely right when he observes that there is a growing wave of violence in Israel. Even if the president is exaggerating, the roots of the problem certainly require a close investigation; this is definitely not a fleeting ailment. In any case, tensions within a multi-racial society, as serious as they may be, cannot serve as an excuse for open displays of treason, incitement or cooperation with hostile group. We must not give the world reason to censure Israel in a way that could put the citizens of the state in serious existential peril. 

The State of Israel, which seeks life, cannot allow the Arab Spring and the fantasies of an Islamic caliphate to disrupt its fabric of life. This is a life-and-death situation. For years we have felt first-hand the serrated blade of violent anti-Zionist incitement all the way from Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini to Izzedine al-Qassam and their disciples. The war against Israel's domestic enemy, which is digging tunnels of hate at home, is far more insidious than the war against our external enemies. 

Most of Israel's Arab population is not part of this hostile anti-state activity. I very much doubt that any of them would be willing to trade their life in Israel for life in the Palestinian Authority or any Arab state for that matter. Anyone who has tasted the sweet taste of democracy would never be able to live under bitter dictatorship and oppression.

It is important to mention that in the modern era, the media shapes people's perceptions. The media chooses to highlight extreme, violent and horrifying events because these bring ratings. This reality lends itself to a situation where the silent majority is rarely represented and stops being relevant. The silence of the majority of the Arab public in Israel in the face of anti-Israel activity puts them in a very problematic place. 

Israel's Arab citizens need to wake up. They need to decide whether they support extremists, including those who represent the Arab population in the Knesset, or speak out against these extremists, who are essentially taking advantage of them. They need to shake off the cobwebs lest they find themselves trapped in this dangerous web, and the sooner the better. 

The rights of minorities in the State of Israel are anchored in our Declaration of Independence. For years, despite ongoing criticism (some of it justified), Israel's Supreme Court has gone to great lengths to ensure equality, as has the government of Israel when needed. But all these efforts will have been for naught if Israel's Arab citizens don't decide where their loyalties lie: Are you with us or against us?

Dr. Haim Shine

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=10287

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

PA, Hamas speak as one - Dr. Reuven Berko

by Dr. Reuven Berko

Anyone concerned with the question of the Palestinian factions' unity can rest at ease -- the Palestinian terrorist corporation comprising Hamas and the Palestinian Authority does indeed speak as one.

Hamas political office leader Khaled Mashaal on Friday urged any able-bodied Palestinian to defend the Al-Aqsa mosque, saying that given Israel's presence in the area, armed resistance embodies the true meaning of jihad. 

The very next day, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the "peace-seeking" terrorists making up the 14th session of the Fatah Revolutionary Council in Ramallah, and echoed Mashaal's statement, urging the heads of the Palestinian terrorists groups to "spare no effort" to keep Israeli "settlers" from visiting Al-Aqsa, which is, as he put it, "our mosque and our church. The Israelis have no right to enter it and defile it."

The bellicose phrase "spare no effort" came as no surprise from the Palestinian leader, who, in his recent speech at the United Nations, called on his people to "continue in their resistance against Israel according to the legacy of the fedayeen" -- the Palestinian guerrillas.

Only weeks ago, Hamas -- the Palestinian Authority's partner -- fired rockets at Jerusalem sites held sacred by all three major religions. And now, as the representative of an imaginary people that has no historical, religious or legal claim to Jerusalem, Abbas has professed both concern and the proprietary right to Jerusalem, and has blamed Israel for desecrating the holy city and creating a religious conflict. 

Meanwhile, the West continues to ignore church burnings and Christian persecution in the Middle East, and seems oblivious to the bombings of ancient mosques by Muslim terrorists. As far as the West is concerned, it seems that the threat of global Islamist terrorism has little to do with Iran and Turkey's territorial ambitions, the disintegration of Arab regimes in the area, the Shiite-Sunni crisis, or the global domination conspiracies of radical Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or the Revolutionary Guards.

As always, the one to control the purse strings is the one to set the agenda. Qatar has pledged $100 billion for the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip, and therefore it has the power to dictate the course of events.

Qatar is a known supporter of Hamas, the Islamic Movement in Israel, and various other terrorist groups striving to undermine the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian regimes, and over the weekend it ordered its flagship news network, Al Jazeera, to interview Abdullah Abadi, head of the Jerusalem department in Jordan's Islamic Waqf. 

The belligerent interview portrayed Jordan, which oversees the management of the Al-Aqsa compound as part of its peace treaty with Israel, as a helpless accomplice to the "failure" which is the Israeli "takeover" of the area. The latter, Al Jazeera claimed, is meant to undermine the Palestinian and Islamic character of the compound in a bid to take it over.

Those who know how to read between the lines understand that this was essentially a green light for acts of terror against Israel, but the threat was also directed at Jordan, with aim of further undermining its control over the mosque and drive it out of Jerusalem. This was an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, which is perhaps why Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh filed a complaint against Israel with the U.N., in a bid to cover all bases.

Some in the West seem eager to recognize the Palestinian terrorist state, while the Islamic Movement is already running rampant in Jerusalem, justifying the funding it receives. Abbas and Mashaal are perfectly coordinated on that point -- given ample funding, terrorist leaders find it easy to light the fuse, and Jerusalem is in their crosshairs.

Dr. Reuven Berko

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=10289

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.