Gentlemen, There is a Historical Record - Part III: China is on Our Side Now

 
by Amnon Lord
 

[Editor's Note: This is the  last of a three-part article by Amnon Lord, published in Makor Rishon.]

Read Part  I here
Read Part II here

While paying lip service to the traditional Arab partners, the president of China announces that the resolution to the conflict must be reciprocal

The new fad in the Left is the Arab League's peace initiative. All of the old-timers from the Geneva Initiative and the Ayalon-Nusseibeh Accord and the rest of the past initiatives are lately joining forces to boost the peace initiative of the Arab League. But now, more so than in the past, the common Israeli reaction is not even to object, but just to shrug their shoulders. The old-timers ask: why not bring up Habib Bourguiba's peace initiative of 1965 again?

Besides the old-new initiative, which was originally brought by the journalist Thomas Friedman more than ten years ago, making the writers of the Left throw up on the clothes of the Israeli public, it has had no effect at all.  There are several reasons why this initiative, which has become the Meretz platform, doesn't catch on. First: the Arab League. The Israeli public doesn't know exactly what it is. They know vaguely that such a thing exists. But the League is not considered one of the parties involved in the conflict. If there is an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, logic would dictate that the party in conflict with us should suggest the peace plan. Meanwhile, it's not at all clear that the Palestinians themselves accept the "Arab League Initiative", and, in fact,  they don't accept it. Of course, this doesn't prevent the writers who support the initiative from vigorously attacking the government of Israel and especially the Israeli public in general for its apathy. 

The main reason for the public's rejection of the initiative is the sense that it doesn't address the essence of the conflict, but is rather a diplomatic exercise. Peace initiatives are a means of international communication. Since the beginning of the 1970s "peace initiatives" have been associated with wars. When Arab countries want to take a central place in relationships with the West, they suggest peace plans. They do this also when they want to win legitimacy for their hostile acts. Offers of peace have cropped up over the years as a way to drive a wedge between Israel and the United States.

From Israel's point of view, it would have been better to reiterate the principles that it has declared in the past, which were forgotten in the fervor of the processes that Ehud Olmert conducted and after him, Shimon Peres. For example, that a Palestinian state will be established only when we can be sure that it will be an agent of peace and democracy. The test of its democracy will be its ability to accept a large number of Jewish residents to live among them.

At the time when Steven Hawking announced that he is joining the wretched academic boycott of Israel, a much more important event occurred: The visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu in China, which channel 10, as usual, tried to discredit. Why does this channel exist, anyway? The president of China, Xi Jinping announced that the conflict must be addressed according to principles of equality, inclusion and mutuality. True, the Chinese pay their lip service to the Palestinians, but after long years of one-sided support for them, they are transferring their affinity to Israel. And they mean it: mutuality, as I understand it, is the Palestinians' recognition of the Jews' right to define themselves as a Jewish state. The Chinese did not say that the "occupation" must end immediately.

What is different this time is that a suitable historical background has been created which changes the Chinese way of thinking about the Arab world, Iran and Israel. At one time, India suddenly understood that the 35 years that it invested in orientation toward the Arab world, mainly the "socialist Arab" countries of Egypt, Syria and Iraq, were a waste of time and resources. The Indians did not benefit at all from simultaneously boycotting Israel while conducting friendly relations with the Arabs. After the fall of the communist bloc, India understood that affinity and close connection with Israel are worth more than the whole Arab world.

The Chinese have also understood this, but for historical reasons they have continued to relate to the Arabs as if they represent some higher principle. The higher principle that the Arabs represent, and this can be seen in the way that the international Left relates to its journalists and academicians, is that they are a tool that can be used to slam the West and capitalism. This is the source of their hostility toward Israel as well. The Chinese apparently don't think that this is a good enough reason. The Muslims do perhaps harm the United States and the West, but they have also become a destabilizing and dangerous agent.

It is ironic when sometimes an Israeli leader explains to a foreign superpower, like the United States or China, what its own interest is. Therefore it should not be done directly, which would be arrogant, but by passing messages that clearly convey to the other side what Israel can offer and what its capabilities are, in contrast to the negative changes that the region is undergoing, beginning with the deterioration of the countries and ending with the flood of internal  terrorism in the Muslim world. It seems that the Chinese also understand what Simon Peres tries to explain: that geography is no longer what it was in the past. He means that you can fit Israel on the head of a pin. But the theory is also applicable in the opposite direction - on the Arab world. I assume that Netanyahu knows how to explain these changes to the Chinese better than anyone else. To the overall picture of violent Muslim chaos, he certainly must have added the terrible possibility that all of this will take on added significance in the form of Iranian nuclear weapons.

The Chinese are not cynical, like the Russians, for example. The Russians sell their missiles, mainly the anti-aircraft S-300, as the Qataris sell peace plans. In contrast, the Chinese have no underlying interest in causing regional destabilization and stirring up conflicts between the Arab world (and its various components) and Israel.





 
Amnon Lord
 
Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav.
 
Source: Makor Rishon Newspaper, May 17, 2013, Issue 823, Yoman Section, pg. 4

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

Why Israelis Have Moved On

by Jonathan S. Tobin


Former New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner returned to the country after a year away and is confounded by the change in the political atmosphere. The journalist takes the temperature of the Jewish state and finds it almost completely disinterested in the issue that drove most of his reporting and, indeed, was the overriding issue in every Israeli election up until the one conducted this past January: the peace process with the Palestinians.

Though a few old political warhorses claim the peace process must remain the country’s priority, most Israelis are having none of it. The guests at a wedding Bronner attended comprising a surprisingly broad cross-section of society had many differences but all were united on one point: they never even mentioned the Palestinians. While Bronner devotes considerable space in his Sunday review column on this situation to explaining why he thinks this is troubling or wrong, he gives short shrift to the reason for it. If, as one of his sources noted to Bronner, “debating the peace process to most Israelis is the equivalent of debating the color of the shirt you will wear when landing on Mars,” then his readers deserve more than a throwaway line about Israelis thinking the Palestinians have no interest in peace.

Presented without even a smidgeon of historical context or even a brief summary of a strategic equation that leads Israelis to think this way makes the widespread indifference to peace negotiations seem callous at best. If Americans are to understand the shift in Israeli politics that led to an election fought on domestic issues or why most there think Secretary of State John Kerry’s effort to revive the peace process is a fool’s errand, then it is incumbent on the Times to lay out the facts about the Palestinians’ consistent rejection of peace offers and the inability of either Fatah or Hamas to recognize a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn.


Journalists rightly complain that it is unfair to expect short articles about complex subjects to encompass the entire history of their topic. But if you are going to write a piece whose sole purpose is to illustrate the fact that the overwhelming majority of Israelis have given up on the peace process for the foreseeable future, you are obligated to give at least a thumbnail sketch of the events that created this consensus.

That doesn’t mean that Bronner has to go back through 100 years of conflict between Jews and Arabs to detail every event that showed how Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” as Abba Eban summed it up. Nor did he even have to note that prior to June 1967 — when the borders of Israel were exactly as the Palestinians and their supporters claim they ought to be — there was no peace and the whole country was considered to be the “occupied territories,” not the West Bank.

All Bronner needed to do was to note that Israeli governments offered the Palestinians an independent state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza and a share of Jerusalem in 2000, 2001 and 2008 and were rejected. As I wrote on Friday about Ehud Olmert’s recollection of the failure of the Palestinians to answer a proposal that would have led to Israel not just agreeing to a partition of Jerusalem but one in which it would have abandoned sovereignty over the Old City and Jewish sacred places including the Western Wall, if the Palestinians wouldn’t take that deal, what exactly are they asking for short of Israel’s complete dissolution.

Bronner could have also mentioned, at least in passing, the spectacle of Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 which led not to peace but the creation of an independent Palestinian state in all but name there run by Hamas and which is little more than an Islamist terror base.

Contrary to his assertion, outsiders don’t want peace more than the Israelis. They want it very much. But unlike naïve or ill-intentioned Westerners they have paid attention to what has happened in the 20 years since Oslo and recognized that what has actually happened. They haven’t traded land for peace as they hoped. Instead, they have traded land for terror. Should a sea change in Palestinian political culture ever occur that produces a leadership ready to permanently end the conflict and live in peace alongside Israel, they will discover the Israelis willing to do whatever is necessary to secure the agreement. But until then, most Israelis are not going to waste their time or endanger their lives on a futile quest.

Far from Israel being a Titanic waiting to hit the next iceberg, the changes Bronner describes illustrates that most there have their eyes wide open and are determined not to let their country be sunk by a foolish and blind attachment to a peace process that has no chance of success. Briefly explaining why that is so shouldn’t be too much to ask of a piece that is more than 1,200 words in length. 
  

Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/05/26/why-israelis-have-moved-on-ethan-bronner-peace-process/

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

Turks Sentence Blogger to Prison for Blasphemy

by Robert Spencer

These are the kinds of laws that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) wants to impose on the U.S., with willing aid from American "journalists" such as Eric Posner, Sarah Chayes, and a man whose mainstream acceptance is emblematic of the decay of our public square: the Travis Bickle of jihad enablers, the egregious bottom feeder, gutter thug and stalker Nathan Lean (aka "Garibaldi"), Reza Aslan's gunsel.

"Turkish-Armenian blogger sentenced to Turkish prison for blasphemy," by Ivan Watson and Gul Tuysuz for CNN, May 23 (thanks to Lookmann):

Istanbul (CNN) -- A Turkish-Armenian blogger vowed to appeal a day after an Istanbul court sentenced him to more than a year in prison for blasphemy. In a phone interview with CNN, Sevan Nisanyan accused Turkey's Islamic-rooted government of politically persecuting him.
"When I attacked the Islamist establishment they felt I overstepped my boundaries," said Nisanyan, who is a member of Turkey's tiny Armenian ethnic minority. "Here I am an Armenian doing something no Armenian has done in a Muslim country. This is really the height of boldness, of impudence. This is something you are not supposed to do."
According to Turkey's semi-official Anatolian Agency, Nisanyan received a one year and 45-day jail sentence for "openly denigrating the religious values held by a certain portion of the population."
Anatolian reported that Nisanyan's initial nine-month jail sentence was extended because "the crime was committed through the press."
Turkey is a majority Muslim country.
Nisanyan said the court cited a passage in his blog published last September that referred to the international uproar triggered by cheaply made Hollywood film called the "Innocence of Muslims." The film, which ridiculed the most revered figure in Islam, the Prophet Mohammed, sparked violent protests in Egypt and Libya. The Turkish prime minister also denounced the movie as "Islamophobic," though protests on Turkish streets were small and peaceful.
On Wednesday, Nisanyan published an English translation of the passage in question from his September 2012 blog post:
"It is not 'hate crime' to poke fun at some Arab leader who, many hundred years ago, claimed to have established contact with Deity and made political, economic and sexual profit as a result. It is almost a kindergarten-level case of what we call freedom of expression," Nisanyan wrote.
Since the blog was published last year, Nisanyan said, prosecutors have taken him to court simultaneously for this passage in three separate courts across Turkey.
Nisanyan said he represented himself at the criminal court in Istanbul, without the help of an attorney. He acknowledged that he took a confrontational approach in his statement to the court, arguing that no one should be prosecuted for discussing the historical background of a religious figure.
"In consequence of his claim to have established contact with Deity, this Muhammed, who was a lowly merchant, acquired political dominion over all Arabian and gained the financial means to raise 30-thousand-strong armies," Nisanyan wrote, citing his statement to the court.
"It is an incontrovertible historical fact that this person made political, economic and sexual profit from his alleged contact with Deity."
In his interview with CNN, Nisanyan recognized that he was deliberately throwing fuel on the fire regarding his conviction.
"I'm hoping to contribute to the ongoing debate in this country on freedom of expression and freedom of religion," Nisanyan said. "I think I'm performing a useful public service."...

Robert Spencer

Source:http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/turks-sentence-blogger-to-prison-for-blasphemy.html

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

Hezbollah Stronghold in Beirut Targeted in Rocket Attack

by Ilan Gattegno, David Baron, Gadi Golan, Danny Brenner, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

The attack was likely a response to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's speech earlier Saturday in which he vowed to fight "until the end" to defend the Syrian regime • Cyber attack by Syrian group on Haifa's water system fails.

A Lebanese policeman stands where a rocket struck an apartment in a building in the Hezbollah stronghold district south of Beirut on Sunday | Photo credit: AP

Two rockets hit a Hezbollah-controlled district in the southern part of the Lebanese capital of Beirut overnight Saturday, residents said, wounding several people in an attack that may have been a response to a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah earlier in the day.

Nasrallah vowed on Saturday to help propel Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to victory in Syria's bloody civil war, warning that the fall of the Damascus regime would benefit Israel and the West, give rise to extremists and plunge the Middle East into a "dark period."

It was the first attack to apparently target Hezbollah's stronghold in the south of the Lebanese capital since the outbreak of the two-year conflict in neighboring Syria, which has sharply heightened Lebanon's own sectarian tensions.

One of the rockets landed in a car sales yard next to a busy road junction in the Chiah neighborhood and the other hit an apartment several hundred meters away, wounding five people, residents said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and the army said it was investigating who was behind the attack.

Lebanese security source said three rocket launchers were found, one of which had failed to launch, in the hills to the southeast of the Lebanese capital, about five miles from the area where the two rockets landed.

Hezbollah has come under harsh criticism at home and abroad for sending its gunmen to the Syrian city of Qusair, and Nasrallah's gamble in Syria primarily stems from his group's vested interest in the Assad regime's survival. The Syrian government has been one of Hezbollah's strongest backers for decades and the group fears that if the regime falls it will be replaced by a U.S.-backed government that will be hostile to Hezbollah.

In a televised address to commemorate Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon 13 years ago, Nasrallah defended his group's growing involvement in Syria and sought to frame the fight next door as part of a broader battle against the Jewish state.

"Syria is the backbone of the resistance, and the resistance cannot stand, arms folded, while its back is broken," Nasrallah told thousands of supporters from a secret location via a video link.

"If Syria falls into the hand of America, Israel and takfiris [Muslims accused by other Muslims of apostasy], the resistance [Hezbollah] will be besieged and Israel will enter Lebanon and impose its will," Nasrallah said.

Syria's fall, he said, would mean "Palestine will be lost" and "the people of our region and its nations will enter a bad and dark period."

Nasrallah said the organization was fighting in Syria against Islamic radicals who pose a danger to Lebanon, and said his group would not allow Syrian militants to control areas along the Lebanese border. He pledged that Hezbollah would turn the tide of the conflict in Assad's favor, and stay as long as necessary to do so.

"We will continue on this road until the end, we will take the responsibility and we will make all the sacrifices," he said. "We will be victorious."

The Hezbollah leader's comments offered the clearest public confirmation yet that the Iranian-backed group is directly involved in Syria's war. They also were Nasrallah's first remarks since Hezbollah fighters have pushed to the front lines of the battle for the strategic Syrian town of Qusair near the Lebanese frontier.

The fighting in Qusair, which government troops backed by Hezbollah pounded with artillery on Saturday, has laid bare the Lebanese Shiite group's growing role in the Syrian conflict. Hezbollah initially tried to play down its involvement, but could no longer do so after dozens of its fighters were killed in the town and buried in large funerals in Lebanon.

Nasrallah used his speech in part to brace the community for the possibility of more of its men returning home in coffins.

The fight in Qusair has proven a deadly grind for both sides. On Saturday, government forces backed by Hezbollah militants shelled the town in the heaviest barrage yet of a week-long assault to dislodge rebels from the opposition stronghold, activists said.

Along with Iran, Syria has been the main backer of Hezbollah. Much of the group's arsenal, including tens of thousands of rockets, is believed to have come from Iran via Syria or from Syria itself.

Hezbollah's role has drawn intense criticism from Syria's main opposition group.

"Some Lebanese are being sent to Syria as invaders in order to return back home in coffins draped with shame," said George Sabra, the acting head of the Syrian National Coalition.

Nasrallah said Lebanon should be spared the fighting over Syria's crisis and called upon rivals to go fight in Syria.

"You are fighting in Syria and we are fighting in Syria. Let's fight there. Let's keep Lebanon away from the fighting," Nasrallah said referring to Lebanese Sunni militants who are fighting alongside the Syrian opposition.

Hezbollah is also facing repercussions in Europe over its support for the Syrian military.

Earlier this week, France and Germany joined a push by Britain to have the EU declare Hezbollah's military wing a terrorist organization. Such a move, long sought by the U.S., would hamper Hezbollah operations in Europe.

Nasrallah said the threats by the EU "is all ink on paper" adding that this will not affect the group.

"We have been under pressure for 30 years and it did not affect our morale," he said.

Meanwhile, Syria's fractured political opposition failed Saturday after three days of intense deliberations to reach a decision on whether to attend an international conference brokered by the U.S. and Russia aimed at ending the conflict in Syria.

The U.S. and Russia want to bring together representatives of the opposition and the Syrian government at an international conference in Geneva for talks on a possible transition government. Much remains up in the air, including the date, the agenda and the list of participants.

Meanwhile, an Israeli security expert says Syrian hackers tried to break into the computers of the water system of the city of Haifa, likely in response to air strikes in Damascus which were attributed to Israel by foreign media reports and which targeted a shipment of weapons intended for Hezbollah.

Speaking at a lecture on Saturday in the southern city of Beersheba, Yitzhak Ben Yisrael, Israel's former national cyber security adviser, said a group calling itself the "Syrian Electronic Army" had launched the failed attack two weeks ago.

A Haifa municipal spokesman denied that the city had come under cyber attack. Mayor Yona Yahav said, "We are not aware of a Syrian attack of this kind, but we do know that Haifa, as a symbol of the north, is a strategic target for our enemies." 

Nur Eldan, CEO of Haifa's local water company, said he had only heard of the alleged cyber attack on his company through the media. 

According to the Haifa municipality, Ben Yisrael reiterated that he never claimed the water company was attacked by the Syrian Army, but by the group calling itself the "Syrian Electronic Army," whose affiliations were not yet known and which claimed to have "attacked" targets in Israel's north via the Internet. 

"We have defenses in place against these types of attacks," the Haifa municipality stressed in a press release.

In April, an assault on a wide range of Israeli websites in the name of the hacking group Anonymous mostly failed.

Ilan Gattegno, David Baron, Gadi Golan, Danny Brenner, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=9509

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

Turkish Official: Hezbollah Should Change Name to 'Party of Satan'

by Ahram Online

Deputy Turkish FM Bekir Bozdağ says Lebanese-Shia resistance movement Hezbollah – 'Party of God' in Arabic – should change name to 'Party of Satan' for supporting Syrian government

Hezbollah supporters at a rally in Lebanon (Photo: Reuters)

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ said on Sunday that Hezbollah, or 'the Party of God' in Arabic, should change its name to 'the Party of Satan,' blaming the Lebanese-Shia movement for killing civilians in next-door Syria.

Speaking at an international symposium in Ankara, Bozdağ warned against attempts to incite sectarian strife, claiming that those responsible – particularly in Syria – remained at large throughout the world.

The entire world should confront sectarianism, Bozdağ declared, according to the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

Racism, he said, is "one of the deadliest diseases the world is facing," going on to assert that racism contravened Islamic precepts.

Bozdağ referred to Turkish theologian Said Nursi, who – inspired by the Quran – brought Islamic society back in touch with its core values.

Turkey has been fighting militant groups for almost 30 years.


Ahram Online

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/72365/World/Region/Hezbollah-should-change-name-to-Party-of-Satan-Tur.aspx

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

Who is Really Desecrating Holy Sites?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

The ultimate goal is to turn the conflict into a religious war between Jews and Muslims. If anyone is desecrating the holy site, it is those who smuggle petrol bombs and stones into the compound to use them against visitors.

Tensions have been mounting in recent months in Jerusalem over visits by Jews to the Temple Mount, or al-Haram al-Sharif [the Noble Sanctuary].

There is nothing new about Jews visiting the holy site: this has been taking place since 1967.
The visits, which are being held in coordination with the Israeli authorities, have triggered many confrontations between the Israeli police and Palestinian protesters.

Palestinians claim that the mere presence of Jewish visitors is a "desecration" of the holy site.

That is why some Palestinians have been resorting to violence to stop Jews from visiting the holy site.

The Palestinians say they are only trying to prevent Jews from destroying the mosques and rebuilding the Third Holy Temple.

But the truth is that the vast majority of Jews visiting the holy site are no different from other non-Muslim tourists who come to the area every day.

The Israeli authorities, in fact, require all visitors to the holy site to respect the feelings of Muslims by appearing in modest dress and without weapons.

Moreover, Jews visiting the compound are not allowed to bring sacred Jewish objects [prayer shawls, prayer books, etc].

Some Palestinians, however, are now exploiting these visits to incite the Arabs and Muslims against Israel.

Throwing stones, empty bottles, shoes and petrol bombs at the Jewish visitors and the policemen accompanying them has become almost a daily practice.

This, in addition to regular demonstrations that are staged at the holy site, where protesters chant slogans against Israel, Jews, the US and even some "moderate" Muslims.

The protests are primarily aimed at dragging Arabs and Muslims into war with Israel under the pretext that the Jews are plotting to destroy the Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The ultimate goal is to turn the conflict into a religious war between Jews and Muslims.

Some Palestinians are hoping that the current protests against visits by Jews will spark another intifada [supposedly spontaneous uprising], like the one that erupted after former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's tour of the holy site in September 2000.

Then, the Palestinian Authority depicted Sharon's visit as part of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the mosques.

Those who are now using the visits by Jews to initiate violence and incite violence against Israel and others are hoping that Arab and Islamic armies will launch a war against Israel over its "desecration" of the holy site.

If anyone is desecrating the holy site, it is those who smuggle petrol bombs and stones into the compound to use them against visitors.


Khaled Abu Toameh

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3723/desecrating-holy-sites

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Christian Arabs Beatify their "Palestinian" Nightmare

by Robert Spencer


As the pioneering historian Bat Ye'or has called for, Christians and Jews need to unite against a supremacist oppressor who would subjugate both of them (and has done so throughout its history). Instead, "Palestinian" Christians largely side with their chief oppressors. "Op-Ed: Christians Beatify Their Palestinian Nightmare," by Giulio Meotti for Israel National News, May 22:

Palestinian Arab Christians have chosen to support the side that wants to destroy Christianity. Hating Jews forges a bond between enemies. The movie “The Stones Cry Out” by the Italian filmaker Yasmine Perni “gives a detailed account of the historical, cultural, and political place occupied by Christians in the recent history of the Palestinian nation, and in its struggle against colonialism”.
The movie is one of the most powerful propaganda tools of the Palestinian Arab Christians. The documentary is supported by Sabeel, the Christian organization based in Jerusalem which foments anti-Semitism through the Scriptures, while Catholic authories and PLO propagandista such as Hanan Ashrawi “blessed” the movie.
Ashrawi and her Christian friends have taken over the role of beautifying the Palestinian Arab nightmare. The problem of these Christians is not the security fence, but the ideological fence which always placed them on the other side,against the Jews. These Palestinian Christians believe that they are the beneficiary of Islamic cultural superiority and they can save themselves by throwing Judaism (Israel) and Christianity (the West) into the dustbin of history.
Last winter a muezzin in Bethlehem was heard for the first time saying “after Saturday comes Sunday”. It means that after they’re done with the Jews, they’ll be coming after the Christians. And the Christians will have only themselves to blame.
While claiming that they are innocent victims resisting “the occupation” and aspiring only to “security, justice, and peace”, these Palestinian Arab Christians accept the vandalism of synagogues and cemeteries, the burning of Jewish schools and the killing of innocent Jewish civilians, and above all the mantra chanted to the world that the state of Israel is an entity to be destroyed.
Miftah, the NGO founded by Hanan Ashrawi, recently published an article claiming that Jews use the blood of Christians for Passover rituals.
There is a long tradition of anti-Semitism from the Palestinian Christian establishment. In 1989, Jerusalem’s Roman Catholic patriarch Michel Sabbah supported the Intifada as he celebrated a Christmas Mass at Jesus’ birthplace. “Despite all that is happening to you, you will win, in the end you will win,” declared Patriarch Michel Sabbah, appointed by Pope John Paul II. Off Manger Square, Muslims chanted: “The Zionist is God’s enemy!” and “Jews, Mohammed is coming back!”.
But it is not just Ashrawi’s fault. It is an entire Christian establishment, including Christian mayors of Bethlehem, Christian prelates and bishops appointed by Rome, Christians intellectuals such as Edward Said and Christian ordinary men like those interviewed for movies such as “The Stones Cry Out”.
Palestinian Christians have manipulated Western public opinion so well that on the very rare occasion that Western media do cover the real plight of Christians in the Palestinian Authority areas, it is only to denounce Israel and its barrier or checkpoints.
Last year veteran CBS News anchor Bob Simon reported on the Palestinian Arab Christians, indicting Israel’s “occupation” as responsible for their dramatic disappearance. The 60 Minutes story caused Israel tremendous PR damage. As in the case of “The Stones Cry Out”, the CBS video doesn’t mention forced marriages, conversions, beatings, land thefts, fire bombings, commercial boycott, torture, kidnapping, sexual harassment, and extortion which Arab Christians suffer under the horrible PLO dictatorship.
A report in 2002, based on Israeli intelligence gathered during Operatio Defensive Shield, explained that “Arafat’s intelligence network intimidated the Christian population in Bethlehem. They extorted money from them, confiscated land and property and left them to the mercy of street gangs and other criminal activity, with no protection”.
Christian graves, crosses, and statues were desecrated and Christians suffered physical abuse, beatings, and Molotov attacks.
But it would be a mistake to depict these Christians as mere victims of Muslim Arab violence. They are also guilty, since they choose to demonize Israel as the human rights violator.
After the 1948 war, Christian communities suffered most in Judea, not under “Israel’s occupation”, but because Muslim refugees were settled in their midst by the corrupted PLO leadership. According to veteran journalist Danny Rubinstein, who has been writing about Palestinian Arabs for the last 46 years, “Bethlehem saw an influx of thousands of Muslim refugees from the villages in the southern part of Jerusalem, and three refugee camps were erected”.
Until Palestinian terrorists turned Bethlehem into a safe haven for suicide bombers and Jews’ assassins, the Christian Arab Bethlehemites were free to enter IJerusalem, just as many Israelis visited the "little town" in Judea.
The horrible Arafat gang turned Bethlehem and its holy places into the town which exported a string of deadly terror attacks into Jerusalem during the Intifada. In Beit Jala, the Christian town on the outskirts of Bethlehem, Islamic sharpshooters established their firing positions next to churches and Christian institutions and aimed. The target was the southern Jerusalem residential Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, but ultimately they also wanted to cleanse any Christians from the area. The result is that 25,000 Christians left Beit Jala and only 6,000 Christians still live in that town.
The Jews have always challenged any kind of totalitarianism and today are the first in line to challenge a political Islam that wants to destroy their soul: the State of Israel.
The Palestinian Christians stand today at the opposite side of the barricade. One day they may realize the strategic mistake they made by embracing Palestinian fascism, but it will be too late for all of them.

Robert Spencer

Source: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/christian-arabs-beatify-their-palestinian-nightmare.html

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

Mother of London Beheader Tricked into Converting Him to Islam Under the Guise of Deradicalization

by Daniel Greenfield




We’re still filling in some of the blanks on the backstory of Mujahid, aka Michael Adebowale, the son of Christian Nigerian parents who became a Muslim terrorist, but it would appear that his mother fell victim to a de-radicalization scheme.

Politicians insist that there is an “extremist Islam” and that the best way to counter it is with “moderate” mainstream Islam. This lie was put out there by the Saudis who claim that Muslim terrorists are ignorant of Islam and need to be cleared of their misunderstanding by legitimate Muslim authorities. The problem with that is the Saudis and the mosques around the world that they and the Muslim Brotherhood are the farthest possible thing from moderate.

Their de-radicalization programs are a case of going from the frying pan into the fire.

His mother Juliet Obasuyi, a 43-year-old probation officer, went to her friend and neighbour, a 62-year-old security officer, for help about nine months ago after her son dropped out of university.
She told him: “Michael is not listening any more. His older sister is a good Christian with a degree but Michael is rebelling as he has no father figure, dropping out of university and handing out leaflets in Woolwich town centre.
“He is from a strong Christian family but he is turning to Islam and turning against the family. He is preaching in the streets. He needs spiritual guidance before he radicalises himself.”
Another friend, Steve Adebiyi, who started a company with Mrs Obasuyi, said she was often left in tears after speaking to him on the phone. “The boy was giving the mother problems,” he said. “She said he was in with some bad group and causing a lot of trouble. They brainwashed him.”
He and Michael Adebolajo, the other suspected terrorist, are thought to have met at Greenwich University.
His mother was advised by a neighbour to take him to the head of the Woolwich mosque for spiritual guidance. He was converted to Islam by the head Imam, and taken for weeks of “further training” at a centre near Cambridge.

When he returned, however, he was even more “radicalised” and his mother could no longer “get through to him”. A spokesman for the mosque said they did not know if he attended or been converted there.

We’ve gone through this plenty of times before. The moment he’s caught, the mosque disavows responsibility, Mission Impossible style. That’s what happened with the Boston bomber. Suddenly they’re just crazy people who wandered in and had nothing to do with the mosque at all and never understood the real true Islam.

And politicians fall for it again and again. Rinse and repeat.


Daniel Greenfield

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/mother-of-london-bomber-tricked-into-converting-him-to-islam-under-the-guise-of-deradicalization/

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

The West's Timidity Toward Terrorism

by Brae Jager



There have been two high profile terrorist attacks in Europe in the past week, both against soldiers, and both with edged weapons. So much for gun bans.

The first attack, in Woolwich, UK on, was by far the most notorious (and celebrated, in many circles). British soldier and father Lee Rigby was hit with a car, and then finished with a meat cleaver, a tool known for its hacking prowess. Following the attack, one attacker talks surprisingly coherent smack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZzG_w1kyNg) to an onlooker's camera phone, before being gunned down by police upon their arrival twenty minutes later.

"Your governments don't care about you!" exclaimed the blood soaked Somali gentleman, in an unmistakeable London accent. Adorned in a dapper overcoat, the man indeed appeared a model of multiculturalism.

In the second, a French soldier on anti-terror patrol near Paris was stabbed by a younger bearded man, dressed in Mid-Eastern garb. The wound was serious, but thankfully not fatal.

Across The Pond

Americans of an anti-terror bent are quick to point to these incidents as further proof of the Islamization of Europe, and to harshly judge the men of Europe's meek response. Before we judge their response too harshly, a review of our own recent man-caused disasters might be in order.

We have now found that Maj Nadal Hassan, US Army, has been paid $278,000 since his one-man jihad on Fort Hood. Hassan injured 32  people, and killed 13 using firearms. All Army posts are very nearly gun-free zones; certainly no one was carrying a concealed weapon, save the shooter. One of the first substantive statements made by the top general in the Army at the time, George Casey was that "... as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

The dollars of Massachusetts taxpayers funded the Boston Marathon bombing; both of the Tsarnaev brothers took government benefits in the form of college grants and food stamps.
The truth is that most Westerners simply don't have the moral courage to criticize another culture, no matter how repugnant to humanity many of its adherents are.

 

Brae Jager is a kulak who occasionally writes on his blog (braejager.blogspot.com).

Source: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7252498158295181812#editor/target=post;postID=9013370413761842796

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

U.K. Beheading Shows It's Time To Fight the Doctrine of Jihad

by Tarek Fatah


When buses and trains exploded on 7/7 in London, the objective of the suicide bombers was to sow fear and terror in the very soul of the British people. 

In that the jihadis were successful. 

One would have expected the British authorities to not just hunt down the terrorists, but also to fight the cancer of Islamism that lies at the ideological roots of jihadi terrorism. Instead, successive governments in London have tried to pussyfoot around the challenge, hoping the jihadi terrorists and their ideology would melt away with time as Downing Street funded so-called "moderate" Muslim groups and "former" extremists to do the government's bidding.

As the brutal hacking death of a British soldier by two fearless jihadis chanting "Allah O Akbar" has shown, this strategy has failed. Muslims who see the West as the enemy and seek its destruction have become even more emboldened by the lack of resolve, which they see as cowardice. In addition, jihadis in the U.K. are no longer restricted to the second generation Pakistani Britons; they now come from places as far apart as Chechnya and Nigeria.

While the run-of-the-mill jihadi terror attack relies on suicide bombers and remote-controlled improvised explosive devices, Wednesday's attack came straight from medieval times, with the two jihadis using knives and cleavers to hack away at the victim and then beheading him. If this was not enough, they played to the gallery, demanding they be filmed as they chatted with passers-by, proudly defending their actions and promising more attacks on non-Muslims to come.

If the latest act of jihadi terror was different in nature, the reaction by mainstream Islamic groups and prominent Muslims in Britain was not. It was exactly the same as it has been after every tragic incident. Old press releases were brushed off and sent afresh to the media.

While ordinary Britons and non-Muslims around the world are bewildered by these never-ending acts of terrorism, the response of the leaders of the Islamic community is the tired old cliche -- Islam is a religion of peace, and jihad is simply an "inner struggle."

The fact these terrorists are motivated by one powerful belief -- the doctrine of armed jihad against the "kuffar" (non-Muslims) -- is disingenuously denied by Islamic clerics and leaders.

Yesterday, instead of calling on Muslims to shelve the doctrine of armed jihad, predictably, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) issued a quick press release claiming the "barbaric" attack has "no basis in Islam."

Not true, MCB. As a Muslim, I can say without fear, the latest terror attack has a basis in Islam and it's time for us Muslims to dig our heads out of the sand.

The MCB was not alone. Imam Makkah Masjid in Leeds, Qari Asim, MBE said, "Islam does not permit vigilante attacks on anyone and therefore such inhumane acts have no place in Islam."

If the Imam was trying to put the best face of Islam to the British people, the London Muslim Centre was careful not to even mention the fact the two terrorists were Muslim, claiming instead that "criminals and murderers do not represent any community or religion. We remain steadfast in opposing all forms of hate and terrorism."

The Islamic Society of Britain joined in the chorus, stating, "justifying this killing in the name of faith or religion is false and rejected," again failing to mention the fact the terrorists were killing in the name of Islam, not just any "faith or religion."

Hundreds of British Muslims tweeted their condemnation of the act, but not one individual or organization had the courage to point out and admit the fact Sharia-backed doctrine of armed jihad does permit holy war on non-Muslims, specially in the land of the "kufaar."

This was an opportunity for the Muslim leadership to confess they have failed and that the time has come to admit that jihadis cannot be fought without fighting the doctrine of jihad.

It is worth noting that not a single Muslim cleric since 9/11 has mustered the courage to say the doctrine of armed jihad is defunct and inapplicable in the 21st century. They rightfully denounce terrorism, but dare not denounce jihad.

On the contrary, we keep hearing the propaganda that "Jihad" has nothing to do with warfare. Here is what the "Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam" has to say about Jihad:

"DJIHAD(A), holy war. The spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general. It narrowly escaped being a sixth 'rukn,' or fundamental duty."

The only Muslim group that has come to this conclusion are Ahmadi Muslims, whose founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in the nineteenth century had the wisdom to declare:

"I have brought a commandment for you people; it is that henceforth 'jihad by sword' [armed jihad] is forbidden ... Now jihad for the sake of religion is prohibited."

For uttering these words, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was deemed to have blasphemed and was declared an apostate by the orthodoxy in Islam; the same school of thought that provides intellectual sustenance to the Muslim establishment in the West today.

The armed jihad launched against the infidels, is clearly promoted by the 20th-century writings of such Islamists as Syed Qutb and Hassan al-Banna of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the late Syed Maudoodi of Jamaat-e-Islami of Indo-Pakistan.

In his book Towards Understanding Islam, Maudoodi exhorts ordinary Muslims to launch jihad, as in armed struggle, against non-Muslims. "Jihad is part of this overall defence of Islam," he writes. In case the reader is left with any doubt about the meaning of the word "jihad," Maudoodi clarifies:

"In the language of the Divine Law, this word (jihad) is used specifically for the war that is waged solely in the name of God against those who perpetrate oppression as enemies of Islam. This supreme sacrifice is the responsibility of all Muslims."

Maudoodi goes on to label Muslims who refuse the call to armed jihad as apostates:

"Jihad is as much a primary duty as are daily prayers or fasting. One who avoids it is a sinner. His every claim to being a Muslim is doubtful. He is plainly a hypocrite who fails in the test of sincerity and all his acts of worship are a sham, a worthless, hollow show of deception."

If Maudoodi's exhortations are not enough to motivate Muslims to conduct acts of terror, we have the words of the late Hassan al-Banna being distributed in our schools and universities. Al-Banna makes it quite clear that the word "jihad" means armed conflict. He mocks those who claim jihad is merely an internal struggle.

Al-Banna says this redefinition of the term "jihad" to depict it as a non-violent act of self-examination, is in fact a conspiracy so that "Muslims should become negligent."
And here is what Syed Qutb, another Egyptian stalwart of the Islamist movement and the Muslim Brotherhood, writes in his seminal work on Islam and its relationship with the West, Milestones:

"A Muslim will remain prepared to fight against it (non-Muslim country), whether it be his birthplace or a place where his relatives reside or where his property or any other material interests are located."

Unless the leaders of British mosques as well as the Islamic organizations in the U.K. denounce the doctrine of jihad as pronounced by the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami, and distance themselves from the ideology of Qutb, al-Banna and Maudoodi, they stand complicit in the havoc that these jihadis are raining down on the rest of us.

They cannot have it both ways: promoting the teachings of Maududi and Qutb among Muslim youth, while concealing the same teachings from the rest of Britain.


Tarek Fatah

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/tarek-fatah/uk-beheading-jihad-terror_b_3325363.html

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