Sharia Law or One Law for All? - Denis MacEoin

by Denis MacEoin

Here is the fulcrum around which so much of the problem turns: the belief that Islamic law has every right to be put into practice in non-Muslim countries, and the insistence that a parallel, if unequal, legal system can function alongside civil and criminal law codes adhered to by a majority of a country's citizens.

• Salafism is a form of Islam that insists on the application of whatever was said or done by Muhammad or his companions, brooking no adaptation to changing times, no recognition of democracy or man-made laws.
• The greatest expression of this failure to integrate, indeed a determined refusal to do so, may be found in the roughly 750 Muslim-dominated no-go zones in France, which the police, fire brigades, and other representatives of the social order dare not visit for fear of sparking off riots and attacks. Similar zones now exist in other European countries, notably Sweden and Germany. According to the 2011 British census there are over 100 Muslim enclaves in the country.

As millions of Muslims flow into Europe, some from Syria, others from as far away as Afghanistan or sub-Saharan Africa, several countries are already experiencing high levels of social breakdown. Several articles have chronicled the challenges posed in countries such as Sweden and Germany. Such challenges are socio-economic in nature: how to accommodate such a large influx of migrants; the rising costs of providing then with housing, food, and benefits, and the expenses incurred by increased levels of policing in the face of growing lawlessness in some areas. If migrants continue to enter European Union countries at the current rate, these costs are likely to rise steeply; some countries, such as Hungary, have already seen how greatly counterproductive and self-destructive Europe's reception of almost anyone who reaches its borders has been.

The immediate impact, however, of these new arrivals is not likely to be a simple challenge, something that may be remedied by increasing restrictions on numbers, deportations of illegal migrants, or building fences. During the past several decades, some European countries ­-- notably Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark -- have received large numbers of Muslim immigrants, most of them through legal channels. According to a Pew report in 2010, there were over 44 million Muslims in Europe overall, a figure expected to rise to over 58 million by 2030.

The migration wave from Muslims countries that began in 2015 is likely to increase these figures by a large margin. In France, citizens of former French colonies in Morocco, Algeria, and some sub-Saharan states, together with migrants from several other Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia, form a population estimated at several million, but reckoned to be the largest Muslim population in Europe. France is closely followed by Germany – a country now taking in very large numbers of immigrants. There are currently some 5.8 million Muslims in Germany, but this figure is widely expected to rise exponentially over the next five years or more.

The United Kingdom, at around 3 million, has the third largest Muslim population in Europe. Islam today is the second-largest religion in the country. The majority of British Muslims originally came from rural areas in Pakistan (such as Mirpur and Bangladesh's Sylhet), starting in the 1950s. Over time, many British Muslims have integrated well into the wider population. But in general, integration has proven a serious problem, especially in cities such as Bradford, or parts of London such as Tower Hamlets; and there are signs that, as time passes, assimilation is becoming harder, not easier. A 2007 report by British think tank Policy Exchange, Living Apart Together, revealed that members of the younger generation were more radical and orthodox than their fathers and grandfathers – a reversal almost certainly unprecedented within an immigrant population over three or more generations. The same pattern may be found across Europe and the United States. A visible sign of this desire to stand out from mainstream society is the steady growth in the numbers of young Muslim women wearing niqabs, burqas, and hijabs – formerly merely a tradition, but now apparently seen as an obligatory assertion of Muslim identity.

In Germany, the number of Salafists rose by 25% in the first half of 2015, according to a report from The Clarion Project. Salafism is a form of Islam that insists on the application of whatever was said or done by Muhammad or his companions, brooking no adaptation to changing times, no recognition of democracy or man-made laws. This refusal to adapt has been very well expressed by Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini:

"Islam is not constrained by time or space, for it is eternal... what Muhammad permitted is permissible until the Day of Resurrection; what he forbade is forbidden until the Day of Resurrection. It is not permissible that his ordinances be superseded, or that his teachings fall into disuse, or that the punishments [he set] be abandoned, or that the taxes he levied be discontinued, or that the defense of Muslims and their lands cease."

The greatest expression of this failure to integrate, indeed a determined refusal to do so, may be found in the roughly 750 zones urbaines sensibles in France, Muslim-dominated no-go zones, which the police, fire brigades, and other representatives of the social order dare not visit for fear of sparking off riots and attacks. Similar zones now exist in other European countries, notably Sweden and Germany.

In the UK, matters have not reached the pitch where the police and others dare not enter. But in some Muslim-dominated areas, non-Muslims may not be made welcome, especially women dressed "inappropriately." According to the 2011 British census there are over 100 Muslim enclaves in the country. "The Muslim population exceeds 85% in some parts of Blackburn," notes the scholar Soeren Kern, "and 70% in a half-dozen wards in Birmingham and Bradford." There are similarly high figures for many other British cities.

Maajid Nawaz of the anti-extremist Quilliam Foundation has spoken of the growing trend for some radical young Muslims to patrol their streets to impose a strict application of Islamic sharia law on Muslims and non-Muslims alike, in direct breach of British legal standards.

In Britain "Muslims Against the Crusaders" have recently declared an Islamic Emirates Project, in which they are seeking to enforce their brand of sharia in 12 British cities. They have named two London boroughs, Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets, among their targets. Little surprise then that in these two boroughs hooded "Muslim patrols" have taken to the streets and begun enforcing a strict view of sharia over unsuspecting locals. The "Muslim Patrols" warn that alcohol, "immodest" dress and homosexuality are now banned. To add to these threats, all this is filmed and uploaded onto the internet. Now, in East London, some shops no longer feel free to employ uncovered women or sell alcohol without fear of violent payback.

Nawaz goes on to write: "[T]he Muslim patrols could become a lot more dangerous and, perhaps willing to maim or kill if they are joined by battle-hardened jihadis." Muslims have been beaten up for smoking during Ramadan; non-Muslims have been forced to leave for carrying alcohol on British streets.

A recent report by Raheem Kassam cites British police officers who admit that they often have to ask permission from Muslim leaders to enter certain areas, and that they are instructed not to travel to work or go into certain places wearing their uniforms.

Here is the fulcrum around which so much of the problem turns: the belief that Islamic law has every right to be put into practice in non-Muslim countries, and the insistence that a parallel, if unequal, legal system can function alongside civil and criminal law codes adhered to by a majority of a country's citizens. More than one non-Muslim has been ordered to leave "Islamic territory," and some radicals have attempted to set up "Shariah Controlled Zones," where only Islamic rules are enforced. Stickers placed on lampposts and other structures declare: "You are entering a Shariah Controlled Zone," where there can be no alcohol, no gambling, no drugs or smoking, no porn or prostitution, and even no music or concerts.

And that is not all. Soeren Kern wrote in 2011:

A Muslim group in the United Kingdom has launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities – including what it calls "Londonistan" – into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence.
The Islamic Emirates Project, launched by the Muslims Against the Crusades group, names the British cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London and Tower Hamlets in East London as territories to be targeted for blanket Sharia rule.

All of this is, of course, illegal. The illegality could not be clearer. Here we see self-appointed disaffected Muslim entities, who take action to exercise the power of imposing law on the streets of European cities, and in practice the writ of Islamic law runs in many towns and cities. Not long ago, considerable numbers of Muslims from Paris and the surrounding region would enter the city and take over entire streets in order to perform the noon Friday prayer. Traffic was blocked, residents could neither enter or leave their homes, businesses had to close because customers could not reach them; and all the while, the police stood by, watching but not interfering, knowing that, if they acted to preserve the law a riot would ensue. Videos of these incidents are available online. In places where gangs of radicals operate as if they are a mafia, crimes such as honor killings, female genital mutilation (FGM), expulsion or worse of individuals considered apostates, and more, are known to take place. More commonly, many Western states are powerless to prevent forced and underage marriages, compulsory veiling, polygamy, and more.

The police, afraid of charges of racism and "Islamophobia," are reluctant to take action: In 2014 and 2015, the police and social workers turned a blind eye for years to Muslim gangs grooming, prostituting, and raping young white British teenagers in cities such as Oxford, Birmingham, Rochdale and Rotherham. Professor Alexis Jay's report on the situation in Rotherham alone showed serious failings on the part of several bodies from the police to social services. The offenses in these cases were, of course, a breach of sharia law, not an enforcement of it.[1] Yet there seems to have been an attitude, too, that Muslims are entitled to behave as they wish, and that British law enforcement is irrelevant. In the trial of nine men in Rochdale, Judge Gerald Clifton states in his sentencing that "All of you treated the victims as though they were worthless and beyond any respect – they were not part of your community or religion." This statement alone seems to illustrate the heart of this problem.

But the clash between Islamic law and national law in several European countries has focussed more than anything on the establishment of sharia councils or sharia courts. These have provoked a wider debate than even Islamic finance, now well situated within the international banking system even though it is as if Germany under the Third Reich had its own banking system in which all transactions would go exclusively to strengthening the Third Reich. In the UK this year, it has been revealed that, in order to finance extensive repairs to the House of Lords and the House of Commons, a deal has been done to use Islamic bonds. One result of this is that peers and MPs will not be allowed to have bars or to consume alcohol on their own premises.

The Sharia court debate has been particularly intense in the United Kingdom, where attempts (some successful) to introduce sharia within the legal system have been made since 2008. Speaking to the London Muslim Council in July of that year, Britain's leading judge, Lord Chief Justice Phillips, declared that he believed the introduction of sharia into the UK would be beneficial to society, provided it did not breach British law. It is that stipulation which has not been adhered to. Not many months earlier, in February, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Britain's leading churchman -- also, as Phillips, with a seat in the House of Lords -- expressed the view that it would be appropriate for British Muslims to use sharia. He argued that "giving Islamic law official status in the UK would help achieve social cohesion because some Muslims did not relate to the British legal system." He went on to say,

"It's not as if we're bringing in an alien and rival system; we already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land ... There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some kinds of aspects of other religious law."

That is where the debate began. Williams's call for the introduction of sharia was rejected at once by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and by the Conservative peer and shadow minister for community cohesion and social action, Sayeeda Warsi. Warsi, herself a Muslim, argued as follows:

"The archbishop's comments are unhelpful and may add to the confusion that already exists in our communities ... We must ensure that people of all backgrounds and religions are treated equally before the law. Freedom under the law allows respect for some religious practices. But let's be absolutely clear: all British citizens must be subject to British laws developed through parliament and the courts."

One year before, however, sharia had already entered the country. An organization called the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal had set itself up on the basis of the 1996 Arbitration Act. It allows individuals and businesses to enter into mutually agreed consultation in which a third party decides between their competing arguments. Mutual agreement is, of course, the central plank on which the legislation is based. Muslim tribunals are limited to financial and property issues. They use sharia standards for intervention, not just between Muslims, but even between non-Muslims who wish to settle disputes using sharia standards. Since 2007, the MAT has opened tribunals in Nuneaton, London, Birmingham, Bradford, and Manchester. They are all considered legal, and their rulings can be confirmed by county courts and the High Court.

Acquiescence to the regularization of sharia within UK legal processes received a major boost for a short time when, in March 2014, the Law Society issued guidance to permit high street solicitors to draw up "sharia compliant" wills, even though these might discriminate against widows, non-Muslims, female heirs, adopted children and others. When the debate grew more heated and the Law Society was severely criticized, some months later it withdrew the guidelines and apologized for having introduced them at all. It was a healthy expression of the way open debate in democratic societies achieves results.

By that time, however, there were around 85 sharia councils operating -- most of them openly, some behind the scenes, across the UK. They had all been granted recognition by the establishment. These councils are often confused with the arbitration tribunals, but are, in fact, quite different. A council (sometimes termed a court) functions as a mediation service -- also legal in British law. However, the decisions of these councils have no standing under British law. They are usually composed of a small number of elderly men with varying degrees of qualification in Islamic law, and they generally issue advice or fatwas [religious opinions] based on the rulings of one or another of the main schools of Muslim law.

It is these councils that are the greatest cause for concern, especially the limited range of matters on which they issue judgements: marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance. In all of these areas, the concerns rest principally on the treatment of Muslim women. Among the leading critics of Sharia on these grounds is one of the most visionary members of Britain's House of Lords, Baroness Caroline Cox.[2] The first thing she did after her elevation to the peerage was to set off in a 32-ton truck for Communist Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union, to bring medical supplies behind the Iron Curtain. She was one of the first Western politicians to take the threat of Islamism seriously, setting out her arguments in a 2003 book, The 'West', Islam and Islamism. Is ideological Islam compatible with liberal democracy? .

This concern with Islamism and its incompatibility with secular democratic norms focuses especially on the application of sharia law within countries such as the UK, where all citizens are considered to be equal under the law. Speaking about sharia courts in 2011, Baroness Cox declared,

"We cannot sit here complacently in our red and green benches while women are suffering a system which is utterly incompatible with the legal principles upon which this country is founded... If we don't do something, we are condoning it."

Recently, she authored a report entitled, A Parallel World: Confronting the abuse of many Muslim women in Britain today, published by the Bow Group. In it, she not only describes the problems faced by many Muslim women before Sharia councils, but provides extensive testimony from women who have been discriminated against and abused by these "courts."[3]

In May 2012, Baroness Cox introduced her first Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill in the House of Lords. The bill had its second reading in October that year, but went no farther. It was backed, however, by a considerable body of evidence presented in a document, Equal and Free?, from the National Secular Society. In June, 2015, Cox introduced a modified version of the bill. It had its second reading in October, and in November it reached the committee stage. It still has to pass a few stages before it may possibly move to the House of Commons, one day perhaps to receive Royal Assent and become law. It received a very warm reception from members of the Lords, with only one dissenting opinion, that of Lord Sheikh, a Muslim peer who sees little or no fault in anything Muslims say or do. However, the government minister, Lord Faulks, argued that current civil legislation is all that is needed to guarantee justice for Muslim women.

Matters are far from as simple as the government would like them to be. Sharia law is not a cut -and-dried system that can be easily blended with Western values and statutes. There is no problem when imams or councils hand out advice on the regulations governing obligatory prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, alms-giving, the appropriateness or inappropriateness of following this or that spiritual tradition, or even whether men and women may sit together in a hall or meet without a chaperone. For pious Muslims, those are things they need to know, and although the advice they may receive on some rulings will differ according to the school of law or the cultural practices of their specific community, that has no bearing whatever on British law.

But much more goes on beneath the surface. One problem is that it is difficult if not impossible to reform sharia. Legal rulings are fossilized within one tradition or another and given permanency because they are deemed to derive from a combination of verses from the Qur'an, the sacred Traditions, or the standard books of fiqh or jurisprudence. It is, therefore, hard to restate laws on just about anything in order to accommodate a need to bring things up-to-date within terms of modern Western human rights values. Many Muslims today may be uncomfortable about the use of jihad as a rallying cry for terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State, but no single scholar or group of scholars is entitled to abolish the long-standing law of jihad. Innovation (bid'a) is tantamount to heresy, and heresy leads to excommunication and hellfire, as has been stated for centuries. The growing influence of Salafi Islam is based precisely on the grounds that any revival of the faith means going back to the practices and words of Muhammad and his companions, not forwards via reform.

In the sharia councils there appears to be no formal method for keeping records of what is said and decided on. There is next to no room for non-Muslims to sit in on proceedings, and, as a result, neither the government nor the legal fraternity has any regular means of monitoring proceedings. Even Machteld Zee, whose forthcoming book, Choosing Sharia? Multiculturalism, Islamic Fundamentalism and British Sharia Councils, will be the first academic analysis of what happens in the councils, only spent two afternoons at a council in Leyton and an afternoon at one in Birmingham. Unannounced spot checks by qualified government-appointed personnel are not permitted. There is nothing remotely like the government schools inspection body, Ofsted, which has periodically (albeit not always correctly) gone into Muslim schools. So there is really no way of knowing just what happens, apart from the testimonies of women who have reported abusive or illegal practices.

Magistrates' courts, county courts, and crown courts are all entirely transparent (except for matters dealt with in camera), full records are kept, and members of the public are free to visit and observe. The risks of allowing councils to pass judgements without there being an inspectorate to observe them are obvious. And if full records of proceedings are not kept, it will always be difficult to go back to examine a case in full should legal issues arise at a later date.

Furthermore, the British legal system has no say in the appointment of sharia council panels. There appears to be no agreed mechanism for appointments, and the source and identity of candidates remain causes for concern in several ways. There is no single range of qualifications for Muslim scholars ('ulama) or jurisprudents (fuqaha'). Most will attend some sort of madrassa [Islamic religious school], and many will sit at the feet of a particular sheikh to obtain an ijaza from him: usually this means he is given permission to teach from a book written by that sheikh. Some will finish a course of study, but there may be little coherence. Growing numbers have qualifications from UK-based madrassas, notably from the Darul-Uloom in Bury or the higher standard equivalent in Dewsbury, although there are other Darul-Ulooms in the UK. In London, the junior classes are inspected by Ofsted, others not. Bury and other madrassas belong to the radical Deobandi form of Islam (based in northern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan). The Pakistani madrassas from which the Taliban emerged were and are Deobandi in belief. Many Saudi-funded madrassas in Pakistan have been used to recruit for jihad.

The Wahhabi-influenced Deobandis control a majority of mosques in Britain, but they are far from the only group with mosques and other institutions.[4] There are also smaller numbers of Salafi imams and scholars, many of whom come from Saudi-funded madrassas.[5]

This situation grows more complicated when one adds the larger numbers of scholars and jurisprudents emerging from colleges in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. These tend to be very conservative and still play a major role providing imams and members of Sharia councils.

In sum, these variations in training, qualifications, linguistic abilities, and so on mean that there is no level playing field for expertise, but that there is considerable latitude with regard to the interpretation of sharia law. Very often, scholars with adherence to one branch of Islam will violently disagree with others. It is generally reckoned that sharia councils and Muslim Arbitration Tribunals are conservative, with few advocates for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in sight.

Finally, there is a less-known feature of modern sharia theory that impacts on Europe, North America, and elsewhere in the West. In classical Islamic theory, the world is divided between the Realm of Islam (Dar al-Islam), territories ruled by Islamic governments, and the Realm of War (Dar al-Harb), regions under non-Muslim control. Strictly speaking, a Muslim who finds himself living in a non-Muslim country is obliged to leave it and return to a Muslim state, usually somewhere within a Muslim empire. Strictly speaking, it is proper, even obligatory, for Muslims to live in non-Muslim countries when those countries are under Muslim rule, regardless of the size of the two populations. All the early Islamic empires had a majority of non-Muslims. Muslim expansion and imperialism meant that Muslims controlled territories where, at first, they were not in a majority. These territories were considered as Dar al-Islam. Later, when Muslims were expelled from places such as Portugal and Spain, those countries became Dar al-Harb and in the view of many Muslims, it became necessary to fight them in order to return them to Islam, as is happening with regard to Israel today.

When, in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, non-Muslim forces took control of Muslim lands, compromises became necessary. However, during the late 20^th century and increasingly in the current one, large numbers of Muslims came to live in Western countries. With the 2015 influx of refugees into Europe, Muslims living outside Islamic territories have been faced with dilemmas about the application of sharia, especially where it conflicts with the civil laws of their host countries.

The response of many Muslim scholars has been to develop a new form of Islamic jurisprudence, fiqh al-'aqaliyyat, "jurisprudence of the minorities." This began in the 1990s, mostly through the efforts of two Muslim scholars, Shaykh Taha Jabir al-Alwani and Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Alwani is president of the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Ashburn, Virginia (now part of the Cordoba University), and is the founder and former president of the Fiqh Council of North America, an affiliate of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ISNA itself has, of course, long been identified as a front organization for the hardline Muslim Brotherhood. That connection becomes more visible when one looks at Qatar-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the leading ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qaradawi's television program, al-Sharīʿa wa al-Ḥayāh, attracts an international following of some 60 million, and his comprehensive online fatwa site, Islam Online is consulted by millions.

The Muslim scholars Yusuf al-Qaradawi (left) and Taha Jabir al-Alwani (right) developed a new form of Islamic "jurisprudence of the minorities," which partly concerns whether non-Muslim countries with large Muslim minorities are still considered the "Realm of War."

The principles under which the jurisprudence for minorities operates are somewhat complex. Part of the debate concerns whether non-Muslim countries with large Muslim minorities are still the "Realm of War;" the notion is generally rejected. If Western states are not in a state of war with Islam, then Muslims are not obliged to leave them to seek refuge in an Islamic country. In that event, it is necessary to interpret sharia rulings to make it possible for Muslims to live in territories to which they have migrated, or in which they find themselves for limited periods, as in staying abroad to study. However, adjustments to Western ways do not permit actual change to sharia.

In 1997, the government of Qatar provided funding to establish an institution known as the European Council for Fatwa and Research, based in Dublin, Ireland. The council, whose president is Qaradawi himself, was set up under the auspices of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe, another front for the Muslim Brotherhood, with close associations to the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian branch, Hamas. The ECFR has 32 members, roughly half from European states, the rest from North America, North Africa, and the Gulf. Its fatwas do little to integrate sharia norms within European societies. One fatwa declares:

"Sharia cannot be amended to conform to changing human values and standards; rather, it is the absolute norm to which all human values and conduct must conform; it is the frame to which they must be referred; it is the scale on which they must be weighed."

The true significance of the ECFR and its international cast of member jurists is that it is an extra-territorial body that passes judgements, provides legal solutions, and adjudicates on all aspects of Islamic law. Its impact on national sharia courts, such as the British Muslim Arbitration Tribunal and the UK Islamic Sharia Council, cannot be calculated easily, but is certain to play an important role. If one reads the fatwas of the ECFR and the many online fatwa sites, it is clear that national sharia bodies in Western countries are operating outside the confines of British, French, and other legal systems. No European or American state can exercise full control over who serves on such councils, who influences them, and which rulings inspire their judgements.

Although the ECFR is the leading fatwa body in Europe, several other national organizations -- in France, Germany, and Norway, for example -- issue fatwas in other languages. Everywhere, the approach is much the same. Whether through conventional jurisprudence or the jurisprudence of minorities, there seems no clear path to improved assimilation of Muslims into European societies, and no accommodation of sharia law alongside Western, man-made law.

Unless reform enters the thinking of the Muslim clergy, Salafi Islam will continue to beckon Muslims to the past. Under strict sharia, the question remains: what is to become of the growing millions of newcomers for whom Western law codes are of secondary value -- for whom they are, perhaps, just an obstacle in the path towards an ultimate goal of total separation from host societies?

In Sharia Law or One Law for All, I drew attention to another level of sharia rulings that provide fatwas for numbers of British Muslims, in particular of the younger generation. These are online sites: "fatwa banks." Individuals or couples send questions to the muftis who run the sites, and receive answers in the form of fatwas that are considered authoritative. The questions and answers are preserved in galleries of rulings, which can be browsed by anyone seeking advice. The sites are by no means consistent, differing from one scholar to another. But they do provide an insight into the kinds of rulings that may be given in the sharia councils.

For example:

• a Muslim woman may not marry a non-Muslim man unless he converts to Islam (such a woman's children will be separated from her until she marries a Muslim man)
• polygamous marriage (two to four wives) is legal
• a man may divorce his wife without telling her about it, provided he does not seek to sleep with her
• a husband has conjugal rights over his wife, and she should normally answer his summons to have sex (but she cannot summon him for that)
• a woman may not stay with her husband if he leaves Islam
• non-Muslims may be deprived of their share in an inheritance
• a divorce does not require witnesses (a man may divorce his wife and send her away even if no one else knows about it)
• re-marriage requires the wife to marry, have sex with, and be divorced by another man
• a wife has no property rights in the event of divorce (which may be initiated arbitrarily by her husband)
• sharia law must override the judgements of British courts
• rights of child custody may differ from those in UK law
• taking up residence in a non-Muslim country except for limited reasons is forbidden
• taking out insurance is prohibited, even if required by law
• there is no requirement to register a marriage according to the law of the country
• it is undesirable to rent an apartment belonging to a Christian church
• a Muslim lawyer has to act contrary to UK law where it contradicts sharia
• employment by driving a taxi is prohibited
• it is allowable to be a police officer, provided one is not called upon to do anything contrary to the sharia
• women are restricted in leaving their homes and driving cars
• an adult woman may not marry anyone she chooses
• sharia law of legitimacy contradicts the Legitimacy Act 1976
• a woman may not leave her home without her husband's consent (a restriction that may constitute false imprisonment)
• legal adoption is forbidden
• a man may coerce his wife to have sex
• a woman may not retain custody of her child after seven (for a boy) or nine (for a girl)
• a civil marriage may be considered invalid
• sharia law takes priority over secular law (for example, a wife may not divorce her husband in a civil court)
• fighting the Americans and British is a religious duty
• recommendation of severe punishments for homosexuals
• a woman's recourse to fertility treatment is discouraged
• a woman cannot marry without the presence and permission of a male guardian (wali)
• if a woman's 'idda (three months, to determine whether or not she is pregnant) has expired and she no longer has marital relations with her husband, he is excused alimony payments
• an illegitimate child may not inherit from his/her father.

Some of these fatwas advise illegal actions and others transgress human rights standards as they are applied by British courts. They show vividly just how questionable it is to permit a parallel system of law within a single national system.

Denis MacEoin is the author of "Sharia Law or One Law for All" (London, Civitas, 2009).

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[1] See Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, Umdat al-salik, trans. Nuh Ha Mim Keller as Reliance of the Traveller, Beltsville MD, 1991 and 1994, p. 595, o7.3: "As for when an aggressor is raping someone whom it is illegal for him to have sexual intercourse with, it is permissible to kill him forthwith," based on a statement from Abu'l-Hasan al-Mawardi, the famous Shafi'i jurist (972-1058).
[2] Baroness Cox was made a peer in 1982, and since then has made an astonishing contribution to humanitarian causes worldwide, travelling to far-flung zones of conflict and human rights abuse, even at great personal risk.
[3] Similar views had been expressed two years earlier, in a 2010 report by Maryam Namazie's One Law for All organization, Sharia Law for Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights. That report, in turn, had been preceded by a book, entitled Sharia Law or 'One Law for All'?, written by the present author for the independent think tank, Civitas (the institute for the study of civil society).
[4] Other Muslims of Pakistani origin have a Sufi-influenced Barelwi orientation, which, although it adheres to the same Hanafi law school, is constantly in conflict with the Deobandis. There are certainly more young Muslims training in the UK, and many of these experience difficulty with courses taught in Urdu, as at Bury.
[5] For fuller details, see Innes Bowen, Medina in Birmingham, Najaf in Brent: Inside British Islam, London, 2014.

Denis MacEoin is the author of "Sharia Law or One Law for All" (London, Civitas, 2009).

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7562/sharia-law

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

New Iron Dome version can destroy tunnels - DebkaFile

by DebkaFile

Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood said that the US had allocated $40 million for completing in 2016 the establishment of “anti-tunnel capabilities to detect, map and neutralize underground tunnels that threaten the US or Israel.”

Iran keeps its ballistic missiles in underground bunkers

Israel has started testing a secret new weapon for defeating the tunnel systems which the Palestinian Hamas and Hizballah are busy digging for surprise attacks against Israel. Western sources reported Friday, March 11, that the new weapon, dubbed the “Underground Iron Dome,” can detect a tunnel, then send in a moving missile to blow it up.

US intelligence sources disclosed only that [the] new weapon is equipped with seismic sensors to detect underground vibrations and map their location before destroying them.

Western experts have been talking for years about a secret Israeli weapon capable of destroying Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility, which is buried deep inside a mountain not far from the Shiite shrine city of Qom. They suggested that this hypothetical weapon could be slipped through the Fordo facility’s vents, thread its way through the underground chambers and take down the illicit enrichment facility.

It was discussed again three years ago, when the Israeli Air Force on Aug. 23 2013 blew up the Popular Palestinian Front-General Command underground facility at Al-Naama on the South Lebanese coast, 15 km south of Beirut.

The PPF-GC leader Ahmed Jibril was then taking his orders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.

How this operation turned out was never revealed. But Western military sources saw it as a strong Israeli message to Tehran that its underground nuclear facilities were now vulnerable to attack. The secret JIbril command center was constructed in the 1970s by East German military engineers as one of most heavily fortified military sites in the Middle East.

As for the new weapon, the Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood said that the US had allocated $40 million for completing in 2016 the establishment of “anti-tunnel capabilities to detect, map and neutralize underground tunnels that threaten the US or Israel.”

According to the spokesman, the main part of the development work (on the secret weapon) would be conducted in Israel in 2016. The US would receive prototypes and access to the test sites and hold the rights to any intellectual property.

The Israeli firms working on the anti-tunnel weapon are Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which developed the Iron Dome.

Sherwood denied claims from Israeli defense quarters that the US had earmarked $120 for developing the system, or that another $80 million would be available – half in 2017 and half in 2018.

debkafile’s military sources emphasize that the timeline implicit in those estimates doesn’t necessarily represent the tempo of he Underground Iron Dome’s development.

According to past experience, unfinished Israeli weapons have more than once been rushed to the battlefield to meet an emergency war situation. The Iron Dome is one example. This has the advantage of testing innovative systems in real operational conditions, with the result that improvements and adjustments can be introduced much faster than planned.

Our sources add: Both Palestinian Hamas and the pro-Iranian Hizballah are working overtime on tunnels for sneaking terrorists and commando fighters into Israel to attack IDF posts and civilian locations. During Israel’s last counter-terror operation in the Gaza Strip, Hamas staged a deadly tunnel attack on the Israel side of the border and is planning repeats. Hizballah is training commando units for underground surprise incursions to capture parts of Galilee in northern Israel.

The Israeli government has spent more than $250 million since 2004 on efforts to thwart tunnel construction under the Gaza border.

IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Gadi Eisenkot hinted at these efforts in February. “We are doing a lot, but many of [the things we do] are hidden from the public,” he told a conference at Herzliya’s Interdisciplinary Center. “We have dozens, if not a hundred, engineering vehicles on the Gaza border.”


DebkaFile

Source: http://www.kakuroconquest.com/?size=8x8&level=1

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

Obama's Middle East initiatives -- Just for appearances - Boaz Bismuth

by Boaz Bismuth

U.S. President Barack Obama isn't a pacifist, and he isn't bluffing. But have his Middle East initiatives contributed to the region's devolution, or will he - as he hopes - be remembered well for what he avoided doing?

American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who is close to President Barack Obama, didn't really surprise anyone when he presented "The Obama Doctrine" in The Atlantic magazine's April edition. Following a lengthy analysis, Goldberg concluded that "George W. Bush was also a gambler, not a bluffer. He will be remembered harshly for the things he did in the Middle East. Barack Obama is gambling that he will be judged well for the things he didn't do." But will he? 

Barack Obama has no faith in the Middle East. Even if he did, he is convinced that like every other American president, he can't do much. He believes that to fix our region, it is necessary to launch a war that would weaken America, and therefore such a war should be avoided. He's also not in any rush to go up against the Muslim world. That explains why, from the start, he never intended to take action in Syria, despite the lines he drew in the sand back in 2012. Bush wasn't bluffing, Goldberg argues, but what about Obama? 

Jeffrey Goldberg's article relates how he mentioned to Obama a scene from "The Godfather III" in which Michael Corleone explains why he couldn't escape the clutches of organized crime: "I told Obama that the Middle East is to his presidency what the mob is to Corleone, and I started to quote the Al Pacino line: 'Just when I thought I was out...' 

"'It pulls you back in,' Obama said, completing the thought."

That's the story. Obama wanted to flee the Middle East. But the Middle East, when it is ignored or addressed incorrectly, comes knocking. If not at the door, then on someone's legacy. 

We remember how Obama incorrectly assessed the threat posed by the Islamic State group. He also, by his own admission, didn't understand U.S. citizens' fear of the Islamist organization following the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino last year. But the Islamic State phenomenon forced Obama to come to terms with the fact that the ills of the Middle East could not be fixed on his watch, or even for a few generations to come. 

One might conclude from this that Obama's initiatives in the Middle East were strictly for protocol. But the way he sees it, intervention in Syria would have cost American lives without guaranteeing results. On the other hand, diplomatic intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does nothing to weaken America, even if it also does nothing for Israel or the Palestinians. 

Obama is not a pacifist. He doesn't want to isolate America, but he also doesn't want America to be suicidal. His policies, however, have undermined America's stature as a superpower. Fortunately, America's strength, which has been built up over many generations, is such that one president, even after two terms, cannot wreck the glorious inheritance bestowed upon him by his predecessors. 

August 30, 2013 may go down in history as the date on which Obama kept the U.S. from entering into a destructive Muslim civil war and also as the date on which he removed the threat of chemical weapons Turkey and Iran posed to Israel. Alternately, it might be remembered as the day Obama allowed the Middle East to fall into the hands of Russia, Iran, and the Islamic State group. 

Obama doesn't believe in Churchillian speeches. He thinks they lead to war. Others would say they actually led to peace.

Boaz Bismuth

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=32361

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

The terrorism loophole - Lilach Shoval and Daniel Siryoti

by Lilach Shoval and Daniel Siryoti

The wave of terrorism has turned the spotlight back onto the familiar issue of illegal Palestinian infiltrators • Defense officials say considerable efforts are made to curtail the problem, but admit the military has more pressing threats to counter.

A Palestinian man using a rope to climb down the security fence near east Jerusalem, last week | Photo credit: AFP

Two of the terrorists who carried out Tuesday's attacks in Jaffa and Petach Tikva were in Israel illegally. Although both terrorists were from Palestinian villages adjacent to the West Bank city of Qalqilya, authorities believe the attacks were unrelated, as all signs indicate the two did not know each other.

This is not the first time Palestinians who are in Israel illegally have carried out terrorist attacks. Countering the illegal infiltration into Israel has been a priority for the defense establishment for years, and Shin Bet security agency data suggests that 28 out of the 254 terrorist attacks that have taken place in Israel and across Judea and Samaria since the onset of the current wave of terrorism were perpetrated by illegal Palestinian infiltrators.

These 28 terrorists were merely a fraction of the estimated 40,000 Palestinians who enter Israel illegally every day. Some return to their homes every night, while others stay within the Green Line, illegally, for days and sometimes weeks. En route to Israel, they travel on roads the defense establishment is familiar with, they often have set pickup points and transportation arrangements, and most are employed regularly by the same Israeli employers. The majority of these Palestinians have nothing to do with terrorism -- all they want to do is provide for their families.

Civil Administration data suggest 61,000 Palestinians hold valid work permits allowing them to enter Israel, and an additional 27,000 Palestinians have permits allowing them to work in Jewish communities across Judea and Samaria. Palestinians applying for work permits in Israel must be specifically requested by their Israeli employers before they are vetted by the defense establishment. 

Defense officials have repeatedly noted that the fact Palestinians are granted work permits in the midst of the current surge in violence serves as a mitigating factor that curtails terrorism, adding that were Israel to comprehensively deny or revoke such permits, these Palestinians would be rioting on the streets and clashing with Israeli security forces. So far, only two of the terrorist attacks that have taken place over the past six months were carried out by Palestinian workers allowed into Israel.

Palestinians denied an official work permit have good reason to infiltrate Israel, where they are paid about 200 shekels ($50) for a day's work -- double what they make working in Palestinian cities. Infiltration also nixes the need to arrive at IDF checkpoints in the very early hours of the morning, for the routine security screening. 

Despite statements to the contrary, prior to the current wave of terrorism Israel took only minimal steps against Palestinian infiltrators. The defense establishment's premise was that the Israeli economy needed Palestinian day laborers, whose employment alleviated the dire economic situation across the West Bank, which in turn curtailed Palestinians' desire to carry out terrorist attacks. But as the violence refuses to ebb, and as reality proves that more and more Palestinian infiltrators are involved in terrorist attacks within the Green Line, the defense establishment has come to realize the flow of terrorists into Israel must be stopped.

A senior officer with the IDF's Judea and Samaria Division told Israel Hayom that the military goes to great lengths to prevent Palestinians from infiltrating Israel but he also admitted that given the other major threats facing Judea and Samaria's Jewish communities and roads, the matter was simply not a top priority.

With the exception of specific areas making up the security fence, which are still under construction, the majority of the fence across Judea and Samaria has been completed. The fence however, is constantly sabotaged and according to defense officials the damage amount to hundreds of thousands of shekels a month, and the breached fence allows Palestinians to infiltrate Israel illegally. 

"In many cases, where the fence is intact we are able to detain infiltrators. The fence indicates [breaches], and we have scouts and patrols. Prevention rates are high. We know their routes and they know they have to work hard to infiltrate Israel. [Palestinian] Infiltrators are always on our radar but we have other threats in the sector. Even if I had two additional battalions in the sector right now I would use them for other assignments, not to catch infiltrators, because I think we're doing well in that department," he said.

Commenting on the fact that the Jaffa and Petach Tikva attacks were carried out by Palestinian infiltrators, he said, "We don't have a hermetic seal. We're not happy about it but we make sure to draw the necessary conclusions from any event and adapt how we operate accordingly."

The infiltration problem, he admitted, "is multitiered because there is legislation to consider. Theoretically you can arrest a Palestinian infiltrator and indict him, but practical reality is slightly more complex. There are times when the police let them go, depending on whether or not they're repeat offenders, and sometimes they are fined."

Another military official noted that often after the military arrests Palestinian infiltrators, "no one comes for them. There's nothing we can do in such cases. They [the infiltrators] are suspected of having committed a criminal offence, not of participating in terrorist activity, so it's out of the military's hands."

The Israel Police said in a statement, "In general, the Israel Defense Forces is responsible for border protection, including any operations and checkpoints along the security fence, to prevent individuals from illegally entering Israel. This is complemented by focused enforcement by the Israel police against those who have managed to infiltrate Israel despite the IDF's efforts. Such offences are subject to strict, unwavering enforcement, including punitive actions against those who employ, drive, or harbor illegal Palestinian infiltrators. It should be noted that in the past 24 hours alone, police and Border Police forces have arrested over 250 illegal Palestinian infiltrators, 12 drivers, and 15 employers. The police files thousands of indictments in the matter every year."

The police statement noted that "enforcement is pursued in several spheres, from the security fence inward toward city centers, while paying special attention to construction sites and other popular urban areas, so to ensure all security aspects pertaining to public safety are addressed. Tens of thousands of investigations are launched every year over illegal infiltration and in cases where there is a proven threat, as determined by set criteria, suspects are arrested, arraigned, and prosecuted accordingly. 

"It is important to note that as the courts are usually lenient on infiltrators -- unless they are repeat offenders -- the police focus the majority of their efforts on employers, drivers, and those who harbor infiltrators, who are subjected to serious administrative measures, including for example, shutting down construction sites." 

Where there's a will, there's a way 

Authorities understand that one of the most effective ways to deal with the phenomenon of illegal Palestinian infiltrators is by dealing with their Israeli employers. 

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan is currently promoting legislation seeking to significantly aggravate punitive actions taken against Israelis who employ illegal Palestinians infiltrators. According to this bill, which has already passed its first Knesset reading, employers would face prosecution and hefty fines, the police will be granted administrative authority to shut down a business or a construction site employing illegal infiltrators for up to 30 days, and the court will be able to revoke their business license or construction permit.

"Those who employ illegal Palestinian infiltrators place Israeli lives at risk. The current wave of terrorism has proven once again how dangerous it is that illegal infiltrators are present on construction sites and in city centers. Their employment is a nationwide plague that is the result of lenient enforcement. We have to prosecute those who employ or harbor illegal Palestinian infiltrators to the full extent of the law, and make sure it is simply not worth it to them to risk Israeli lives for greed," Edran said.

The involvement of illegal infiltrators in the current surge in violence makes things difficult not only for the Israeli security forces but also for the Palestinians themselves, especially those who have valid work permits. 

"All most of us want is simply to make an honest living, which is virtually impossible in the Palestinian Authority," Abdullah, an illegal infiltrator from a village near Jenin, who sells sandwiches to those traveling through the Gilboa checkpoint north of the Palestinian city, told Israel Hayom. 

"I'm here every day from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. If I make 100 shekels [$26] in 12 hours I say, 'Praise Allah.' Until a few months ago, before the terrorist attacks began, the soldiers would let us go through to the other side of the checkpoint and sell food and drinks to the Israelis as well, so we made more money. But ever since the attacks began anyone trying to go through the checkpoint risks his life. I can sell only to the Palestinian workers going through the checkpoint and they count every shekel they spend."

Muhammad, an illegal infiltrator who works in fields in the western Galilee, says trying to stop Palestinians from infiltrating Israel would prove nearly impossible. 

"Someone who needs to provide for his family will do anything and everything for that. I know Palestinians and Israelis who keep coming up with new and creative ways to get into the Green Line and to smuggle Palestinian workers into Israel. Some pay people who take them to certain areas along the [security] fence, where it's easier to infiltrate [Israel] and others hide in specially-built hidden compartments in cars," he said.

Infiltrating Israel, however, has become much harder since the onset of the current wave of terrorism, and Muhammad said smugglers have doubled their usual fee. 

"If, say, a year ago any Palestinian worker without a permit wanted to get into Israel he would pay somewhere between 200 and 300 shekels [$50 and $80]. Today it's about 600 or 700 shekels [$150 or $180] per person. Those who use smugglers who take them to where you can breach the fence on foot pay a little less, but we're still talking about several hundred shekels a person. That's why the majority of illegals prefer not to return to the West Bank [at night] and stay on the farms, or the construction sites that employ them."

Undocumented Palestinian workers can be found working Israeli fields in the country's north and south, and on construction sites nationwide. 

"If there's no specific expertise needed than Israeli contractors -- Arab Israelis and Jews -- prefer hiring Palestinian workers," Rassem, an illegal infiltrator from Husan, a Palestinian village west of Bethlehem, told Israel Hayom.

"There are almost thirty of us living in sheds near the fields we work on. Most of us don't go home for months. In better times before the attacks, we would bring our families and children to be with us and help us. But now when the police and the Border Police raid construction sites almost every day it makes no sense to bring our families here. I haven't seen my wife and children for almost 6 months, and I have no intention of going back to my village right now because I know infiltrating Israel again would be very expensive and chances are we'll be caught," he said.

According to Rassem, the majority of Palestinian workers are familiar with how the police and Border Police look for illegal infiltrators, which makes it easy for them to avoid capture. 

"Agricultural areas and construction sites are full of hiding places. Sometimes the cops walk or drive right by us and they have no idea that there are 10 or 20 Palestinian workers hiding right under their noses," he said. 

Undocumented workers and their employers have developed systems to fool the police: "We take turns -- five of us volunteer to get caught to save the remaining 20 or 30. The police are happy and they leave the area. For the most part those detained are even given a ride to whatever checkpoint gets them home. After a few days go by, we collect a little money from everyone, to pay for those who were captured to be smuggled back into Israel." 

Muhammad and Rassem both said that for the most part, their Israeli employers, and others who pay to have Palestinian workers smuggled into Israel, see it as a cost-effective venture, although they have their reservations. 

"If, heaven forbid, the illegal worker carried out a terrorist attack than his employer or the person who smuggled him [into Israel] could be in a lot of trouble," Rassem said. "But in routine times this is a win-win situation for everyone: the smugglers make a lot of money, hundreds or even thousands of shekels every day; the employers get cheap labor -- much cheaper than any foreign worker; and the Palestinian workers are able to make an honest living and provide for their families.

"If Israel were to allow more Palestinians into the Green Line to work and make an honest living, the number of terrorist attacks would drop. Even now, in this wave of terrorism, the majority of terrorists were not illegals, but high school students [university] students and women," he said.

Lilach Shoval and Daniel Siryoti

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=32333

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

Anti-Semitism in Australia - the current situation - Julie Nathan

by Julie Nathan

Anti-Semitism is not the norm, but it is becoming more mainstream.

Australia, although physically remote from most of the Jewish world, has a thriving and proud Jewish community of about 120,000. The Jewish community has the highest number of Holocaust survivors per capita in the diaspora, and greatly benefited from post war immigration as well as more recently, South African and Russian immigration.

A very high proportion of Jewish school students attend Jewish day schools for their entire school education. The community is well integrated into the wider Australian community and has made impressive contributions to virtually every aspect of Australian life. The vast majority of the Jewish community identifies with and supports Israel.

In general, Australia has been very good for Jews, and Jews appreciate the rights and freedoms we have here. Even though most Australian Jews, as individuals, are able to lead a life free of harassment, abuse, and assault, some anti-Semitism exists, although its impact on the day to day lives of Jews is minimal and, as an overall problem, it is far less significant in Australia than in other countries.

Nevertheless, the Jewish community is the only community within Australia whose places of worship, schools, communal organisations and community centres, for security reasons, operate under protective measures such as high fences, armed guards, metal detectors, CCTV cameras and the like. The necessity arises from the incidence of physical attacks against Jews and Jewish communal buildings over the last three decades, and continuing threats.  

As has been the pattern in previous years, Jews continue to be targeted for harassment, abuse and threats at synagogues and other Jewish institutions, including schools. This occurs around synagogues on the Jewish Sabbath on Friday evenings and on Saturday mornings when Jews are walking to and from synagogue, and attending religious services. These incidents are certainly not the norm, yet they persist at a low but steady rate.

There is often a correlation between spikes in violence in any of the various conflicts in the Middle East (and a concomitant increase in media coverage), whether or not the conflict involves Israel, and an upturn in anti-Semitic incidents. In addition, when issues involving Jews or Israel receive prominent coverage in the mainstream media this often leads to a rise in anti-Semitic commentary and incidents.

Two incidents in recent years shocked the Jewish community. In 2013, a Jewish family of five, walking home after attending synagogue and Shabbat dinner in Sydney were physically assaulted by a group of eight young males. Ten months later, during the 2014 Israel-Gaza war, around thirty Jewish students, aged 5-12 years old, on a school bus in Sydney, were subjected to physical and verbal threats by five male teenagers who yelled anti-Semitic abuse at the students, including “all Jews must die”, “Heil Hitler”, and threatened them with “we’re going to slit your throats”. Fortunately, such incidents are rare, but they do serve to remind Jews that there are people who will act out their prejudices and hatred. There have been no such incidents since.

In addition to occasional physical attacks and threats, the sense of security of Australian Jews is affected by factors such as occasional hostile media coverage of Jewish and Israeli issues, political and online commentary, as well as anti-Israel propaganda and protests. It is words, when given free reign, which create a poisonous atmosphere for those targeted by racism. It is words that incite hatred and violence.

While ever anti-Semitism has been confined to the fringes of society, that is, to the far Right and far Left of politics, and to bigoted religious extremists within Christianity or Islam, the situation for Jews has been manageable. Anti-Semitism will never disappear or be destroyed. The best that can be achieved is that society as a whole deems anti-Semitism, and other forms of racism, to be socially unacceptable, not to be tolerated, and to be actively countered. Such an atmosphere gives Jew-haters very little breathing space from which to launch their hate propaganda and activities. The danger arises when anti-Semitism moves from the margins into the mainstream of society.  

The mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in Australia is most vividly seen in the ABC, the national public broadcaster, and other major mainstream media outlets. For example, a documentary produced by the ABC, “Stone Cold Justice”, was aired in February 2014, which made some uninvestigated and unsubstantiated allegations that Jewish soldiers crucify Palestinian boys, and other equally absurd and inflammatory claims tinged with classical antisemitic tropes. In response, virulently anti-Semitic comments were posted on ABC Facebook pages. This ABC documentary is still eliciting anti-Semitic comments to this day via its posting on Youtube.

When mainstream media outlets are prepared to publish or host unsubstantiated claims and irrational bias, which is combined with outright demonizing of Jews, then a signal is sent that anti-Semitism is acceptable and even respectable, and Jew-haters feel emboldened to promote their views and to act on them. This an area which the peak Jewish representative organization, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, monitors closely, and where warranted, raises objections. Fortunately, most of the anti-Semitic content on mainstream media has ultimately been removed following representations to those media outlets.

For a diverse society such as Australia's to be harmonious, it is imperative that all Australians, regardless of race or religion, are able to live without harassment and hatred, without vilification and violence. anti-Semitism is pervasive and pernicious. It targets Jews but has always had a wider fall-out, as a litmus test for the degree to which a society tolerates racism generally. Countering anti-Semitic and other racist expressions is therefore in everyone's interests.


Julie Nathan is the Research Officer for the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, and has authored the ECAJ’s annual anti-Semitism Report since 2013. 


Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18535#.VuROv-azdds

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

Hamas vows retaliation for Israeli Gaza airstrikes - Arutz Sheva Staff

by Arutz Sheva Staff

After IAF responds to Gaza rocket fire with airstrikes on Hamas compound, Islamist terror group warns of 'escalation.'

The Hamas terrorist organization which rules the Gaza Strip has vowed revenge for an Israel Air Force airstrike which killed two people on Friday night, after terrorists fired rockets into Israeli territory.

The airstrikes targeted a Hamas military base embedded next to civilian homes in the northern Gazan village of Beit Lahiya. Two children were killed in the strike when shrapnel hit their home, according to Hamas's health ministry.

The pre-dawn wave of Israeli air strikes came hours after four rockets fired from the enclave by Palestinian terrorists hit the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Friday night. No one was injured in that attack, which was the latest breach of the ceasefire with Israel by Gazan terrorist groups.

"In response to the aggression, the Israel Air Force targeted four Hamas sites in the northern Gaza Strip," a military statement said.

Senior Hamas official Ismael Radwan called the Israeli strikes "an escalation" and placed "full responsibility" on the Jewish state.  

"The blood of the children killed in the Zionist raid will not flow in vain," the terror group's military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned in a statement.

Our "patience with the attacks of the enemy has its limits", it added.

Since the end of the devastating war between Israel and Gaza terrorists in summer 2014, approximately 34 rockets fired from the Islamist Hamas-controlled coastal strip have hit Israel.

Most have been fired by jihadi groups linked to ISIS, although a few have been fired by factions aligned with the Islamic Jihad terror group as well. 

Israel holds Hamas directly responsible for all attacks from territory under its control.

AFP contributed to this report.


Arutz Sheva Staff

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/209286#.VuRwD-azdds

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Saudi Journalist: Iran – Not Israel – Is The Gulf States' No. 1 Enemy - MEMRI

by MEMRI

On March 8, 2016, Saudi journalist Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh wrote in his column in the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah that today, Iran is the No. 1 enemy of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, supplanting the historical enemy Israel. Any citizen of the Gulf who disagrees with this assessment, he added, is a traitor.

Arguing that Iran is exploiting the Palestinian issue as a pretext for "infiltrating deep into the Arab world, shredding its Arab fabric, and dragging Arab society into supporting its expansionary plan," he emphasized that the Palestinians should expect no salvation from Iran. He also warned the Gulf Shi'ites that they were mere pawns for Iran, which was using them to promote Persian national aspirations. 

Below are translated excerpts from Aal Al-Sheikh's column:[1] 


Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh (image: Kn19.com)


"The Persian enemy is Enemy No. 1, and the Zionist enemy is [only] Enemy No. 2. We must present this truth directly, flattering no one, to all those [who try] to extort us with the tale that Israel is the Arabs' Enemy No. 1 and that Iran supports us on the Palestinian issue. This tale could still be true vis-à-vis the Arabs to the north [of the Arabian Peninsula], and in Egypt, because Israel threatens [Egypt] and its security and stability. But as for the [Saudi] kingdom and the Gulf states, it is Iran, not Israel, that tops the list of the enemies and the dangers that lie in wait for us, face us and threaten us. Iran is exploiting the issue of the Palestinians and the liberation [of Palestine] as a pretext for infiltrating deep into the Arab [world], shredding its Arab fabric, and dragging Arab [society] into supporting its expansionary plan.

"It is true that the Palestinian issue has throughout history been the No. 1 Arab cause, and liberating Jerusalem from the yoke of the Israeli occupation has doubtless been the No. 1 issue for us, with nothing more important. However, at this time, and in light of the Persian ambition that the extremist Muslim Iranian government is backing with all its resources and for which it is mobilizing all its forces and capabilities, the Persian enemy takes priority – and must take priority – over the Israeli danger. 

"For example, when [former Iraqi president] Saddam [Hussein] invaded Kuwait, occupied its territory, expropriated its sovereignty, and annexed it to Iraq, Kuwait's Enemy No. 1, and the No. 1 enemy of the [rest of] our  Gulf countries, was not Israel but Saddam's Iraq. Furthermore, I am not ashamed to say that anyone in the Gulf, particularly among the Kuwaitis, who prioritized liberating Palestine over liberating Kuwait from the claws of the Iraqi occupier was considered a clear traitor. The Lebanese need to realize this, as do the Egyptians and the Palestinians... 

"I do not think that any reasonable Gulf resident would consider the danger [posed by] the Zionist enemy to be greater than [that posed by] the Persian enemy. The Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians, whose land is wholly or partially occupied by Israel, are expecting us – for whatever reasons and excuses – to be courteous towards them and to prioritize the Israeli danger over that posed by the Persian enemy. They are delusional. 

"Moreover, let me say this bluntly: Any citizen of any of the five Gulf states who prioritizes the Israeli danger over that of the Persian enemy, whether from a pan-Arab or an Islamist perspective, is sacrificing his homeland, its security, its stability and perhaps its very existence for his neighbor's cause. By any national standard, this is absolute treason. 

"This issue has to do with our very existence, and there is no bargaining over it or dismissing or neglecting it. It is a matter on which the Gulf residents, whether Sunni or Shi'ite, agree equally. I know that for a minority among the ordinary Gulf Shi'ites, sectarian affiliation is the most important factor, and they place it above national affiliation. To them I say: The Persians have no interest in sect or even in religion. What really interests them is utilizing [your] sectarian [affiliation] as a lure to mobilize you against your homeland, as a fifth column. Take, for example, the Arabs of the Ahwaz [district in Iran].[2] Although they are Twelver Shi'ites, they are oppressed and excluded [in their own homeland], and the Persians are eradicating their [Arab] identity and with it their human rights. The regions [of Iran] where they live are the least developed and have the highest rates of poverty and unemployment – [even though] they are [the country's] richest in natural resources. Were sect and faith important [to the Persians], they would not be fighting the [Ahwazi] identity and heritage and forcing [the Ahwazis] to assimilate into a Persian identity, and would not be stopping them from speaking their language [Arabic], the language of the Koran... The [Persians'] goal and purpose is to [advance] the Persian race's control [in the region] and to establish a Persian empire with Baghdad as its capital – as a Persian religious scholar said in a documented press release..."[3]

Endnotes:

[1] Al-Jazirah (Saudi Arabia), March 8, 2016.

[2] On recent Arab efforts to promote the cession of Ahwaz from Iran, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No.1233,

MPs In Gulf Countries Urge Recognition Of Ahwaz Province In Iran As Occupied Arab Country, March 9, 2016.

[3] Possibly a reference to a March 2015 statement by Ali Younesi, advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rohani, in which he said that Iran is now again an empire and its capital is Iraq. See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5991, Advisor To Iranian President Rohani: Iran Is An Empire, Iraq Is Our Capital; We Will Defend All The Peoples Of The Region; Iranian Islam Is Pure Islam – Devoid Of Arabism, Racism, Nationalism, March 9, 2015.

MEMRI

Source: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/9069.htm

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