Why is America Still "The Great Satan" in Iran? - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Khamenei needs to hate America. This article explains why in its surprising information about the people of Iran.

Iran's Supreme Leader has been behaving rather strangely since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed in Vienna on July 14: two days after he signed the agreement, his Id el Fitr speech was business as usual – that is, filled with the same old hatred and hostility towards the West.

The following list of the main catchphrases in Khamenei's speech is accompanied by my explanations of their real meaning: 

• "America is the enemy." - i.e. If you think for a minute, my fellow Iranians, that America has become our friend as a result of the agreement, don't get carried away. America was our enemy, has remained our enemy and will always be our enemy. The agreement has not affected that unchanging situation.

• "The Islamic Republic will never give in to the dictates of the enemy and will not compromise on keeping its defensive abilities intact." -  i.e. If there is anyone in America, Europe or the rest of the world who thinks that this agreement will bring an end to our nuclear program, he is sorely mistaken; Iran will not relinquish the achievements its scientists have attained with the help and generosity of Allah.

• "Whether or not the final version of the agreement is ratified, we will not stop supporting our friends in the region. The oppressed Palestinian nation, the oppressed Yemenis, the Syrian people and their government, the Iraqi people and their government, the oppressed people of Bahrain, the freedom fighters in Lebanon and Palestine – all of them will continue to enjoy our support." - i.e. We will not stop our interference in the affairs of the nations in the region, and we will not cease arming, funding, training and encouraging terror organizations.

• "We have not discussed the different international and regional issues with America." - i.e. We are free to do whatever we feel like doing to any country in the region and in the world, and America will not succeed in forcing us to keep the rules of what is known as the "international community." We did not agree to put that in the agreement and are therefore free to do whatever we wish.

• "[The Americans claim] that they have succeeded in dragging the Iranian government to the negotiating table, in overpowering it and preventing it from attaining nuclear arms and the like. The truth is different." - i.e. The president of the United States is trying to sell the agreement as a way to prevent Iran's nuclear arming. He is mistaken and he is misleading America - we will do whatever we want to do.

• "We do not see war as a blessing and will not initiate one, but if a war breaks out here, it is America, the criminal invader who will be the loser." - i.e. If there is someone in America or anywhere else who thinks there is a military option against us, he is wrong, and we will defeat him just as we will defeat America.

The question that arises of itself as a result of this speech is why Khamenei feels the need to speak with such hostility against the United States when he knows that there is so much opposition to the agreement in America, and that it still has to be ratified by Congress. Why should the Supreme Leader scatter proclamations that could increase American opposition to the agreement? Why is he proving that all the objections to the agreement are well-founded? And why is he embarrassing the President Obama, who put himself on the line for this agreement?

The answer to this question is somewhat complicated, but clear to anyone who is aware of the internal situation in Iran.

Iran's population is young in comparison to the population of Europe. More than half of Iran's citizens are under 35, meaning that they were not yet born when the Shah was deposed at the end of 1978. They did not suffer from his despotism, and therefore do not understand why they have to suffer from the Ayatollahs' despotic rule. The majority of Iran's population is totally secular, their lives far removed from Islam, Sharia and tradition. The religious oppression under which they are forced to live distances them even more from religion. They have developed anti-religious feelings, and the more they are oppressed by religion, the farther they stray from its strictures.

Sexual promiscuity in Iran is widespread and stems in part from the fact that Iranians marry late. A 2008 survey showed that the average age at which men marry is almost 40, while the women's average is 35. The government hands out free contraceptives, preferring that alternative to dealing with sexually-transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and abandoned babies. Gays, both male and female, flourish in Iran's cities, while the web is filled with thousands of porno sites in Persian, most of them managed from Iran.

Iran's mosques are almost entirely deserted. As a result, the Supreme Leader gives his Friday speech in Tehran University, with the students forced to attend and cheer when they receive a signal to do so. In 2009, after "election" results showed Ahmadinejad victorious for the second time, massive mostly-student-based demonstrations exploded in the larger cities. These were suppressed by violent measures: men were shot, women arrested and raped by jailers. Later it was discovered that the regime had prepared two aircraft for smuggling out the heads of state, just in case the demonstrations got out of control and succeeded in toppling the Ayatollahs.

The agreement between the world powers and Iran, signed on July 14, 2015, has provided new hope to many of Iran's citizens, especially its restless young adults. The first reason for this hope is the belief that the billions of dollars that were denied the people will soon arrive in the country, improving the economic situation and bettering everyday life.

This optimism raises hopes that along with an improved economy, the human rights situation will also change for the better, allowing for more political freedom and less governmental oppression and corruption.

Khamenei knows full well which way the young adult population's wind is blowing and fears that the agreement will set off a chain reaction where that sector will want to translate the economic thaw into a loosening of political, religious, cultural and personal restraints. In order to deal with this trend, Khamenei feels that must either find or invent an evil and threatening external enemy that will get all the Iranians, mainly the youth, to forget all other pressing issues and flock to the Ayatollahs' leadership. America is still the enemy, still threatening Iran, and the only way to survive the machinations of its wicked Western government is if every Iranian supports the Ayatollahs' regime.

This is the true underlying reason for Khamenei's incitement. He needs an external threat from "The Big Satan" because he is afraid of the secular majority in his country who do not support the Ayatollahs, not even the so-called "Reformist Ayatollahs" among them -  a euphemism, at best, for those whose reforms are simply a way to mask their goal of perpetuating the Ayatollahs' reign without changing or replacing it.

It is worth noting that Iran is an artificial country made up of six ethnic groups who do not connect with one another: Persians (60%), Azarim, Kurds, Turkmans [sic], Bluchis [sic] and Arabs. Most of the population is Shiite, but the Bluchis [sic] and Kurds are Sunni and both groups are waging an ongoing guerilla [sic] war against the central regime in order to gain independence, exacting a price in dead Iranian soldiers and Revolutionary Guards. The world does not know about this warfare because journalists are banned from reaching the war zones and photographing the terrible events that keep happening there.

In Conclusion:

Since the Iran Agreement does not provide a foolproof way to check that the Ayatollahs are definitely not developing nuclear arms, we can conclude that sooner or later Iran will develop nuclear weapons in secret, if it has not done so already.  Nuclear weapons in the hands of the Ayatollahs pose a danger to the entire world because of the apocalyptic views of Shiite Islam and because of the Islamist ambition for global hegemony. Islamic religious tradition allows for the use of force and threats. Nuclear weapons will be a tool that allows the Ayatollahs to carry out their Shiite Islamist agenda and move on to control the world.

The only way to completely remove the danger of Iran's nuclear weapons is to abolish the rule of the Ayatollahs.  Now that the world has done away with the economic sanctions weapon, there are only two ways left to achieve that goal: one, to encourage the young, secular adult majority to fight the regime and two, aid the minority groups in destabilizing the regime and undercutting its unity.

Iran's rulers are weak, afraid of the people, looking for outside enemies, lost in their own extremist rantings that are an attempt to hide their weaknesses. It would not be very difficult to overthrow the present regime. The moral justification for this is solid: the Ayatollah's have been undermining Lebanon's government since 1980 and recently, doing the same in Yemen. They supply arms, weapons and money to Assad, the mass murderer, and are largely responsible for the blood spilled in Iraq.  They are behind terror worldwide, and have justly earned the world's desire to be rid of them and send them to a place where they cannot inflict any more damage on the human race. That, of course, would be the end of the Iranian nuclear weapons issue.

The questions that remain are straighforward [sic]. Does the world sees the dangers facing the world from the Iranian regime? Does it realize the real situation in Iran, the reality described in this article?  And does the world have the courage to do what is needed to solve, in passing, the Iranian nuclear problem?


Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/17272#.VbPxSvmzchQ

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

Britain's Irreconcilable Policy on Islam - Douglas Murray

by Douglas Murray

The real question is why, when it comes to the most extreme, anti-Western nation-destroyer of them all -- a country committed to the annihilation of a UN member state -- Her Majesty's government would not only permit it to have any nuclear project, but would trust the word of a regime with stated genocidal intent when it says that it is not pursuing genocidal weaponry?

Two very interesting things happened in Britain over the last two weeks. What makes them more interesting is that they are wholly contradictory.

Abroad, Britain's foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, put his nation's name to the P5+1 agreement with Iran, lifting sanctions against the Islamic Republic, unfreezing its assets, lifting arms controls on the regime and much, much more, all in exchange for having potential oversight -- with permission requested weeks in advance of any inspection -- of the country's nuclear sites. Britain's signature on this deal appears to have been an accepted and acceptable outcome with no significant opposition from any senior political figure of either main political party, and very little objection in the national press.

A few days later, Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron, gave his best speech to date on the threat of Islamic extremism at home and abroad. In that speech, the Prime Minister defined the challenge that Islamic extremism poses to Britain's way of life and cohesion as a society. He outlined the problem better than perhaps any other Western leader to date:

"What we are fighting, in Islamist extremism, is an ideology. It is an extreme doctrine. And like any extreme doctrine, it is subversive. At its furthest end, it seeks to destroy nation-states to invent its own barbaric realm. And it often backs violence to achieve this aim... mostly violence against fellow Muslims -- who don't subscribe to its sick worldview. But you don't have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish. Ideas which are hostile to basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality. Ideas which actively promote discrimination, sectarianism and segregation."

So how does the Prime Minster's domestic speech on extremism fit with the foreign policy goals currently being pursued by the British government? The most straightforward answer is: They don't. Take that lowest rung of what David Cameron rightly sees as an ideological ladder. That is, the ideas which do not pertain to the destruction of whole nation-states but nonetheless demonstrate an extremist mind-set.

In a recent interview, the UK's Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, was asked for an example of what might constitute warning signs of radicalization in a young person. Her answer was that being "extremely intolerant of homosexuality" might be just such a warning sign. Asked whether she thought that a pupil who thought homosexuality was "evil" should be reported to the police, the Education Secretary said that it would "depend very much on the context of the discussion."

By these lights, the Islamic Republic of Iran would most certainly have to be said to display signs of extremism. Indeed, given the circumstances, a referral to the police might be the only option. The Iranian regime does not simply think that homosexuality is "evil," it acts on this sentiment by hanging homosexual people from cranes in public squares. In the last year and a half alone, the regime has hanged more than a thousand people found "guilty" of this "crime," among similar offenses. Iran has also jailed others for the "crime" of being a Christian pastor, a former American marine, or a journalist for the Washington Post.

Another of Cameron's warning signs, a hostility to "sexual equality" would also appear to be among the regime's failings. As no less a figure than America's Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, said earlier this year, when Iran was attempting to join the UN's gender equality body, "In Iran, women are legally barred from holding some government positions, there are no laws against domestic violence, and adultery is punishable by stoning." This is the most diplomatic summary of Iran's subjection of women, but as Power said, these matters, among others, make Iran wholly inappropriate for membership in any gender equality body. In the eyes of the British government, they would also make the Iranian government's attitudes extremist.

Of course, the same Iranian government would fail any British inspectorate's tests in relation to other types of "discrimination, sectarianism and segregation," as David Cameron says. The Iranian government's treatment, for instance, of Iranian citizens who do not adhere to their own particular interpretation of Islam could hardly be said to be liberal. Not only are people of the Baha'i faith horribly and consistently persecuted (to select only one group), but in Iran, apostasy and blasphemy laws remain on the books, which mean that anybody convicted of believing anything other than the beliefs of the Ayatollahs can be hanged in public from cranes -- and they are.

But these are all among the lowest rungs of the extremist ladder. In Prime Minister Cameron's perfectly accurate definition of "the furthest end" of extremism, it consists of "seek[ing] to destroy nation-states to invent its own barbaric realm." For an example of which one need go no further than a speech given by another world leader, only three days before David Cameron's speech.

Last Friday, just before Cameron's speech, and only days after the signatories in Vienna were rejoicing over their deal, a senior Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, was selected by the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to deliver Friday prayers in Tehran. He did so -- at this state-run occasion -- while standing on a podium festooned with the words, "We Will Trample Upon America." The words "We defeat the United States" could also be seen in images from the rally.

Left: Senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, speaking on July 17 in Tehran, behind a banner reading "We Will Trample Upon America" and "We defeat the United States." Right: Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, proclaims "Death to America" on March 2.

Meanwhile, only four days after the signing of the Vienna agreement, the Supreme Leader of Iran himself appeared on Iranian state television, praised the "magnificent Iranian people" for calling for the destruction of Israel and America, and said that he hoped that Allah would answer their prayers. Ayatollah Khamenei was referring to the previous week's official day of particular anti-Israel activity called "Al-Quds Day". Khamenei said in his speech, "You heard the chants of 'Death to Israel', 'Death to the US.' You could hear it... So we ask Almighty God to accept these prayers by the people of Iran." His speech was punctuated by cries of 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel'.

Everybody who knows anything about foreign policy understands its complexities. Perhaps it is not surprising that behaviour that would get you designated an "extremist", "subversive" and even "terrorist" at home might have to be viewed differently abroad. After all, the regime in Saudi Arabia -- an ally of the UK and US -- could hardly be said to be the world's foremost defender of human rights. So perhaps the double standard is understandable. Perhaps behaviour that is extreme at home must be tolerated abroad. But the question really is not why the UK government is willing to maintain a double standard. The real question is why, when it comes to the most extreme, anti-Western nation-destroyer of them all -- a country committed to the annihilation a UN member state -- Her Majesty's government would not only permit it to have any nuclear project, but would trust the word of a regime with stated genocidal intent when it says that it is not pursuing genocidal weaponry?

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Douglas Murray

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6218/britain-islam

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

Israeli findings push first wheat cultivation back 11,000 years - Ilan Gattegno and Israel Hayom Staff

by Ilan Gattegno and Israel Hayom Staff

Until now, humans were believed to have begun the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to established agriculture some 12,000 years ago • Excavation at Sea of Galilee reveals domesticated grains, weeds, and sickle blades for harvesting wheat.

 

A wheat field. When wheat is cultivated, its wild form is altered, explains Professor Ehud Weiss of Bar-Ilan University | Photo credit: Moshe Shai

New findings at the archeological site Ohalo II near the Sea of Galilee have revealed that wheat and barley had been sown there dating back 23,000 years -- 11,000 years prior to the estimated inception of organized agriculture. 

Professor Ehud Weiss of the Land of Israel Studies and Archeology Department at Bar-Ilan University and Dr. Ainit Snir led the team of archeologists, botanists, and ecologists who made the breakthrough discovery, which was published in the July issue of the Plos One scientific journal. 

Until now, historians have believed that humans began transitioning from hunter-gatherer societies to established agriculture communities some 12,000 years ago. 

The Israeli researchers based their startling new conclusion on three discoveries: the atypically high presence of domestic, rather than wild, wheat and barley dispersal units; a high concentration of proto-weeds -- plants of the type known to flourish in fields planted with domesticated crops; and sickle blades that were used to cut and harvest grains.

Weiss explained that the plant remains from the site were unusually well-preserved because they had been charred and then covered by sediment and water, which sealed them in low-oxygen conditions.

"Due to this, it was possible to recover an extensive amount of information on the site and its inhabitants -- which made this a uniquely preserved site, and therefore one of the best archaeological examples worldwide of hunter-gatherers' way of life. Here we see evidence of repeated sowing and harvesting of later domesticated cereals," Weiss explained. 

"The ears of cereals like wheat and barley -- in their wild form -- are built from separate units that break off and are easily dispersed, allowing the seeds to reach the ground, germinate, and grow into a new plant without any human intervention," Weiss said.

"When humans cultivate these grains over a number of successive seasons, however, a change occurs. They develop a rough scar that locks the seed dispersal units together. Such plants cannot sow themselves. This is the hallmark of domesticated, rather than wild-type plants."

Ohalo II is a 23,000-year-old camp site of a community of hunter-gatherers who lived on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Located 9 kilometers (6 miles) south of Tiberias, the site was discovered in 1989 when the level of the lake plummeted.

Ilan Gattegno and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=27103

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

Obama won't let Congress see all of Iran nuclear deal - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

 It makes sense from Obama's point of view to keep Congress in the dark about what concessions the IAEA is making to Iran to get them to sign off on the agreement.

Two key parts of the Iran nuclear deal will be kept from the prying eyes of Congress.  These "side deals" with Iran involve inspecting a military site long suspected of carrying out nuclear and ballistic missile research and development.

National Review:

Under the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the International Atomic Energy Agency would negotiate separately with Iran about the inspection of a facility long-suspected of being used to research long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.
“The Obama administration has failed to make public separate side deals that have been struck for the ‘inspection’ of one of the most important nuclear sites—the Parchin military complex,” said Representative Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) in a statement Tuesday. “Not only does this violate the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, it is asking Congress to agree to a deal that it cannot review.”
The IAEA has been trying to gain access to the Parchin site since 2005, but Iran has refused, even as it apparently demolished various parts of the complex. “The hardliners do not want to grant any concessions unless Iran is suitably rewarded,” International Institute for Strategic Studies director Mark Fitzpatrick told the BBC in 2014, after reports emerged of explosions at the base.
The terms of the current agreement wouldn’t allow Congress to review any concessions the IAEA makes to get into the site. “Even members of Congress who are sympathetic to this deal cannot and must not accept a deal we aren’t even aware of,” said Pompeo. The IAEA will also separately negotiate “how the IAEA and Iran will resolve outstanding issues on possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program,” according to a release from Pompeo’s office.

Senator Tom Cotton is wondering if there is anything else in the deal the president may be hiding from Congress:

Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Pompeo, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, learned of the arrangement while meeting with the IAEA in Vienna, Austria last week. “That we are only now discovering that parts of this dangerous agreement are being kept secret begs the question of what other elements may also be secret and entirely free from public scrutiny,” Cotton said in a statement to the press.

Under the direction of former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency was one of Iran's nuclear enablers.  But that changed when Yukiya Amano took over in 2009.  Since then, the IAEA has become much more aggressive in trying to determine Iran's intent and is a lot more skeptical of Iran's claims about the nature of its nuclear program.

But the IAEA will be under tremendous pressure from the big powers to acquiesce to Iranian demands in order to keep the agreement on track.  It makes sense from Obama's point of view to keep Congress in the dark about what concessions the IAEA is making to Iran to get them to sign off on the agreement.  But even Democrats have to acknowledge that keeping these side deals from Congress violates the spirit and probably the letter of the law that gives Congress the right to review the agreement.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/07/obama_wont_let_congress_see_all_of_iran_nuclear_deal.html

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

How and Why to Kill the Deal - Caroline Glick

by Caroline Glick

The devil in Obama’s agreement with Iran is not in the details, but in the big picture.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 
​ 
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is a reasonable man. After hearing back to back interviews with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the Obama administration’s pact with Iran’s ayatollahs, he tried to balance them out.
Speaking Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Ignatius equivocated that on the one hand, “My takeaway [from Kerry] is that the details of this deal are pretty solid, that it’s been carefully negotiated, that it will hold up for 10 years or more.”
On the other hand, he said, “Netanyahu is right. Iran is a dangerous destabilizing force in the Middle East. So somehow good policy seems to me to use the deal to cap the nuclear threat that Iran would pose for 10 years but work on that other problem.”
Ignatius’s remarks serve to justify supporting the deal. After all, if Obama’s agreement caps Iran’s nuclear program for 10 years, then it’s a good thing. As for the other stuff, it can be dealt with separately.

Unfortunately, while eminently reasonable sounding, Ignatius’s analysis is incorrect. Kerry’s details of the deal are beside the point. The big picture is the only thing that matters. That picture has two main points.
First, the deal guarantees that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. Second, it gives $150 billion to the mullahs.
The details of the deal – the number of centrifuges that keep spinning, the verification mechanisms, the dispute resolution procedures, etc. – are all debatable, and largely irrelevant, at least when compared to the two irrefutable aspects of the big picture.
According to the administration, today Iran needs a year to use the nuclear materials it is known to possess to make a nuclear bomb. Other sources claim that Iran requires several months to accomplish the task.
Since these materials will remain in Iran’s possession under the deal, if Iran abandons the agreement, it will need at most a year to build nuclear weapons.
Then there are the unknown aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. We must assume that Iran has ongoing covert nuclear operations in unknown installations through which it has acquired unknown capabilities.
These capabilities will likely reduce the time Iran requires to make bombs.
Under the deal, the US and its negotiating partners are required to protect Iran’s nuclear assets from sabotage and other forms of attack. They are required as well to teach Iran how to develop and use more advanced centrifuges. As a consequence, when the agreement expires, Iran will be able to build nuclear bombs at will.
If Iran remains a threat, the deal bars the US from taking any steps to counter it aside from all-out war.
The agreement ends the international sanctions regime against Iran. With the sanctions goes any prospect of an international coalition joining forces to take military action against Iran, if Iran does walk away from the deal. So sanctions are gone, deterrence is gone. And that leaves only war.
In other words, far from diminishing the chance of war, the deal makes it inevitable that Iran will get the bomb or there will be a full scale war, or both.
Then there is the jackpot payback.
Who knows? Maybe the mullahs will use their $150b. to finance new women’s universities in Tehran and Mashhad, and a seminary for Islamic liberalism in Qom.
Or maybe the money will be used to fund insurgencies and proxy wars and terror campaigns throughout the region and the world.
The extraordinary thing about the deal is that the only person who gets a say in how that money is spent is Iran’s dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And Khamenei has been pretty clear about how he intends to use the cash.
In back to back anti-American rants on Friday and Saturday, Khamenei repeatedly threatened the US and extolled calls for its destruction. Speaking in front of a banner at Friday prayers which declared “We will trample America,” Khamenei praised calls for “Death to America.”
Saturday he promised to continue to fund and sponsor terrorism and proxy wars. Just as notably, he refused to commit to upholding the nuclear deal with the US and the other five powers.
As far as the Obama administration is concerned, now that the UN Security Council has anchored the agreement in a binding resolution and so given the force of international law to a deal that guarantees Iran will receives the bomb and $150b., the deal is done. It cannot be walked back.
But this is not necessarily true. Congress may have more power than it realizes to kill the deal before Iran gets the money and before its other provisions are implemented.
Over the months leading up to the conclusion of negotiations last Tuesday, Obama refused to acknowledge that he was negotiating a treaty. Rather he said it was nothing more than an executive agreement.
Consequently, he argued, the US Senate’s sole authority to ratify treaties by two-thirds majority would be inapplicable to the deal with Iran.
Obama also said he would further sideline Congress by anchoring the deal in a binding UN Security Council resolution. This resolution would force Obama’s successor to uphold the deal after he leaves office.
Obama mitigated his position slightly when Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, drafted the Corker-Cardin bill with veto-proof majorities in both houses. The bill, which Obama reluctantly signed into law, requires Obama to submit the deal to an up or down vote in both houses. If more than two thirds of Senators and Congressmen oppose it, then the US will not abrogate its unilateral sanctions against Iran.
In other words, Obama agreed that if Congress turned the Constitution on its head by replacing the two-thirds Senate majority required to approve a treaty with a two-thirds bicameral majority necessary to disapprove his executive agreement – then he wouldn’t go to the Security Council until after Congress voted.
When Obama betrayed his pledge and went to the Security Council on Monday, he gave Congress an opening to reconsider its position, ditch the restrictive Corker-Cardin law and reassert the Senate’s treaty approving authority.
As former US federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy argued in National Review last week, by among other things canceling the weapons and missile embargoes on Iran, the six-power deal with Iran went well beyond the scope of the Corker-Cardin law, which dealt only with nuclear sanctions relief. As a consequence, Congress can claim that there is no reason to invoke it.
Rather than invoke Corker-Cardin, Congress can pass a joint resolution determining that the deal with Iran is a treaty and announce that pursuant to the US Constitution, the Senate will schedule a vote on it within 30 days. Alternatively, Congress can condition the Iran deal’s legal stature on the passage of enabling legislation – that requires simple majorities in both houses.
Dan Darling, foreign policy adviser to Republican Senator and presidential hopeful Rand Paul wrote Monday that senators can use Senate procedure to force the Foreign Relations Committee to act in this manner. Darling argued that House Speaker John Boehner can either refuse to consider the deal since it is a treaty, or insist on passing enabling legislation under normal legislative procedures.
Monday Netanyahu explained that by keeping US sanctions in force, Congress can limit Iran’s capacity to move beyond the current sanctions regime even after it is canceled. Every state and firm considering business opportunities with Tehran will have to weigh them against the opportunity cost of being barred from doing business with the US.
Iran for its part may walk away from the deal entirely if Congress acts in this manner. If it does, then the US will not be obligated by any of the deal’s requirements. The continued viability of the Security Council resolution will be something for the lawyers to argue over.
The devil in Obama’s deal with Iran is not in the mind-numbing details, but in the big picture. The deal guarantees Iran will get the bomb. It gives the Iranian regime $150b.
To secure these concessions, Obama has trampled congressional authority.
If the American people think this doesn’t advance their national interest, they should encourage their congressional representatives to ditch Corker-Cardin and use their full authority, as a co-equal branch of the government, to scupper it.

Caroline Glick

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/259560/how-and-why-kill-deal-caroline-glick

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

Is the Temple Mount ours? - Nadav Shragai

by Nadav Shragai

[Jews] are prohibited from moving their lips in prayer, even if they make no sound. They are not permitted to close their eyes, lest the Muslims interpret this as prayer. They are not even allowed to say "Allahu akbar" the way the Muslims do. They are not allowed to bring apples onto the mount lest they bless the fruit.

The Temple Mount. The month of Av 5775. Exactly 1,945 years since the destruction of the Second Temple. The images are difficult to see, almost inconceivable. Reminiscent more of Tehran or Gaza than Israel in 2015. The following is a textual interpretation of what the camera lens has been recording for months. All rights reserved to the Muslim websites that have been proudly documenting the scene. These are images that you will not find in the Israeli media. 

The facade of the Dome of the Rock: A huge Hamas billboard features a masked fighter, a (fake) rendition of the dog tags belonging to fallen Israeli soldiers Shaul Oron and Hadar Goldin (whose body parts have been held by Hamas for over a year), and a drawing of a clenched fist detaching itself from handcuffs. 

True sights from mosque courtyards: Women carrying photos of terrorists in their hands; children holding toy guns and rifles in menacing poses; youngsters waving Hamas and PLO flags; a masked man climbing to the top of Al-Aqsa mosque and planting a Palestinian flag atop it; a group of young people, whose shirts feature an image of Egypt's deposed Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi, waving Muslim Brotherhood flags; masked women standing at the entrance of the Dome of the Rock. 

Also: Calls of "Khaibar Khaibar ya Yahud, jaysh Muhammad sawfa ya'ud," which means "remember Khaibar, Jews. Muhammad will return" -- an implicit call to murder Jews. Islamic State is also in the picture: A group photo featuring smiling faces and thumbs up signs supporting the organization that likes to decapitate. And no essay would be complete without the new-old libel suggesting that Jews make matzah out of children's blood. 

There are also giant portraits of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas and calls of "ya Qassam, ya ayouni, blow up Tel Aviv and Kiryat Shmona." 

Meanwhile, the mount is generally closed to Jews. On the odd occasion that Jews are permitted entry, the wait in line in interminable, and only small groups are allowed in, accompanied by heavy security and facing a barrage of insults and curses from bands of paid assaulters. The Jews are not permitted to respond. They cannot react. They are prohibited from moving their lips in prayer, even if they make no sound. They are not permitted to close their eyes, lest the Muslims interpret this as prayer. They are not even allowed to say "Allahu akbar" the way the Muslims do. They are not allowed to bring apples onto the mount lest they bless the fruit. 

One Jew, who cannot hold it in any longer, breaks down crying at the sight, but he is quickly removed from the area for fear that his tears will "disturb the peace." 

Nowadays, even the secular Israelis are not spared. The Muslims have learned to distinguish the Israelis from the tourists and recently barred Jews from drinking at the water fountain on the northern side or the mount. And the press? Near complete silence. These hate crimes are of no interest to journalists. 

The Temple Mount is the heart, but we have lost our head. 

Tisha B'Av 5775. The Temple Mount is not in our hands, it is in theirs. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan -- are you in power or is this a dream?

Nadav Shragai

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=13279

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

The Iranian threat to Arab states - Dr. Edy Cohen

by Dr. Edy Cohen

Leading commentators in the Arab world have strongly condemned the nuclear agreement, which they believe will not drive oil prices down, but will also turn Iran into a nuclear and economic power, which will use its newfound strength to undermine the Gulf states' financial stability, and even threaten their national security.

For the first time in history the Arab states are united, but this time not against Israel but against Iran. The Islamic republic's neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia, do not believe the statements made by the White House and several European nations on the nuclear agreement. 

This is not a historic agreement that will inspire stability in the Middle East. On the contrary: A covert war has been being waged for years between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia and, if anything, the agreement is expected to increase tension and speed up the nuclear arms race in the Persian Gulf, whose nations fear Iran's aspirations to dominate the region. 

Leading commentators in the Arab world have strongly condemned the nuclear agreement, which they believe will not drive oil prices down, but will also turn Iran into a nuclear and economic power, which will use its newfound strength to undermine the Gulf states' financial stability, and even threaten their national security. 

These commentators have leveled harsh criticism at U.S. President Barack Obama, accusing him of taking sides in the Shiite-Sunni war. Obama, they argue, has favored Shiite Iran over the Sunni states for several reasons, primarily Iran's war against the Islamic State group, and America's own narrow economic interests. U.S. arms sales could potentially skyrocket through sales to Iran or its enemies, which will seek to protect themselves from the very nation with which the U.S. signed a deal.

The recent statements by senior White House officials, as well as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, have only corroborated what the Arabs already know: Iran's animosity toward other Gulf states was never considered during the negotiations. As far as the U.S. is concerned, the deal seeks to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons -- not to protect other Arab nations. 

Many Arab commentators believe Obama has sold his Arab allies out as he did Israel, and see the deal as a failure of Arab diplomacy.

Iran has a long history of cruelty and oppression against its Arab neighbors. In 1971, for example, the Islamic republic occupied the Greater and Lesser Tunb islands, as well as Abu Musa island in the eastern Persian Gulf, to which the United Arab Emirates laid claim. Iran's move illustrated the danger it poses to its neighbors, and sovereignty over these three islands remains contested to this day. 

Iran has also repeatedly claimed that Bahrain is a province of the Islamic republic, citing the Shiite majority in this small island country was proof of the legitimacy of its claim. Bahrain, for its part, has accused Iran of subversion.

The Iranian efforts to destabilize other Arab countries via subversion and aiding Shiite groups, and other dissident groups, have considerably aggravated tension in the Persian Gulf. The Iranians are lending logistical, financial and military support, to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, the Shiite groups in Lebanon (including Hezbollah), the Houthi rebels in Yemen and the Shiite groups in Iraq. 

Iran sees itself as a regional empire and its strategy aims to substantiate its clout in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. The collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the American withdrawal from Iraq, and Iran's fight against Islamic State, has provided Iran with a rare opportunity to expand its influence over other countries in the region.

Unlike Obama, the Arab nations have long realized that undercutting Iran's nuclear ambitions is their top priority, as Tehran's military, financial, and religious sway over the region spells a strategic threat to their national security.

A post-nuclear-deal Iran would pose a far bigger threat to the moderate Arab states -- a situation that may provide a golden opportunity for Israel and these nations to foster closer relationships. 

Edy Cohen is a research fellow at Bar-Ilan University.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=13275

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

Iran's Prison Archipelago - Lawrence A. Franklin

by Lawrence A. Franklin

• Iran's negotiations with the P5+1 powers are narrowly defined to include only the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. However, Tehran's abysmal record on human rights should reveal to the world what to expect by way of compliance on any nuclear deal.
• In facilities under their control, both the IRGC and the MOIS are permitted to execute prisoners without trial or effectively any judicial proceeding.
• Iran will also have permission to import or develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) with the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to other continents, including to the United States.

The Islamic Republic of Iran's human rights record is among the earth's worst. Iran's horrific treatment of its own citizens, however, has long been obscured by headlines of the ongoing nuclear negotiations, from which human right issues have been excluded.

Lost in the daily detailed reporting about nuclear talks is the regime's increased rate of executions of its own citizens during the negotiations. Iran now has overtaken China as having the highest per capita rate for inflicting capital punishment.

While the Islamic Republic dons a reasonable and sophisticated face to the world as it negotiates with P5+1 powers in Switzerland, the authoritarian theocracy's intelligence services continue to arrest journalists, Bahai and Sunni religious minorities as well as ethnic minorities like Kurds from Kordestan Province and Arabs from Khuzestan Province.[1]

The regime runs such a vast network of prisons and detention centers, many of them still secret, that it has taken on the dimension of a state within a state.[2] This "Prison Archipelago," similar in relative size and brutality as the network once run by the Soviet KGB, is the primary instrument of terror that keeps the Iranian ruling class in power.

To grasp the magnitude of this domestic terror apparatus, one has only to consult the semi-annual reports on the human rights record of Iran published by United Nations Special Rapporteur Ahmad Shaheed.[3] While Westerners are treated to the smiling countenance of Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and the sophisticated, reasonable, Westernized image of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's citizens must contend with the visage of the real Iran: the face of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) storm-trooper.

The IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) run their own network of prisons, detention centers and separate wards within certain jails. Ward 209, for instance, of Iran's infamous Evin Prison in Tehran, is run by the MOIS.[4] Prison 59, also known as Detention Center #59, in Tehran, is run by the IRGC.

In facilities under their control, both the IRGC and the MOIS are permitted to execute prisoners without trial or effectively any judicial proceeding. Hundreds of extra-judicial executions have been carried out by the regime at Mashhad's Vakilabad Prison.[5] Although many of those executed at Vakilabad are reported to be drug offenders and smugglers, some are ethnic Baluch irredentists and Sunni Muslims living in Sistan-Baluchistan Province, in Iran's Far East.[6] Moreover, occasionally, regular prison guards initiate raids in which prisoners are beaten and sometimes killed -- especially those inmates who have managed to embarrass the regime by secretly passing information to the Western media concerning human rights violations. [7]

In contrast to the media's "soft image" portrayal of Hassan Rouhani since his election to Iran's presidency in June 2013, the rate of executions in Iran has increased dramatically.[8] Moreover, among those executed last year were human rights campaigners, political activists, and religious and ethnic minorities.[9]

Eyewitness accounts, many of them testimonies by former "citizens" of the prison archipelago state, have attested to the use of widespread torture in Iran's prisons. One type of torture noted by a former victim of the technique is called "the chicken" (jujeh kabob): an individual's arms are bent back and tied to his ankles while being suspended in mid-air. Karaj's Gohardasht Prison has a suite of cells called Section 1, referred to by veterans of Iran's Prison Archipelago as "Khane Sag" or the "Dog House," where prisoners are usually subjected to constant torture, sometimes resulting in death. [10]

Gohardasht Prison, Karaj, Iran. (Image source: Ensie & Matthias/Flickr)

Rape of female prisoners increased after the arrests young people who protested the results of the 2009 presidential elections, which returned former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office for a second term.[11] Rape in Iranian prisons is also visited upon young males, a practice referred to as "under-bedding." Homosexual males in Iranian prisons are referred to as "vach" a slang word that connotes sexual slavery.[12]

In the archipelago, the prisons are overcrowded, with many inmates forced to sleep on the floors of hallways outside the filthy cells. Detention centers, meant only to hold people for a few days while they are processed to prisons, often have only a couple of toilets for hundreds of detainees. Moreover, access to medical care is usually denied, leading to many unnecessary deaths of prisoners whose offenses may have only been minor.[13] Conditions were so bad in Ghezel Hasr Prison in Karaj -- with cells holding four times their capacity -- that inmates staged a revolt in March 2011, resulting in as many as 50 deaths.[14]

Iran's Prison Archipelago reflects the core of the true nature of the Islamic Republic -- not the Javad Zarif tableau that Kerry & Co. and the compliant media would evidently have us imagine.
 
If Congress wants to insert itself more effectively in defining what U.S. policy should be toward the Islamic Republic, it might borrow a page from the era that produced the Jackson-Vanik legislative initiative of 1975, which promised economic trade benefits to the USSR that were linked to the Soviets allowing their captive citizens to leave the country. This legislation helped liberation of hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews.

Iranian-Americans possess the potential to mobilize to achieve the same result for thousands of political prisoners in Iran, while educating American citizens about the real nature of the Islamic Republic.

Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran -- until it completely changes its behavior, should not be permitted to pursue nuclear research that could lead to the development of a nuclear weapon or the capability to deliver one. The deal made with Iran will give it permission to import or develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) with the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to other continents, including to the United States.

Such an outcome would leave in tatters any worthy legacy of the current U.S. administration and of the politicians who support the deal.

Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

[1] Iran Human Rights 6 March 2014, "Arab-Iranian Sunni Converts arrested." Human Rights Watch: Summary and Recommendations 1997; "Sunni Persecutions in Iran," by Neda Shakiba 30 Nov 2010.
[2] "Rights Disregarded: Prisons in the Islamic Republic of Iran," 18 March 2015 Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.p.1.
[3] March 2015 Report on the Situation on Human Rights in Iran by the United Nations Special Rapporteur Ahmad Rasheed. See Rasheed's exhaustively detailed reports on Human Rights in Iran published every six months as commissioned by the UN Secretary General.
[4] Ward 209, Former Inmate Report that it is run by VEVAK-the MOIS. See also report of journalists and bloggers Faribah Pajoh and Nafiseh Zareh Kohan, both of whom were arrested in August 2009 and who have been subsequently released.
[5] The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Reporting on Executions in Vakilabad Prison. See testimony of former inmates, such as that of Ahmad Ghabel. Executions carried out in Vakilabad Prison have been primarily for drug-related crimes.
[6] Sistan-Baluchistan Province is where Sunni Religious and Baluch ethnic minorities are most concentrated in Iran. But it is also the center of drug smuggling routes into Iran from Afghanistan's vast expanse of opium poppy fields.
[7] "Letters from Iran's Hellish Prisons" by Jason Shams, 19 September 2010. On 17 April 2014, guards at Evin Prison in an event described as "Black Thursday," Evin Prison guards attacked prisoners in Ward 350.
[8] See Amnesty International Statistics for 2013 and 2014.
[9] Report of Secretary-General on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Human Rights Council 11 March 2014.
[10] New List of Political and "Security Risk" Prisoners in Gohardasht (Rajaishahr) Prison in Iran by Sayeh Hassan.
[11] PBS/News Hour 10 June 2012 "Center for Investigative Journalism."
[12] Surviving Rape in Iranian Prisons, Paper published by Iran's Human Rights Violation Documentation Center. http://www.iranhrde.org/english/pulications/reports/3401-surviving-rape-in-iran-s-prisons.html#.U59ifZRdV8E.
[13] Advance Unedited Version of the 11 March 2014 Report of the Secretary General on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. P.6. Rights Disregarded: Prisons in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[14] Rahana Human Rights News Agency 17 March 2011. Report on Massacre of Inmates in Zaidan-e-Ghezel Hesar.

Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6202/iran-prison-archipelago

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

Watch: Ex-Congressman Allen West Tears into 'Weakling' Obama - Arutz Sheva Staff

by Arutz Sheva Staff

No holds barred: In fiery, emotional speech, outspoken commentator says what most Americans think of Iran deal, 'charlatan' Obama.

Outspoken political commentator and former Florida Congressman Allen West pulled no punches yesterday at a mega-rally against the Iran deal, slamming the Obama administration for its agreement with Tehran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

Speaking to at least 10,000 protesters at Wednesday's mega-rally in New York's Times Square, West tore into President Obama, deriding him as a "weakling" and a "charlatan," to enthusiastic applause.

We'll let the video do the talking - it really is a must-watch:



Other speakers at the Stop Iran Rally spanned the political spectrum, including former New York Republican Governor George Pataki, and senior Democrat Alan Dershowitz.
"We're here as Americans to speak with one voice to say stop Iran now, reject this deal," Pataki said.

"This is a God-awful deal, this must be rejected. Congress must do its job and stand up for the American people, stand up for our safety and say no to this Iranian deal," he added.
Scholar Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor, appealed to fellow liberals to side with Republican opposition.

"It is a bad deal for Democrats. It is a bad deal for liberals. I am here opposing this deal as a liberal Democrat," he declared.

He called the deal bad for America, bad for world peace and bad for the security of the Middle East.


Arutz Sheva Staff

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/198518#.VbD33PmzchQ

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

The BBC Really Wants You to Believe the Qur’an Is Authentic - Robert Spencer

by Robert Spencer

-- the BBC article raises more questions than it answers, and reveals more about the wishful thinking of the academic and media establishments than it does about the Qur’an.

The BBC announced enthusiastically Wednesday that “what may be the world’s oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham.” This news is not only of interest to scholars and Muslim intellectuals; it appears to buttress the Islamic claim that the Qur’an’s text has remained unchanged for 1,400 years – which is purported to be proof of its divine origin.

There is only one problem with all this: the BBC article raises more questions than it answers, and reveals more about the wishful thinking of the academic and media establishments than it does about the Qur’an.

The article is riddled with academic and journalistic sloppiness. We’re told that the radiocarbon dating shows, “with a probability of more than 95%, the parchment was from between 568 and 645.” Very well, but does the ink date to that time as well? We are not told. Parchment was often reused in the ancient world, with the earlier text erased and written over, and so if a parchment dates from 645, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the text does.

However, it is impossible to discover any more details from this shoddy BBC presentation. The best photo of this manuscript that the BBC provides shows clear traces of another text underneath the main text. It is not clear from the photo whether that is the text from the other side bleeding through on the photograph, or even if there is any text on the other side; nor does the BBC tell us whether or not the parchment shows signs of having been a palimpsest — that is, a parchment that was used more than once for different texts. There is also some red ink in the top lines of the manuscript in the photo but not in the succeeding lines. Has the red ink faded from the other sections, or is it itself evidence of the ink fading? Or is it a later hand filling in areas that had faded away (and possibly altering the text)? The BBC doesn’t tell us, yet this is an extremely salient point. Another recently discovered and much-touted fragment of the Qur’an, now in Germany and dated from between 649 and 675, shows clear signs of alteration, raising the possibility that the Qur’anic text was altered over time (image available here). If this is a possibility also for the University of Birmingham manuscript, the BBC should tell us so. But it doesn’t.

What’s more, if the text along with the parchment really dates from between 568 and 645, it may not be a fragment of the Qur’an at all. The Qur’an, according to Islamic tradition, was compiled in its definitive form in the year 653 by the caliph Uthman, who ordered all variant texts burned and the canonical version distributed to all the provinces within his domains. 

As I show in my book Did Muhammad Exist?, however, there are numerous reasons to doubt this story. The principal one is that if the entire Islamic world had copies of the Qur’an by the mid 650s, why is it that not until the latter part of the seventh and early part of the eighth century do mentions of the Qur’an begin to appear? The Dome of the Rock inscriptions date from 691; they are made up of many Qur’an verses, but out of their Qur’anic order and some with notable changes in wording. Who would have dared to change the words of Allah? And the first clear reference to the Qur’an as such occurred around the year 710—eighty years after the book was supposedly completed and sixty years after it was supposedly collected and distributed. During a debate with an Arab noble, a Christian monk of the monastery of Beth Hale (of which there were two, one in northern Iraq and the other in Arabia; it is not known in which one this monk lived) cited the Qur’an by name. The monk wrote, “I think that for you, too, not all your laws and commandments are in the Qur’an which Muhammad taught you; rather there are some which he taught you from the Qur’an, and some are in surat albaqrah and in gygy and in twrh.”

By this point Arab armies had conquered a huge expanse of territory, stretching from North Africa, across the Levant, Syria, and Iraq, and into Persia, and yet those eight decades of conquest had produced scarcely a mention of the book that supposedly inspired them. And when the Qur’an finally was mentioned, it appears that the book was not even in the form we now know. Surat albaqrah (or al-Baqara) is “the chapter of the Cow,” which is the second, and longest, sura of the Qur’an. The eighth-century monk thus quite clearly knew of a Qur’an that didn’t contain this sura; he considered surat albaqrah to be a stand-alone book, along with gygy (the Injil, or Gospel) and twrh (the Torah). It is unlikely that the monk simply made an error: who ever mistakes a chapter of a book for a separate book?

So if this is a fragment of the Qur’an as it now stands (and what portion of the Qur’an is it, anyway? Neither the BBC nor its quoted academics tell us), and yet it could date from as far back as 568, two years before Muhammad is supposed to have been born, it might not be a fragment of the Qur’an at all. It could instead be a portion of some source that later became part of the Qur’an, as did Surat al-Baqara.

The BBC quotes Professor David Thomas, who also doesn’t tell us what exact portions of the Qur’an this manuscript contains, and who raises even more questions when he says: “These portions must have been in a form that is very close to the form of the Koran read today, supporting the view that the text has undergone little or no alteration and that it can be dated to a point very close to the time it was believed to be revealed.” 

This is a very strange statement. The BBC, and apparently the University of Birmingham, are advertising this as an ancient fragment of the Qur’an. Presumably when Thomas says that “these portions must have been in a form that is very close to the form of the Koran read today,” he means that the larger whole of which they once formed a part was “very close” to the Qur’an. But how close is “very close”? Mainstream Muslims maintain that the Qur’anic text has undergone no alteration at all since it was first “revealed.” 

So when Thomas says that his fragments were once part of something “very close to the form of the Koran read today, supporting the view that the text has undergone little or no alteration,” he is already departing from the standard story of Qur’anic origins that he is claiming to support. The text has undergone “little or no alteration”? Well, which is it? Little alteration, which no matter how little would explode the Islamic claim of its divine origin and perfect protection, or no alteration, which would support that claim?

The Guardian illumines some of this in its own report when it says: “The significance of Birmingham’s leaves, which hold part of Suras (chapters) 18 to 20, was missed because they were bound together with another text, in a very similar hand but written almost 200 years later….The verses are incomplete, and believed to have been an aide memoire for an imam who already knew the Qur’an by heart, but the text is very close to the accepted authorised version.”

Suras 18 and 20, with their long stories of Moses (very odd ones in 18, along with material about Dhul Qarnayn, who is usually assumed to be Alexander the Great, and the Christian story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus), and sura 19, with its extended retelling of the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ, are some of the most obviously derivative sections of the entire Qur’an — reinforcing the impression that this could be a fragment of a source of the Qur’an, not the Qur’an itself. And indeed, it is not the Qur’an itself, we are finally told, for “the verses are incomplete, and believed to have been an aide memoire for an imam who already knew the Qur’an by heart, but the text is very close to the accepted authorised version.” Very close is how close? Any deviation could just as easily be not an aide memoire for an imam, but evidence of editing and change, as Islam was being developed in the latter part of the seventh century and the early part of the eighth.

In sum, the more one looks at this curious story, the less there is to see. It seems indisputable that an ancient manuscript has been confirmed to be ancient. Has its text been altered? We aren’t told. Is it part of the Qur’an? We can’t be sure. Does it correspond to the modern standard Qur’anic text? We aren’t told. The only thing we can really be sure of about this story is the closing statement from Dr. Muhammad Isa Waley: this “is news to rejoice Muslim hearts.” As is so often the case with the mainstream media, that may be the primary objective all along.

Robert Spencer

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/259561/bbc-really-wants-you-believe-quran-authentic-robert-spencer

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