WarSclerotic

Eleven protesters killed and scores wounded in wider military push into central Syria.

Al Arabiya

Monday, 30 May 2011

A Syrian woman living in Jordan shout slogans during a demonstration against Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad outside the U.N. office in Amman. (File Photo

Iranian Ayatollah Approves Killing Israeli Civilians, including Children | Terrorism Right Side News.

Iranian Ayatollah Affirms Legitimacy of Suicide Operations, Approves Killing Israeli Civilians –Including Children

The issue of martyrdom operations and their religious legitimacy has been repeatedly discussed by Iranian ayatollahs.[1] In a recent fatwa posted on his website in response to an online inquiry, Iranian Ayatollah Taqi Mesbah-e Yazdi ruled that martyrdom operations were not only legitimate but were a duty incumbent upon every Muslim.

The inquirer asked whether such operations were considered suicide and were therefore forbidden, and whether Israeli civilians, especially children, were to be regarded as illegitimate targets, like civilians elsewhere.

In his reply, Ayatollah Mesbah-e Yazdi expressed regret that the inquirer had apparently bought into the propaganda of the enemies of Islam, which presented martyrdom operations as suicide, and that the inquirer was wasting his time on this issue instead of focusing on “uprooting the Zionist regime” and its supporters. The Ayatollah ruled that when defending Islam and the Muslim ummah necessitated martyrdom, it was not considered suicide.

Regarding the question about Israeli civilians, he ruled that it was forbidden to harm them only if they had openly declared their opposition to their government. He said it was even permissible to target Israeli civilians used as human shields and in other cases when fighting “the aggressors,” i.e. Israel, necessitated it.

Following are the inquiry and the fatwa, which appeared in the English section of the ayatollah’s website:[2]

Martyrdom Operations Are Not Only Permissible but Obligatory

Q: “Some people say that martyrdom operations are considered suicide and that they are haram [forbidden] because they contradict Islam. They quote Hadiths, such as this one by Imam Ja’afar [Al-Sadeq]: ‘A Muslim may fight and be killed [by the enemy], but will never shed his own blood’ and ayat [Koranic verses] such as: ‘Do not kill yourselves, for Allah is compassionate towards you. Whoever [does,] does so in transgression and wrongfully. We shall roast [him] in a fire, and that is an easy matter for Allah.’ [Koran 4:29-30]

“They say this even about the martyrdom operations against military targets, such as the ones used by Hizbullah [in] Lebanon, or the ones used by the Iranian army against Saddam’s army…

“The question [is whether] martyrdom operations, in which a person detonate[s] himself [in the midst of] enemy [forces], are haram. Is it suicide? Why or why not? Please answer this question, as there is lots of discussion and confusion about this issue.”

A: “It is regrettable that the propaganda of the enemies of Islam has influenced the Muslim ummah so much that Muslims, instead of planning for the uprooting of the Zionist regime and its arrogant supporters, have occupied themselves with questioning and discussing the legitimacy of the Palestinians’ self defense, which is carried out under the most oppressive conditions imaginable.

“[Certainly], when protecting Islam and the Muslim ummah depends on martyrdom operations, it not only is allowed, but is even an obligation (wajib), as many of the [great Shi’ite] scholars and Maraje’ [sources of emulation], including [Ayatollah] Safi Golpayegani and [Ayatollah] Fazel Lankarani, have clearly announced in their fatwas. Consider the rewayah [i.e. tradition about] the prophet of Allah [i.e. Muhammad], who said: ‘Whoever is killed in defense of his belongings, he/she is [a] shahid [martyr]’ (Wasa’il al-Shi’ah, v.15, p.121).”

Only Those Israelis Who Openly Denounce Their Government Are Illegitimate Targets

Q: “Now, about [the] targeting [of] civilians in the Zionist state. Some say that according to the teaching[s] of [Ahl Al-Bayt, i.e. the Prophet Muhammad’s household] and the Koran, it isharam to target civilians in any case. They also say that Israelis are civilians like any other people, while others believe they are settlers and usurpers [rather than] civilians.

“Are the operations [carried out] by Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad against [Israeli] ‘civilians’haram? Why or why not? How about the Israeli children killed in such attacks? If it is not haram, what is the answer to those who quote the Hadith [which forbids targeting] non-combatants.”

A: “Muslims should not attack those civilians of the occupied territories who have announced their opposition to their government’s vicious crimes, except [in] situations in which they are used as human shields and [when] fighting the aggressors depends on attacking those [same] civilians.”

Q: “…Given the fact that [today] there are [weapons of] mass destruction and that it is not always easy to prevent civilian [casualties] in wars [as it was in the past], what would be the ruling about attacks that unintentionally kill civilians in wars (as in the case of the Iran-Iraq war)?

“Also, say we live in a Muslim country, and there is another country which attack[s] one of our cities with nuclear weapons and wipe[s] it out. Then this country announce[s that] it will destroy our cities one by one using nuclear weapons.

“Supposing [this same] country ha[s] all its nuclear weapons in one of their cities – would it be [permissible] for [a] Muslim country to attack this city and destroy the nuclear weapons there before they are used to annihilate the Muslims, even though [this] would [cause civilian casualties] in that city, [if] this [were] the only way to protect the lives of the Muslims?…”

A: “In the case of conflict between two Muslim nations, Muslims should assist the oppressed against the oppressor.

“But before the war is waged, initiating [preemptive attacks] depends on [whether] permission [is granted by the] velayat-e faqih [rule of the jurisprudent].

“With prayers for your success.”

End Notes: [1] For more on Iranian Shi’a’s discussion of martyrdom operations and their religious legitimacy, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Report No.439, “Iranian Women’s Magazine Shut Down for Publishing Investigative Article on Martyrdom Movement,” May 22, 2008,http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3228.htm.

Those Who Say Israel Should Fear the Wrath of Obama.

Barack Obama delivers a speech at the University of Southern California. Photo: Ari Levinson.

I have no beef with those who argue President Obama did nothing wrong by sliding in a reference to Israel returning to the 1967 borders, albeit with land swaps, in his major address on the Arab pro-democracy movement at the State Department. To be sure, I believe it ruined the President’s otherwise impassioned insistence that America would support the Arab yearning to be free of its tyrannical dictators by inserting an inflammatory and highly controversial distraction that dominated the headlines. Still, the President is entitled to his view even as it remains to be seen if pressuring Israel will lead to a lasting peace. What I do have a problem with is the large number of commentators – the vast majority Jewish – who say that in defying Obama on the ’67 borders Netanyahu has provoked the President’s wrath and Israel will now suffer the consequences.

As an American I have a visceral distaste for anyone arguing that we ought to fear our government or our President. I do not live in Russia. I do not live in Syria. President Obama is nothing but the elected representative of the American people. He has absolutely no power other than that which we, the American people, grant him. He is not a king and he is not an emperor. He cannot pursue his grudges and he cannot avenge his personal honor. He is a servant of the people. The idea that Israel, as a sovereign nation and most trusted ally of the United States, ought to fear the American president for not kowtowing to his every foreign policy whim when it feels he is desperately wrong is distasteful in the extreme.

Worse, it is an incalculable insult to President Obama. What these commentators are implying is that Obama is a man so petty and immature that as pay-back to Netanyahu and Israel for defying him he will throw both under a bus. I do not believe this about Obama. I believe him to be a mature and dignified leader even as I disagree with him profoundly on so many substantive issues of policy.

But there were some of America’s top writers arguing that Bibi had pissed off Obama and now Israel would pay.  Leading the charge was Time magazine’s Joe Klein who titled his attack on Netanyahu, “Bibi Provokes Obama,” and ended his column with these words: “Given his congressional support, Netanyahu may be able to get away with playing so bold a hand — but it is inappropriate behavior for an American ally, and you can bet that Obama won’t forget it.” Won’t forget what? That an Israeli Prime Minister actually had the courage to tell an American President – finally! – that the sovereign State of Israel will not be pushed into compromising its security? And what is Klein suggesting Obama will now do. Retaliate against Israel and spitefully take the position of the Palestinians? Does he really believe Obama to be that frivolous? I most surely do not.

The Bibi-undermined-Israel’s-security-by-getting-on-Obama’s-bad-side argument continued with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic – normally one of my favorite writers – who titled his piece, “Dear Mr. Netanyahu, Please Don’t Speak to My President That Way.” Goldberg wrote, “And if President Obama doesn’t walk back the speech, what will Netanyahu do? Will he cut off Israeli military aid to the U.S.?

Perhaps Goldberg has confused the American political system with that, say, of Libya. Our President does not give any economic aid to Israel. It is the American people who, in their overwhelming support of the Middle East’s sole democracy, repeatedly elect leaders who share their pro-Israel posture and who in-turn vote to continue foreign aid to Israel. Whatever the tension between Bibi and Obama the American people are not now questioning why we give our must trusted ally $3 billion a year in military aid, but why we gave Pakistan, where Bin Laden was hiding, a total of $20.7 billion in aid from 2002 through fiscal 2011.

Goldberg continues: “Prime Minister Netanyahu needs the support of President Obama in order to confront the greatest danger Israel has ever faced: the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran. And yet he seems to go out of his way to alienate the President.” The inference is that by Netanyahu throwing what Goldberg called ‘a hissy fit,’ President Obama may withdraw his support for Israel on Iran. This is an unwarranted and unjust criticism of our President who knows darn well that a nuclear-armed Iran is as big a threat to the United States as it is to Israel. Last time I checked ‘The Great Satan’ label bandied about by the Iranians was a reference not to Israel but to America.

But the sentiment of Bibi’s foolishness in ‘provoking’ Obama was heard even in major Jewish publications. New York Jewish Week publisher Gary Rosenblatt, one of the most erudite and insightful of all writers on the Jewish scene, said, “This is more than a personal grudge match; it can affect strategic policy and the very future of the Jewish state. Israel, of course, has a lot more to lose here than the U.S., so the onus is on Bibi to make the relationship better…. Bibi has chosen confronting Obama rather than working at restoring their relationship. I hope it’s not a permanent mistake.”

I respectfully disagree. It was Obama who gratuitously threw in the provocative reference to Israel’s 1967 borders without, at the very least, calling on the Palestinians to withdraw the utterly unrealistic right of return. And it was Obama who was forced at AIPAC to dilute his ’67 border comment to the point of meaninglessness because he feared the wrath of American Jewry – one of his most important financial and electoral constituencies – rather than the other way around.

I mean no disrespect. But it seems to me it’s high time we reject the traditional court-Jew mentality that says that we must shimmy-up to powerful leaders in order to gain their protection. America does not support Israel because Jews are friendly or subservient. It does not respect Israel because it is polite or deferential. Rather, America, in its righteous, majestic might supports Israel because its cause is just. And any insinuation to the contrary is an insult both to our President and the American people.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

(Truly sickening…  Hopefully false. – JW)

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 29, 2011, 10:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

Big power sorting-out of the Arab Spring

Although 2,300 kilometers separates Libya from Syria, Muammar Qaddafi and Bashar Assad have this in common: Both Arab leaders look like surviving the revolts against them and neither is buckling under the pressures thrown at them by the United States and Europe – albeit in different forms and varying measures.
debkafile‘s military sources report that Sunday, May 29, there were solid signs that Assad and his army was recovering control of most parts of Syria, excepting only the Homs area of central Syria.

Elsewhere, after three months of battling the regime, the opposition is finding it harder to get protesters out on the streets for big rallies. Sunday, Syrian forces backed by tanks and heavy machine guns killed three civilians and wounded scores in the central towns of Talbiseh and Rastan and villages around Homs. Otherwise, most Syrian cities were calm.
This achievement is largely the result of the Syrian president’s iron-fisted crackdown on protest followed by a ruthless purge of opponents to the regime in one area after another. But four more factors played their part:
1. The affluent middle class living in Syria’s biggest towns, Damascus and Aleppo, stood aside from the uprising.
2. Likewise the Druze community which obeyed its leaders to stay out of it on orders coming from the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.
3. Syria’s Christians who are the backbone of the country’s business community actively supported the Syrian ruler.
4.  More than 100 Iranian and Hizballah officers placed their active experience in crushing opponents at Assad’s disposal. They brought with them a whole range of manpower and equipment for breaking up demonstrations against which the popular demonstrators were helpless.
Large military units have occupied the southern region of Horan and its capital Daraa, where the uprising first flared, and where a million people live under a reign of terror. Outbreaks in the suburbs of Damascus have been crushed and the port cities of Tartous and Latakia have gone back to normal.
While the protest movement has not been completely extinguished and may continue to raise its head for some time, President Assad has undeniably regained control of his country.

Outside the Middle East, in Washington and Moscow, debkafile‘s sources report word going round that President Barak Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev Friday, May 27, came to an reciprocal understanding on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Deauville about the fate of the Syrian and Libyan rulers.

Obama is reported to have promised Medvedev to let Assad finish off the uprising against him without too much pressure from the US and the West. In return, the Russian president undertook to help the US draw the Libyan war to a close by means of an effort to bring about Muammar Qaddafi’s exit from power – in a word, the two big powers traded Qaddafi for Assad.

According to our sources, neither the US nor Russia sees anyone in the Libyan rebel political or military leadership capable of taking over the reins of power in Tripoli. It is therefore assumed that a member of the Qaddafi clan will be chosen as Libya’s interim ruler.
Obama and Medvedev also quietly agreed, those sources say, that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, despite their excessive involvement in the Libyan war, were wasting their time because they had no chance of making Qaddafi leave.
According to the information the Russian president offered Obama, NATO attacks had not disabled a single one of Qaddafi’s five brigades. Obama confirmed this from his own sources.