The Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that currently controls large portions of Iraq and Syria, has released a new audio message from its leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The Islamic State’s emir is defiant in the recording, saying his group will continue its fight against all of its enemies.
Baghdadi was rumored to have been killed in airstrikes that took place sometime on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8. Some Iraqi officials claimed Baghdadi had been mortally wounded. But no firm evidence emerged to back up those claims. And Baghdadi references events that took place since those airstrikes, thereby demonstrating that he is alive.
On Nov. 10, jihadists in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen swore allegiance to Baghdadi and the Islamic State’s caliphate. In the newly-released audio recording, Baghdadi accepts their oaths of allegiance and praises the jihadists who made them.
Baghdadi gives glad tidings and announces “the expansion of the Islamic State to new lands, to the lands of al Haramain [meaning Saudi Arabia] and [to] Yemen, and to Egypt, Libya and Algeria.”
Baghdadi accepts “the bayat (oath of allegiance) from those who gave us bayat in those lands,” pronounces “the nullification of the groups therein,” and announces the creation of “new wilayah [provinces] for the Islamic State, and the appointment of wali [provincial leaders] for them.”
The Islamic State’s emir calls on “every” Muslim to “join the closest wilayah to him, and to hear and obey the wali appointed by us for it.”
Baghdadi’s statement is deliberately provocative as he is saying that all other jihadist groups, especially those that have not pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, are nullified. The Islamic State’s ideologues have argued that, with the reestablishment of an Islamic caliphate, all other jihadist groups owe their allegiance to Baghdadi as the caliphate expands into their lands.
The Islamic State made this argument in late June, when its leaders announced that the group was now a caliphate. “The legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organizations, becomes null by the expansion of the [caliphate’s] authority and arrival of its troops to their areas,” the Islamic State’s founding statement reads.
The swearing of bayat from jihadists in several countries on Nov. 10 was, therefore, intended to legitimize the Islamic State’s right to rule over the jihadists’ affairs within those nations. Long established jihadist groups operating in those countries, including al Qaeda’s official branches, obviously do not agree, as they have not sworn allegiance to Baghdadi.
Indeed, in three of the five cases (Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen), the announcements of allegiance to Baghdadi came from unidentified jihadists who do not represent any well-known jihadist groups. In Algeria, the announcement came from a group of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) veterans who have broken away from their parent organization and are now known as Jund al Khilafa. The Algerian-based jihadists had already sworn allegiance to Baghdadi earlier this year.
Baghdadi praises the jihadists in the Sinai specifically, offering them his congratulations because they “have carried out the obligation of jihad” and “terrified the Jews.”
It appears that ABM is already marketing itself as the Islamic State’s “wilayah,” or province, in the Sinai, as that is how the group refers to itself on its official Twitter feed. ABM’s Twitter page has been taken down repeatedly over the past several months. The latest iteration was posted online in the past few days.
The Islamic State leader rails against the “Crusaders” and the “Jews,” whom he blames for conspiring to launch the airstrikes against the jihadists.
Baghdadi also references President Obama’s decision to send 1,500 additional military advisors to Iraq, claiming that this demonstrates the coalition has been unable to stall the Islamic State’s advances with airstrikes alone. The Obama administration announced the president’s decision to deploy additional forces on Nov. 7, shortly before Baghdadi was supposedly hit in an airstrike.
Baghdadi concludes by calling on the soldiers of the Islamic State to cause “volcanoes” of jihad to “erupt” everywhere.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini (L) attends a media conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Jim Hollander)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has devoted special efforts in recent weeks to stop the diplomatic erosion of Israel’s stand in Europe’s capitals. As noted by Uri Savir in his latest Al-Monitor article on Nov. 9, there are growing indications that if the leading European states decide to take off their gloves in the fight against Israel’s right-wing government policies, the Barack Obama administration will not rush to use its long-standing veto weapon. Netanyahu’s weapon in the defensive battle he is waging for Europe’s soul is epitomized in the crushing question that he fires at guests from the neighboring continent: “Tell me, please, on which state in this region can you truly rely? On Syria? Iraq? Jordan? Egypt?”
The answer is obvious and also fairly correct: Israel is the most stable country in the Middle East and the only one that espouses Western democratic values. In the speech Netanyahu delivered at the annual memorial ceremony for former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Nov. 5, he portrayed Israel as a bubble of Judeo-Christian well-meaning normalcy, which finds itself in a hostile Middle Eastern Muslim environment. “We were always proud of our democracy, which is unusual in the landscape that surrounds us,” waxed poetic the man who took part in the incitement against Rabin that preceded his murder.
He added, “Indeed, the State of Israel is not a violent country. We see this clearly in light of what is occurring around us — beheadings, throats being cut, firing squads, executions and so on. Israel’s exceptional nature in this landscape is remarkable.”
Indeed, if one measures it on a Middle Eastern scale, next to the Islamic State, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and even the Egyptian administration of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Israel’s democracy is a dazzling beacon. But, when Israel demands that Europeans judge it by Western standards, it must take into account that their values do not include prolonged occupation, the end of which is nowhere in sight. Europe never accepted the claim that Netanyahu made on Nov. 7 to European Union High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Federica Mogherini that settlements are not an obstacle to peace.
The correct question is not which country is the most wonderful in the Middle East, as Netanyahu asked, but which country that presumes to be a standard bearer of democracy and human rights would take the liberty, in 2014, of confiscating lands from foreigners to settle its citizens on them. What Western state withholds basic rights from millions of people living under its rule? What would the European Union do with a member state that conducts itself toward its Jewish minority the way Israel does toward its Arab minority?
In Netanyahu’s defense, it must be said that he does not have a copyright on the condescending and righteous attitude toward Israel’s surroundings. In an interview with The New York Times at the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, Theodor Herzl promised that establishing a Jewish state in the Land of Israel would provide Europe with a “new frontline bastion against Asian barbarism.” Max Nordau, Herzl’s close aid, claimed in his speech at the same congress that the peoples of Asia are “degenerates.” More than 20 years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak described Israel as “a villa in the jungle,” and subsequently upgraded the analogy to “an oasis in the middle of the desert” surrounded by a “turbulent world.”
Nonetheless, Barak stressed that while one hand must always have a finger on the trigger, the other must always be feeling its way toward the possibility of an arrangement with the neighbors.
In his book “Political Rhetoric: Israeli Leaders in Stressful Situations,” Nadir Tsur of the political science department at Hebrew University describes Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin, in his second term, as “formative leaders.” In addition to providing for the basic needs of the general public, Tsur explains, these men left their mark by adopting change and improving Israel’s lot. At the memorial ceremony for Rabin, Netanyahu said that “we all share” the slain prime minister’s hope that the political moves he made would create “an island of peace inside this violent ocean.” Nonetheless, he immediately added, “We all share this hope, but we are not averting our gaze and ignoring what is happening around us.” What diplomatic move of Netanyahu’s created “an island of peace”? Indeed, he does not ignore events around us; there is nothing he does better than warn against “the heaving ocean” around us.
On the day Netanyahu delivered this speech, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was laying out his credo to members of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
“[A]ny decision in foreign policy must begin with an analysis of the situation. And it must answer the question, where are we?” the noted statesman suggested. “The next question is, where are we going? Where we are going no matter what we do? And where should we be going?” After you answer these two questions, you have to define the limitations of what is possible, Kissinger explained, and warned that setting targets that the system cannot handle will cause it to explode.
“A great statesman operates at the outer limit of what is possible on the basis of a correct analysis and the difference between greatness and mediocrity,” Kissinger said.
Netanyahu’s rhetoric, deeds and misdeeds prove that based on his analysis of Israel’s situation, he has come to conclude that the best move is stepping in place and scaring people away from any change. But Netanyahu’s ultimate goal — perpetuating the occupation and bringing the Palestinians to heel — deviates from a long list of external limitations: starting with the demographic problem, through the state of Israeli democracy and up to the danger of losing the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, withdrawal of the Arab Peace Initiative and a weakening of US and European support.
According to Kissinger’s diagnosis, Netanyahu is, at best, a mediocre statesman. Or, as was well put by Amir Peretz, who resigned on Nov. 9 from his job as minister of environmental protection, ”Netanyahu is not the solution — he is the problem.”
This is a guest post by Imam Mohamed allah-Dork, chairman of the Washington Islamist Coalition for Peace and Prosperity (WICPAP). Although it might appear to be satire it is not, because he articulates, far more candidly than most, the objectives of the “progressive” Obama Administration. I found him with the assistance of (another) imaginary “friend,” the Highly Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the Great State of Confusion Utopia, where happy unicorns frolic endlessly in the service of Obama.
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Hatred of Israel is among our Dear Leader Obama’s most effective weapons against those who oppose Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He has made heroic efforts to encourage and use it, with help from the progressive media and His other friends.
Because of the wise efforts of Our Dear Leader and His brilliant Secretary of State, hatred of Israel has increased in recent years. This has been due, in large part, to Israel’s continuing and patently unreasonable refusals to commit national suicide by agreeing to all of the righteous demands of Palestinian Authority President Abbas, as Obama and Kerry have also demanded. Peaceful Palestinians have responded to Israel’s malicious refusals through non-violent protests resulting in the death or injury of Jewish terrorists, accidentally run over, stabbed or shot.
Jewish Terrorists
The beautiful song embedded above was recently augmented by a new Palestinian musical offering including wholesome family-oriented lyrics.
I am so proud of the composers, singers and musicians that I cry whenever I watch the video!
According to a specious article at a right-wing propaganda site called PJ Media,
That is absurd. They were no more “murdered,” than are filthy dogs which are righteously slaughtered because they are dangers to society at large.
Unless Israel’s refusal to commit national suicide is condemned world-wide, undue attention will focus on the peace loving Islamic Republic of Iran and its legitimate goal of having nuclear weapons to bring Islamic peace to all who desire it. Israel opposes Iran’s quest for Islamic peace through nukes and therefore selfishly rejects it.
Hatred is irrational and bad, except that directed at genocidal, apartheid Israel and others who fail to embrace Islam. Hatred of them is rational and good. Just as hatred of Israel must be encouraged to the extent possible, so must the stupidity great credulity of the American people be fed and used for Progressive purposes, as it was fed and used to give them the blessings of superior health care.
Lies, obfuscation and secrecy for good purposes as praised by our Dear Leader’s consultant Jonathan Gruber, such as the passage of ObamaCare, are good because they are necessary. Leading the way, our Dear Leader promised to have the most transparent administration in history.
It was all diversionary symbolism, of course, because truth, clarity, transparency and accountability in pursuit of bad objectives — such as defeat of our Dear Leader’s policies — are intolerable because it is racist to oppose Him. Also, they might succeed.
That brings us to our Dear Leader’s dominant role in the P5+1 negotiations with The Islamic Republic of Peace Everlasting, Iran.
It is more than simply unfortunate that Western policymakers look at Iran and appear to see only what they want to see. They heap praise on progress in the nuclear negotiations without looking at the actual content. They tune into televised smiles and reasonable-sounding public statements from the Rouhani administration and tune out the bombastic threats, insults and anti-Western rhetoric that invariably accompanies them. They push for large-scale rapprochement with Iran on the apparent assumption that its crimes will disappear if we somehow pretend they don’t exist. [Emphasis added.]
But these wishful thinkers are in the corridors of power in Washington and Westminster. Although ISIS has grown stronger thanks to the sectarian conflict that Iran has helped create, these unrealistic optimists would imply that somehow Iran is our best hope for defeating this menace. So they give in to Iranian intransigence in the nuclear talks by senselessly giving away more and more leverage. [Emphasis added.]
Make no mistake, Tehran’s theocratic rulers are very well aware of this “pie-in-the-sky” illogicality. Indeed, they are counting on it. The regime’s officials are so confident in our diplomatic vulnerability that they have been trying to use the crisis in Iraq not only to obtain unearned concessions in the nuclear domain, but also to pressure the U.S., the U.K. and their allies to modify their stance against the dictatorship of Bashar Assad in Syria. [Emphasis added.]
Nonsense! Iran needs nuclear weapons to pursue its peaceful, humanitarian goals and, with our Dear Leader’s help, will get (or keep) them! Life will then be better for everyone who matters.
No deal with Iran will be finalized unless all of Iran’s righteous demands are met. Unless ample lies and obfuscations are spoon-fed to the American public to minimize the consequences of Iran’s victory, the deal may well be opposed. Lies and obfuscation were needed to pass ObamaCare, even with solid Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress. A deal with Iran is even more important. Our Dear Leader’s wise consultant, Jonathan Gruber, knows this very well and so does our Dear Leader.
Fortunately, a Washington think tank is taking the lead to counter the silly stuff spouted by racists.
A leading liberal think tank in Washington, D.C., has begun enlisting its associates in an “all-hands-on-deck effort to support” the Obama administration as it seeks to ink a nuclear deal with Iran by the end of the month, according to emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Truman National Security Project, a nonprofit think tank with ties to the administration, is assembling a “crack team of writers” to flood national and local media outlets with articles supporting the White House’s efforts before the details of a final nuclear deal have even emerged, according to internal emails sent by the organization to its listserv. [Emphasis added.]
“Our community absolutely must step up and not cede the public narrative to neocon hawks that would send our country to war just to screw the president,” Graham F. West, Truman’s writing and communications associate, wrote in a recent email to the organization’s listserv. [Emphasis added.]
Pay no attention to insane mumblings by the editor of this subversive blog. He has long opposed what he refers to as the Iran Scam and recently wrote this racist diatribe against our own Dear Leader and His quest for peace everlasting. If this sick cartoon isn’t racist, then I don’t know what is.
Our Dear Leader has already accomplished countless wonderful things to establish His magnificent legacy. Here are just a few:
He is the first African American President of the United States.
The award of His Nobel Peace Prize on October 9, 2009, a mere nine months after He became the President of the United States. No other President has accomplished that.
He compelled passage of the Affordable Care Act during His first term in office.
He has already issued more crucial executive decrees than any former President.
He has consistently condemned the apartheid, illegitimate state known as Israel.
Miller even contends, speciously, that Iran’s alleged human rights abuses and alleged support for world-wide terrorism should be considered by the esteemed P5+1 negotiators under our Dear Leader’s helpful guidance. That, like all of his other suggestions, would elevate facts, transparency and accountability for a bad purpose over lies, obfuscation and non-accountability for a good purpose. What great sage once wrote “the truth shall make you flee?” He was right. Truth would make many Americans flee from a deal with Iran, and we need their unthinking support to show that, despite recent election results, they reject racism and therefore still love, respect and have unbounded confidence in our Dear Leader.
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Editor’s comments
In an effort to help Imam Mohamed allah-Dork present his ideas most candidly and therefore effectively, I was pleased to provide the You Tube videos.
I agree with allah-Dork’s thesis that lies and obfuscation are as necessary to secure public approval of a nuke deal with Iran as they were to secure passage of ObamaCare. A nuke deal with Iran would be even worse than ObamaCare.
It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for Congress to repeal ObamaCare outright if for no reason other than that Obama would veto any bill repealing it. However, it is possible that the Supreme Court may deal ObamaCare a fatal blow if it finds that subsidies for customers of ObamaCare exchanges were clearly intended, and stated by the Congress, to be available only for customers of State, not Federal, exchanges.
Once Iran gets (or keeps) nukes, there will be no way for Congress to repeal the agreement, no way for the Supreme Court to overrule it and no way to force Iran to get rid of its nukes. That Iran may get rid of some of them voluntarily — by using them — offers no comfort at all.
Israel, the only free and democratic nation in the Middle East, has served as a useful distraction from the violation of even the most basic of human rights throughout the rest of the region. She continues to respect and implement those rights despite the Obama Administration’s increasing rejection of them and its refusal to take them into account when dealing with other nations. Iran is perhaps the worst human rights violator in the region as well as the most prolific sponsor of Islamic terrorism. As the Obama Administration ignores blatant human rights violations by other nations, it fantasizes that Israel is a gross violator and amplifies its fantasies at every opportunity.
Obama and His cohorts have learned the lessons taught by Mr. Gruber very well and have used them with success. Here is an excerpt from an article by Jonathan Turley, a liberal in the old fashioned sense of the word. He has often supported the ends which Obama has sought to achieve while opposing the methods He has used and continues to use.
In fairness to Gruber, he is again being honest about what happened in the passage of ACA and speaking as an academic. However, such machinations are rarely confirmed by high-level consultants or officials. The ACA was pushed through by a muscle vote on a handful of votes while the Administration made claims that he later had to admit were misleading at best, such as the President’s repeated assurance that citizens could keep your current insurance policy if you liked it. There was a great deal of cynicism and misleading representations made during the ACA debates — reflecting a deep-seated contempt for the intelligence of the American voter. Gruber however seems to celebrate the success in using what he viewed as the stupidity of citizens, to quote his earlier comments, to secure passage of the ACA. It is the triumph of the ends over the means — the mantra of Beltway denizens who view more principled actors as naive chumps. What is shocking for many outside of the Beltway is of course the moral relativism and cynicism reflected in such comments, but Gruber is the norm in Washington. He is the face of the consequentiality morality that has long governed this city. [Emphasis added.]
What is different is that he admits it.
Obama, et al, have consistently applied Gruber principles to the Iran Scam and will continue to do so in seeking public support for any nuke deal with Iran. They will also continue to obfuscate and lie about the Israeli situation to distract attention from what they are doing, relying on their perceptions of the “stupidity” of the American public.
Both Turkey’s President Erdogan and its Prime Minister Davutoglu have declared countess times that Gaza and Jerusalem (in addition to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia, and the Maghreb) are Turkey’s “domestic affairs.”
In truth, there is no mention of any city’s name in the Qur’an.
Turks have a different understanding of what constitutes an occupation and a conquest of a city. The Turkish rule is very simple: The capture of a foreign city by force is an occupation if that city is Turkish (or Muslim) and the capture of a city by force is conquest if the city belongs to a foreign nation (or non-Muslims).
For instance, Turks still think the capture of Istanbul in 1453 was not occupation; it was conquest.
In a 2012 speech, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (then Prime Minister) said: “Just like Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul are cities of the Qur’an.” In truth, there is no mention of any city’s name in the Qur’an. Never mind.
“Conquest,” Turkey’s top Muslim cleric, Professor Mehmet Gormez, declared in 2012, “is not to occupy lands or destroy cities and castles. Conquest is the conquest of hearts!” That is why, the top Turkish cleric said, “In our history there has never been occupation.” Instead, Professor Gormez said, “in our history, there has always been conquest.” He further explained that one pillar of conquest is to “open up minds to Islam, and hearts to the Qur’an.”
It is in this religious justification that most Turkish Islamists think they have an Allah-given right to take infidel lands by the force of sword — ironically, not much different from what the tougher Islamists have been doing in large parts of Syria and Iraq. Ask any commander in the Islamic State and he would tell you what the jihadists are doing there is “opening up minds to Islam, and hearts to the Qur’an.”
Both President Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have declared countless times that Gaza and Jerusalem (in addition to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia and the Maghreb) are Turkey’s “domestic affairs.”
In reality, with or without the normalization of diplomatic relations between Ankara and Jerusalem, the Turks have never hidden their broader goals in the Arab-Israeli dispute: that Jerusalem should be the capital of a Palestinian state; and that Israel should be pushed back to its pre-1967 borders. Until then, it will be ‘halal’ [permitted in Islam] for Erdogan to blame Israel for global warming, the Ebola virus, starvation in Africa and every other misfortune the world faces.
As if to confirm this whimsical view, Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan has blamed Israel for democratic failings in the Arab world. “Israel works with [undemocratic] regimes and keeps its ship afloat.” So, it is because of Israel that Arab nations have never established democratic culture — before or after 1948; or before or after the Arab Spring revolts. But fortunately, Palestinians have a new “protector.”
From Prime Minister Davutoglu’s public speech on November 7:
Al-Aqsa [mosque in Jerusalem] will one day be liberated. The Israelis should know that the oppressed Syrians have a protector. The oppressed Palestinians too have a protector. That protector is Turkey. Just as Bursa [the Turkish city where he spoke] ended its occupation, the honorable Palestinians, honorable Muslims will end the [Israeli] occupation. Just as Osman Gazi [a sepulchre in Bursa] was liberated, al-Aqsa too will be liberated. Al-Quds [Jerusalem] is both our first prayer direction and has been entrusted with us by history. It has been entrusted with us by Hazrat Omar. The last freedom seen in Jerusalem was under our [Ottoman] rule. Al-Quds is our cause. It is the occupying, oppressive Israeli government that has turned the Middle East into a quagmire.
Echoing that view, President Erdogan said that protecting Islamic sites in the Holy Land is a sacred mission (for his government), and bluntly warned that any attack against the al-Aqsa mosque is no different than an attack on the Kaaba in the holy city of Mecca.
Spot the difference: In the eyes of Turkey’s political and religious leadership, Istanbul and its Hagia Sophia (once a Greek Orthodox Basilica) were legitimately “conquered” by the Muslim Ottomans, while Jerusalem and its al-Aqsa mosque (built atop the ruins of the Jewish Temples) are illegally “occupied” by Israel. (Images source: Wikimedia Commons)
No doubt, after Gaza, al-Aqsa (and Jerusalem) has become a powerful Turkish obsession, and a treasure-trove of votes, especially in view of Turkey’s parliamentary elections next June. And do not expect the Turkish leadership only to corrupt facts. Plain fabrication is a more favored method. All the same, someone, sometimes, would unwillingly reveal the truth often when trying to corrupt other facts.
Since Davutoglu claimed that “Jerusalem has been entrusted with the Turks by Hazrat Omar,” it may be useful to refresh memories. Hazrat Omar is Omar bin Al-Khattab (579-644), one of the most powerful and influential Muslim caliphs in history. Within the context of “conquest vs. occupation,” he was referenced by the top cleric, Professor Gormez in a 2012 speech:
After Hazrat Omar conquered al-Quds [Jerusalem], he was invited to pray at a church [as there were no mosques yet in Jerusalem]. But he politely refused because he was worried that the [conquering] Muslims could turn the church into a mosque after he prayed there.
Since medieval historical facts cannot have changed over the past two years, the top Turkish ulama [religious scholar], referencing a most powerful Muslim caliph, is best witness that when the Muslims had first arrived in Jerusalem there was not a single mosque in the city. Why? Because Jerusalem was not a Muslim city. Why, then, do Turkish Islamists claim that it is Muslim? Because it once had been “conquered.” Would the same Turks surrender Istanbul to the occupying forces that took the city after World War I because its capture in 1920 made it a non-Turkish city? No, that was not conquest, that was occupation!
Had Messrs Erdogan and Davutoglu been schoolchildren, such reasoning might have been called bullying and cheating.
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