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More Palestinian and Western Mistakes

November 21, 2015

More Palestinian and Western Mistakes, The Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, November 21, 2015

(Did Mohamed forbid all murder? Or is it OK to murder Jews? — DM)

  • The Palestinian “victims” — victims of their own credulousness — are known asshuhadaa, martyrs for the sake of Allah, victims of the misconception that Allah wants us to die for him. But Allah forbids us to murder. Muhammad forbids us to murder. The Qur’an forbids us to murder.
  • Europeans, in general, obviously want the Jews dead — so long as the murder cannot be traced back to them. They seem to be hoping that their boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, combined with Arab and Iranian “hit men,” will do the job for them.
  • Also tragically, it has taken Mahmoud Abbas too long to realize that the ultimate objective of Hamas, the local representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, after killing Israelis, is to have this violence cost the Palestinian Authority its existence in the West Bank. There, they openly plan to set up another Islamic emirate, like the one in the Gaza Strip.
  • The knife-wielding Palestinian children — and the other young people who commit murder — are also not a spontaneous occurrence. They do not simply “spring” full-blown from “imperialism,” “Syrian bombings” or an “endangered Al-Aqsa.” They are the product of a careful, methodical, ongoing tactic of brainwashing about how glorious it is to become a shaheed [martyr] by murdering.
  • We do need to liberated, but not from the people you think. We do not need help being liberated from Israel, which, even if it is harsh, has always been fair to us, but from the self-satisfied diplomats even now — in our name — swanning down the glossy halls of Europe.

The Palestinians have taken it upon themselves to sacrifice our younger generation — on the altar of pointlessness — again.

The Palestinians have been sending their children — still in their teens, and intoxicated by hatred and lies as the assassins of old were intoxicated by hashish — to the streets of Israel and the roads of the West Bank to murder Israelis again. And for what? Is Al-Aqsa mosque in danger? It is not. But the cynical, calculating Fatah, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hamas — and the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement which has just been banned — are desperate to bring the Palestinian issue back to the headlines. They hope it would displace the true catastrophe of the chaos in Syria and Iraq, which has led to the flood of refugees to Europe.

The Palestinian “victims” — victims of their own credulousness — are known as shuhadaa, martyrs for the sake of Allah, victims of the misconception that Allah wants us to die for him. But Allah forbids us to murder. Muhammad forbids us to murder. The Qur’an forbids us to murder.

The Palestinian terrorists that murder Israelis usually die in the process; the question is, does murder keep the Al-Aqsa mosque out of “danger” — which it is not even in?

Do the senseless deaths on both sides advance the cause of a political solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state? No, only, apparently, to many Europeans — anti-Semitic racists who love Muslims as much as they hate Jews. These Europeans probably love Muslimsbecause they hate Jews.

Europeans, in general, obviously want the Jews dead — so long as the murder cannot be traced back to them. They seem to be hoping that their boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, combined with Arab and Iranian “hit men,” will do the job for them. Sadly, the Palestinians, instead of looking like people who want peace, look like the Muslim extremists to whom the European racists offer ever more help. It seems inconceivable to these Europeans that we may not want to live with these savages any more than they do.

We do need to liberated, but not from the people you think. We do not need help being liberated from Israel, which, even if it is harsh, has always been fair to us, but from the self-satisfied diplomats even now — in our name — swanning down the glossy halls of Europe.

The Palestinians are, not surprisingly, trying to avoid negotiating for peace. As any Palestinian leader will be killed, and go down in Palestinian history as a traitor unless he is able to come back with 100% of Palestinian demands, Mahmoud Abbas would only end up having to turn down any realistic offer — in full view of the international community. The Palestinian leaders are clearly hoping, as anyone would, that these Jew-hating Europeans — and others who breezily turn Jewish heritage sites into Muslim heritage sites — will hand them the whole 100% on a plate, free of charge.

The knife-wielding Palestinian children — and the other young people who commit murder — are also not a spontaneous occurrence. They do not simply “spring” full-blown from “imperialism,” “Syrian bombings” or an “endangered Al-Aqsa.” They are the product of a careful, methodical, ongoing tactic of brainwashing about how glorious it is to become a shaheed [martyr] by murdering.

Do the dispatchers send their own children out to become suicide bombers? Do the dispatchers go themselves? No, the Palestinians and other terrorists prey on swayable, possibly depressed children — looking for love or a “cause” in their lives to counteract the internal emptiness — to commit murder.

These murders by our young — and of our young — are, tragically, the direct result of the inflammatory lies of Muslim extremists, both secular and religious. Here, these include the Palestinian Authority (PA), Fatah, Hamas, the Islamic Movement In Israel (banned last week), and ISIS.

Also tragically, it has taken Mahmoud Abbas too long to realize that the ultimate objective of Hamas, the local representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, after killing Israelis, is to have this violence cost the Palestinian Authority its existence in the West Bank. There, they openly plan to set up another Islamic emirate, like the one in the Gaza Strip.

Abbas seems to have woken up, but only after the genie was out of the bottle. He then had no choice but to appeal to his only lifeline, Israel, for support — while at the same time threatening to end security coordination with it. His hate-propaganda nevertheless machine continues to promote the murder Israelis while carefully ignoring Israeli deaths. Abbas instead still focuses on the “martyrdom” of the terrorists and their supposedly “cold-blood executions” at the hands of Israelis whose “crime” is stop them as they are in the act of trying to slit Jewish throats.

1329Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, speaking on PA television, September 16, 2015.

During the past six weeks, more than 70 Palestinians have been killed while trying to murder Israelis, and 12 Israelis have been murdered. Israel’s population, contrary to Palestinian expectations, has not collapsed and is, as usual, successfully moving to protect itself.

The real damage has been done to the Palestinian Authority’s credibility and to the belief, now held by fewer and fewer Israelis, that a political solution is possible.

The main questions still need to be directed to those who invented the slogan, “Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger”:

  • Is al-Aqsa mosque now less in danger? Given that, throughout the Middle East, mosques are being blown up one after another, Al-Aqsa mosque is not only in no danger, it is, on the contrary, eminently secure.
  • Has the recent Palestinian violence and terrorism moved the Israelis one inch toward surrendering?
  • Are the Islamists, including the Israeli-Arab members of Knesset, really working to benefit the lives and careers of the Palestinian people? Or, to benefit their own careers, are these politicians keeping their public whipped up like manipulated fighting dogs, and forever poor, to make sure that we will be forever dependent on them? This is a way you treat infants or animals, not people.

Fortunately, the attempt made by Hamas and its subcontractor for collective suicide, Ra’ed Salah’s Islamic Movement, to incite a religious war around the totally false slogan “Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger,” in order to oust Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies from the West Bank, the way they did in the Gaza Strip, has not succeeded. To begin with, their timing was off. The Arab and Muslim world is too busy engaging in mutual slaughter to bother itself with the lies of a gang of Palestinians. The Arab and Muslim world cannot be bothered with Israel, and it certainly cannot be bothered with preventing the overthrow of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

Even if the Israelis would like nothing better than to see Al-Aqsa mosque destroyed, a notion for which there is no evidence, they still protect it with the best of their police force, out of respect for others, as we all wish others would respect us. Protecting Al-Aqsa mosque guarantees Israel’s security by respectfully honoring the religion of people different from them. It is also a reminder that all of us might actually benefit from respectfully honoring the religions of others different from us.

It is absurd and offensive that after the Palestinians initiated — and then tried to justify the current wave of terrorism as “a legitimate non-violent peaceful protest against the occupation” — that they now cry crocodile tears about the supposed “Israeli executions” of Palestinian youths who take their knives and go Jew-hunting, but who then get killed in the process. Dimitri Diliani, of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, even had the effrontery to claim, falsely, to Russia Today TV, that Israelis, to justify their crimes, tried to plant knives near the bodies of the purportedly innocent Palestinians to frame them.

Mahmoud Abbas denied the Jews any access to the Temple Mount on the fabricated pretext that the Jews were defiling Al-Aqsa mosque. The Temple Mount, however is as sacred to Jews and Christians as to Muslims. To Jews, the Temple Mount is the location of their two Temples (the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E.); to Christians, it was at the Second Temple where Jesus expelled money-changers and those who sold doves (Matthew 21:12).

Ultimately, the American secretary of state, meeting with the King of Jordan and the Israeli prime minister, concluded that it was Israel that guarded Al-Aqsa and would continue to maintain the status quo. Thus the status quo was confirmed in Israeli’s favor.

The Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Islamic Movement were left with nothing to say.

The upshot was that Mahmoud Abbas’s claim of defilement was rejected, and that Jews would still be allowed to visit. The Palestinians no longer serve as active participants; the Jordanians will continue to serve as religious administrators of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Israelis will continue as sovereign, and manage the security of the Temple Mount and Jerusalem.

Secretary Kerry’s repeated reference to the “Temple Mount, that is Al-Aqsa mosque” (Alharam Alshareef) to define the holy site struck a blow to both Mahmoud Abbas and the Islamists trying to deny the rights of the Jews. The Palestinian Authority has also — embarrassingly to many — been claiming that Jesus was a “Palestinian,” and trying to use the Temple Mount as an Islamic religious fulcrum for its baseless nationalist demands.

Secretary Kerry also put a stop to France’s pathetic attempts to curry favor with the Muslims living in its ghettoes when it proposed an international commission of inquiry to examine events in Al-Aqsa mosque. As Israel preserves full freedom of access throughout Jerusalem, the French can enter Al-Aqsa mosque and argue among themselves, but their attempts to enter Jerusalem through the back door was rejected by the Palestinians as an attempt to internationalize Jerusalem into a “Crusader city.”

When the Palestinians torched the Tomb of Joseph, it became clear that under Palestinian Authority control, Jewish and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem would be reduced to ashes, and that the Palestinians in the West Bank were no better than ISIS or the Taliban, which destroyed Palmyra and the ancient statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan.

The Jews, who dealt with two previous intifadas, are not particularly terrified by the thought of a third one. We have repeatedly seen that every violent Palestinian attempt has backfired and caused far more damage to us than to the Jews. The Palestinian Authority’s approval of Hamas’s incitement not only threatened its own downfall, but also looked as if it would precipitate the installation of an Islamic emirate in the West Bank — an event that would effectively have killed any dream of a Palestinian state.

Yes, the recent wave of stabbings and shootings has, to a small and transitory extent, diverted the world’s attention from the real tragedies of the Middle East. However, the millions of refugees in the Middle East (many knocking at the gates of Europe), will keep pushing to the sidelines the Palestinian cause; the slaughter; the mosques blown up; the churches burned down, and the genuine persecution of minorities, as opposed to the fairy tales invented by Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas and the seditious Israeli Arab members of Israel’s Knesset.

The other real loser is the trust between Arabs and Jews. Trust — with special thanks to Palestinian groups working fiercely against “normalization” rather than toward peace — has been totally eroded. Again, the only people we have hurt are ourselves: the demand of Israeli Arabs for equality is rapidly slipping down the list of public priorities. As the old Arab proverb says, “Ask someone with experience, not the doctor.”

At the end of the current violence that we began, will be left, as usual, with nothing to show for it, while the Israelis, who always rebound, will continue to thrive, prosper and move forward.

Clearly the time will soon come again for direct negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis — but the use of force, instead of than wresting concessions from the Israelis, will, as always, do just the opposite.

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Fatah, Foreign policy, Israel, Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Peace process
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Islam — Radical, Extremist and Mainstream

November 21, 2015

Islam — Radical, Extremist and Mainstream, Dan Miller’s Blog, November 21, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM

In largely secular western societies, Islam and its history are viewed by many non-Muslims as substantially irrelevant to how devout Muslims behave. Perhaps the view that religion is of little importance to devout Muslims is based on the role, minor if any, that religion and religious history play in their own secular lives. However, both Islamic teachings and history give devout Muslims their grounding in Islam and teach them that Islam is the religion of war, not peace: Islam must become the world’s only religion by extirpating all others.

Islam was founded by Mohamed ( c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE) in the sixth century. Mohamed

is considered, almost universally,[n 2] by Muslims to have been the last prophet sent by God to mankind[3][n 3] to restore Islam, which they believe to be the unaltered original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets.[4][5][6][7] [Emphasis added.]

Islam considers the words of Mohamed, as transcribed in the “Holy” Quran and Hadith, to be the words of Allah. “Restoring” other monotheistic religions means changing them to comport with Islam as dictated to Mohamed by Allah; unaltered, those other religions cannot continue to exist; it is the duty of Muslims to force them to change or to exterminate them.

Islam provides the basis for Sunni and Shiite (principal branches of Islam) efforts to govern world civilization according to Islamic principles as voiced by Allah through his prophet, Mohamed. Since Islamic principles tolerate no religious or political freedoms (let alone contemporary gender equality or homosexuality notions), such western ideas must be extirpated — as they have been in Saudi Arabia (now the head of the UN Human Rights Council) and Iran. Islamic principles are also manifested by the hopes and efforts of the Islamic State (Sunni, like Saudi Arabia) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (Shiite) to achieve their own caliphates.

Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr is a scholar of Islamic law and a graduate of Egypt’s Al Azhar University — regularly touted as the world’s most prestigious Islamic university. Al Azhar University co-hosted Obama’s 2009 “New Beginnings” address in Cairo, to which Obama insisted that at least ten members of the Muslim Brotherhood be invited. According to an article at Jihad Watch,

After being asked why Al Azhar, which is in the habit of denouncing secular thinkers as un-Islamic, refuses to denounce the Islamic State as un-Islamic, Sheikh Nasr said:

It can’t [condemn the Islamic State as un-Islamic].  The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar’s programs.  So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic?  Al Azhar says there must be a caliphate and that it is an obligation for the Muslim world [to establish it].  Al Azhar teaches the law of apostasy and killing the apostate.  Al Azhar is hostile towards religious minorities, and teaches things like not building churches, etc.  Al Azhar upholds the institution of jizya [extracting tribute from religious minorities].  Al Azhar teaches stoning people.  So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic? [Emphasis added.]

Nasr joins a growing chorus of critics of Al Azhar.  Last September, while discussing how the Islamic State burns some of its victims alive—most notoriously, a Jordanian pilot—Egyptian journalist Yusuf al-Husayni remarked on his satellite program that “The Islamic State is only doing what Al Azhar teaches… and the simplest example is Ibn Kathir’s Beginning and End.”

Since the world’s preeminent Islamic university teaches Islam as proclaimed by the Islamic State, how can non-Muslims claim that the Islamic State is not Islamic? Why do many, even conservatives, refer to the Islamic State and its allied Islamic terror groups as “radical” or “extremist?”

Martin Luther was “radical” and “extreme” because he tried to reform aspects of Roman Catholicism which he deemed malign.

He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God’s punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar, with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.

Unlike Martin Luther’s eventually successful efforts to reform aspects of Roman Catholicism, the efforts of Egyptian President Sisi and other moderate Muslims to reform Islam have thus far gained little traction. Obama appears to support President Sisi’s principal opponent in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliate, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Sisi and other moderates — rather than the Islamic State and Islamic nations such as Iran and Saudi Arabia — should be characterized as “radical” or “extreme” because they dispute the teachings of Allah as relayed through his prophet, Mohamed. The proponents of Islam as it now exists are “mainstream,” and therefore neither “radical” nor “extreme.” We should support “radicals” like President Sisi.

As noted in an article titled Beware of Islamic Terrorism,

All Islamic terrorists — not only the Islamic State group and al-Qaida — systematically and deliberately target civilians, stabbing their Muslim and “infidel” host countries in the back, abusing their hospitality to advance 14 centuries of megalomaniac aspirations to rule the globe in general, and to reclaim the “waqf” (Allah-ordained) regions of Europe in particular.

Emboldened by Western indifference, these destabilizing and terror-intensifying aspirations have been bolstered by the Islamic educational systems in Europe, the U.S. and other Western countries. These proclaim a supposedly irrevocable Islamic title over the eighth-century Islamic conquests of Lyon, Nice and much of France, as well as all of Spain; the ninth-century subjugation of parts of Italy; and the ninth- and 10th-century occupations of western Switzerland, including Geneva. [Emphasis added.]

Europe has underestimated the critical significance of this long anti-Western history in shaping contemporary Islamic education, culture, politics, peace, war, and the overall Islamic attitude toward Europe, North America, Australia, and other “arrogant infidels.” “Infidel” France has been the prime European target for Islamic terrorists, with 11 reported attacks in 2015, despite France’s systematic criticism of Israel and support for the Palestinian Authority — dispelling conventional “wisdom” that Islamic terrorism is Israeli or Palestinian-driven.

Europe has ignored the significant impact the crucial milestones in the life of the Prophet Muhammad have had on contemporary Islamic geostrategy, such as his seventh-century Hijrah, when Muhammad, along with his loyalists, emigrated or fled from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina), not to be integrated and blend into Medina’s social, economic or political environment, but to advance and spread Islam through conversion, subversion and terrorism, if necessary. Asserting himself over his hosts and rivals in Medina, Muhammad gathered a critical mass of military might to conquer Mecca and launch Islam’s drive to dominate the world. [Emphasis added.]

According to a moderate Muslim, Maajid Nawaz, writing in an article at the Daily Beast titled ISIS Is Just One of a Full-Blown Global Jihadist Insurgency,

Our political leaders have been restricting the definition of this problem to whichever jihadist group is causing them the biggest headache at the present time, while ignoring the fact that they are all borne of the same Islamist ideology. Before ISIS emerged, the U.S. State Department strangely took to naming the problem “al Qaeda-inspired extremism,” even though it was not al Qaeda that inspired the radicalism. Rather, Islamist extremism inspired al Qaeda. And in turn, ISIS did not radicalize those 6,000 European Muslims who have traveled to join them, nor the thousands of supporters the French now say they are monitoring. [Emphasis added.]

This did not happened overnight and could not have emerged from a vacuum. ISIS propaganda is good, but not that good. No, decades of Islamist propaganda in communities had already primed these young Muslims to yearn for a theocratic caliphate. When surveyed, 33 percent of British Muslims expressed a desire to resurrect a caliphate. ISIS simply plucked the low-hanging fruit, which had been seeded long ago by various Islamist groups, and it will now require decades of community resilience to push back. But we cannot even begin to do so until we recognize the problem for what it is. Welcome to the full-blown global jihadist insurgency. [Emphasis added.]

The author of that article claims that Islamism (often referred to as “political Islam“) is not Islam:

I speak as a former Liberal Democrat candidate in the U.K.’s last general election and as someone who became a political prisoner in Egypt due to my former belief in Islamism. I speak, therefore, from a place of concern and familiarity, not enmity and hostility to Islam and Muslims. In a televised discussion with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on the issue, I have argued that of course ISIS is not Islam. Nor am I. Nor is anyone, really. Because Islam is what Muslims make it. But it is as disingenuous to argue that ISIS has “nothing to do with Islam” as it is to argue that “they are Islam.” ISIS has something to do with Islam. Not nothing, not everything, but something. . . . [Emphasis added.]

It is important to define here what I mean by Islamism: Islam is a religion, and like any other it is internally diverse. But Islamism is the desire to impose a very particular version of Islam on society. Hence, Islamism is Muslim theocracy. [Emphasis added.]

In another article, Mr. Nawaz acknowledges,

Islamism has been rising in the UK for decades. Over the years, in survey after survey, attitudes have reflected a worrying trend. A quarter of British Muslims sympathised with the Charlie Hebdo shootings. 0% have expressed tolerance for homosexuality. A third have claimed that killing for religion can be justified, while 36% have thought apostates should be killed. 40% have wanted the introduction of sharia as law in the UK and 33% have expressed a desire to see the return of a worldwide theocratic Caliphate. Is it any wonder then, that from this milieu up to 1,000 British Muslims have joined ISIS, which is more than joined the Army reserves.

I wish Mr. Nawaz well and hope that his efforts to change Islam succeed. However, in drawing distinctions between Islam and Islamism, he seems to have forgotten, or perhaps to have chosen to ignore, the teachings of Allah as relayed by his messenger and Islam’s founder, Mohamed, referenced at the beginning of this article. Mohamed (and presumably Allah himself) would be surprised by and even horrified at such notions as “Islam is what Muslims make it” and that Islam does not contemplate a Muslim theocracy. So, in all probability, would be many of the clerics at Egypt’s Al Azhar University.

Here are a few videos of Islamic clerics spreading their messages of Islamic peace, love and tolerance. The last of the bunch is about one of Obama’s favorite Muslims.

To close on a somewhat lighter note, here are a few observations by Jonah Goldberg taken from his Goldberg file (November 20, 2015 e-mail),

If you Google “Christian terrorism,” you’re probably a jackass to begin with. But if you do — bidden not by your own drive to jackassery but by the natural curiosity inspired by this “news” letter — you’ll find lots of left-wingtrollery about how the worst terrorist attacks on American soil have been committed by Christians. Much of it is tendentious, question-begging twaddle. But I really don’t want to waste a lot of time on whether Tim McVeigh was a Christian or not (he really wasn’t).

What I find interesting is that many of the same people who clutch their pearls at the mere suggestion that Islamic terrorism has anything to do with — oh, what’s the word again? — oh right: Islam, seem to have no problem making the case that “Christian terrorism” is like a real thing. Remember how so many liberals loved — loved — Obama’s sophomoric and insidious tirade about not getting on our “high horses” about ISIS’s atrocities in the here and now because medieval Christians did bad things a thousand years ago? They never seem to think that argument through. Leaving out the ass-aching stupidity of the comparison, it actually concedes the very point Obama never wants to concede. By laying the barbaric sins of Christians a thousand years ago at the feet of Christians today, he implicitly tags Muslims with the barbarism committed in their name today. [Emphasis added.]

Now, I see no need to wade too deeply into the theology here, but I think I am on very solid ground when I say that Islamic terrorism draws more easily and deeply from the Koran than Tim McVeigh drew from the Christian Bible. Of course, you’re free to disagree. In a free society, everybody has the right to be wrong in their opinions. (But don’t tell anyone at Yale that.)

. . . .

But it is simply a lie — an obvious, glaring, indisputable, trout-in-the-milk lie — that Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

Simply put, this is nonsense. . . .  The jihadists say they are motivated by Islam. They shout “Allahu akbar!” whenever they kill people. “Moderate Muslims” in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have been funding Islamic radicals around the world for nearly a century. This morning in Mali, terrorist gunmen reportedly released those hostages who could quote the Koran. The leader of ISIS has a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies and openly talks about restoring the Caliphate. [Emphasis added.]

Despite all of this, don’t be distracted from the greatest threat to our security; or perhaps we should be:

theo3

Categories: Al Azhar University, Caliphate, Christianity, Egypt, Foreign policy, Iran, Islam, Islam - the religion of war, Islam and Christianity, Islam and Jews, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Jews, Moderate Muslims, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic State, Palestinian heroes, Political Islam, Radical Islam, Saudi Arabia
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Brussels Placed at Highest Alert Level; Subway Is Closed

November 21, 2015

Brussels Placed at Highest Alert Level; Subway Is Closed, New York Times, Milan Schreuer and Kimiko De Freytas-Tamura, November 21, 2015

22brussels-web-master675Belgian soldiers patrolled a nearly deserted street on Saturday in central Brussels, after the government raised the country’s threat level to its highest. Credit Youssef Boudlal/Reuters

BRUSSELS — The Belgian authorities halted public transit, canceled soccer games and warned citizens to avoid shopping centers, airports, train stations and concerts in the Brussels region early Saturday, warning that the capital was vulnerable in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks.

The Belgian government’s threat analysis unit raised the country’s threat level to 3 on Monday, warning of a “possible and likely threat.” On Friday night, it raised the threat level to 4 for the capital region, Prime Minister Charles Michel announced.

“Level 4 means that the threat is serious and imminent,” Mr. Michel told reporters on Saturday. “The raising of the threat is a result of information, relatively precise, of a risk of an attack similar to the one that unfolded in Paris.” He said the threat involved “multiple individuals capable of striking a number of sites with weapons and explosives, maybe at the same time.”

At least four of the Paris attackers lived in the Brussels area.
manhunt-for-paris-attackers-1447609607029-master495-v17

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who is believed to have been the chief planner and who died in a police raid outside Paris on Wednesday, lived in the Molenbeek neighborhood, as did Ibrahim Abdeslam, one of the suicide bombers, and his brother Salah, who is at large. Another suicide bomber, Bilal Hadfi, lived in the Neder-Over-Heembeek district.

The arrests of two other Belgians in connection with the attacks have further raised alarm here.

A person who was arrested on Friday in Brussels has been charged with “participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization,” a federal magistrate, Eric Van der Sijpt, announced on Saturday.

A search of the person’s house came up with a weapon, but no explosives, Mr. Van der Sijpt said. He did not name the person, but several Belgian newspapers described him as a 39-year-old Moroccan who lives in the Jette section of Brussels, gave help to Salah Abdeslam after the attacks and has a brother who is fighting in Syria. The government had already arrested two other Belgians, accusing them of helping Mr. Abdeslam by driving him from Paris to Brussels.

Also on Saturday, Turkish authorities arrested an Islamic State militant at a luxury hotel in Antalya, along with two others. They identified him as Ahmad Dahmani, 26, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, and said he was trying to illegally cross the border into Syria.

“We believe that Dahmani was in contact with the terrorists who perpetrated the Paris attacks,” said a Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government protocol.

Mr. Dahmani arrived from Amsterdam on Nov. 14 — the day after the Paris attacks. “There is no record of the Belgian authorities having warned Turkey about Dahmani — which is why there was no entry ban,” the official said, adding, “Had the Belgian authorities alerted us in due time, Dahmani could have been apprehended at the airport.”

The storming on Friday of a hotel in Bamako, Mali, added to the anxieties in Belgium. Six Belgians were held hostage in the hotel, of whom four were released and two were killed, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Saturday.

Mr. Michel, in his news conference, said the suspension of service on the Brussels Métro would be reassessed on Sunday afternoon.

“We ask you to remain peaceful and avoid panic,” Mr. Michel said. “It is a serious situation and we are trying with the security forces to do everything to keep the situation under control.”

Earlier in the week, Mr. Michel said he would push legal changes to make it easier to capture and try suspected terrorists operating in Belgium and seek constitutional changes to extend, to 72 hours from 24 hours, the period terrorism suspects can be held by the police without charge.

Categories: Belgium, Islamic invasion, Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Islamism
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Failure of Intelligence: How Liberals Cause ISIS Terror Attacks

November 21, 2015

Failure of Intelligence: How Liberals Cause ISIS Terror Attacks, Bill Whittle via You Tube, November 20, 2015

 

Categories: Bill Whittle, Europe, European Union, Foreign policy, Freedom, Islam, Islamic culture, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Islamophobia, Obama and Islam, Paris Muslim attack
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Cartoons of the day

November 21, 2015

H/t Power Line

Terrorist screeners
ISIS-not-gaing-strength-copy
ISIS-Conatined-copy
Leave-to-Grownups-copy

H/t Freedom is just another word

theo3

Categories: Climate change, Humor, Islamic State, Obama, Putin
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Muslim cleric: “The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar’s programs”

November 21, 2015

Muslim cleric: “The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar’s programs” Jihad Watch, , November 20, 2015

[T]he phenomenon known as “ISIS” is not a temporal aberration within Islam but rather a byproduct of what is considered normative thinking for Al Azhar—the Islamic world’s most authoritative university.

*************************

Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr, a scholar of Islamic law and graduate of Egypt’s Al Azhar University—regularly touted as the world’s most prestigious Islamic university—recently exposed his alma mater in a televised interview.

Muhammad-Abdullah-Nasr

After being asked why Al Azhar, which is in the habit of denouncing secular thinkers as un-Islamic, refuses to denounce the Islamic State as un-Islamic, Sheikh Nasr said:

It can’t [condemn the Islamic State as un-Islamic].  The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar’s programs.  So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic?  Al Azhar says there must be a caliphate and that it is an obligation for the Muslim world [to establish it].  Al Azhar teaches the law of apostasy and killing the apostate.  Al Azhar is hostile towards religious minorities, and teaches things like not building churches, etc.  Al Azhar upholds the institution of jizya [extracting tribute from religious minorities].  Al Azhar teaches stoning people.  So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic?

Nasr joins a growing chorus of critics of Al Azhar.  Last September, while discussing how the Islamic State burns some of its victims alive—most notoriously, a Jordanian pilot—Egyptian journalist Yusuf al-Husayni remarked on his satellite program that “The Islamic State is only doing what Al Azhar teaches… and the simplest example is Ibn Kathir’s Beginning and End.”

Ibn Kathir is one of Sunni Islam’s most renowned scholars; his Beginning and End is a magisterial history of Islam and a staple at Al Azhar.  It is also full of Muslims, beginning with Muhammad, committing the sorts of atrocities that the Islamic State and other Islamic organizations and persons commit.

In February, Egyptian political writer Dr. Khalid al-Montaser revealed that Al Azhar was encouraging enmity for non-Muslims, specifically Coptic Christians, and even inciting for their murder.  Marveled Montaser:

Is it possible at this sensitive time — when murderous terrorists rest on texts and understandings of takfir [accusing Muslims of apostasy], murder, slaughter, and beheading — that Al Azhar magazine is offering free of charge a book whose latter half and every page — indeed every few lines — ends with “whoever disbelieves [non-Muslims] strike off his head”?

The prestigious Islamic university—which co-hosted U.S. President Obama’s 2009 “A New Beginning” speech—has even issued a free booklet dedicated to proving that Christianity is a “failed religion.”

In short, the phenomenon known as “ISIS” is not a temporal aberration within Islam but rather a byproduct of what is considered normative thinking for Al Azhar—the Islamic world’s most authoritative university.

Categories: Al Azhar University, Egypt, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamism
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Massive Russian blanket air bombardment is flattening Raqqa

November 21, 2015

Massive Russian blanket air bombardment is flattening Raqqa, DEBKAfile, November 21, 2015

For_Paris_20.11.15

Russia has launched a merciless blanket air campaign, backed by Kalibr cruise missiles fired from the Caspian and Mediterranean Seas, for the object of wiping the Islamic State’s Syrian center of Raqqa off the map, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.

Western and Middle East sources tracking the campaign since Friday, Nov. 20, report that at least 75 air sorties have been conducted and are systematically razing the town of 200,000 inhabitants 160km east of Aleppo, district by district, irrespective of civilian town dwellers.

Moscow wants the entire Middle East and Muslim world to see the price exacted for launching a terrorist attack on Russia after the downing of the Metrojet airliner that killed 224 people over Egyptian Sinai on Oct. 31. Russian bombers and cruise missiles rained death and destruction on the ISIS administration center after the jihadists claimed responsibility for that disaster and published photos of a soft drink can claimed to have been rigged as a bomb for blowing the plane up.

When the Russians are done, the town will be a pile of rubble, an intelligence source told DEBKAfile.

For_ours

The Russian defense ministry ran photos Friday of Russian technicians loading bombs on the Tupolev 95 bombers (dubbed “Bears” in the West). Ground crews marked the bombs “For ours,” and “For Paris.”

Last Tuesday, our military sources first revealed that the Tupolev’s were taking off from Morozovsk air base in the Rostov district of southern Russia instead of from the Russian military enclave outside the Syrian town of Latakia.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported Friday that 15 Syrian oil facilities seized by ISIS had been destroyed this week and 525 of their trucks, costing the jihadists $1.5 million a day in revenue.

As for casualties, the published figure of 600 jihadists killed in one day is probably far below the real figure. Our sources report that the Islamist terrorists’ death toll most probably runs into thousands with many more injured.

To sustain the hectic tempo of its aerial war, Moscow has doubled the number of bombers assigned to Syria from 34 two weeks ago to 69 by Saturday, Nov. 21.

Our military sources add that this augmented air power allows the Russians to expand their targets to other parts of Syria. On Friday, they renewed sorties against Syrian rebel forces holding the southern town of Deraa near the Jordanian border.

Categories: Islamic State, Paris Muslim attack, Russia - Syrian war, Russian aircraft down
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Al Qaeda has not been neutralized

November 21, 2015

Al Qaeda has not been neutralized, The Long War Journal, , November 20, 2015

This article was originally published at The Weekly Standard.

Secretary of State John Kerry believes that al Qaeda’s “top leadership” has been “neutralize[d]” as “an effective force.” He made the claim while discussing the administration’s strategy, or lack thereof, for combating the Islamic State, which is al Qaeda’s jihadist rival. Kerry believes that the US. and its allies can finish off the Islamic State quicker than al Qaeda. There’s just one problem: It is not true that al Qaeda or its top leaders have been “neutralize[d].”

Dozens of senior al Qaeda terrorists, including of course Osama bin Laden, have been eliminated. But al Qaeda is not a simple top-down terrorist group that can be entirely vanquished by killing or detaining select key leaders. It is a paramilitary insurgency organization that is principally built for waging guerilla warfare. Terrorism is a part of what al Qaeda does, but not nearly all. And a key reason why al Qaeda has been able to regenerate its threat against us repeatedly over the past 14 years is that it uses its guerilla armies to groom new leaders and identify recruits for terrorist plots against the West.

The summary below shows what al Qaeda looks like today – it is far from being “neutralize[d].” Instead, al Qaeda and its regional branches are fighting in more countries today than ever. They are trying to build radical Islamic states, just like ISIS, which garners more attention but hasn’t, contrary to conventional wisdom, surpassed al Qaeda in many areas.

In Afghanistan, al Qaeda remains closely allied with the Taliban and is participating in the Taliban-led insurgency’s advances throughout the country. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri has sworn allegiance to the Taliban’s new emir, Mullah Mansour, who publicly accepted Zawahiri’s oath of loyalty in August. Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters are playing a key role in the Taliban’s offensive, with the Taliban-al Qaeda axis overrunning approximately 40 of Afghanistan’s 398 districts this year alone. This is part of the reason that President Obama decided to leave a small contingent of American forces in Afghanistan past his term in office.

To give you a sense of what al Qaeda is really doing in Afghanistan, consider that U.S. forces led raids against two large training facilities in the country’s south in October. One of the camps was approximately 30 square miles in size. Gen. John F. Campbell, who oversees the war effort in Afghanistan, explained that the camp was run by al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and is “probably the largest training camp-type facility that we have seen in 14 years of war.”

Think about that: U.S. officials just discovered what is probably the largest al Qaeda camp since 2001. Al Qaeda hasn’t been neutralized in Afghanistan. In fact, numerous al Qaeda leaders have relocated into the country.

AQIS, which answers to Zawahiri, was established in September 2014 and is exporting terrorism throughout the region. The group has claimed attacks in Pakistan and Bangladesh. And al Qaeda is still allied with Pakistan’s many jihadist groups, which frequently carry out operations, especially in the northern part of the country.

In Syria, Al Nusrah Front, which is openly loyal to Zawahiri, is deeply enmeshed in the anti-Assad insurgency. It is such an effective fighting force that it disrupted the Pentagon’s $500 million train and equip program multiple times this year, leading the Obama administration to cancel it. Multiple senior al Qaeda leaders have relocated to Syria since 2011 and they are guiding Al Nusrah’s efforts. In addition, some of these leaders work for what is known as the “Khorasan Group,” which has been planning attacks against the West. In September 2014, the administration began targeting the Khorasan Group with airstrikes. Some top figures in this al Qaeda subunit have been taken out, but others have survived thus far. Even so, al Qaeda has thousands of fighters in Syria today. And Al Nusrah Front jointly leads a coalition known as Jaysh al Fath (“Army of Conquest”), which took substantial territory from Bashar al Assad’s regime earlier this year.

In Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operates a prolific insurgency and has gobbled up territory, particularly in the country’s south. The U.S. has killed several senior AQAP officials this year, but that hasn’t stopped the organization from taking advantage of the Houthis’ surge and the Gulf states’ intervention. The AQAP leaders who replaced those killed in U.S. drone strikes since January are al Qaeda veterans and answer to Zawahiri. AQAP has also threatened the U.S. on multiple occasions, including the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing and other plots.

Across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, in Somalia, Shabaab remains one of the most prolific jihadist organizations on the planet. It, too, does not hide its fealty to Zawahiri. Thousands of Shabaab fighters battle African forces regularly and still control significant territory. Shabaab is most infamous these days for its high-profile massacres in Kenya, such as at the Westgate mall in 2013 and Garissa University College earlier this year. Shabaab has a long history of exporting terrorism throughout East Africa, where it is attempting to build a radical Islamic nation on behalf of al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and affiliated groups remain a potent force in North and West Africa. Groups such Ansar al Sharia, Ansar Dine and others all operate within AQIM’s orbit and are regularly engaged in heavy fighting against their opponents.

Al Murabitoon, led by Mohkthar Belmokhtar, is another al Qaeda group that operates in North and West Africa. Belmokhtar, a former AQIM commander, is a Zawahiri loyalist. His group has reportedly claimed responsibility for a hotel siege in Mali earlier today.

To this brief sketch we can add a number of al Qaeda-affiliated organizations around the globe. But the point is that al Qaeda has a guerilla army totaling tens of thousands of fighters across a large geographic expanse.

AQIS, AQAP, AQIM, Al Nusrah Front, Shabaab – these are al Qaeda’s regional branches. Each of them is fighting to implement al Qaeda-style sharia law in its designated region. All of them are part of Zawahiri’s organization. They have not been “neutralize[d].”

Al Qaeda realized long ago that this is a generational war, and the next generation of leaders are fighting in several countries today. The US government still doesn’t get it.

Categories: Al Qaeda, Kerry, Obama administration
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