Archive for June 2016

Is Obama’s Iran Deal a ‘Dhimmi’ Contract?

June 1, 2016

Is Obama’s Iran Deal a ‘Dhimmi’ Contract?, PJ Media, A.J. Caschetta, May 31, 2016

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IRGC Commander Ali Fadavi’s recent threat to “drown American vessels” in the Persian Gulf is only the latest indication that America’s relationship with Iran resembles a dhimma contract more than a traditional foreign policy.

Since the seventh century, anyone defeated by Islamic conquest was given three choices: conversion, death, or a dhimma contract, which Bat Ye’or calls the “treaty of submission for people conquered by jihad.” By accepting the third choice, they became dhimmis: members of a “protected” class whose failure to submit to Allah was replaced by a compulsory submission to Muslims.

Isolated, disarmed, insulted at every turn, and coerced into acknowledging their inferiority with regular self-abasement, dhimmis are expected to show humility and gratitude to their conquerors.

President Obama’s approach to the Muslim world in general has been replete with gratitude, flattery, and apologies – even, and especially, for violence perpetrated by Christians one thousand years ago. Obama refuses to utter the words “Islamist terrorism.” He wildly exaggerates Islam’s role in “saving” Western culture. At the United Nations, Obama demanded that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” He even put one filmmaker in jail for doing so.

Above all, throughout his presidency Obama has reached out to Iran both publicly and via private letters.

Obama’s overtures may not be consciously designed to follow a dhimmi’s accommodation of his master. However, Ali Khamenei certainly treats Obama as if a dhimmi contract is in effect, offering only contempt in return for the president’s obsequious deference.

Khamenei leads cheers of “Death to America”? Obama makes excuses for it.

Obama insists that Iran’s path forward lies at the UN with the P5+1 partners. Khamenei answers:

[T]hose who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are … ignorant.

Within Iran and elsewhere, each Iranian provocation that goes unanswered by Obama reinforces the appearance of his dhimmi status: Obama pays his tribute and endures his proscribed submission with gestures of obeisance.

Under Obama’s administration, Iran has attempted an assassination in Washington, D.C., shipped arms to Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and Houthi rebels in Yemen, and attempted to hack a dam in New York and the electrical grid in California.

Obama’s administration has responded with self-effacing conciliation.

Even video of captured American sailors being humiliated by the IRGC didn’t rouse the president from his supine repose. John Kerry actually thanked “the Iranian authorities for their cooperation.”

Iran’s violations of sanction have grown more flagrant with each passing year — with zero consequences. As the supposed weaker side, Iran should be expected to deny it had conducted missile tests, or to claim its ICBM program is just a space program. Instead, Iran has boasted of the tests. An emboldened, confident Iran has acted as though it possesses the upper hand.

Among the humiliations dhimmis are forced to endure at the hands of Muslims is a tax called the jizya. This originates in the Koran:

Fight those who believe not in Allah … until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued (9:29).

As they present their payment, dhimmis are often required to prostrate themselves and accept slaps to the head and neck, symbolic of the fate they avoided with the treaty. In 1799, British historian William Eton referred to the jizya as a “capitation tax” — permitting dhimmis to “wear their heads” for another year.

The $100 to $150 billion Iran receives under the U.S.-brokered Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is, surely, the largest jizya payment in history.

Last July as the White House celebrated the JCPOA, Khamenei tweeted an image of Obama holding a gun to his own head.

Six months later, the IRGC fired missiles dangerously close to the USS Harry S. Truman.

Despite Iran’s defiant and aggressive behavior, the president continues to grant concessions. Obama has pushed for Iran to gain access to the U.S. monetary system. Obama has even purchased Iranian nuclear waste.

Meanwhile, Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz and to kill Americans found there.

Shortly after the American Revolution, the Barbary Pirates of Morocco, Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli began seizing U.S. merchant vessels and demanding ransom. These Islamic pirates — from whence the English term “barbarians” arose — explained that the Koran simply gave them the “right and duty to make war” on non-Muslims.

George Washington did not pay tribute to the sheikhs. Instead, George Washington ordered the creation of the U.S. Navy.

They were send to fight what Washington termed the “nests of banditti.” In 1815, James Madison used that Navy to defeat the Barbary sheikhs at sea, and on “the shores of Tripoli.”

Two hundred years later, the Obama administration is accommodating the “banditti” in Tehran — and lying to the American people about it.

President Obama has assumed the role of a meek and humbled dhimmi paying tribute to his Muslim protector while enduring his insults. Washington and Madison would be disgusted.

US ‘provocations’ may force China to declare air defense zone in S. China Sea

June 1, 2016

US ‘provocations’ may force China to declare air defense zone in S. China Sea – report Published time: 1 Jun, 2016 10:28

Source: US ‘provocations’ may force China to declare air defense zone in S. China Sea – report — RT News

© AFP

Beijing is reportedly planning to launch an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea, the timing of which will depend on US “provocations.” Billions of dollars of trade passes annually through the area, which is subject to rival claims.

A source close to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) told the South China Morning Post daily that security conditions in the region, namely the US military presence, would define the timing of the ADIZ declaration.

“If the US military keeps making provocative moves to challenge China’s sovereignty in the region, it will give Beijing a good opportunity to declare an ADIZ in the South China Sea,” the source told the newspaper.

The country’s Defense Ministry told the South China Morning Post in a written statement that it was “the right of a sovereign state” to designate an ADIZ.

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A ship of Chinese Coast Guard in the South China Sea © Nguyen Minh

“Regarding when to declare such a zone, it will depend on whether China is facing security threats from the air, and what the level of the air safety threat is,” the ministry wrote.

In November 2013, Beijing set up an ADIZ in the East China Sea, causing an immediate backlash from Tokyo, Seoul and Washington. It covered the Diaoyu Islands, which Tokyo controls and calls the Senkakus.

Tensions have run high between Washington and Beijing over a reclamation project in the South China Sea, where China has built artificial islands. Beijing has various territorial disputes in the area – which is rich in deposits of natural resources – with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

To bolster its claim over the disputed territory, Beijing has been rapidly setting up defense installations in the area. The US Navy is actively opposing the Chinese initiative, deploying additional warships to the disputed zone and conducting maneuvers near the Chinese artificial islands. It has also flown over them, using the “freedom of navigation” principle as justification.

Beijing has called the US involvement in the dispute the “greatest” threat to the region.

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Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Fiery Cross Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this still image from video taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the United States Navy May 21, 2015. © U.S. Navy

“We urge them to stop stirring up a storm in a teacup and stop sowing seeds of discord so as to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea, which conforms to the common interests of all parties,” Yang Yujun, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said at a briefing, China Military Online reported.

Last month Beijing asked the US to stop its surveillance activities near China after two of its fighter jets carried out what the Pentagon labeled an “unsafe” intercept of a US military reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea.

The incident added fuel to the fire in the already tense relations between the two countries.

“What needs to be pointed out is that the US always likes to distort facts and draw media attention to the distance between the military aircraft of the two sides. But in essence, the root cause for security hazards and potential accidents in the air and at sea between China and the US is the long term, large-scale and frequent close-in reconnaissance activities against China by the US military vessels and aircraft,” a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman said.

‘Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,’ PM says

June 1, 2016

Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,’ PM says In Jerusalem Day Knesset session, Netanyahu rules out a return to pre-1967 divided city, slams ‘absurd’ UNESCO resolution

By Marissa Newman

June 1, 2016, 4:29 pm

Source: ‘Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,’ PM says | The Times of Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Knesset during a special session to mark Jerusalem Day, on June 1, 2016. (Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear Wednesday that he was opposed to a return to the pre-1967 division of Jerusalem in a future peace deal, and slammed a UNESCO resolution eliding Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

“Our roots are deeper than any other nation’s, including to the Temple Mount. Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,” he said, speaking in a special Knesset session marking Jerusalem Day.

 Israel doesn’t need to “make excuses for [its] presence in Jerusalem,” he added, but he did not definitively rule out any territorial concessions in the city.

“We remember Jerusalem up until the [1967] Six Day War,” he said, when the city was split, with Israelis excluded from the Old City and its eastern neighborhoods. “We certainly do not want to return to that situation.”

“I believe the Six Day War clarified to our enemies that we are here to stay,” he added.

The prime minister also lashed out at an “absurd and outrageous” UNESCO resolution from April that omitted the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and Jerusalem generally. The resolution accused Israel of “planting fake Jewish graves in Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”

“These historical distortions are reserved solely for Jews,” Netanyahu said.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog took to the podium after the prime minister, lambasted the latter’s partial endorsement of the Arab Peace Initiative on Monday and announced that “words mean nothing without action.”

The Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem, as seen from the Israeli Air Force's annual fly-by on Independence Day, May 12, 2016. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)

The Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem, as seen from the Israeli Air Force’s annual flyby on Independence Day, May 12, 2016. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)

In his address, Herzog said Israel must strive for an agreement to keep Jerusalem “Jewish and moral, whole and secure.”

“Your talk about regional opportunities is very impressive, but you must take care that they are not seen as flip-flopping or empty statements,” he said to Netanyahu, referring to the prime minister’s joint press conference on Monday with new Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman in which the two pledged support for parts of the 2002 Arab proposal.

“Jerusalem will not remain Jewish and moral, whole and secure if there is no dramatic change and unless we reach a peace deal,” said Herzog.

Meretz leader Zehava Galon, meanwhile, accused Jewish Home’s Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel of visiting the Temple Mount earlier in the day, an allegation later denied by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein looks on as Meretz leader Zehava Galon addresses the Knesset during a special session to mark Jerusalem Day, on June 1, 2016. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein looks on as Meretz leader Zehava Galon addresses the Knesset during a special session to mark Jerusalem Day, on June 1, 2016. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Galon said Ariel had broken a Knesset ban on lawmakers visiting the Temple Mount on Wednesday morning. Edelstein said that the information was false, and because the issue was so “volatile” it was important to emphasize that no Knesset members had visited the holy site since they were barred from the area late last year amid rising tensions in the capital.

Jerusalem Minister Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) urged the government to improve infrastructure in the city’s eastern Arab neighborhoods, but emphasized that Jerusalem would remain united under any future peace agreement.

“Unfortunately, one hears talk that in order to save Jerusalem, one must divide it. The Israeli public doesn’t want the city divided, and that’s why we will remain in power,” said Elkin. “If we place a clear red line against dividing Jerusalem, as has been for years, we will be able to reach a [peace] deal, it doesn’t matter with which initiative — French, Saudi, or any other initiative.”

Israel on Sunday will mark Jerusalem Day, a national holiday that celebrates the 1967 Israeli capture of the Western Wall and Temple Mount holy sites, along with the city’s eastern half.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

The Left vs Israel

June 1, 2016

The Left vs Israel, Israel Hayom, Daniel Pipes, June 1, 2016

Since the creation of Israel, Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims have been the mainstay of anti-‎Zionism, with the Left, from the Soviet Union to professors of literature, their auxiliary. But this ‎might be in process of change: As Muslims slowly, grudgingly, and unevenly come to accept the ‎Jewish state as a reality, the Left is becoming increasingly vociferous and obsessive in its ‎rejection of Israel.‎

Much evidence points in this direction: Polls in the Middle East find cracks in the opposition to ‎Israel while a major American survey for the first time shows liberal Democrats to be more anti-‎Israel than pro-Israel. The Saudi and Egyptian governments have real security relations with ‎Israel while a figure like (the Jewish) Bernie Sanders declares that “to the degree that [Israelis] ‎want us to have a positive relationship, I think they’re going to have to improve their relationship ‎with the Palestinians.”‎

But I should like to focus on a small illustrative example from a United Nations institution: The ‎World Health Organization churned out report A69/B/CONF./1 on May 24 with the enticing ‎title, “Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the ‎occupied Syrian Golan: Draft decision proposed by the delegation of Kuwait, on behalf of the ‎Arab Group, and Palestine.”‎

The three-page document calls for “a field assessment conducted by the World Health ‎Organization,” with special focus on such topics as “incidents of delay or denial of ambulance ‎service” and “access to adequate health services on the part of Palestinian prisoners.” Of course, ‎the entire document singles out Israel as a denier of unimpeded access to health care.‎

This ranks as a special absurdity given the WHO’s hiring a consultant in next-door Syria who is ‎connected to the very pinnacle of the Assad regime, even as it perpetrates atrocities estimated at ‎a half million dead and 12 million displaced (out of a total prewar population of 22 million). ‎Conversely, both the wife and brother-in-law of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian ‎Authority, whose status and wealth assures them treatment anywhere in the world, chose to be ‎treated in Israeli hospitals, as did the sister, daughter, and granddaughter of Ismail Haniyeh, the ‎Hamas leader in Gaza, Israel’s sworn enemy.‎

Despite these facts, the WHO voted on May 28 to accept the proposed field assessment with the ‎predictably lopsided outcome of 107 votes in favor, eight votes against, eight abstentions and 58 ‎absences. So far, all this is tediously routine.‎

But the composition of those voting blocs renders the decision noteworthy. Votes in favor ‎included every state in Europe except two, Bosnia-Herzegovina (which has a half-Muslim ‎population) and San Marino (total population: 33,000), both of which missed the vote for reasons ‎unknown to me.‎

To repeat: Every other European government than those two supported a biased field assessment ‎with its inevitable condemnation of Israel. To be specific, this included the authorities ruling in ‎Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, ‎Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, ‎Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, ‎Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, ‎Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.‎

Making this European near-unanimity the more remarkable were the many absented governments ‎with large- to overwhelming-majority-Muslim populations: Burkina Faso, Chad, ‎Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sudan, ‎Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, and Turkmenistan.‎

So, Iceland (with effectively no Muslims) voted for the amendment and against Israel while ‎Turkmenistan (which is over 90% Muslim) did not. Cyprus and Greece, which have critical ‎new relations with Israel, voted against Israel while the historically hostile Libyans missed the ‎vote. Germany, with its malignant history, voted against Israel while Tajikistan, a partner of the ‎Iranian regime’s, was absent. Denmark, with its noble history, voted against Israel while Sudan, ‎led by an Islamist, did not.‎

This unlikely pattern suggests that monolithic Muslim hostility is cracking while Europeans, who ‎are overwhelmingly on the Left, to the point that even right-wing parties pursue watered-down ‎left-wing policies, increasingly despise Israel. Worse, even those who do not share this attitude ‎go along with it, even in an obscure WHO vote.‎

Muslims, not leftists, still staff almost all the violent attacks on Israel; and Islamism, not ‎socialism, remains the reigning anti-Zionist ideology. But these changes point to Israel’s cooling ‎relations with the West and warming ones in its neighborhood.‎

Cartoon of the Day

June 1, 2016

H/t Freedom is Just Another Word

Truman

An American Hizb Ut-Tahrir Leader Exhorts Muslims Not to Vote, Says: Islam Here to Dominate

June 1, 2016

An American Hizb Ut-Tahrir Leader Exhorts Muslims Not to Vote, Says: Islam Here to Dominate, MEMRI-TV via YouTube, June 1, 2016

 

The blurb beneath the video states,

Haitham Ibn Thbait, of the American chapter of Hizb Ut-Tahrir, recently exhorted American Muslims to avoid falling into the “electoral trap” and called upon them not to vote in the U.S. elections, saying that getting Muslims to vote was part of an effort to assimilate them and that they had been “tricked” into voting for Clinton, Bush, and Obama in the past. Speaking at the Khilafah 2016 conference, held in Chicago on May 15, Ibn Thbait further called Obama a “terrorist” and said that “Islam is here to dominate.” The address was posted on YouTube by Hizb Ut-Tahrir on May 20.