An additional reason behind the deployment is the number of ISIS ‘copycat’ attacks in the peninsula, he added – noting that beheaded bodies have been found ‘continually’ in the Al-Arish area over the past several weeks.
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Southern Command deployed in response to heightened tensions between Egypt, Sinai terror groups. ‘We don’t take risks,’ officer explains.
The IDF’s Southern Command has reinforced its forces along Israel’s southern border, a senior IDF officer revealed Sunday, due to rising unrest in the Sinai Peninsula.
On Thursday, the Egyptian Army eliminated a major terror leader in the peninsula, the head of the ISIS-linked Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis group.
Mohamed Abu Shatiya, who took part in the kidnapping of seven Egyptian soldiers in Sinai last year, died during fighting with the army south of Rafah, on the border with Gaza.
Terror attacks in Egypt have eased over the past month as the military squeezes their hideouts in the sparsely inhabited peninsula, analysts have noted – and could ease even further with the elimination – but IDF officials told Walla! News Sunday that the extra deployment is a necessary precaution.
“The Egyptian Army has raised the volume on its terror crackdown, and they in turn have increased their efforts to harm Egypt,” the officer stated.
An additional reason behind the deployment is the number of ISIS ‘copycat’ attacks in the peninsula, he added – noting that beheaded bodies have been found ‘continually’ in the Al-Arish area over the past several weeks.
Thus, the IDF has “decided not to take unnecessary risks,” he said, for fear that members of Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis will turn to attacking Israeli targets in an attempt to destabilize the region. The group has claimed responsibility in the past for several rocket attacks that targeted the Israeli resort city of Eilat.
The Southern Command has increased its posts along the Gaza-Egypt border near Rafah, commanders in the field said, adding that the Egyptian Army “faces significant challenges.”
But more than just the regional threat of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, the source added, the deployment is also to fend off an increase in infiltrations from Gaza.
“Palestinians who have despaired of the situation in Gaza are jumping across the border with a knife, hoping to be arrested by the IDF,” the source said. “We do not take a risks; in our view, such intrusion is taken as an attempted attack.”
(Could the U.S. and her allies put effective boots on the ground, or have the boots and the nation become too multiculturally damaged to do what needs to be done? More than the rules of war needs to change.
When the U.S. responded to the Russian supplied, trained and initially led North Korean invasion on June 25, 1950, we had been at peace for only five years. We were tired and wanted peace to continue but war came to us unexpectedly; it should have been expected. Our peacetime boots were badly supplied, trained and, more often than not, led. Some but not enough officers and senior noncoms had experienced war and knew what to do. Very few in the lower enlisted ranks had or did and “bug out” became a much used phrase. The NK troops had been hardened in combat, were adequately supplied, well trained and well led. Those who did not fight were executed. They pushed us back nearly to Pusan. By mid-September, we had more better led and trained troops; they had also become very angry at the NK troops, and intense anger is a powerful force multiplier. The NK tide was reversed, for a couple of years.
Were we now to try to put green boots on the ground to do what is necessary against well trained, led and financed Islamic troops, a majority of the public would oppose it and it would be politically unpopular. Were we to put boots on the ground anyway, they would likely need to undergo lengthy and deadly immersion-style baptism by fire. There would be substantial casualties and the opposition would increase.
Should we do it anyway if only the rules of engagement change? Can we, or is that now a fantasy? — DM)
The enlightened world must pummel Islamic State into a pulp. This cancer needs to be excised, leaving no metastases behind. If the world is soft, the way most greasy, petit-bourgeois masses tend to be, it will soon learn that these horrifying decapitations are in fact prompting thousands of new volunteers to join the ranks of Islamic State. A toothless war will come back to bite us like a boomerang. It will weaken the good guys.
*****************
It was clear from the very beginning that the cruelest most terrible terror organization since the Khmer Rouge would not fold in the face of a flimsy, ill-timed attack by a few American, British and French jets. The possible addition of Australia, Canada and some Arab states — it is not yet clear where Turkey stands — to the coalition will not scare them either. On the contrary — Islamic State group draws its power from its image of extremist outlaws who will never compromise. At this point, refusing to surrender, the Islamic State group had no choice but to decapitate another innocent British national — Alan Henning — who only wanted to do good in this world.
The same fate awaits the next Westerner in line — an American by the name of Peter Kassig, who even converted to Islam to try to save his own life. But the murderers will not let up. Jihadi John is already sharpening his knife.
All this is happening because Islamic State is not an organization that can be defeated with slow, uncertain, limited action. It cannot be defeated without “boots on the ground.” It is imperative to hit them with force; with waves of growing intensity. They must be attacked continuously, without breaks, without cease-fires and with the utmost determination.
The day of Yom Kippur, regardless of the Jewish holiday, was a turning point in the war against Islamic State. They were bombed, yet immediately resumed decapitating prisoners. The reality has become one of walking on the edge; of all or nothing-style fighting. There can be no compromise; there can be no cease-fire. You are either with us or against us.
The enlightened world must pummel Islamic State into a pulp. This cancer needs to be excised, leaving no metastases behind. If the world is soft, the way most greasy, petit-bourgeois masses tend to be, it will soon learn that these horrifying decapitations are in fact prompting thousands of new volunteers to join the ranks of Islamic State. A toothless war will come back to bite us like a boomerang. It will weaken the good guys.
It will not be an easy victory. In the West, there are those who are afraid and who prefer to shut their eyes tight as part of a head-in-the-sand policy. There are those who are truly indifferent. There are bleeding hearts who find partial justification for the Islamist decapitations. One of them wrote an article blaming the Western violence for the rise of Islamic State. Others, at the U.N. of course, wondered whether bombing Islamic State targets would be in line with international law, or whether it could be a violation of Syrian sovereignty.
The hypocrisy is still benefiting the terrorists’ side. In our regional conflict, Hamas fires rockets indiscriminately at Jewish populations without prior warning, and the IDF, before retaliating (with much more force, granted), warns every Gazan to leave their homes to avoid getting hurt. Who gets blamed by the U.N.? Of course it is Israel, which warns the enemy, and not Hamas which fires in every civilian direction.
If, however, the familiar indifference doesn’t trip up the West, Islamic State will be vanquished and forever disgraced. Furthermore, the rules of war and international law will be amended in order to allow democracies to effectively defend themselves. The existing rules are good for guiding conflicts between enlightened nations. But these days, with Islamic State and its ilk dominating the scene, the enlightened world will have to allow itself to fight in a more resolute, effective manner if it doesn’t want to be defeated by Islamic terror.
At the end of the tunnel, a significant overhaul of the rules of war awaits.
A diplomat in Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, said an IS presence in Abu Ghraib would put Baghdad International Airport within artillery range of the militants.
The airport is a key lifeline for Western embassies and holds a joint operations centre staffed by US military advisers.
***********************
Irbil, Iraq: Islamic State militants have taken control of key cities in Iraq’s western province of Anbar and have begun to besiege one of the country’s largest military bases in a weeklong offensive that’s brought them within artillery range of Baghdad.
IS, also known as ISIS, and its tribal allies have dominated Anbar since a surprise offensive last December, but this week’s push was particularly worrisome, because for the first time this year Islamist insurgents were reported to have become a major presence in Abu Ghraib, the last Anbar town on the outskirts of the capital.
“Daash is openly operating inside Abu Ghraib,” according to an Iraqi soldier, who used the common Arabic term for IS . “I was at the 10th Division base there two days ago, and the soldiers cannot leave or patrol,” he said, asking that he be identified only as Hossam “Daash controls the streets.”
Hundreds of kilometres to the west, IS forces continued their push into the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane, where it appeared unlikely that Turkey would intervene to stop the advance. Kurdish officials from the town said the Turkish government had yet to respond to their pleas for weapons, and reports from the Turkish-Syrian border said there was no evidence Turkey was preparing to take action.
A diplomat in Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, said an IS presence in Abu Ghraib would put Baghdad International Airport within artillery range of the militants.
“We know they have captured substantial numbers of 155mm howitzers,” said the diplomat, whose country is participating in the US-led anti-IS coalition.
“These have a range of about [30 kilometres] and if they are able to hold territory in Abu Ghraib then the concern they can shell and ultimately close [the airport] becomes a grave concern.”
The airport is a key lifeline for Western embassies and holds a joint operations centre staffed by US military advisers.
Anbar is a predominantly Sunni Muslim province that remains deeply suspicious of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, and IS has pressed to expand its control there since last winter’s initial offensive. In the past week, the militants have scored a string of other victories in the province.
If we are really determined to eradicate Islamism, we should stop making deals with them and start supporting the people against the Islamist regimes.
It is believed that the reason for President Obama’s silence is the fear that it may cause the supreme leader Khamenei unhappy. He needs the top Islamist’s consent to give him a deal on their nuclear bomb no matter what the cost.
*******************
The war against Islamist terrorism has been going in the wrong direction, and the cancer has metastasized under the present administration. As we get rid of one Islamist tumor, more pop up.
But the most dangerous of all Islamists are ruling Iran and are determined to make themselves untouchable by possessing their own nuclear bomb.
We have wrongly chosen to ignore the majority moderate and secular Moslems in the Middle East and here at home. Those advising the White House and the State Department are lobbyists for the Islamist dictators, not secular Moderate Moslem Americans.
For reasons unknown, the Obama Administration had no qualms in removing and even bombing the secular Arab dictators, citing the human rights of their citizens, but when it comes to the human rights of the citizens living under the bloodiest Islamist dictators in Iran, this administration has gone out of its way to ignore the victims and empower the aggressors.
President Obama did not support the secular uprising in Iran but chose to stand by the Islamist clerics and their international terrorist Revolutionary Guards who are creating havoc across the Middle East, Africa, South America, and even here in the United States. Hizb’allah is the brainchild of Khomeini. Hamas is another gang of Islamists that Khamenei supports, leaving the people of Iran hungry. The Revolutionary Guards are operating in Africa, in every city in Europe, and in South America making deals with the drug cartels.
If we are really determined to eradicate Islamism, we should stop making deals with them and start supporting the people against the Islamist regimes.
America was the savior of the colonial world after the WWII. American foreign policy was based on human rights, but it is now based on policies that the old imperialists might well approve of.
94% of Iranian people are against the ruling Islamist regime that is anti-Iranian, anti-American, anti-civilization, and rules under barbaric Sharia laws.
Many Iranian clerics are against the rule of religion in government. The majority of the clerics do not dare to speak up — the ones who have spoken up have either disappeared or been arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and executed by the clerics in charge of Iran’s so- called Justice system, called Revolutionary Court.
The numbers of opposing clerics are high enough for the regime to create Cleric’s Wards in the prisons of Iran.
The most prominent cleric prisoner is Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Kazemeini Boroujerdi, who has been held in the dreaded Evin prison since the supreme leader Khamenei ordered his arrest in 2006.
Not only he was arrested, his wife and children were harassed and their home and belongings were confiscated. By order of the supreme leader Khamenei, he was then defrocked and imprisoned. Since being in prison he has suffered two heart attacks as the result of mistreatment and torture.
Mr. Broudjerdy’s crimes have included urging the separation of the government of Iran from Islamic rule. He first went public with his support of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protestations against the abuses of theocratic rule. He condemned Islamic fundamentalism, radicalism, and terror. He rejected anti-Semitism and advocating religious freedom. He has spoken for the equal rights of women and has called for abolishment of capital punishment, and cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishments such as torture, stoning and flogging.
On the day President Rohani was speaking in the United Nations, clergyman Mohammad Movahedi, was in the clerical ward of the Evin prison Threatening Mr. Boroujerdi, and all those who had proceeded to publish and disseminate his books will be sentenced for apostasy and executed.
Although there has been calls from the human rights organizations and Iranians in and outside Iran who have provided a Petition with more than 600,000 signatures asking the president of the United States to help his release, there has been no response from the most powerful man on earth.
It is believed that the reason for President Obama’s silence is the fear that it may cause the supreme leader Khamenei unhappy. He needs the top Islamist’s consent to give him a deal on their nuclear bomb no matter what the cost.
Instead of supporting the secular Moslems to rid the world of a gang of Islamist clerics and their revolutionary guards, United States is ignoring the security of Israel, the world at large, and the human rights issue and instead supports the Islamists.
(Churchill stood nearly “alone” during the mid to late 1930’s in his arguments concerning the dangers of Germany under Hitler. Churchill was right, Chamberlain was wrong. Churchill’s arguments were eventually vindicated — but only after the substantial damage left by his predecessor had diminished Britain’s abilities to fight Nazi Germany and had to be fixed. Like many directed against Churchill, the post provided below is in large measure a selective hit piece against Netanyahu. Still, it’s worth reading because it apparently reflects the views of many. Churchill was right and so is Netanyahu. Will he be vindicated as well? — DM)
The client retains its value only so long as it aligns itself with the interests of its patron — or at the very least tries not to undermine them. On Iran, however, Netanyahu has repeatedly attempted to dictate to America what its interests should be in trying to hamstring his patron’s push toward a nuclear deal with Iran.
*******************
For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, are essentially the same thing.
During a diatribe against Iran in his United Nations speech on Monday, Netanyahu asked: “Would you let ISIS enrich uranium? Would you let ISIS build a heavy water reactor? Would you let ISIS develop intercontinental ballistic missiles? Of course you wouldn’t.”
It was almost as if Netanyahu views Iran and ISIS as interchangeable. But the rest of the world doesn’t see it that way — least of all the United States, which is making a crucial last push for a comprehensive agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, even as it musters an international coalition to fight the Islamic State.
In insisting that Iran and ISIS are essentially the same enemy, Netanyahu broadcast his isolation among world leaders and underscored the jadedness of the idea that he has championed for most of his political career: the imminence of an Iranian nuclear bomb and the apocalyptic threat it would pose to the free world.
After all these years, Netanyahu still calls for every nook and cranny of Iran’s nuclear program to be demolished by military force, though preferably not Israel’s alone.
The isolation of his views was evidenced not only by the near-empty General Assembly hall when he gave his speech, but also in the Israeli media.
Although the Islamic Republic of Iran (which Netanyahu persistently, if not naggingly, referred to as “The Islamic State of Iran”) was referenced in Netanyahu’s speech many more times than ISIS, the Israeli media did not follow suit.
They instead focused on Netanyahu’s appeal to “moderate” Arab states to unite against common threats, including militant Islam. A few outlets looked at Netanyahu’s riposte to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ charges of genocide. And even the most pro-Netanyahu daily, Yisrael Hayom, led with a headline proclaiming the Israeli Defense Forces to be “the most moral army in the world”– a quote from the speech, but not about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear project.
The Israeli media’s disinterest in Netanyahu’s Iran obsession is matched at home. In poll after poll, Israelis consistently put Iran behind such concerns as street crime and the rising cost of living.
Netanyahu’s fixation on Iran has also deepened divisions between Israel’s political leadership and top military brass. The nadir was reached in 2010, when Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army to stand by for an imminent attack on Iran and the chief of staff refused to comply.
Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who related the incident two years later, added that he’d never before seen the entire political leadership adamantly insisting on one course of action and the entire professional military leadership absolutely opposing it.
Four years on, the issue still festers. At the peak of the war in Gaza this summer, analyst Shlomi Eldar accused Netanyahu of all but turning a blind eye to Hamas’ tunnels that formed a pretext for the ground incursion. The reason for this, Eldar charged, was that the prime minister was completely “obsessed” with Iran.
Netanyahu’s absolutist approach to Iran is also straining Israel’s bond with the United States. For all the grandeur, courtesy and genuine complexity that feed into the staple American reference to Israel as an ally, the relationship between the two is, on the strategic level, fundamentally that of a patron power and a client state.
The client retains its value only so long as it aligns itself with the interests of its patron — or at the very least tries not to undermine them. On Iran, however, Netanyahu has repeatedly attempted to dictate to America what its interests should be in trying to hamstring his patron’s push toward a nuclear deal with Iran.
Such an agreement could radically shift the power paradigm in the Middle East toward a more open, less violent and more consensus-based arrangement. Would Israel see itself as a player in this new arrangement or outside it?
Depends on who you ask.
The relative silence of most Israeli institutions on the talks on Iran’s nuclear program suggests they are reluctant to make themselves entirely external to the potential new paradigm. But Netanyahu’s speech — intransigent as it was – indicates that at least one Israeli leader will go down fighting rather than bring Israel on board.
Obama was heard to remark during a recent presidential golf game,
“Israel is a terrorist war criminal. It won’t even yield to my reasonable demands for a two state solution with my beloved Palestinians, whose children and other innocent civilians it relishes murdering. However, Iraq, Syria, ISIL, etc. are humanitarians and will recognize that I am like them, as I lead them to peace through the Light of My true wisdom and greatness.”
His best plan yet!
Obama functions at His very best with no intelligence. Intelligence would imperil His domestic and foreign priorities and perhaps even His brilliant world view.
I don’t think the problem is Obama’s inattentiveness. It’s not the demands of his golf game. It’s not his incessant fundraising. It’s his worldview. [Not satire.]
(The video is not satire)
The first Peace Process phase
In Iraq and now in Syria, Obama is trying to appear less humanitarian. It’s the initial focus of His Peace Process (PP), through which He plans to arrange a three state solution among the Non-Islamic Islamic State, its cohorts, friends and associates, Iraq and Syria. During His initial PP phase, He intends to gain credibility with and empathy from the Islamic State, et al. Accordingly, He has lifted His rules of engagement, previously intended to minimize civilian casualties, when striking forces of the Islamic State, et al.
The White House revealed on Tuesday that its usually strict rules of engagement, intended to prevent civilian casualties of US airstrikes, have been relaxed in the current offensive against the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups. [Emphasis added.]
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told Yahoo News in an email that a much-publicized statement last year by President Barack Obama that US drone strikes would only be carried out if there is a “near certainty” of no civilian injuries would not apply to the US campaign against jihadi forces in Syria and Iraq.
Hayden wrote that the “near certainty” rule was intended “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time.
“That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now,” she continued, but added that the strikes, “like all US military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”
The statement came after reports that a dozen civilians, including women and children, were killed on September 23 after an errant Tomahawk cruise missile hit a house in the village of Kafr Daryan, in Syria’s Idlib province, believed to be a stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked militants. [Emphasis added.]
In a briefing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Syrian rebel commanders described scenes of devastation as the bodies of women and children were pulled from the beneath the rubble of the destroyed building, which was apparently being used as a shelter for displaced civilians. [Emphasis added.] [Not satire.]
It’s His most clever strategy yet, and only Obama could devise it: by showing the Islamic State, et al, that He agrees with their strategy of maximizing casualties, both combatant and civilian, Obama will easily convince them of the benefits of the true peace and security His PP will provide.
When asked whether, during the next Gazan conflagration, Israel should adopt His modified rules of engagement, Obama was heard to mumble at the 15th hole, “That’s entirely different. Hamas does not threaten My popularity in My country.” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki hinted at much the same in August:
US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki delivered an unusually strong condemnation of an Israeli strike near a Gaza school being used as a shelter in Rafah, saying that the US was “appalled” by the “disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school. [Emphasis added.]
The shelling, which left 10 people dead according to Palestinian reports, drew harsh condemnations worldwide, including from the United Nations, London and elsewhere, amid growing international criticism of the 27-day-long operation. [Emphasis added.]
The IDF issued a statement saying that forces had targeted three Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists on board a motorcycle in vicinity of an UNRWA school in Rafah, and added that “the IDF is reviewing the consequences of this strike.”
However, the US said that the presence of combatants did not justify targeting areas near the school. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Before the reports of the latest strike came in, senior White House adviser and Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett addressed the ongoing violence on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday morning.
Describing the conflict as “a devastating situation,” Jarrett asserted that “Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself, and we are Israel’s staunchest ally.”
At the same time, she added that “you also can’t condone the killing of all of these innocent children,” referring to the hundreds of civilian casualties reported in Gaza over the course of the past three weeks. [Emphasis added.] [Not satire.]
Israel’s actions have been disgracefully disproportionate and must stop. If they do not cease before I leave for my much needed family vacation at Martha’s Vineyard on August 9th, my red line will have been crossed and upon my return I may issue an Angry Executive Decree chastising Israel. Here is what Israel has done and what it must stop doing:
Israel has used WMDs (Weapons Minimizing Death and Destruction) including “Iron Dome,” warning sirens and shelters to thwart missile attacks.The Palestinians in Gaza have no even remotely comparable WMDs: They have no Iron Domes, their tunnels — clearly dug as air-raid shelters — have been destroyed maliciously and their air-raid sirens often can not be used due to Israel’s inhumane refusal to furnish electricity. They are therefore forced to use civilians, including small children, to guard their missile sites. They do so in the forlorn hope that Israel will take pity on them and refrain from attacking. Merciless Israel continues to attack, wantonly and intentionally wasting the precious lives of many innocent Palestinians. [Emphasis added.] [Satire.]
Second PP phase
Unlike the Obama Nation and its splendid coalition of the unwilling, the Islamic State, et al, have no aircraft. Nor have they any WMDs comparable to the Iron Dome used by wickedly ferocious Israel. Despite that, airstrikes have done little to diminish their effectiveness.
As of Tuesday, the U.S. and its coalition partners had conducted nearly 310 air attacks on Islamic terrorist targets, more than 230 in Iraq and 76 in Syria, a Pentagon spokesman said.
And while the air campaign has forced the terrorists to change their tactics, “We still believe ISIL remains a very potent force,” Admiral John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday. [Emphasis added.]
“Yes, they’ve changed some of their tactics, there’s absolutely no question about that, in response to the pressure that we put them under, but that doesn’t make them less dangerous or less potent over time,” Kirby said. [Emphasis added.] [Not satire.]
Accordingly, during the second phase of His PP strategy, Obama will cease all air strikes. He will also require Iraqi, coalition and any U.S. boots on the ground to use only stolen or abandoned weapons, ammunition and vehicles. As the photo provided below clearly shows, Islamic State, et al, forces have little more than rocks for weapons and that is not fair. Neither is forcing them to steal the few they do have, vigorously punished under Sharia law.
Additionally, all lethal weapons heretofore provided to those fighting disproportionately will now be provided only to the Islamic State, et al. Obama will make it perfectly clear that, in return, non-Islamic freedom fighters must read their rights under Sharia law (to be drafted by Attorney General Holder) to all whom they intend to execute. If convenient, the notification must be read in languages they are believed able to understand.
These steps will level the playing field and help the non-Islamic Islamic State, et al, to understand that Obama is the Messiah of true Peace, Virtue and Understanding based on true Islamic values under Sharia law, as recently articulated in a letter signed by one hundred and twenty-six moderate Islamists (not satire). They may even accept Him as the Mahdi, an honor greater even than His highly regarded and equally well deserved Nobel Peace Prize.
Third PP phase
With the realistic understanding of His life, His universe and everything which Obama will thus give to them, they will follow Him anywhere He may lead, particularly from well behind. They will jump, shout with joy and fire our their rifles into the air when He receives His second Nobel PP prize.
Conclusions
According to Reuters, Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on October 1st — the same day that His new rules of engagement increasing civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria were announced.
Even as Netanyahu pressed Obama over Iran in White House talks, the president urged the Israeli leader to help find ways to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties like those inflicted in the recent Gaza war between Israel and Hamas militants.
. . . .
While Netanyahu put the emphasis on Iran, Obama was quick to focus on the bloody 55-day Gaza conflict, which ended in August with no clear victor. This followed the collapse of U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and Palestinians in April. [Not satire]
“Iran? Nukes? What’s wrong with that,” Obama didn’t ask. He probably knows that a nuke deal allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran to get (or to keep) nukes will enhance His popularity ratings if Iran doesn’t actually use them until He leaves office in January of 2017, in accordance with His informal understanding with the Islamic Republic. And to Him, that’s what matters. When He leaves office, anything bad that happens will be somebody else’s fault, as He will be quick to point out.
In this post I want to highlight the brazen double standards and utter screaming hypocrisy demonstrated by that ill-mannered hostile man who stands at the head of Israel’s ostensible best friend, America. [Not satire.]
She then does so, clearly and well. I had considered writing a similar article but didn’t have the stomach for it. Therefore, I tried to write this bit of satire instead.
(Abdullah Bin Bayyah is among the “moderate” Islamists signing the letter. He was noted favorably in Obama’s September 24, 2014 address to the UN General Assembly. — DM)
A picture of a the sharia punishment of stoning from the Islamic State’s Dabiq magazine (Issue #2)
A published letter to the Islamic State (ISIS) signed by 126 international Muslim leaders and scholars, including top American leaders, is getting major press for rebutting the theological arguments behind the actions of Islamic State. Unfortunately, the same letter endorsed the goal of the Islamic State of rebuilding the caliphate and sharia governance, including its brutal hududpunishments.
Point 16 of the letter states, “Hudud punishments are fixed in the Qu’ran and Hadith and are unquestionably obligatory in Islamic Law.” The criticism of the Islamic State by the scholars is that the terrorist group is not “following the correct procedures that ensure justice and mercy.”
The Muslim “moderates” who signed the letter not only endorsed the combination of mosque and state; they endorsed the most brutal features of sharia governance as seen in Iran, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
An example of a hudud punishment is the death penalty for apostates (Muslims who leave Islam). The letter does not dispute or oppose that. It says that labeling Muslims as apostates is only permissible when an individual “openly declares disbelief.”
The signatories are not condemning the execution of apostates, only how the Islamic State is deciding who qualifies as an apostate.
Point 7 states that Islam forbids the killing of diplomats, journalists and aid workers, but it comes with a very important exception.
“Journalists—if they are honest and of course are not spies—are emissaries of truth, because their job is to expose the truth to people in general,” it reads.
This is actually an endorsement of targeting journalists that Muslims feel are unfair. Islamists, including Islamic State supporters, often claim that the journalists they kill are propagandists and/or spies, meeting the letter’s standards.
Point 22 of the letter states, “There is agreement (ittifaq) among scholars that a caliphate is an obligation upon the Ummah. TheUmmah has lacked a caliphate since 1924 CE. However, a new caliphate requires consensus from Muslims and not just from those in a small corner of the world.”
A caliphate is a pan-Islamic government based on sharia; virtually all Islamic scholars agree that this objective requires the elimination of Israel. It is also fundamentally (and by definition) expansionist.
Again, the “moderate” signatories endorse the principles of the Islamic State and other jihadists but criticize their implementation.
Point 5 states, “What is meant by ‘practical jurisprudence’ is the process of applying Shari’ah rulings and dealing with them according to the realities and circumstances that people are living under.”
It continues, “Practical jurisprudence [fiqh al-waq’i] considers the texts that are applicable to peoples realities at a particular time, and the obligations that can be postponed until they are able to be met or delayed based on their capabilities.”
This is an endorsement of the Islamist doctrine of “gradualism.” This is an incremental strategy for establishing sharia governance, supporting jihad and advancing the Islamist cause.
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), whose leader is a signatory of the letter, preaches this concept in its own publications. An ICNA teaching guide published by the Clarion Projectpreaches gradualism as its strategy for implementingsharia governance and resurrecting the caliphate.
A weakness in the letter is the vague terminology that gives room for terrorist groups like Hamas to justify their violence.
For example, point 8 states that “Jihad in Islam is defensive war. It is not permissible without the right cause, the right purpose and without the right rules of conduct.”
The letter goes into detail about these qualifications in order to condemn the tactics of the Islamic State, but the terms of a “defensive war” are not spelled out. All Islamist terrorists consider their attacks “defensive.”
Muslim-American activist Michael Ghouse pointed out the need for clarification in a conversation with me about the letter. He said:
“Define the right cause. Is fighting against India in Kashmir a jihad? Was the war between Iraq and Iran two decades ago a jihad? This group needs to continue to update these situations to let the common Muslim know what is right and what is wrong, lest he commits himself to the jihad.”
Islamists regularly redefine words like “clear disbelief,” “democracy,” “justice,” “peace” and “terrorism” on their own terms. The use of subjective language like “innocents,” “mistreat,” “defensive” and “rights” leave much room for interpretation.
This is what enabled a terrorism-supporting cleric named Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah to sign the letter. He is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, has called for attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq, supports Hamas and seeks the destruction of Israel.
The Islamist leaders behind the anti-Islamic State letter are still endorsing Islamic sharia law, which is oppressive and incompatible with Western values. The implementation of sharia is what drives all Islamic extremism.
The letter also utilizes Islamist thinkers that formed the intellectual foundation for today’s extremism. For example, it cites Ibn Taymiyyah. Terrorism expert Atto Barkindo writes, “Some scholars suggest there is probably no other Islamic theologian, medieval or otherwise, who has had as much influence on radical political ideology of Islam as Ibn Taymiyya.” This includes the leaders of Al Qaeda.
Ghouse told the Clarion Project that sharia as encoded by such scholars, needs revising. “Classical texts that are referred to in the list are part of the problems,” Ghouse said. “We need to make a commitment to question and revise the exegeses of the Ulemas [scholars] like Ibn-Kathir, Ibn Taymiyyah, Maududi, Hassna al-Banna and others. We cannot equate them to Quran and Hadith.”
The letter does make a much-needed rebuttal to the murdering of diplomats, noncombatants, labeling of Yazidis as apostates, attacks on Christians, forced conversions and torture. It states that Arab Christians are exceptions to the “rulings of jihad” because of “ancient agreements that are around 1400 years old.”
The letter also does tries to persuade Muslims to reject the Islamic State because of its tactics and procedures; however, it reinforces the Islamist basis of those actions.
Far from proving that the Muslim-American signatories are “moderate,” the letter actually exposes them as Islamist extremists because of their endorsements of sharia governance, its brutal hudud punishments and the resurrection of the caliphate.
Yasir Qadhi, Dean of Academic Affairs at Al-Maghrib Institute and Professor of Islamic Studies at Rhodes College
Zulfiqar Ali Shah, Executive Director of the Fiqh Council of North America and director of religious affairs at the Islamic Center of Milwaukee
Jamal Badawi, Executive Councilman of the Fiqh Council of North America and a founder of the Muslim American Society(MAS)
Omar Shahin, Secretary-General of the North American Imams Federation Imam Talib Shareef, President of MasjidMuhammad (The Nation’s Mosque) in Washington, D.C. and National Chaplain of the Muslim American Veterans Association
Ihsan Bagby, General Secretary of the Muslim Alliance in North America, councilman of the Fiqh Council of North America and Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky.
Mohamad Adam El-Sheikh, Executive Councilman of the Fiqh Council of North America and former imam of Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center and founder of the Muslim American Society.
(Iran is a post-mature bastion of human rights and tolerance, cf. “Goodbye, Dear Mum”: Iran Executes Rayhaneh Jabbari — UPDATED. A post-moderate, post-benign country such as Iran would never attack another country and desires only post-peaceful nukes. Right? — DM)
Remarkable is one word for it; obscene might be another. Whatever word you choose, the long-term implications of embracing Iran are nearly all bad for the region and for the United States.
[W]in or lose against the Islamic State, the West’s outreach to Iran only sets the stage for more chaos in the Middle East — and more opportunities for Tehran to extend its power. The irony is that the West has a potential democratic ally in the region, one that really does have a stake in a peaceful, stable Middle East and in defeating terrorism — Israel.
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Anyone wanting to take the moral temperature of the post-American world President Obama wants to create only had to drop by the United Nations last Thursday afternoon.
There he would have seen British prime minister David Cameron sitting down with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to ask — no, beg him to join the misbegotten coalition Obama has assembled against the Islamic State. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry had already extended the invitation to Iran to join, and Iran had already refused. Now it was Cameron’s turn.
He may think this will burnish his image as a master diplomat after convincing the Scots not to demand independence. Instead, he’s only opened one more sordid chapter in the most remarkable story of how Iran, a vicious rogue nation and state sponsor of terrorism — not to mention beacon of anti-Semitism — has become the rising dominant power in the region, and is now being blatantly courted as an ally by the West.
Remarkable is one word for it; obscene might be another. Whatever word you choose, the long-term implications of embracing Iran are nearly all bad for the region and for the United States.
Even more strikingly, this change in Iran’s international status comes only two years after the regime in Tehran was reeling from sanctions that had largely cut off its access to Western banks and capital, and above all, Western customers of its oil. Iran’s oil output plummeted by nearly half; gasoline prices in the country soared into the stratosphere while the economy teetered on bankruptcy. The country’s natural gas industry (Iran’s gas reserves are among the biggest in the world) was in an extended state of collapse as Western companies and technicians packed up and left. Even China had agreed to abide by some modified sanctions against Iran, all in order to force the mullahs to halt their illegal nuclear weapons program.
Now today China is importing record amounts of oil from Iran while Western companies are rushing back to its oil and gas fields. Iran is the chief protector and patron of Syria, and also Iraq. Moreover, Iran’s bomb is more on track than ever. Indeed, its uranium enrichment program is close to 70 percent of what’s required — and no one now seriously believes they can be stopped from making a bomb, or putting it on the long-range ballistic missiles they continue to develop.
So what happened? John Kerry’s disastrous deal struck in Geneva last year lifting key sanctions against Iran in exchange for promises to cut back on the enrichment process — a promise premier Hassan Rouhani never intended to keep—is only symptomatic of a much larger delusion. This is that Iran can be persuaded to become a constructive actor in the Middle East if only the United States will offer enough carrots including lifting sanctions, and forswear the sticks, including military strikes against the regime’s nuclear sites.
Many Russian experts had a similar delusion about the Soviet Union during the Cold War; it’s also the one that convinced Neville Chamberlain to sit down with Hitler at Munich. It holds that self-interest will trump ideology; that bad regimes are bad because they’ve been badly treated (Hitler had Versailles to complain about, after all; Tehran has the CIA plot against Prime Minister Mossadegh some sixty years ago) — and that evil ultimately isn’t evil.
Now we know better about Hitler, and about the former Soviet Union. Whether we learn the same about Iran before it’s too late, is going to be the major issue in the Middle East in the next decade — far more than the Islamic State.
In fact, even as the world’s attention has been distracted by the Islamic State, Iranian-backed Shia rebels scored a major victory in Yemen, and now control 17 of the country’s 21 provinces. Soon Tehran’s proxies will be poised on the border of Saudi Arabia, its arch rival for regional dominance. If anything gives Saudi Arabia a signal that it’s time to get its own atomic bomb, it won’t just be whether Iran finishes its enrichment process; it will also be a Yemen firmly in Tehran’s camp, and ready to foment revolt in the kingdom’s Shia provinces.
In short, win or lose against the Islamic State, the West’s outreach to Iran only sets the stage for more chaos in the Middle East — and more opportunities for Tehran to extend its power. The irony is that the West has a potential democratic ally in the region, one that really does have a stake in a peaceful, stable Middle East and in defeating terrorism — Israel.
Nevertheless, this administration and its NATO allies still insist on treating the Jewish state as the pariah, even as they know it will be Iran’s principal target once it gets its nuclear bomb.
The sight of Western leaders kissing the hem of Rouhani’s robe may be sickening, but it’s also understandable. When you lose your moral compass, your self-respect follows. Sadly, it’ll be a long time before the United States will get either one back.
FILE – In this Monday, Sept. 29, 2014 file photo, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters.
He tells it like it is, and the president should listen this time.
President Obama must absorb this. He came to office thinking there is little moral difference between Israel and Hamas and its Palestinian cohort. He seems to identify more with the Palestinians, observing that Israeli intransigence, not the distortion of Islam, is the infection festering in the Middle East.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a courageous leader and a glutton for punishment. He never hesitates to stand up to those who despise him and his country, and indeed despise the West and the civilization it brought to the world. Some of his critics dream of beheading him if they could. He rebuts their lies, stares them down and corrects the record. He understands that what they seek is not peace, but an opportunity to destroy Israel and the Western civilization it represents.
He stared them down again this week at the United Nations General Assembly, and he’ll be in Washington on Wednesday to visit an American president who clearly doesn’t like him and delights in humiliating him. He gave the assembled diplomats the tutorial they needed, whether they wanted it or not, on life in the real world. We hope the president was listening.
The prime minister applauded the president for recognizing the threat of the Islamic State, or ISIS, but reminded the delegates that there’s still more to recognize. “ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree,” he said. “ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control.” Islamic terrorism is a cancer, he said, and “to protect the peace and security of the world we must remove this cancer before it is too late.”
President Obama must absorb this. He came to office thinking there is little moral difference between Israel and Hamas and its Palestinian cohort. He seems to identify more with the Palestinians, observing that Israeli intransigence, not the distortion of Islam, is the infection festering in the Middle East.
He said early on that he wanted a settlement with the Palestinians that would require Israel to retreat to its 1967 borders, before its Islamic neighbors ganged up to go to war and, instead of destroying the Jewish state, got a good country licking themselves. Mr. Netanyahu’s warning of the true aims of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran were ignored. On an afternoon in 2010, the president invited the Israeli prime minister to the White House, presented him with a list of 13 demands, and when Mr. Netanyahu wouldn’t agree to them, rudely told him that he was off to supper with his family and his absence would give Mr. Netanyahu time to reconsider his answer.
The prime minister spent the next hour cooling his heels in the Roosevelt Room and was then summarily dismissed, in a remarkable display of bad manners and diplomatic discourtesy, and told that he hadn’t given sufficient thought to buying the Obama solutions. The president snubbed him on several additional occasions. He once instructed Vice President Joe Biden to tell a group of U.S. senators, assembled to listen to a briefing on Iran’s nuclear program, to “ignore” anything Mr. Netanyahu might say about Iran and its pursuit of the nuclear bomb.
Subsequent meetings of the two heads of state were cool, some more correct than others, but all with lectures from the president, who imagines that he knows more about the region than Mr. Netanyahu or others who actually live and work there.
The occasion on Wednesday is less auspicious than occasions in the past. Mr. Obama has climbed into a coalition of strange allies with his strategy to blunt a fanatic Muslim surge through the region. The president is getting a late education in the reality of that region. We can only hope he’s listening this time to those who, like Mr. Netanyahu, an ally with insights, actually knows what’s going on there.
Egyptian security personnel Reuters
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