Posted tagged ‘Islamic culture’

Why hasn’t Sisi visited Washington yet?

October 9, 2015

Why hasn’t Sisi visited Washington yet? Al-MonitorMohamed Saied, October 8, 2014

(Obama thinks highly of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and rejects President Sisi because he supported the Egyptian masses who sought the overthrow of an increasingly dictatorial President Morsi. Obama’s rejection of Sisi’s Egypt pushed it into an alliance with Russia. Now Obama, et al, claim that alliance as a basis for the continuing hostility toward Sisi. Perhaps it is. Obama, et al, have also complained about Egyptian human rights violations in repressing the Muslim Brotherhood; few similar complaints have been made about far greater Saudi and Iranian human rights violations. Sisi is the only president of a Muslim nation who seeks to promote a more secular and hence moderate Islam, to which the Muslim Brotherhood is hostile. Please see also, Egypt’s secular culture minister ruffles Salafi feathers. — DM)

One of the most important issues that may hinder the return of US-Egyptian relations to their previous state is the strong relationship between Cairo and Moscow; Sisi has met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin four times so far, and Egypt is currently considered the most important ally of Moscow in the Middle East.

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CAIRO — Ever since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took office on June 8, 2014, US-Egyptian relations have been deteriorating. This has been further confirmed by the fact that Sisi has not visited Washington yet despite the shuttle visits he has made abroad.

Differences and conflicts plagued the US-Egyptian relationship during the era of President Gamal Abdel Nasser. These conflicts culminated in the 1967 Six-Day War, when diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed because of the economic and military support by the United States to Israel.

However, these relations started to take a positive turn based on the strengthening of the strategic interests shared between the two countries in the wake of the signing of the Camp David Accords with Israel — the US’ permanent ally — on Sept. 17, 1978, between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, as per the State Information Service affiliated with the Presidency of the Republic.

Only one meeting was held between Presidents Sisi and Barack Obama on the sidelines of the 69th Session of the UN General Assembly in September 2014 in New York, but other than this the two presidents have been settling for phone calls to discuss the latest developments in the region.

According to The Washington Times, Obama refused to meet with Sisi on the sidelines of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry attributed this in a press statement on Sept. 24 to the mismatching agendas and schedules of the two presidents, which prevented them from holding individual talks.

According to the US Embassy in Egypt’s reports on the situation in the country following the revolution of June 30, 2013, Washington started a “comprehensive review” of its relations with Egypt on the background of the ouster of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

On Aug. 15, 2013, following the killing of hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators in Al-Nahda Square and Rabia al-Adawiya Square, Obama announced the cancellation of the Bright Star maneuvers, which were launched in 1980 following the signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and consisted of a joint military exercise between the two countries.

By October 2013, the review of relations put a halt to the deal consisting of delivering arms to Egypt. Also in October 2013, the US administration suspended $260 million that was going to be directly transferred to the Egyptian government along with another $300 million in US loan guarantees.

However, in a telephone call on March 13, Obama told Sisi that the military aid amounting to $1.3 billion would continue.

Meanwhile, Dina Badawi, spokeswoman for the US State Department for the Middle East, expressed concerns in a live interview on the ONtv channel April 2 over the state of rights and freedoms in Egypt, and pointed out that aid is aimed at continuing the democratic track and the political reforms in the country.

Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, and Shai Feldman, the Judith and Sidney Swartz director at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, said in a research paper titled “Resetting US-Egyptian relations,” which was published in March 2014 on the center’s website, that at the root of the downturn in the US-Egyptian relations is the huge gap between the two sides’ narratives regarding the events of June 30, 2013.

One of the most important issues that may hinder the return of US-Egyptian relations to their previous state is the strong relationship between Cairo and Moscow; Sisi has met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin four times so far, and Egypt is currently considered the most important ally of Moscow in the Middle East.

The dispute between Russia and the United States is in regard to several issues. Chief among these is the Syrian issue; Moscow launched airstrikes on Sept. 30, sparking criticism on the part of Obama during a press conference Oct. 2. Obama said that Moscow is acting “not out of strength, but out of weakness” in support of the losing party. The president was referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and he pointed out that Russia should help in reaching a political settlement.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry did not issue any statements condemning or supporting such strikes.

In January, spokeswoman for the US State Department Jennifer Psaki said during the daily press brief that a meeting she described as “routine” was held with a delegation of members of the former Egyptian parliament from the dissolved Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party, on the sidelines of their visit to Washington, which was organized and financed by Georgetown University in Washington.

This meeting raised the ire of the Egyptian political leadership, as well-informed sources told Reuters in June that the Egyptian government summoned the US ambassador in Cairo to express displeasure over visits to Washington by figures of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned in Egypt.

Concerning the fact that Egypt did not extend an official invitation to Obama to meet with Sisi, or vice versa, Atef el-Ghomri, former director of the office of the Egyptian Al-Ahram newspaper in Washington and a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, said, “There is an ongoing split within the US decision-making circles over the revolution of June 30, 2013, and the toppling of former President Mohammed Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Ghomri told Al-Monitor that over the past years, Egypt’s relations have been confined to its foreign relations with Washington as it only took into account its regional and international interests. This deprived Egypt of any international initiatives or insights about various issues. Also, Egypt had to give up its pivotal role in the Middle East as far as the African and Arab countries are concerned. This negatively affected Egypt over time.

“The Egyptian leadership is trying to diversify its foreign relations. It resorted to the Eastern bloc led by Russia, as well as East Asia represented by China and Singapore.” Ghomri added.

Washington is concerned about several files managed by the Egyptian leadership, mainly the human rights and political reforms issues. The United States has been expressing those concerns since the June 30 Revolution, when the Muslim Brotherhood was toppled and replaced by a military president.

Under such circumstances, Cairo had to resort to other countries, while the US-Egyptian relations are expected to witness further tension, especially with the differences in views concerning several international issues, namely Syria, Iran and Libya.

 

The Palestinians’ New Intifada

October 8, 2015

The Palestinians’ New Intifada, Gatestone InstituteBarry Shaw, October 8, 2015

  • “I saw a mob of 40 to 50 masked Palestinians on the side of the road. They were holding rocks and cinder blocks. … I have no doubt that I would be dead now if I hadn’t used my gun. They were going to kill me.” – Josh Hasten, Oct. 7, 2015.
  • Arab children watch other Arab children on television throw rocks and firebombs, and speaking of knifing and shooting Jews, and they want a part of the action.
  • When Arabs hear from their leaders that Jews are “desecrating” Islamic holy places with their “filthy feet” and plotting to destroy them, it is a code, telling them to go out and attack Jews.

Yesterday, a friend, Josh Hasten, was set upon by a crowd of rock-wielding Palestinians, while he was driving to Jerusalem. “I saw a mob of 40 to 50 masked Palestinians on the side of the road. They were holding rocks and cinder blocks,” Hasten said. “As they approached my car, I took out my gun and fired one round in the air. The shot obviously scared them and they ran up the hill away from the road. I have no doubt that I would be dead now if I hadn’t used my gun. They were going to kill me.”

In Europe and the West, acts of terrorist violence are relatively rare; in Israel, they occur several times a day — on a regular basis.

Last week, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas spoke at the United Nations, highlighting Israeli “crimes,” but without specifying any. He is, apparently, aware of losing control of the Palestinian “street,” which now seems to feel closer to radical elements within Palestinian society — especially since Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad take credit for recent murders in Israel.

Palestinians who commit terrorist attacks are not, as in Europe, radicalized primarily by social media or clerics. They are, rather, radicalized primarily by their own Palestinian Authority or Hamas leadership. Arab children watch other Arab children on television throwing rocks and firebombs, and speaking of knifing and shooting Jews, and they want a part of the action.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government is prevented by international pressure from disbanding these groups or arresting their leaders. The equivalent is as if Britain were plagued by daily terror attacks directed by a leadership based in Birmingham, and with the British government prevented from acting against the source, under pain of condemnation and punishment from the European Union and the United Nations.

The current wave of Arab riots and terrorist attacks has been compared to an “intifada,” an Arabic word meaning “uprising” or “shaking off” — a word used to describe the desire of Palestinian Arabs to drive the Jews out of the land.

The violent demonstrations and riots are initiated and orchestrated by the Palestinian leadership, seemingly concerned about losing the support of their own people. Palestinian leaders have been seeing, in local surveys and student elections, a growing disenchantment with the corrupt and sclerotic Fatah-led Palestinian governance, as well as a growing popularity for Hamas.

Palestinian Authority leaders have also been seeing the rise in popularity of rival groups at the same time as they are being ignored by the world’s media and diplomatic community, who are busy with Iran, Russia, Syria and ISIS.

The current violence has a greater religious component than earlier intifadas.[1] Perhaps seeing that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are strongly Islamic, PA President Mahmoud Abbas latched onto the extremist — albeit totally incorrect — Islamist theme that Jews are trying to destroy Islamic holy places. He thereby ignited a firestorm of competition among radical groups as to which faction could incite the most violence.

1280Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) ignited competition among radical groups as to which faction could incite the most violence. Left: official PA media incite Palestinians, from a young age, to murder Jews.

Hamas, ruling in the Gaza Strip, has made no secret of its wish to deepen its influence in the West Bank. This time, it was assisted by the Palestinian Authority, which used the Jewish high holy days as an excuse to accuse Jews praying at the Western Wall, of trying to take over Muslim holy places. The Western Wall, a holy place to Jews, is all that is left of the Jews’ Second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

When Muslims hear from their leaders that Jews are “desecrating” Islamic holy places with their “filthy feet” and plotting to destroy them, it is a code, telling them to go out and attack Jews.

In addition, Muslim women, in organized groups funded by the Islamic Movement in Israel, have been bused to Jerusalem, and paid to abuse, and sometimes use violence, to prevent non-Muslims, mainly Jews, from visiting the Temple Mount. The women punch, kick, spit, and hurl insults at Jews (and often other non-Muslims) who visit or attempt to visit the Temple Mount.

For years, Mahmoud Abbas has been whipping up the Palestinians with claims — all false, as can be seen throughout the Bible — that Jews have no heritage or history in Jerusalem, and therefore have no right to be there. It is a charge he repeats despite a Jewish presence and culture in the land that dates back over 3000 years.

Incitement to violence leads to actual violence. So, on October 3, an impressionable 19-year-old Arab man became a murderer. Muhannad Halabi, before setting out on his killing spree, wrote on his Facebook page, “The Third Intifada has erupted!…Defending the sanctity of Al-Aqsa and its women is out pride and honor… We know only that Jerusalem is undivided and that every part of it is holy.”

This young killer was apparently caught up in the passion of the false claims of Abbas that Jews were defiling Islamic holy places with their “filthy feet,” that he took a knife and entered the Jerusalem’s Old City in search of Jews. There, he attacked a Jewish family that on its way to pray at the Western Wall. He stabbed Aharon Banita, and his wife, Adele. Hearing the screams of the victims, 41-year-old Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, armed with a pistol, ran over to stop the attack. Halabi stabbed and killed Lavi, took his gun, and shot and wounded 2-year-old Matan Banita. Seconds later, security forces arrived and killed Halabi in a shootout. Adele and Matan Banita survived.

During the attack, as the wounded and bleeding Adele Banita ran through the street screaming for help, she was jeered at, spat on, hit and insulted by Arab passersby and local Arab shopkeepers. None of them helped her. She reported later from the hospital that many of them screamed at her to die. The anti-Jewish incitement by Palestinians resulted in the killing of four Jews – simply because they were Jews.

In the minds of radicalized Palestinians, there is no difference between shooting or stabbing women and children, and shooting men.[2]

Many in the Western media fail to portray events in Israel accurately. The most morally tortured headline came from BBC News. Its headline on October 4 read “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two.” It appeared a clear effort to make readers believe that the Palestinian terrorist was the victim.

Unless the West persuades Abbas to stop the incitement, perhaps by linking financial aid to performance, his intifada will continue to escalate.

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[1] In the first “intifada,” from 1987-1993 Arabs attacked primarily Israeli soldiers and police, mainly with rocks and firebombs. The second “intifada” (2000-2005), planned by the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, included widespread attacks — suicide bombings, shootings and car bombs — against any and all Israeli targets, mainly civilians.

[2] In 2011, for example, three of the six children from the Fogel family in the village of Itamar were hacked to death in their beds, along with their parents, when Palestinian terrorists broke into their home. It was near Itamar that four small children from the Henkin family miraculously avoided death under a hail of bullets on October 1, when Palestinians murdered their parents (Eitam and Naama Henkin) in a drive-by shooting. The nine-year-old son recited the mourner’s prayer at his parents’ graves the following day.

Saudi Sheikh Yahya Al-Jana’ Waxes Lyrical about the Virgins of Paradise

October 8, 2015

Saudi Sheikh Yahya Al-Jana’ Waxes Lyrical about the Virgins of Paradise, Middle East Media Research Institute, October 7, 2015

(This must be either a warning about raping immodest women or a put-down of Viagra. — DM)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqr-jJiLRJY

According to the blurb following the video,

In a lesson posted on the Internet on September 1, 2015, Saudi Sheik Yahya Al-Jana’ talks about the joys of Paradise, saying that men will have the strength of a hundred men in Paradise and will be busy “tearing hymens,” while the virgins of Paradise, whose breasts are “like pomegranates,” become virgins every time again.

Robert Spencer: The speech the U.S. Catholic Bishops don’t want you to see

October 7, 2015

Robert Spencer: The speech the U.S. Catholic Bishops don’t want you to see, Jihad Watch via You Tube, October 5, 2015

(An excellent explication of differences between Islam and Christianity and the theological bases for the animosity of religious Muslims toward religious Christians. Please see also, Evangelicals Embrace Islamists at Maryland Interfaith Event. — DM)

 

According to the blurb beneath the video,

Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer was the keynote speaker at the annual convocation of the North American Lutheran Church, Dallas, Texas, August 13, 2015. He spoke about Muslim persecution of Christians.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pulled their representative from the North American Lutheran Church convocation when they found out Spencer was the keynote speaker. Watch this speech and see what the Catholic Bishops of the United States don’t want you to know.

Egypt’s secular culture minister ruffles Salafi feathers

October 7, 2015

Egypt’s secular culture minister ruffles Salafi feathers, Al-MonitorRami Galal, October 6, 2015

(Building a secular Muslim state in a region dominated by Islamists is difficult and takes time, as Egypt and Al-Sisi are learning. — DM)

helmiEgypt’s newly appointed Culture Minister Hilmi al-Namnam appears on the Egyptian talk show 25/30, Nov. 11, 2014. (photo by youtube.com/ONtv)

CAIRO — On Sept. 19, a new Egyptian Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, was sworn in before President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Among the new ministers is the journalist Hilmi al-Namnam, who holds the culture portfolio. The appointment of Namnam, a secularist, has sparked controversy among Egyptian Salafis and aroused opposition in Saudi Arabia. Such Saudi writers and intellectuals as Jamal Khashoggi, editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel, object to Namnam’s appointment because he opposes Wahhabi Salafism, the religiopoliticial movement that originated in the Nejd region of the Saudi kingdom.

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab founded what became the Wahhabi movement in the 18th century. In 1744, Wahhab allied with Muhammad ibn Saud, emir of the Nejd and founder of the first Saudi state, to increase followers of the Quran, Sunnism and the words and actions of the Salaf, the first three generations of Muslims. In doing so, they sought to purify Islam of misguided practices negatively affecting the Islamic essence of unity and various forms of heresy.

Immediately after Namnam assumed the culture portfolio, a video of him from July 2013 went viral. In it, Namnam stated, “The political Islam current must leave the political game completely, especially the Salafist Nour Party, which is more dangerous than the Muslim Brotherhood.” He compared the Nour Party to a “whore who extorts her husband if he doesn’t fulfill her demands by escorting someone else.” Namnam also said, “We lie when we say Egypt is a naturally religious country. It is high time we said Egypt is a naturally secular state.”

The Nour Party came in second in the 2012 parliamentary elections. Among its positions at the time were prohibitions on electing women and Copts, saluting the flag and singing the national anthem. The party altered these platforms, however, after lending its stamp of approval in 2013 to the June 30 revolution, although most of its leading figures waivered over what course to take.

On Sept. 19, Shaaban Abdel Aleem, a member of the Nour Party’s board, requested information on the selection criteria used for appointing the new ministers. On the same day, Khashoggi, who is close to Saudi decision-makers, commented on Namnam’s appointment via Twitter. “For whoever is planning mutual cultural exchanges with our brothers in Egypt, the following piece of information could be useful: Namnam is not only a critic of Wahhabism, but abhors it and blames it for all his country’s catastrophes,” Khashoggi tweeted. In a separate tweet, he wrote, “Honestly, for the sake of relations between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and due to the nature of the regime there, Egypt should not appoint a minister like Namnam, who has taken it too far in offending the kingdom.”

Namnam responded that evening in a phone call to “Al-Ashera Masaa,” a show on Dream TV, saying, “I did not say Wahhabism was the mother of vices. These are not my words, but I am against terrorist groups in general.” He added that he had criticized “attempts to export Wahhabism to Egypt,” but that he “respects the kingdom’s choices, just as the kingdom’s writers should respect Egypt and Egyptians’ choices.”

Khashoggi immediately replied, again on Twitter, writing, “Egypt’s minister of culture claims he respects Wahhabism, but admits that he is against exporting it to Egypt. I would like to tell him that Wahhabism cannot be exported. It is a pillar of the Egyptian revolution and is represented by emblematic figures like the followers of Sheikh Muhammad Abduh.” The Islamic jurist Abduh, an Egyptian, is a founder of Islamic modernism. He spearheaded the movement at the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century to counter intellectual and cultural stagnation and revive the Islamic nation in line with the times.

Khashoggi argued, “Salafism preceded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as there was the Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyah group, which remains the oldest reformist Islamic organization in Egypt and the world.” Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyah seeks absolute unity and the rejection of superstitions and cults. It began in Cairo’s Hadara Mosque in 1926. Many Al-Azhar scholars and Salafist preachers were welcoming of it.

On Oct. 2, tensions escalated when Namnam said during an interview on the Sada al-Balad channel that he was ready to be “martyred to spare Egypt from turning into a caliphate state.” He added that secularism is not the adversary of Islam, as some claim. “Every moderate Muslim is necessarily secular. But, not every secularist is a Muslim,” he said.

The following day, Yasser Borhami, deputy leader of the Salafist Call, implored Sisi to intervene and forbid Namnam from making such statements, which he said contradict the constitution given that Sharia is the primary source of legislation.

Nour Party leader Younes Makhyoun entered the fray Oct. 3, asserting that Namnam should remain impartial or be dismissed. “The person [Sisi] who appointed this minister must oblige him to respect the constitution,” he stated.

Sayyed Mustafa, deputy chair of the Nour Party, told Al-Monitor, “The party did not look into Namnam’s old opinions, because they stem from personal freedom. Each person has the right to believe whatever they wish. But he must realize that he is the minister of culture for 90 million Egyptians. The Ministry of Culture should represent all currents, not just one, be it secular or nonsecular.” He added, “As a minister handling a political portfolio, Namnam must take into consideration Egypt’s foreign relations in general and brotherly relations in particular, like those it shares with Saudi Arabia.”

Zubeida Atta, former dean of Helwan University’s faculty of arts and a member of the Supreme Council of Culture, has a different perspective on the issue. “The concept of secularism that Namnam called for is not a heretical one. It relies on the use of education and its application in countries to improve them and ensure their civil aspects, instead of mixing religion with political life. The latter [mixing of the two] would send Egypt down a sectarian abyss that would threaten its existence,” she told Al-Monitor. “The Nour Party demanded clarifying the selection criteria of ministers. I demand clarifying the criteria that allow such a religious party to participate in political life and in parliamentary elections.”

As for the rumblings from the Gulf, Atta asserted, “Egypt does not dare suggest a Saudi Arabian minister for a certain ministry in the kingdom or criticize a current minister in the Saudi Arabian regime, because this is an internal Saudi Arabian matter. Why is Khashoggi, among others, allowing himself to interfere in the appointment of a minister in the Egyptian Cabinet?”

 

Disgusting video encourages Arabs to murder Jews

October 7, 2015

Disgusting video encourages Arabs to murder Jews, elderofziyon2 via You Tube, October 6, 2015

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46WP_fWTHtg

 

This video was released apparently from Gaza telling Arabs to attack Jews.

Not Israelis – Jews.

Salman Rushdie invite to Frankfurt Book Fair against freedom of expression: official

October 6, 2015

Salman Rushdie invite to Frankfurt Book Fair against freedom of expression: official, Tehran Times (Iran), October 6, 2015

(To what extent do western “democracies” share variants of this view? To what extent are anti-immigrant and other “Islamophobic” comments becoming unlawful or prohibited de facto? — DM)

TEHRAN — Deputy Culture Minister for Cultural Affairs Seyyed Abbas Salehi has said that Frankfurt Book Fair’s plan to invite Salman Rushdie violates freedom of expression.

Earlier last week, the organizers of the book fair, which is the world’s largest event in the publishing industry, said, “On the significance of freedom of expression for authors and the book industry”, Rushdie will give the keynote address at the opening press conference of the fair on October 13.

Rushdie is the author of “The Satanic Verses”, a blasphemous novel about Islam, which was published in 1988.

The book sparked Muslims’ outrage, which culminated in a fatwa by Imam Khomeini, the founder of Islamic Republic, calling for Rushdie’s death.

“If we want freedom to turn into a sustainable issue and not an overture to violence, we should provide the necessary prerequisites,” Salehi told the Persian service of MNA on Monday.

“A basic prerequisite is respect for the sanctities of every religion,” he noted.

He warned the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair about the Rushdie invite and said, “The plan to invite Salman Rushdie would provoke feelings whose results would not be clear.”

Salehi said that Iran has sent a letter to Frankfurt Book Fair Director Juergen Boos, asking him to cancel their plans for Rushdie’s speech. However, there has been no response from him so far.

He said that Iran has also called upon other Muslim countries to protest against the Frankfurt Book Fair’s plans for Rushdie’s speech.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is slated to take place from October 14 to 18.

In addition, dozens of independent Iranian publishers are scheduled to showcase their latest offerings at the fair, which is the world’s largest event in the publishing industry.

Off Topic? | A new global police to fight “Violent Extremism” in the U.S.?

October 6, 2015

A new global police to fight “Violent Extremism” in the U.S.? Front Page Magazine, Matthew Vadum, October 6, 2015

(Not long ago, I would have thought this a nutty conspiracy article. Now, not so much. With the UN and Obama involved, what could go wrong?  — DM)

ju

 

The Obama administration plans to create a global police force that counters “violent extremism” in the United States and elsewhere.

The problem is that in Obama-speak “violent extremism” refers not only to jihadists wishing to harm Americans but also to conservatives and Tea Party activists. Just ask all the law-abiding right-of-center nonprofit groups targeted by Lois Lerner’s IRS during the Obama presidency.

Ominously, President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch unveiled the Strong Cities Network last week at the United Nations.

America’s chief executive, who speaks in hushed and reverent tones when discussing the Muslim faith, said the U.S. will use “all of our tools” to fight Islamic State terrorists.

“This is not an easy task,” Obama said. “This is not a conventional battle. This is a long-term campaign — not only against this particular network, but against its ideology.” The United States and a coalition of 60 other countries are “pursuing a comprehensive strategy” for dealing with Islamic State, he said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice teased the Strong Cities Network in a press release:

Cities are vital partners in international efforts to build social cohesion and resilience to violent extremism.  Local communities and authorities are the most credible and persuasive voices to challenge violent extremism in all of its forms and manifestations in their local contexts.  While many cities and local authorities are developing innovative responses to address this challenge, no systematic efforts are in place to share experiences, pool resources and build a community of cities to inspire local action on a global scale.

“The Strong Cities Network will serve as a vital tool to strengthen capacity-building and improve collaboration,” Lynch was quoted saying. “As we continue to counter a range of domestic and global terror threats, this innovative platform will enable cities to learn from one another, to develop best practices and to build social cohesion and community resilience here at home and around the world.”

The media release continues:

The SCN will include an International Steering Committee of approximately 25 cities and other sub-national entities from different regions that will provide the SCN with its strategic direction.  The SCN will also convene an International Advisory Board, which includes representatives from relevant city-focused networks, to help ensure SCN builds upon their work.  It will be run by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a leading international “think-and-do” tank with a long-standing track record of working to prevent violent extremism …

Although the European scene is different from the American, the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue doesn’t come across at first glance as a neutral observer.

Its website, which is filled with left-wing buzzwords, warns

The tragic attacks in Norway on 22 July, 2011 drew Europe’s gaze to the dangers of the growing presence of far-right extremism across Europe and the increasing legitimisation of anti-immigration and anti-Islamic discourses within mainstream European politics. The blurred relationship between violence from the extreme right and broader trends of Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiment poses several challenges for policy makers seeking to address the increasing risk of violent right-wing extremism.

And although American conservatives might not quibble with a new U.S.-based initiative aimed at “violent extremism” outside America’s borders, they have ample reason to be concerned about one that targets organizations within the United States.

Conservative champion Pamela Geller railed against the Strong Cities Network in a column at Breitbart News.

This plan “amounts to nothing less than the overriding of American laws, up to and including the United States Constitution, in favor of United Nations laws that would henceforth be implemented in the United States itself – without any consultation of Congress at all.”

Announcing the plan at the United Nations is curious she writes, because the UN “is a sharia-compliant world body, and Obama, speaking there just days ago, insisted that ‘violent extremism’ is not exclusive to Islam (which it is).”

It is unlikely the new body will be used as a “global police force” to crush counter-jihad forces, she wrote.

After all, with Obama knowingly aiding al-Qaeda forces in Syria, how likely is it that he will use his “global police force” against actual Islamic jihadists?

I suspect that instead, this global police force will be used to impose the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law), and to silence all criticism of Islam for the President who proclaimed that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

Geller and other conservatives are painfully aware that in the parlance of the Left, “violent extremism” refers to conservatives and other patriotic Americans.

If you are opposed to enlarging the redistributive state and spreading the wealth around then by definition you’re a potential terrorist.  If you’re a conservative or a libertarian, if you believe in gun rights or don’t support abortion rights or an immigration amnesty, if you don’t like high taxes or welfare programs or if you dare to believe that the Constitution actually limits the power of the government, you’re at risk of turning to terrorism.

In 2009, Janet Napolitano, then head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security gave her blessing to a spurious DHS report titled, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

Drawing heavily from so-called research by the loony-left Southern Poverty Law Center, the report lumped Ku Klux Klansmen and violent militias together with good government types and members of the Federalist Society. This law enforcement guidance claimed that large swaths of the nation that did not vote Democratic in the last election were boiling over with hatred and intolerance.

Anticlimactically, the report noted that there is no actual evidence “that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence.” Nonetheless the report speculated, using language that would later be embraced by the violent Occupy Wall Street movement, that “the economic downturn and the election of the first African American president” might help these “rightwing extremists” gain new recruits.

Guffaws from Republicans and some of her fellow Democrats forced Napolitano to disavow the report but in the intervening years Obama’s DHS has kept up the pressure on patriotic Americans in an attempt to stigmatize and marginalize conservative beliefs.

As recently as this past February, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson released a report on what CNN called the grave “domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists.”

“The government says these are extremists who believe that they can ignore laws and that their individual rights are under attack in routine daily instances such as a traffic stop or being required to obey a court order,” the news network reported.

To the Obama administration, zealous civil libertarians and ornery old guys in pickup trucks are a much greater threat to the homeland than Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, al Qaeda, and Islamic State combined.

CNN paraphrased Mark Potok, a senior fellow at — you guessed it, the Southern Poverty Law Center — hailing the report.

“Potok said that by some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 people involved in some way with sovereign citizen extremism. Perhaps 100,000 people form a core of the movement, he said.”

Around the same time counterinsurgency and counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka ridiculed the obviously politicized DHS report for going off the deep end.

Gorka, a professor who lectures on irregular warfare at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University, said over the last two decades he could not remember right-wing extremists flying jumbo jets into buildings, bombing a marathon, or beheading Christian hostages.

“It really is the most egregious politicization of national security,” Gorka opined. “We’re going to be looking for right-wing extremists when ISIS prepares to attack us? It’s outrageous.”

“We have tens of thousands of people in the Middle East and elsewhere and here in America who have committed themselves to the destruction of this great nation. And we’re going to be focusing on the small cluster of right-wingers here in the United States?” he said. “This could endanger American lives.”

All of this brings to mind the jarringly strange thing then-Senator Obama said on the campaign trail in October 2008.

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” he said. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”

Is the Strong Cities Network the civilian national security force Obama mentioned just once and then never brought up again?

We’re about to find out.

No moral outrage in the military

October 6, 2015

No moral outrage in the military, Washington Times, James A. Lyons, October 5, 2015

105_2015_b3-lyon-obama-shiel8201_c0-0-2933-1710_s561x327Obama Decimates the U.S. Military Illustration by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times

[T]he degradation of our military’s core principles must be viewed in a much broader perspective. Actually, it is a key element in President Obama’s declaration to fundamentally transform America. When you want to take down a country, the first thing you do is weaken its military.

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Recent articles highlighting horrifying child abuse atrocities inflicted on defenseless children by our Afghan military and police partners are but the latest examples of how President Obama is destroying U.S. military forces.

Our military leadership’s response to these blatant acts of pedophilia by our so-called Afghan partners has been shocking. In short, the guidance provided to our Army and Marine Corps personnel was to just ignore these Muslim and Afghan seventh-century customs and traditions. They have been instructed to not interfere, even when such horrific acts are being committed on our own bases.

Those U.S. military personnel. whose moral outrage will not let them ignore these atrocities and instead act to stop these unconscionable acts against children, are either disciplined or forced to leave the service. In other words, even if you find a young boy chained to a bed so that a local police commander can sodomize him every night and you hear the screams, you are told to look the other way. This is not only un-American but an act against humanity.

Even the Taliban outlawed such practices and freed a number of children, thereby earning the gratitude of village elders. Does the Taliban with its seventh-century mentality have a higher moral code than the U.S. military leadership? It should be clear to any thinking person that when our honorable military personnel are forced to ignore these crimes against humanity, they are viewed as being complicit.

To those who have followed our involvement in Afghanistan, the current policy to ignore acts of pedophilia should come as no surprise. When “green on blue” attacks gained national attention, our military leadership tried to explain it away by claiming the friction that developed between the two forces was because our military personnel were not sensitive enough to Afghan culture and traditions. In other words, if our Afghan partners conduct violence or kill U.S. military personnel, it is our fault. What nonsense.

Other Afghan cultural idiosyncrasies our military personnel are forced to accept without reservation include wife-beating, rape, drug use, thievery, dog torture, desertion and collusion with the enemy, the Taliban. Furthermore, under no circumstances can our military discuss Islam in any form. The genesis for this goes back to the purging of all our training manuals and instructors who presented Islam in an unfavorable light or linked it to terrorism. It is totally against our core principles and everything we stand for as Americans. It clearly has an adverse impact on individual and unit morale, which affects the ultimate goal of the “will to win.” The bottom line is that we are forcing our great military to submit to Islam and its governing Shariah law, or possibly die.

This is exactly the choice offered to infidels who have been vanquished by Islamic jihad. Our military’s silence and acquiescence, particularly by the leadership, is the humiliating price for our coexistence with our Afghan partners. This is unacceptable.

However, the degradation of our military’s core principles must be viewed in a much broader perspective. Actually, it is a key element in President Obama’s declaration to fundamentally transform America. When you want to take down a country, the first thing you do is weaken its military. We cannot ignore the fact that with or without sequestration, the Obama administration has unilaterally disarmed our military forces and, consequently, our capabilities. Further, the social engineering imposed on our military forces — to include the acceptance of gay, lesbian and soon transgender personnel — further undermines the moral fiber of our military and constitutes a further degradation of our military effectiveness. Forcing women into combat roles only further degrades the situation. The restricted rules of engagement imposed on our forces has reduced our military’s effectiveness and caused unnecessary loss of life and debilitating injuries.

Likewise, the pin-prick attacks on the Islamic State cast a shadow over what a dedicated air campaign could accomplish. It projects an image of weakness and ineffectiveness of our true capabilities. It has taken the “awe” of our invincibility and overwhelming force capabilities out of the equation. The net result is that our enemies no longer fear us, and our allies can no longer trust us.

The imposed limit on the application and capability our military force is not limited to the Middle East. For example, in the Western Pacific, to challenge China’s illegal actions in the South China Sea, the Obama administration has restricted the U.S. Navy from enforcing its freedom of seas concept that has been a fundamental principle of the U.S. Navy for more than 238 years. Our Asian allies in the Western Pacific watch carefully how we respond to China’s aggressive actions. Our directed restraint clearly will not raise their confidence level.

Our national security is being deliberately jeopardized. President Obama’s bloviating to Vladimir Putin at the recent U.N. session that he leads the most powerful military in the world was only true on the day he took office. Since then, Obama has systematically degraded our capabilities. The chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee must take forceful action now to prevent further emasculation of our military capabilities.

Sexual Slavery: “Nothing to do with Islam”?

October 5, 2015

Sexual Slavery: “Nothing to do with Islam”? Gatestone InstituteUzay Bulut, October 5, 2015

  • “They are also taught that white non-Muslims are easy, cheap, dirty sluts and that it is their right [to take them]. … On top of this, teaching people to hate anyone who is not a Muslim — as is done in many mosques — will, of course, lead to a lot of people hating anyone who is not a Muslim. … The problem, however, is also due to police, judges, lawyers, and teachers, fearing the words ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobe’ — and nothing is being done to stop that.” — Toni Bugle, women’s rights activist, founder of Mothers against Radical Islam and Sharia, and victim of child-rape.
  • “When girls are raped, they are referred to by the rapists as ‘white trash,’ ‘white whores’ and ‘white kuffir.’ It is said to the girls quite openly. And the girls tell the police. Yet the assaults are never recognized as ‘racially motivated. … “I am sick of being told that I matter less because, I was born white, or that someone else matters less because he was born a different color. Such terms are themselves racist. People now seem to be using the race card to behave in the most appalling manner.” — Toni Bugle.
  • Many British girls still stay silent. The perpetrators threaten and intimidate them: “This would be enough to silence most girls. In addition, the police ignore the pleas of these girls, so they do not trust the police. I do think the silence of the community means it acquiesces.”
  • In Islam, only non-Muslims may be taken as slaves — a rule that is unfortunately only further evidence of a supremacist doctrine within Islam: that Islam is superior to other religions, and its adherents therefore entitled to privileges not afforded to members of other religions.

The sexual abuse of non-Muslim children and women at the hands of Jihadist groups such as ISIS and Boko Haram is not only a widespread practice in the Muslim world, but, sadly, has a lot to do with Islamic teachings.

Sexual slavery is deeply embedded in Islamic law and tradition. The founder of Islam also practiced and approved of slavery, as was more common at the time. Caliphs had harems of hundreds or thousands of young girls and women brought from Christian, Hindu, Persian and African lands.

Islamic slavery also was, and is, race-based. Umar, Muhammad’s father-in-law and a caliph, declared that Arabs could not be taken as slaves; he even emancipated all Arab slaves. In Islam, only non-Muslims may be taken as slaves — a rule that is unfortunately only further evidence of a supremacist doctrine within Islam: that Islam is superior to other religions, and its adherents therefore entitled to privileges not afforded to members of other religions.

This supremacist doctrine of Islam has brought non-Muslims centuries of persecution and institutionalized discrimination. Some have been exposed to brute force and had to convert from their native religion; others have been given the status of “dhimmis“: third-class, “tolerated” citizens who have to pay a tax (the jizya) in exchange for “protection,” never allowed the same religious rights or freedoms as Muslims. If they cannot pay the tax, they are to be killed or have their children taken from them.

All those practices indicate what Islamic rule brings for non-Muslims: death or a state-approved position of inferiority and humiliation.[1] One of the most appalling practices of the Islamic supremacist mindset was the institution of Janissaries established by the Ottoman Empire. For hundreds of years, Ottoman Turks took away the sons of Christians in occupied Europe and forcibly converted them into Muslim warriors (Janissaries).

There are about dozens of verses in the Quran and the Hadith referring to Allah’s hatred for non-Muslims and the eternal damnation and punishment awaiting them in the afterlife.[2] Once Islam establishes political superiority, there is very little tolerance for people of other faiths or atheists.

As early Muslim armies used their swords to invade and Islamize non-Muslim lands, they enslaved non-Muslims, and even other black Muslims. Islamic scriptures approve of the rape of female prisoners who have very few civil or legal rights under Islamic law.

During 1,400 years of jihad and even today, the Muslim world is mostly apathetic and silent about sexual aggression. Many Muslims even try to justify it under Islamic rule. So now this practice is common not only in the Middle East, but also in Europe, including Britain.

Women are finally refusing to accept this situation. Toni Bugle, for example, a women’s rights activist, has established an organization called M.A.R.I.A.S (Mothers Against Radical Islam and Sharia), which tries to raise awareness about, and act against, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation, child grooming gangs, child marriage, domestic violence, forced marriages and honor killings.

In the midst of the complicit silence of many institutions, including the mainstream media in Britain, Bugle is trying to protect British children and women from rapists — many of whom apparently have been Muslims.

As a victim of sexual abuse for two years from the age of eight, Bugle was homeless for a time, and later exposed to physical violence. She witnessed her friends in the streets sexually abused and forced into prostitution.

“Not until years later did I realize I was reading patterns which were similar that are happening to girls all over the UK,” Bugle said to Gatestone Institute. “I have also spoken to Muslim women, abused because of sharia law. I took one into my home. Her family were trying to use her to traffic people from Somalia to the UK.”

A few months ago, a report found that between 1997 and 2013, at least 1,400 non-Muslim British children were gang-raped and brutalized by Muslims in Rotherham. Children as young as 11 were often gang-raped, abducted, trafficked to other cities in England, beaten and intimidated, according to the report. Authorities did nothing “for fear of being thought as racist.”

Another report in May, 2015, added that the Rotherham Council and police had wanted the authorities to ban protests against child rape. “They have appealed to the home secretary for emergency special powers under the Public Order Act 1986,” according to Breitbart.

1093A protest against child-grooming in Rotherham, on October 5, 2014, organized by the group “Britain First.” (Image source: Britain First)

Bugle remarked that not only does this political and religious ideology encourage Muslim men to rape non-Muslim children and women, but that Britain’s submission to Sharia-inspired brutality seems to have several causes:

“Muslims believe they are at war with the West; and when in a state of war (jihad), they have the right to ‘war booty:’ that which the right hand possesses, sex slaves. They are also taught that white non-Muslims are easy, cheap, dirty sluts and that it is their right [to take them]. On top of this, teaching people to hate anyone who is not a Muslim – as is done in many mosques – will, of course, lead to a lot of people hating anyone who is not a Muslim. So the way many Muslims perceive Western women fuels the increase in rape incidents. The problem, however, is also due to police, judges, lawyers, teachers, to name but a few, fearing the words ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobe’ — and nothing is being done to stop that.”

The map on the organization’s website shows the areas hit by Muslim grooming gangs in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telsley, Stevenage, Peterborough, Birmingham, Oxford, and Bradford. “This,” says Bugle, “barely scratches the surface.[3]

“The UK media refuse to use the term Muslim,” Bugle adds. “But in London alone 27% of the inmates are Muslim, serving time for rape, drugs and violence. That is a massive percentage considering that Muslims are apparently only 4% of the overall population.”

“When girls are raped, they are referred to by the rapists as ‘white trash,’ ‘white whores’ and ‘white kuffir.’ It is said to the girls quite openly. And the girls tell the police. Yet the assaults are never recognized as ‘racially motivated’.”

“I get death threats, rape threats, and sodomy threats – but never from non-Muslims. Muslims follow me on Twitter and Facebook and have immediately sent messages, calling me ‘white bitch’ and ‘white whore,’ and threaten me with sexual assaults.”

Despite the enormity of the problem, Bugle notes that the media virtually ignore the Muslim rape epidemic in the West: “The media will rarely speak about it for more than one day. Rotherham was the only time they did, and they insisted on calling the perpetrators ‘Asian,’ not Muslim. And they never mention the link between these rape incidents and the Islamic teachings.”

One of the few scholars who do expose the link between the two, Raymond Ibrahim, wrote in a comprehensive article about Islamic rape: “The ongoing epidemic in the UK, Scandinavia and elsewhere—whereby Muslim men sexually target white women—is as old as Islam, has precedents with the prophet and his companions, and, till this day, is being recommended as a legitimate practice by some in the Muslim world.”

Despite the alarmingly widespread problem, many British girls, possibly partly from shame or concern that they might be thought complicit, stay silent. A stronger reason, according to Bugle, is that the perpetrators still threaten and intimidate them.

“This would be enough to silence most girls. In addition, the police ignore the pleas of these girls, so they do not trust the police. Also, apparently when parents were told that the girls were ‘known prostitutes,’ they were told that the girls ‘would grow out of it.’ These are just a few of the reasons they stay silent.”

Bugle says she has

“emailed several ‘feminist’ organizations inviting them to speak out against sharia law, but each time they have not even answered. If you search for feminists standing against sharia law or the rape of predominantly white girls, she says, they will always tell you it has nothing to do with Islam. No matter how you try to explain that we wish to stand against all forms of misogyny, they do not want to accept facts. They refuse even to address the problem. They say ‘you cannot blame an entire community.’ I do not blame an entire community and I do not think all Muslims are rapists or terrorists, but I do think the silence of the community means it acquiesces. To address an issue properly, however, one must first acknowledge and accept that there is a problem.”

One of the main arguments of the apologists of extremist Islam in the West has been to accuse people of having “white privilege,” an overtly racist term for advantages allegedly enjoyed by white people but that non-whites do not experience.

Bugle, a rape victim, opposes the term:

“I am sick of being told that I matter less because, I was born white, or that someone else matters less because he was born a different color. Such terms are themselves racist. People now seem to be using the race card to behave in the most appalling manner and because people fear being termed racist. I do not see skin color. Yet skin color is used to shut down debate and discussion. ‘White guilt’ is being manipulated to silence the masses. Whether you are black or brown or white, you should be proud of the skin you were born with; it was not a choice.”

Bugle says her organization aims eventually to give a voice to every woman abused by sharia law, and a place to girls who are targeted — first for being non-Muslim, and second for being white — a place to come to. There, they will be able to talk with people who will believe them and will not blame them.[4]

She says she would like the girls to feel free of guilt, and to take back the control that was taken from them. “Perhaps in the future we will be able to provide safe houses, phone help-lines and a sense of safety, and help them to not remain victims, but in time to become survivors. Not all will survive but those who do will one day help others.”

When the organization held its first conference on August 29, two of the speakers were Muslim women, one of whom had apparently been repeatedly raped by Muslim men. The organization intends to hold another conference, also with Muslim speakers, in Rochdale around mid-November.

Britain — with all of its institutions, says Bugle — should act to protect children and women from rapists. No matter who may feel hurt or offended, she says, nothing is more hurtful than innocent women and children being raped, pimped, tortured and trafficked. “But first,” she states, “we need a government with the moral fortitude to stop ignoring facts and constantly stating, ‘This has nothing to do with Islam.'”

Uzay Bulut, born and raised a Muslim, is a Turkish journalist based in Ankara.


[1] E.g: Koran 67:6-8; 21:98; 2:191-193; 9:111; 9:5; 9:29; 5:32; 5:33; 33:50; 8:41; 22:19-22; 2:178; 8:12

[2] E.g.: Koran 6:27; 3:91

[3] A blog at Channel 4 also reported that in many other cases in the UK, vulnerable teenage girls were sexually abused:

“We have evidence of such exploitation taking place in Keighley (2005 and 2013), Blackpool (2006), Oldham (2007 and 2008), Blackburn (2007, 2008 and 2009), Sheffield (2008), Manchester (2008 and 2013) Skipton (2009), Rochdale (two cases in 2010, one in 2012 and another in 2013), Nelson (2010), Preston (2010) Rotherham (2010) Derby (2010), Telford (2012), Bradford (2012), Ipswich (2013), Birmingham (2013), Oxford (2013), Barking (2013) and Peterborough (2013).”

The report also says that “Of the 306 offenders whose ethnicity was noted, 75 per cent were categorized as Asian.”

[4] On the website, there are blogs written by the girls in their own words.