All Hamas is devoted to is death and destruction. If Israel ceased to exist and all the Jews in Israel were murdered, Hamas would die — without anything to destroy and anyone to kill, it would have no reason to exist.
“Hamas announces military training camps for 15 year olds,” Elder of Ziyon, January 11, 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
The Hamas al Qassam Brigades announced that it open up registration for military camps for children aged 15 and up throughout the Gaza strip on January 20.
The camps will be called “Vanguard of the Liberation.”
Hamas doesn’t try to hide that it is training children to be armed terrorists. The announcement states that “the camps will include military drills and skills, shooting live ammunition, scouting skills and sermons, as well as courses in civil defense and first aid.”
Kids can register for the camps “at the nearest mosque or the nearest Qassam Brigades military site.” Since the army sites are sprinkled liberally throughout residential areas, that makes it much easier to find a place to register.
Here’s the flyer announcing the camps:
This is the third year of the camps. Here are some photos from last year’s graduation ceremony (a full video is here.)….
Amidst the rise of ISIS and the jihadi attacks in Europe, the International Criminal Court (ICC) admitted the Hamas-linked Palestinian Authority into its ranks, in effect, welcoming terrorists.
The Palestinians have long sought statehood. The official narrative proclaims a desire for an independent state in the “occupied territories” of Gaza and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capitol. But in reality, Palestinians consider all of Israel to be “occupied” and many seek the extermination of the State of Israel entirely.
Israel and Palestine are bound by the Oslo accords to negotiate for peace through bilateral talks. The premise is that Israel will relinquish land in exchange for peace and security. But when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, instead of receiving peace, Israel was bombarded with 10,000 Kassam rockets and Palestinians renamed their streets to “honor” jihadi martyrs.
Over the years, peace talks have failed repeatedly and negotiations have been interrupted by multitudes of Palestinian assaults on the Israeli civilian population. The Palestinian Authority (PA), the only representative of the Palestinians officially recognized by Israel and the U.S., has been unable to halt the terrorism.
To make matters worse, in 2014, the PA and Hamas joined together to form a “unity government” in an effort to reconcile the Fatah-Hamas conflict. This “reconciliation”, in effect, made the PA official collaborators with Hamas, which is a State-designated terrorist organization. Hamas refuses to recognize the State of Israel or to negotiate with her. Its charter spells out its mission to obliterate Israel through violence, and its deeds back up its words.
It is illegal to fund a terrorist organization and there is no exception for the U.S. government. However, the Obama Administration has bent over backwards to find legal loopholes through which it could still funnel financial aid to “Palestine,” to the tune of 400 million dollars annually. In contrast, Israeli officials refuse to negotiate with a terror-affiliated entity.
PA President Abbas publicly proclaimed that the unity government would recognize Israel’s right to exist, be non-violent, and be bound by prior PLO agreements. The Hamas spokesperson, on the other hand, admits that it never did, or would, recognize the State of Israel. Furthermore, Hamas claims that its affiliation with the PA ended after a six month term. Abbas insists to the contrary, that the unity government is still in full force.
Either way, “Palestine” is not a state, and therefore fails to qualify for ICC membership. Never-the-less, in an attempt to make an end-run around bi-lateral negotiations, the Palestinians applied for, and obtained, an upgrade in UN status. In 2012, pursuant to a UN General Assembly vote, Palestine’s status went from “observer entity” to “non-member observer state”. This change in status made admission to the ICC possible.
It is noteworthy that this is the same GA that on a regular and frequent basis, passes anti-Israel resolutions. Indeed, the entire UN apparatus in incredibly biased, holding Israel to a standard to which no other country is held. Resolutions condemning Israel in the GA and the Human Rights Council are numerous, while both bodies turn a blind eye to real human rights abuses in countries like Sudan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Additionally, Palestine has been lobbying countries to provide it with unilateral recognition of statehood. Many states have acquiesced, with a swell in the western ranks during 2014, though sometimes the recognition extended is diplomatic and not legally binding. These states include Sweden, France, Spain, Britain, Ireland, and Iceland, as well as the EU.
Palestine’s goal has been to join the ICC for the purpose of filing claims against Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity, in an attempt to force unilateral concessions without an exchange of peace. Already, the PA is preparing its paperwork for submission to the ICC. The PA seeks to have Israel prosecuted for its 2014 campaign against Gaza, though it was a response to Palestinian terrorism and the illegal smuggling of weapons through underground tunnels. Additionally, the PA wants Israel prosecuted for her settlements on so-called “occupied territory”, despite the fact that it is quite a stretch to allege that settlement activity constitutes a war crime.
Israel is not a member of the ICC, but the ICC asserts jurisdiction over anyone that commits war crimes or crimes against humanity on the territory of its member states. Jurisdictional disputes are determined by the ICC itself, demonstrating one of the many problems with its expansive, unchecked power. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has already promised that Israel will stand by the IDF soldiers as they have defended Israel, but what that means in legal terms is unclear. Israeli citizens are also at risk for potential prosecution if the ICC accepts the PA’s case.
Already there is blowback from the PA’s move to ICC membership, which Israel considers to be a game-changer of escalatory proportion. Accordingly, Israel has frozen 127 million dollars in tax revenue designated for the PA, which the Palestinians direly need, and the peace talks are virtually dead. Additionally, U.S. officials are re-evaluating appropriations and will consider legislation to cease U.S. aid to “Palestine” if it demands the prosecution of Israel.
Still, the PA seeks momentum in the court of public opinion. Its goal on the world stage is to gain international recognition of Palestinian statehood and to delegitimize Israel.
On June 13, 2014, “Palestine” accepted ICC jurisdiction by means of a declaration pursuant to article 12(3) of the Rome Statue (the treaty that provides for the creation and jurisdiction of the ICC). The PA government signed the Rome Statute on December 31, 2014. This was one day subsequent to its failed bid at the UN Security Council to pass a resolution calling for Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders within the next three years. “The State of Palestine’s” instruments of accession to the ICC were deposited and effected as of January 2, 2015. The PA also signed a multitude of treaties and international conventions shortly thereafter.
The official date on which Palestine will become a full-fledged ICC member is on April 1, 2015, April Fool’s Day. In a world where anti-Semitism and Islamic jihad are on the rise (both stealth and violent), April Fool’s Day will be a grim day indeed. But the joke is not on Palestine. It will be on all those in the West who profess to care about freedom and human rights, but have abandoned their principles in capitulation to Islamist demands and welcomed terrorists into their midst.
It used to be that the media would at least wait a day before sweeping the latest victims of Muslim terrorism into the trash to refocus on the looming “anti-Muslim backlash” that never actually comes.
The increase in Muslim terrorism however has made it risky for the media to wait that long. 24 hours after a brutal Muslim terrorist attack, there might be another brutal Muslim terrorist attack which will completely crowd out the stories of Muslims worrying about the backlash to the latest Muslim atrocity.
The massacre at Charlie Hebdo was quickly followed by a massacre at a kosher supermarket and somewhere in between them the Islamic State in Nigeria had wiped out the populations of sixteen villages.
With so many Muslim attacks crowded together, the media had no choice but to take a deep breath and dive in with its “Muslim backlash” stories.
The Voice of America ran its “Muslims fear backlash” piece while the bodies were still warm. The Los Angeles Times rushed out its “Muslims fear backlash” story before the Kosher supermarket massacre. It quoted the Muslim spokesman for the National Observatory Against Islamophobia asserting that it is Muslims who suffer after such attacks. Muslims however weren’t the ones who suffered. The four dead Jews at a Kosher supermarket did the suffering at the hands of a Muslim gunman.
While Muslim murderers were still prowling France for victims, the media was making the story about the perpetrators, not the victims.
And Muslims around the world lined up to join the “Fear of a Backlash” party like it was an exclusive nightclub. Both Belgian and Swedish Muslims claimed to be afraid of a backlash after the Paris attacks. At least those Swedish Muslims who weren’t calling for Allah to “multiply such attacks.”
Even Detroit Muslims got in on the act. Dawud Walid, executive director of CAIR in Michigan, claimed, “We are concerned about backlash against Muslims in the west.”
Walid had endorsed the historical Islamic mass murder of Jews on Twitter and stated in a sermon, “Who are those who incurred the wrath of Allah? They are the Jews, they are the Jews.”
Even while Jews were set to be murdered by a fellow exponent of Walid’s anti-Semitic ideology, the media was pandering to his phony claims of victimization thousands of miles away.
The Muslim backlash narrative insisted that the real victims weren’t Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham and Francois-Michel Saada dying in a Kosher supermarket in France, but Dawud Walid, the anti-Semitic spokesman for a hate group closely linked to terrorism over in Michigan.
Is it really a backlash that Muslims fear or a moral reckoning?
In the rush to make bigots like Walid the victims, instead of the actual men and women being murdered in the name of his violent ideology, the hard questions about the connection between the historical Islamic anti-Semitism bandied about by Dawud Walid and the modern massacres of Jews go unasked.
The murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists had its roots in an Islamic political and legal tradition of punishing blasphemy that has continued uninterrupted for over a thousand years. The murder of four Jews in a Kosher supermarket was part of a great Islamic tradition that began with Mohammed. The defenders of the “Prophet” began by killing blasphemers and then continued his work by killing Jews.
Muslims are not the victims of the Hebdo massacre. They are not the victims of mass murder in a Kosher supermarket. They are not the victims of the Sydney Siege.
They are the perpetrators.
When the media rushes to print interviews with Muslims claiming to suddenly be terrified of an imaginary backlash, it is marginalizing and silencing the real victims of Muslim violence who have been the subjects of a Muslim assault for over a thousand years complete with literal lashings.
Not every Muslim supports what happened, but the history and theology of Islam support the ends of silencing blasphemers and killing Jews, if not necessarily the provocative individual means.
The root cause of Islamic violence is Islam. Everything else, from poverty to YouTube videos, is subsidiary at best.
The cries of “Islamophobia” and the claims of a backlash silence the victims of Muslim terror and encourage social blindness to the next Muslim attack against Jews, Christians, Atheists, Hindus, Buddhists and countless others.
The Muslim backlash story is a great media tradition that dates back to at least September 11. While the streets of downtown Manhattan were still streaked with the ashes of the dead, the media began running stories about Muslims who were changing their clothes and putting up American flags out of fear that the maddened patriotic rabble would shortly begin massacring Muslims.
The mass anti-Muslim riots after September 11 never materialized; just as they never materialized after the Sydney Siege in Australia or the latest Muslim massacres in France.
The worst thing the media came up with in Australia, after touting its phony #Illridewithyou hashtag warning that Muslims were being persecuted, was three men and one woman holding up a sign reading, “Death to ISIS; Get Out You Rag-Headed F___s.”
They were immediately interviewed by police on possible charges of Isisphobia.
If the police had been as assertive in going after every Muslim in Australia waving a “Behead all those who insult the Prophet” sign, Australia would have been a lot safer.
And if the Australian media had been as aggressive in going after Sheikh Monis, as it did after a few young men waving Australian flags on a shopping center roof, the murder of two Australians in a café might not have happened.
But instead of fighting Jihadists, the media and politicians are determined to fight the threat of a backlash to Muslim terrorism. The obsession with the backlash however implicitly admits the existence of Islamic terror and sidelines it to instead focus on the reaction to it as the greater threat.
On one side are bodies heaped across Europe and America. On the other is the occasional slice of pork on a mosque door, a little graffiti scrawled on a wall or a dirty look on public transportation.
One is genocide and the other is petty vandalism.
We don’t need any more earnest interviews in which Muslims claim that they are the real victims of Muslim terrorism because they now feel “unwelcome” when the bodies of non-Muslims still lie in the morgue.
Try comparing an “unwelcome” feeling to being dead.
It is that sense of self-pitying Muslim victimization that leads easily to Muslim violence. Violence is often sanctioned by victimhood. That Muslims believe themselves to be the victims is nothing new. The Nazis also believed that they were the victims. So did the Muslim killer in a Kosher supermarket who claimed that ISIS, with its mass rapes and genocidal campaign, was the victim of French intervention.
If European Muslims really want to end atrocities like the ones that took place in Paris, instead of making themselves into the victims, they should examine the complicity of their religion, their politics and their sense of victimization in perpetrating them.
Posted By Patrick Poole On January 12, 2015 @ 2:09 pm
Last week’s terror attack targeting French magazine Charlie Hebdo‘s office in Paris has sparked a global conversation about the nature of free speech, with the “Je Suis Charlie” hashtag in support of the murdered Charlie Hebdo staff going viral and becoming the most used hashtag in the history of Twitter.
But this afternoon, the UN representative for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ufuk Gokcen, was expressing another view with respect to free speech.
The OIC is comprised of the 57 Muslim-majority nations and the Palestinian Authority. They are the largest bloc at the UN, and when they meet on the head-of-state level, they literally speak for the Muslim world.
The timing of Gokcen’s call couldn’t be more perfect.
Today, University of Tennessee law professor Robert Blitt (a colleague of our own Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds) had an oped published in USA Today calling out the OIC for its retrograde views on free speech and how they fuel Islamic extremism:
The OIC, whose member states range from moderate U.S. allies such as Jordan to adversaries such as Iran, describes itself as the world’s largest international body after the United Nations. For more than a decade, “the collective voice of the Muslim world” has spread the belief that any insult directed against the Muslim faith or its prophet demands absolute suppression. Quashing “defamation of Islam” is enshrined as a chief objective in the organization’s charter.
With countless internal resolutions, relentless lobbying of the international community and block voting on resolutions advocating a prohibition on defamation of religion at the U.N., the OIC continuously pushes to silence criticism of Islam.
Translated into practice inside Islamic nations and increasingly elsewhere, this toxic vision breeds contempt for freedom of religion and expression, justifies the killing of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and casts a pall of self-censorship over academia and the arts.
By building the expectation that dissent or insult merits suppression, groups such as the OIC and the Arab League have emboldened extremists to take protection of Islam to the next level. With the most authoritative Muslim voices prepared to denounce violence but not to combat the idea that Islam should be immune from criticism, a meaningful response to counteract the resulting violence continues to be glaringly absent.
An OIC statement released after a 2011 Charlie Hebdo issue “guest-edited” by the prophet Mohammed typifies this troubling position: “Publication of the insulting cartoon … was an outrageous act of incitement and hatred and abuse of freedom of expression. … The publishers and editors of the Charlie Hebdo magazine must assume full responsibility for their … incitement of religious intolerance.”
As Professor Blitt notes in his oped, the OIC has been the international driving force behind the passage of Resolution 16/18, which was co-sponsored by Pakistan and the United States and passed in December 2011.
When passed, Resolution 16/18 was billed by the Obama administration as an improvement over previous “defamation of religion” resolutions. But the effort immediately came under fire from religious liberties and free speech experts:
In the view of veteran international religious liberty analyst and advocate Elizabeth Kendal resolution 16/18, “far from being a breakthrough for free speech … is actually more dangerous than” the religious defamation resolutions.
“Indeed, the strategic shift from defamation to incitement actually advances the OIC’s primary goal: the criminalization of criticism of Islam,” she wrote.
The OIC’s push to criminalize “defamation of Islam” goes back to the OIC’s 10 Year Plan of Action adopted in 2005. Under the section “Countering Islamophobia” (VII), the plan says:
3. Endeavor to have the United Nations adopt an international resolution to counter Islamophobia, and call upon all States to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishments.
In their published implementation plan for their 10 Year Plan of Action, they are more clear that combating “defamation of religion” is not what they were after, but rather criminalizing “Islamophobia”:
Which is effectively what they’ve accomplished with the generous assistance of the Obama administration. Just two months before the passage of Resolution 16/18, senior Justice Department officials were meeting with U.S. Islamic groups discussing that very thing.
And in November 2012, when I reported here that U.S. Embassy in Jeddah Consul General Anne Casper was going to be addressing the OIC’s symposium on “defamation of Islam,” the OIC quickly scrubbed any reference to her appearance.
My colleague Stephen Coughlin has posted a video lecture outlining how the OIC’s efforts with respect to Resolution 16/18 are really rooted in Islamic law’s codes prohibiting blasphemy:
It’s hardly surprising that even after the Charlie Hebdo attack the OIC is not content to abandon their decade-long effort to criminalize “Islamophobia.” But, much as Professor Blitt has warned in his oped today, by doing so they are pushing the global Islamic community further away from the rest of the world.
DOHA, Qatar — Qatar’s top diplomat on Monday dismissed as “just rumors” an Israeli claim that the tiny Gulf nation agreed to expel a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, saying he is a “dear guest” of the energy-rich country.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry last week issued a statement saying it welcomed Qatar’s decision to expel Hamas political bureau head Khaled Mashaal to Turkey. It said the Qatari decision came after heavy diplomatic pressure from Israel.
Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah denied there were any such plans.
“These are just rumors that are targeted at changing Qatar’s policies toward the Palestinian people. Khaled Meshaal is a dear guest in Qatar and he is in his country,” he told reporters in response to a question during a news conference with his visiting Venezuelan counterpart, Delcy Rodriguez.
Hamas officials in both Qatar and Gaza earlier rejected the claim that Mashaal planned to leave Qatar, a member of OPEC that will host the 2022 World Cup.
“The motivation for these rumors,” al-Attiyah added, “is to put pressure on Qatar to change its position on this issue. This is impossible because the Palestinian issue is at the heart of the principles of the country’s foreign policy.”
An Israeli official last week said his government had received word from “official channels” that Qatar had ordered Mashaal’s expulsion.
Israel used to have a trade office in Qatar — effectively a diplomatic outpost — but that was ordered closed following the 2008 Israeli conflict with Hamas. It still maintains low-level relations with the country.
Qatar’s former emir, the father of the current ruler, in 2012 became the first head of state to visit Gaza since Hamas militants seized control in 2007.
The Gulf state has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the seaside territory. Al-Attiyah has previously said his country’s support is not for Hamas but for the Palestinian people.
The Islamic State is moving in on Lebanon. I wonder if they used American-made weaponry. Obama thinks he’s safe because he stood with jihadists in their cartoon jihad and refused to attend the anti-terror rally in France. He wouldn’t even let Holder go and he was in Paris.
But Obama’s sniveling only makes him appear weak and decaying. Easy prey. That means you and me, kids.
“Lebanon interior minister: IS group may have been behind deadly cafe bombing”, January 11, 2015, Associated Press
Men carry an Alawite woman, center, after she fainted during the funeral procession of her relative who was killed at a coffee shop where a suicide bombing struck it Saturday night, in a predominantly Alawite neighborhood of the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2015.
BEIRUT – Lebanese media is quoting the interior minister as saying that “preliminary information” suggests that the militant Islamic State group was behind a suicide bombing in the northern city of Tripoli that killed nine people.
They quoted Nouhad Machnouk as telling reporters after a security meeting on Sunday that “preliminary information indicates that (the Islamic State) is behind the explosion.”
The suicide bomber struck a coffee shop in Tripoli’s predominantly Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, killing nine people and wounding over 30 on Saturday evening.
Syria’s al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front initially claimed responsibility on Twitter for the blast.
Lebanon has seen a series of attacks and suicide bombings since the conflict in Syria, which has killed more than 200,000 people, began nearly four years ago
High Taliban officers in Pakistan and Afghanistan made a vow of allegiance Sunday, Jan. 12 to the Islamic State’s leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi – initiating concord among key groups of the Islamist terror movement in defiance of the values that brought millions out in a mammoth rally of Western unity against terror that day.
The Taliban cemented this unity pact by demonstratively beheading a Pakistani soldier they held prisoner.
This gesture came in rapid sequence after Amedy Coulibaly, the terrorist who on Jan. 9, broke into a kosher supermarket in Paris and murdered four Jews, avowed his adherence to ISIS.
Abu Bakr’s group this month therefore branched out from its Syrian-Iraqi “caliphate” not only into Europe but also into South Asia and across the Middle East.
In the week that Islamist terrorists carried out bloody atrocities in Paris, his jihad of terror was on the offensive and making strategic gains elsewhere:
1. The Islamic State was directly challenging the United States in new arenas – Europe, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
2. Monday, Jan 5, ISIS sent a force to cross into northern Saudi Arabia from Iraq. Three Saudi border guards including Gen. Odah al-Balawi, commander of the regional guard unit, were killed in the clash which took place in the Suwayf region of the Arar district. debkafile’s counter-terror sources draw two disturbing conclusions from these bloody incidents:
Like the Paris attack, which saw Frenchmen attacking Frenchmen, the operation against the oil kingdom was carried out by Saudi nationals who had rallied to the Islamic State’s flag.
Abu Bakr has therefore captured an additional foothold in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.
Secondly, as was also evident in Paris, ISIS, i.e. Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant, and AQAP, i.e. Al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula, are operating in harness. This was also evident from the claim by the Kouachi brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo that they acted in the name of AQAP, in contrast to their associate, Coulibaly.
This cross-alliance, now joined by Taliban, represents an ominous escalation and expansion of the global jihad terror movement and the threat it poses to the United States, the West as a whole, the rest of the Middle East and Israel.
3. Abu Bakr al Baghdad, by his multi-branched terror spectaculars, has managed to seize the primacy of world Al Qaeda, pushing its formal leader Ayman al Zuwahri to the sidelines.
A leftwing organization is complaining that not enough building materials are being let into Gaza, but admits that what goes in is not being used to rebuild Gazan home.
A Hamas policeman walks past trucks loaded with cement which entered the Gaza Strip from Israel through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Photo Credit: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90
It’s difficult to get a handle on the tone of a recent report by the radical left-wing organization Gisha.
In a recent article, they report on how much building materials such as concrete and cement have been brought into Gaza since the end of Operation Protective Edge in August 2014.
Trucks
Tons of Material
Private use (Reconstruction)
722
34,570
Qatar projects
1,496
104,198
International Organization Projects
960
57,636
Totals:
3,178
196,404
Gisha complains that this amount isn’t nearly enough, making up only 3.9% of the amount of building material that Gaza needs to for reconstruction.
They claim that Gaza needs 5 million tons of building materials.
It would appear that Gisha is ignoring the estimated 3 millions tons of concrete rubble already in Gaza that can be recycled and reused for many projects — though that 3 million tons presumably includes the 800,000 tons of concrete originally used to build Gaza’s terror tunnel network that Hamas claims is already being rebuilt.
In the article, Gisha mentions that not a single home from the 20,000 destroyed homes hasbeen rebuilt since the construction material was first allowed back in.
But it is not clear who exactly Gisha is criticizing for that, or what they are implying.
So where did the concrete go?
An Israel Channel 2 reporter spoke with Gazans in December, and they said they haven’t seen any private reconstruction going on, only some main roads.
Based on the international mechanisms that were set up between the UN, Israel and the PA, every individual Gazan whose home was damaged need only fill out a form and they will receive the building materials they need to rebuild.
And yet the left-wing organization Gisha divulges that not a single new home has been rebuilt, despite nearly 35 tons and 722 trucks of construction material being brought in specifically for that purpose.
The Channel 2 reporter asked the Gazans about the construction material they were supposed to receive, and one Gazan in the construction business told him that the Gazans are reselling all their building materials on the black market to buy food and supplies – even though organizations like UNRWA supposedly supply them with the basics.
He claims that individual Gazans can’t afford to rebuild their homes, even after being given all the raw materials for free.
Which brings us back full circle, with one basic question.
Israel is allowing in building materials, more than enough for the Gazans to be rebuilding their homes.
There is enough recyclable construction material in Gaza to last them for years.
Individual Gazans are selling their construction material on the black market (to someone).
Despite the presence of international organizations who are supposed to be in Gaza helping them rebuild and ensuring that building materials do not go to Hamas, no one actually sees any help from them in rebuilding their homes, other than providing them raw material which they resell, presumably to Hamas.
Despite the multiplicity of NGOs supposedly concerned with Gaza, none of those NGOs seem to be helping the Gazans physically rebuild.
Despite having all the raw materials and the manpower, no one in Gaza is helping one another rebuild their homes, and certainly Hamas and the PA, their own government(s), isn’t helping either.
Which leaves us with one question: how many terror tunnels is Hamas currently rebuilding with all the redirected construction materials?
(The opinions expressed in this article are mine, and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or any of its other editors. — DM)
They should welcome Islamic peace, including eternal bliss with their beautiful virgins.
Many more of us await you. Hurry up!
The attacks by adherents to the Religion of “Peace” in France were not the first, nor will they be the last, by “extremists” who live for nothing better than to demonstrate Islamic tolerance by slaughtering blasphemers who mock their “holy prophet” or otherwise insult Islam. We are told, ad nauseam, that they and their cohorts — like the Islamic State — are not Islamic: the Fort Hood massacre was mere “workplace violence” that had nothing to do with Islam, the Islamic Republic of Iran can be trusted with nukes and Saudi Arabia is our friend.
No matter that Major Hasan, a Muslim, yelled “Allah Akbar” while he slaughtered thirteen people and injured thirty more, and now wants to be a citizen of the Islamic State. No matter that there were many more Islamic jihad attacks during 2014.
No matter that Iran has long sought (and may already have) nukes and the death of Israel. Is Iran non-Islamic? No matter that our “ally,” Saudi Arabia, just applied to Raif Badaw the first fifty of the one thousand lashes imposed as part of his punishment for blasphemy for calling for religious freedom and thereby insulting Islam. Is Saudi Arabia non-Islamic?
taught political philosophy at Georgetown University for many years until recently retiring. He is the author of numerous books and countless essays on philosophy, theology, education, morality, and other topics. His most recent book is Reasonable Pleasures: The Strange Coherences of Catholicism (Ignatius Press).
After highlighting only a few of many Islamic murders* and persecutions of Christians, Father Schall contends, quite persuasively, that
In the Quran, there is no mention of the Trinity or Incarnation, except explicitly to deny them. It is blasphemy to believe in them, as well as to question anything connected with the Quran. Allah intends the whole world to observe the Sharia, the Muslim legal code, observing its letter. As soon as it can, this law is imposed in every Muslim land or smaller community, even in democratic states. No distinction between Islam and the state exists. Everyone is born a Muslim. If he is not a Muslim, it is because his parents or teachers corrupted him. It is impossible to convert from Islam to another religion, without grave, often lethal, consequences. [Emphasis added.]
It is not against the Quran to use violence to spread or enforce Islamic law. Those Islam conquers, even from its beginnings till now, it either kills, forces conversion, or imposes second class citizenship. The Islamic State, now so much to the forefront, seems to have the correct understanding of what the Quran intends and advocates. The voluntarist presuppositions of Islamic thought allow what is prohibited to become good. Allah is not bound by the distinction of good and evil. Whatever Allah wills, even if it was the opposite yesterday, is good. [Emphasis added.]
. . . . To most Muslims, the West is itself morally decadent. Many think that the decline of population in the West and the high birth rate of Muslims almost guarantee eventual control of many European countries by Islam. And no talk exists of “converting” Islam by Christians. With Fatima, Reagan and John Paul II could talk of ending the evil empire of the Soviet Union, but the question, “What is Islam?”, is seldom addressed. There is certainly nothing said about really changing Islam, only containing it. [Emphasis added.]
[I]t is possible that Islam will follow its pattern in the early modern world. Much of its recent success has depended on its good fortune with oil and other resources. But no Islamic state or group has been the origin of any properly modern inventions or developments. There seems to be theological reasons for this, as there is no reason to investigate a world that is based solely on the arbitrary will of Allah. Islam lacks any real notion of a natural law or a basis in reason that would allow it to criticize itself and recognize the extremism of many of its own practices, and especially the killings. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
[N]o real basis for the much-appealed-to “dialogue” with Islam seems to exist. Almost all the initiative for dialogue has come from the Christian side. Islam has no central authority. It has no fixed theology except what is in the Quran and attempts to defend its consistency.
Dialogue is looked upon as a sign of weakness unless it can be used to further Muslim goals. In the case of the killings that Coren lists, if they are looked upon as legitimate means, there is no need either to talk about them or to cease their presumed effectiveness in spreading Islam. One cannot really appeal to the Quran to cease these killings, as there is ample reason within it to justify them as worthy means. Had it not been possible to justify these means in the Quran, the whole history of Islam would be different. Indeed, it probably never would have expanded at all. [Emphasis added.]
Speaking at the start of a three-day trip to Turkey, Pope Francis said “terrorist violence” showed no sign of abating in Turkey’s southern neighbours, where Islamist insurgents had declared a caliphate and persecuted Shiite Muslims, Christians and others who do not share their ultra-radical brand of Sunni Islam.
“It is licit, while always respecting international law, to stop an unjust aggressor,” the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said in reference to the Islamic State militants after a meeting with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan.
“What is required is a concerted commitment on the part of all … [to] enable resources to be directed, not to weaponry, but to the other noble battles worthy of man: the fight against hunger and sickness.”[Emphasis added.]
Sure. That should take care of the problem. In an Islamic pig’s eye.
Perhaps Obama and His devotees should read the article, even though it would not likely change their minds even a whit.
Why do many refer to Islamic terrorists as “extremists” or “radicals?” Aren’t they actually Islamists, dedicated to defending their religion against “slander?”
Are Christians and Jews, who actually practice their religions, “extremists” or “radicals?” Aren’t they practicing Christians and Jews? Or are Christians, in the eyes of Obama and His supporters, just bitter little people who cling to their religion or their guns and hate those who are not like them? (That’s a good characterization of Islamists.)
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. [Emphasis added.]
How about the Jews of Israel, who would much rather live in peace with their neighbors than kill or be killed by them? Are they also “bitter clingers?” They cling to life, so they must be, in Obama’s view.
President Obama finally remarked upon the attacks on our consulate in Libya — but was silent on the attack on our embassy in Egypt — and stressed the importance of not disrespecting religion in his speech, something he’s newly concerned about:
While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.
It’s interesting that only when Islamists riot is Obama concerned for religious respect. I assume that Islam is excluded from what is called his ‘war on religion’ as he’s never before shown any concern for the denigration of other faiths. He’s demonstrated none of what he asks these past several years. Who could forget his demeaning characterization of middle America as ‘bitter clingers?’ [Emphasis added.”
Remember Obama’s October 3, 2014 Eid greeting to Muslims around the world?
As our Muslim neighbors and friends gather for Eid celebrations, Muslim Americans are among the millions of pilgrims joining one of the world’s largest and most diverse gatherings. Hajj brings together Muslims from around the world – Sunni and Shiite – to share in reverent prayer, side by side. It serves as a reminder that no matter one’s tribe or sect, race or religion, gender or age, we are equals in humanity.
On Eid, Muslims continue the tradition of donating to the poor and joining efforts with other faith communities in providing assistance to those suffering from hunger, sickness, oppression, and conflict. Their service is a powerful example of the shared roots of the world’s Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together in shared peace, with dignity and a sense of justice. [Emphasis added.]
Is there such a thing as “moderate” Islam of the type to which Obama may have referred? After searching high and low and finding none, Daniel Greenfield finally found an example:
There is no moderate Islam in the mosques or in Mecca. You won’t find it in the Koran or the Hadiths. If you want to find moderate Islam, browse the newspaper editorials after a terrorist attack or take a course on Islamic religion taught by a Unitarian Sociologist wearing fake native jewelry.
You can’t find a moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia or Iran, but you can find it in countless network news specials, articles and books about the two homelands of their respective brands of Islam.
You won’t find the fabled land of moderate Muslims in the east. You won’t even find it in the west. Like all myths it exists in the imagination of those who tell the stories. You won’t find a moderate Islam in the Koran, but you will find it in countless Western books about Islam.
Moderate Islam isn’t what most Muslims believe. It’s what most liberals believe that Muslims believe. [Emphasis in original]
The new multicultural theology of the West is moderate Islam. Moderate Islam is the perfect religion for a secular age since it isn’t a religion at all. [Emphasis added.]
Take Islam, turn it inside out and you have moderate Islam. Take a Muslim who hasn’t been inside a mosque in a year, who can name the entire starting lineup of the San Diego Chargers, but can’t name Mohammed’s companions and you have a moderate Muslim. Or more accurately, a secular Muslim. [Emphasis added.]
Perhaps such secular Muslims are not “bitter clingers.”
Islam and the multicultural “blessings” of “shared peace, with dignity and a sense of justice” (from Obama’s Eid greeting) it brings are rampant in Europe. They could have been avoided but were not, on the apparent theories (a) that there is no evil in the world, (b) that all religions are equally evil, (c) that all religions are equally good and/or (d) that no other evil is even comparable in its insidiousness to Islamophobia.
Some in Europe are learning, but their principal leaders seem to be too dense, too devoted to their ideologies or both, to absorb the lessons of even recent history. French President Hollande decried “racism and anti-Semitism” and proclaimed that the Islamic attacks in France had “nothing to do with Islam.” Apparently, in his twisted view, “true” Islam rejects racism and “antisemitism.” This Islamic preacher must not be Islamic.
In similar vein, a Palestinian envoy to Iran recently “said that ‘Israel is a cancer’ that ‘will be destroyed.”
Islamists throughout the world are as antisemitic as they are anti-Christian and appear to be proud of it.
Here are five more short videos:
Appeasement (is that another name for multiculturalism?) is not a viable solution; it merely postpones evil until it become stronger and multitudes are slaughtered, unnecessarily. Unfortunately many of us, as well as many of our “leaders,” have yet to learn the lessons of history; hence appeasement continues to be the preferred, but most deadly, response to evil.
Meanwhile, Obama and all too many leading RINOs insist that massive immigration must continue in the United States and that amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the there is good. I have found no credible statistics suggesting the numbers of Islamists or other murderers among actual and potential illegal immigrants, but their numbers cannot rationally be assumed to be insignificant. Nor can it be assumed that the apparent hopes of our “leaders” that all will turn out just fine will be realized; it may all depend on their definitions of “just fine.” It can reasonably be assumed that the Obama Nation is galloping, and will continue to gallop, down a path similar to that trod by Europe and that the consequences will be comparable in lives and freedoms lost, to say nothing of the financial burdens incurred by Federal, State and local governments and, of course, their citizens.
– AFDI denounces the crippling rules of engagement under which our soldiers are forced to labor. They should be given the freedom to defend themselves and protect their comrades.
— AFDI calls for profiling of Muslims at airports and in hiring in professions in which national security and public safety could be compromised.
— AFDI calls for immediate investigation into foreign mosque funding in the West and for new legislation making foreign funding of mosques in non-Muslim nations illegal.
— AFDI calls for surveillance of mosques and regular inspections of mosques in the U.S. and other non-Muslim nations to look for pro-violence materials. Any mosque advocating jihad or any aspects of Sharia that conflict with Constitutional freedoms and protections should be closed.
— AFDI calls for curriculum and Islam-related materials in textbooks and museums to describe the Islamic doctrine and history accurately, including its violent doctrines and 1,400-year war against unbelievers.
— AFDI calls for a halt of foreign aid to Islamic nations with Sharia-based constitutions and/or governments.
– AFDI denounces the use of Sharia law in any Western court or nation.
– AFDI advocates deportation hearings against non-citizens who promote jihad in our nations.
– AFDI calls for an immediate halt of immigration by Muslims into nations that do not currently have a Muslim majority population.
— AFDI calls for laws providing that anyone seeking citizenship in the United States should be asked if he or she supports Sharia law, and investigated for ties to pro-Sharia groups. If so, citizenship should not be granted.
– AFDI calls for the cancellation of citizenship or permanent residency status for anyone who leaves the country of his residence to travel for the purpose of engaging in jihad activity, and for the refusal of reentry into his country of residence after that jihad activity.
— AFDI calls careful investigation of Muslims resident in non-Muslim country who have obtained naturalized citizenship or permanent residency status, to ensure that that status was not obtained under false pretenses.
— AFDI calls for the designation of the following as grounds for immediate deportation: fomenting, plotting, financing, attempting or carrying out jihad attacks; encouraging or threatening or attempting to carry out the punishments Islamic law mandates for apostasy, adultery, blasphemy, fornication or theft; threatening or attempting or carrying out honor murders, forced marriage, underage marriage, female genital mutilation, or polygamy.
— AFDI calls for the U.S. and other free nations to have jihad, as it is traditionally understood in Islamic jurisprudence to involve warfare against and subjugation of non-Muslims, declared a crime against humanity at the U.N., or to withdraw from the U.N. and have its headquarters moved to a Muslim nation.
– AFDI calls for legislating making illegal the foreign funding of Islamic Studies departments and faculty positions in our universities.
– AFDI demands the repeal of U.N. resolution 16/18 and any other resolutions that might limit the freedom of speech.
– AFDI calls for all Muslim chaplains in prisons and the military to be thoroughly vetted, and dismissed if they have ties to any Islamic supremacist group, or if they advocate jihad.
– AFDI calls for the development of energy policies that will free us from dependence upon oil from Muslim countries.
Through SION, AFDI establishes a common American / European coalition of free people determined to stand for freedom and oppose the advance of Islamic law, Sharia. Islamic law is not simply a religious system, but a political system that encompasses every aspect of life; is authoritarian, discriminatory, and repressive; and contradicts Western laws and principles in numerous particulars. SION respects Muslims as fellow human beings and rejects Islamization as a comprehensive political, religious, cultural and social system of behavior and ideology.
AFDI and SION stand for:
— The freedom of speech – as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of “blasphemy” and “slander,” which are used effectively to quash honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;
— The freedom of conscience – as opposed to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy;
— The equality of rights of all people before the law – as opposed to Sharia’s institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims.
Here’s a link to an essay by Allen West proposing much the same. It’s well worth reading.
The Obama Nation won’t take any of the suggested steps, of course, and no European nation seems likely to; they are too preoccupied with fighting Islamophobia and pursuing the “blessings” of multiculturalism. However, it’s worth pushing hard for. After all, it’s more humane than giving Islamists the “peace” they claim to want, wholesale, and sending them to their virgins.
In the meantime, let’s load up on neat gifts and get ready for a merry Christmas.
_________________
*An exhaustive list of Christians slaughtered during November of 2014 is available in an article titled Christians Burned Alive, published on January 10, 2015 by the Gatestone Institute.
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