When posted the video of Mordechai Kedar speaking on Al-Jazeera TV, I only had a subtitled version of a 2 minute segment. I noted that I didn’t have the full video with English subtitles and that I would update if I found it.
Reader Gideon Kantorovich very kindly sent me the video of the full interview (10 minutes) complete with English subtitles, which I hereby post below.
Enjoy Mordechai Kedar’s wit and his deep knowledge of Islam and Arab culture:
(Please see also, Islamists Responsible for Rohingya Refugee Crisis. — DM)
The establishment media continues to portray the Rohingya Muslims as the victims of “Buddhist terror.” Reality, as always, is not so simple.
“Myanmar searches for more Hindu corpses as mass grave unearthed,” SBS, September 25, 2017 (thanks to K.):
Violence has periodically cut through the western state, where communal rivalries have been sharpened by British colonial meddling, chicanery by Myanmar’s army and fierce dispute over who does — and does not — belong in Rakhine.
But the events of August 25, when raids by Rohingya militants unleashed a swirl of violence across the north, have sunk Rakhine to new depths of hate.
“All of our family died at the village… we will not go back,” said Chaw Shaw Chaw Thee, one of hundreds of displaced Hindus seeking shelter in the state capital Sittwe.
Bangladesh’s army was ordered Wednesday to take a bigger role helping hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have fled violence in Myanmar, amid warnings it could take six months to register the new refugees.
The 20-year-old said she lost 23 family members as Rohingya militants swarmed the clutch of Hindu villages in Kha Maung Seik, near the Bangladesh border.
On Sunday the army said 28 badly-decomposed bodies of Hindu men, women and children had been pulled from two mass graves in the same area.
It was not immediately clear if they belonged to Chaw Shaw Chaw Thee’s family.
Heavily pregnant when she fled, she gave birth at a disused football stadium in Sittwe, where hundreds of traumatised Hindus now sleep on grubby mats in the overcrowded concourse.
An army lockdown has made it impossible to independently verify what happened in the villages of northern Rakhine, an area dominated by Rohingya Muslims who are a minority elsewhere in the mainly Buddhist country.
But allegations, carved along ethnic lines, are spinning out as conspiracy and competing identity claims override empathy between former neighbours.
Hindus, who make up less than one percent of Rakhine’s population, accuse Rohingya of massacring them, burning their homes and kidnapping women for marriage….
“We were barbers for Muslims, our women sold things in Muslim villages, I had Muslim friends, we had no problems,” said Kyaw Kyaw Naing, a 34-year-old Hindu who can dance across linguistic divides in Hindi, Rakhine, Burmese and Rohingya.
Community ties in what is also Myanmar’s poorest state have now unravelled.
“We want to go back, but we will not if the Muslims are there.”
Update on Al-Aqsa unrest | Anne’s Opinions, 21st July 2017
Just a quick update with what’s been happening today on the Temple Mount and Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa.
Last night, as the cabinet discussed the measures to be taken on the Temple Mount, the Arabs continued to riot violence, leaving 42 Arabs and 5 policemen injured:
Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said Palestinians threw rocks and glass bottles at the officers outside the Old City’s Lions Gate following evening prayers. Police responded with tear gas and riot dispersal methods. Samri said 5 officers were hurt.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that 36 of the protesters were taken to the hospital for treatment. Two of them were in serious condition after being hit by rubber bullets.
As I mentioned last night, Israelis were worried that our government would cave in to pressure to remove the metal detectors at the entrance to Al-Aqsa. Thankfully, the cabinet did NOT surrender.
The Political-Security Cabinet decided on Thursday night, after a four-hour meeting, that the magnetometers will remain at the entrance to the Temple Mount as part of the new security measures at the compound. The decision was taken the evening before the Friday prayerrs at the site, when large numbers of Muslims ascend the Mount..
The Cabinet also authorized the police to make every decision “in order to ensure free access to the holy places, while maintaining security and public order” on the Temple Mount.
“Israel is committed to maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount and the freedom of access to the holy sites. Israel is committed to protecting the safety of all worshipers and visitors to the Temple Mount,” said a statement.
…
Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Channel 2 News in an interview that the metal detectors must remain on the Temple Mount because “the security interest in preventing future attacks in the wake of a desire to imitate what happened [last week] has to prevail.”
“We must continue to install them (the metal detectors) on all roads to the Temple Mount. If the Shin Bet is opposed to the security measures, then it should offer alternatives, and that did not happen.”
They also instructed to prevent under-50 year old men from entering the Mosque. Yisrael Katz, Likud Minister for Transportation, said “we won’t concede our sovereignty on the Temple Mount“.
Israeli Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud), who serves as a member of Israel’s Secrity Cabinet, on Friday said that the Cabinet decided to keep magnetometers on the Temple Mount and did not leave the decision up to the police.
“The Temple Mount is in our hands,” Katz said, quoting the soldiers who liberated Jerusalem’s Old City during the Six Day War. “We will not cede sovereignty. The State of Israel is responsible for preserving law and order on the Temple Mount.””Contrary to reports, the Security Cabinet decided to continue using every security precaution which was begun immediately following the despicable terror attack, including the use of metal detectors. The State of Israel is responsible for implementing this policy.”
Earlier on Friday, Israel Police announced that entry to the Old City and the Temple Mount would be closed to men below the age of 50, and that private vehicles would not be allowed to enter the Old City or the nearby Sultan Suleiman Street.
The police also closed certain roads around the Old City area:
Following internal police consultations on Friday morning, Jerusalem Police chief Yoram Halevy ordered the continued operation of the metal detectors and restricted entry to young men, allowing only those over 50 or women of any age to enter the Old City.
Muslim worshipers perform noon prayers by the Lions Gate, outside the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City, July 20, 2017. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Checkpoints at the entrances to Jerusalem will also be bolstered, as well as police patrols in the alleyways of the Old City and on paths taken by Jewish and Muslim worshipers to the Temple Mount and Western Wall.
Police also announced that some roads around the Old City will be closed to vehicles, including Sultan Suleiman Street and various circumference roads in the Old City basin.
Halevy issued a special notice to officers posted at the metal detectors “emphasizing the importance of ensuring the dignity of the worshipers” as they pass through the gates.
It is important to note that the directive emanated from the government to the police. If the choice had been left up to the police themselves, they might well have removed the magnetometers simply in order to “keep the peace”. This is certainly a short-term measure but that is how the police operate if left to their own devices. But they would not act against government directives. This is the way the government should act also regarding Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount – they should instruct the police to permit it, and it is up to the police then to enforce those rights.
In protest, the Mufti of Jerusalem called on Muslims to pray outside the Mosque rather than go through the security gates. I’m pretty sure that suits us all fine. It leaves the Temple Mount free for the Jews, and the Muslims can pray wherever they want.
Muslims pray outside Al-Aqsa, pointing their backsides towards the mosque
A win-win situation for all, as long as the Muslims stop their rioting.
I will update here if there is any more news before Shabbat.
UPDATE: 3 Palestinians killed, 200 injured in further riots.
Time for a Terrorism Accord, Not a Climate Accord, PJ Media, Roger L Simon, June 3, 2017
(Another pleasing idea that won’t likely be tried and, if tried, won’t work. “America First” can work and, if given a chance, should. The Supreme Court is about to consider President Trump’s “Muslim ban” executive order. Perhaps recent events in Europe and England will push enough justices to reinstate it.That will at least be a step in the right direction. Please see also, Supreme Court Expedites Trump’s Petition on Executive Order Case. — DM)
[T]he recent Paris climate accord is not only based on bad or “cooked” Climategate science, it is a deliberate conscious/unconscious deflection from the genuine “present danger” in front of us. It is no more than obfuscation allowing moral narcissists to feel good about themselves, virtue signaling about an environmental armageddon that hasn’t happened and may never happen while, in real life, people are actually murdered on London bridges and in Cairo churches.
**************************
Yes, there’s a threat to civilization and it’s not global warming, manmade or otherwise. And anyone who isn’t comatose should know what it is.
Islam, like cancer, needs a cure. And we all have to participate in the search for one before it’s too late.
Yes, this is about Islam, not “radical” Islam or some other off-shoot, real or imagined, because the tenets that have inspired the non-stop spate of terrorism across the world in recent years are spelled out clearly in sections of the Koran and the Hadith and other holy works of Islam. They provide justification for ISIS and a hundred other groups that may or may not replace them, now and in the future. This cannot continue — unless we really do want to destroy ourselves.
To be clear, this is not about bad people (many Muslims are fine human beings), but about a malignant ideology from the seventh century that must be expunged for the survival of all.
But the majority of Western leaders don’t want to know that. In fact, I’d wager that most have not even bothered to educate themselves in any serious way about Islam nearly sixteen years after 9/11 and with all the constant carnage that has gone on since and has been increasing significantly, not just in London and Manchester but virtually everywhere.
These Westerners are not only willfully blind, they are suicidal. But we cannot let them commit suicide for the rest of us. They have to go.
Similarly, the recent Paris climate accord is not only based on bad or “cooked” Climategate science, it is a deliberate conscious/unconscious deflection from the genuine “present danger” in front of us. It is no more than obfuscation allowing moral narcissists to feel good about themselves, virtue signaling about an environmental armageddon that hasn’t happened and may never happen while, in real life, people are actually murdered on London bridges and in Cairo churches.
What we need now is an international terrorism accord — and, unlike the climate accord, a binding one — that would commit the world, including the Muslim nations themselves, to the complete reformation of Islam that is the necessary basis for an end to this terrorism.
President Trump made a good start in Riyadh in his address to the Sunni leaders, but we must go much further. It is correct that the Islamic world should be the ones to change their religion, but the rest of us on the planet are too affected by the results to stand by and wait. From the horrifying (London this weekend) to the daily (the constant of indignity of being scanned at airports, concerts, museums, etc.), we are all victims of Islamic ideology. We have a right, indeed an obligation, to participate in and demand its change. Otherwise, it will only get worse.
Since Trump had the courage to open the discussion in Saudi Arabia, he should attempt to expand the dialogue and create this global accord. Egypt’s el-Sisi would be a good partner because he already had the guts to criticize his own religion. All should be invited, even those who would never come (like the mullahs). All must confront the question of why Islam, unique among the world’s religions today, has so much violence committed in its name. What is it about Islam that attracts this? What therefore has to be changed, both in behavior and ideology?
The event should be public, with Islam ultimately made to pledge itself to human rights as accepted by the West — equal rights for women and homosexuals, separation of church (mosque) and state, no discrimination based on race or religion (why no churches allowed in Saudi Arabia?), etc. — not the absurd Orwellian version of human rights promulgated the UN Human Rights Council.
This demand should be made to all quarters of the Islamic world with economic punishment applied if necessary. The time for diplomatic politesse is long over. Islam must be forced to join modernity. Reactionary multiculturalists among us must be ignored, along with their hypocritical (and nonsensical) belief that all religions are equal. To do otherwise would be to treat Muslim people like children. And that is what the West has been doing for some time — with atrocious results for all.
H/t Power Line
H/t Power Line article about Fidel Castro
Fidel’s last cigar
H/t Freedom is Just Another Word
H/t Joop
UNESCO Shmunesco: denying history one fact at a time | Anne’s Opinions, 13th October 2016
(In UNESCO-World, black is white, up is down and Jerusalem has no connection to Judaism or Christianity. The mind boggles.– anneinpt)
The Kotel – to be renamed as the Muslim site Al Buraq according to UNESCO
It looks like Yom Kippur came a day too early for the UN, who have yet more apologizing and atoning to do. UNESCO voted today to deny any Jewish connection to Jerusalem. Yes, you read that right.
The UN passed a resolution Thursday denying the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall
The resolution was supported by 24 states, including Russia and China. 6 countries opposed and 26 abstained.
The resolution maintains that the Western Wall and Temple Mount will be referred to by their Arabic names and the Hebrew terms for the sites will only appear in quotation marks in UN references.
Earlier Israel had tried to prevent the decision, even asking the Vatican to help prevent the resolution. The Vatican enjoys observer status in UNESCO.
This vote differs only marginally, and more egregiously, from a previous vote taken in April: From the first link:
In a recent UNESCO meeting, Arab states and the Palestinian Authority have pushed a new resolution, explicitly describing the Temple Mount as an exclusively Muslim holy site, referring to the site of both ancient Jewish temples by its Arabic name: Haram a-Sharif.
This time, however, the proposed UNESCO resolution also touches upon the Western Wall that surrounds the Temple Mount. Like the Temple Mount, the Western Wall is also referred to by the Arabic name, with the Hebrew name included in brackets.
Israeli diplomats called the move an attempt to discredit the ancient Jewish connection to the Western Wall in the eyes of the international community.
The resolution does recognize the importance of Jerusalem in general to the three major Abrahamic faiths, but observers noted that this was likely an attempt to make an otherwise transparently anti-Israel measure appear more balanced. The order of faiths mentioned in connection to Jerusalem is Islam, Christianity, and Judaism last.
It seems that UNESCO just can’t get enough of denying Judaism’s connection to its holiest site and capital city.
If you want to get a glimpse of the insanity, take a look at Israellycool who posts the draft resolution – which in my anger I read as “daft resolution” which is surely a better descriptor. Some of the highlights:
Deeply deplores the failure of Israel, the occupying Power, to cease the persistent excavations and works in East Jerusalem particularly in and around the Old City, and reiterates its request to Israel, the occupying Power, to prohibit all such works in conformity with its obligations under the provisions of the relevant UNESCO conventions, resolutions and decisions;
Excuse me? Who is illegally excavating and destroying priceless artefacts from the First and Second Temple period? The Waqf, on the Temple Mount, that’s who! If Israel is responsible for any failure, it is of failing to stop the Waqf and throw them out for destroying our heritage and that of Christianity.
Calls on Israel, the occupying Power, to allow for the restoration of the historic status quo that prevailed until September 2000, under which the Jordanian Awqaf (Religious Foundation) Department exercised exclusive authority on Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif, and its mandate extended to all affairs relating to the unimpeded administration of Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif, including maintenance, restoration and regulating access;
I was not aware that the status quo had been changed. In fact the only people changing the status quo are the Waqf themselves who refuse to allow the slightest sign of Jewish prayer, and hardly a Jewish presence at all, on the Temple Mount. Again the Israeli police and government are complicit in this Waqf denial of religious rights, but since it is anti-Jewish denial I am surprised that UNESCO are objecting! (I am being sarcastic here in case anyone misses my British sense of humour).
Firmly deplores the continuous storming of Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif by Israeli right-wing extremists and uniformed forces, and urges Israel, the occupying Power, to take necessary measures to prevent provocative abuses that violate the sanctity and integrity of Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif;
Let’s have a look at those storming Jews:
“Storming” Jews on the Temple Mount. Some storm!
I do not think “storming” means what you think it means.
Deprecates the continuing Israeli unilateral measures and decisions regarding the Ascent to the Mughrabi Gate, including the latest works conducted at the Mughrabi Gate entrance in February 2015, the instalment of an umbrella at that entrance as well as the enforced creation of a new Jewish prayer platform south of the Mughrabi Ascent in Al-Buraq Plaza “Western Wall Plaza”, and the removal of the Islamic remains at the site, and reaffirms that no Israeli unilateral measures, shall be taken in conformity with its status and obligations under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict;
OK, as soon as I saw the words “Al Buraq” I stopped reading. Anyone who believes in a flying horse but not in the retaining wall of Solomon’s Temple needs their head examined.
Israellycool remarks:
For our part, Israel’s Mission to UNESCO in Paris has given board members and international diplomats a brochure detailing the deep historical connections Judaism has to those sites. You can see the brochure here.
“These facts and evidence will leave no doubt, and without undermining other connection of other religions to the holy places in Jerusalem, of the deepest and longest Jewish presence in Jerusalem since ancient times,” Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen wrote.
It has come to this, Israel having to send out brochures to somehow prove our connection to sites Jews have been praying, crying and mourning at for thousands of years? I doubt a glossy brochure will convince anyone who does not already see the truth.
I think it is pathetic that Israel has to give out brochures to explain the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Since this connection forms the core basis of Judaeo-Christian Western civilization, anyone who does not know is not interested in knowing, and no amount of propaganda or educational leaflets will change their minds.
In my opinion Israel should make a dignified withdrawal from UNESCO and cut off all contact with that corrupt, absurd, ridiculous and shameful organization. When they come to their senses, maybe we can consider returning. I can see absolutely no upside to belonging to an institution that not only denies history, but denies current events that are taking place in full view of the international media in real time.
As I type these words I can hear the banging and clanging of Sukkot being built in our parking lot, as well as in neighbours’ gardens. On Sunday night the festival of Sukkot will begin, one of the three pilgrimage festivals when the ancient Jews made their way to – gasp – Jerusalem! To – gasp! – The Temple! Not to Haram al Sharif. Not to Al Aqsa. The Temple.
Their they brought offerings from their harvest to give thanks to G-d for His bounty. The offerings were presented, not to Sheikhs and Imams at the al Aqsa Mosque but to the Priests, the Cohanim, in the Temple, there on that very same Temple Mount, the Har Habayit.
No amount of renaming sites and rewriting history will change those facts.
Shame on the UN, shame on UNESCO and shame on every one of those countries who voted yes and even those who abstained. (What? They couldn’t make up their minds? My mind boggles).
My mother had a good suggestion: Let us present a draft resolution that Mecca is a holiday spa in Arabia. Let’s see how they like that!
Here is a selection of Twitter reactions:
I’ll let the final word go to the Board of Deputies of British Jews:
Jihadists Target Spain “The actions of your ancestors are the reason for our actions today.”
by Soeren Kern
September 27, 2016 at 5:00 am
Source: Jihadists Target Spain: “The actions of your ancestors are the reason for our actions today.”
Islamic militants are stepping up a propaganda war against Spain. In recent months, Islamic State and other jihadist groups have produced a flurry of videos and documents calling on Muslims to reconquer al-Andalus.
Al-Andalus is the Arabic name given to those parts of Spain, Portugal and France occupied by Muslim conquerors (also known as the Moors) from 711 to 1492. Many Muslims believe that territories Muslims lost during the Christian Reconquest of Spain still belong to the realm of Islam. They claim that Islamic law gives them the right to re-establish Muslim rule there.
A recent Islamic State document includes a list of grievances against Spain for wrongs done to Muslims since the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa on July 16, 1212, when the Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile routed the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. More than 100,000 Muslims were killed in the battle, which was a key victory in the Catholic Monarchs’ “Reconquista” of Spain.
The document said that since the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, Spain “has done everything to destroy the Koran.” It said that Spain tortured Muslims, including burning them alive. Therefore, according to the Islamic State, “Spain is a criminal state that usurps our land.” The document calls on jihadists to “reconnoiter airline and train routes for attacks.” It also calls on followers to “poison food and water” with insecticides.
The document concludes: “The actions of your ancestors are the reason for our actions today.”
On July 15, 2016, Islamic State released its first propaganda video with Spanish subtitles. The high quality of the Spanish translation, both in writing and in syntax, led some analysts to conclude that that the translator’s mother tongue is Spanish and that the subtitling may even have been done inside Spain.
On June 3, Islamic State released a video — “Month of Ramadan, Month of Conquest” — which mentions al-Andalus four times. Spain is the only non-Muslim country mentioned in the video.
On May 30, Islamic State released a two-page document in Spanish in which it issued threats directly against Spain. The document states:
“We will kill any ‘innocent’ Spanish infidel we find in Muslim lands, and if not we will reach your land. Our religion and our faith lives among you, and even though you do not know our names or what we look like and do not even know whether we are European in origin or not, we will kill you in your cities and towns according to our plan, in the same way that you are killing our families.”
On January 31, Islamic State released a video in which one of its Spanish jihadists warned Spain that it would “pay a very heavy price” for expelling Muslims from al-Andalus. The eight-minute video included the following statement:
“I swear by Allah that you will pay a very heavy price and your demise will be very painful. We will recover al-Andalus, Allah willing. Oh dear Andalus! You thought we forgot about you. I swear by Allah we have never forgotten you. No Muslim can forget Córdoba, Toledo or Xàtiva. There are many faithful and sincere Muslims who swear they will return to al-Andalus.”
 An armed, masked Islamic State jihadist appears in a propaganda video, where he warns Spain that it would “pay a very heavy price” for expelling Muslims from al-Andalus hundreds of years ago. The Spanish subtitle above reads “Oh dear Andalus! You thought we forgot about you. I swear by Allah we have never forgotten you. No Muslim can forget Córdoba, Toledo or Xàtiva.” |
On January 7, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which is fighting Islamic State for hegemony of North Africa, released a video calling for jihadist attacks in Madrid as a strategy to help Muslims recover the Spanish North African exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
Another Islamic State video vowed to liberate al-Andalus from non-Muslims. A jihadist speaking in Spanish with a heavy North African accent said:
“I say to the entire world as a warning: We are living under the Islamic flag, the Islamic caliphate. We will die for it until we liberate those occupied lands, from Jakarta to Andalusia. And I declare: Spain is the land of our forefathers and we are going to take it back with the power of Allah.”
Meanwhile, 33 jihadists were arrested in Spain in 17 different raids during the first nine months of 2016, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry.
Most recently, two Spanish citizens of Moroccan origin — Karim El Idrissi Soussi, 27, and a second man identified as 18-year-old O.S.A.A — were arrested in Madrid on jihad terror charges. One of the detainees is a 27-year-old computer science student who watched jihadist propaganda videos in class and threatened to massacre his fellow students.
According to the Interior Ministry, Soussi tried to join the Islamic State but was detained by Turkish authorities while attempting to cross the border into Syria. He was deported and just recently returned to Spain.
The Interior Ministry said Soussi’s penchant for radical Islam became evident in November 2015, when the secondary school where he was studying computer science held a moment of silence to honor the victims of the jihadist attacks in Paris. According to teachers and students, Soussi shouted slogans in support of the attacks which killed 130 people, including 89 at the Bataclan Theater.
On other occasions, Soussi publicly justified jihadist attacks by Islamic State, which he said was the ideal form of government for all Muslims. According to the Interior Ministry, Soussi visited a public library almost daily to connect to the internet and browse jihadist websites. He allegedly created fake profiles and posted jihadist material on social media sites. Soussi also criticized so-called moderate Muslims and expressed hope that someday Spain would become an Islamic emirate.
Soussi allegedly watched Islamic State propaganda videos during his computer science class and repeatedly threatened to bring weapons to school to kill his classmates.
The other jihadist, O.S.A.A., was arrested for the offenses of “glorifying jihadist terrorism” and “self-indoctrination for terrorist purposes.” The Interior Ministry did not provide further details.
A total of 636 jihadists have been detained in the country since the March 2004 Madrid train bombings, in which nearly 200 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured.
A recent study by the Madrid-based Elcano Institute found that of the 150 jihadists arrested in Spain during the past four years, 124 (81.6%) were linked to Islamic State and 26 (18.4%) to al-Qaeda.
Of those linked to Islamic State, 45.3% were Spanish citizens, 41.1% were Moroccans and 13.6% had other nationalities. In terms of birth, 45.6% were born in Morocco and 39.1% were born in Spain. Only 15.3% were born in other countries.
In terms of immigration, 51.7% were first-generation immigrants, 42.2% were second- or third-generation immigrants, and 6.1% had no immigration background, which implies they are Spanish converts to Islam.
In terms of residency, 29.8% were arrested in Barcelona, 22.1% in Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta, and 15.3% in Madrid. The others were arrested in more than a dozen other localities across the country.
Islamic State has suffered setbacks on the battlefields of the Middle East, but the jihadist terror threat remains undiminished. In the words of Spanish terrorism analyst Florentino Portero: “Islamic State is answering military defeats with more terror.”
The Left vs Israel, Israel Hayom, Daniel Pipes, June 1, 2016
Since the creation of Israel, Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims have been the mainstay of anti-Zionism, with the Left, from the Soviet Union to professors of literature, their auxiliary. But this might be in process of change: As Muslims slowly, grudgingly, and unevenly come to accept the Jewish state as a reality, the Left is becoming increasingly vociferous and obsessive in its rejection of Israel.
Much evidence points in this direction: Polls in the Middle East find cracks in the opposition to Israel while a major American survey for the first time shows liberal Democrats to be more anti-Israel than pro-Israel. The Saudi and Egyptian governments have real security relations with Israel while a figure like (the Jewish) Bernie Sanders declares that “to the degree that [Israelis] want us to have a positive relationship, I think they’re going to have to improve their relationship with the Palestinians.”
But I should like to focus on a small illustrative example from a United Nations institution: The World Health Organization churned out report A69/B/CONF./1 on May 24 with the enticing title, “Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan: Draft decision proposed by the delegation of Kuwait, on behalf of the Arab Group, and Palestine.”
The three-page document calls for “a field assessment conducted by the World Health Organization,” with special focus on such topics as “incidents of delay or denial of ambulance service” and “access to adequate health services on the part of Palestinian prisoners.” Of course, the entire document singles out Israel as a denier of unimpeded access to health care.
This ranks as a special absurdity given the WHO’s hiring a consultant in next-door Syria who is connected to the very pinnacle of the Assad regime, even as it perpetrates atrocities estimated at a half million dead and 12 million displaced (out of a total prewar population of 22 million). Conversely, both the wife and brother-in-law of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority, whose status and wealth assures them treatment anywhere in the world, chose to be treated in Israeli hospitals, as did the sister, daughter, and granddaughter of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza, Israel’s sworn enemy.
Despite these facts, the WHO voted on May 28 to accept the proposed field assessment with the predictably lopsided outcome of 107 votes in favor, eight votes against, eight abstentions and 58 absences. So far, all this is tediously routine.
But the composition of those voting blocs renders the decision noteworthy. Votes in favor included every state in Europe except two, Bosnia-Herzegovina (which has a half-Muslim population) and San Marino (total population: 33,000), both of which missed the vote for reasons unknown to me.
To repeat: Every other European government than those two supported a biased field assessment with its inevitable condemnation of Israel. To be specific, this included the authorities ruling in Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Making this European near-unanimity the more remarkable were the many absented governments with large- to overwhelming-majority-Muslim populations: Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, and Turkmenistan.
So, Iceland (with effectively no Muslims) voted for the amendment and against Israel while Turkmenistan (which is over 90% Muslim) did not. Cyprus and Greece, which have critical new relations with Israel, voted against Israel while the historically hostile Libyans missed the vote. Germany, with its malignant history, voted against Israel while Tajikistan, a partner of the Iranian regime’s, was absent. Denmark, with its noble history, voted against Israel while Sudan, led by an Islamist, did not.
This unlikely pattern suggests that monolithic Muslim hostility is cracking while Europeans, who are overwhelmingly on the Left, to the point that even right-wing parties pursue watered-down left-wing policies, increasingly despise Israel. Worse, even those who do not share this attitude go along with it, even in an obscure WHO vote.
Muslims, not leftists, still staff almost all the violent attacks on Israel; and Islamism, not socialism, remains the reigning anti-Zionist ideology. But these changes point to Israel’s cooling relations with the West and warming ones in its neighborhood.
The loss of Jewish rights on the Temple Mount – cause and effect | Anne’s Opinions, 18th April 2016
(“Appeasing the crocodile, hoping to be eaten last” is the truest description of the weak-willed appeasement by the Israeli government of Muslim intimidation in Jerusalem, and on the Temple Mount in particular. How can we in Israel expect the world to stand up for us when we ourselves do not stand up for our own rights? And how can we expect the West to contend with radical supremacist Islam when our own, ostensibly right-wing Israeli government is so eager to appease the Muslims at the expense of the Jews? –anneinpt).
I know that I go on a bit (OK, a lot) about Israeli sovereignty in Israel, including Judea and Samaria, and Jewish rights on the Temple Mount in particular, but this week the cause and effect of not enforcing our own sovereignty was highlighted in startling clarity.
It started with Joint Arab List MK Jamal Zahalka who warned Israel against allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount on their holy festival of Pesach (Passover), sinisterly reminding Israel of the death toll of the Second Intifada – although of course the racist MK only mentioned Arab deaths and not the 1,000 Israeli victims:
A day after he returned from a two-month suspension from the Knesset, Israeli Arab MK Jamal Zahalka (Joint List) made a call to the Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount complex “in any way possible.”
“In light of the daily increase of (Jewish) ascent to the Aksa Mosque, it is up to us to stop it in any way possible,” he told the Palestinian site Dunya al-Watan on Wednesday, ahead of next week’s Passover holiday in which Jews flock to Jerusalem’s holy sites.
How Palestinians protect Al Aqsa – with stones to throw at the Jewish worshippers at the Kotel
In his remarks, Zahalka, who leads the Balad party in the four-party Joint List alliance, said “the Palestinian people paid the price of 4,000 deaths in the second intifada in the year 2000.”
He lied brazenly with the following outrageous claim:
“Our people have the right to the mosque, and we must protect it with all of our power. The Palestinian nation is the guardian of the mosque,” he said in the interview published Thursday.
Of course the Palestinians (not a nation in any event) are nothing of the sort. If anyone is the official guardian it is Jordan.
Zahalka charged that the continuation of the alleged uptick of Jewish visits to the site would ignite the next collective Palestinian uprising against Israel.
He added that “the increase in Jews who go up will cause the third intifada to break out and continue throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem depending on which Palestinian organizations join in the fighting.”
It is quite obvious that Zahalka is itching to be suspended yet again, and is probably also angling to be the next Palestinian inciter-in-chief, I mean President for Life. The man is beyond a disgrace, and it is an outrage that he is permitted to sit in the (Zionist) Knesset while at the same time undermining his own country’s very existence and raison d’etre.
PM Binyamin Netanyahu’s pathetic response was to ask the Attorney General to investigate if Zahalka’s statement was incitement. What is to consider? Have we no brains to think for ourselves?
Zahalka only plays into the reigning conspiracy theories of “Israeli settler storming invasions” of the Al Aqsa and inflames matters even more. Elder of Ziyon has the story of what would be a hilariously misunderstood event if it weren’t so deadly dangerous. The site QPress ominously warned of “settlers in white uniforms storming Al Aqsa“. Look for yourselves at the absurdity of it all, and then let it sink in how pathetically gullible and willing to be enraged are the Muslims:
White shirts are apparently a “settler uniform” now, according to QPress, which puts up regular videos of Jews “storming Al Aqsa Mosque” and “attempting to perform Talmudic rituals.”
Here was the white uniform scene:
I can hardly bear to watch. I feel my blood pressure rising dangerously as I hear those taunting cries of “Allahu Akhbar” and wonder who is the invader and imperialist colonialist and who is really oppressed.
Our further capitulation in the face of Arab intimidation continued with the arrest – by Israeli police! – of an American tourist who was explaining a Hebrew verse of Psalms to his tour group on the Temple Mount:
If we were to describe the following scene as having taken place anywhere else on the planet, the report would have been followed by several news cycles involving angry Jewish organizations, rabbis, Israeli rightwing politicians and, undoubtedly, Prime Minister Netanyahu, condemning the blatant act of anti-Semitic repression on the part of police, carrying out the anti-Semitic policies of the national government. (See American Jew Arrested for Murmuring Prayers, 2nd Warned to Close Prayer App)
American Jew arrested by the Israeli “prayer police.”
On Sunday morning, a Jewish American tourist wearing a yarmulke stood with a group of fellow Jewish tourists and spoke about the meaning of a biblical verse. A group of black-uniformed police converged on him and accused him of engaging in Jewish prayer, which is against the law in that country. The Jewish man tried to defend himself, arguing that he was merely explaining a biblical verse, “Please, God, save [us], Please God, give [us] success” (Psalms 118:25).
The cops rushed to the man and his group as soon as they heard the words “Please, God” pronounced in Hebrew. The rest of the lecture was in English. The man insisted, in English, that he was merely explaining the verse and not praying. The cops had no patience for lengthy arguments with a Jew and arrested him.
Several other Jewish tourists tried to intervene, explaining that it was a misunderstanding, they wouldn’t have even dreamed of praying there, in a country that punishes Jews who engage in public prayer, it was merely a mention of a verse in the context of a talk. At which point the arresting officer declared:
“On the Temple Mount I decide what’s prayer.”
The Jewish legal aid organization Honenu had it exactly right:
The legal aid society Honenu said in a statement: “The conduct of the State of Israel and Police regarding the suspicion of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is, first of all, ridiculous, and in addition it is discriminatory and predatory. It is inconceivable that a law-abiding man would be arrested like the lowest criminal for explaining a verse from Psalms. In any other country such an arrest would have been called anti-Semitic.”
The very fact that Jewish prayer is forbidden on the Temple Mount is outrageous in its overt antisemitism, and is a bigotry and racism that would not be permitted anywhere else in the world against the host country’s own people.
If we do not stand up for our rights, who will? Certainly not the UN, as once again UNESCO lived down to all our expectations.
This miserable episode of denial of Jewish rights in Jerusalem and at our holiest site finished ingloriously but unsurprisingly with UNESCO’s deletion of any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount at all:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly criticized a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) resolution from last week in which Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall area in Jerusalem’s Old City are wholly ignored.
The resolution refers to Israel as the “occupying power” at every mention and uses the Arabic al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram al-Sharif without ever calling it the Temple Mount, as it is known to Jews. The text does refer to the Western Wall Plaza but places it in quotation marks, after using the Arabic Al-Buraq Plaza.
Birkat Cohanim – the Priestly Blessing – at the Kotel (because of course there is no Jewish connection to the Kotel at all says UNESCO)
“This is yet another absurd UN decision,” Netanyahu said Saturday. “UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where the two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years. The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history and has again proven that there is no low to which it will not stoop.”
The resolution accuses Israel of “planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”
This is such a sick inversion of reality that my jaw literally dropped. One wonders how those who voted in favour kept a straight face while voting. I hate to keep using the word “outraged” over and over but I can’t find a stronger word to describe what I feel.
Desecrated Jewish graves on the Mt. of Olives
As we all know and as has been thoroughly documented, Muslims regularly desecrate, vandalise and violate Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives – ancient Jewish graves dating back sometimes thousands of years, even before the invention of Islam (which is most likely what bothers them the most), Jews are not allowed full prayer rights on the Temple, and Muslims regularly desecrate and destroy priceless Jewish relics on the Temple Mount in an ongoing destruction.
How UNESCO managed to condemn Israel for the Muslims’ crimes is something for psychologists and psychiatrists, rather than diplomats and politicians, to figure out.
Who were the countries who voted in favour of this disgusting resolution?
The resolution was approved by 33 states, including France, Russia, Spain and Sweden. Seventeen countries abstained while six voted against including the United States, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
How could France, of all countries, vote in favour after suffering such huge losses at the hands of Muslim terrorists? Or are they simply staying in character and preferring to surrender to the evil in order that the “crocodile eats them last” to mix a metaphor?
But what can we expect from the Muslims and from biased international organizations when we ourselves, or at least our pathetic weak-willed leaders, do not strongly stand up for our rights and enforce our sovereignty over own holiest sites?
If we hoped that by giving in to their antisemitic demands we could appease the Muslims, reality has hit us in the face and shown us the opposite: the more we give in, the more violence we receive.
It is beyond high time that we revoked the entire ridiculous edifice of denial of Jewish rights, whether for prayer or religious ceremonies or even building of synagogues, on the Temple Mount, and put the Muslims on the defensive. In any event they riot, commit violence and murder. We might as well derive some benefit in the process.
I’m pretty sure that the Muslim world is watch closely for our reaction to these disgraceful maneuvers, whether at the Knesset, at the UN, or on the Temple Mount itself. It is no use for Binyamin Netanyahu to hold a cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights and declare that the area “is ours forever” when he himself is not allowed to pray on his own holiest site in our own capital city.
If we don’t assert our rights in our capital, we will lose our rights everywhere in our country.
Blasphemy Convictions Intensify in Sisi’s Egypt, Front Page Magazine, Raymond Ibrahim, April 7, 2017
(The author demands that President Sisi “do something,” but does not specify what he, as the president, is in a position to do legally. He does not control Al-Azhar University, nor can he require the courts to interpret or enforce the law as he wishes. He became Egypt’s president because millions of Egyptians were tired of his dictatorial predecessor. Would the author like to see Sisi emulate Morsi?
Egypt is an Islamic nation; Sisi can’t change that. At best, he can try to precipitate a gradual Islamic reformation.– DM)
Despite Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s many pluralistic words and gestures—which have won him much praise from the nation’s Christians and moderates—he appeases the Islamist agenda in one very clear way: by allowing the controversial defamation of religions law, colloquially known as the “blasphemy law,” to target Christians and moderates in ways arguably worse than under the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi.
Late last February, three Christian teenagers were jailed for five years for breaking the defamation of religions law. A fourth defendant, 15, was handed a juvenile detention for an indefinite period. Earlier they were detained for 45 days and subjected to “ill-treatment” said a human rights group.
Their crime is to have made a 20-second video on a mobile phone mocking the Islamic State—which has been interpreted as mocking Islam. In the video, the boys appear laughing and joking, as they pretend to be ISIS members praying and slitting throats. The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, an independent rights group, confirmed that the four teenagers were performing scenes “imitating slaughter carried out by terrorist groups.” Even so, according to their defense lawyer, Maher Naguib, the Christian youth “have been sentenced for contempt of Islam and inciting sectarian strife…. The judge didn’t show any mercy. He handed down the maximum punishment.”
Considering that even Al Azhar—the Islamic world’s most prestigious university located in Egypt—refuses to denounce the Islamic State as being un-Islamic, it is unsurprising that mockery of ISIS is being conflated with mockery of Islam.
The Christian youth made the brief video back in January 2015, when three of them were aged 17 and one 15. It is believed that the court kept delaying their case till the three 17-year-olds became 18, so they could receive the full penalty. Their teacher who also appeared in the video had earlier been sentenced to three years in jail.
Several other Christians have been prosecuted for insulting Islam and Muslims under Sisi’s tenure. One young Christian man was sentenced to six years for “liking” an Arabic-language Facebook page administered by Muslim converts to Christianity. A female Christian teacher was imprisoned for six months after Muslim parents accused her of insulting Islam and evangelizing. Bishoy Armia Boulous, a Muslim convert to Christianity, remains behind bars on, according to his lawyer, trumped up charges of blasphemy.
While Christian minorities are the most prone to being targeted by the blasphemy law, secular Muslim thinkers and writers are also on the hit list. Late last January, female Muslim writer Fatima Naoot was sentenced to three years in prison after she criticized the sadistic slaughter of animals that takes place during the Islamic festival, Eid al-Adha. The month before that, in December, television host Islam al-Behairy was sentenced to one year in prison for questioning the validity of some of the sayings (hadiths) attributed to Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Although Egypt’s constitution outlaws the “defamation of religions,” the plural indicates that, along with Islam, Judaism and Christianity are protected. In reality, however, the law is almost exclusively used to prosecute Christian minorities and secular Muslims. Despite the fact that there are many more Muslims than Christians in Egypt, rarely are Islamists arrested and prosecuted for defaming Christianity.
In this, Egypt is becoming more like Pakistan. Although that nation also prohibits the defamation of religions—which technically includes Christianity—only Christians and moderates are targeted and imprisoned; some, like Asia Bibi, a wife and mother, are on death row. Conversely, Muslims who openly defame Christianity—and they are many—are regularly let off one way or the other. A few weeks ago a Muslim broke into a church and proceeded to burn its Bibles. Although several Christians caught and handed him over to police, the latter claimed he was mentally unstable and could not stand trial. Earlier, a Muslim shopkeeper started selling shoes which depict the Christian cross on their soles. Christians demonstrated but police did nothing.
On January 26, soon after the sentencing of the writer Fatima Naoot, another moderate Muslim and television host in Egypt, Ibrahim Eissa, scathingly criticized the Sisi government, including by saying that “there have been more blasphemy cases and convictions during the Sisi era than during the Morsi era.” He continued:
There is no greater contradiction between what the [Egyptian] state says and claims about itself and the reality on the ground… The Egyptian state is schizophrenic because it says what it does not do…. It’s amazing and baffling to see a state who’s president regularly preaches about the need for religious discourse and renewal—and yet, during Sisi’s 18-19 month tenure, the nation has witnessed more reports, cases and convictions, and the imprisonment of writers, in the name of defamation religions than during the one year tenure of the Muslim Brotherhood president…. The [Sisi] revolution dropped the Brotherhood but kept the ideology unchanged.
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