An Arab/Muslim caliphate is not a figment of the imagination anymore: Fragments of Middle Eastern regimes will soon form a group of islands called “The Muslim Archipelago.”
“A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Communism.” These were the first words of Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto. More than a century later a different specter has appeared on the threshold of the Old World — the specter of an Islamic Caliphate. (Ed. note: “Caliphate, the political-religious state comprising the Muslim community and the lands and peoples under its dominion in the centuries following the death [ad 632] of the Prophet Muḥammad. …”)
Apologies for only learning of Jerusalem in the Qur’an by Imran N. Hosein, 2d ed. abridged (Long Island, New York: Masjid Dar-Al-Qur’an, 2003) nearly a decade after its publication, but it nonetheless bears notice, for two main reasons.
First, how amusing is it to find a 142-page book on a non-existent subject, for Jerusalem is not in the Koran. I even have a long-standing offer to pay US$1million to anyone who can locate mention of the city there, with no winner yet. As the Elder of Ziyon blog, which brought this book to my attention, puts it, “Wow! a book about Jerusalem in the Quran when Jerusalem is not in the Quran!” Indeed, to make matters even more curious, even Hosein acknowledges (on p. 31) that “It is true that the word ‘Jerusalem’ does not explicitly occur in the Qur’an.” Okay, that settles that. Elsewhere, he explains (with slight editorial changes to improve readability) that
Americans are getting informed about the dangers Islamists pose to civilized societies — threats like stealth infiltration of Sharia (Islamic “law”) into our legal/social system, “honor” killings, homicide bombings, intolerance, support for terrorism… There are too many apologists for Islamist outrages amongst our university academe, primary and secondary educators, media elite, government officials, etc. But the blogsphere, activist organizations, and concerned citizens have learned about Islam, and are fighting back against political correctness gone mad (though we still have a long way to go). Thanks to the efforts of the Florida Family Association, The Learning Channel has pulled its shameless whitewash of Islam, a TV show called, “All-American Muslim,” off the air:
Because it is now almost axiomatic for American school textbooks to whitewash all things Islamic (see here for example), it may be instructive to examine one of those aspects that are regularly distorted: the Muslim conquests.
Few events of history are so well documented and attested to as are these conquests, which commenced soon after the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad (632) and tapered off circa 750. Large swathes of the Old World—from the India in the east, to Spain in the west—were conquered and consolidated by the sword of Islam during this time, with more after (e.g., the Ottoman conquests).
We are into the eighth year of a propaganda exercise bent on the extermination of Jews that is known as Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). Art, politics, lectures, photography, and writing are all being used in ways that mimic the programs that went into the propaganda campaign of the Third Reich to justify the Holocaust. The Holocaust was hastened by the hateful, dehumanizing propaganda which led to the most horrific crime against humanity of all time.
“Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people.
All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed.
The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses.
The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning.”
Hitler’s Nazi Germany signed a “non-aggression” agreement with Stalin’s USSR in 1939 (the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact”). It meant nothing. It was a worthless peace of paper designed to ease the Nazi’s eventual conquest and extermination of all peoples in the Soviet sphere of influence: “Of the Soviet Union’s 190 million people, Hitler intended to kill 150 million and the rest would be made slaves for the invaders.” The Nazis did kill millions of Russians and Eastern Europeans. In the same way, Nazi Germany’s “alliance” with segments of the Arab/Muslim world was a short-term lie: The Germans considered North African Arab Semites to be sub-human inferiors whom I’m sure they would’ve eventually exterminated. As is so common in the current Arab/Muslim world, ignorance reigns, and Libyans don’t even know that Allied soldiers actually saved them from eventual extermination by defeating the Nazis in WWII’s north African theater. Libyan Islamists have ignorantly desecrated Allied soldiers’ tombs because of the silly, accidental Koran-burning incident in Afghanistan:
A furious mob has desecrated dozens of Commonwealth War Graves in a Libyan cemetery amid continuing fury in the Middle East over the burning of the Koran by U.S. soldiers.
Headstones commemorating British and Allied servicemen, killed during World War II campaigns in the Western Desert, lay smashed and strewn across Benghazi Military Cemetery. …
There is no “Arab Spring.” It is indeed an Arab winter in which hateful, violent Islamo-fascists are trying to take over the Middle East.
Is the problem Islam or Islamism? Muslims or Islamists?
These and related questions regularly foster debate (see the exchange between Robert Spencer and Andrew McCarthy for a recent example). The greatest obstacle on the road to consensus is what such words imply; namely, that Islamism and Islamists are “bad,” and Islam and Muslims are good (or simply neutral).
Some observations in this regard:
Islamism is a distinct phenomenon and, to an extent, different from historic Islam. The staunch literalness of today’s Islamists is so artificial and anachronistic that, if only in this way, it contradicts the practices of medieval Muslims, which often came natural and better fit their historical context.
When the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, they promptly demolished the Aztec capital (Tenochtitlan) and built a cathedral on top of the natives’ great and most important twin temples — the city center. Did the desecration/destruction of Tenochtitlan and slaughter of the Aztec people legitimize the Spanish conquest of the great Valley of Mexico? Of course not. The Spanish were greedy, murderous thugs. Similarly, Arabs invaded and destroyed Jerusalem in 691 A.D. and built their al-Aqsa mosque on top of the indigenous Jews’ most holy place. So yippee for the Arabs?
So now we find that Muslim Arabs point their fannies at the “sacred(?)” al-Aqsa Mosque during their daily prayers. That’s a strange way for showing reverence for the “third most important” Muslim shrine. It’s plain silly. Watch for yourself:
The recent deaths of Iranian defence scientists have allowed the Iranian regime in Tehran to weep copious tears and sputter outrage about the inequity of assassination as a political tool. One might think that they would react with envy. Assassination has been one of the “outreach” tools of the ayatollahs and their regime in Iran since the early days of the Revolution. When the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979, it had two strategies to eliminate its opponents. At home, it killed its internal opponents — murdering 7,900 of them in its first five years alone using techniques many totalitarian regimes have employed, such as mass executions, torture, “disappearances,” and “accidents.” Abroad, it used its embassies and cultural offices to host killers and sent them out after prominent critics. Many of these critics living overseas were Iranian intellectuals and activists who had escaped from Iran after the establishment of the regime. In addition to employing terror against its own citizens and émigrés, the Iranian government has also claimed victims from other nationalities. The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the world’s most significant sponsors of terrorism. During its 33 years of existence, it has continually instigated violence elsewhere and pursued indirect war through the use of terrorism throughout the Middle East, Africa, and both North and South America.
Editors’ note: Yoaz Hendel now works in the Israeli prime minister’s office. This article was written before his government service; views expressed herein are his alone.
While the Obama administration has not reconciled itself to the futility of curbing Tehran’s nuclear buildup through diplomatic means, most Israelis have given up hope that the international sanctions can dissuade the Islamic Republic from acquiring the means to murder by the millions. Israel’s leadership faces a stark choice — either come to terms with a nuclear Iran or launch a preemptive military strike.
For years, I have risked scorn, defamation, and even physical menace for telling the truth about the “Palestinian” Lie.
Although the “Palestinians” claim a sacred national identity with roots in the Holy Land, the truth is that no such people or group ever existed historically. (Yes, I know that now, given the enormous propaganda and funding for terrorism that there is, indeed, a group of people who call themselves “Palestinians” and who are viewed as such by the immediate world.)
The former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and current Republican presidential candidate said yesterday that “there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. We have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab people, and they had the chance to go many places.”
Let us pause to remember, honor, and pray for those brave American souls senselessly killed, injured, or traumatized by fascist Japan on December 7, 1941. Let us also remember that the battle against fascism continues — the battle against Islamo-fascism which must be won to preserve civilization. From the U.S. Navy website:
According to Egypt’s elections committee, the Muslim Brotherhood won 37 percent of the vote of the first round of voting in Egypt; and the Salafis, who promote a yet more extreme Islamist program, won 24 percent, giving them together a jaw-dropping 61 percent of the vote.
This stunning result prompts two questions: Is this a legitimate or rigged outcome? Are Islamists about to dominate Egypt?
Sweden is the country that once awarded Yasir Arafat a Noble Peace Prize, but Sweden has also been at the forefront of human rights activism and legislation. Now, in sending an apostate back to Pakistan, Sweden is failing its own stated ideals.
We all used to think of Sweden as a very “progressive” country. Now, alas, the word “progressive” has come to mean other, certain things.
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