Recently, Chinese, Japanese and other educators have found that rote learning and endless drills produce high achievers without creativity, originality, or the ability to think for themselves. Western academic standards of rationality and objectivity have been behind most of the West's achievements.
"The campus has three mosques with a fourth one planned, but no bookstore. No Pakistani university, including QAU, allowed Abdus Salam to set foot on its campus, although he had received the Nobel Prize in 1979 for his role in formulating the standard model of particle physics." — Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, commenting on Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, the second-best university among the 57 Muslim states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
The very thought that "Islamic science" has to be different from "Western science" suggests the need for a radically different way of thinking. Scientific method is scientific method and rationality is rationality, regardless of the religion practiced by individual scientists.
Commenting about the disparity in creativity between the Islamic world and the West, Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy wrote that no Pakistani university allowed Abdus Salam (pictured above) to set foot on its campus, although he had received the Nobel Prize in Physics. (Image source: Keystone/Getty Images)
In April this year, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Shaykh 'Ali Gomaa, told an interviewer what he meant as a flat statement of fact: that there are no female heart surgeons, as such work required strength and other capabilities that no woman possesses. He put it this way:
"You may have noticed that there is not a single female heart surgeon in the world... It's amazing. It's peculiar. Why do you think that there are none? Because it requires great physical effort -- beyond what a woman is capable of. That's in general. Along comes a woman who challenges this, and she succeeds in becoming a surgeon. But she is one woman among several million male surgeons."
The last (worst) rankings of the Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum, from 128th to 144th, are without exception overwhelmingly Muslim countries, including Turkey at the 130th place.
A 2016 study by Turkey's Family and Social Policies Ministry revealed that no fewer than 86% of Turkish women have suffered physical or psychological violence at the hands of their partners or family.
So, tell us, Ms. Simonovic: Do Turkish men beat and sometimes kill their wives because of Israeli occupation? Is there "a clear link" between Turkey's rising numbers indicating violence against women and "Israel's prolonged occupation?"
The 56th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, in the hall of the United Nations General Assembly, February 27, 2012. (Image source: UN Women/Ryan Brown)
The United Nations panels lovingly practice hypocrisy all the time. In 2016, a UN debate revolved around the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which voted to blame Israel for Palestinian domestic violence. This year's show was hardly different in the content of nonsense. The executive director of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, asked Dubravka Simonovic, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, at a session on June 12: "Ms. Simonovic, in other words, what you are saying is as follows: 'When Palestinian men beat their wives, it's Israel's fault.'"
At first glance it sounds like dark humor, but it is not. Not just one but two reports presented before the UNHRC by Simonovic argue that Israel is to blame for Palestinian violence against women, through "a clear linkage between the prolonged occupation and violence".
Where, Neuer asked Simonovic, is the data? There is data, but not the kind that Simonovic would prefer to believe exists.
"The whole system failed and that is what has been happening for the last 30 years. And it is PC. People are just too, too afraid to, you know, just too, too afraid to speak the truth." — Mohan Singh, founder of the Sikh Awareness Society.
MI5, Britain's domestic security agency, revealed that it has identified 23,000 jihadist extremists living in the country.
Manchester bomber Salman Abedi used taxpayer-funded student loans and benefits to bankroll the terror plot, according to the Telegraph. Abedi is believed to have received thousands of pounds in state funding in the run-up to the attack even while he was overseas receiving bomb-making training. It also emerged that the chief imam of Abedi's mosque fought with militants in Libya. The mosque was also reported to have hosted hate preachers who called for British soldiers to be killed and non-believers to be stoned to death.
"It is no secret that Saudi Arabia in particular provides funding to hundreds of mosques in the UK, espousing a very hardline Wahhabist interpretation of Islam. It is often in these institutions that British extremism takes root." — Tom Brake, Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman.
The Manchester-born singer Morrissey criticized British politicians for their reaction to the bombing in his hometown, saying they were too politically correct to admit that the concert bombing was the work of an Islamist extremist. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Firefly)
May 1. Army cadets in Scotland were warned not to wear their uniforms in public because they could be targeted by jihadists.
May 1. Three female teenagers were arrested in East London on terrorism charges. The arrests were in connection with an anti-terror operation in London on April 27 in which a woman wearing a burqa was shot by police. Police said that an active terror plot had been foiled.
May 2. Samata Ullah, a 34-year-old jihadist from Cardiff, was sentenced to eight years in prison for five terror offenses, including membership of the Islamic State, as well being involved in training terrorists and preparing for terrorist acts. Ullah, a British national of Bangladeshi origin, was a key member of a group calling itself the "Cyber Caliphate Army" and gave other members of IS advice on how to communicate using sophisticated encryption techniques.
How will Iraq get rid of the Iranians? Or will it? The chief of the Qods Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Qassem Soleimani, has been seen several times in Iraq, most recently near the Syrian border, an indication that Iran has bigger plans than the liberation of Mosul.
The Sunni part of Iraq actually is an essential part of the land bridge being built from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea. There is a second and equally compelling issue for Iran to the southwest: encircling Saudi Arabia in the water.
If Iran is allowed to solidify its Shiite Crescent and its naval obstructionism, American allies across the Middle East and North Africa will pay a heavy price.
The chief of the Qods Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Qassem Soleimani, has been seen several times in Iraq, most recently near the Syrian border, an indication that Iran has bigger plans than the liberation of Mosul. (Image source: Mahmoud Hosseini/Wikimedia Commons)
We have been looking in the wrong direction. While the West was hoping temporarily to check Iran's nuclear aspirations, Iran was making plans to advance on the ground and in the water -- and the plans are unfolding nicely. For Iran.
After the U.S. withdrew from Iraq in 2011, large swaths of Iraqi territory were easily brought under Islamic State (ISIS) control, culminating in the proclamation in 2014 of "The Caliphate" with its seat in Mosul. Having denigrated its capabilities as "the JV team," the Obama administration was desperate to get rid of ISIS, but the Iraqi army (trained and armed at a cost of $26 billion between 2006 and 2015 with another $1.6 billion spent in 2016) was unable to handle the job, even with American air power and Kurdish fighters as allies.
Any cutting or prick upon a female's genitalia that is not actually, absolutely medically necessary, but rather demanded by twisted interpretation of religion and misogynistic manifestations of culture, is abuse.
Even if, one were to submit that the medical part of the procedure could possibly be done with no physical trauma (and that is a big fictitious 'if'), the whole intent of the procedure is ceremonially to desexualize women and place their bodies under patriarchal control. No physician or modern culture that respects the equality of men and women should agree to participate in a procedure based in hate or supremacy. There is no compromise for the free world with the misogyny, abuse, and torture of the familial, community and individual oppressive forces involved in the draconian Islamist behaviors around FGM. It was a false compromise and a false moral equivalency with male circumcision.
The AMA Board of Trustees six months later returned an opinion in our favor in June 2017, which basically stood by existing AMA policy that any and all forms of FGM including nicking were prohibited by the AMA and thus deemed to be entirely inappropriate and unethical. Some courtroom reports in the government's case against Dr. Nagarwala in Detroit are that in fact some of the 7–year-old girls suffered significant physical harm and scarring despite the defendant's claim of only a pin-prick.
A campaign against female genital mutilation – a road sign near Kapchorwa, Uganda. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Some of America's most respected attorneys have been willing to earn the ire of their colleagues and critics for the sake of what is right and good defending the rights of Muslims. Many other Americans have also defended the rights of Muslims to pray and to have access to halal food. These positions, while not always popular in certain circles, are consistent with America's commitment to religious liberty and the first amendment of the Constitution. Many of us Muslims have appreciated and applauded these outspoken heroes for their commitment to religious liberty and principled positions on matters pertaining to free speech and human rights. They have often taken stances representative of the best of America's commitment to freedom.
This is their way of expressing their gratitude to those who have chosen to "sacrifice" their lives by trying to murder Jews. It is also their way of encouraging young people to join the war of terrorism against Israel. The financial aid sends a specific message: Palestinians who are prepared to die in the service of murdering Jews need not worry about the welfare of their families.
The more years a Fatah terrorist serves in Israeli prison, the higher the salary he or she receives. Some Fatah terrorists held in Israeli prison are said to receive monthly stipends of up to $4,000. Many of them are also rewarded with top jobs in both Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Why should any Palestinian go to university and search for a job when he can make a "decent living" murdering Jews?
Such a plan to dry up the funds that support terrorists and their families, is doomed from the start unless these leaders reverse their behavior and embark on a process of de-radicalizing their people.
In his recent meeting with US presidential envoys Jason Greenblatt (left) and Jared Kushner (center) in Ramallah, an enraged Mahmoud Abbas (right) rejected their demand that he halt payments to terrorists and their families. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)
For the record, this is not a defense of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas or of funding terrorists. It is simply an explanation of what is taking place. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the idea of ending payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families is a challenging one, to say the least. Old habits, especially of hate, are hard to break.
The practice of paying salaries to terrorists and the families of "martyrs" is as old as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was founded in 1964. It did not start after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994. Nor did this practice start after Abbas was elected as president of the PA in January 2005.
Prior to the establishment of the PA, the PLO relied solely on Arab and Islamic financial aid to pay salaries to imprisoned terrorists and the families of those killed in terror attacks against Israel.
Islam was created 600 years after Christianity not to affirm the Bible, but to discredit it; not to co-exist with "the people of the book" -- Jews and Christians -- but to replace them.
It is hard to read Islamic law books without concluding that Islamic values are essentially "a rebellion against the Ten Commandments".
Islam violates the commandment "Thou shalt not murder" when Allah commanded Muslims to kill Allah's enemies, and in the process, kill and be killed in jihad if they are to be guaranteed heaven.
Accepting a parallel legal system would effectively nullify actual freedom for many of the people possibly forced to use it, and the ability to receive equal justice under law. Sharia is the reason there is a death warrant out on this author, on Salman Rushdie and others, for apostasy.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, of the "Ground Zero mosque", once again wrote a deeply inaccurate article reprimanding Americans for their supposedly "right-wing caricature" of Islamic law, sharia, which he insists is not a threat to American law. In his recent article "The silly American fear of sharia law", he denied that sharia is incompatible with US laws and the constitution. Oh, really?
Imam Rauf tries to blame sharia's amputation and stoning on Biblical Law:
"Sharia is not about amputations and stoning. These extreme punishments carry over from earlier, biblical law" and "Within the history of Islam, they have rarely occurred. What Islamic law does prescribe are the same do's [sic] and don'ts of the Ten Commandments."
One of these World Banned Terrorist Organization Head was just elected Member for Parliament.
If world add my name Thousand Time on Most Want Person Terror List, than am not for care: the Love that You are gives me are Bigger! This list are nothing infront of me, it equal to the piece of Paper.
Osama Bin Laden (Photo by Getty Images)
Editors' note: To those of you who have enquired, the author is a real man living in the Middle East who sent us these pieces because he is unable to share them with anyone where he lives. At first we tried to tidy up the English, but that seemed to knock much of the soul out of his work. So we made the editorial choice to present his work basically as he sent it; what you are seeing is the result of that choice. It is the way he sees the world from his point of view, unobstructed by editors. Perhaps think of it more as a different kind of article, more as folk art but in words. It is not meant to offend anyone or any religion. It always seemed, living among people from different nations, as if wrongnesses in English were often "righter" than rightnesses. The painter Paul Gauguin reportedly said: "If you see a tree as blue, then make it blue." We apologize to anyone who may not like these postings. "Those who understand, understand."
In spite of three attacks in three months, Britain does not seem to be choosing the path of vigilance and determination. June is not even over but the media barely talk about terrorism any more.
Then, in the early hours of June 19, a man who acted alone drove a van into a crowd of Muslims leaving Finsbury Park Mosque in London: the main "threat" to the British right now was soon presented in several newspapers as "Islamophobia".
Decolonization added the idea that the Europeans had oppressed other peoples and were guilty of crimes they now had to redeem. There was no mention of how, throughout history, recruits to Islam had colonized the great Christian Byzantine Empire, Greece, Sicily, Corsica, North Africa and the Middle East, most of the Balkans and eastern Europe, Hungary, northern Cyprus and Spain.
While most jihadist movements were banned by the British government, more discreet organizations have emerged and demurely sent the same message. The Islamic Forum for Europe, for example, depicts itself as "peaceful", but many of those it invites to speak are anything but that. The Islamic Human Rights Commission uses the language of defending human rights to disseminate violent statements against the Jews and the West.
The most famous of Britain's radical Islamic preachers, Anjem Choudary (pictured holding the microphone), was recently sentenced to five years and six months in prison for his open support of the Islamic State, but hundreds of imams throughout the country continue similar work. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
London, June 5, 2017. A minute of silence is held at Potters Field Park, next to the City Hall, to pay tribute to the victims of the London Bridge jihadist attack three days before. Those who came have brought flowers, candles and signs bearing the usual words: "unity", "peace" and "love". Faces are sad but no trace of anger is visible. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Muslim, gives a speech emphasizing against all evidence that the killers' ideas have nothing to do with Islam.
If anyone still doubted at that point the connection between terrorism and Google's video platform, the Daily Telegraph revealed that British counterterrorism police had been monitoring a cell of ISIS "wannabes" since March, and recorded its members discussing how to use YouTube to plot a vehicular ramming and stabbing attack in London. Terrorists have learned that YouTube can be as deadly a weapon as knives and cars.
YouTube and Google, by posting such videos, are effectively being accessories to murder. They are also inviting class-action lawsuits from families and individuals victimized by terrorism. They need to be held criminally liable for aiding and abetting mass murder.
In Arabic with French subtitles, the clip lauds terrorists "martyred for Allah." User comments include: "beautiful... may Allah give us all the knowledge and power to accelerate our imams." In other words, the pictures of smiling terrorists and their dead bodies serve as an inspiration to young Muslims seeking Paradise through martyrdom. This is not theoretical. According to the website Wired UK, as of June 5, there were 535 terrorist attacks around the world -- with 3,635 fatalities -- since the beginning of 2017 alone.
A screenshot from one of the terror-supporting jihadi videos on YouTube that was flagged by MEMRI. The video remains on YouTube to this day.
In mid-March this year, major companies began withdrawing or reducing advertising from Google Inc., the owner of YouTube, for allowing their brand names to pop up alongside videos promoting jihad, a new report released on June 15 by the Middle East Research Media Institute (MEMRI) reveals.
According to the report -- which documents the failure of Google to remove jihadi content that MEMRI volunteered to assist in flagging -- thus far, AT&T, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Enterprise Holdings and GSK are among the companies pulling their ads from the platform. Google responded by promising to be more aggressive in ensuring brand safety of ad placements.
Then came the Westminster attack. On March 22, 2017, Khalid Masood rammed his car into pedestrians -- killing four people and wounding dozens of others – then stabbed an unarmed police officer to death.
The current policy of the PA leadership is to avoid alienating the Trump administration by continuing to pretend that Abbas and his cronies are serious about achieving peace with Israel. This is why Abbas's representatives are careful not to criticize Trump or his envoys.
When Israel does not comply with their list of demands, the Palestinians will accuse it of "destroying" the peace process. Worse still, the Palestinians will use this charge as an excuse to redouble their terror against Israelis. The Palestinian claim, as always, will be that they are being forced to resort to terrorism in light of the failure of yet another US-sponsored peace process.
No doubt, Abbas cannot find it within himself to clarify to the American envoys that he lacks a mandate from his people to make any step toward peace with Israel. Abbas knows, even if the American representatives do not, that any move in that direction would end his career, and very possibly his life. Abbas also does not wish to go down in Palestinian history as the treacherous leader who "sold out to the Jews." Moreover, someone can come along later and say, quite correctly, that as Abbas has exceeded his legitimate term in office, any deal he makes is illegal and illegitimate.
Jared Kushner (left), Senior Advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on June 21, 2017 in Ramallah. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)
US envoys Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner, who met this week in Jerusalem and Ramallah with Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials to discuss reviving the peace process, have discovered what previous US Middle East envoys learned in the past two decades -- that the PA has not, cannot, and will not change.
During their meeting in Ramallah with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, the two US emissaries were told that the Palestinians will not accept anything less than an independent state along on the pre-1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Abbas also made it clear that he has no intention to make concessions on the "right of return" for Palestinian "refugees." This means he wants a Palestinian state next to Israel while flooding Israel with millions of Palestinian "refugees" and turning it, too, into another Palestinian state.
The new "test" of our alliance will be whether the assembled nations will join in removing the hateful parts of such a doctrine from their communities.
What still has to be considered is the U.S. approach to stopping Iran from filling the vacuum created by ridding the region of the Islamic State (ISIS), as well as Iran's push for extending its path straight through to the Mediterranean.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis. (Dept. of Defense/Brigitte N. Brantley)
The tectonic plates in the Middle East have shifted markedly with President Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and his announced new regional policy.
The trip represented the beginning of a major but necessary shift in US security policy.
For much of the last nearly half-century, American Middle East policy has been centered on the "peace process" and how to bring Israel and the Palestinians to agreement on a "two-state" solution for two peoples -- a phrase that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to say.
If ISIS is retreating in Mosul, it is rapidly advancing in Manchester. The Caliphate is winning its war in Europe. Six months ago in Britain, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, the ultra-pacifist Labour party leader who blamed the "war on terror" for the recent attacks in Manchester and London, would have been unthinkable.
As the Caliphate razed to the ground everything in its path, Europe reacted as if that were just the result of regrettable manners that should not concern her. The Islamists, however, had other plans.
"Why, in August 2015, did ISIS need to blow up and destroy that temple of Baalshamin? Because it was a temple where pagans before Islam came to adore mendacious idols? No, it was because that monument was venerated by contemporary Westerners, whose culture includes an educated love for 'historical monuments' and a great curiosity for the beliefs of other people and other times. And Islamists want to show that Muslims have a culture that is different from ours, a culture that is unique to them". — Paul Veyne, archeologist.
(Image source: Islamic State)
The Islamic State is crumbling -- if too slowly. More than two years have passed since French President François Hollande promised, "We will bomb Raqqa". Sooner or later, ISIS will probably be reduced to a small enclave with no territorial continuity, and its chief, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, will be eliminated. It would, nevertheless, be most dangerous to dismiss these three years as a short parenthesis: Nazism did not last as long: "just" 12 years in power and five at war with the rest of Europe. The physical and cultural consequences of the Nazi tyranny are, unfortunately, still visible in Europe. The same will be said of the Islamic State. Three years of terror and conquests are not bad in for a war between the Caliphate vs. everyone else.
A definite gain of Israel's new settlement policy is that it seems to have taken the settlement issue off the boil not just with the Trump administration but also with other friendly foreign governments. Among the losses, thanks to the Judea and Samaria Settlement Regulation Law, is UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016, which vehemently denounced all Israeli settlement activity.
The Israeli settlement of Amona, pictured on January 16, 2017, before its residents were expelled and it was destroyed. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
During March 2017, a delegation appointed by Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held lengthy discussions in Washington with the Trump administration over construction in the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria (aka the "West Bank"). No summary of those discussions was published, but on March 30 the security cabinet of the Israeli government informed the media that it had drawn up guidelines limiting further construction. Now, however, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman -- who has direct responsibility for approving all such construction plans -- has confirmed that "Israel is coordinating its settlement construction with the White House."
"Corrupt motive" is an extraordinarily vague and open-ended term that can be expanded or contracted at the whim of zealous or politically motivated prosecutors. It is bad enough when this accordion-like term is used in the context of economic corruption, but it is far worse – and more dangerous to liberty – when used in the context of political disagreements.
In political cases – especially those not involving money – the act itself is constitutionally protected, and the motive, which is often mixed, is placed on trial. It becomes the sole criteria for turning a constitutionally authorized political act into a felony.
Corrupt motive is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder's eyes are often more open to charges of corrupt motives on the part of their political enemies than their political allies.
President Donald Trump (Image source: Michael Vadon/Wikimedia Commons)
My academic and political colleagues who insist that President Trump has obstructed justice point to his allegedly "corrupt motive" in firing former FBI Director James Comey after telling him that he "hoped" he would end his investigation of General Michael Flynn. They concede – as Comey himself did – that the President has the constitutional authority to fire the director and to order him to end (or start) any investigation, just as he has the authority to pardon anyone being investigated. But they argue that these constitutionally authorized innocent acts become criminal if the President was "corruptly motivated."
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