by Khaled Abu Toameh • September 26, 2016 at 5:00 am
Abbas and Fatah leaders in Ramallah claim that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (the "Arab Quartet") are using and promoting Abbas's rival, Mohamed Dahlan, in order to facilitate their mission of rapprochement with Israel.
Many Palestinians were surprised to see veteran Palestinian official Ahmed Qurei, a former Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister and one of the architects of the Oslo Accord, come out in favor of the Arab plan, which basically envisions ousting Abbas from power.
This, and not Israeli policy, is Abbas's true nightmare. After all, he knows that without Israel's presence in the West Bank, his regime would have long fallen into the hands of Hamas or even his political rivals in Fatah.
The "Arab Quartet" plan shows that some Arab countries are indeed fed up with Abbas's failure to lead his people towards a better life. These states, which have long been politically and financially supportive of the Palestinians, have had enough of Abbas's efforts to secure unending power -- at the direct cost of the well-being of his people.
When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UN General Assembly on Sept. 22, 2016, he did not share with world leaders that his Arab brothers are pressuring him to introduce major reforms in his Fatah faction, and allow some of its expelled leaders, including Abbas's rival Mohamed Dahlan (inset), to return.
In his speech last week before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas trotted out his usual charges against Israel, citing "collective punishment," "house demolitions," "extrajudicial executions" and "ethnic cleansing." However, Abbas's thoughts seem to be elsewhere these days. He is facing a new challenge from unexpected parties, namely several Arab countries that have come together to demand that he reform his ruling Fatah faction and pave the way for the emergence of a new Palestinian leadership.
Yet this was not included in the UN speech. Indeed, why would Abbas share with world leaders that his Arab brothers are pressuring him to introduce major reforms in Fatah and end a decade-long power struggle with Hamas that has resulted in the creation of two separate Palestinian entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
by Raymond Ibrahim • September 26, 2016 at 4:00 am
Recently in Iraq, 19 Yazidi girls were placed in iron cages and burned alive in front of a crowd of hundreds, for refusing to copulate with jihadis.
"Religious minority women under IS [Islamic State] control are often repeatedly sold from jihadi to jihadi. Once militants get tired of raping and abusing one particular girl, they usually sell them off to one of their militant buddies so they can rape and abuse them at their own pleasure." — Samuel Smith, The Christian Post.
After their children were abducted by the Islamic State, a couple answered their door to find the body parts of their daughters and a video of them being tortured and raped.
"Christian girls are considered goods to be damaged at leisure. Abusing them is a right. According to the community's mentality it is not even a crime. Muslims regard them as spoils of war." — Local residents, Pakistan.
Islamic State jihadis laugh and joke about buying and selling Yazidi sex slaves, in a propaganda video.
Islamic law, always harsh, is still harsher for women. According to the Koran, men have "authority" over women and may beat them if they are "disobedient" (4:34). According to Mohammad, the prophet of Islam, women are less intelligent than men — two women are needed to equal one man's testimony — and the majority of hell's population is made up of women, who are likened to donkeys and dogs in their ability to distract a man from his prayer and thereby annul it.
What, then, is Islam's view of women who are "infidels"? They are at best "meant for one thing, the pleasure of the Muslim man," as one Muslim told a group of young Christian girls in Pakistan before terrorizing and murdering one. In the Koran, (see 4:24), non-Muslim women seized in a jihad can be bought and sold as sex slaves for Muslim men, as the Islamic State has been doing.
Emily Fuentes, communications director for Open Doors, a human rights organization that advocates for persecuted Christians, said:
Am thinking that, how it is possible that Some One is drink these? And, A female is drink these? And Muhammad is saying, "Listen all your disease go a Way"? What is it means Muhammad allow his companion to drink that?
"Your Status just equal to DOG and you are asking a questions to me about Islam, I know very well how to Run the Islam, you do not bark with me again like this again!" After saying this he free my Ears and Shove me in his feet again and I massage them.
On Next day I went to Different Islamic Scholars at Different Islamic Sects or Groups and asking same Question. Every One tells me "O That Sect is based on Lie you follow our Sects or Group".
From an Ottoman manuscript, two doctors telling a pharmacist how to make different medicines.
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: "How do you see this tree? Is it green? Do not be afraid to paint it as green as possible." We apologize to anyone who may not like these postings. "Those who understand, understand."
In thirty years, France has undergone an accelerated process of Islamization.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the main Islamic movement in France, explained how Muslims living in the West have to proceed: they may use terror, they may use seduction, exploit Westerners' sense of guilt, grab public spaces, change laws, and create their own society inside Western societies until they become Muslim societies.
France used to be a country where religious neutrality in the public space was seen as an essential principle. Muslim extremists appear to be using Islamic veils and head-coverings as visible symbols to create the impression that Islam is everywhere.
Politicians claim that they respect human rights, but they seem to have forgotten the human rights of the women who do not cover up -- of those who suffer from Islamization, who are no longer free to write, think, or go for a walk on the street.
Politicians refused to "stigmatize" Islam and do not want to see the consequences: harassment, rapes, the destruction of freedom.
French journalists write under the threat of trial or assault, and almost never use the phrase "Islamic terrorism." Almost all books on Islam in French bookstores are written by Islamists or by authors praising Islam.
Have non-Muslims lost the will to fight?
Yusuf al-Qaradawi (left), spiritual leader of the main Islamic movement in France, explained that Muslims in the West may use terror, they may use seduction, exploit Westerners' sense of guilt, grab public spaces, change laws, and create their own society inside Western societies until they become Muslim societies. Right: Muslim extremists in France appear to be using Islamic veils and head-coverings as visible symbols to create the impression that Islam is everywhere.
In Sisco, Corsica, on August 13, a group of Muslim men arrived on a beach in the company of women wearing "burkinis" (full-body bathing costumes). The Muslim men firmly asked the tourists on the beach to leave and posted signs saying "No Entry". When a few teenagers resisted, the Muslim men responded with a harpoon and baseball bats. The police intervened -- but it was just the beginning.
In the following days, on beaches all over France, Muslim men showed up, accompanied by women in burkinis, and asking beachgoers to leave. Tourists packed up and fled. Several mayors of seaside resorts decided to ban the bathing costume, and the "burkini ban" scandal was born.
Around 200 migrants from Calais, the principal ferry crossing point between France and England, are successfully smuggled into Britain each week, according to police estimates cited by the Telegraph.
In recent months, masked gangs of people smugglers armed with knives, bats and tire irons have forced truck drivers to stop so that migrants can board their vehicles.
"Before, it was just attempts to get on trucks. Now there is looting and willful destruction, tarpaulins are slashed, goods stolen or destroyed. Drivers go to work with fear in their bellies and the economic consequences are severe." — David Sagnard, president of France's truck drivers' federation.
"They want to go to England because they can expect better conditions on arrival there than anywhere else in Europe or even internationally. ... They can easily find work outside the formal economy..." — Natacha Bouchart, Mayor of Calais.
"The asylum seekers could apply for protection in France or the European country they first landed in... they only reached Calais by crossing French borders. France is part of the borderless Schengen Area of the EU, whereas Britain is not." — James Glenday, ABC News.
Hundreds of migrants roam the highway near Calais, France, trying to stop trucks headed for Britain, in an attempt to stow away on board. (Image source: RT video screenshot)
Building work has begun on a wall in the northern French city of Calais, a major transport hub on the edge of the English Channel, to prevent migrants from stowing away on cars, trucks, ferries and trains bound for Britain.
Dubbed "The Great Wall of Calais," the concrete barrier — one kilometer (half a mile) long and four meters (13 feet) high on both sides of the two-lane highway approaching the harbor — will pass within a few hundred meters of a sprawling shanty town known as "The Jungle."
The squalid camp now houses more than 10,000 migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who are trying to reach Britain. The migrants at the camp are mostly from Sudan (45%), Afghanistan (30%), Pakistan (7%), Eritrea (6%) and Syria (1%), according to a recent census conducted by aid agencies.
French politicians seem to believe they are elected NOT to defend French people and the French nation, but to impose a "human rights ideology" on society.
The rule of law is there to protect citizens from the arbitrary actions of the State. When a group of French Muslims attacks the entire way society is constructed, the rule of law now protects only the perpetrators.
For Western leaders, "human rights" have become a kind of new religion. Like a disease, the human rights ideology has proliferated in all areas of life. The UN website shows a list of all the human rights that are now institutionalized: they range from "adequate housing" to "youth." At least 42 categories of human rights fields are determined, each of which are split into two or three subcategories.
With what result? More than 140 countries (out of 193 UN members) engage in torture. The number of authoritarian countries has increased. Women remain a subordinate class in nearly all countries.
"Saudi Arabia ratified the treaty banning discrimination against women in 2007, and yet by law subordinates women to men in all areas of life. Child labour exists in countries that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Powerful western countries, including the US, do business with grave human rights abusers." — Eric Posner, professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
Human rights, originally conceived of as an anti-discrimination tool, became a Trojan horse, a tool manipulated by Islamists and others to dismantle secularism, freedom of speech and freedom of religion in European countries.
Scenes from the "hard jihad" against France; the November 2015 shootings in Paris, in which 130 people were murdered by Islamists.
On August 13, the Administrative Court in Nice, France, validated the decision of the Mayor of Cannes to prohibit wearing religious clothing on the beaches of Cannes. By "religious clothing," the judge clearly seemed to be pointing his finger at the burkini, a body-covering bathing suit worn by many Muslim women.
by Khaled Abu Toameh • September 21, 2016 at 5:00 am
Hamas and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials have turned medical care into a business that earns them hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. This corruption has enabled top officials in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to embezzle millions of shekels from the PA budget.
In 2013, the PA spent more than half a billion shekels covering medical bills of Palestinians who were referred to hospitals outside the Palestinian territories. However, no one seems to know exactly how the money was spent and whether all those who received the referrals were indeed in need of medical treatment. In one case, it appeared that 113 Palestinian patients had been admitted to Israeli hospitals at the cost of 3 million shekels, while there is no documentation of any of these cases. Even the identities of the patients remain unknown.
Hajer Harb, a courageous Palestinian journalist from the Gaza Strip, says she is now facing charges of "slander" for exposing the corruption. She has been repeatedly interrogated by Hamas. The PA regime, for its part, is not too happy with exposure about the scandal.
Gaza's hospitals would be rather better equipped if Hamas used its money to build medical centers instead of tunnels for smuggling weapons from Egypt to attack Israel.
A Palestinian man is transferred to an Israeli ambulance at the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, on his way to an Israeli hospital, July 29, 2014. (Image source: Israeli Foreign Ministry)
Question: How do Palestinian patients obtain permits to receive medical treatment in Israeli and other hospitals around the world? Answer: By paying bribes to senior Palestinian officials in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Those who cannot afford to pay the bribes are left to die in under-equipped and understaffed hospitals, especially in the Gaza Strip.
Yet, apparently some Palestinians are more equal than others: Palestinians whose lives are not in danger, but who pretend that they are. These include businessmen, merchants, university students and relatives of senior Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas officials, who receive permits to travel to Israel and other countries under the pretext of medical emergency.
by Philip Carl Salzman • September 21, 2016 at 4:30 am
Black Lives Matter has been guided to anti-Semitism by the concept of "intersectionality, which argues that all oppressions are interlinked and cannot be solved alone. Thus, women can never be treated fairly if blacks face racial prejudice, and the disabled are not given sufficient support to be equal to the abled, and unless the Palestinians are liberated from the Israelis, and the Israelis are liberated from their lives and their home.
"Intersectionality" urges us to view the world as divided into a conspiracy of oppressors and an agony of oppressed, and reduces people to a number of categories, such as gender, sexuality, race, nationality, religion, capability, etc. Differences, such as sexism, racism, nationalism and ability -- as opposed to what we have in common -- are reinforced.
Supporters of "intersectionality" cheer terrorists when they murder Jews. To them, that is just "social justice" at work.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) has been guided to anti-Semitism by the concept of "intersectionality, which argues that all oppressions are interlinked and cannot be solved alone. BLM activists have visited Gaza and expressed a sympathetic attitude towards groups like Hamas, which calls for the genocide of Jews and engages in terrorism.
The recently published platform of Black Lives Matter (BLM) states that Israel is responsible for "the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people," and "Israel is an apartheid state ... that sanction[s] discrimination against the Palestinian people." These statements are anti-Semitic not only because they are false and modern versions of tradition anti-Semitic blood libel, but also because BLM selectively chooses the Jewish State out of all the states in the world to demonize. What has inspired BLM to engage in this counter-factual, anti-Semitic rant? BLM has been guided to anti-Semitism by the concept of "intersectionality."
"Intersectionality" is the idea that all oppressed peoples and categories of people share a position, and by virtue of that fact are potential allies in the struggle against their oppressors.
Mosques are a basic school where your children learn the Subject of Terrorism.
I ask again to Teacher (Mulla) in Mosque, Sir, there are so many Groups in Islam. One Group orders to Kill the other Group because he is a Non-Muslim. Why? He Replied Because he do not follow our Rules. Am Surprised to Listen. This means One Person who do not follow our Rules we Kill him?
I ask one more Question. Sir, if am a Sunni or Wahabi, I Kill the Person who belongs to an Other Sect like Shia? He reply, Yes off Course. Am shocked and say shoutly, No Sir I do not Kill Any Body whether he is Muslm or Non-Muslim or Muslim belong to an Other Sect. Am just talking. He (Mulla) slapped me hardly. Next am sit on the corner of Mosque, Quietly.
Every group or Sect are telling, We do this because our Prophet order us to. So what is the Prophet teaching, to kill someone just because he do not follow us?
A madrasa in Srirangapatna, India. Photo is for illustrative purposes only. (Image source: Prakash Subbarao/Wikimedia Commons)
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: "How do you see this tree? Is it green? Do not be afraid to paint it as green as possible." We apologize to anyone who may not like these postings. "Those who understand, understand."
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the Eastern nemesis of the European elite. No one else in Europe except him speaks about defending "Christianity."
"Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims ... This is an important question, because Europe and the European identity is rooted in Christianity." — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
The last chance to save Europe's roots might well come from the former communist members of the EU -- those who defeated the Ottomans in 1699 and now feel culturally threatened by their heirs.
Cypriots know much better than the comfortable bureaucrats of Brussels the consequences of a cultural collision. Ask about their churches on the Turkish side of the island; how many of them are still standing?
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the Eastern nemesis of the European elite. No one else in Europe except him speaks about defending "Christianity." Right: Poland's King John III Sobieski in battle against the Ottoman Turks at Vienna, in 1683.
Austria's fate is now at stake.
Perhaps it was a coincidence that Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna and tipped to be the next Pope, chose September 12, the anniversary of the Siege of Vienna, when Turkey's Ottoman troops nearly conquered Europe, to deliver a most dramatic appeal to save Europe's Christian roots.
"Many Muslims want and say that 'Europe is finished'," Cardinal Schönborn said, before accusing Europe of "forgetting its Christian identity." He then denounced the possibility of "an Islamic conquest of Europe."
Konrad Pesendorfer, head of the Austrian Office of Statistics, said that by 2030, 40% of the population of Vienna will be foreign-born, thanks to internal demography and migration flows (60,000 arrivals in just one year).
by Grégoire Canlorbe • September 20, 2016 at 4:30 am
"The world is changing, and more and more Muslims wish to live without the oppressing "tutelage" of Islam." — Waleed Al-Husseini.
"I find it difficult to speak of Muslim integration in France. In fact, except for a tiny minority, they are not really looking to integrate themselves." — Waleed Al-Husseini.
"The only ones who create stigmatization are the Muslims themselves... I cannot see one scintilla of evidence of a plot against Islam." — Waleed Al-Husseini.
"In addition, more and more Islamists refuse to integrate into a society that they deem godless and that they wish to convert." — Waleed Al-Husseini.
"Unfortunately, with rare exceptions, Muslims discreetly approve or at least try to justify the attacks." — Waleed Al-Husseini.
"According to their speeches, the Islamists indeed have set themselves the goal of conquering and ruling the entire world. If they manage to do it, they will owe their success not to their intellectual power or their faith, even less to their military force, but to their adversaries' cowardice." — Waleed Al-Husseini.
Waleed Al-Husseini. (Image source: "Alex aimelesmusulmans" video screenshot)
Waleed Al-Husseini is a Palestinian blogger and essayist, as well as the founder of the Ex-Muslim Council of France. He garnered international fame in 2010 when he was arrested by the Palestinian Authority, imprisoned and tortured for articles he posted, in which he criticized Islam. He has received threats and death threats. He is one of the most celebrated cyber-activists from the Arab world and now lives in France, where he sought refuge. He continues to be a defender of its secular, republican values.
Grégoire Canlorbe: Could you start by reminding us of the circumstances and motives of your dissent?
The government of Canada has been calling for greater work towards identifying the causes of extremism and radicalization in Canada.
One source of extremism is clearly in educational institutions. If the government of Canada is truly serious about attacking extremism in Canada, then having a national level investigation into educational institutions would be a good place to start.
Canada's so-called feminists have remained silent on the issue of wife-beating, inequality for women and the generally misogynistic views advanced in schools, universities and public groups such as the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). In certain circles, apparently, brown women's lives do not rate as highly as white women's lives. At the same time, the social justice warrior scale places Islam -- even its Islamist variety -- at the top of the protected scale. Therefore, feminists allow the advocacy of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and wife-beating while refusing to condemn those who advocate it, including Canada's Minister for the Status of Women.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne with ICNA employees. (Image: Twitter/Kathleen Wynne)
The government of Canada has been calling for greater work towards identifying the causes of extremism and radicalization in Canada. In an August 2016 statement, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale stated that, "We need to know how to identify those who could be vulnerable to insidious influences that draw certain people — especially young people — toward extremism leading to violence."
One source of extremism is clearly in educational institutions. If the government of Canada is truly serious about attacking extremism in Canada, then having a national level investigation into educational institutions would be a good place to start.
"To use the term 'honor killing' when describing the murder of a family member -- overwhelmingly females -- due to the perpetrators' belief that they have brought 'shame' on a family normalizes murder for cultural reasons and sets it apart from other killings when there should be no distinction." — Jane Collins, MEP, UK Independence Party.
Voter fraud has been deliberately overlooked in Muslim communities because of "political correctness," according to Sir Eric Pickles, author of a government report on voter fraud.
"Not only should we raise the flag, but everybody in the Muslim community should have to pledge loyalty to Britain in schools. There is no conflict between being a Muslim and a Briton." — Khalil Yousuf, spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community.
Only a tiny proportion -- between five and ten percent -- of the people whose asylum applications are denied are actually deported, according to a British asylum judge, quoted in the Daily Mail.
Police in Telford -- dubbed the child sex capital of Britain -- were accused of covering up allegations that hundreds of children in the town were sexually exploited by Pakistani sex gangs.
Tanveer Ahmed (right), a Sunni Muslim, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for the murdering Asad Shah (left), who belonged to the Ahmadi branch of Islam. Ahmed confessed to killing Shah in Glasgow because he claimed Shah had "disrespected the Prophet Mohammed."
August 1. Nearly 900 Syrians in Britain were arrested in 2015 for crimes including rape and child abuse, police statistics revealed. The British government has pledged to resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees in the UK by the end of 2020. "The government seems not to have vetted those it has invited into the country," said MEP Ray Finch. The disclosure came after Northumbria Police and the BBC were accused of covering up allegations that a gang of Syrians sexually assaulted two teenage girls in a park in Newcastle.
August 1. Male refugees settling in Britain must receive formal training on how to treat women, a senior Labour MP said. Thangam Debbonaire, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees, called for a "refugee integration strategy" so that men "understand what is expected of them." She said it could help prevent sexual harassment and issues "including genital mutilation."
by Majid Rafizadeh • September 19, 2016 at 4:00 am
By criticizing and blaming the U.S. for not honoring the terms, Rouhani plans to exploit President Obama's weak point, as the negotiating team has been doing all along, by invoking Obama's fear that Tehran might pull out of the nuclear deal -- a move that would highlight the failure of the accord. This tactic will, as usual, successfully pressure the administration to give Tehran even more geopolitical and economic "carrots," and pursue a policy with Iran of agreeing to even more concessions.
Rouhani's tactical shift is intended to reinforce Iran's entrenched revolutionary ideal of anti-Americanism, appease Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards, and ensure his second term presidency.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks at the UN General Assembly, September 26, 2013. (Image source: president.ir)
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will be attending the 71st session of the UN General Assembly in New York this week.
Based on the latest developments, all signs point to a tactical shift by Rouhani, in which his messages and tone will be quite different this year.
In the previous sessions of the UN General Assembly, Rouhani and his team adopted a diplomatic tone in order to have the UN Security Council lift sanctions against Iran. He praised the success of the nuclear agreement, its contribution to peace and its prevention of more tension and potential conflagration in the region. Iran's objective was achieved: a few months later, when all four rounds of the Security Council sanctions were removed, billions of dollars and billions of cover-up stories arrived, all cost-free gifts from the U.S.
The animosity of Lebanon towards Israel continues today only because it provides a convenient excuse for Hizballah to maintain a formidable arsenal that it uses to control Lebanon and to help its allies in Syria.
If Lebanon had prevented terrorist attacks from its territory against Israel, not one bullet would have been exchanged between the two countries. Today, Lebanon would be enjoying diplomatic relations with Israel, and the benefits of successful trade.
Lebanon has a law forbidding its citizens from interacting with Israeli citizens. When Miss Lebanon 2014, Saly Greige (second from left), was photographed together with Miss Israel, Doron Matalon (left), at the 2015 Miss Universe contest in Miami, the Lebanese government launched a probe into what was considered an incident of national significance.
Lebanon has many problems, including sectarian divisions, Iranian influence, spillover from the Syrian civil war, the weakness of its army, the ineffectiveness of its politicians, and the very existence of Hizballah, but Israel's existence next door is not one of them.
The animosity of Lebanon towards Israel continues today only because it provides a convenient excuse for Hizballah to maintain a formidable arsenal that it uses to control Lebanon and to help its allies in Syria.
Lebanon has a law forbidding its citizens from interacting with Israeli citizens. As Michael J. Totten wrote:
"Lebanese citizens aren't allowed to have any communication of any kind with Israelis anywhere in the world. If citizens of the two countries meet, say, on a beach in Cyprus or in a bar in New York, the Lebanese risks prison just for saying hello."
