LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
July 06/16
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletin16/english.july06.16.htm
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Bible Quotations For Today
Bible
Quotation for today/Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil
Isaiah 5/21-30: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put
darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet
for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their
own sight! Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing
strong drink; who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the
innocent! Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry
grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their
blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of
Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore Yahweh’s
anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them,
and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse
in the midst of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his
hand is still stretched out. He will lift up a banner to the nations from far,
and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come
speedily and swiftly. None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall
slumber nor sleep; neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the
latchet of their shoes be broken: whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows
bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.
Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they
shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to
deliver. They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If
one looks to the land behold, darkness and distress."
Pope Francis's Tweet For Today
Let’s join forces, at all levels, to ensure that peace in beloved Syria is
possible!
Unissons nos forces, à tous les niveaux, afin que la paix soit possible dans la
bien-aimée Syrie.
لنوحّد القوى على جميع الأصعدة كي يصبح السلام ممكنًا في سوريا الحبيبة!
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials
from miscellaneous sources published on July 05-06/16
Al-Quds Day’ Rallies See
Hezbollah Flags Flown on Streets of London ‘Without Fear of Consequence’
(VIDEO)/Lea Speyer/Algemeiner.com July 05/16
Nasrallah: Hezbollah prevented daily suicide bombings in Lebanon/Haid Haid/Now
Lebanon/July 05/16
Deir Ezzor civilians pressed into Hezbollah’s new militia: activists/Now
Lebanese/July 05/16
This Is Trump’s Foreign Policy, A Conversation With Top Trump Adviser Dr. Walid
Phares/JP Carroll/The Daily Caller/July 05/16
Does Islam Belong to Germany/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/July 05/16
A Ramadan Piece: The "Other" Islam/Salim Mansur/ Gatestone Institute/July 05/16
Al-Quds Day In Basra, Iraq: Iraqi Policemen Burn U.S. Flag, Chant 'Death To
America'
MEMRI/ July 05/16
Once again, Saudi Arabia is on the terrorism frontline/Dr. Theodore Karasik/Al
Arabiya/July 05/16
Bangladesh: Admitting the presence of ISIS/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/July
05/16
All eyes on Iran/Camelia Entekhabi-Fard/Al Arabiya/July 05/16
From Florida to Madinah: ISIS spared no one this Ramadan/Joyce Karam/Al Arabiya/July
05/16
Bahraini Writer, Jamil Al-Mahari: The Establishment Of An Islamic Caliphate – An
Illusion Born Out Of 'A Moral Vacuum'/MEMRI/July 05/16
Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on
July 05-06/16
Appointment of New Army Chief Returns to Spotlight as End of Qahwaji's Term
Looms
Russian-US Deal' Led to Local Oil Exploration Agreement
Rifi Reportedly Asked to Take 'Utmost Security Precautions'
Beirut Comes to Life: UK Ambassador Hosts Charity Fundraiser
Army Apprehends Fugitive in Iaat after Exchange of Gunfire
Hizbullah Condemns Suicide Blasts in Saudi Arabia
Qabalan: Wednesday first Fitr day
Foreign Ministry deplores Iraq's brutal explosions: For eradicating terrorism
scourge
Shorter holds Charity Fundraiser in aid of Home of Hope Orphanage: Beirut Comes
to Life
Salam heads to Mecca on Umrah pilgrimage
PHELLIPOLIS NGO launches Jounieh International Festival
Al-Quds Day’ Rallies See Hezbollah Flags Flown on Streets of London ‘Without
Fear of Consequence’ (VIDEO)
Nasrallah: Hezbollah prevented daily suicide bombings in Lebanon
Deir Ezzor civilians pressed into Hezbollah’s new militia: activists
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 05-06/16
Rebels, militants guilty of Syria war crimes: Amnesty
Egypt’s mufti: ‘Sheikhs inciting radicalism’ are not ‘Islamic scholars’
Salman vows to hit extremists with an ‘iron fist’
US says attacks on Saudi Arabia underscore ‘threat of extremism’
World joins Saudi Arabia in deploring acts of terror
Iraq’s interior minister offers to resign after massive Baghdad bombing
UN chief slams Israel over settlement plans in wake of Quartet report
Nearly 30,000 ‘foreign terrorists’ in Syria, Iraq: UN
British ‘will remain in the EU’: Austrian minister
No charges recommended in Clinton email probe, FBI says
Five arrested over Myanmar mosque burning
Turkey's Erdogan rules out Egypt thaw despite diplomatic blitz
US ditched plan to give Afghan forces more armored vehicles
Rockets target Iran exiles at Iraq camp
Dr. Walid Phares: Trump Will Redo, But Won't Dismantle Iran Deal
Links From Jihad Watch Site for
July 05-06/16
Al-Quds Day speaker in Toronto calls for Israelis to be shot
Christians facing extinction in Iraq at the hands of jihadist warriors
Germany: Leftist pol raped by Muslim migrants, lied to police to avoid
encouraging racism
Muslim former National Guardsman plotted jihad massacre for Islamic State
Palestinian Authority funds mourning tent for jihadi who stabbed 13-year-old
Israeli girl to death
State Department: ISIS jihad attacks are signs of US success against ISIS
Indonesia: Jihad-martyrdom suicide bomber blows himself up at police station
India: Islamic State Muslims planned jihad massacre at police station
Muslims shocked! shocked! at attack on Baghdad during Ramadan
Islam is both a religion and polity, says leading Egyptian cleric
Raymond Ibrahim: Made in Our Image: The Allure of ‘Moderate Muslims’
Jihad-martyrdom bombers hit 3 Saudi cities, including Muhammad’s mosque in
Medina
Video: Robert Spencer on Islam’s View of Women
Islamic State beheads men for “mocking Islam,” “pledging
allegiance to infidels”
July 05-06/16
Appointment of New Army Chief
Returns to Spotlight as End of Qahwaji's Term Looms
Naharnet/July 05/16/The issue of whether to appoint a new army chief or extend
anew the term of Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji has returned to the
political scene, a media report said on Tuesday, less than two months ahead of
the expiry of the incumbent's tenure.“This issue was the reason behind the visit
that Defense Minister Samir Moqbel paid to Change and Reform bloc chief MP
Michel Aoun several days ago,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported.Quoting sources
involved in the deliberations, the daily said Moqbel told Aoun that he is
“mulling the appointment of a successor to Qahwaji.”
“Aoun responded by stressing that he also wants the appointment of a new
commander,” the sources added. “Moqbel has no choice but to raise the issue in
Cabinet in early August, ahead of the expiry of the term of Army Chief of Staff
Maj. Gen. Walid Salman,” the sources said, noting that “if Moqbel doesn't raise
the issue, other political forces will do that, especially the two ministers of
the Free Patriotic Movement.” Moqbel had in August last year postponed the
retirement of Qahwaji, Salman and Higher Defense Council chief Maj. Gen.
Mohammed Kheir, extending their terms by one year, after the political forces
failed to reach an agreement on security and military appointments. Qahwaji's
tenure expires in September while that of Salman will end on August 7. The army
chief's term has been extended twice since 2013 despite political objections,
especially from the FPM, which says it rejects term extensions for any military
or security official. FPM founder MP Michel Aoun had been reportedly seeking the
appointment of former Commando Regiment chief Chamel Roukoz, his son-in-law, as
a successor to Qahwaji.
Russian-US Deal' Led to Local
Oil Exploration Agreement
Naharnet/July 05/16/Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil held talks in Moscow
prior to the Ain al-Tineh agreement between Speaker Nabih Berri and Free
Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil regarding the issue of offshore oil and
gas exploration, a media report said on Tuesday. “The Berri-Bassil agreement was
preceded by an understanding between Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and
Russian officials during the minister's recent visit to Moscow,” al-Akhbar
newspaper reported. Khalil is a close aide to Berri and a member of his AMAL
Movement. “The agreement with the Russians involved Moscow's commitment to
extract oil and gas from the three southern blocks of Lebanon's Exclusive
Economic Zone, which neighbors Israel's oil and gas blocks,” al-Akhbar said.
“Moscow also committed itself to addressing any crises that might be stirred by
the (Israeli) enemy,” the daily added. According to the newspaper, the
Berri-Bassil agreement was preceded by reports suggesting that the Lebanese
disputes over oil and gas exploration were linked to “a dispute over the
nationalities of the companies that would be tasked with offshore excavation."
Turning to Washington's alleged role in the latest drive, al-Akhbar said “the US
was interested in securing deals for its companies to excavate for oil and gas
in the offshore blocks off Lebanon's northern coast,” noting that the Americans
had “pressed the political forces to reactivate the file and mediated to end the
dispute over the demarcation of the maritime border between Lebanon and
Israel.”“This practically means that the domestic agreement on oil and gas
exploration was the result of a prior Russian-American deal on splitting
shares,” the daily added. The Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper had reported Sunday
that the executive decrees for offshore oil and gas exploration would be issued
within two weeks. The disagreement between AMAL and the FPM has hindered
agreements on energy extraction for years. Lebanon has been slow to exploit its
maritime resources compared with other eastern Mediterranean countries. Israel,
Cyprus and Turkey are all much more advanced in drilling for oil and gas. In
March 2010, the US Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of
recoverable oil and a mean of 34.5 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas in
the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the territorial
waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Cyprus. In August 2014, the government
postponed for the fifth time the first round of licensing for gas exploration
over a political dispute. The disagreements were over the designation of blocks
open for bidding and the terms of a draft exploration agreement.Lebanese
officials have continuously warned that Israel's exploration of new offshore gas
fields near Lebanese territorial waters means Israel is siphoning some of
Lebanon's crude oil.
Rifi Reportedly Asked to Take
'Utmost Security Precautions'
Naharnet/July 05/16/Security agencies have asked resigned Justice Minister
Ashraf Rifi to take “utmost security precautions,” a media report said on
Tuesday. “A group of operatives has arrived in the North region to monitor his
movements and activities,” al-Joumhouria newspaper said. In March, Palestinian
factions in north Lebanon downplayed reports about the presence of an alleged
“assassination squad” at the al-Beddawi Palestinian refugee camp. In a
statement, the groups denied “media reports about the presence of a cell at the
al-Beddawi camp that is plotting to assassinate resigned Justice Minister Maj.
Gen. Ashraf Rifi and MP Ahmed Fatfat” of the al-Mustaqbal bloc. “Our camps in
general and the al-Beddawi camp in particular enjoy stable security situations
due to the efforts that are being exerted by the (Palestinian) resistance
factions and the high coordination with all Lebanese security agencies,” the
statement said. They also expressed readiness to “cooperate in assessing and
probing any information about the presence of any individual posing a security
threat to Lebanon's stability.” Earlier that month, Rifi had announced that he
had received information about an alleged “Syrian-Iranian” plot to assassinate
him and Fatfat. “I was asked to be cautious seeing as there is information that
four individuals at a Palestinian camp in northern Lebanon have been tasked with
assassinating either Ashraf Rifi or Ahmed Fatfat with a bomb-laden car or
motorbike,” said Rifi. “They would appear to be members of the terrorist Daesh
(Islamic State) group but in reality it would be a Syrian-Iranian intelligence
scheme,” the resigned minister noted.
Beirut Comes to Life: UK
Ambassador Hosts Charity Fundraiser
Naharnet/July 05/16/British Ambassador to Lebanon Hugo Shorter has held a
charity fundraiser at his residence in Yarze, in collaboration with British
artist Tom Young and in aid of Home of Hope (HOH) Orphanage, the UK Embassy said
on Tuesday.
The event was attended by Culture Minister Rony Araiji, Embassy friends,
partners and art lovers. “This open house event was the latest of British
Embassy initiatives to support the under-privileged,” said the Embassy in its
statement. Artist Tom Young – who hopes through his work to make a contribution
for the future of “a country he admires dearly” -- displayed a set of his
paintings titled: ‘Spectrum’. Through an infinite array of emotion, the
paintings explore how new life can revitalize the abandoned chambers of Beirut.
Tom worked with children from the Home of Hope orphanage who joined him at the
Rose House and were able to produce their own paintings and sketches under his
artistic guidance. ‘Eh Fi Amal’ (Yes There is Hope) was the title of the Home of
Hope orphanage students project expressing a vision of regeneration in the city,
a reflection of hope for a better future. The children visited the exhibition
and were thrilled to see their work on display in the Ambassador’s home
alongside Tom’s works. In his welcoming speech Ambassador Shorter said: "We are
proud to be showcasing Tom’s talent and message to Lebanon. Tom’s paintings and
his vision of Beirut are part of how my wife and I learned to look at this
beautiful city. Tom’s work is goes beyond the canvas, and includes sharing his
passion for art with the young, bringing out the hidden artistic talent in them
and showing them much more of Lebanon’s beauty, resilience and hope."Tom Young
said: "I’m delighted to be here for the second joint venture with the British
Embassy in support of my work and the children of Lebanon. Through art, I
attempt to preserve the architectural heritage sites for the future of Lebanon,
in collaboration with disadvantaged children who hopefully will play a part in
the restructuring of a country we all strongly believe in."
A short video was screened of the children at work and another of Tom’s painting
process showing how, with art, one can respond creatively and positively to some
of the challenges facing Lebanon. Sale revenues will be donated to HOH orphanage
that is housing around 200 children (Lebanese and other nationalities). Tom
Young is a full time artist based in Beirut. He is enthusiastic about
collaborating with children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
His work is in numerous collections around the world. The Home of Hope is a
non-profit organization founded in 1999 which serves the misfortunate, abused,
abandoned, and orphaned children in Lebanon. The Lebanese Evangelical Society
opened the institution with the hope to make it a refuge and shelter for CARs
(Children At Risk).
Army Apprehends Fugitive in
Iaat after Exchange of Gunfire
Naharnet/July 05/16/A fugitive was critically injured during an exchange of
gunfire between him and army troops who tried on Tuesday to stop him at a
checkpoint in Bekaa's Iaat, the National News Agency reported.The wounded was
rushed to hospital for treatment, the agency added.
Hizbullah Condemns Suicide
Blasts in Saudi Arabia
Naharnet/July 05/16/ Hizbullah condemned in a statement on Monday "the terrorist
suicide blasts" that targeted the vicinity of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina,
and another mosque in Qatif, Saudi Arabia."The explosions that targeted the
holiest places at the holiest time only prove the terrorists' disrespect of
Muslim sanctuaries, and their split from religion," the party said."Terrorist
acts in Saudi Arabia today, as well as in Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and everywhere
else highlight the necessity of clear political and popular solidarity to
eradicate this malign tumor," it added.
Qabalan: Wednesday first Fitr day
Tue 05 Jul 2016/NNA - Vice Head of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council, Sheikh
Abdul Amir Qabalan, announced on Tuesday that tomorrow shall be the first Fitr
day. But the cleric apologized for abstaining from receiving well-wishers, "due
to the current dangerous developments in the region, and in mourning of the
martyrs in Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and everywhere."
Foreign Ministry deplores
Iraq's brutal explosions: For eradicating terrorism scourge
Tue 05 Jul 2016/NNA - Foreign and Expatriates Ministry categorically condemned
on Tuesday the heinous terrorist attacks that recently rattled the Iraqi
capital, Iraq, which claimed the lives of a lot of innocent people. "The
brutality of the attacks which recently rocked Iraq stands as a flagrant proof
of the absurdity of the obscurantist terrorism forces targeting our region and
lurking its security and stability, without being deterred by any religious or
conscience restraint," a statement by Foreign Ministry said. The Foreign
Ministry beseeched people of the region to unite and cement ranks in order to
eradicate such a brutal scourge, dry sources of its funding and refute sides
currently feeding such forces intellectually and ideologically. The Ministry
expressed full solidarity with Iraq, people and government, and offered
condolences to the families of fallen victims in Iraq's explosions and wished
the injured speedy recovery.
Shorter holds Charity
Fundraiser in aid of Home of Hope Orphanage: Beirut Comes to Life
Tue 05 Jul 2016/NNA - British Ambassador to Lebanon, Hugo Shorter, held a
charity fundraiser at his residence in Yarze, in collaboration with British
artist Tom Young and in aid of Home of Hope (HOH) Orphanage.The event was
attended by Culture Minister Rony Araiji, Embassy. friends, partners and art
lovers.In a press release by the British Embassy in Beirut, it said: "This open
house event was the latest of British Embassy initiatives to support the under-privileged."Artist
Tom Young - who hopes through his work to make a contribution for the future of
a country he admires dearly- displayed a set of his paintings titled:
'Spectrum'. Through an infinite array of emotion, the paintings explore how new
life can revitalise the abandoned chambers of Beirut. Tom worked with children
from the Home of Hope orphanage who joined him at the Rose House and were able
to produce their own paintings and sketches under his artistic guidance. 'Eh Fi
Amal' (Yes There is Hope) was the title of the Home of Hope orphanage students
project expressing a vision of regeneration in the city, a reflection of hope
for a better future. The children visited the exhibition and were thrilled to
see their work on display in the Ambassador's home alongside Tom's works. In his
welcoming speech, Ambassador Shorter said: "We are proud to be showcasing Tom's
talent and message to Lebanon. Tom's paintings and his vision of Beirut are part
of how my wife and I learned to look at this beautiful city. Tom's work is goes
beyond the canvas, and includes sharing his passion for art with the young,
bringing out the hidden artistic talent in them and showing them much more of
Lebanon's beauty, resilience and hope."Tom Young said: "I'm delighted to be here
for the second joint venture with the British Embassy in support of my work and
the children of Lebanon. Through art, I attempt to preserve the architectural
heritage sites for the future of Lebanon, in collaboration with disadvantaged
children who hopefully will play a part in the restructuring of a country we all
strongly believe in".A short video was screened of the children at work and
another of Tom's painting process showing how, with art, one can respond
creatively and positively to some of the challenges facing Lebanon. Sale
revenues will be donated to HOH orphanage that is housing around 200 children
(Lebanese and other nationalities).
Salam heads to Mecca on Umrah pilgrimage
Tue 05 Jul 2016/NNA - Prime Minister, Tammam Salam, left Beirut this evening
heading to Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah pilgrimage.
PHELLIPOLIS NGO launches
Jounieh International Festival
Tue 05 Jul 2016/NNA - Following the incredible success of the last seasons and
in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Culture,
PHELLIPOLIS NGO launches the 6th editionof its highly anticipated annual
festival:
Under the patronage of the Minister of Tourism, H.E. Michel Pharaon and the
Minister of Culture, H.E. Raymond Aarayji ;Jounieh International Festival
director Mr. Fadi Fayad gave a press conference at the Ministry of Tourism, to
announce the festivities-filled program for summer 2016, in the presenceof Mr.
Juan Hobeich, president ofthe municipal council, along with the participation of
prominent figures from the Media, the economic sector and the civil society. On
Wednesday, July 13, the opening night will kick off the festivities with
anexceptional Lighting and Laser Show that will reflect special effects into the
Sky and Landmarks of the city thru a systematic framework which will create an
atmosphere of surprise and joy. On Thursday, July 14, the festival's trademark
event will reappear: the breathtaking fireworks show is expected to light up the
skies along the bay of Jounieh under the amazed eyes of hundreds of thousands of
spectators. The exalted audience gathering around the coast will get the chance
to witness the tourist appeal of the city and the genuine civilized aspect of
Lebanon. As part of the night, a photo contest will be held for both
professionals and amateurs encouraging them to catch wonderful pictures of the
event. This night will be an occasion for all boat and yacht owners to
participate in the annual boats gathering in the bay of Jounieh, an event
initiated and organized by the festival committee: More than 600 boats and
yachts will gather from all Lebanese ports to assist the fireworks show, in a
festive atmosphere. On Saturday, July 16, the Argentinean Legend Raul Di Blasio
will evoke the night with the brilliant Lebanese pianistMichel Fadelin a
fascinating evening that will guideus to a world of dreams. On Monday, July 18,
the American StarJason Derulo will take Jounieh by storm with the beat of his
well-known Hits. Fans of Urban and Pop music will be exalted by a wonderful
variety of the Stars' new songs. In addition, the President of the festival,
Mrs. ZenaFrem gave a speech in which she insisted on the importance of promoting
tourism in Lebanon, especially in Jounieh. Furthermore, the Minister of Culture
and the Minister of Tourism encouragedin their words, the national festivals to
continue for the benefit of the tourism and the economic evolution.
Al-Quds Day’ Rallies See Hezbollah
Flags Flown on Streets of London ‘Without Fear of Consequence’ (VIDEO)
Lea Speyer/Algemeiner.com July 4, 2016
Video link/https://youtu.be/aBufXyrhdEo
http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/07/04/al-quds-day-rallies-see-hezbollah-flags-flown-on-streets-of-london-without-fear-of-consequence-video/
Hezbollah flag being flown during 2016’s Al-Quds Day march in London. Photo:
Steve Winston.
The leader of a prominent British pro-Israel group spoke out against the flying
of terrorist flags on the streets of London during an anti-Israel rally over the
weekend, telling The Algemeiner on Monday that such open displays of support for
terror groups should not be tolerated.
“Hezbollah flags were once against being flown seemingly without fear of
consequence,” said Simon Cobbs, co-chair of Israel advocacy group Sussex Friends
of Israel (SFI), whose organization was one of three main sponsors of Sunday’s
counter-demonstration against the annual anti-Israel “Al Quds Day” march.
As reported by The Algemeiner, the annual march has emerged as a festival of
incitement against Israel. In previous years, the flags of Hezbollah, Hamas and
ISIS have been flown, with rally organizers failing to issue condemnations of
open displays of support for terror. In the UK, only Hezbollah’s military branch
— which shares the same flag as its political branch — is classified as a
terrorist organization.
Cobbs told The Algemeiner that numerous sources who infiltrated the march said
rally organizers sent children — some wrapped in Hezbollah flags — and members
of the marginal Haredi anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta to the head of the
procession, seemingly to provoke pro-Israel counter-demonstrators. “Highly
offensive” anti-Israel placards — such as “Dismantling of Zionist State = End Of
Bloodshed” — were waved by protesters, he said.
At one point, a “tense standoff, with both groups no more than a few feet
apart,” took place, Cobbs said, adding that “police did a fantastic job in
ensuring the safety of all involved.”
According to police estimates, “approximately 500-600 people gathered in
solidarity with Israel from communities across the UK, including Jews,
Christians and Muslims,” Cobbs said. “We took to the road outside the US Embassy
to say ‘No to terror – Yes to peace.’”
While the counter-demonstration had “many aims, all of which were not only
achieved but mostly surpassed,” two great victories emerged, according to Cobbs.
“It was our intention to highlight the flying of a proscribed terrorist group’s
flag in London. Tory MP Matthew Offord, who spoke at the rally, has again
pledged to raise the matter in parliament and work on ensuring that the loophole
in the law that allows it is closely scrutinized,” Cobbs said.
Offord already appears to be keeping his promise.
On Monday, it was reported by the UK’s Jewish News that the parliamentarian
wrote a letter to the Assistant Commissioner at the Metropolitan Police voicing
his objections to the flying of the Hezbollah flag, which he wrote is “contrary
to the Section 13 of the Terrorism Act (2000).”
The second major victory, Cobbs said, is that “the day also proved that a small
but growing number of people here in the UK are becoming more willing to show
their support for Israel despite troublesome times.”
“The hate of Al-Quds has been unopposed for over a decade and this year we
certainly made it very clear that not only is Israel not going anywhere, but
that we will not allow their lies and hate to remain unchallenged any longer,”
Cobbs told The Algemeiner. The pro-Israel demonstration — titled “It’s Time To
Stop The Hate: Stand With Israel” — featured speeches by Board of Deputies
president Jonathan Arkush, Jewish Leadership Council CEO Simon Johnson, Zionist
Federation president Paul Charney and UN Watch director Hillel Neuer.
Watch footage from London’s Al-Quds Day rally below:
Nasrallah: Hezbollah prevented daily suicide bombings in Lebanon
Haid Haid/Now Lebanon/July 05/16
Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah recently tackled the recent battles
southwest of Aleppo, where the party reportedly suffered its worst losses since
entering the conflict in Syria. Nasrallah admitted in a speech broadcasted live
on the group's Al-Manar TV on June 24 that 26 Hezbollah fighters had been killed
since the beginning of June. This rare acknowledgment of the party’s death toll
seems to be an attempt to downplay the recent spate of casualties suffered in
fighting near Syria’s largest city. This tally was later confirmed by the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, who reported that “25 Hezbollah fighters were
killed in southwest of Aleppo, which is the highest toll for Hezbollah fighters
in a single battle since 2013.” Nasrallah later explained that the heavy losses
came after the arrival of thousands of opposition fighters to the area via the
Turkish border, who aim is to capture Aleppo and its surrounding countryside.
However, several experts claim that the mounting Hezbollah casualties were
mainly due to a lack of Russian air cover in the battle.
Russia’s unilateral announcement of a two day ceasefire in Aleppo was actually
one of the main factors that contributed to Hezbollah’s heavy losses. Russia's
defense ministry stated that the goal of the ceasefire, which began on June 16,
was to lower the level of violence and stabilize the situation in Aleppo.
However, it was later claimed that Russia announced the ceasefire in Aleppo
without consulting Damascus or Tehran and that the Russians intentionally
deprived pro-Assad forces in Aleppo of air cover due to conflicting agendas
among the allies. Mustafa al-Ahmed, a rebel fighter with Jaysh al-Fatah in
Aleppo, believes that the absence of Russian airstrikes was the main reason
behind Hezbollah’s losses. “Although the extensive use of mortar shelling and
car bombs had contributed to a high number of casualties among Hezbollah’s
fighters, the main reason was the absence of Russian air support to the Shiite
militias backed by Iran,” Ahmed argued. Similarly, Hezbollah supporters
reportedly blamed Russia for the mounting casualties and publically criticized
Moscow for not using its air force to protect the party’s fighters.
Exhaustion among Hezbollah fighters, who are spread over several fronts in
Syria, may also have contributed to the recent spike in casualties. Ali al-Saadi,
a field commander in the Iraqi Shiite militia Harakat al-Nujaba, which is active
in Syria and Iraq, told Al-Quds al-Araby that Hezbollah has requested urgent
reinforcement from Iraqi Popular Mobilization militias to support their fighters
in Aleppo. Saadi linked this request to the increased inability of Hezbollah to
fight effectively while its fighters are active in multiple operations across
Syria. He added that the Russian government had informed its Syrian counterparts
that airstrikes in support of Hezbollah near Aleppo would not be useful unless
there were enough soldiers on the ground to secure areas taken from rebels.
Although not having enough fighters may have contributed to Hezbollah’s losses,
it is unlikely that this was the main reason behind the spike in casualties. Al-Akhbar’s
editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote on June 17 that Iran, Russia and Syria
have agreed on an action plan for a large battle in Deir Ezzor province in which
Hezbollah will play a central role. This claim, if true, refutes Saadi’s
explanation and demonstrates that Hezbollah is willing and has the man power to
expand their operations into new fronts in Syria.
The most likely explanation behind the mass casualties is that Russia was not on
board when the Syrian regime and Iran launched their Aleppo offensive. Nasrallah
argued the fighting near Aleppo was necessary to “defend what remains of Syria,
Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan.” However, it seems that Hezbollah was not able to
convince Russia to fully support this battle. “Nasrallah’s latest speech exposed
Iran’s failure to convince Moscow to fully join the fight to retake Aleppo and
its countryside from the opposition,” wrote Mustafa Fahs, a former fellow at the
Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Interfax news agency also
quoted Russia's ambassador to Syria saying that he did not expect the Syrian
army to assault the city in the near future. Nevertheless, it seems that Iran
had a plan to change Russia’s position, but the strategy backfired. “Iran was
trying to drag Russia into Aleppo by starting the fight there alone and hoping
that the developments on the ground would push the later to join. However, it
seems that Hezbollah is the one who paid the heaviest price for Iran’s gamble,”
said a Western diplomat based in Lebanon, who spoke under the condition of
anonymity.
“We had to be in Aleppo, and we will stay in Aleppo,” Hassan Nasrallah declared
in the same speech. The Hezbollah leader even promised to increase their
presence there as "retreat is not permissible." However, it seems that the party
leader is ignoring the recent improvements in relations between Russia and
Turkey, which may reduce Russia’s involvement in Aleppo and could in turn
increase the party’s losses there.
**Haid Haid is a Syrian researcher who focuses on foreign and security policy,
conflict resolution and Kurds and Islamist movements. He tweets @HaidHaid22
Deir Ezzor civilians pressed into Hezbollah’s new militia:
activists
Now Lebanese/July 05/16
BEIRUT – The Syrian regime has reportedly been conscripting civilians in the
government-controlled parts of Deir Ezzor city into a new militia force formed
by Hezbollah, according to activists. The local Deir Ezzor Is Being Slaughtered
Silently group claimed Sunday that regime forces were arresting civilians and
forcing them into service with the Zayn al-Abidin Brigade. Meanwhile, the
pro-rebel Syria Press Center said Monday that dozens of young men living around
the embattled city’s Jura quarter were forcibly conscripted, with the largest
round of arrests occurring on Saturday.
“Most of these arrested men were forced into Hezbollah’s recently-formed Zayn
al-Abidin Brigade, which has its headquarters in the villas next to Deir Ezzor
Central Prison in Jura,” the activist outlet added. Another activist outlet, Al-Nateq,
also reported Monday that the Zayn al-Abidin Brigade was undertaking a campaign
of pressing young Deir Ezzor men into service, without going further details on
the matter.
Reports emerged in late June that Hezbollah had established a new military
faction in the city—which is split between the regime and ISIS—called the Zayn
al-Abidin Brigade, named after the fourth Shiite Imam, who survived the Battle
of Karbala in 680.
The head of the activist Deir Ezzor Is Being Slaughtered Silently group
explained that Hezbollah’s new militia force is based in the city’s Al-Jura
neighborhood and is comprised of approximately 150 fighters.“Hezbollah members
began appearing in the city four months ago,” Ahmad Ramadan told Zaman al-Wasl,
adding that regime helicopters have been transporting fighters of the
newly-formed Zayn al-Abidin Brigade to Deir Ezzor in the past week.
Hezbollah ramping up Deir Ezzor presence
Hezbollah’s alleged military moves in Deir Ezzor comes after a leading Lebanese
daily close to the party printed an article saying that Hezbollah would soon
take part in a major regime operation in eastern Syria. Al-Akhbar’s
editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote June 18 that Iran, Russia and Syria have
agreed on a “large action plan” for a “very big battle in the Deir Ezzor”
province in which Hezbollah will play a “central role.”
“Perhaps the forces of [Hezbollah] will face a test largely resembling what
happened in Qalamoun, Zabadani and Qusayr,” he said, in reference to the lead
role Hezbollah took in the 2013-2015 operations to clear rebels from regions
along Syria’s border with Lebanon. Amin, an influential commentator known for
his close relations with Hezbollah, noted that Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad’s government has expressed its “strong desire” to support the regime
troops holed up in the city of Deir Ezzor, which have been repeatedly attacked
by ISIS since the jihadist group swept rebels out of the rest of the province in
mid-2014.“A loss [in Deir Ezzor] means a real massacre of thousands of civilians
and soldiers, and the loss of a key area in eastern Syria,” the Al-Akhbar column
cautioned.
According to Amin, the plans for a wide-scale Deir Ezzor offensive moved forward
after the June 9 meeting of Iran, Russia and Syria’s defense ministers in
Tehran.
He wrote that mobilization efforts for the upcoming campaign “have just
started,” but clarified that the battle will start in the “not-too-distant
future.”
Syrian army troops backed by Hezbollah, Russia and Iran seized Palmyra—an
ancient archaeological city approximately 185 kilometers west of Deir Ezzor—from
ISIS on March 27.
In the days following the Palmyra victory, the pro-regime forces set their
sights eastward on Al-Sukhna, a town on the M20 highway leading to Deir Ezzor,
however no major desert drive materialized.
“Linking Palmyra to Deir Ezzor will contribute to [splitting lines between]
ISIS’s main areas of in Syria and Iraq, and disperse their forces fighting in
the Raqqa and Aleppo provinces,” Amin postulated in his report.
He further claimed that the planned east Syria offensive “will not be part of a
deal” reached with the US, which is currently backing the Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces battling ISIS in northern Syria.
The US has also reportedly supported two smaller Free Syrian Army-factions, the
New Syrian Army and Ahmad al-Abdo Martyrs Brigades, conducting small-scale
campaigns against ISIS in the vast Syrian semi-desert stretching to the Iraqi
and Jordanian borders.
**NOW's English news desk editor Albin Szakola (@AlbinSzakola) wrote this
report.
Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on July 05-06/16
Rebels, militants guilty of Syria
war crimes: Amnesty
AFP, Beirut Tuesday, 5 July 2016/Islamist rebels and militants in Syria are
guilty of war crimes, Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday,
accusing them of “a chilling wave of abductions, torture and summary
killings.”The London-based rights group named five Syrian anti-regime factions
operating in northern Syria: Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, hardliner Ahrar
al-Sham, Nureddin Zinki, the Levant Front and Division 16. The groups have
detained and tortured lawyers, journalists, and children - among others - for
criticizing them, committing acts seen as immoral, or being minorities, the
report said. “Many civilians live in constant fear of being abducted if they
criticize the conduct of armed groups in power or fail to abide by the strict
rules that some have imposed,” said Philip Luther, head of Amnesty’s Middle East
and North Africa program.“In Aleppo and Idlib today, armed groups have free rein
to commit war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law with
impunity,” he added. The report is based on 24 accounts of abduction by
anti-regime groups between 2012 and 2016 and another five cases of torture.
Halim, a humanitarian worker, was kidnapped and tortured by Nureddin Zinki
rebels in Aleppo city until he confessed to a crime. When I refused to sign the
confession paper the interrogator ordered the guard to torture me,” he said. “He
then started beating me with cables on the soles of my feet. I couldn’t bear the
pain so I signed the paper,” Halim said. Extremist and hardline religious groups
operate their own religious courts which punish crimes such as apostasy or
adultery with death.Saleh was held by Al-Nusra in late 2014, and was told by his
guard that five women accused of adultery would “only be forgiven by death.”He
said he later watched a video showing Al-Nusra militants publicly killing one of
women execution-style. Amnesty said it documented violations in Idlib, which is
held by Al-Nusra and its allies, and Aleppo.Syria’s conflict began in March 2011
with anti-government protests but has since broken down into all-out war,
leaving more than 280,000 people dead. Rights groups have accused both the
regime of Bashar al-Assad and anti-government factions of indiscriminate
attacks, torture and detention.Amnesty called on world powers to “pressure armed
groups to end such abuses and comply with the laws of war.”The report said
regional powers must also stop providing weapons or other forms of support to
any factions involved in war crimes or other violations.
Egypt’s mufti: ‘Sheikhs
inciting radicalism’ are not ‘Islamic scholars’
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Monday, 4 July 2016/Egypt’s grand mufti, the
country’s most top religious figure, has denounced Monday’s “terrorism events”
in Saudi Arabia which saw a suicide bombing strike near the Prophet’s Mosque in
Madinah, considered to be one of the holiest sites in Islam. Shawki Ibrahim, who
has held the office since early 2013, said religious sheikhs who incite
radicalism cannot be described as “Islamic scholars,” likening “terrorism” to
“cancer” that “must be eradicated.”He also said fighting “terrorism” should be
“everyone’s responsibility,” and urged youth to “reject” religious edicts or
fatwas that incite strife and “destroy countries.”
Salman vows to hit extremists with an ‘iron fist’
By Staff writer Al Arabiya English Tuesday, 5 July 2016/Saudi King Salman bin
Abdulaziz on Tuesday vowed to hit back with an “iron fist” religious extremists
who target the country's youth, in a speech marking the end of the holy month of
Ramadan. "The biggest challenge facing the Islamic nation is to preserve real
wealth and hope for the future of the young who face the risk of extremism and
malicious calls pushing them to abnormal behaviors and practices..." Salman
said."We will strike with an iron fist those who target the minds and thoughts
and attitudes of our dear youth," the king added.King Salman made the remarks a
day after suicide bombers struck three cities in an apparently coordinated
campaign of attacks. One suicide attack occurred outside the Prophet Mohammad’s
Mosque in Madinah, the second-holiest site in Islam. The other suicide attacks
targeted the US consulate in Jeddah and the eastern city of Qatif. At least four
security officers were killed.
US says attacks on Saudi
Arabia underscore ‘threat of extremism’
By Staff writer Al Arabiya English Tuesday, 5 July 2016/The United States
strongly condemned on Tuesday the deadly terrorist attacks that struck three
cities in Saudi Arabia a day earlier. In a statement, the US Department of State
extended its condolences to the victims’ families and reaffirmed its solidarity
with the people of Saudi Arabia in fighting terrorism. “We condemn the violence
that has marred the final days of Ramadan and brought sorrow to so many innocent
families,” the statement read. “We stand - as we have stood - with the people of
Saudi Arabia as they confront the scourge of terrorism. These attacks underscore
the scope of the threat we all face, and remind us of the need to continue to
stay focused on combating violent extremism and bringing those responsible for
it to justice.” Saudi Arabia was the target of three terrorist attacks on
Monday, one of which occurred outside the Prophet Mohammad’s Mosque in Madinah,
the second-holiest site in Islam. The apparently coordinated suicide attacks
also targeted the US consulate in Jeddah and the largely Shiite Muslim city of
Qatif. At least four security officers were killed.
World joins Saudi Arabia in
deploring acts of terror
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Tuesday, 5 July 2016/Messages of condemnation,
grief and solidarity have poured in from all parts of the world even as Saudi
Arabia grappled with the aftermath of terror attacks that were carried out
inside the country on Monday. The Saudi Press Agency said that King Salman bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud received a telephone call from King Abdullah of Jordan.
“During the call, King Abdullah II expressed its condemnation of the terrorist
operations that took place in the Kingdom,” the SPA said. Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, received
phone calls from King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain and the Ministers of
Interior of Bahrain and Kuwait. During the calls, they expressed condemnation of
the despicable terrorist attacks that took place in the Kingdom on Monday.Among
the first to react was the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Joseph W. Westphal,
who condemned the attack adding that everyone deserves the right to worship in
peace. “As the holy month of Ramadan comes to a close, Muslims from the United
States to Saudi Arabia and beyond should now be celebrating the advent of Eid
al-Fitr. Instead many of us will be grieving, in particular the families of the
Saudi security forces personnel and others who were hurt or killed in the
senseless attacks in Jeddah, Qatif, and Medina today,” Westphal said in a
statement. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) expressed its
condemnation and denunciation of the terrorist attacks. In a statement released
on its website, the OIC Secretary General, Iyad Ameen Madani, said that those
who carried out, planned or supported these attacks were simply carrying out
desperate acts to undermine the security and stability of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, the mainstay of the security and stability of the region and the Islamic
world. “Any person who takes out his or her life, kill and terrorize innocent
people; and commit such crimes in the holy month of Ramadan and in al-Madinah al
Munawwarah and close to the sacred mosque of the Prophet, negates being a Muslim
and refutes every Islamic value,” Madani said. He also praised the vigilant
Saudi security agencies who foil and face up to these terrorist attacks. The
United Arab Emirates strongly condemned the despicable terrorist attacks and
said that the country stands in full solidarity with the leaders and people of
Saudi Arabia. It also said that the UAE fully backs measures to eliminate the
danger of terrorism, which aims to undermine the security and stability of Saudi
Arabia and which does not respect the sanctity of this month, the Prophet’s
Mosque and other places of worship that it targets.
The UAE’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Sheikh
Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, said: “We stand in solidarity with our brothers in
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in their fight against the crimes of terrorism whose
goals are to spread fear, takfir (branding others as infidels) and incite
strife”. Sheikh Abdullah stressed that the stability of Saudi Arabia is the main
pillar of the stability of the UAE and the whole of the Gulf Arab region.”
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said the attack during the month of Ramadan near one of
Islam’s most sacred places confirms that terrorism “knows no religion or belief
or any meaning of humanity.” According to the Saudi Press Agency, Qatar, Oman,
Jordan, and Bahrain have also condemned the acts of terrorism.
Iran and Hezbollah
Meanwhile, Iran on Tuesday condemned three suicide bombings that rocked Saudi
Arabia and said that there are no more red lines left for terrorists to cross.
“Sunnis, Shiites will both remain victims unless we stand united as one,”
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter.
“Terrorism knows no border or nationality and there is no solution except
creating an international and regional unity against this phenomenon,” foreign
ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told state broadcaster IRIB. The Lebanon-based
group Hezbollah, which has itself been branded terrorist organization by several
countries and the Arab League, also condemned the bombing in Madinah. Hezbollah
said the reported attack was another sign “of how these terrorists disregard all
that is sacred to Muslims and all that which they agreed to respect.”The group
said attacks in recent days in Turkey, Iraq, Bangladesh and Lebanon confirm
“that this dangerous epidemic needs a serious and different treatment.” It
called on the world to unite against terrorism and not to use it in “political
score-settling which only reflects negatively on all without exception.”
Iraq’s interior minister
offers to resign after massive Baghdad bombing
Reuters, Baghdad Tuesday, 5 July 2016/Iraq's interior minister resigned on
Tuesday and said a deputy would take over his responsibilities, a few days after
the deadliest of many car bombings in Baghdad since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Mohammed Ghabban made the announcement at a media conference in Baghdad, a video
of which was posted on his Facebook page. His resignation will be official only
if Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi approves it. Abadi's office had no immediate
comment. A car bomb blast on Saturday killed at least 175 people in Baghdad's
central shopping district of Karrada. It was the worst single car bomb attack in
Iraq since US forces toppled Saddam Hussein 13 years ago and deepened the anger
of many Iraqis over the weak performance of the security apparatus. ISIS
militants, who government forces are trying to eject from large swathes of
northern and western territory seized in 2014, claimed responsibility for the
bombing.The attack showed ISIS remains capable of ad hoc attacks causing major
loss of life despite losing considerable ground on the battlefield, most
recently the city of Falluja, an hour's drive west of the capital. Ghabban told
Reuters in an interview last month that a recent spate of ISIS bombings in
Baghdad would not end unless "disorder" plaguing Iraq's security apparatus was
rectified. He said then that security forces outside his control - including
units reporting to two counter-terrorism agencies, two Defence Ministry
directorates and regional security commands - overlap with his ministry's own
counter-intelligence efforts.
UN chief slams Israel over
settlement plans in wake of Quartet report
By Reuters United Nations Tuesday, 5 July 2016/UN chief Ban Ki-Moon sharply
criticized a decision by Israel to advance plans to build hundreds of units in
the West Bank and East Jerusalem just days after world powers called on Israel
to stop its settlement policy, his spokesman said on Tuesday. “This raises
legitimate questions about Israel’s long-term intentions, which are compounded
by continuing statements of some Israeli ministers calling for the annexation of
the West Bank,” Ban’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement. Ban was
“deeply disappointed” that Israel’s announcement followed the release of a
report on Friday by the “Quartet” sponsoring the stalled Middle East peace
process - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
The long-awaited report said Israel should stop building settlements, denying
Palestinian development and designating land for exclusive Israeli use that
Palestinians seek for a future state. The Palestinians want an independent state
in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in a 1967 war.
The last round of peace talks broke down in April 2014 and Israeli-Palestinian
violence has surged in recent months.
The Quartet report said at least 570,000 Israelis are living in the
settlements.Ban “reiterates that settlements are illegal under international law
and urges the Government of Israel to halt and reverse such decisions in the
interest of peace and a just final status agreement,” Dujarric said. Diplomats
said the Quartet report was not as hard-hitting as expected after Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out to ensure the document was softened.
Nearly 30,000 ‘foreign
terrorists’ in Syria, Iraq: UN
AFP, Geneva Tuesday, 5 July 2016/Nearly 30,000 "foreign terrorist fighters" are
currently in Syria and Iraq, a high-ranking UN official said Tuesday, warning
that the risk of attacks in their home countries was growing. "The number of
foreign terrorist fighters is very high" in war-ravaged Syria and neighboring
Iraq, said Jean-Paul Laborde, UN assistant secretary general and head of its
Counter-Terrorism Committee. "There are nearly 30,000, and now that the
territory held by Daech (the ISIS group) is shrinking in Iraq, we are seeing
them return, not only to Europe but to all of their countries of origin, like
Tunisia, Morocco," he told reporters in Geneva. "The terrorist attacks in those
countries of origin risk getting bigger and bigger to counter-balance the
pressure on them" on the ground in Syria and Iraq, he said. Laborde urged
countries to put in place a "filter system to distinguish between the large
majority of (returning) foreign fighters, who are not dangerous... and those who
are."The former French judge also stressed that the international community had
the judicial tools to fight against terrorism, but warned that "the adaptability
and flexibility of terrorist organizations are much faster than ours."To
compensate for the slowness of judicial systems, he called for more cooperation
with internet giants like Google, Twitter and Microsoft to help keep tabs on
potential terrorists online. He insisted though that this needed to be done
without "violating freedom of expression."Laborde also called on states to share
more information faster. "If we don't do that, we will continue to see a growing
number of terrorist acts," he said. The Counter-Terrorism Committee, made up of
representatives of the UN Security Council member states, was created in New
York following the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
British ‘will remain in the
EU’: Austrian minister
By AFP Frankfurt Tuesday, 5 July 2016/Britain will not quit the European Union
despite voting to do so in a June 23 referendum, Austria’s finance minister Hans
Joerg Schelling said in an interview published on Tuesday. “In five years there
will still be 28 member states,” Schelling told German business daily
Handelsblatt. European leaders were discussing “all possibilities” - from
Britain remaining in the EU to sealing “a free trade agreement on the Swiss or
Norwegian model”, the former businessman said. Schelling said that the United
Kingdom could break up, with Scotland and Northern Ireland - where the majority
of the electorate voted to stay - remaining members of the EU while pro-Brexit
England goes its own way. In the historic vote, 52% of Britons voted to leave
the EU and 48% voted to stay. The country has since been plunged into political
turmoil. Prime Minister David Cameron - who led the campaign stay - resigned and
top figures in the Leave campaign also stepped down. A leadership battle has
also broken out in the opposition Labour party. Some fellow EU members have
pushed Britain to trigger exit proceedings immediately to ward off economic
uncertainty, but there is no legal requirement for the government to do so. More
on the UK's EU crisis
No charges recommended in
Clinton email probe, FBI says
By AP Washington Tuesday, 5 July 2016/The FBI won’t recommend criminal charges
against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while secretary of
state, agency Director James Comey said Tuesday, lifting a major legal threat to
her presidential campaign. But Comey called her actions “extremely careless” and
faulted the agency she led for a lackadaisical approach to handling classified
material. Comey’s decision almost certainly brings the legal part of the issue
to a close and removes the threat of criminal charges. Attorney General Loretta
Lynch said last week that she would accept the recommendations of the FBI
director and of career prosecutors. “No charges are appropriate in this case,”
Comey said in making his announcement. But Comey made that statement after he
delivered a blistering review of Clinton’s actions, saying the FBI found that
110 emails were sent or received on Clinton’s server containing classified
information. He added it was possible that people hostile to the US had gained
access to her personal email account. “Although we did not find clear evidence
that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the
handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely
careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” he
said. Yet after criticizing Clinton, her aides and the department for their
actions, he said that after looking at similar circumstances in past inquiries,
the FBI believed that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
Comey made the announcement just three days after the FBI interviewed Clinton in
a final step of its yearlong investigation into the possible mishandling of
classified information.
He said he shared the FBI’s findings with no one else in the government before
making his announcement, which came just hours before Clinton was to travel with
President Barack Obama on Air Force One to campaign together for the first time
this year.
The declaration from Comey is unlikely to wipe away many voters’ concerns about
Clinton’s trustworthiness, especially since the FBI director so thoroughly
criticized her actions before delivering his verdict. “There is evidence to
support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s
position... should have known that an unclassified system was no place” for
sensitive conversations, Comey said. Nor will the recommendation stop Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has called for criminal charges, from
continuing to make the server a campaign issue or suggesting Clinton was helped
by a Democratic administration. After Comey’s announcement, Trump tweeted, “The
system is rigged... Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment.” Clnton’s personal
email server, which she relied on exclusively for government and personal
business, has dogged her campaign since The Associated Press revealed its
existence in March 2015. She has repeatedly said that no email she sent or
received was marked classified, but the Justice Department began investigating
last summer following a referral from the inspectors general for the State
Department and the intelligence community. The scrutiny was compounded by a
critical audit in May from the State Department’s inspector general, the
agency’s internal watchdog, which said that Clinton and her team ignored clear
warnings from department officials that her email setup violated federal
standards and could leave sensitive material vulnerable to hackers. Clinton
declined to talk to the inspector general, but the audit said that she had
feared “the personal being accessible” if she used a government email account.
The Clinton campaign said agents interviewed her this past Saturday for three
and one-half hours at FBI headquarters. Agents had earlier interviewed top
Clinton aides including her former State Department chief of staff, Cheryl
Mills, and Huma Abedin, a longtime aide who now is the vice chairwoman of
Clinton’s campaign. Lynch said Friday that she would accept whatever findings
and recommendations were presented to her. Though she said she had already
settled on that process, her statement came days after an impromptu meeting with
Bill Clinton on her airplane in Phoenix that she acknowledged had led to
questions about the neutrality of the investigation.
Five arrested over Myanmar
mosque burning
AFP, Yangon Tuesday, 5 July 2016/Myanmar police have detained five villagers for
burning down a mosque last week, an officer said Tuesday, as authorities look to
contain religious violence in the Buddhist-majority nation. Anti-Muslim
sentiment has fomented across Myanmar in recent years, sporadically erupting
into bloodshed and threatening to damage democratic gains in the former
junta-run country. In the past two weeks, Buddhist mobs have ransacked two
mosques in separate towns, sending Muslim residents fleeing to other villages
for safety. Myanmar's state security forces, which are overwhelmingly Buddhist,
have faced criticism for slow or incomplete investigations into previous acts of
religious violence. But on Tuesday they said they had arrested five people
linked to the attack on a mosque in northern Kachin State last Friday. "We have
arrested four men and a woman. They (were part of the group) who destroyed the
mosque," Moe Lwin, a police officer from Lone Khin, the affected village, told
AFP. The group allegedly joined the armed Buddhist mob that stormed the prayer
hall and burned it to the ground last week. "It is not very easy to take legal
action against all the people concerned with this case as there were many people
there on that day," he added. But no arrests have been made in the central Bago
village where another mosque was ransacked last month, according to a local
Muslim leader. "I can see the people who destroyed the mosque walking in front
of me every day in the village," Win Shwe, the mosque's secretary, told AFP.
Bouts of religious violence in Myanmar have torn communities apart and left
scores dead in recent years, with the worst bloodshed hitting western Rakhine
state in 2012. Rakhine remains almost completely divided on religious grounds,
with the one-million-strong Muslim Rohingya facing heavy restrictions on their
movement and discrimination from a government that denies them citizenship.
Carving out a solution for the stateless minority, who are reviled by
increasingly strident Buddhist nationalists, has posed a steep challenge to the
new administration led by Aung San Suu Kyi. The veteran rights activist has come
under fire for failing to take up the group's plight as she seeks to avoid
stoking further unrest over the sensitive issue. UN rights office spokesman
Rupert Colville said the body was particularly concerned by reports that police
were at the mosque on Friday but had failed to take action to prevent it being
destroyed."We call on the government to investigate both these incidents, as
well as the responses by local authorities, in a prompt and thorough manner," he
said. "These acts of mob violence could fuel a further cycle of hostility in the
country, and we urge immediate steps be taken to prevent further incidents of
religious intolerance."
Turkey's Erdogan rules out
Egypt thaw despite diplomatic blitz
By AFP Ankara Tuesday, 5 July 2016/Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on
Tuesday ruled out a reconciliation with Egypt, despite a diplomatic blitz that
has seen Ankara mend fences with Russia and Israel. Ties between Turkey and
Egypt ruptured in 2013 after the military ousted elected Islamist president
Mohamad Mursi, a close ally of Erdogan’s AKP government. Observers had suggested
a rapprochement may be on the cards after last week saw Turkey restore ties with
Russia and Israel following bitter diplomatic rows, seeking to boost trade and
shore up its regional clout.
But Erdogan said Tuesday that a thaw with Egypt’s “oppressive regime” should not
be expected any time soon. “The context with Egypt is different from the
approaches undertaken with Russia and Israel,” the Turkish strongman told
journalists in comments cited by Dogan news agency. He stressed that Turkey's
dispute was with Egypt’s government, not its people, and repeated his
condemnation of the crackdown on Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood. “Sentences handed
down to Mursi and his friends have been based on fabrications,” he said. “These
people are our brothers we cannot accept these decisions by an oppressive
regime.” Erdogan has previously condemned the “coup” against Mursi, and in a
show of solidarity at rallies he often uses a four-finger hand gesture known as
“Rabia” - seen as a symbol of the Muslim Brotherhood. Saudi Arabia, an
increasingly close Turkish ally that is one of the main backers of Egypt's
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is keen to see the two nations reconcile.
US ditched plan to give
Afghan forces more armored vehicles
Reuters, Kabul Tuesday, 5 July 2016/As Afghan troops were preparing to take on
Taliban militants without NATO combat support in 2014, US officials shelved
plans to provide them with hundreds of potentially life-saving armored vehicles,
documents reviewed by Reuters show. The decision not to supply around 300 extra
vehicles, taken largely for budgetary reasons, remains a sore point, as local
forces struggle to implement a US-led push to get them off bases and into active
battle against a resilient insurgency. Since 2002, the United States has
allocated more than $68 billion to train and equip Afghan security forces, with
a view to eventually withdrawing from the country. Yet serious shortfalls in
personnel and hardware remain. Masoom Stanekzai, acting defense minister before
being approved by parliament recently as intelligence chief, told Reuters the
Afghan government was still trying to obtain more armored vehicles from the
United States. After Washington approved a large shipment of cargo trucks not
requested by the Afghans, Stanekzai wrote a private letter to coalition
commanders last year in which he said he needed more armored vehicles, including
so-called Mobile Strike Force Vehicles (MSFVs). “In the type of fighting we’re
facing, the MSFV is more effective than the Humvee,” he said in an interview,
referring to the smaller, less well protected vehicle more commonly provided to
Afghan troops. Most important, in Afghan eyes, is the MSFV’s “V-shaped” hull and
extra armor, which reflect advances in engineering widely adopted to better
protect troops, especially from roadside bombs favored by Afghan insurgents. So
while most local troops still travel in Humvees and regular pickups, coalition
soldiers rarely leave bases unless they are in more heavily protected vehicles.
Order scrapped
In 2013, the Afghan army already had 600 MSFVs, and they are still used in many
of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.At the time, US military planners
agreed on the need for almost 300 more, and sent a request to Congress for
around $900 million to cover the cost. “It provides the ANA with an armored
force that has more mobility, survivability, and lethality than regular infantry
units,” the Pentagon wrote in its pitch to lawmakers. Congress approved the
money, but the order was put on hold in early 2014. Shortly after that, Afghan
army chief of staff Sher Mohammad Karimi wrote a memo to coalition commanders
outlining the military’s need for better armored vehicles.“Mines continue to
account for nearly 90 percent of the ANA (Afghan National Army) casualties for
the past year and we anticipate this will continue to be a favorite ta ctic of
our enemy for the foreseeable future,” he said.In the end, the US military
scrapped the MSFV order “to address overall concerns about long-term
sustainability and affordability” of Afghan forces, Pentagon spokesman Adam
Stump said in a statement to Reuters.
Instead, US officials decided to provide additional upgraded Humvees as a way to
provide more armored vehicles, he added.
Better vehicles save lives
US advisers have been pressing Afghan troops to leave their bases and launch
more offensive operations. Afghan leaders say those efforts to build a more
mobile army are undermined by an over-reliance on lightly armored vehicles like
the Humvee, not widely used in combat by US troops for nearly a decade. US
military officials have said thousands of American lives have been saved in
Afghanistan and Iraq by switching from Humvees to “mine-resistant,
ambush-protected” vehicles (MRAPs) considered better able to withstand roadside
bomb blasts. That point has not been lost on Afghan soldiers and police, who
suffered more deaths last year than coalition troops did in 15 years of fighting
in Afghanistan. “We have observed over the past decade the coalition provided
its forces with improved armored vehicles based on the same threat reality,”
Karimi wrote in his 2014 memo. Karimi said more MSFVs, which have MRAP-level
protection, could allow the Afghan army to become a smaller, more flexible
fighting force. More than 3,500 international troops have died in Afghanistan,
at least 1,400 of them killed by roadside bombs. Last year as many as 7,000
Afghan soldiers and police are estimated to have died. The number of roadside
bomb casualties among Afghan soldiers has slowly declined as they take better
protective measures, according to the Pentagon, but it remains the second most
common type of attack after direct fire. That can also take a toll on troops
riding in lightly armored vehicles.
Assessing needs
US military officials say they are trying to help the Afghans field more armored
vehicles, and are reducing the army’s overall fleet by nearly half in an effort
to make it more manageable.“We continuously assess what their need is for the
fight they are in,” said US Major General Daniel Hughes, who oversees military
aid to the Afghan government. MSFVs and similar vehicles come with their own
drawbacks, as they are large, harder to maneuver, and expensive. Hughes said he
considered the MSFV a “very specialized capability” of limited use to the
Afghans, noting that MSFVs already in Afghanistan are often only used
defensively. Planners opted to order 1,600 replacement Humvees this year, which
at around $280,000 apiece are cheaper than nearly $1 million for each MSFV,
Hughes said. About 50 additional MSFVs were ordered last year to replace losses.
US commanders first take into account combat needs, but ultimately they can only
provide what they can afford under budgets approved by Washington, he said. “I’m
General ‘No.’ I add the fiscal reality. You can’t just say yes to everything,
you have to judge it on the financial piece ... because the ultimate goal of
this is that Afghanistan supports its own military.”
Rockets target Iran exiles at
Iraq camp
AFP, Baghdad Tuesday, 5 July 2016/A barrage of rockets targeted a camp housing
members of an Iranian opposition group near Baghdad on Monday, injuring several
people, an Iraqi security spokesman and the exiles said. The People's Mujahedeen
Organization of Iran (PMOI) members are waiting at the camp to be resettled
outside the country. The camp was targeted in a rocket attack last year that
killed at least 26 people. "A number of rockets fell on Camp Liberty," Baghdad
Operations Command spokesman Saad Maan said in a statement, referring to the
camp where the PMOI members are housed. Maan said that some 20 rockets were
launched towards the camp from a truck in an area west of Baghdad, some of which
fell short, wounding Iraqi civilians. "According to reports from Camp Liberty,
as of midnight tonight, more than 40 residents were wounded or injured in the
missile attack on the camp," the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the
PMOI's parent organization, said in a statement. The statement blamed
Iran-affiliated militias for carrying out the attack. Powerful Shiite militia
forces that are hostile to the PMOI are present in areas west of Baghdad, while
the Islamic State jihadist group lacks the interest to attack the group. Camp
Liberty, a former US military base, has since 2012 housed members of the PMOI, a
group that originally opposed the shah but later fought alongside Saddam
Hussein's forces against Iran's clerical rulers after the 1979 Islamic
revolution. The PMOI was also accused by the US State Department of taking part
in the brutal suppression of a 1991 Shiite uprising against Saddam, making it
widely reviled by members of the country's Shiite majority, which came to power
after 2003. It has denied the accusations. The exiles have been repeatedly
targeted in the years after being disarmed following Saddam's overthrow, with
dozens of its members killed in attacks it generally blamed on Iranian and Iraqi
authorities. At least 26 people were killed and many more wounded in a rocket
attack on Camp Liberty last October, according to the United Nations.
Dr. Walid Phares: Trump Will Redo,
But Won't Dismantle Iran Deal
By Mark Swanson/Tuesday, 05 July/16 /In an exclusive interview with The Daily
Caller, Donald Trump adviser Dr. Walid Phares said the Republican nominee won't
"get rid of" the Iran deal despite saying three months ago that dismantling it
was his "number one priority.""No, he's not going to get rid of an agreement
that has the institutional signature of the United States. He is a man of
institutions," Phares, Trump's foreign policy adviser, told the Caller. "He's
said so far that he doesn't like this deal and that it was poorly negotiated …
So he is not going to implement it as is, he is going to revise it after
negotiating one on one with Iran or with a series of allies."However, that's in
direct contrast with what Trump said at AIPAC back in March, when he told the
audience that the deal was "catastrophic for Israel, for America, for the whole
of the Middle East." "My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal
with Iran," Trump said at the Washington, D.C. AIPAC conference. Quoting Trump
from the AIPAC conference, however, Phares did assure that U.S.-Israel relations
under a President Trump would remain solid as ever. "Mr. Trump has made it clear
to both the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), and the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that he will be a strong ally of Israel, as he has
always been," Phares told the Caller. Special: VIAGRA's Newest Replacement Is
Cheaper, Safer and Faster Buy Now! Phares, who also advised Mitt Romney's
presidential campaign in 2012, told the Caller that under Trump's foreign policy
team, "the top two priorities are how to deal with issues of nuclear
proliferation and how to completely destroy Islamic jihadist organizations,
including and especially ISIS." On that front, Trump has said in the past that
the U.S. should not prevent allies South Korea or Japan from obtaining nuclear
weapons, but Phares tempered those April comments. "To be clear though, Mr.
Trump is not committed to any particular action," Phares told the Caller. "He
will not ask Japan or South Korea to invest in building nuclear weapons but he
will speak with their leaders about how to create a safer and more stable
environment in the East Asia theater."
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources
published on
July 05-06/16
This Is
Trump’s Foreign Policy, A Conversation With Top Trump Adviser Dr. Walid Phares
JP Carroll/National Security & Foreign Affairs Reporter/The Daily Caller/July
05/16
Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump “will not ask Japan or South Korea to invest
in building nuclear weapons but he will speak with their leaders about how to
create a safer and more stable environment in the East Asia theater” to confront
the realities of a nuclear North Korea, according to the candidate’s top foreign
policy adviser, Dr. Walid Phares. The Trump adviser sat down with The Daily
Caller News Foundation in an exclusive interview to discuss the candidate’s
world view and foreign policy proposals.
Phares was the director of international relations and political science at BAU
International University since 2013, and he has been the provost as of 2014; he
is on leave now. The Trump foreign policy analyst also served as an adviser to
former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.
TheDCNF: First of all, I think readers would like to understand, how often does
Mr. Trump rely on you and other foreign policy advisers for information while he
is on the campaign trail?
Phares: Two points, first: I have a non-disclosure agreement with the campaign
when it comes to specific campaign practices. Second: as an adviser, I answer to
campaign leadership including Mr. Trump, and the team engages in a variety of
typical research practices: briefing the candidate, providing immediate analysis
to breaking news, and writing policy papers.
TheDCNF: How big is the Trump foreign policy team?
Phares: He has announced who his foreign policy and national security advisers
are, I am one of them, and many others will join later. There are many people
who call the campaign and give advice from time to time despite not being
formally affiliated with the campaign. Ultimately, if Mr. Trump is hopefully
elected, he will have at his disposal all the advisers and heads of agencies and
departments that the U.S. government has.
TheDCNF: What attracted you to the Trump campaign?
Phares: Because of the dual challenges of ISIS and a legitimized Iran that still
has nuclear ambitions, Donald Trump can and will shake up the foreign policy
establishment. Hillary Clinton is part of the establishment and she has failed
by giving poor advice to President Obama and partnered the State Department with
radical groups, so there is no reason to promote her to commander-in-chief.
TheDCNF: What are the top foreign policy priorities of the campaign? Does the
campaign even have foreign policy priorities given Mr. Trump’s admitted embrace
of an unpredictable foreign policy?
Phares: Look, this is an America First foreign policy as laid out in his speech
in April. We live in an unpredictable world, so yes, priorities do change. The
campaign has a well-organized foreign policy in that it adapts to a disorganized
world. At the moment, the top two priorities are how to deal with issues of
nuclear proliferation and how to completely destroy Islamic jihadist
organizations, including and especially ISIS.
On nuclear proliferation, Mr. Trump has made a clear statement about not having
any further nuclear proliferation, especially in the hands of people who are
problematic. He thinks about it as the greatest threat that we and the rest of
the world will face. I would say that North Korea and Iran, and the nuclear
threat would be number one.
He believes as I said that there needs to be a concerted, strategic effort to
remove ISIS while also worrying about who and what could come next once they
have been destroyed. It’s not just ISIS, there is still al-Qaeda as well as more
covert actors like the Muslim Brotherhood that President Obama legitimized in
Egypt before the Egyptians took their country back.
The homeland is facing a real, domestic, jihadi threat. We need to wage the
battle of counter-terrorism, but we also need to prevent it through vetting
potential jihadists coming into the U.S. and investing in border security.
TheDCNF: On the issue of nuclear weapons, how would Trump feel about Japan and
South Korea pursuing the development of nuclear weapons in their own right?
Phares: When we as a campaign are in touch with South Korean leaders and
politicians, they complain to us that Obama isn’t doing enough and they are
concerned about his inaction. South Koreans have told us that their country has
become less secure in the past eight years and they want a change, they want a
Trump foreign policy.
To be clear though, Mr. Trump is not committed to any particular action. He is
simply willing to have frank discussions with Asian partners about many options
and has said so publicly. He will not ask Japan or South Korea to invest in
building nuclear weapons but he will speak with their leaders about how to
create a safer and more stable environment in the East Asia theater. Most
importantly, Mr. Trump is an expert negotiator with a successful track record,
which is a skill-set severely lacking in President Obama as well as U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
TheDCNF: When it comes to the Iran Deal, will Mr. Trump get rid of it on day one
given his disdain for the deal?
Phares: No, he’s not going to get rid of an agreement that has the institutional
signature of the United States. He is a man of institutions. But he’s going to
look back on it the institutional way. He’s said, so far that he doesn’t like
this deal and that it was poorly negotiated. Once elected, he’s going to
renegotiate it after talking through it with his advisers. One of the clear
possibilities is he will send it back to Congress. The reaction of the Iranian
leadership will be the next phase. So he is not going to implement it as is, he
is going to revise it after negotiating one on one with Iran or with a series of
allies.
TheDCNF: What can Israel expect of a Trump presidency?
Phares: Mr. Trump has made it clear to both the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC),
and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that he will be a
strong ally of Israel, as he has always been.
TheDCNF: For many people there is great unease with Mr. Trump’s proposal of
temporarily banning all Muslims from entering the U.S. Is such a ban in your
opinion actually realistic and enforceable? Do you really think it will be
effective in terrorism prevention?
Phares: This issue of the so-called “Muslim ban”
TheDCNF: Excuse me Dr. Phares, that’s what he himself called for, “a total and
complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s
representatives can figure out what is going on.”
Phares: Well, let’s understand what he meant and where he is on this issue. What
he meant was, after the repetitive attacks on Europe and the U.S., it is clear
that the Obama administration, the Hillary campaign and unfortunately, many of
our European partners, do not have the answer or correct methodology for vetting
people coming in from abroad.
Mr. Trump has looked at what specialists and very renowned researchers have been
raising in congressional testimony at hearings. The issue is, if you don’t have
a measure for detecting who is who, and who is a jihadist and who is not, then
we will keep having more bloodshed.
Mr. Trump’s reaction with this policy was genuine and symbolic for provoking
that debate on a need for a foreign policy and counter-terrorism strategy shift.
He is telling the American public that he is going to change that policy. So, he
suggested that our current political leaders implement a shutdown. However, the
important part of the proposal is, “until our country’s representatives can
figure out what is going on.” It is clear they have yet to figure it out, and
that’s what resonated with voters who want change.
TheDCNF: But why does this policy single out people based on their religious
beliefs?
Phares: Look, Donald Trump is an inclusive businessman who has never looked at
one community and said, “I’m going to demonize this community.” That’s why the
charges of being a racist or an Islamophobe do not apply. He’s simply looking at
the problem from a national security perspective. But lately, he has been
adapting his position. The more he is informed of the subject, the more he is
adapting. And he said, we are ready to discuss those issues which need to be
discussed. Once he will start getting intelligence briefings, he will know more
about what the problem is and how to handle it so that when he is elected, he
will know how to use the vast resources of the federal government. Indeed over
the past weeks Mr Trump made several statements announcing that he will be
focusing on the radical Islamic terrorists and where they come from. Hence the
shut down will narrow to Jihadists and radical Islamists as ways to identify
them would be made available
TheDCNF: On the issue of intelligence briefings, once he gets the official
nomination, many questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s temperament. Are
you confident that he will not divulge any information from those briefings at a
campaign rally or an interview?
Dr. Phares: With regard to Mr. Trump receiving national security briefings and
talking about them, this is impossible. He has reached a point where he has
already received a huge amount of information from his own experts which he
knows is sensitive despite not coming from U.S. intelligence.
Mr. Trump is extremely careful and he has always been responsible with what we
have told him. He controls information perfectly, which is how he was able to
build a company with a global footprint. In the time that I have advised him on
sensitive geopolitical matters, I have never heard Mr. Trump mention things in
public that he should not. From my own experience, Mr. Trump will act as a
statesman.
TheDCNF: Just to clarify, when you have talked to sources in an unofficial basis
and you have passed on that information to Mr. Trump, and you have informed him
that the information is credible while being unofficial nevertheless, he has
understood this and subsequently when discussing foreign policy in public, he
has not divulged this?
Dr. Phares: He has acted impeccably as a statesman, as someone who understands
nuance. He asks many informed questions. He wants to understand the issues in
detail and recognizes that he is dealing with sensitive matters.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/04/exclusive-this-is-trump-foreign-policy-a-conversation-with-top-trump-adviser-dr-walid-phares/
Does Islam Belong to Germany?
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/July 05/16
"Islam is a political ideology that is not compatible with the German
Constitution."
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8392/islam-belongs-to-germany
"Former German President Christian Wulff said: 'Islam belongs to Germany.' That
is true. This is also my opinion." — Chancellor Angela Merkel, January 12, 2015.
"Angela Merkel's statement obscures the real problem: A growing proportion of
Muslim citizens in Europe does not share the Western system of values, does not
want to culturally integrate and seals itself off in parallel societies." —
Thilo Sarrazin, renowned former central banker and a member of the Social
Democrats, January 20, 2015.
"Islam is not a religion like Catholicism or Protestantism. Intellectually,
Islam is always linked to the overthrow of the state. Therefore, the
Islamization of Germany poses a threat." — Alexander Gauland, AfD party leader
for Brandenburg, April 17, 2016.
"An Islam that does not respect our legal system and even fights against it and
claims to be the only valid religion is incompatible with our legal system and
culture. Many Muslims live according to our laws and are integrated and are
accepted as valued members of our society. However, the AfD wants to prevent the
emergence of Islamic parallel societies with Sharia judges." — AfD Manifesto.
"Anyone who believes Islam belongs to Germany should not hesitate to go one step
further and declare: Sharia law belongs to Germany. Without Sharia law, there is
no authentic Islam." — Henryk Broder, German journalist, May 16, 2016.
Nearly two-thirds of Germans believe that Islam does not belong to Germany,
according to a recent opinion poll, which also found that only 22% of Germans
consider Islam to be an integral part of German society.
In a similar poll conducted in January 2015, 37% of Germans said that Islam
belongs to Germany, 15% more than now. The results indicate that German
attitudes toward Islam are hardening after Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision
to allow more than 1.1 million mostly Muslim migrants to enter Germany in 2015.The poll has opened yet another chapter in the decade-long debate over the
phrase, "Islam belongs to Germany." The words were first uttered in September
2006 — at the time there were 3.5 million Muslims in Germany, compared to nearly
six million today — by then Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
Speaking ahead of the first-ever German-Islam Conference, the first
institutionalized dialogue between representatives of the German government and
of Muslims in Germany, Schäuble said: "Islam is a part of Germany and a part of
Europe. Islam is a part of our present and a part of our future. Muslims are
welcome in Germany."
The phrase was repeated in October 2010 by Germany's then president, Christian
Wulff, during a keynote speech to mark the 20th anniversary of German
reunification. Wulff proclaimed that "Islam belongs to Germany" because millions
of Muslims now live there:
"Christianity doubtless belongs Germany. Judaism belongs unequivocally to
Germany. This is our Judeo-Christian history. But now Islam also belongs to
Germany (Der Islam gehört inzwischen auch zu Deutschland)."
Wulff then quoted the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who in his
West-Eastern Diwan (West–östlicher Divan, 1819) wrote: "He who knows himself and
others will understand: East and West are no longer separable."
Since then, a debate has raged over the increasingly contentious question of
Muslim immigration, integration and the role of Islam in German society. The
University of Bonn launched a research project entitled, "How much Islam belongs
to Germany?" The Konrad Adenauer Foundation published a paper: "Which Islam
belongs to Germany?" According to the head of the Lutheran Church in Germany,
Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, only "Democratic Islam" belongs to Germany.
What follows is an abridged historical review of the phrase "Islam belongs to
Germany."
March 3, 2011. In his first press conference as German Interior Minister,
Hans-Peter Friedrich said that Islam does not belong to Germany: "To say that
Islam belongs in Germany is not a fact supported by history at any point." He
added that Muslim immigrants should respect the "Western Christian origin of our
culture." His comments set off a firestorm of criticism from the guardians of
German multiculturalism.
March 4, 2011. Wolfgang Bosbach, of the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU),
defended Friedrich: "I like politicians who say what they think. Islam is part
of the reality of Germany, but it is not part of German identity."
March 5, 2011. Alexander Dobrindt, the General Secretary of the Christian Social
Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Angela Merkel's CDU, said: "Of course
there are Muslims in Germany. But Islam is not part of the German mainstream
culture (Leitkultur)." CDU parliamentary leader Volker Kauder said: "Islam has
not shaped our society in the past and it does not do so today. Therefore, Islam
does not belong to Germany."
May 31, 2012. The new German President, Joachim Gauck, distanced himself from
Wulff's comments: "The reality is that many Muslims live in our country. I would
have simply said that the Muslims who live here belong to Germany." He added:
"Where has Islam shaped Europe? Did Islam experience the Enlightenment, or even
a Reformation?"
January 12, 2015. Chancellor Angela Merkel, during a meeting in Berlin with
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, declared: "Former German President
Christian Wulff said: 'Islam belongs to Germany.' That is true. This is also my
opinion." She stressed the need to "strengthen the dialogue between religions
because there is still too much ignorance."
January 13, 2015. Hans-Peter Friedrich, the former interior minister, challenged
Merkel's claim that Islam belongs to Germany:
"The Muslims who live in this country, who are committed to this country, belong
to Germany, no question. There is nothing to deny and nothing to relativize. But
I can see nowhere that Islam belongs to Germany. Islam is not a formative,
constitutive element of the identity of our country.
"The issue revolves around the question of what is constitutive, of what makes
the identity of this country. And the identity of this country, developed over
centuries, is not Islam but a Christian culture, based on Christian and Jewish
roots.
"Islam is not a defining element of the identity of this country. Anyone who
travels through Germany can see this. They can see churches and paintings, they
can listen to music that comes from many centuries of ecclesial roots; they can
see art and architecture which are marked by Christianity.
"Whether Islam will be a defining element of Europe or Germany in centuries from
now, only time will tell."
January 20, 2015. Thilo Sarrazin, a renowned former German central banker and a
member of the Social Democrats (SPD) who has been warning Germans for years
about the consequences of mass migration, criticized Merkel:
"When the Chancellor says she is of the opinion that Islam is part of Europe's
tradition and culture, she is mistaken. When Angela Merkel says that Muslims
should enjoy full citizenship in Germany and will be welcome if they integrate,
her statement is true, although banal."
He said that Islam "with all its radical, violent manifestations" arrived in
Germany only in the last 40 years due to "unplanned and uncontrolled mass
immigration into German society." He added: "In addition, Angela Merkel's
statement obscures the real problem: A growing proportion of Muslim citizens in
Europe does not share the Western system of values, does not want to culturally
integrate and seals itself off in parallel societies."
June 30, 2015. Merkel, speaking in Berlin after an Iftar, an evening meal that
breaks the daily fast during Ramadan, declared: "It is indisputably obvious that
Islam now belongs to Germany."
September 21, 2015. Edmund Stoiber, the Honorary Chairman of Christian Social
Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU)
said: "I cannot accept the phrase, 'Islam belongs to Germany.' Muslims belong to
Germany, but Islam does not. Islam is not a core element of German culture and
has not shaped our intellectual history and tradition."
April 17, 2016. Beatrix von Storch, the Deputy Chairperson of the
anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the third-most popular
political party in Germany, said: "Many Muslims belong to Germany, but Islam
does not belong to Germany. Islam is at base a political ideology that is not
compatible with the German Constitution."
Alexander Gauland, the leader of the AfD in Brandenburg, elaborated: "Islam is
not a religion like Catholicism or Protestantism. Intellectually, Islam is
always linked to the overthrow of the state. Therefore, the Islamization of
Germany poses a threat."
May 1, 2016. The AfD adopted a manifesto calling for curbs to migration and
restrictions on Islam. The document calls for a ban on minarets, Muslim calls to
prayer and full-face veils:
"Islam does not belong to Germany. The AfD views the spread of Islam and the
growing number of Muslims in Germany as a great danger for our country, our
society and our system of values. An Islam that does not respect our legal
system and even fights against it and claims to be the only valid religion is
incompatible with our legal system and culture. Many Muslims live according to
our laws and are integrated and are accepted as valued members of our society.
However, the AfD wants to prevent the emergence of Islamic parallel societies
with sharia judges. The AfD wants to prevent Muslims from radicalizing and
turning to violent Salafism and religious terrorism."
May 5, 2016. CDU parliamentary leader Volker Kauder said that Christian Wulff's
choice of words in 2010 were "well-intentioned but imprecise." He said that
while Muslims belong to Germany, Islam certainly does not: "Germany has not been
historically or culturally shaped by Islam." According to Kauder, Islam has many
manifestations, "some of which we can never accept in Germany." He added: "For
us, religion is never above the state." He said that religious freedom is not
unlimited, but is restrained by the German Constitution.
May 16, 2016. The German journalist Henryk Broder wrote:
"Anyone who believes Islam belongs to Germany should not hesitate to go one step
further and declare: Sharia law belongs to Germany. Without Sharia law, there is
no authentic Islam. The 'Euro-Islam' desired by many is a chimera, as was
'Euro-communism' during the Cold War.
"This would significantly facilitate peaceful coexistence on a firm foundation.
It would also be the end of all debates — about the equality of men and women,
marriage for all, headscarves in the civil service, the separation of power in
politics, separation of church and state, caricatures and satires. We would save
a lot of time and could turn to the really relevant questions. For example: Was
Jesus the first Muslim?"
In a speech on October 22, 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that she
agreed with the statement of former German President Christian Wulff, that
"Islam belongs to Germany."
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is
also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios
Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
His first book, Global Fire, will be out in 2016.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
A Ramadan Piece: The "Other"
Islam
Salim Mansur/ Gatestone Institute/July 05/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8387/islam-history
Abrahamic monotheism as represented in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,
precedes and stands apart from politics as an ethical vision that transcends
history. It was a vision which invited people to embrace their common humanity
as created and gifted by one omnipotent deity, and to follow a revealed code of
ethics for righteous living, holding the promise of peace with an end to
interminable conflicts that divided people into warring tribes.
Thoughtful Muslims, for nearly a century before the demise of the Ottoman Empire
and the abolition of the Caliphate, had been writing about the need for an
Islamic reform. Europe's cultural advancement following the Reformation and
Enlightenment held up a mirror for the Islamic world to follow in similar
direction to similar ends. There was a consensus among Muslims that Islam was
not intrinsically opposed to the modern world, and a readiness to follow in the
footsteps of the West.
This is the "other" Islam. This is submission to truth, whose most righteous
exemplar was Abraham when his faith was tested by his Deity, according to the
Hebrew Bible, to sacrifice his son. And this is the faith of Sufis who took
Muhammad's message to people in places far removed from the desert confines of
Arabia. It is simply, as the Qur'an reminds (30:30), deen al-fitrah, the natural
religion, or inclination, of man to know his Creator. There is no return of this
"other" Islam; it never went missing.
The cover of the January 1976 issue of Commentary magazine announced its main
story, "The Return of Islam," by Bernard Lewis. The year of publication
coincided with the coming end of the fourteenth century of Islam, and the
anticipation of a new Islamic century beginning in 1979. Forty years later this
essay by Lewis, widely recognized and respected as the most eminent scholar on
the Middle East and Islam alive today, came to be celebrated as the first
warning of the coming upheaval inside the world of Islam.
Lewis's essay was a corrective to viewing the Middle East and its people, Arabs
and Muslims, in terms of Western values. "Modern Western man," wrote Lewis,
"being unable for the most part to assign a dominant and central place to
religion in his own affairs, found himself unable to conceive that any other
peoples in any other place could have done so... [or to] admit that an entire
civilization can have religion as its primary loyalty." This meant, Lewis
continued, the "inability, political, journalistic, and scholarly alike, to
recognize the importance of the factor of religion in the current affairs of the
Muslim world".
Recent events have proven that Lewis was correct in pointing to this critical
flaw in much of Western understanding of Islam and Muslims. But the title of the
essay was unfortunate and misleading; there was no "return of Islam" for
Muslims, since at no point in Islamic or Muslim history had Islam been missing,
or dormant.
Instead of the "return of Islam," it was the return of political Islam, or
Islamism. Lewis's essay was a timely review of Muslim history in terms of
political Islam. But political Islam is but one facet of Islam. It is a
recurring mistake to see political Islam as the defining feature of Islam that
obscures Islam's spiritual dimension, which is more vital than the coarse
authoritarian features of political Islam.
In antiquity, politics was inseparable from religion. It might be said that
politics was the handmaiden of religion. A ruler among people in ancient times
was a chief priest, or a demigod. This feature of the ancient world in which
religion and politics were bound together could be described as "theopolitics",
and Islam was as much influenced in its history by theopolitics as were Judaism
and Christianity.
Lewis wrote: "The three major Middle Eastern religions are significantly
different in their relations with the state and their attitudes to political
power. Judaism was associated with the state and was disentangled from it; its
new encounter with the state at the present time raises problems which are still
unresolved. Christianity, during the first formative centuries of its existence,
was separate from and indeed antagonistic to the state with which it only later
became involved. Islam from the lifetime of its founder was the state, and the
identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and
awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and
experience."
A lot of history is compressed in this passage, and so some misreading of that
history is inevitable. Lewis went on to discuss Islam as being entwined with
political Islam since its inception. "Islam was associated with power from the
very beginning," wrote Lewis, "from the first formative years of the Prophet and
his immediate successors." Consequently, in Islam "religion is not, as it is in
Christendom, one sector or segment of life, regulating some matters while others
are excluded; it is concerned with the whole of life—not a limited but a total
jurisdiction."
The problem with Lewis's view of Islam is that he uncritically accepted the
theology of political Islam. This theology was constructed during the three
centuries after the Prophet Muhammad when, in the course of events between the
seventh and the tenth century of the Common Era, Arabs came to rule a vast
empire. It was consistent with the temper of late antiquity, and it put a stamp
on Islam ever since that most Muslims have accepted without questioning.
Abrahamic monotheism as represented in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,
however, precedes and stands apart from politics as an ethical vision that
transcends history. It was a vision which invited people to embrace their common
humanity as created and gifted by one omnipotent deity, and to follow a revealed
code of ethics for righteous living, holding the promise of peace with an end to
interminable conflicts that divided people into warring tribes.
It was the resistance of pagans and polytheists to Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam at their origins that compelled their early followers in the course of
their respective histories to seek in politics protection for their religious
beliefs. In Judaism and Islam, the founders -- Moses and Muhammad -- combined in
their personalities the roles of prophet, warrior, and statesman. The life of
Jesus, in this respect, was different.
In Moses's case, he never entered the promised land, and it was left to his
successors to eventually found a state for the Jews. In the instance of
Muhammad, there is the question that has divided Muslims ever since his death:
was his prophetic mission primarily to establish an Islamic state that would
define, for Muslims for all times, Islam as the ideal arrangement in which
religion and politics were one and indivisible?
The answer to this question was surrounded in controversy right from the moment
of the Prophet's last illness before his death. The controversy over his
succession, and what such succession meant, tore apart the immediate followers
of the Prophet, and incited tribal warfare, fratricide and schisms that since
then have provided the backdrop to Muslims in respect to their own understanding
and practice of Islam as religion and politics.
Islam as the Abrahamic vision of man's relation with God was supplanted by the
theology of political Islam. The process began in the midst of the Prophet's
last illness and accelerated with his death. The majority Sunni sect in Islam
coalesced around the view that the immediate successors of the Prophet, elected
or chosen, ought to be the closest companions of Muhammad, and their rulings in
the formative stage of Muslim history became the standard by which subsequent
generations of Muslims innovated the requirements of ruling an empire.
Those Muslims who dissented from the majority view represented by Sunni Islam
were the Shi'a, or the party of Ali. Ali was a cousin of the Prophet, raised
from his childhood in the Prophet's household and, hence, the closest companion
of Muhammad. Ali was also the Prophet's son-in-law by marriage to Fatima, his
only surviving child. The Shi'a Muslims believed Ali was the designated
successor of the Prophet because of their familial ties, but he was forcefully
denied the succession by those who usurped it immediately following the
Prophet's demise. Shi'a Islam evolved as the main minority sect with its own
theopolitics within Islam.
The first Muslims were Arabs of the desert, the Bedouins, among whom Muhammad
was born. Their tribalism persisted despite the Prophet's warnings and it shaped
Islam from the first hour of the post-Prophetic history. Sectarianism within
Islam was the unavoidable outcome of clan and tribal conflicts among the first
Muslims, and the Sunni-Shi'a divide became the main cleavage as a result,
setting the template of further divisions as sects proliferated over time in the
history of Islam.
Less than a century after the Prophet's death in 632 C.E., his followers, the
Bedouin Arabs, became the rulers of an empire that stretched from the Iberian
Peninsula in the West to the Indus River in the East. There was nothing in the
Qur'an, or in the traditions of the Prophet, to instruct these Arabs on the
mechanics of administrating an empire. They took to imitating the rulers of
Persia, whom they defeated, and adopted the administrative manuals of both
Byzantine and Persian officialdom to rule the lands and peoples they conquered.
And in order to provide legitimacy in the name of Islam to Arab rule in Damascus
and later in Baghdad, the ulema (religious scholars) worked out the details of
law and society, the Sharia, derived from the Qur'an and the Prophetic
traditions.
The origin of Islamic culture and civilization lies in the empire that Bedouin
Arabs, through the force of arms, established in a very short period. This was
also the origin of political Islam, which came to represent the dominant face of
Islam as theopolitics.
The fight that erupted, with the news of the Prophet's demise, among his closest
companions over succession related to temporal power that the Prophet had
exercised, and not his role as a Messenger of God (Rasul Allah). This fight
culminated in 680 C.E. with the defeat of the Prophet's grandson, Husayn, killed
and decapitated in the field of Kerbala, close to the banks of the Euphrates in
Iraq, by the army sent out by Yazid I, the Ummayad Caliph of the rapidly
expanding Islamic empire.
The event in Kerbala was a watershed in the history of Islam. Ethnic Arabs,
recently converted to Islam, delivered Husayn's cruel end. Ever since, this
crime, as sordid as the crucifixion of Jesus, has stained Muslim history with
the mark of Cain.
After Kerbala, it could no longer be said that Islam, as Abrahamic monotheism,
guided politics ethically along the path of justice and mercy. Instead, the
politics that surfaced upon the death of the Prophet hardened after the killing
of Husayn, and politics henceforth came to define Islam as faith, culture, and
society.
In the Battle of Kerbala, depicted in Abbas Al-Musavi's painting, Husayn, the
son of Ali and grandson of Muhammad, was killed along with his family and all
his followers by the armies of the Umayyad Caliphate. It was the most crucial
moment in the split between Shi'a and Sunni Islam. (Image source: Brooklyn
Museum)
The Ummayads in Damascus, the imperial capital, were the first dynastic rulers
among Arabs in Islamic history. The founder of the dynasty, Muawiyyah, seized
power following the murder of Ali, the fourth Caliph and the cousin and
son-in-law of the Prophet. With the Ummayads the institution of the Caliphate,
which was an innovation to fill the void of leadership among the Arabs in Medina
following Muhammad's death, adopted the pomp and pageantry of the Persian and
Byzantine rulers. The Caliphate, from that first century of Islamic history
until its abolition in 1924 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern
Turkey, was the embodiment of Oriental Despotism.
Those Muslims who witnessed the tribal conflicts erupt after the Prophet's
demise and recoiled in revulsion from politics turned inward in seeking union
with the divine mystery, as mentioned in the Qur'an. They sought solace in the
spiritual dimension of Islam and emulated the Prophetic tradition of withdrawal
from the world through prayer and meditation. They became the founders of the
Sufi, or mystical, tradition in Islam. This was the "other" face of Islam,
distinct from political Islam.
The physical expansion of the Islamic empire was carried forth by the armies of
the Caliphs. But the spread of Islam as a faith tradition was a slow process,
carried forth by Sufi missionaries belonging to various fraternal orders and
independent of political rulers of the world of Islam.
There is a world of difference in conversion brought about at the point of sword
of conquering armies, and conversion that results from the communion of hearts
and minds among people. The latter is more genuine and transformative than the
former in every religion. The Qur'an itself -- verse 49:13 -- warned the Prophet
that the acceptance of Islam by the Arabs of the desert was one of submission in
the face of defeat, and that belief had not entered their hearts. This verse
might be read as forewarning of crimes Muslims would commit through history in
the cause of political Islam, beginning with the killing of Husayn in Kerbala.
Political Islam from its outset was an inquisition. It began with Abu Bakr, the
first Caliph, when he subverted the Islamic principle stated in the Qur'an --
"there is no compulsion in religion" (2:256) -- and declared war on those Arab
tribes who withheld their loyalty from him following the death of the Prophet.
The "Ridda Wars," or the "Wars of Apostasy," launched by Abu Bakr inaugurated
political Islam, and since then, the precedent he set for Muslim-on-Muslim
violence has plagued Islamic history into our times.
The role of the a'lem (pl. ulema; religious scholars) was instrumental in the
making of political Islam. The ulema provided legitimacy to the Ummayad Caliphs
in Damascus in the period of intra-tribal conflicts that had led to the killings
of the three Caliphs (Umar, Uthman, and Ali) after Abu Bakr and then the
massacre in the field of Kerbala.
The consensus of the ulema -- accepted by those who eventually came to represent
the majority Sunni Muslims (the word "Sunni" derived from Sunna, meaning
following the path or tradition of the Prophet) -- was that political and social
order however provided and maintained was preferable to fitnah (disorder). This
consensus provided doctrinal legitimacy to the Caliphs. In return, the Caliphs
recognized the special function of the religious scholars and jurists in the
drafting, codification, and implementation of Sharia, or Islamic laws.
As a result of this bargain between men wielding swords and men wielding pens,
the foundational arrangement of political Islam was firmly established. It was
an arrangement consistent with the thinking prevalent in antiquity that religion
(deen in Arabic) prescribed the totality of human affairs. This meant, as it was
understood by the ulema in the formative period of Islamic history, that the
primary function of state and government (dawlat in Arabic) was the
establishment of the rule of Sharia. As Ann K.S. Lambton in her study, State and
Government in Medieval Islam (1981), observed:
"The law precedes the state and is immutable at all times and under all
conditions. The state is there to carry out the law. To disobey a law or to
neglect a law is not simply to infringe a rule of the social order: it is an act
of religious disobedience, a sin, and as such involves a religious penalty."
Once the bricks and mortar of political Islam were set in the making of the
Islamic civilization, Islam as the official doctrine of the state and empire
clearly demarcated the norm as prescribed in the Sharia and made the ulema its
official guardians. The Islamic state was a nearly perfect embodiment of a
closed totalitarian system designed by men towards the end of the first
millennium of the Common Era, and any suggestion of change or adoption of new
idea in matters of either religion or politics was condemned as bid'ah (heresy
deserving punishment).
But Muslim dissidents who viewed the doctrine of political Islam, or what might
also be referred to as "official" Islam, as an aberration, went underground and
kept the "other" Islam free from the shackles of politics. Beneath the hardened
features of political Islam, the "other" Islam of Sufis provided solace to
Muslims by tending to their humanity in the light of God's most favoured
attributes of mercy and compassion.
The "other" Islam, unlike political Islam, is not bound by time and space. It is
directed to man's inner yearnings for that which is eternal. It plunges in
search of the inner meaning of the Qur'an as the Word of God, and the
assuredness that God's mercy is not denied to any of His creations. The Qur'an
states, "We are nearer to man than his jugular vein" (50:16), reassuring man
that he is not alone and God is not some distant uncaring deity.
Whereas the defining characteristic of political Islam was religion inseparable
from politics, in "other" Islam politics was the corruption of religion and the
dissolution of belief. Hence, from the perspective of "other" Islam, the Sharia
as the corpus of Islamic laws codified by the ulema and sanctioned by the
Caliphs was a poor, even corrupt, representation of the divine Sharia (in
Arabic, a "path") imprinted in the hearts of all believers as the path to
acquiring God's infinite grace.
Political Islam and the Islamic civilization it inaugurated was time-bound as a
theopolitical system constructed in a certain historical period or context. It
was a construct of late antiquity and the early medieval era. Since it was a
fixed and closed system, it was invariably given to decay and dissolution.
During the Middle Ages, the Islamic civilization flourished just as other
civilizations had. As Abdus Salam (1926-1996) -- a physicist of Indo-Pakistani
origin and the first Muslim scientist awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in
1979 -- observed in one of his lectures, the world of Islam and the world of
Christianity (Europe) were more or less at a similar stage of development around
the middle of the seventeenth century.
The evidence of this relative equality of the two civilizations, Salam
suggested, could be seen in their technological achievements represented by the
two monuments, the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, and St. Paul's Cathedral in London,
England, completed about the same time. Some two decades later, Salam observed,
"there was also created -- and this time only in the West -- a third monument, a
monument still greater in its eventual import for humanity's future. This was
Newton's Principia, published in 1687."
Newton's monument had no counterpart in India, or anywhere else in the Muslim
world.
The Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, led by
men of astounding intellect from Leonardo da Vinci to Galileo and Newton,
propelled Europe out of the medieval age into the making of the modern world.
But Islamic civilization, held together by political Islam, descended into a
death spiral. A century after Newton published his major work, the Ottoman
Empire was turning irreversibly into a pale shadow of a civilization that once
had threatened the powers of Europe at the gates of Vienna.
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington by the
Islamist terrorists of al Qaeda, Bernard Lewis published What Went Wrong?
(2002). It was Lewis's effort to answer why, and how, the world of Islam had
failed to accommodate the imperatives of the modern world.
"In most of the arts and sciences of civilization, medieval Europe was a pupil
and in a sense a dependent of the Islamic world," wrote Lewis.
"And then, suddenly, the relationship changed. Even before the Renaissance,
Europeans were beginning to make significant progress in the civilized arts.
With the advent of the New Learning, they advanced by leaps and bounds, leaving
the scientific and technological and eventually the cultural heritage of the
Islamic world far behind them."
The civilizational success of political Islam in late antiquity and the early
medieval era ironically carried within it the seeds of its own decline and
demise. World War I eventually put an end to the anachronism that the Ottoman
Empire had become, and the abolition of the Caliphate was a formal effort to
bury political Islam for good.
Thoughtful Muslims, for nearly a century before the demise of the Ottoman Empire
and the abolition of the Caliphate, had been thinking and writing about the need
for an Islamic reform. Europe's cultural advancement following the Reformation
and Enlightenment held up a mirror for the Islamic world to follow in similar
direction to similar ends.
In India under British rule, for instance, there were a significant number of
Muslims who painfully recognized the malaise of Islamic societies and offered
remedy for their advancement into the modern world. Among them the notable were
Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-98), the founder of the Aligarh University; Syed
Ameer Ali (1849-1928), jurist and historian; and Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938),
poet and philosopher.
One of the most important works was published in 1925 by Ali Abd al-Raziq
(1888-1966), an Egyptian scholar and jurist at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. In
his seminal work, titled al-Islam wa 'Usul al-Hukm (Islam and the Fundamentals
of Authority), al-Raziq pointed out that there was no basis in the Qur'an and
the Sunnah (traditions) of the Prophet for the institution of the Caliphate.
Al-Raziq was not someone from outside the ranks of the ulema, or a lay scholar
unfamiliar with the intricacies of Islamic jurisprudence and theology in the
construction of Sharia. He was a student of Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) at al-Azhar,
when Abduh had been appointed the Grand Mufti of Egypt.
Al-Raziq's main contention was based on the distinction between spiritual and
temporal authority. He indicated that the confusion among Muslims in the period
after the Prophet arose from their inability to distinguish between the
Apostolic role of Muhammad and the authority he derived as the Messenger of God
(Rasul Allah), and the Caliphate as a temporal institution. Al Raziq wrote:
"Muhammad was but an apostle, sent on behalf of a religious summons, one
pertaining entirely to religion and unmarred by any taint of monarchy or of
summons to a political state; and he possessed neither kingly rule nor
government, and he was not charged with the task of founding a kingdom in the
political sense, as this word and its synonyms are generally understood."
Al-Raziq was denounced by his peers. He was made to appear before the Council of
the Greatest Ulema of Al-Azhar to hear the judgment against him, as his license
to teach and practice law was revoked. Egypt was then ruled under Britain's
supervision, which likely saved al-Raziq from even more severe punishment.
But al-Raziq had stripped away the argument of traditional Islam on the sanctity
of the Caliphate, and with it went the idea of Sharia being sacred. In the
half-century following the abolition of the Caliphate by Mustafa Kemal, Muslims
under European rule gained their independence as new states emerged in the
Middle East and elsewhere in the world of Islam.
This period in the middle decades of the last century was a period of intense
expectations on the part of Muslims for progress in their living conditions. A
massive effort was invested to make the transition from the world of
pre-Newtonian knowledge and learning to the modern world of science, industry
and democracy.
There was a consensus among the rich and the poor that Islam was not
intrinsically opposed to the modern world. There was a readiness among Muslims
to follow in the footsteps of the West.
This consensus was reflected in a well-known and widely circulated aphorism
attributed to Muhammad Abduh. On returning to Cairo from a visit to Europe,
Abduh told his students, "I travelled in the West and found Islam, but no
Muslims; I have returned to the East and find Muslims, but not Islam."
The transition into the modern world, however, proved immensely complex and
difficult. Europe's transition had required several generations and a couple of
centuries to break away from the feudal age into the modern age. The resistance
from those invested in the ancien arrangements of society and culture was
immense, and wars that followed were fierce.
Something similar to the European experience was unavoidable for Muslims in
their effort to break from the hold of their traditional culture. And not unlike
the wars in Europe, wars within the world of Islam since the 1970s are symptoms
of the Muslim struggle to transit into the modern world.
The abolition of the Caliphate in 1924 was the formal announcement of political
Islam's death. But it refused to die, even as it was laid to rest. Its twitching
was felt in the deep dark interior of the world of Islam, in remote and
unwelcome places such as Nejd inside Arabia.
Here in Nejd, the medieval theology of Ibn Taymiyyah had struck roots. It had
impressed an eighteenth-century itinerant preacher in the region, Abdul Wahhab
(1703-92), who turned Ibn Taymiyyah's extremist thinking into an even more rigid
and austere doctrine, hostile to all things inimical to the Bedouin tribal
culture of his time and environment.
Abdul Wahhab's version of political Islam impressed a local tribal chief, and
the marriage of convenience between the preacher and the tribal leader gave
birth to the first Saudi state in the interior of Arabia. But when it sent
tribal warriors to raid towns inside the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, it
provoked the Caliph of Islam in Istanbul, on whose orders this nascent state of
the Wahhabi ruler was destroyed.
But the eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire provided the conditions for the
rebirth of the Saudi state as a kingdom under Abdul Aziz ibn Saud in the 1920s.
Fortune, in the guise of great power politics, smiled upon him. He seized the
support offered by the British, in return for influence in a region of strategic
importance. The discovery of oil made the Saudi kingdom a prize to be protected
by the Western powers, first Britain and later the United States, with far
reaching consequences for the rest of the world, and even more so for the world
of Islam and Muslims.
Any modernizing revolution is hugely disruptive. The movement from one stage of
social development to another is not linear; it is, instead, filled with zigzags
and reversals at every stage of the process toward an uncertain future.
When a people, however, pushes back against this process of change in their
midst, or seeks to abort it, this reactionary effort pins its hopes on longing
for an idealized past. The Newtonian revolution and the emergence of modern
Europe made political Islam anachronistic. Wahhabism, as the official doctrine
of the Saudi kingdom, was much more than a return of the most extreme version of
political Islam in the early decades of the last century. It was, and remains, a
demented effort of the most backward people within the world of Islam to remain
culturally tied to antiquity, or jahiliyya (the age of ignorance), which Islam
at its origin derided and rejected.
Political Islam in whatever version -- Wahhabism, Khomeinism, Ikhwanism (the
Muslim Brotherhood) and their derivatives -- has no answer for Muslims on how to
make their historic transition into the modern world. It can continue to rage
against the modern world until its civilized inhabitants, including Muslims,
have had enough of its destructiveness and obliterate it.
Then that vision of Abrahamic monotheism, which Muhammad was mysteriously
directed to deliver to his people, will be emancipated from political Islam.
This message Muhammad was given admonished Arabs for their lack of faith,
provided them with ethics for living honorably, told them in no uncertain term
that the God of Abraham made no distinction among nations and people who believe
in Him, and that on the Day of Final Reckoning, they need have no fear if they
strive in doing what is right.
This is the "other" Islam. This is submission to truth, whose most righteous
exemplar was Abraham when his faith was tested by his Deity, according to the
Hebrew Bible, to sacrifice his son. And this is the faith of Sufis who took
Muhammad's message to people in places far removed from the desert confines of
Arabia. It is simply, as the Qur'an reminds (30:30), deen al-fitrah, the natural
religion, or inclination, of man to know his Creator. There is no return of this
"other" Islam; it never went missing.
**Salim Mansur is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. He
teaches in the department of political science at Western University in London,
Ontario. He is the author of "Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident
Muslim" and "Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism."
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Al-Quds Day In
Basra, Iraq: Iraqi Policemen Burn U.S. Flag, Chant 'Death To America'
MEMRI/ July 05/16/ Special Dispatch No.6508
On July 1, 2016, some Iraqi cities marked Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, which
involved protests against Israel and the U.S. This day is marked each year in
Iran and in other Shi'ite communities in the Middle East on the last Friday of
Ramadan, and usually includes anti-Israel and anti-American chants. In the
majority Shi'ite city of Basra, Iraq, local police were photographed
participating in an Al-Quds Day parade, and marching over Israeli and American
flags. The Iraqi Al-Ghad Press news agency reported that American flags were
also burned during the parade, and that Iraqi police were joined by members of
the Shi'ite Al-Hashd Al-Sha'abi ("popular mobilization") militias.[1]
Iraqis Warn: The Incident May Lead To An Iraq-U.S. Diplomatic Crisis
The London-based Qatari daily Al-Arabi Al-Jadid quoted Muhammad Al-Basri,
director of the Center for Iraqi Political Studies, who said that "security
personnel actively participated in Al-Quds [Day] protests, carried images of
non-Iraqi religious leaders, and chanted slogans such as 'Death to America,'"
adding that this would be viewed negatively in the West and do harm to Iraq. Al-Basri
also said that "most security forces in Basra were trained by Americans, and
this event indicates the failure of the American plan [to influence Iraq] and
affirm [the claim] that the Iranians have appropriated this plan."[2]
Other Iraqis also criticized the behavior of the Basra police. 'Ali Hussein, a
columnist for the Iraqi daily Al-Mada, wrote on July 2 that Basra police
officers suffer from split personality disorder, arguing that those who
applauded the Americans for toppling the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003 – meaning
the Shi'ites who suffered under his rule – are the same ones cursing the
Americans today.[3] The Kurdish-Iraqi news website Kurdistan24 cited Iraqi
activists who condemned the event on social media. One activist, 'Abd Al-Kareem
Hassan, wondered: "Have you ever heard of officers in the New York, Washington,
Chicago, London, or Paris police stepping on an Iraqi flag in one of their
ceremonies? ... Do they [the Basra police] know that their actions could lead to
a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and Iraq...?"[4]
Burning U.S. Flags – Expression Of Deep Iranian Infiltration Into Iraq
The online Saudi daily Elaph.com saw this event as a further expression of
Iran's "deep infiltration" into Iraq. A July 3 article included additional
incidents pointing to the major influence wielded by Iran in Iraq. For instance,
the article reported that this week, the Basra governorate council had voted to
rename one of the city's streets in honor of the founder of Iran's Islamic
Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The article also mentions that members
of Iraq's Shi'ite ruling party, the National Iraqi Alliance (NIA), were invited
to an iftar (the evening meal breaking the daily fast during Ramadan) at the
Iranian embassy. Senior attendees included Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Ja'afari
and former prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki. According to Elaph, despite the
presence of the Iraqi foreign minister, no Iraqi flags were present in the
dining hall.[5]
Basra street named for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (Iraqkhbar.com, July 2, 2016)
Iraqi Interior Minister: Those Involved Were Questioned And Will Be Punished
Al-Arabi Al-Jadid cited sources who stated that the government in Baghdad was
embarrassed by the behavior of the Basra police, especially after receiving
concerned messages from the U.S. The daily reported that Prime Minister Haider
Al-Abadi had ordered the launch of an immediate investigation and the
prosecution of those involved. Indeed, the Interior Ministry, which is actually
headed by a member of the pro-Iranian Badr Organization, quickly issued a
statement noting that Interior Minister Muhammad Al-Ghaban had ordered the
questioning of those involved and their punishment in accordance with the law,
which forbids security forces members from taking part in events of a political
nature such as Al-Quds Day. The statement also mentioned that the Interior
Ministry would continue to monitor violations of the law and would decisively
apply legal sanctions, which could also include expulsion from the security
forces.[6]
Endnotes:
[1] Alghadpress.com/ar, July 2, 2016.
[2] Al-Arabi Al-Jadid (London), July 2, 2016.
[3] Al-Mada (Iraq), July 2, 2016.
[4] Kurdistan24.net, July 2, 2016.
[5] Elaph.com, July 3, 2016.
[6] Al-Arabi Al-Jadid (London), July 2, 2016.
Once again, Saudi Arabia is on the
terrorism frontline
Dr. Theodore Karasik/Al Arabiya/July 05/16
Multiple suicide bombings in the Saudi cities of Jeddah, Medina and Qatif over
the past 24 hours leave no doubt that Saudi Arabia is once again on the
forefront of the global battle against terrorism. Saudi authorities responsible
for internal security must be praised for their efforts in containing
yesterday's triple threat, however extremist tendencies, so global support and
an extra counterterrorism push are absolutely necessary now. Saudi Arabia has
for long been fighting terrorism at home, notably since 2004. Not too many
people would remember that it has successfully fought off al-Qaeda internally
and that the country’s interior minister, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef who is
acknowledged worldwide for his efforts, almost lost his life in this fight.
Military efforts aside, the kingdom actively sought to dry out terrorism funding
and has received much praised from allies such as the US for its cooperation on
this front.
This makes it obvious that it is the tough position taken by Saudi Arabia on
terrorism, which has made the country the target for terror groups such as
al-Qaeda and ISIS, both of which have named the kingdom as an enemy. Attacks
carried out on Monday have the fingerprints of the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS), which has pushed to create as much regional chaos as possible
during Ramadan and into Eid. For now, Saudi Arabia may be in ISIS’s crosshairs,
and must be protected at all costs
ISIS claimed a suicide bombing in Baghdad on Sunday that killed more than 200
people, as well as the recent attacks in Bangladesh and at Istanbul airport. In
addition, security services and police interrupted a major plot by three ISIS
cells in Kuwait. These attacks illustrate that extremists are likely to target
other Gulf states in the short term, so extra vigilance, intelligence and police
work are necessary. With ongoing anti-ISIS operations in Libya and the Levant,
the group is losing territory, so it is exacting revenge during a very critical
time of the Islamic calendar. By combining battlefield defeats with successful
terrorist attacks, ISIS is able to up its game with deadly effect. What next?
What happens next is important for policymakers and stakeholders. Firstly, ISIS
attacks in Saudi Arabia may raise risks for potential foreign investors. The
group realizes this, and is likely to act accordingly sooner rather than later.
Mitigation procedures by Saudi security services and police are paramount.
Second, ISIS will make itself felt globally now, with violent attacks against
many different types of targets besides those in the kingdom. These attacks can
occur anywhere in the world. Its adherents are out in force and ready to fight
to the death. If ISIS is forced out of the Levant or Libya, its fighters will
migrate to other locations. That fact illustrates the problems in mitigating and
reversing its sick ideology. Finally, Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) needs a
jump start to a new reality. As ISIS spreads beyond its so-called caliphate,
what is required is a new focus on where adherents will find new ungovernable
areas to operate, or urban areas in which to attack popular commercial sites,
sporting events, nightclubs and other soft targets. What happens if its
adherents attack a target in Latin America? Is the CVE community prepared for
this possibility? The United States and Saudi Arabia, plus their allies and
partners in counterterrorism, are continuing their robust cooperation and
intelligence-sharing. The fight behind the scenes is as important as the public
display of the ongoing fight against extremism. For now, Saudi Arabia may be in
ISIS’s crosshairs, and must be protected at all costs.
Bangladesh: Admitting the
presence of ISIS
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/July 05/16
Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries. It is the
world’s seventh most populous nation with 160 million people, and the third most
populous Muslim nation after Indonesia and Pakistan. There are four political
parties in Bangladesh. The largest is the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is a political
party. Islamist parties have the freedom to perform their political and social
activities. However, frequent acts of violence confirm that religious extremism
has developed from a mere ideology into the establishment of terror groups.
Bangladesh has witnessed a dangerous transformation led by religious groups that
are similar to those that established terror groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan and
the Middle East.
In denial
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed the abduction and murder of
more than 20 hostages, most of them Italian and Japanese. This confirms that
what Bangladesh’s government denied in the past is not true. Previous terror
crimes were attributed to local opposition groups. Last year, an Italian working
for a humanitarian organization, and a Japanese man working in agriculture, were
killed. Previous terror crimes were attributed to local opposition groups. The
government refused to admit the problem, and to describe it as terrorism. The
government refused to admit the problem, and to describe it as terrorism. These
operations were carried out nationwide, and targeted cultural and political
figures. A publisher was killed in Dhaka. Before that, a writer was stabbed and
another shot. The publisher had informed the police of threats made against him
by ISIS, but the police considered the threats an individual act. Four bloggers
had also been killed. Since the recent abduction involved the murder of more
than 20 hostages and received international attention, there is no longer doubt
about the validity of ISIS’s claim of responsibility. In the past 10 years, we
have seen many manifestations of extremism traveling to Bangladesh from the
Middle East, via extremist religious preaching and collecting funds in the name
of charity. There are no occupying forces or foreign powers in Bangladesh. There
is no civil war and most of its population is Muslim, the majority Sunni.
However, this did not prevent extremism, which claims there is Western culture
and immoral values that must be fought. What is happening in Bangladesh is
happening in other countries with the same methods. However, cooperation between
countries is limited to exchanging information about organizations and
criminals, and their financial transactions and marketing tools. The cooperation
does not include anything about their ideologies, or about environments that
foster extremist intellect and then terrorism. What is the point of this delayed
cooperation when the disease has spread?
**This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on July 5, 2016.
All eyes on Iran
Camelia Entekhabi-Fard/Al Arabiya/July 05/16
In the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the EU, analysts and investors are
watching to see how Iran, now a full participant in the international community
following the nuclear deal, will react to the economic repercussions. Although
speculators love volatility, the foreign direct investors that Iran needs for
future development have long-term horizons. Will Tehran join the international
trend of isolation and xenophobia, or will it react with calm and restraint,
signaling to investors and markets that Iran is emerging as a stable and
dependable place to do business? Hardliners might point to a fracturing EU, or
to growing signs of Russian and Chinese muscle-flexing, as an indication that
the world is a dangerous place and that Tehran needs to take a more militant
stance. However, investors abhor militancy as it fosters volatility. If Iranian
politicians are smart, they should play it smart and run against the herd,
demonstrating that their country can take a leadership role in the region via
greater economic and diplomatic cooperation. Although Iran’s moderates and
conservatives disagree on a number of issues, the disagreement is rational, with
room for compromise. The challenges they will face moving ahead amid all this
uncertainty are not all technocratic. There needs to be a balance with the
visionary. Geopolitical shifts that affect the country are not something an
interest-rate analyst at the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) is going to solve. The
best buffer against international disruptions are strong regional economic and
diplomatic ties, which will require resolve by both Tehran and the Gulf
Cooperation Council
Regional cooperation
At the tactical or technocratic level, education, expertise, openness to
technology and best practices, and international trade will help Iran weather
larger international storms. The best buffer against international disruptions
are strong regional economic and diplomatic ties, which will require resolve by
both Tehran and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The current EU crisis might
belie this assessment, but regional economic integration has preserved peace and
built great wealth in Europe for 70 years. It might seem a fantasy to some at
this point, but the fragility of the international system - of which Brexit is
only one sign - should clearly signal to Iran and the GCC that for all their
differences, they constitute fairly stable political centers on which the
foundations of regional economic cooperation must rest. It only requires the
political will and vision to make it happen. A great example is Turkey’s
surprise rapprochement with Russia and Israel to break its isolation and boost
its economy. Making up with Russia, which has a totally different stance on the
Syria crisis, signals a total shift in Turkish foreign policy. Iran’s Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei on Sunday said there would be “no coordination with the
United States in Syria and Iraq because their goal is to end Iran’s presence in
the region.”However, the rapprochement between Turkey and Russia will decrease
Iran’s regional influence even without much US involvement. Does Tehran want to
get sucked into anarchic international politics as usual, or take the lead in
building a sustainable regional system?
From Florida to Madinah: ISIS
spared no one this Ramadan
Joyce Karam/Al Arabiya/July 05/16
Riding the Ferris wheel, enjoying the special holiday pastries and holding
family gatherings has traditionally marked the celebrations at the end of
Ramadan, the Muslim holy month concluding on Tuesday. This year, however,
Ramadan brings a bittersweet moment for many in the Muslim world, overshadowed
by a wave of barbaric terrorism targeting majority-Muslim countries and bearing
the signature of ISIS.From Islam's second holiest site in Madinah, to a shopping
mall in Baghdad, Ataturk airport in Istanbul, a cafe in Dhaka to a club in
Florida and thwarted attempts on mosques in Kuwait, ISIS has unleashed its
suicide bombings venom outside its Middle East war zones (Syria, Iraq, Libya and
Yemen). The various attacks, in their ferocity and boundless reach, show that
the Americans, the Saudis, the Turks showcases that the Middle East, South Asia,
Europe and US are confronting a global terror phenomenon.
What is also worth noting that if it is proven that yesterday's attack in Saudi
Arabia did bear the ISIS signature, then this would mark a global transition for
this terrorist group from the territorial confines of its so-called Caliphate,
to a brand that morphs al-Qaeda on a large scale and with more brutality. It
also exposes the group’s weakness, lashing out against Muslims in a way that is
likely to backfire and hurt its narrative.
ISIS morphs into al-Qaeda
While the rebirth of ISIS in Iraq in 2014 brought striking differences with
al-Qaeda, in terms of territorial control and scope of targets, these
differences have diminished today with both groups competing for global
terrorism and becoming less dependent on land grabs. As ISIS loses 47 percent of
its territory in Iraq and 20 percent in Syria, according to US envoy Brett
McGurk, it is rebranding into global jihadism as an alternative to its once
celebrates Caliphate. Almost like al-Qaeda which never proclaimed a Caliphate
and tried to make allies within rogue states, ISIS is now trying to operate in
countries it has recruits or sleeping cells to carry out attacks against
security forces, foreigners and Western interest (such as the US consulate in
Jeddah). The losses of Fallujah, Ramadi, Tikrit, Palmyra and Kobani are making
ISIS rethink its allure and strategy. Running a global terrorist enterprise and
showing muscle outside Iraq and Syria is an opportune way for ISIS to cover up
the fragmentation of its Caliphate while still having the ability to parade its
killing machine abroad. The terror that hit Madinah, Istanbul, Baghdad and Dhaka
is the same terror that hit Brussels, Orlando and Paris, only this time it
targeted mostly Muslims who are killed by ISIS more than any other religion. The
aim is to distract and retaliate (Baghdad) to battlefront losses in Iraq and
Syria anywhere it can. ISIS will spare no sleeping cell or foreign fighter from
returning and targeting outside interests. While killing Muslims tarnishes the
group’s image, the immediate gain of showing its strong hand is prevailing in
its terror attacks in Istanbul and Baghdad.
A regional response
With Turkey, Saudi, Kuwait, Jordan, and Lebanon coming under ISIS fire during
Ramadan, there is more urgency than any time before to go on the offensive
against the group to help end the territorial control it still enjoys in Iraq
and Syria. Robbing ISIS of its territory means taking away its ability to create
safe havens, plan and train for attacks, while also ending the blank checks it
receives from oil trade, ransoms and taxes. Waiting for Geneva talks to reach a
breakthrough, or for an inclusive government in Baghdad to emerge, will only
play into the hands of ISIS. Two years of territorial control in Iraq and Syria
have made the group a terror giant with legions that can strike in Bangladesh,
Brussels and Tunisia. Countries in the region have a primary interest in
investing in a multi-pronged security strategy that prioritizes
counterterrorism, and would train and equip local forces to take over ISIS
territory in Iraq and Syria. The Anbar province is to Saudi’s national security
as critical as Northern Syria is to Turkey. While pushing for a political
solution in Damascus and Baghdad would greatly help in promoting regional
cooperation and undermining ISIS, the entrenched proxy conflicts in both
countries dim such prospect.
By killing Muslims this week blocks away from the Prophet’s burial place, ISIS
is only showing its true colors: a beastly group that cares little about Muslims
and is all about power and chaos. The brutality will continue wherever its
fighters land and can reach but only a unified regional strategy that counters
its narrative and ends its territorial hold can defeat this affliction.
Bahraini
Writer, Jamil Al-Mahari: The Establishment Of An Islamic Caliphate – An Illusion
Born Out Of 'A Moral Vacuum'
MEMRI/Special Dispatch | 6504/July 05/16
In his March 1, 2016 column in the Bahraini daily Al-Wasat, titled "The Illusion
of the Caliphate State," columnist Jamil Al-Mahari condemned those who dream of
establishing an Islamic caliphate through terrorism and beheadings, calling them
"the most extremist, reactionary and barbaric of people." He argued that ISIS is
only one of many Islamist organizations that reject coexistence with the other,
and that these organizations, as well as multitudes who support them on the
social networks, are far removed from Islam and "have no humane or religious
goal – nothing but a moral vacuum."
The following are excerpts from his article:
"Tens of thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people have been killed
so far, and hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of innocent people have
been uprooted from their homes, [all] in the name of the dream of establishing a
caliphate state throughout the Arab and Muslim lands, [a state] ruled by the
Muslim caliph under the protection of Allah.
"The dream of establishing an Islamic caliphate state, or an Islamic empire,
over the ruins of the modern Arab and Islamic governments was born after the
fall of the Ottoman state in the 1920s. This was a new idea of Islamic figures
and organizations who undertook to reinstate the Islamic shari'a in everyday
life and to restore the Islamic rule. To this day, the majority of Islamic
organizations preach some version of this idea, in some way. Some believe [in
implementing it] gradually, while others believe in imposing it by force.
"Those who dream of the return of the Islamic caliphate, as we see [them] today,
may be much more numerous than we think, and therefore ISIS is only [one] of
many political [Islam] organizations that are cast in the same mold, [all of
which] adopt this blood-soaked perception that does not accept the possibility
of tolerating any opinion different [from their own].
"Historically, the caliphate state existed for a short period of time, during
the reign of the four Righteous Caliphs. Later the political regime changed,
reflecting the direction taken by the Umayyad state, the Abbasid state and
finally the Ottoman state. None of those who now presume to establish a
caliphate state can claim that any of the governance models that existed after
the era of the Righteous Caliphs were worthy of emulation in terms of their
enactment of the Islamic shari'a. Hence, [these people] have no clear model to
which to aspire, only selective utopian theories about [their] heritage.
"Today, the most extremist, reactionary and barbaric of people have emerged,
[striving] to establish an Islamic caliphate state by means of terror,
beheadings and blowing up mosques using explosive belts, [and attempting] to
establish the hoped-for future caliphate state over [their victims'] remains.
[This, while] the Islamic caliphate state is supposed to enact the Islamic
shari'a, which is replete with compassion and divine justice. These people want
to spread Islam throughout the world by means of the sword and [by waging] jihad
for the sake of Allah, by murdering people and blowing them up, [and all this]
in order to dominate the world in the name of Islam, implement Allah's law and
levy the jizya[poll tax] on anyone who refuses to embrace Islam. That is, the
U.S., Russia, Germany and Britain are all supposed to pay jizya to this putative
Islamic state, while in state of submission.
"The strangest thing of all is that among those who have taken over some
isolated towns and villages in chaos-ridden countries like Syria, Iraq and Libya
– those who have enslaved the people [of those towns and villages] and captured
their women – there are some who believe to this day that if an Islamic state
emerges in these regions, it will be able to do as it pleases with the locals
everywhere, in the name of religion. And stranger still is [the fact] that some
people openly and proudly support them – though they are very far removed from
the path of Islam, as can be seen on the social networks… [These people's]
agenda is clear. They have no humane or religious goal – nothing but a moral
vacuum."