Jihad Watch

KUALA LUMPUR: The Home Ministry has banned Irshad Manji's book titled Allah, Liberty and Love as it contravenes teachings of the Al-Quran [sic] and Hadith.

Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wira Abu Seman said the ministry had decided to ban the book under Section 7 (Subsection 1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.

Irshad's book, which was translated into the Malay language, had been forwarded to the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) to be studied.

"This is because the book, which is believed to have elements that can deviate Muslims from their faith and which insulted Islam, has received numerous complaints," he said in a statement here Thursday.

"The ministry received a report from Jakim, and based on its findings, the contents have elements that can confuse the public and contain words that insult Islam," he said.

Irshad is a liberal Muslim activist who openly supports Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual and Transsexual (LGBT) lifestyles.

On July 30, 2009, her previous book, entitled The Trouble With Islam Today, was also banned in Malaysia. - Bernama

He joins the Yemeni "sorceress" who was beheaded last month. "Yemeni Jew stabbed to death in Sanaa," from the Jerusalem Post, May 22:

A member of the Jewish community in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa was stabbed to death by a Muslim man accusing him of witchcraft on Tuesday, AFP quoted the man’s son as saying.

Aharon Zindani succumbed to his wounds at an area hospital after being critically injured in the attack, the community’s rabbi told AFP.

Zindani, 50, “was stabbed at Saawan market near the US Embassy in northeast Sanaa,” his son Yehya was quoted as saying. “He received stab wounds to his neck and stomach.”

Yehya described the attacker as a “wellknown person who says my father has ruined and bewitched him.”

According to Israeli media reports, the attacker stabbed Zindani 12 times before being stopped by a group of men and detained.

A friend of Zindani, Shlomo Grafi, told Army Radio that he had been killed by a “member of al-Qaida.”

Zindani had returned to Yemen after he had made aliya and lived in Israel in the 1990s, he said.

Grafi claimed that the Jewish community in Sanaa, numbering some 80 members, did not feel in danger despite Yemen’s volatile political climate.

According to El Badil, Sheikh Ahmed al-Mahlawi recently gave a sermon in his popular Alexandrian mosque, where he warned the ulema (Islam’s scholars and theologians), from “appearing on TV programs with women who do not wear the hijab.” He pointed out that some make the excuse that, because they see non-veiled women all the time in the streets of Egypt, sitting with one at a TV studio should be fine as well. For Sheikh Mahlawi, however, the ulema have no choice about seeing non-veiled women in the streets, “since that is imposed on them,” but, where they have a say—such as whether to appear on TV with an unveiled woman—they must say no. He then proceeded to brag about how a female official from the U.S. Consulate wanted to meet with him, but he made her wear the hijab first. Finally, he culminated his sermon by warning against “those who do not wish to apply Allah’s Sharia, who love the West, and wish to implement homosexual marriage.”

Over at FrontPage Magazine (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I place Egypt's presidential elections in context:

Egypt's long awaited and much anticipated presidential elections—the first of their kind to take place in the nation's 7,000 year history—are here. As we await the final results—and as the Western mainstream media fixate on images of purple-stained fingers—it is well to remember that there is much more at stake in Egypt's elections than the mere "right" to vote.

While some Egyptians are certainly voting according to their convictions, the fundamental divide revolves around religion—how much or how little the candidates in question are in favor of Islamic Sharia law. In other words, Islamists are voting for Islamists—Abdel Mon'im Abul Futuh and Muhammad Mursi—whereas non-Islamists (secularists, liberals, and non-Muslims) are voting for non-Islamists, such as Amr Musa and Ahmed Shafiq.

Bear in mind that this is not the same thing as American voters being divided between "liberal" Democrats and "conservative" Republicans; rather, this election is much more existential in nature—possibly cataclysmic for Egyptian society. For, whereas both American Republicans and Democrats operate under the selfsame U.S. Constitution, in Egypt, an Islamist president will usher in Sharia law, which will fundamentally transform the nation...

And "the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate Mohammed Mursi said voters would not accept anyone from 'Mubarak's corrupt regime.'" Sharia Or Blood in Egypt: "Queues Build As Voting Continues In Egypt," from Sky News, May 24:

Egyptians are voting for the second day in the country's historic presidential election, 15 months after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak....

The vote began on Wednesday, amid huge excitement and some anger over one of the leading candidates in the race.

Ahmed Shafiq, the former prime minister under Mubarak, was pelted with stones and shoes as he voted in Cairo. "The coward is here," one man shouted as the 70-year-old was forced to retreat to his car.

Shafiq, a former Air Force commander, is expected to win significant support in the election, although his ties to the old regime make him a deeply divisive figure.

On Twitter, some young Egyptians who joined the revolution bemoaned their parents' support for the controversial candidate.

"My dad is actually trying to convince me with Shafiq," one tweeter complained....

The Muslim Brotherhood's candidate Mohammed Mursi said voters would not accept anyone from "Mubarak's corrupt regime"....

"The official said the house was reportedly used by suspected foreign and Punjabi Taliban militants." Maybe the mosque was as well. But that won't stop a fresh outpouring of victimhood posturing from our pro-jihad Pakistani "ally." "Pakistan official: US drone strike hits mosque; 10 killed," from MSNBC, May 24 (thanks to Twostellas):

A U.S. drone strike hit a village mosque in northwest Pakistan Thursday morning, killing at least 10 people, a Pakistani official and witnesses told NBC News.

Local tribesmen said ten bodies were pulled from the debris and that efforts were underway to retrieve others, NBC News reported.

"The drone fired two missiles and hit the village mosque where a number of people were offering Fajr (morning) prayer," local tribal elder Roashan Din told NBC News.

A Pakistani security official based in the area said the drone hit the mosque in the Hasukhel area of Mir Ali in North Waziristan.

"The drone fired two missiles and pounded a house," a local administration official in Mir Ali told NBC News. "Four U.S. spy planes are flying over the area."

The official said the house was reportedly used by suspected foreign and Punjabi Taliban militants. Officials told Reuters that a pilotless aircraft fired the two missiles, although the news agency described the targeted structure as a "compound."...

Egypt's Christians on the brink. Don't they know that Sharia is entirely benign and compatible with the values enshrined in the U.S. Constitution? Or have they been listening to greasy Islamophobes? "Egypt's Christians Vote to Keep Out Islamists," by Ines Bel Aiba for AFP, May 24:

CAIRO (AFP) -- Many Egyptian Christians felt marginalised under former president Hosni Mubarak and are voting to keep an Islamist from replacing him out of fear that their community will be further sidelined.

In Shubra, a working-class Cairo neighbourhood home to many Copts, voting lines were long, and the worry and tension felt by many Christians was palpable.

"I don't want the Islamists. If they come to power and I oppose them, they will say I am criticising their religion and who knows what they'll do to me? We can't talk to them," said 57-year-old Sanaa Rateb after casting her ballot. Dressed in a floral jacket topped with a pearl necklace, Rateb railed against those, including the Muslim Brotherhood, who object to a Christian or a woman standing as president.

"It's a mistake. Where is the principle of citizenship in all this? I have the right, as a woman or as a Copt, to stand for the presidency if I want," she said.

Nassim Ghaly, a young man with a cross tattooed on his wrist in the distinctive manner of Egyptian Christians, interjected: "God protect us if the Islamists come to power and they control the parliament and the presidency at the same time."

Like all the Copts questioned on Wednesday, Rateb and Ghaly voted for Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister to serve under Mubarak, whose campaign posters were the most visible in Shubra.

"Shafiq is a respectable man who can restore the country," said Mary, who declined to give her family name.

Egypt's Coptic Orthodox church, whose patriarch, Pope Shenouda, died in March, has refrained from endorsing a candidate, but Mary insisted that within the community "everyone is voting for Shafiq."

But she says the community is not looking to Shafiq to protect their rights as Christians.

"We don't want anyone to defend us. We just don't want any problems and to be left alone," she said....

The Coptic community, which makes up between six and 10 percent of Egypt's 82 million-strong population, is traditionally low-key and fairly absent from the country's circles of power.

"What we want is a non-religious state," which would guarantee the rights of all religious groups, Sanaa Halim, in her sixties, said.

"The Islamists trends are worrying," one of her friends added, declining to give her name. "And what have they done in parliament? Nothing, except talk about women and female circumcision."...

Asked about her position on Egypt's Islamists, a young Christian woman responded dryly: "I'm sorry, I don't wish to say anything on that subject."

Hmmm. Maybe there are ways around Barack Obama's supine and obsequious reaction to the jihad threat from Iran. "Top Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guards Dropping Like Flies," by David Lev for Israel National News, May 24 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

At least ten top members of the Iran's Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (Pasdaran) group have died under suspicious circumstances in recent months, the Defense Online website reported Thursday. Those killed include generals and other top-ranked officials, and many of them have died in “apparently violent circumstances,” the report said.

The Guardians act as a combination border patrol, modesty police, and internal security apparatus in Iran. Their mission is to ensure that the Islamic Revolution does not fall by the wayside, and that Iranians continue to submit to the wills of the mullahs running the country. The Guardians are considered one of the most powerful organizations in Iran today, controls its own paramilitary group, employs 90,000 people, and is said to have tens of billions of holdings in businesses.

It is tension over those holdings that have gotten the officers killed, the report says....

Iran has publicized only two of the deaths, with information on the other eight coming from democracy and rights groups operating outside of Iran.

Among the dead was General Ahmed Mansouri, a top Guardians officer who is a close relative of Supreme Leader Ayatalloh Ali Khameini. Sources in Iran say that he died of a heart attack. Two other officers died in a traffic accident. Two were found dead by apparently violent means, and no information was available from the Iranian rebel groups on the other five.

Close your eyes and let Reza Aslan and Hussein Ibish tell you that it is all Israel's fault. "PA daily op-ed expresses hope for Israel's destruction," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, May 24:

An op-ed in the official PA daily published on May 15, the anniversary of the founding of the modern state of Israel, reiterated the Palestinian Authority's consistent denial of Israel's right to exist and its hope and expectation for Israel's destruction.

In the op-ed, Israel's establishment is demonized:
"The greatest theft in history... the most criminal act that humanity has ever seen... [the establishment of a] fascist state upon the ruins of the Palestinian people, which has suffered the greatest and ugliest ethnic cleansing known to modern history."

The op-ed continues with the anticipation of Israel's destruction:
"We remember you, all of Palestine. You are present within us... until we return to you, oh Haifa, Acre, and Jaffa, all of historical Palestine... and all the temporary ones [Israelis] will go away... May their [Israeli] independence collapse, and may Palestine come back to life."

Significantly, the writer of this op-ed is not a regular staff writer of the official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which may indicate that the editors accepted this op-ed for publication because of its content....

The "Arab Spring" once again shows itself to be a "blessed Islamic revival." "Tunisia: Salafist Congress In Kairouan Draws Thousands," by Houda Trabelsi for Magharebia, May 24:

housands [sic] of salafists converged on Kairouan Sunday (May 20th) outside the Uqba Ibn Nafi Mosque for the second annual congress of the Ansar al-Sharia movement.

As many as 5,000 people from across the country attended the event led by salafist Sheikh Abou Iyadh (aka Seif Allah Ben Hassine) and Sheikh Al-Khatib El-Idrissi.

Abou Iyadh once fought in Afghanistan and was jailed by the Ben Ali regime before being freed from prison after the revolution. His speech to attendees focused on the economy, simultaneously reassuring investors while advancing the salafist agenda.

“You who impede the wheels of the economy in our country, fear God in our people and let investors invest in Tunisia, and enough of the random protests which harm average citizens and the economy,” Abou Iyadh said.

He also called on followers to establish an Islamic syndicate to “give the employee his due”, calling on supporters to “break away from the secular unions”.

Regarding Tunisian tourism, which many citizens see as threatened by the spread of the salafism, Abou Iyadh sought to calm anxiety. “Travel agencies, Why the fear of us? We ask God for guidance for you so that tourism is correct with Sharia, and for my brothers, we will not change evil with the hand but will change it with the call,” he said.

Organisers of the Ansar al-Sharia congress asked attendees to boycott all media on allegations that the Tunisian press had slandered salafism.

At the opening of the congress, there was a display of combat sports with hands, sticks and swords as a symbolic act signifying jihad, amid cheering and celebration.

Ridha Bel Haj, head of the banned Hizb Ettahrir, was among those present and gave a speech in which he stressed “the existence of a blessed Islamic revival”.

Meanwhile, Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party distanced itself from the salafist event. Amer Al-Arayedh, member of the Executive Office of Ennahda, told Magharebia that there was “no correlation between the salafist movement and the Ennahda movement. Each political party has its orientation and goals.”

“It is the right of the salafists in Tunisia to organise meetings and forums like any other movement, whether leftist or right-wing,” al-Arayedh said. “The important thing is maintaining public safety and not sparking riots and civil strife.”

On Monday, Justice Minister Noureddine Bhiri warned salafists over their attempt to forcibly ban the sale of alcohol in the town of Sidi Bouzid.

Addressing the attacks on bars, al-Arayedh said Ennahda was “against any form of violence and against the imposition of any behaviour, because the state is the only one responsible for public order and for giving licenses to bars or closing them, and individuals or parties must not impose what they want by force”.

Mohamed Zied Abid, a young salafist, said the event was “the beginning of the end for the children of secularism and the advocates of division and tearing apart the Islamic ranks”.

“It seems clear that this event is a starting point to break the link between this current and the Ennahda movement,” Tunisian Mohsen Achouri told Magharebia, adding, “especially as salafism in Tunisia, as happened in Egypt, began organising ‘politically’ after licensing the salafi Reform Front party, and are awaiting licenses for other salafist parties, such as Hizb Ettahrir.”

Aiding her hook-handed jihad terrorist father-in-law to communicate with his fellow jihadists outside prison. "Abu Hamza's daughter-in-law caught smuggling SIM card into prison beneath burkha," from the Telegraph, May 23 (thanks to David):

The daughter-in-law of radical cleric Abu Hamza tried to smuggle a mobile phone SIM card into his high security prison while pregnant and clad in full muslim dress, it was disclosed today.

When Chaymae Smak visited her father-in-law at Belmarsh Prison in December 2010, she had the SIM card stashed in the coin pocket of her jeans beneath her flowing robes where security guards discovered it, London's Appeal Court heard.

She had previously visited her hook-handed father-in-law behind bars, said Mr Justice Openshaw, and was "well aware" that SIM cards were banned in prison.

Smak, 28, of Gap Road, Wandsworth, was jailed for 12 months at Blackfriars Crown Court on May 4 after she was convicted of conveying a prohibited article into prison.

She appealed her sentence in the Appeal Court today - where the facts of her case emerged for the first time - claiming she should be released for the sake of her 10-month old son, with whom she was pregnant at the time of the prison visit.

The SIM card was destined for Abu Hamza, said Mr Justice Openshaw, who was held as a high risk "Category A" inmate following his conviction for inciting murder and pending extradition on terror charges to the United States.

Smak at first claimed she had put the SIM card in her pocket several days earlier and "forgotten about it", said the judge, who added: "The jury clearly didn't accept that claim".

Mr Justice Openshaw, sitting with the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, and Mr Justice Irwin, said Smak, a single mother, had given birth to a baby boy in July last year, and that the boy's grandmother is now struggling to raise him.

But, although the courts had to consider the "impact of custody on the child", a deterrent sentence was justified, ruled the judge.

Smak's lawyers claimed too much account was taken of the fact that the SIM card was destined for Abu Hamza.

But Mr Justice Openshaw held: "It seems highly relevant to the seriousness of the offence that the prisoner she was visiting was Abu Hamza, who was detained as a Category A prisoner following his conviction for inciting murder".

He added: "The particular danger of conveying a telephone SIM card to someone such as Abu Hamza is immediately obvious.

"He could use it to convey messages of support to his followers outside, or use it to encourage or incite the commission of further offences.

"The risk that this may come to pass is a seriously aggravating factor in the commission of this particular offence."...

Polygamy is sanctioned by the Qur'an (4:3) and adoption is forbidden -- see Qur'an 33:4 and 33:37-40, which refers obliquely to Muhammad's marriage to the ex-wife of his adopted son Zayd. The canonical Islamic story of this episode has Allah commanding Muhammad to marry Zayd's ex-wife in order to show that adoption is illegitimate. Critics of Muhammad throughout history have held this to be a contrived excuse that allowed Muhammad to avoid the laws of consanguinity in order to satisfy his lust -- but in any case, adoption has been ever after forbidden in Islamic law. In my new book Did Muhammad Exist? I argue that the whole story was invented in order to demonstrate that Muhammad has no son, either adopted or natural, and (given the Qur'an's assumption that all the prophets are blood relatives of one another) that therefore he is the final prophet. Either way, adoption is a goner in Islam, and these moves by the "Salvation Front" in Tunisia are yet another sign of that country's slide toward Sharia. Yes, I tried to tell you: "Tunisia: Salafite party calls for polygamy and halt to adoptions," from Adnkronos, May 23 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Tunis, 23 May (AKI) - The recently legalised Tunisian Salafite party 'Jabhet al-Islah' has called for polygamy to be allowed and adoption to be outlawed.

"It is no longer the time for armed jihad (holy war). We don't intend to use force to stop the sale of alcohol or the wearing of bikinis on the beaches. But we will not tolerate any atatck [sic] on the symbols of Islam," the party's president Khouja Mohamed told Tunisian daily Le Temps daily Wednesay in an interview.

Protests erupted in Tunisia last October after official election results showed that the country's Islamist party Ennahda had won the first democratic elections since the Arab Spring uprisings, taking 41.47 percent of the vote and 90 seats in the new 217-member assembly.

The assembly has been tasked with rewriting the constitution, appointing a president and forming a caretaker government. Its nearest rival, the secularist Congress for the Republic, won 30 seats.

Jabhet al-Islah (The Salvation Front) admits it is the successor of the Tunisian Salvation Front party, which was founded in the 1980s and put on a US list of terrorist organisations.

But the party says it does not reject pluralism, while claiming that religion and politics cannot be separated.

"We believe Islam is a religion of democracy and freedom," Mohamed said.

Unless you're a woman or a non-Muslim.

"The main suspect, Mevlid Jasarevic, wore a traditional Wahhabi outfit and refused to stand when he entered his plea Wednesday" -- because he doesn't respect the Infidel court. Now why would three devout Muslims from Bosnia, where the U.S. has done so much to aid Muslims, shoot up the U.S. embassy? Could it be that nothing the U.S. could do would win their hearts or minds, because the U.S. is an Infidel polity, and they believe that Muslims must wage war against such polities? Naaah, that couldn't be it. Must be poverty, or a reaction to "Islamophobia."

"3 plead innocent to terror in US embassy case," from the Associated Press, May 23 (thanks to Kenneth):

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina – Three people charged by a Bosnian court with involvement in a shooting attack on the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo last October have pleaded not guilty to terrorism.

The main suspect, Mevlid Jasarevic, wore a traditional Wahhabi outfit and refused to stand when he entered his plea Wednesday.

The 23-year-old opened fire on the embassy with an automatic rifle, injuring a local policeman before authorities shot him in the leg and arrested him.

Alleged accomplices Emrah Fojnica and Munib Ahmetspahic — accused of obtaining his weapon and hiding it — also pleaded not guilty....

The Taliban believe that educating girls is un-Islamic, but that poisoning them pleases Allah. And remember: if you dare call attention to this horror, you're a greasy Islamophobe.

"Afghan girls poisoned in second anti-school attack," from Reuters, May 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

TALIQAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - More than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned in the second attack in as many months blamed on conservative radicals in the country's north, Afghan police and education officials said on Wednesday.

Reuters, like all of the mainstream media, believes that you're a "conservative" if you enforce Islamic law by poisoning schoolgirls, and also that you're a "conservative" if you oppose Islamic law and the poisoning of schoolgirls.

The attack occurred in Takhar province where police said that radicals opposed to education of women and girls had used an unidentified toxic powder to contaminate the air in classrooms. Scores of students were left unconscious.

Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), says the Taliban appear intent on closing schools ahead of a 2014 withdrawal by foreign combat troops.

"A part of their Al Farooq spring offensive operation is ... to close schools. By poisoning girls they want to create fear. They try to make families not send their children to school," NDS spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Education said last week that 550 schools in 11 provinces where the Taliban have strong support had been closed down by insurgents.

Last month, 150 schoolgirls were poisoned in Takhar province after they drank contaminated water....

Uh oh. How dreadfully inconvenient for the "Islamophobia" spin machine that claims that only greasy Islamophobes link Islam to terror and mass murder. But they will ignore this, and the mainstream media and law enforcement will happily play along instead of doing what they should be doing: asking "moderate" Muslim leaders in the U.S. what they're doing about this, and what programs they've instituted in mosques and madrassas in this country to teach against the Islamic beliefs that give rise to the idea that Islam calls for murder of unbelievers. If government and law enforcement officials were worth their salt, they'd be acting upon this information in a proper manner, no matter what dissembling and denial the Muslim community in the U.S. engages in. But they aren't.

These days in America, reality is losing out to the Big Lie spread by the likes of Nihad Awad, Ibrahim Hooper, Reza Aslan, Hussein Ibish, et al. But reality has a way of continuing to break through. The blades of grass will always poke through the concrete. And one day the concrete will give way altogether.

"GI says Muslim faith motive for Ft Hood bomb plot," from the Associated Press, May 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WACO, Texas (AP) — A Muslim U.S. soldier accused of planning to bomb Fort Hood troops says he wasn't seeking vengeance but justice for people in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a recording played at his federal trial Wednesday.

Army Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo is heard telling his mother during a recorded jail visit that "their suffering is my suffering."

Abdo, 22, is accused of planning to detonate a bomb inside a Killeen restaurant frequented by troops from the nearby Texas Army post and then shoot any survivors.

He faces up to life in federal prison if convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and five other charges. He was AWOL from Fort Campbell, Ky., when he was arrested last July at a motel in Killeen, a city about 150 miles southwest of Dallas.

Abdo is heard telling his mother that "it's all true" and "the reason is religion. There is no other reason." He says what he did was selfless because he was trying to avenge the United States' wrongful treatment of people he considers his family, and that he used every resource he had "to make things as right as possible."...

Remember: when in Muslim countries, you must abide by Muslim practices. And when in non-Muslim countries, you must abide by Muslim practices. Obama has said that he will defend the right of Muslim women in the U.S. to wear the hijab, as if anyone is denying it -- but he will say nothing about this. Islamic supremacism from modern, moderate Jordan: "Jordan Bank Fires Christian Woman Who Eschewed Hijab," by Gabe Kahn for Israel National News, May 23 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

The Jordan Dubai Islamic Bank on Wednesday fired a Christian employee who refused to wear a scarf to cover her hair as part of uniform for female staff.

“The bank warned Vivian Salameh to cover her hair as part of the women’s uniform approved earlier this year, but she refused,” Iman Afaneh told AFP.

“Five other Christian women are working at the bank, and they are committed to wearing full uniform, including the headscarf.”

But Salameh said she “refused to wear the partial head cover because it is against my principles,” and is religious coercion.

“The bank uniform registered at the trade and industry ministry does not include wearing anything to cover my hair,” she added....

Imagine the outcry if a Christian TV station said this about Muslims. But no one will take notice of this from the "moderate" Palestinian Authority. "PA TV teaches kids: Christians and Jews are inferior, cowardly and despised," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, May 23:

A young Palestinian girl was asked to recite a poem during a PA TV children's program. This poem, according to the host of the show, teaches children "responsibility and belonging."...

PA TV host: "You are going to recite a poem, which also teaches us responsibility and belonging."

Girl: "... The occupier stole my land and my grandfathers' land...
Where is your sword, Khaled (Arab warrior)?
Where is your courage, Saladin (Muslim conqueror)?
But no one answered me.
Where is my weapon? I found it - a stone. I took it and threw it at the enemies of destiny. I taught the world that the Muslim in the name of Allah cannot be defeated...
They challenge us with the White House, and we challenge them with the [Islamic] awakening and the Kaaba [in Mecca]. They aren't stronger than Khosrau and Caesar (rulers of Persian and Byzantine Empires).
They [Christians and Jews] are inferior and smaller, more cowardly and despised. They are remnants of the [Christian] crusaders and Khaibar (i.e., Jewish village destroyed by Muslims in 629)...
Oh Muslims of the world: Awaken, you have slept too long.
Your fathers and your sons are being massacred, your Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is defiled and destroyed."

Host: "Bravo! Applause for our friend Lara."
[PA TV (Fatah), May 11, 2012]

In WND today, Pamela Geller discusses our upcoming event competing with Hamas-linked CAIR's manipulative, cynical and deceptive "civil rights" confab. Email AFDISIOA@aol.com to register to attend our "Summer Night for Human Rights" in Manhattan Beach, California, on June 23.

One of the foremost weapons in the arsenal of subversive Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the U.S., such as the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is to claim victimhood for Muslims in America. To hear Hamas-CAIR tell it, Muslims in the freest country in the world are being routinely attacked, brutalized and subjected to unjust suspicion by law enforcement. Meanwhile, they ignore and deny the real human-rights abuse non-Muslims suffer in Muslim countries because of Islamic law.

CAIR is bringing its victimhood show to Southern California on June 23, when the Los Angeles chapter of this repulsive Hamas-linked group is hosting a “Summer Night for Civil Rights,” which is shaping up to be a three-hour orgy of Muslim victimhood. The headliner is the supremely unfunny “comedian” Dean Obeidallah, who has just completed a “documentary” supposedly chronicling Americans’ “Islamophobia” – a concept coined by the Muslim Brotherhood to shut up Americans and scare them into thinking it is “racist” to oppose the jihad and Islamic supremacism. The others on the bill include Amir Suleiman, a “spoken word poet,” and a rapper who calls himself “Omar Offendum” (“as featured on al-Jazeera,” Hamas-tied CAIR’s poster says, touting terror TV).

One name you can be sure won’t get mentioned while these Islamic supremacists weep and moan about the supposed mistreatment of Muslims in America is that of Youcef Nadarkhani. That’s because Nadarkhani is not a Muslim victim; instead, he is one of millions of victims of Islam. Nadarkhani is a Christian pastor who is on death row in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity – Islamic law commands that anyone who leaves Islam be put to death. All the schools of Islamic law, without exception, mandate death for those who leave Islam.

This is an international human-rights issue. What about civil rights for Pastor Youcef and other Muslim apostates in danger of death? You won’t hear a word about them from Hamas-tied CAIR. Ever. Why? Because this is the very law Muslim supremacist groups seek to impose on the U.S.: the Shariah. But we will fight these subversive groups and fight for the victims of Islam. We will fiercely give voice to the voiceless.

My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and its Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) program, along with Former Muslims United (FMU), will be hosting the first-ever “Summer Night for Human Rights” town hall on June 23 also, at the Marriott Hotel in Manhattan Beach, Calif., just minutes away from the CAIR event.

We’ve dedicated our Summer Night for Human Rights to Pastor Youcef, and we’ve invited numerous apostates from Islam to speak about the death sentence they must live under every moment because they have dared to leave Islam.

We’re calling upon Hamas-tied CAIR to stand up for Pastor Youcef and other victims of Islam’s apostasy law at their so-called “civil rights” conference and to stand for human rights for all. Under the guise of “civil rights,” these subversive groups seek to undermine the unalienable rights guaranteed to every individual under the Constitution. Their ruse must be exposed, their Shariah agenda renounced....

Read it all.

No surprise here. Just another revelation about what side the mainstream media is on. "HuffPo’s House Jihadi," by Adam Kredo for the Washington Free Beacon, May 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A devout Muslim who has praised Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and publicly branded all non-believers as mentally ill “animals” was recently hired to serve as the Huffington Post’s political director in the U.K.

Mehdi Hasan, a controversial British media figure whom insiders have billed as a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime, recently left his job at the left-wing New Statesman magazine to join the Huffington Post as a senior staffer, according to reports in the British press.

The Huffington Post merged with Internet giant AOL in February 2011 to form the Huffington Post media group.

Hasan formerly served as political editor of the New Statesman, which is affiliated with a socialist political party and has faced criticism for publishing articles that many observers have deemed anti-Semitic. In one instance, the New Statesman published an article titled “A Kosher Conspiracy” that purported to expose the great power of Britain’s “pro-Israel lobby.” The cover of that issue featured a Star of David piercing a Union Jack.

Hasan can be seen on tape delivering multiple religious screeds in which he accuses non-Muslims of being animals and mentally inferior.

“We do not bend our law, or morality for short term aims,” Hasan is seen saying in one video recording of his lecture. “Never. And we never lose the moral high ground.”

“Once we lose the moral high ground we are no different from the rest, of the non-Muslims, from the rest of those human beings who live their lives as animals, bending any rule to fulfill any desire,” Hassan said.

He goes on in the recording to praise Iran’s Khamenei for issuing a religious ban or “fatwa” against nuclear weapons, despite that country’s continuing pursuit of nuclear arms....

In PJMedia today I discuss my new book Did Muhammad Exist? in light of contemporary politically correct limitations on the freedom of speech.

Is it “Islamophobic” to question whether or not the standard picture of Muhammad as depicted in Muslim texts is historically accurate?

Certainly many people think so, notably the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC is a fifty-six nation body (plus the Palestinian Authority) that, since the demise of the Soviet Union, comprises the largest voting bloc at the United Nations. It has been working for years to compel the UN to criminalize “Islamophobia.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a closed-door meeting with the OIC in December 2011, apparently to facilitate just that and figure out ways to circumvent the First Amendment’s protection of the freedom of speech.

Journalist Claire Berlinski notes that “the neologism ‘Islamophobia’ did not simply emerge ex nihilo”:

It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, which is based in Northern Virginia. … Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a former member of the IIIT who has renounced the group in disgust, was an eyewitness to the creation of the word. “This loathsome term,” he writes, “is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.”

Yet the mainstream media has for the most part bought into this perspective, treating all investigation of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism as “Islamophobic,” however useful it might be to understand the motives and goals of those who have vowed to destroy the U.S. and Western civilization. Into this atmosphere comes my book Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam’s Obscure Origins, which doesn’t touch directly on terror issues at all, but does demonstrate that Islam was political, supremacist, and violent before it was religious — a fact with considerable implications for today’s political scene.

In broad outline, the accepted story of Islam’s origins is well known. It begins with an Arabian merchant of the Quraysh tribe of Mecca, known to the world as Muhammad, a name that means the “praised one.” He rejected the polytheism of his tribe and was given to frequent prayer in the hills and caves outside Mecca. In the year 610, when he was forty, he was praying in a cave on Mount Hira, about two miles from Mecca, when he was suddenly confronted by the angel Gabriel, who commanded him to recite.

For the next twenty-three years, until his death in 632, Muhammad did just that: He recited the messages he received from Gabriel, presenting them to his followers as the pure and unadulterated word of the supreme and only God. Many of his followers memorized portions. The Arabia in which Islam was born was an oral culture that respected poetic achievement, and thus the prodigious feats of memory required to memorize lengthy suras were not so unusual. After Muhammad’s death, the revelations he had received were collected together into the Qur’an, or “Recitation,” from the accounts of those who had memorized them or written them down.

There is more.

In response, Eltahawy was right on point: "It’s not me that makes Muslims look bad. It’s those atrocities that make Muslims look bad." I have made this point hundreds of times -- but the Islamic supremacists' "Islamophobia" fog machine is intent on obscuring it, with eager help from the Leftist mainstream media.

"MSNBC: Don't expose Muslim atrocities: Harvard professor doesn't want 'fuel' against Islam revealed," by Colin Flaherty for WND, May 22:

MSNBC’s new golden girl was in a pickle: If someone sees a black person committing rape or domestic violence, should he report it if it makes black people look bad?

Or if Muslims see wife-beating, genital mutilation and childhood sexual abuse, should they just keep it to themselves, because saying something gives ammunition to the “Islamophobes”?

The questions appear to be simple. But they posed a challenge for the host of the new “Melissa Harris-Perry” show when guest Mona Eltahawy talked about her Foreign Policy magazine cover story about abuse of women by men in the Muslim world.

Eltahawy speaks from experience: She had her arms broken in a demonstration in Egypt and was tortured and raped in an Egyptian jail cell.

So she seemed surprised to find Harris-Perry questioning her right to draw attention to “traditions” such as involuntary female circumcision, wife-beating and childhood sexual abuse.

“I start with a little bit of trepidation in this conversation,” the host said, “in part because I know some of the critiques of this. The very idea that Western press, those that are not from these nations, who are not Muslim ourselves, who are not part of these traditions can look at your article and say ‘ahhh, look at how horrible those men, or those societies, or that religion is.’

“And that is part of the reason why, for example, we have an under-reporting of rape and domestic violence in African American communities,” Harris-Perry continued. “Because we know the violence enacted on black men by police, so we often don’t call. Right?”

Then the MSNBC host brought in Harvard professor Leila Ahmed, who questioned whether Eltahawy should have written the article at all. Not because it was false, but because it made Muslims look bad.

“You began, Melissa, by noting that some things in the African-American community are not publicized precisely because of the racism,” said Ahmed as Harris-Perry nodded in agreement on a split screen.

“Mona, I appreciate what you do,” continued Ahmed. “I would love it if – I understand if you want to get your message across. It’s an important message. But if possible [you should not] give fuel, fodder to people who simply hate Arabs and Muslims in this climate of our day.”

Eltahawy seemed taken aback.

“That’s the whole point,” she said. “It’s not me that makes Muslims look bad. It’s those atrocities that make Muslims look bad. And as a writer, it’s my job to poke the painful places.”

Harris-Perry declined to respond to a subsequent email asking if she ever refused to report a violent crime because it would make someone look bad...

More from the U.S.'s valuable and trusted ally. How much more of this must go on before anyone in Washington notices that Pakistan is actually not on our side?

"Pakistani who helped US sentenced to prison," by Riaz Khan for the Associated Press, May 23 (thanks to Twostellas):

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden was convicted of high treason Wednesday and sentenced to 33 years in prison, officials said, a verdict that is likely to further strain the country's relationship with Washington.

Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden's presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos killed the al-Qaida chief last May. The operation outraged Pakistani officials because they were not told about it beforehand.....

Ahmadinejad: Fooling the kuffar is so much fun -- and so easy!

Pull my other leg. Israeli Knesset member Faina Kirshenbaum explained in her interview with Jihad Watch's Joseph Zaalishvili: "It's very simple. At first, we know that for peaceful nuclear energy Iran needs 5 percent enriched uranium. And the Iranian regime continues to enrich uranium at a rate higher than is needed for peaceful purposes. At this point it is absolutely clear that this is all for nuclear weapons."

War Is Deceit Update: "‘Atomic weapons against Islam,’ says Ahmadinejad as Israel warns world powers not to waver in Iran talks," from al-Arabiya, May 23 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

Islam forbids atomic weapons and other arms of mass destruction, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on Wednesday ahead of his country’s nuclear talks with world powers in Baghdad, as Israel urged world powers not to waver in key talks with Iran.

“Based on Islamic teachings and the clear fatwa (edict) of the supreme leader, the production and use of weapons of mass destruction is haram (forbidden) and have no place in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s defense doctrine,” he said.

Ahmadinejad’s message was read out at a conference in the western city of Borujerd to commemorate Iranian victims of chemical weapons during a 1980-1988 war against Iraq, the official news agency IRNA reported....

Though no published fatwa exists, Iranian scholars point out that declarations by prominent ayatollahs can later take on the weight of a fatwa.

Khamenei has spoken out against nuclear weapons on several occasions, most recently on Feb. 22 when he said that possessing an atomic bomb “constitutes a major sin.”

“The Iranian nation has never been seeking an atomic weapon and never will be,” while developing nuclear energy was in Iran's interest, he said....

"Once Gabriel promised the Prophet (that he would visit him, but Gabriel did not come) and later on he said, 'We, angels, do not enter a house which contains a picture or a dog.'" -- Sahih Bukhari 4.54.50

"Abdullah (b. Umar) (Allah be pleased with them) reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered the killing of dogs and we would send (men) in Medina and its corners and we did not spare any dog that we did not kill, so much so that we killed the dog that accompanied the wet she-camel belonging to the people of the desert." -- Sahih Muslim 10.3811

"Narrated 'Aisha: The things which annul the prayers were mentioned before me. They said, "Prayer is annulled by a dog, a donkey and a woman (if they pass in front of the praying people)." I said, 'You have made us (i.e. women) dogs.' I saw the Prophet praying while I used to lie in my bed between him and the Qibla. Whenever I was in need of something, I would slip away. for I disliked to face him." -- Sahih Bukhari 1.9.490

"Tehran police's new target: Pet dogs," by Dudi Cohen for Ynet News, May 21 (thanks to David):

...Tehran police are beefing up enforcement of Islamic law against women improperly dressed ahead of the summer, and adding a new target: pet dogs.

Police in Tehran are conducting a new crackdown on women wearing mandatory headscarves improperly or in "vulgar" dress.

Typically, such women are fined or detained in police stations until relatives collect them hours later with more modest clothing.

As part of police operations in Tehran, officers also issue warnings to dog owners walking their pets outside. In Sharia-ruled Iran, dogs are considered "impure." Dozens of dogs in Tehran were round up last month and placed in quarantine.

Iran's Islamist rulers consider ownership of pet animals "un-Islamic." Authorities distinguish between pet dogs and "work dogs" used for guarding and helping in rescue missions.

Iran's parliament even introduced a bill according to which dogs cannot be taken out in public, with offenders facing fines of up to $1,000.

Michael Coren interviews Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels on the four main psychological differences between Westerners and Muslims. Sennels explains that while most Westerners think that anger is a sign of weakness, Muslims are brought up to think that anger is a sign of strength. Among Westerners it is seen as a sign of strength if people are able to meet criticism calmly and with logical arguments and knowledge, while Muslims see it as honourable if they meet criticism with aggression and dramatic behaviour. Thirdly, Western culture teaches people that our lives are mainly guided by ourselves - the way we think, feel, our choices, way of relating to others etc. (so called 'inner locus of control'). Muslim culture on the other hand - with all its outer religious and cultural regulations and powerful male authorities and everything happening 'inshallah' - makes people feel that their lives are governed by outer factors and leaves very little freedom for individual choices and feeling of self-responsibility, resulting in the world-famous Muslim victim mentality. Finally, Westerners are brought up to think that it is 'good' to be open and tolerant and believe in the unconditional equality of all men and women regardless of gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc., while Muslims are taught that they are better, should have more rights, to follow the brutal and intolerant traditions in sharia, and are even destined to rule over non-Muslims.

Sennels also explains why Muslim integration in the West will never happen to the necessary extent: Either they see no reason to integrate, since the Muslim parallel societies and the Western welfare systems will take care of them anyway; or they are not allowed to by their Muslim family and surroundings; or they are not able to live up to the social and professional challenges of our civilized and high-tech knowledge societies.

The "assailant" was dressed in an army uniform. Maybe he was in the army. Can the Yemenis be sure there are no "Islamic extremists" in their army? They cannot. "Suicide bomber kills up to 112 in Sana, Yemen," by Zaid al-Alayaa and Jeffrey Fleishman for the Los Angeles Times, May 22:

SANA, Yemen — A suicide bomber targeted soldiers rehearsing Monday for a military parade here, killing as many as 112 people and signaling that Islamic extremists may be shifting their focus to Yemen's capital after weeks of intense battles in outlying provinces with U.S.-backed government forces.

Al Qaeda affiliate Ansar al Sharia claimed responsibility for the bombing in retaliation for American-assisted government offensives against its strongholds in southern Yemen. Unnerved by increasedU.S. military and drone strikes, the militants struck directly at the heart of the new and fragile government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.

The attack, in which at least 300 people were injured, was the bloodiest in the capital in years and came a day after gunmen fired on a car carrying three U.S. civilian contractors training the Yemeni coast guard in the Red Sea port of Hudaydah. The Pentagon said the trio suffered minor injuries....

The attack on Sana revealed how easily militants can maneuver and exploit the nation's turmoil. Officials said an assailant dressed in an army uniform detonated a concealed bomb while troops drilled for a national holiday parade scheduled for Tuesday. Bodies and rifles were scattered across Sabin Square and four city hospitals were overwhelmed with the dead and wounded....

A statement posted on an Al Qaeda website said Yemeni officials had been "turned into mercenaries" carrying out U.S. and Western policies. It added: "We will get revenge.... What happened in Sana is only the beginning."...

The bombing came days after Yemeni forces launched major operations against militants linked to Ansar al Sharia and the group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Authorities said 19 soldiers and 33 militants were killed in weekend clashes in the south. Earlier this month, a U.S. drone strike killed Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso, an Al Qaeda operative believed to have plotted the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in 2000 that killed 17 American sailors.

The militants had promised on their website to retaliate, calling their strategy a "flowing river" that will sweep across the impoverished country. Much of the Al Qaeda affiliate's focus has been in the south, including Abyan province, where police stations have been overrun, officials assassinated and towns seized. The tactics have frustrated Yemen's underpaid, ill-equipped army, which has been manipulated by political forces.

Islamic militants have rattled the government since Hadi's inauguration day in February, when a suicide bomber killed at least 25 people, mostly soldiers, at a presidential palace. Washington fears increased efforts by Yemeni extremists to attack U.S. targets similar to the failed plots in 2009 and this month to blow up airliners over Western skies....

Over at FrontPage, Paul Schnee has a handy report on my Wednesday Morning Club talk last week (video above). Get the book here.

If Islamists keep a list of people they never wish to see or hear from again, then Robert Spencer’s name must be high up on it. In his talk about his new book, “Did Muhammad Exist?” given at David Horowitz’s Wednesday Morning Club on May 16th, Spencer said that he was interested in the health of honest discourse in America, for nobody is ever accused of being a racist, a bigot or a hate-monger about inquiries into the existence of Jesus or the truth of Judaism. Spencer already knows the answer to his question about the health of honest discourse. Since the publication of two of his other books, “The Truth About Muhammad” and “The Politically Incorrect Guide To Islam,” the so-called ”religion of peace” has been so peaceful in its intentions towards him that he now finds it necessary to live in a secure and undisclosed location.

The more one looks for Muhammad the less of him one finds, asserted Spencer. Although Muhammad is alleged to have lived from 570 A.D. to 632 A.D., and his thirty or so conversations with the archangel Gabriel started around 610 A.D., no mention is made of him for more than another seventy years. By 690 A.D. the Muslim conquerors of the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, and India never referred to him in any way when they might well have been expected to do so, since Islam today claims he had already become their sole object of veneration by that time. Surely the vanquished would have noted how a new religion had come to conquer in the name of Muhammad and the teachings of the Quran. Again, there is only silence.

There is also doubt about the exact meaning of inscriptions inside the Dome of the Rock completed in 691 A.D. It is unclear whether the inscription predated the Quran or vice-versa or whether the inscriptions are actually referring to Jesus. But one thing is certain, noted Spencer: by that time the specifics of Islam had nowhere been elaborated, although there was the beginning of an effort to question the divinity of Jesus.

By the early 700s the Persian and Byzantine empires had exhausted themselves fighting each other and, as each was subsequently defeated by a united Arab army, a political structure was required as a unifying and stabilizing force to fill the vacuum. This was the genesis of the theo-political supremacist ideology with an unrelenting hostility towards non-believers known as Islam, which would help the Muslim empire expand and grow ever stronger. The religious aspect of it all, which appealed to the superstitious, the illiterate and those who pinned their hopes on paradise beyond the grave, was grafted on much later and to great effect.

Read it all.

The aspiring two-bit gunsel

Nathan Lean, Editor-In-Chief of Aslan Media, Islamic supremacist Boy Reza Aslan's house organ, reacted to my posting about his wali Aslan earlier today by emailing me a raft of specific information that he thinks is about my family, including what he thinks is my home address. He has done this before also, on Twitter. This is a veiled but unmistakeable threat.

Lean knows that -- because of thugs like him -- I only appear in public with guards and do not make my location generally known. By emailing me this information, he thinks he can frighten me into silence and convey the clear implication that he will send this information, which he thinks reveals my whereabouts, to people who wish to do me (and my family members) physical harm.

A Left that is bereft of both conscience and the ability to use reason to defend its views turns increasingly to thuggery and violence in order to silence its opponents -- see, for example, here and here. So we see in the case of Nathan Chapman Lean.

Lean is a dimestore thug from way back. Consider this item from the Goldsboro News-Argus, February 24, 2005:

Two young men who spoke obscenities after what they thought was an unfavorable decision at a Goldsboro City Council meeting were disciplined Wednesday in Wayne County District Court. Aaron Kornegay, 27, of Beston Road, LaGrange and Nathan Chapman Lean, 20...

Now Lean has graduated from shouting obscenities at City Council meetings to threatening counter-jihadists.

I have passed Lean's emails and tweets on to the FBI, and an agent has told me that they're examining what Lean sent me. But what is interesting is that a lauded and supposedly respectable mainstream outfit such as Aslan Media would employ a gutter fascist brownshirt like Lean. It is an indication of just how far and how fast the American public square has degenerated, and yet another indication of how hopelessly outgunned Aslan and his sycophants like Lean are in intellectual exchanges with me -- thuggery is the only option they have left.

And he is being allowed to begin his prison term on August 28, after his observance of Ramadan.

Can you imagine postponing a jail sentence for a Christian until Lent was over, and reducing his sentence because of his efforts to defuse cultural ignorance toward Christians and educate local residents about the practice of Christianity?

"Business owner sentenced for sending funds to Iraq," by Brennan David for the Columbia Daily Tribune, May 17 (thanks to Janet):

JEFFERSON CITY — A well-known Columbia businessman and cultural leader was sentenced yesterday to three years in federal prison for illegally siphoning more than $200,000 to family, friends and charities in Iraq during sanctions between 1991 and 2003.

A large group gathered to witness the sentencing issued by District Judge Nanette Laughrey in the Western District Court of Missouri in light of Shakir Hamoodi’s December 2009 guilty plea to violating federal sanctions against Iraq.

“I made a mistake, and I am deeply sorry,” Hamoodi told Laughrey before he was sentenced yesterday. “All money sent was used by friends and family.”

Hamoodi, an Iraqi-American former nuclear scientist with the University of Missouri and World Harvest store owner, could have faced up to 71 months in prison. Laughrey said Hamoodi’s efforts to diffuse [sic] cultural ignorance toward Muslims and educate local residents about the practice of Islam over the past 20 years weighed heavily in her decision. Hamoodi, through attorney J.R. Hobbs of Kansas City, had requested probation.

Although others have received lesser penalties, Laughrey noted that those defendants sent less money and committed fewer transactions. Hamoodi’s efforts evolved into a nine-year conspiracy, she said.

Garrett Heenan, a trial attorney with the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, recommended a 48-month sentence. Hamoodi is scheduled to report to federal prison Aug. 28 after his observance of Ramadan.

“While we are disappointed in the degree of the penalty, we are pleased the judge departed downward on many factors,” Hobbs said....

Predictably, Hamoodi is claiming victim status:

Since his home was searched, Hamoodi said, other students have called his children terrorists, his neighbors keep a distance from him and his business has suffered. More than 20 supporters gathered after the sentencing to express their support for the Hamoodi family as their children continue their education and expenses pile up during his absence....

Sharia justice in Arab Spring Egypt. Islamo-Christian violence in Minya: life imprisonment for 12 Copts, eight Muslims acquitted," from Asia News, May 22 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Cairo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - An Egyptian court has sentenced 12 Coptic Christians to life imprisonment and acquitted eight Muslims, in a trial heavily criticized by human rights activists and legal experts. The ruling came yesterday, at the end of a trial called to shed light on the sectarian violence last year in the province of Minya, in the southern part of the country, about 220 km from Cairo. Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher and expert on Egyptian law, emphasizes that "the acquittal of the eight Muslim defendants" shows that "the investigations started from the beginning by the attorney general are unfair and wrong" because there was "clear evidence of guilt against them, for having set fire to Christian properties."

The accused Christians were sentenced for inciting public disorder, possession of illegal weapons and the murder of two Muslims. The incident happened in April 2011 and has helped to exacerbate a situation of deep inter-religious tension in the area of ​​Upper Egypt, which then continued in the following weeks (see AsiaNews 06/27/2011 Upper Egypt, violence against Christians on the rise. Eight houses burned).

The violence erupted when a Muslim minibus driver, angered by the presence of a speed bump outside a house owned by a wealthy Christian, got into a fight with the house's security guards. Upon returning to his home village, the Muslim driver assembled a group of people to get revenge for the alleged wrong and the violence suffered.

The retaliation squad was joined by groups of Islamic extremists, who surrounded the homes of Coptic Christians, intending to launch an attack. In fear of being overwhelmed, the inhabitants opened fire from the roofs of buildings, killing two people in the crowd and wounding two others. In the days following, Muslim groups torched dozens of Christian houses and shops to avenge the dead.

The eight Muslims on trial were accused of illegal possession of weapons and having burned the Christians' buildings. However, the court ruled for aquittal of the charges.

The judgment delivered by the judges of the State Security Court is not appealable and the 12 Christians risk spending the rest of their lives in prison. Only the military council could - in what is a very remote hypothesis, moreover - request a retrial.

News continues to emerge days before Egypt’s presidential elections indicating that the Islamists are relying on any and every strategy to gain votes for their pro-Sharia candidates.

As we just saw, any number of Islamic authorities—from Yusuf al-Qaradawi to the Sharia Body for Rights and Reform—said that it is an “obligation” to vote only for those Muslims who plan on implementing Sharia law, while it is “forbidden” to vote for any of the secular candidates. In other words, the threats of hell fire are being used to influence Muslims at the voting booths.

But beyond threats and commands are sheer bribes—in this case, a form of Islamic “bread and circuses.” As they were accused earlier, the Muslim Brotherhood was just caught bribing Egypt’s poor with packets of food. Yesterday an Egyptian activist posted a video on YouTube about “the Brotherhood’s scandal: they buy the votes of the poor through food and drink.” The video shows several poor women sitting with bags of food from the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Freedom and Justice” party. The Egyptian activist keeps asking them, “Really, is that how they bought your vote?” even as the women hide their faces and leave.

Bribery is a form of deceit, and these presidential elections are something of a war for Egypt’s future, so, considering that Islam’s prophet Muhammad famously declared that “war is deceit,” all of the aforementioned approaches become legitimate.

Raymond Ibrahim is an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center

As I explain in my book The Truth About Muhammad, Muhammad led a Muslim force against the Khaybar oasis, which was inhabited by Jews -- many of whom he had previously exiled from Medina. When he did so, he was not responding to any provocation. One of the Muslims later remembered: "When the apostle raided a people he waited until the morning. If he heard a call to prayer he held back; if he did not hear it he attacked. We came to Khaybar by night, and the apostle passed the night there; and when morning came he did not hear the call to prayer, so he rode and we rode with him....We met the workers of Khaybar coming out in the morning with their spades and baskets. When they saw the apostle and the army they cried, 'Muhammad with his force,' and turned tail and fled. The apostle said, 'Allah Akbar! Khaybar is destroyed. When we arrive in a people's square it is a bad morning for those who have been warned.'"

The Muslim advance was inexorable. "The apostle," according to Muhammad's earliest biographer, Ibn Ishaq, "seized the property piece by piece and conquered the forts one by one as he came to them." Another biographer of Muhammad, Ibn Sa'd, reports that the battle was fierce: the "polytheists...killed a large number of [Muhammad's] Companions and he also put to death a very large number of them....He killed ninety-three men of the Jews..." Muhammad and his men offered the fajr prayer, the Islamic dawn prayer, before it was light, and then entered Khaybar itself. The Muslims immediately set out to locate the inhabitants' wealth. A Jewish leader of Khaybar, Kinana bin al-Rabi, was brought before Muhammad; Kinana was supposed to have been entrusted with the treasure of on of the Jewish tribes of Arabia, the Banu Nadir. Kinana denied knowing where this treasure was, but Muhammad pressed him: "Do you know that if we find you have it I shall kill you?" Kinana said yes, that he did know that.

Some of the treasure was found. To find the rest, Muhammad gave orders concerning Kinana: "Torture him until you extract what he has." One of the Muslims built a fire on Kinana's chest, but Kinana would not give up his secret. When he was at the point of death, one of the Muslims beheaded him. Kinana's wife was taken as a war prize; Muhammad claimed her for himself and hastily arranged a wedding ceremony that night. He halted the Muslims' caravan out of Khaybar later that night in order to consummate the marriage.

Muhammad agreed to let the people of Khaybar to go into exile, allowing them to keep as much of their property as they could carry. The Prophet of Islam, however, commanded them to leave behind all their gold and silver. He had intended to expel all of them, but some, who were farmers, begged him to allow them to let them stay if they gave him half their yield annually. Muhammad agreed: "I will allow you to continue here, so long as we would desire." He warned them: "If we wish to expel you we will expel you." They no longer had any rights that did not depend upon the good will and sufferance of Muhammad and the Muslims. And indeed, when the Muslims discovered some treasure that some of the Khaybar Jews had hidden, he ordered the women of the tribe enslaved and seized the perpetrators' land. A hadith notes that "the Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives."

Thus when modern-day jihadists invoke Khaybar, they are recalling an aggressive, surprise raid by Muhammad which resulted in the final eradication of the once considerable Jewish presence in Arabia. To the jihadists, Khaybar means the destruction of the Jews and the seizure of their property by the Muslims.

“The revolution was made so that sharia could be applied”." I tried to tell you.

"Radical Islamic rally marches in Central Tunisia amid anti-Semitic chants," from AFP, May 21 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

KAIROUAN (AFP/EJP)---Thousands of Salafist Muslims marched on Kairouan in Central Tunisia, as part of the extremist Islamic movement’s annual assembly. The exclusively male attendees, many of whom were dressed in Afghan military uniform or waving Salafist black flags, marched through the city and raised a banner over the minaret of its mosque, the oldest in Africa.

The demonstration comes in the wake of the rejuvenated Jewish annual pilgrimage to the Tunisian island of Djerba, the continuation of which was in doubt after Israel’s National Security Council expressed fears the country’s activists were planning attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets.

Chief organiser of the pilgrimage, Rene Trabelski, refuted such security fears and claimed a successful 2012 pilgrimage would “show the world that Tunisians accept difference and that the new Tunisia is not as Islamist and radical as some think”.

“It’s a country that respects religious minorities as always”, he added.

The event went ahead with some 1,500 Jews from across, France, Tunisia and Italy.

Organisers of the Salafist assembly had instructed marchers to remain “calm” and not to talk to reporters. Many participants however defied their request not to chant slogans, reciting “We are all the children of Osama (bin Laden) and “Jews, Jews, the army of Mohammed is back”.

The Salafist movement has risen to prominence since its launch in April 2011, following the popular protests that forced former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee Tunisia after 23 years in power, and which constituted the start of the Arab Spring across the Muslim world.

The revolution brought moderate Islamists to power to replace the former secular administration, but also led to the rise of extremist groups advocating the adoption of fundamentalist shariah law.

The leader of the outlawed Hizb Ettahrir party, Ridha Bel Haj told the crowd he was hopeful because of the number of participants in the country’s second annual assembly:

“The revolution was made so that sharia could be applied”, he said.

According to “The Promise” magazine distributed at the rally:

“The second congress...reunites all brothers whose objective it is to apply sharia and God’s law in our country”....

Aslan (left) with Ibish (right): Did Aslan tell all his best fat and gay jokes?

Aslan is so immature, psychologically stunted and intellectually bereft that he responds to criticism of his position only by regaling his opponents with geeky abuse about being fat and gay -- did he shower the mountainous Ibish with this kind of "analysis"?

Two Islamic supremacists debate the jihad against Israel while never bothering to mention the jihad against Israel. "UCLA’s ‘one state or two’ debate," by Jonah Lowenfeld in the Jewish Journal, May 15:

For anyone who missed the debate on May 15 at UCLA between Reza Aslan and Hussein Ibish over whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be resolved by creating a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish one or by creating a single bi-national state, here’s the basic report of what went down.

As expected, Aslan argued that the two-state solution is “dead and buried,” and that everyone (the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Americans and other international bodies) should instead start investing resources and energy to create a single bi-national state with “soft borders.”

Ibish, meanwhile, rejected the idea that the window to create two states for two peoples has closed, and instead held out hope for the possibility that such a conflict-ending resolution could be reached in the region.

While they disagreed about what final resolution to aim for, a careful listener would have realized that Aslan and Ibish agreed on almost everything else about the conflict.

"Final solution" would be more apt than "final resolution" to describe what these two are aiming for.

Both scholars assigned blame for the failure of the peace process to many parties, but set the lion’s share of the blame at Israel’s feet. Both Ibish and Aslan saw the Israeli policy of settlement expansion as the primary reason for the failure of the peace process to progress in the nearly 20 years since the Oslo Accords were signed. Both acknowledged that, while most Israelis and most Palestinians (and most Americans, for that matter) want to see a two-state solution achieved, the likelihood of it being achieved anytime soon is very slim.

As one student in the audience put it afterward, “They’re on the same page, but they have different views.”

Of course. The idea of Ibish and Aslan debating anything is like holding an election in a one-party state: there may be plenty of choices, but in the end they're all the same choice anyway. In blaming Israel for the persistence and insolubility of the conflict, they ignore the jihadist intransigence of the "Palestinians," and the repeated aspiration, frequently enunciated on official PA TV, to destroy Israel utterly. Ibish and Aslan must know that Israel has made concession after concession (notably the withdrawal from Gaza) in hope of bringing about peace, but these concessions have never been reciprocated or even met with good will. And of course they do know this. That they ignore and try to obscure it, and ignore the role of jihad in the conflict altogether, reveals their true agenda, which is in service of that jihad.

But confronted with the question of how the parties should proceed in resolving this seemingly intractable conflict, the two Muslim scholars [sic] parted ways.

“I’m advocating the one-state solution for one simple reason: there is no other solution,” said Aslan, calling the prospect of two states for two peoples “a sham” and “a charade.”

Pointing to the 600,000 Israelis who are currently living beyond the so-called green line that divides pre-1967 Israel from the territories it conquered during the war that year, Aslan argued, in no uncertain terms, that the infrastructure of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank had simply crowded out any possible space for a second state.

“There will never be a Palestinian state,” he said. “Ever. That is the truth.”

Ibish disagreed. “The majority of Israelis are, rather strongly, in favor of two state solution; the majority of Palestinians are in favor of a two-state solution,” he said. “So it’s a question of political will.”

With that political will, Ibish said he believed that the Israelis would dismantle West Bank settlements in order to achieve peace, and cited the examples of Gaza and the Northern West Bank as evidence of their willingness to do so.

“Walls go up and walls come down,” Ibish said.

Throughout the debate, Ibish sounded both hopeful and pragmatic when compared with Aslan, and never more so than when Aslan described the bloody process by which he believed a single, bi-national state could actually come about.

“If you want me to be honest with you,” Aslan said,

That would be a first.

“I think that what we are going to see is a process through which the demographic balance [between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea] tips into apartheid, ethnic cleansing, until finally you have international mediation that leads to confederacy.”

If there is one state in the way Aslan imagines there will be, it will be a Palestinian Sharia state that will massacre Jews wholesale and press the survivors into dhimmitude. And Aslan must know this, also.

“If,” Ibish responded, “I wanted to exercise a radical dystopian imaginative leap of that kind, if I wanted to be Hieronymus Bosch of Israel and the Palestinians, sure, I can arrive at your conclusion after all this horror. Well I’m not willing to go there.”

“Even if it turns out you were right,” he continued, “I would be proud to stand here and tell you that I am not going to acquiesce to making that happen.”...

Aslan repeats jihadist propaganda about Israel practicing apartheid and ethnic cleansing, but ignores the Palestinians' repeatedly stated genocidal aspirations. Ibish, for his part, supports the establishment of a Palestinian state that would, like Gaza, immediately become another base for jihad attacks against Israel.

Neither discussed Israel's right to exist or acknowledged the jihad doctrine that makes the conflict endless.

And this is what passes for reasoned analyses on campuses across the U.S. these days.

Over at Gatestone Institute (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I shed light on the recent fatwas, including from Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the authoritative Sharia Body for Rights and Reforms, which assert that it is "impermissible to vote for anyone not intending to apply Islamic Sharia, and it is obligatory to vote for those who do seek to implement it." Yusuf even finds a Koranic verse to threaten Muslims into voting for Sharia-pushing candidates:

[...] Most recently, according to Al Wafd, last Friday, May 18, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of if not the most authoritative clerics in the Islamic world, "called on all Egyptians to vote for one of the Islamist candidates," specifically naming the three Islamists, Muhammad Mursi (candidate of the Salafist party), Abd al-Mun'im Abu al-Futuh (candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing), and Muhammad al-Salim al-Awwa. Qaradawi described them as "best for Egypt" because they will "apply the Islamic Sharia and achieve justice." Moreover, during his Friday sermon, Qaradawi said that it is "mandatory for every Egyptian to go and vote at the presidential elections," calling it a form of "obligatory testimony" on behalf of Islam, and quoting Koran 2:283 as proof: "And do not conceal testimony, and whoever conceals it, his heart is surely sinful; and Allah knows what you do."

Qaradawi's position was restated yesterday, Monday May 21, when, according to Al Ahram, the Sharia Body for Rights and Reforms—one of the most powerful Islamic organizations, with members from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salfis, and Al Azhar—issued a fatwa asserting that it is "impermissible to vote for anyone not intending to apply Islamic Sharia, and it is obligatory to vote for those who do seek to implement it," adding that the "presidential election is a modern way of directing the state, and therefore it behooves Muslims to use it as a way to enforce Sharia."...

The Kansas Senate voted for freedom recently, and now Hamas-linked CAIR and other enemies of freedom are pulling out all the stops to try to block an anti-Sharia law there.

Don't let them win. Make your voice heard. Tweet this now:

@govsambrownback Support SB 79,freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and Constitutional rights, good for #Kansas #brownback #supportsb79

Flood Brownback's email and twitter.

The office of Senator Sam Brownback of the 111th Congress is (was) reachable at the following:

• By phone at 785-296-3232 or 785-368-8500
• Online at: Sam Brownback  (brownback.senate.gov)
• Senator's contact link: Contact Link  (brownback.senate.gov)
• By mail at 303 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510

Do it! And email it to all of your friends, associates and acquaintances.

Pamela Geller has more details here.

Over at Atlas Shrugs, I discuss the treatment of women that is mandated by Islamic law:

The treatment of women in Islamic countries is consistently shocking to modern Westerners, although the fog of political correctness that blankets the Western world today prevents most observers of the mistreatment of Muslim women from saying anything about it publicly. Only a few (notably Pamela Geller) have the courage to prove the hollowness of that political correctness by pointing out that the institutionalized oppression of women in majority-Muslim countries is not the result of non-Islamic cultural factors (as Islamic apologists in the West often claim), but of Islam itself.

Movements in the Islamic world to restore Islamic purity virtually always tend to be bad for women. Take, for example, domestic violence: the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences has determined that over nine out of ten Pakistani wives have been struck, beaten, or abused sexually. The reason why is rooted in the Qur’an. The perpetrators of such crimes can and do support their behavior by quoting chapter and verse of the holy book of Islam: “Men have authority over women, because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them” (4:34).

When the infallible, perfect and eternal word of Allah sanctions wife-beating, why should anyone wonder why ninety percent of wives in Pakistan have been struck by their husbands?

Western multiculturalist apologists can adduce any argument they wish to establish that this verse should not be taken literally, but the problem they face is not convincing the secular West. Modern Americans, raised with the dogma of tolerance, are only too glad to believe the best about non-Western culture. The apologists’ most formidable challenge will be to convince the average Muslim that they should not beat their wives even though the Qur’an says they can.

Another verse asserts that “women shall with justice have rights similar to those exercised against them, although men have a status above women” (2:228). The idea that “men have a status above women” is deeply rooted in Islamic tradition. Numerous Islamic commentators on the Qur’an have taken this statement as self-evident. Only in modern times have even sporadic and half-hearted attempts begun to explain it away. Women as well as men took the superiority of men over women for granted: Aisha, Muhammad’s notorious child bride, admonished women in no uncertain terms: “O womenfolk, if you knew the rights that your husbands have over you, every one of you would wipe the dust from her husband’s feet with her face.”

Women in Islam are essentially commodities that can be acquired and discarded at will. If a polygamous Muslim man is unhappy with any of his wives, he is free to divorce them by saying the triple talaq -- “I divorce you” or “you are divorced.” Recent fatwas from Islamic authorities have allowed for this pronouncement of divorce to be made via cellphone or Skype. Since men can obtain divorces so easily, they often divorce capriciously. In Islamic law, if a man says talaq to his wife three times, even jokingly or in a fit of temper, they must separate, and cannot reconcile until she marries another man, consummates that marriage, and is divorced by him. This bizarre law is also based on the Qur’an: “A divorce is only permissible twice: after that, the parties should either hold together on equitable terms, or separate with kindness....So if a husband divorces his wife (irrevocably), he cannot, after that, re-marry her until after she has married another husband and he has divorced her” (2:229-230).

This has given rise to the phenomenon of “temporary husbands.” After a husband has divorced his wife in a fit of pique, these men who will “marry” the hapless divorcee for one night in order to allow her to return to her husband and family.

There is more.

Firouzabadi: The sneer of cold command

Genocidal aspirations in Tehran, and not a word of condemnation from the "moderate" Iran lobby in the U.S. "Iran committed to ‘full annihilation of Israel,’ says top Iranian military commander," by Reza Kahlili for The Daily Caller, May 20:

Iran is dedicated to annihilating Israel, the Islamic regime’s military chief of staff declared Sunday.

“The Iranian nation is standing for its cause and that is the full annihilation of Israel,” Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi said in a speech to a defense gathering Sunday in Tehran.

His remarks came on the day International Atomic Energy Agency director Yukiya Amano flew to Tehran to negotiate for inspections of Iran’s nuclear program. They were reported by the Fars News Agency, the media outlet of the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

While many within the Islamic regime, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have often stated that Israel should be annihilated, until Sunday no one in the nation’s leadership has announced Iran’s determined intention to carry it out....

Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s Mossad, and U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, have both said recently that Iran is a rational actor in the international arena and that the Iranians will consider the implications of their actions.

Block also told TheDC that “the radicals and pseudo-experts at places like Plowshares, Media Matters, NIAC [the National Iranian American Council], writers for ThinkProgress, the New America Foundation and on and on” are “useful idiots and regime apologists” for Iran who continue to believe irrationally that Iran does not have the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. (RELATED: TheDC’s Jamie Weinstein: More proof Israel cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran)

They “are the same cranks,” he said, “who claim Iran has been ‘misquoted’ or ‘mistranslated’ and never called for the ‘annihilation’ of Israel. Well, I am sure they will find some way to continue their charade, but only to their further discredit.”

Indeed they will. Over to you, Boy Reza!

And he has done so very much that is worthy of respect. My favorite was his threat to join the Taliban. But like Islamic supremacists the world over, Karzai demands a respect that is entirely unearned. "Karzai bans congressman from Afghanistan until he 'shows respect,'" by Carlo Munoz for The Hill, May 21 (thanks to Wimpy):

A House Republican who has been an outspoken critic of Afghanistan's central government has been banned from entering the country, Afghan president Hamid Karzai said Monday.

Appearing on CNN's The Situation Room, Karzai was asked if he would allow Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, into Afghanistan if the lawmaker requested.

"Definitely not . . . until he changes his stand, shows respect to the Afghan people, to our way of life and to our constitution," Karzai replied. "It's is a matter of principle."

Rohrabacher was denied entry into the country in April when he attempted to visit the country as part of a congressional delegation headed by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

Rohrabacher has been severely critical of the Afghanistan government, accusing Karzai of corruption and suggesting significant structural reforms are needed to his government....

"A democratically-elected congressman of the United States of America should not be talking of an ethnic divide in Afghanistan, should not be interfering in Afghanistan's internal affairs . . . should not be speaking disrespectfully about the Afghan people or the various ethnic groups in Afghanistan," Karzai said. "If an Afghan did that [about America] how would you react?"...

Why, we'd just cut him a check for a few billion, as we have so often in your case, Karzai.

But what did we buy with all that money? A failed state in which the most powerful political and social force is the one we went in to eradicate. "Afghan President Karzai Thanks US for 'Your Taxpayers' Money,'" by Mary Bruce for ABC OTUS News, May 20 (thanks to Ima):

CHICAGO - Afghan President Hamid Karzai thanked the United States today for shouldering much of the cost for the decade-old war in Afghanistan, as the NATO alliance readies to hand over primary responsibility to Afghan security forces.

"I'm bringing to you and to the people of the United States the gratitude of the Afghan people for the support that your taxpayers' money has provided us over the past decade, and for the difference that it has made to the well-being of the Afghan people," Karzai said after his meeting with President Obama ahead of the start of the NATO Summit....

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said earlier today that the allied countries remain committed to Afghanistan.

"There will be no rush for the exits," he said.

Why not?



(Left to right:) KM Orit Zuaretz, Joseph Zaalishvili, KM Faina Kirshenbaum

On May 16, two members of the Knesset of the State of Israel came to Tbilisi, Georgia. They met with the Jewish Diaspora and representatives of the Georgian establishment. They also kindly agreed to give us an interview.

Joseph Zaalishvili: The Government of the State of Israel accuses Iran of wanting to build a nuclear weapon. Can you explain why the Israeli administration thinks so? And why this is dangerous not only for Israel, but for the whole world?

Israeli Knesset member Faina Kirshenbaum, Yisrael Beiteinu: It's very simple. At first, we know that for peaceful nuclear energy Iran needs 5 percent enriched uranium. And the Iranian regime continues to enrich uranium at a rate higher than is needed for peaceful purposes. At this point it is absolutely clear that this is all for nuclear weapons.

It should be clear that the Iranian nuclear program threatens not only Israel. In order to bomb Israel, Iran needs to find a transporter of these nuclear weapons, and yet our data shows that Iran has no such power launcher. They are much more threatened by countries that are in the neighborhood. I believe that Iran's nuclear program may in the future lead to a new, third World War. This third World War's result is something that people cannot even imagine. Iran might want to fire nuclear bombs at Israel, but the wave of a nuclear holocaust will come to other countries. And the nuclear horror will cover the whole Middle East and the world. If anyone thinks that this is a regional problem and the problem of Israel, they are very mistaken. Iran's nuclear program is the problem of the global community. And only united can we can solve this problem.

Israeli Knesset member Orit Zuaretz, Kadima Party: I think that Iran's nuclear program is not just a problem of the state of Israel. Iran can become a bad example for Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other Islamic countries in the region. And this can start a nuclear arms race in the Islamic world. Their final goal will be a Middle East with nuclear weapons and without Israel. Iran could sell or share nuclear weapons and technologies to other countries, too. And Israel is well aware of this.

Kirshenbaum: Iran belongs to the Eastern mentality. And many in Europe and America do not understand this. The value of life is completely different in Iran. The Western world does not understand that it needs to understand the mentality of Iran, and not to judge it by their own mentality, so as to understand the threat posed by Iran and its nuclear program to the whole world.

Some time ago, Turkey, a NATO member, opposed the participation of the State of Israel at the NATO summit. Don't you think that Islamic factors have affected the decision of the Turkish authorities, as well as the disagreement among NATO countries about whether or not Iran should be given the opportunity to develop nuclear capabilities?

Kirshenbaum: Everything is connected by a red thread. First, let's talk about what is happening in Turkey. First, in Turkey radical Islam has increased. Everything that Ataturk did is being destroyed now. Turkey in Ataturk's day turned its face toward Europe. He changed the Turkish alphabet from Arabic to Latin characters. But the main thing was that he reined in Islam.

Now all this is changing. Turkey is becoming a religious Islamic country. Strengthening the Islamic party, of course, affects the state. Turkey aims to become a leader in the Eastern world. And for this it is becoming an Islamic state. There is competition between Turkey and Iran over who will lead the Islamic world. Who will be more radical will be the victor. Who can develop nuclear weapons faster. Muslim countries are working toward being united in an Islamic union, and we can follow this chain of evil from Iran to Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and to Turkey. There is a large Islamic lobby, which has become a political movement and threatens those countries and the values ​​that the Western world and Western civilization represent.

Zuaretz: I think the changes in Turkey and regional changes reflect on Israel very strongly. Because we do feel that this region is becoming Green and Islamic.

This is not related to national identity and cultural values. W​e are speaking about Islam: military Islam, radical Islam, and political Islam. We have seen what happened in Egypt. In one day the regime changed. Parties which had been outlawed now have a majority in parliament. The Egyptian Parliament is occupied by Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood has a direct relationship with Hamas in Gaza. And it is against the interests of Israel. Hamas controls Gaza.

We see the long hand of Iranian money, which sponsors terrorism around the world. For us, the important thing is that the country must unite in the fight against terrorism. Israel has great experience in this case.

We know that a few months ago you had the same problem in Georgia, and we are ready to cooperate in our efforts against terrorism. In your country there may be terrorist cells which have not yet manifested themselves, but in a moment they can express themselves. Israel is ready to assist you in finding and destroying these terrorist groups. We can share with our knowledge with Georgia, Azerbaijan, European countries and even the United States.

At the expense of Iran, I might add that this is not only an Israeli task, to clean up the Middle East. I heard officials at the White House telling us, "You should go and bomb Iran." They're expecting us to do this. Israeli can defend itself, but it isn't the task solely of Israel to clean up the Middle East.

Do you think the financial and oil embargo will stop Iran's nuclear program, when according to the Turkish media, Turkey has increased its purchase of Iranian oil? How effective are these sanctions?

Kirshenbaum: Turkey will not support the U.S. and EU sanctions against Iran. Sanctions may not bring any result if all of the country is impoverished. Americans are told that the Iranian banking system has shut down, and Iran will not be able to transfer money through the U.S. financial system, and Iran has admitted the inspectors to its nuclear objects. Still, Americans think with their Western mentality. Americans think that they have threatened Iran and Ahmadinejad understands everything and all is well. Yet Iran has fooled the observers again, and continues its nuclear program. Every delay in the negotiations helps Iran develop nuclear weapons. If we want to stop this regime, we all need to unite, Europe and the U.S. If we do not stop Iran now, it will soon be too late.

And what then?

Kirshenbaum: Then it will be necessary to take very tough measures.

Zuaretz: We are the only democracy in the Middle East. We not are facing any other democracy in our region. Now we are facing a wave of Islam on Middle East. And the majority of this wave is not peaceful; it is radical Islam. As I said before about the situation in Egypt, It was not an Arab Spring; it is an Islamic Wind or Storm. We cannot see the prosperity of democracy in the region now, and we will not see it for at least another 10 years.

We see a double standard in the politics of the US and the EU. They sponsored those regimes in Middle East and Africa. And the only democracy in the region is now Israel. On the one hand, there are the sanctions against Iran, and on the other hand, Iran has economic relations at the private level with the U.S. and its European allies. My colleagues in Europe said that business with Iran is not on the state level, it is only in the private sector. But is that important? It is important that Iran has received money in different ways, and continues to fund terrorists and it nuclear weapons program.

If we want to gain something, we must join forces. Israel doesn't want to be the scapegoat in this affair. Together, we must deal with the Iranian nuclear program.

Kirshenbaum: The Arab Spring cannot lead to democracy. Nowhere in the world after a revolution came an era of democracy. Democracy is a product of a free people. Only a free people can build a democratic state. In the Arab world the revolutions are supported by Iran with money and weapons. And we'll get a Middle East that is completely controlled by the Iranian regime and Islamic Sharia law.