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"Democracy – mere popular rule – should not be our primary objective for the Muslim world, but rather Muslim societies and governments who share our values, so we can safely share this planet." Andrew Bostom explains why the high hopes that some place in the democratic process in the Palestinian Authority and elsewhere in the Middle East is not necessarily justified. From The American Thinker (news links in the original):
Democracy does not always bring liberty and justice. According to available polling data, Hamas is poised to win a plurality of the votes in the forthcoming January 2006 Parliamentary elections for Gaza and the Palestinian Arab-controlled areas within Judea and Samaria. The prospect of such electoral results, despite Hamas’ continuous, bloody record of jihad terrorism (which merely confirms its openly espoused genocidal charter), creates a conundrum for those policymakers extolling uncritically the virtues of “democratization” in the Middle East, generally, and the areas under Palestinian Arab suzerainty, specifically.Frank apologists for Hamas are quick to stress how past “liberation” movements were incorporated into electoral processes, while cynically ignoring Hamas’ heinous ideology. But they will be forced to grapple with the organization’s latest open pronouncements stating its plans for non-Muslim “citizens” under any Hamas-lead governments jurisdiction, and espousing an endless, annihilationist jihad against Israel.
Interviewed by Wall Street Journal reporter Karby Legget (and published in the December 23-26 edition The Wall Street Journal), Hassam El-Masalmeh, who heads the Hamas contingent at the municipal council of Bethlehem, confirmed the organizations plan to re-institute the humiliating jizya, a blood ransom Qur’anic poll-tax (based on Qur’an sura [chapter] 9, verse 29), levied traditionally on non-Muslims vanquished by jihad, and forced to live under Islamic Law (the Shari’a). Under the Sharia’s regulations, either the non-Muslim infidels must convert to Islam, or they pay the jizya—classically, in a humiliating public ceremony which often involved blows to the head or neck—and their life and belongings are protected. The nature of such “protection” is clarified in this definition of jizya by the seminal Arabic lexicographer, E.W. Lane, based on a careful analysis of the etymology of the term:
The tax that is taken from the free non-Muslim subjects of a Muslim government whereby they ratify the compact that assures them protection, as though it were compensation for not being slain.The “contract of the “jizya”, or “dhimma” encompassed other obligatory and recommended obligations for the conquered non-Muslim “dhimmi” peoples. Collectively, these “obligations” formed the discriminatory system of dhimmitude imposed upon non-Muslims – Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists – subjugated by jihad. Some of the more salient features of dhimmitude include:
the prohibition of arms for the vanquished non-Muslims (dhimmis); the prohibition of church bells; restrictions concerning the building and restoration of churches, synagogues, and temples; inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims with regard to taxes and penal law; the refusal of dhimmi testimony by Muslim courts; a requirement that Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims, including Zoroastrians and Hindus, wear special clothes; and the overall humiliation and abasement of non-Muslims.
It is important to note that these regulations and attitudes were institutionalized as permanent features of the sacred Islamic law, or Shari’a. Islam manifests itself as a political ideology, not merely a religion, when its teachings are followed on these and other prominent and enduring features.During his Wall Street Journal interview, El-Masalmeh stated explicitly,
We in Hamas intend to implement this tax (i.e., the jizya) someday. We say it openly – we welcome everyone to Palestine but only if they agree to live under our rules.Nor is this the first time such pronouncements have been made publicly by Palestinian political, or religious leaders. Sheik Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Madhi expressed these identical sentiments with regard to Jews during a Friday sermon broadcasted live on June 6, 2001 on Palestinian Authority Television, from the Sheik ‘Ijlin Mosque in Gaza:
We welcome, as we did in the past, any Jew who wants to live in this land as a Dhimmi, just as the Jews have lived in our countries, as Dhimmis, and have earned appreciation, and some of them have even reached the positions of counselor or minister here and there. We welcome the Jews to live as Dhimmis, but the rule in this land and in all the Muslim countries must be the rule of Allah.The inescapable conclusion is that the attendant Shari’a-based regulations associated with the jizya will also be imposed—all of which amount to gross violations of the most basic human rights norms (i.e., freedom of conscience, speech, and worship, codified for example, in the US Bill of Rights) accepted by modern, civilized societies worldwide.
More acutely ominous is the prospect that Hamas, with its openly expressed goal of jihad genocide vis a vis Israeli Jews, will achieve at least an electoral plurality and de facto control of key sociopolitical institutions within Gaza and the West Bank. In a Hamas pre-election video from December 12, 2005, the jihadist terror organization reiterated that it will not give up its armed struggle until Israel is destroyed entirely. The Hamas message also celebrates the organization’s love of death as being superior to Israel’s love of life, while expressing support for those Israeli Arabs who wish to destroy Israel “from within.” Hamas eagerly anticipates a day when their flag will fly over not only Jerusalem, but over all Israeli cities, including Acre and Haifa. The following are verbatim quotations from this Hamas video:
We succeeded, with Allah’s grace, to raise an ideological generation that loves death like our enemies love life. We will not abandon the way of Jihad and Shahada [Martyrdom] as long as one inch of our holy land is in the hands of the Jews….Congratulations to our people of 1948 [Israeli Arabs] on the liberation of Gaza. You wish to destroy them [the Israelis] from their interior. We will never forget you, and never leave you. A day will come when our flag will fly above all the quarters of our land. Our flag will fly on the minarets of Jerusalem, and the walls of Acre, and the quarters of Haifa.Responding to an uncharacteristic European Union threat to terminate its own de facto jizya, i.e., “aid” payments to the Palestinian Authority, should Hamas gain significant Parliamentary seats in the January elections, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal warned about the dangers of “playing with the values of democracy and freedom”. What a bitter irony that a murderous jihadist organization has co-opted the rhetoric of true liberal democracies in order to impose the totalitarian Shari’a “democratically”. As writer Diana West noted appositely,
“It is vox populi. And just because the people have spoken doesn’t mean we should applaud what they say.”Democracy – mere popular rule – should not be our primary objective for the Muslim world, but rather Muslim societies and governments who share our values, so we can safely share this planet.
Posted by Robert at December 30, 2005 5:41 PM
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Posted almost 2 hours ago and not a comment yet. OK, I'll bite.
Hamas's statements make me sick. Literally. Physically. Reading the article I felt bile rising in my throat. Maybe noone has commented yet because they have been understandably rendered speechless.
Posted by: Caroline![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 30, 2005 7:37 PM
How many Senators could tell you what 'jizya' means? How many Representatives? What's a 'dhimmi?' You have to wonder.
I know I try to educate my Senators and my Rep.
What is so clear to my eyes cannot be seen by our leaders. There is no 'big picture' in our government of what we are up against. Their actions betray this fact.
The Palestinians have the 'big picture' by their parasitic behavior - 'why should I work or improve my environment? the West will feed me, clothe me, shelter me, educate me.' They never question how they themselves contributed to their situation. Why? Because they are doing the right thing for Allah. What is there to question? Here's their thinking: It's Allah's will anyway that I am here in Gaza or the West Bank, poor and slothful, stressing the West's coffers and its politics. That is what Allah wants us to do, nay what he has born us to do, as we fight for the 'lost lands'. The fight will never end. Allah would never accept it.
Jihad by sword, we all recognize. Jihad by wealth is not only by wealthy Muslims financing jihad, but the Muslims acting as parasites on the generosity of the West. Guilt tripping helps and the West has that in abundance for false reasons.
But it's worse than that, we OWE them. As infidels, it is expected of us, this jizya, this ridiculous impulse of the West to meet their every demands. And don't expect a thank you either, as if anyone who has studied Islam ever would.
Posted by: John Sobieski at December 30, 2005 9:03 PM
Happy New Year, all!
I'll pay the jizya as soon as the Muslims show me a representational image of their putative 'prophet'.
(Preferably in the act fondling his 9 year old sex slave-cum-'wife' Aiyesha, as fulsomely documented in the hadiths.)
The moronic and demonic 'human' urge for submission to a Theocratic Absolutist Tyranny deserves constant vigilance* from all who value the free consciousness that we have worked for millenia to win from nescience.
(*I would have said "eternal vigilance", but I'm an optimist... who understands that all corrupt intellectual constructs eventually collapse from their own internal contractions and, in the patriarchal puritannical case of Islam**, from their joyless anti-natural tendencies... )
((** -"Allah" is just the Old Testament "God" of Job in a new 7th century Arab cloak. Plagiarism of cosmic proportions which, tragically for humanity, reinvigorated the nearly dead diety of Vengeance (that Christ died trying to civilize) and unleashed this hoary monster from the human id back onto the world.))
The West (and East) might just as well demand 'reparations' from Muslims for the 1350 years of conquest, rapine, land theft, continental vandalism, iconoclastic frenzies of church and synagogue destruction, genocide, theocide and attendant outrages against the free human spirit, from Fez to Jakarta, Madrid to Beslan.
But we're not as delusional as our Muslim neighbors about our own 'divine understanding'. Having learned the hard way (via science, philosophy, art, psychology, etc.) that the more Absolutely Certain a human claims to be, the less sane they always turn out to be.
Know enough to know what you cannot know.
A truth that Islam dare not acknowledge.
(Back to the quiet fight....)
Keep up the good work,
and-
Keep the spotlight on this The Last War.
One that must be won...
...if the human spirit is to anything other than a passive torture toy for a Celestial Caligula.
Posted by: profitsbeard at December 30, 2005 11:07 PM
Constantinople: :Shortly after I read this, I received 3 "Israel in my heart" bracelets from Jerusalem that I had ordered for Christmas for my kids and I."
"Israel in my heart". Very nice gift. Very lucky kids. :-)
Posted by: Caroline at December 31, 2005 12:51 AM
My question is,"Is anybydo surprised? If so, why?"
Hamas, after all, means Islamic resistance movement. Unlike Fatah, it doesn't even pretend to be secular. It's pretty much the equivalent of the Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood, Lashkar-i-Toiba, Hizbullah, and (fill in your own Mohammedan organization). Who is so inane as to think that a Hamas regime would be secular?
Actually, it would be funny to see Mahmud Zahrar become their Prime Minister. Then see how the roadmap proceeds. Also, what would be Spain's stand on such a government, given that Hamas now wants to re-conquer Andalusia?
Posted by: Infidel Pride at December 31, 2005 1:41 AM
Danes are feeling the Islamic wrath-of-khan crap again:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/30/news/islam9.php
Posted by: sanman at December 31, 2005 3:01 AM
Caroline-
while this statement from our Islamic "friends" is sick and disgusting, It should be broadcast everywhere. Their own words give support to what we have been trying to teach.
It reaffirms the Islamic "scripture" we quote, and it exposes the lies of Islamic apologists.
Nothing makes me happier than a Jihadist telling the truth about what Islam is.
Our apologist politicians cannot ignore it either.
at December 31, 2005 3:48 AM
"(Preferably in the act fondling his 9 year old sex slave-cum-'wife' Aiyesha, as fulsomely documented in the hadiths.)"
Posted by: profitsbeard
Actually, she was six. She was still being serviced by a wet nurse when Muhammad "consumated" his marriage with her.
No matter how hard Muslims try, it's difficult to make people believe that 9 year olds were still being breast fed, even in Muhammads time.
even six is old for breast feeding.
If you think about what the hadith says, you can see the lie the scribes inserted.
Her "nurse" came and got her from a swing?
They weren't wealthy people, they were dirty, nomadic desert dwellers. They didn't have private "nurses" in the sense this hadith leads you to think. You have to read it and think about how those people lived at the time.
Nurse meant wet-nurse, not a nanny or medical person.
at December 31, 2005 4:02 AM
"Allah" is just the Old Testament "God" of Job in a new 7th century Arab cloak."
Actually Allah is the complete opposite- Allah is Satan. Muhammad plagerized much of the Torah and Jewish fables, and many other fables from other religions, early coptic christianity to make his "religion sound legitamate to the not so bright illiterate neadrathals who followed him. Muhammad didn't know they were fables, and niether did the early clerics who inserted some of them into the Koran. OOPS!! LoL!
Tisdall shows many of them in his book
http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Tisdall/Sources/index.htm
at December 31, 2005 4:16 AM
Democracy does not always bring liberty and justice.
Bostom's first sentence (above) in this article deserves to be repeated again and again. The concept that democracy is intertwined with liberty and justice, so ingrained in the Western World view, is just plain wrong. One can have a Democracy without justice and liberty. Democracy, as John Stuart Mill pointed long back, can easily degenerate into a 'tyranny of the majority'; and nowhere is this more true than in the Islamic world where democratically elected governments are 'free' to impose the Sharia law on all... a law which is the exact antithesis of liberty and justice.
Posted by: Razdan at December 31, 2005 7:51 AM
I want to say this again...
I and many in the west
Do NOT hate arabs
Have bent over backwards trying to make friends with muslims...
Do not believe that all muslims are terrorists..
But...
If i TRIED to do what the muslims and some democrats want with the jizra tax...
I would be hauled off to jail
and charged with
Extortion
Running a protection racket.
Bribery
Stealing
and any number of offenses the government could dream up...
Why is it that if
I come up to you and say..
If you pay me a POLL tax (you won't) have an accident while comming home or at work..
Like an accidental SHOOTING or Bombing..
But if a MUSLIM comes up and says..
If you pay me a POLL tax (you won't) have an accident while comming home or at work..
Like an accidental SHOOTING or Bombing..
If you refuse ...
There will be a bombing..
they not only get away with it ...
But the Democrats support them!!!!
at December 31, 2005 2:36 PM
The jizya demanded of arab Christians living in parts of Israel controlled by muslims is just a pittance, when compared to the billions of dollars and euros demanded from the West. Try though they surely do, it seems to be much harder for the dhimmis in Europe and America to justify the continued payment of these billions to hamas, hezbollah, and the "brotherhood". And yes, the western dhimmis are already trying to legitimize these other gangsters, but its like trying to dress up an ape in a suit and tie. You might get the ape to behave for a few minutes, but he's undoubtedly going to keep embarrassing you. Worse, he might even turn on his saudi, iranian, and syrian zookeepers.
Posted by: Infidel33 at December 31, 2005 2:56 PM
Infidel Pride,
Fatah is supposed to be the acronym of "Palestine Liberation Movement." However, a simple acronym of that name would be Hataf, not Fatah. But they wanted Fatah because the word means conquest or invasion, especially an Islamic conquest. It comes from the word to open [fataha, in Arabic, I think; patah, in Hebrew], as in open city, a city that has been conquered or surrendered.
Anyhow, you see how the founders of Fatah were thinking.
at January 1, 2006 3:30 AM
"One can have a Democracy without justice and liberty"
--posted by razdan
Hamas is not playing by the rules, thus they are not participating in democracy--they are exploiting it.
Perhaps an analogy will illustrate. If I agree to play on a hockey team, I must play by the rules. If I decide I wanna change the rules for my advantage, say, if I decide I wanna whack people across the face without penalties, then I am no longer playing hockey, and I should be arrestted. Correspondingly, by changing the rules of a democracy--the tyranny of the majority, for example--Hamas is not engaging in democratic practices. The fact that they are allowed to participate without following the rules says everything about those playing the game and not the game itself.
Posted by: Dhimmiwatch in Canada at January 1, 2006 5:09 PM
Mullahmasher-
Aiyesha was abducted ("given into 'marriage'")"when she was 6, but the pedophile prophet purportedly waited until she was all of 9 years of age before he raped her("consumated the wedlock").
"Yaweh" of the Book of Job's behavior ("obey me or be damned; love me, even as I slaughter your family in a 'test of faith'") is morally and spiritually indistinguishable (the creaking old "God of Vengeance"; William Blake's "Nobodaddy") from the "Allah" of the Muslims.
If you want to call this "God": "Satan", I have no problem with that. (Except that the OT Hebrews thought that "Satan" was just the assigned hitman/soul torturer-in-chief/devil's advocate (sic) for "Yaweh".
(How a "loving God", whatever name you give it, invents and allows a "Devil" to exist is one of those bits of intellectual/spiritual contortionism and fraud that permits the fearful to lick the Omnipotent Boots -that are kicking them in the face -and call the injury and insult a divine caress.)
Islam is a retrograde religion. Instead of taming the dark demiurge, as Christ tried to do with the ruthless El, Dictator of the OT, Muslims have turned back the accomplishment of Jesus and erased this civilizing attempt by reinstating the hate-filled Perfect Potentate of the Deuteronomy era ...because that type of War Lord fit their [latecomers-to-monotheism] inferiority complex's need for a revenge fantasy fulfiller "God".
"Allah"{ is the spitting image of the "God" of the heretic-hunting early Church Fathers like Tertullian (who said "one of the pleasures of those in heaven is watching the torments of those in hell" ... how 'Christian', eh?).
Those who stew in theocratic resentment and holy hate and are eternally plotting vengeance against all who disagree with their "true" faith always love these kind of Killer Deities.
(I'll take the God that sacrifices itself out of love for its creatures over ther kind that does the bloody reverse.)
Posted by: profitsbeard at January 2, 2006 2:31 AM
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