Must be friends of Naseem and Abdullah

Posted by: Elric66 at April 5, 2007 1:40 PM

Jews are ungrateful for all the protection Muslims paid them in return for Jizya over the centuries. Take spain for example, Jews prospered under Islam but were evicted when Muslims lost spain after 880 years. The Jewish tribe that were beheaded in Medina were traitors to the community and they had to pay a very high price. This acted as a detterant to others who might have been tempted to sell the 'Islamic security'.

Shiites are mad because they are not seen by the Majority of Muslims as muslims. So they in a desperate attempt to prove their loyalty to Islam, Hizbullah attacks Israel, this other group attack innocent Jews in Yemen...THIS DOES NOT MAKE YOUR BELIEFS CORRECT. Shiites have to ditch alot of their unislamic beliefs for us to accept them, not kill jews to SHOW.

Posted by: Abdullah at April 5, 2007 1:57 PM

"they opted to continue a traditional life that their ancestors had peacefully pursued in Yemen for generations."

....imagine that....generations of living peacefully.....causing no trouble...killing no one...

...the along come the Muslims who accuse you of spreading vice and corruption.....and want to kill you.....

....what is it about living peacefully and happily that the Muslims so dearly hate?.....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 5, 2007 2:00 PM

....what is it about living peacefully and happily that the Muslims so dearly hate?.....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 5, 2007 02:00 PM

Muslims cant even do that among themselves

Posted by: Elric66 at April 5, 2007 2:01 PM

"Jews are ungrateful for all the protection Muslims paid them in return for Jizya over the centuries."

...extortion and the protection racket are mob activities....criminal activities designed to say it is ok to steal money earned by honest hard working peopl....

....typical gang activity, why work, when you can steal....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 5, 2007 2:02 PM

"Jews prospered under Islam but were evicted when Muslims lost spain after 880 years."

.....If the Muslims had followed the Jewish lead and work honestly and hard. THey would have been prosperous and still in Spain...The Muslims chose to be violent and to try to kill all NonMuslims....this tactic did not work then and it will not work now...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 5, 2007 2:06 PM

I know this suggestion is cowardly but these Yemeni Jews should hightail it to Israel like thousands of Yemeni Jews have done over the years. Yemen is a wasteland and is already in chaos what with the recent jihad against Yemeni shi'ites. No use sticking it out in the poorest country in the Arabian peninsula.

Posted by: wrathofasma at April 5, 2007 2:16 PM

lool that is the very reason we muslims lost spain. We started to flirt with you devils, compete for pretty people of the book girls, we started gambling with money like satan we even gambled with our security by 'sharing' security matter with christian, allowing them to run parts of spain....What a dreadful mistake that was!!! And no doubt we paid a high prize....

Jizya is not extortion. It is a tax system designed to save people of the book arm and limb incase the community got attacked. Muslims used to pay the state more than you did (jizya) through ZAKAT on top of risking life to fight.

Posted by: Abdullah at April 5, 2007 2:19 PM

wrathofasma: ...these Yemeni Jews should hightail it to Israel like thousands of Yemeni Jews have done over the years.

They've been invited before. They won't do it. Like the Neturei Karta, these surviving Yemeni Jews are anti-Zionist on religious grounds. They believe their Exile is divinely decreed, and they must remain in Exile until G-d Himself takes them home to Zion.

There's a streak of martyrdom-seeking and self-mortification in traditional Judaism. These Yemeni hold-outs exemplify it. They will do whatever their Muslim overlords demand, and deem their humiliation and suffering a sacrifice to Most High. In the end, they will be wiped out.

Posted by: ElderlyZionist at April 5, 2007 2:30 PM

"Jews are ungrateful for all the protection Muslims paid them in return for Jizya over the centuries. Take spain for example, Jews prospered under Islam but were evicted when Muslims lost Spain after 880 years."
-- from a Muslim poster

Rather than fill up the page here myself, I recommend to all visitors that they go to www.newenglishreview.org, click on the article "Islamic Antisemitism" by Ibn Warraq, and read it, then copy it, and send it as an attachment to others all over the globe.

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 2:35 PM

Rather than fill up the page here myself, I recommend to all visitors that they go to www.newenglishreview.org, click on the article "Islamic Antisemitism" by Ibn Warraq, and read it, then copy it, and send it as an attachment to others all over the globe.

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 02:35 PM

Abdullah also ignored how islam came to Spain. It wasnt my missionaries. And how dare the Christians take back Spain from the Islamic imperialists.

Posted by: Elric66 at April 5, 2007 2:37 PM

"Jews are ungrateful for all the protection Muslims paid them in return for Jizya over the centuries. Take spain for example, Jews prospered under Islam but were evicted when Muslims lost Spain after 880 years."
-- from a Muslim poster

Rather than fill up the page here myself, I recommend to all visitors that they go to www.newenglishreview.org, click on the article "Islamic Antisemitism" by Ibn Warraq, and read it, then copy it, and send it as an attachment to others all over the globe.

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 2:38 PM

A Muslim poster above offers the old apologist line about "Jizyah" being a perfectly reasonable tax on Infidels, and furthermore, tells us that it was far less burdensome than the payment of "zakat" by Muslims, so non-Muslims should stop complaining.

My, my.

Here is a previous posting by Robert Spencer on the Jizyah and Zakat:

"I have often encountered, in person and on radio shows, Muslims who claim that the jizya, the special tax required of non-Muslim dhimmis under Islamic law, was actually less than zakat, the Muslim obligation of charitable giving. This is patently absurd on the face of it, of course, since innumerable respected historians (including A.S. Tritton, Maxime Rodinson, and Bat Ye'or) have noted that it was money from the dhimmis, not from Muslims, that financed the early Islamic empires; indeed, Muslims paid nothing at all into the state treasury in the days when there were large populations (i.e., in Egypt and Syria) of conquered dhimmi Christians. Rodinson even points out in his biography of Muhammad that at certain times conversions to Islam were forbidden, as they were destroying the tax base! If the jizya had really been less than zakat, human nature being what it is, we would have seen large-scale conversions of Muslims to Christianity in the great Islamic empires -- but of course we don't, because who would want to exchange the position of the dominator for that of the dominated?

Nevertheless, today people read propaganda like Edward Said instead of history like Bat Ye'or, Tritton, and Rodinson, so they may be misled by this that recently appeared at IslamOnline (thanks to Ali Dashti for the link):

Non-Muslims are called dhimmis and were required to pay a levy or jizya. The jizya was not paid as a bribe for practicing their faith, but rather as compensation for not serving in the army, protection for Crusading armies and tribal warfare. While most so-called journalists scream that the jizya is a tool of inequality, they fail to see that there is a tax levied on Muslims as well, the zakat, which non-Muslims are not required to pay.
This assumes that jizya and zakat are equivalent, and other Muslims assert, as I have said, that the jizya is actually less than zakat. So let's look at the record:

For non-Muslims in Muslim societies, there was not just jizya, but kharaj, the land tax. Tritton in The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects equates the two: "Hafs, another governor of Egypt, announced that all dhimmis who abandoned their religion would be free from kharaj, which is jizya" (pp. 35-6). It is important to remember the two names because while the jizya was generally set at a fixed amount by the jurists (although this was highly adjustable), the kharaj was another matter. In the Hedaya, an Islamic legal manual, in a discussion about the purchase of land by a dhimmi, it declares: "it is lawful to require twice as much of a Zimmee [dhimmi] as of a Mussulman [Muslim], whence it is that, if such an one were to come before the collector with merchandise, twice as much would be exacted of him as of a Mussulman" (Hedaya I.vi).

Also Andrew Bostom has sent me these illuminating extracts:

The voluntary character of the zakat contribution as a religious duty is emphasized by Qudama in the beginning of Chapter Thirteen, where he states that Muslims are trusted with the declaration of what is due from them, in contradistinction to other taxes which are compulsory and pursuable. The Saudi law by charging Muslims with this religious tax is following the old precepts who lay down that the rate of the tax is fixed in accordance with the persons from whom it is collected, i.e., from a Merchant of a foreign country 10 per cent, from a merchant of an allied country 5 per cent, and from a Muslim 2.5 per cent.
That's from A. Ben Shemesh, Taxation in Islam Volume II, Qudama b. Ja’far’s Kitab Al-Kharaj. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1965, p. 14.

And this:

There is a desire to equate Zakat with Jiziyah to emphasize the fairness of the Islamic fiscal system. The Muslims pay Zakat and the non-Muslims Jiziyah. But the analogy is fallacious. The rate of Zakat tax is as low as 2.5 per cent and that on the apparent property only. All kinds of concessions are given in Zakat with regard to nisah or taxable minimum. In its collection no force is applied because force vitiates its character. On the other hand, the rate of Jiziyah is very high for the non-Muslims- 48, 24, and 12 silver tankahs for the rich, the middling and the poor, whatever the currency and whichever the country. Besides, what is central to Jiziyah is the humiliation of infidel always, particularly at the time of collection. What is central in Zakat is that it is voluntary; at least it cannot be collected by force. In India Zakat ceased to be a religious tax imposed only on the Muslims. Here Zakat was levied in the shape of customs duties on merchandise and grazing fee on all milk-producing animals or those which went to pasture, and was realized both from Muslims and non-Muslims. According to the Islamic law, ‘import duties for Muslims were 5 per cent and for non-Muslims 10 per cent of the commodity’. For, Abu Hanifa, whose Sunni school of law prevailed in India, would tax the merchandise of the Zimmis as imposts at double the Zakat fixed for Muslims.
From K.S. Lal, Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India, Delhi, 1999, pp. 139-140.

Note that both have jizya as double the rate of zakat, as per The Hedaya.

And of course the bottom line is that radical Muslims who are working to impose Sharia on Muslim and non-Muslim states, will endeavor also to reimpose the jizya. In the name of the equality of rights of all people, this must be resisted."

[Posted by Robert at September 20, 2004]

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 2:41 PM

Of course Mousa praises Allah. If he praised his own god he'd be killed immediately for prosletyzing. As a ward of the President he's a propaganda tool of the President. It still doesn't answer the question of their land being stolen by Muslims and the total lack of action by the Yemeni government in restoring the land to its rightful owners. Not that anything is going to happen; once land is Muslim (no matter how illegal the acquisition) it is forever Muslim, a tradition the President (being Muslim) will not violate.

Posted by: aynrandgirl at April 5, 2007 2:46 PM

If people insist on living with poisonous snakes do you pity them when they get bit?

Posted by: Seymour Paine at April 5, 2007 2:53 PM

"Jizya is not extortion"

...yes, it is...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 5, 2007 3:00 PM

Jizya is not extortion

...Muslims do not pay it....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 5, 2007 3:01 PM

"If people insist on living with poisonous snakes.."

Do you blame the 200 remaining Jews -- impoverished, ignorant, largely afraid of the outside world -- for their own plight? Do you blame the Assyrian Christians of Iraq for not getting out earlier? Do you think the Hindus who did not leave Bangladesh when it was still East Pakistan deserve the mass killings they endured during the 1970-71 war, and the less mass killings, and certain persecution, after? Do you think the members of the Nuer and Dinka tribes in southern Sudan, among the many black African victims, both Christian and animist, of the Arab Muslims of the north, were people who "insisted" on "living with poisonous snakes"?

For that matter, do you think that all those Jews who didn't manage to leave Germany, or the rest of Western or Eastern Europoe, when they might have, deserve what they got?

For god's sake, a little sympathy, a little sense, a little human understanding.

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 3:04 PM

Hugh: Do you blame the 200 remaining Jews -- impoverished, ignorant, largely afraid of the outside world -- for their own plight?

I don't necessarily blame all those others you cite; most did or are doing their best to resist or escape oppression. But I blame these Yemeni Jews, because they have an escape available, freedom ready to hand in Israel, and they will not take it. They are not so ignorant or afraid as all that. In my opinion, they are willfully crazy as batshit.

The oppression, suffering and ultimate extinction of the remaining Yemeni Jews, in spite of their best efforts to abase themselve and live as loyal dhimmi servants to their Muslim masters is an object lesson to all of us, which we must note.

It is important to understand that these Jews have willingly chosen slavery, embraced humiliation and oppression (out of bizarre religious conviction), and it avails them nothing. They will not survive. Dhimmi can not long survive in Dar al'Islam, on any terms.

We must fight.

Posted by: ElderlyZionist at April 5, 2007 3:31 PM

"We must fight.

Posted by: ElderlyZionist "

....and fight and fight and fight......live free, die free....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 5, 2007 3:44 PM

Hugh: I don't think it is quite so easy as you make it out to feel for these people. On one level, of course I do; as I would feel sorry for someone who got bit by his pet poisonous snake. Sorry, but really sorroer they are so stupid. They are victims of themselves.

As for those Jews in Germany, some, many, could not leave. But many chose to stay until it was impossible to leave. Read Victor Klemperer's I Will Bear Witness. The self-delusion is amazing.

On a more personal level, I had family in Argentina during the period of troubles there. They were imprisoned and tortured for a year and all that saved them from death was that the Army admitted they held them (so they couldn't disappear). After a large and expensive effort, they were freed and came to the U.S. And the first thing they wanted to do: return to sell some property. I told my family: If they go back and are rearrested, screw them, they're too stupid to worry about.

Yemeni Jews: They know first hand the hatred directed at them and had ample and many opportunities to leave and refused. Makes me a believer in Darwin.

While pity is like fire, you can always get more of it, I wouldn't waste a any sleep on their fate.

Posted by: Seymour Paine at April 5, 2007 4:29 PM

"Journalists are banned from the conflict zone."

.....wouln't want actual reports of Muslims atrocities being committed getting out, I guess....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 5, 2007 4:36 PM

The number of Jews in Yeman is not known with certainty. Some estimates are a few hundred; others over a thousand. There is a slow trickle out as they are seduced out by ultra-orthodox Jews who reject Israel. This is a bit of a one-sided love affair since the ultra-orthodox Jews view Yemani Jews as devout, devoid of inter-marriage and secular corruption; whereas the Yemani Jews sometimes then 'escape' from their ultra-religious hosts in New York or London and move to Israel. I would also view as suspect any Jew or Christian's true feelings about Israel or the West until both feet are firmly living in the West. A Lebanese Christian or Syrian Christian may say one thing out of safety considerations 'over there' and say another thing when living in the US! Same holds true for Yemani Jews.

The more interesting information in this piece is the intra-Islamic Jihad waged by the Sunnis against the Shia in Yeman(and vica versa). This rift within Islam is widening. Yeman today; Saudi next year? The biggest story in Lebanon is not Christian-Muslim relations but rather intra-Islamic conflict between Shia and Sunni and how Christians are reacting to this split.

Posted by: biorabbi at April 5, 2007 5:23 PM

Ginny Hill might find out a bit more about the treatment of Jews in the Yemen. They were, for the most part, confined to a few occupations, things like cleaning the latrines of the Arabs. Just try to imagine that job in rural or urban Yemen. Some were chattel slaves, and into the mid-20th century, according to the English scholar R. S. Serjeant (not known for his deep solicitude for Jews or for anti-Islamic views) if in the Yemen a Jew belonging to Arab Tribe A was killed by an Arab belonging to Arab Tribe B, then the proper solution was for an Arab belonging to Arab Tribe A to kill a Jew belonging to Arab Tribe B. Only two Jews killed, and both Arab Tribe A and Arab Tribe B can be friends again.

There is much more, and some of it can be found in the forthcoming book of Andrew Bostom, or one can consult the essay "Islamic Antisemitism" which serves as a foreword to that book, by Ibn Warraq, now up at www.newenglishreview.org.

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 7:04 PM

The more interesting information in this piece is the intra-Islamic Jihad waged by the Sunnis against the Shia in Yeman(and vica versa). This rift within Islam is widening. Yeman today; Saudi next year? The biggest story in Lebanon is not Christian-Muslim relations but rather intra-Islamic conflict between Shia and Sunni and how Christians are reacting to this split.

Ah, behold the silver lining on that awful black cloud.

Posted by: justamomof4 at April 5, 2007 7:10 PM

Ginny Hill might find out a bit more about the treatment of Jews in the Yemen. They were, for the most part, confined to a few occupations, things like cleaning the latrines of the Arabs.

And they opted to stay in Yemen? Maybe they felt their rightful place was as servants of Arabs; maybe they enjoyed scraping and bowing. Maybe they are born and bred masochists.

Posted by: Seymour Paine at April 5, 2007 8:12 PM

I don't know about that, Seymour Paine-- there have been Jews on the Arabian Peninsula since before Islam, after all, so they have more claim to their lands there than the Muslims who are trying to chase them out.

In addition, once one cedes territory, it's often even harder to get it back. I see a certain defiance, as well as hope, among the Yemeni Jews that many generations from now they might find they outlasted their oppressors.

Lastly, home, however hazardous and awful it may have become for whatever reason, is home, and bears a certain emotional attachment (especially if it is one's connection to family both living and going back several generations) that makes it hard to just pick up and get out of Dodge.

Posted by: MarisolJW at April 5, 2007 8:43 PM

Populations move all the time under external threat. It's been 1300 years since those Jews had it OK. People begged them to leave; if they enjoy cleaning Arab toilets, maybe they should continue to do so. If people don't have respect for themselves or want a decent life for their children, why should we have respect for them?

Posted by: Seymour Paine at April 5, 2007 9:56 PM

Jesus (Isa), that well-known prophet of Islam, made is own wine.

But Mohammad had a dream, and was offered milk or wine, and chose milk.

(Guess he never heard of koumis.)

I like Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream better.

Cheers!

Posted by: profitsbeard at April 5, 2007 10:01 PM

Errata Sheet:

For "Yemen's Jewish minority is clustered in small communities north of Sanaa. They are protected under Yemen's constitution and identify strongly as Yemeni citizens"

READ

"The handful of Jews left behind, practically stranded, in the north of Yemen, when about 100,000 Jews, those in the south, managed to escape to Israel in 1950-51 during "Operation Magic Carpet," and who represent the last Jews in an ancient community that predated the arrival of Islam, and had managed to survive, despite massacres and every kind of discrimination and persecution (including being limited to such jobs as cleaning latrines), are now clustered in small communities north of Sanaa.

According to the constitution of Yemen (which we have not seen) Jews are recognized as being able to live and practice their religion as long as they fulfill the obligations put upon them by their Muslim overlords and masters. They must do nothing to offend the rules, or violate the laws, that regulate the behavior and set out the duties of non-Muslims accorded the dhimmi status, as recognized as dhimmis under Yemen's consetitution. We were told by government spokesmen that these remaining Jews "identify strongly as Yemeni citizens." As evidence of this, the government supplied an Arab Muslim interpreter and one or two aged Jews who, in our presence and in the presence of Yemeni government officials, were said by the interpreter to have answered our question by assuring us that they "strongly identified as Yemeni citizens." We of course have not the slightest reason to doubt this, or any information, supplied to us by the government of Yemen or its representatives."

That should take case of the errata.

How one should prevent such errata in the future, from some errabundant enthusiastic completely ignorant-of-Islam and comically credulous young reporter (no doubt still in her 20s, and very excited to be playing the part of Foreign Correspondent) is another matter.

For the solution to that problem, a mere Errata Sheet will not do.

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2007 10:35 PM

"Sanaa, Yemen - Yahya Yousef Mousa is one of the several hundred Jews still living in Yemen. His grandparents refused to join the mass evacuation to Israel that followed anti-Jewish riots in 1948. Instead, they opted to continue a traditional life that their ancestors had peacefully pursued in Yemen for generations.
But, in January, that peace was shattered when Mr. Mousa was confronted by masked gunmen from a Shiite sect that accused him of spreading vice and corruption. He and his neighbors were told to leave their homes in the northern province of Saada or lose their lives."

This does not suprise me because it is part of the war that has been going on agianst Jews and Christians by Muslims since the start of Islam.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at April 6, 2007 6:57 AM

...goes to show, if you elect to be a dhimmi....sooner or later the Muslims will kill you off anyway.....even if you abide by their 7th century rules.....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 6, 2007 6:58 AM

Hugh,

You are spot on when it comes to the truth about the "dhimmi tax" that it is simply another form to exhortion placed on the Jews and Christians.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at April 6, 2007 7:07 AM

Abdullah,

"lool that is the very reason we muslims lost spain. We started to flirt with you devils, compete for pretty people of the book girls, we started gambling with money like satan we even gambled with our security by 'sharing' security matter with christian, allowing them to run parts of spain....What a dreadful mistake that was!!! And no doubt we paid a high prize....

Jizya is not extortion. It is a tax system designed to save people of the book arm and limb incase the community got attacked. Muslims used to pay the state more than you did (jizya) through ZAKAT on top of risking life to fight."

When the Christians took back Spain, it was a major turning point event for both Europe and western civilization in which it was starting to leave the middle ages and to begin to plant the seeds for the future modern age. It also helped Spain become down the road at the time, a major European power because it opened up the age of discovery for it.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at April 6, 2007 7:19 AM

My personal advice to Yemeni Jews is-GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL HAVE AN OPTION..You can always find another house,another strip of land but not
when you're DEAD!

Posted by: Morgane at April 6, 2007 8:04 AM

Ibn Warraq's Islamic Antisemitism is a must read as Hugh suggests. The anti-Jewish riots of 1948 weren't a modern aberation. Read Warraq's article or Bostom's book. Ask your local library to get the book.

Posted by: JasonP at April 6, 2007 8:09 AM

The book is not out yet. You can ask libraries to order it, however, now.

Posted by: Hugh at April 6, 2007 10:27 AM

"We haven't had any help from the Israeli government," he says. "And if they offer us a home, we will refuse because we are all Yemenis and we want to go back to our village."

Exactly what help from the Israeli government does he want? Care packages for Passover?

If he wants to stay that much, I say 'stay' but then don't bitch at the mistreatment. I think Mousa is more Yemeni than Jewish, so let him stay and have his poison too.

Posted by: ProudDhimmi at April 6, 2007 12:12 PM

"we will refuse because we are all Yemenis and we want to go back to our village."

...lessons learned.....after generations of not fighting the Muslims .... and you now have no land to return to....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 6, 2007 1:18 PM

What are Jews doing in Yemen when there is a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel, the land on which every Jew is commanded by G-d to live?

Posted by: US_infidel at April 6, 2007 3:21 PM