Mosques are especially suited for this purpose, since if Israel hits one of them, the Jewish state is immediately charged with recklessly targeting civilian areas, endangering civilians, etc. The fact is, however, that nowhere but in Gaza is the poem that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan notoriously quoted more true: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers….”
“Palestinian Mosques: Arsenals or Houses of God?,” by Danielle Avel, Breitbart News, July 26, 2014:
While salvaging Qurans from the rubble of the Al-Farouq Mosque in Gaza, junior imam Muhammad Hamad told the New York Times, “This is a house of God” – as though this proved the mosque is a peaceful place of worship. He said this after Al-Farouq had been targeted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on July 12.
According to IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, intelligence indicated the mosque was used as “a Hamas rocket cache and gathering point for militants.” According to Hamad, “That charge is baseless.”
This debate conjures striking visuals – the military against the mosque, the Qurans amidst the rubble, and the young imam invoking the term “house of God.” Media outlets eagerly perpetuate this narrative however incomplete or inaccurate. The problem, however, starts at the very root of the story, with the mosque. Let’s explore what a “house of God” might look like to an average person living in a Palestinian-controlled neighborhood.
Caliph Abu Bakr Mosque in Aida. Photo credit: Danielle AvelThe above picture shows the Caliph Abu Bakr Mosque in Aida in “Area A” on the West Bank. Area A means Israel maintains control over external security, so Palestinians there are limited in the weapons they can amass, unlike in Hamas-controlled Gaza where Israel relinquished control of the border. Though Israel prevents missiles from entering the West Bank, Area A is otherwise similar to Gaza in that Palestinians are responsible for their own neighborhoods – central to those neighborhoods are mosques.
The Aida mosque entryway is festooned with violent messaging that celebrates terrorists, that show all of Israel gone from the map, and advertisements for conferences that promote the caliphate (i.e., radical Islam taking over the world)….
Further, Palestinians have a documented history of using mosques as bases for terrorism. A few examples:
- In 2003, Israeli police thwarted a suicide attack and located the explosives belt in a mosque in Taibeh.
- In 2003, Hamas terrorists in Hebron used their mosque’s football team as cover while they carried out a series of suicide attacks that killed 34 Israelis.
- In 2003, Ra’ed Misk, an imam of a mosque in Hebron, carried out a suicide attack that killed 23 civilians. He was dressed in the explosives belt at a mosque in eastern Jerusalem.
- In 2008, the IDF bombed a mosque in Gaza City that was used to store missiles and explosives and was used as a launching ground for rocket attacks.
- In 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, IDF forces uncovered weapons caches in mosques throughout Gaza including ones in Jabaliya, Al-Atatra, and the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City….

Jovial Joe says
I just had an image of Hamas’ ‘mosque football team’ playing in the World Cup, each player detonating as they volleyed a goal. They win the match but no one’s left to collect the trophy.
Jan Fourowls says
Thank you, RS! You’ve provided a visually memorable quotation worth committing to memory, with its source, to tell the truth to brainwashed family and friends in the U.S. who spout the “religion of peace” propaganda line contrary to the Islamic history of cruel violence and contrary to the plain words of the Quran.
This is so memorable: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers….”(Source: “Turkish Prime Minister … Erdogan,” from Islamic poetry.)
Excerpted from another of my comments of a prior day few readers will see, as applicable to the Erdogan quote, here’s relevant info for Americans.
Re: demographics of Muslim population in the U.S., http://rcms2010.org/ and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/most-and-least-muslim-states_n_1626144.html, the concentrations of Islamic populations tend to be on or near major interstate or other transport (as in troop transport) arteries, some of them small towns or sparsely populated areas. For instance, small-town Cartersville, GA on the I-75 between Atlanta and Chattanooga. National-forested largely rural Shasta County, CA, on the I-5 S-N route from Los Angeles. By analogy to what terrorists are doing elsewhere, this placement of potential Islamic soldier-citizens inside America could be significant. (Hamas as terrorist organization on the U.S. State Dept.’s list since 1997 is using its so-called civilians as soldier-citizens and shooting rockets from “civilian” areas near mosques, hospitals, schools and private homes in Gaza. Very different geography than the U.S. but the principle of using so-called “citizens” as Muslim terrorist soldier-citizens who can be mobilized along transportation arteries could be applied here, too.)
The rapidly growing IS (Islamic State) army — yes, army — is being joined by 10,000 “Americans” with passports and thousands of jihadists-in-training from the UK and other parts of Europe who have visa waivers allowing them U.S. access on their return. Obama has cut our land armed forces in the U.S. by about 30,000. He’s sold off Navy ships to be moved out of the San Diego base harbor while the southern U.S. borders are operating like a sieve by his actions and omissions. Obama’s done an $11 billion arms deal with missiles (including EMP defense the U.S. may not even have) to terrorist-funnel Qatar which arms and funds Hamas and other Islamic terrorists like Al-Qaeda. Obama’s brother Malik has strong Islamic terrorist connections. Across the blue-red state divide, I hope Christians and other non-Muslims in the U.S. will become more aware of our common cause of self-protection before the 3,000 dead of terrorist attack on 9/11 and the 260 maimed (3 dead) of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing looks like a day we wish we still had.
jewdog says
You mean mosques aren’t just Quaker meeting houses with funny tops? Crazy as it sounds, I’m sure many people believe that weapons in mosques are only put there by poor desperate people for defensive purposes only. It’s only we bigoted Islamophobes who would doubt that.
Jay Boo says
All of the peace-loving leftists are giving a sigh of relief.
The PC coexist manual of enlightenment holds everything found in a mosque with a deep reverence.
JIMJFOX says
Mosques should be prime targets
and not only in Gaza…
Daniel Triplett says
Agreed.
Mosques are meeting houses to discuss Islam, a Conspiracy to Murder innocent men. Now they’re also ammo dumps.
Let’s raze all mosques Worlwide.
dumbledoresarmy says
Of course mosques are military bases, command-and-control centres, outpost forts of the Ummah inside Infidel territory, weapons-and-bomb factories, and arsenals/ magazines.
Because Islam is “the religion of blood and war” (that’s what Churchill calls it, in his book “The Story of the Malakand Field Force”).
One should expect the “temples” of a god of blood and war, to be military installations.
Daniel Triplett says
Excellent points dumbledoresarmy.
Moreover, Churchill, among the World’s most brilliant leaders ever, was of course confronting Nazism, and for him at the time to describe Islam as
” No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. ”
is really saying something.
That man had wisdom and strategic vision to spare. You guys should dig him up and put him back in charge.
Where are FDR and Churchill when you need them? Our arrogant modern-day leaders haven’t the faintest idea how to recognize evil or win a war (excepting my man Ronald Reagan).
Jay Boo says
So many Palestinians touched by Islam’s lies.
Everything Islam touches dies.
Michael Copeland says
“Every single mosque in the world, by definition, is modeled on the mosque of Muhammad in Medina …..a place where he gave judgments, where he decided who would be executed … where Jihad war strategies were designed…. a storage place for arms, a military training base, and… where troops were blessed and dispatched.”
Sam Solomon, former professor of Sharia law
http://vladtepesblog.com/2010/08/01/ner-what-is-a-mosque-interview-with-sam-solomon/