Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Search results for saudi vice episode

Showing posts sorted by relevance for query saudi vice episode. Sort by date Show all posts

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Saudi Vice, episode 22: A Hard Day's Night

A vigilant citizen of Saudi Arabia, who moonlights as an informant for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, suspected something was amiss at his local pharmacy. Something was wrong.

Something was haraam.

The patriotic citizen suspected that the pharmacy was selling "unlicensed" anti-impotence drugs.

To make things even worse, these sales were occurring in the Holy City of Mecca (Makkah).

If these had been any other kinds of unlicensed drugs, no doubt the citizen would have reported it to the local police. But since these drugs are associated with behavior that could be considered immoral (if you have a particularly dirty mind,) he instead called the Religious Police.

Our heroes of the Muttawa wasted no time in rising to the challenge.

They arranged a "sting" operation that was sure to be painful for the violator.

A member of the religious police, no doubt whistling while trying to act nonchalant, asked the pharmacist is he had any medicines that could help his embarrassing erectile dysfunction problem.

The pharmacist insisted he had no such drugs.

But our undercover hero returned, whining about his inability to perform and begging for any help the druggist could provide to prevent this man's eternal shame and dishonor. When couched in such terms, the pharmacist had no choice but to try to accommodate the request, so he sent a trusted aide to fetch the magic pills from a warehouse.

Upon the assistant's return, the trap was sprung. A team of highly-trained religious police swooped down and arrested the pharmacist and his assistant. They also raided the warehouse and confiscated large quantities of similar contraband, so they can destroy it (or, perhaps, use them for purely scientific experiments - double blind studies and the like.)

Thanks to the Muttawa, the holy streets of Mecca are once again safe from horny Saudis.

All Saudi Vice episodes can be seen here. With this 22nd episode, we now have an entire season of SV!

Saudi Vice, episode 34: Too much of a good thing

From Saudi Gazette:

A Hai’a security inspector has been fined SR3,000, six weeks in prison and 120 lashes for marrying more than four women and breaking residency laws.

The Hai’a is the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

He married three Saudi women, who are on his identity card, two non-Saudi women who don’t have Iqamas [Saudi residency cards - EoZ] and a non-Saudi who has an Iqama, reported Al-Madina Arabic daily on Monday.

It is against Islamic law for a Muslim man to have more than four wives at one time.

The Control and Investigation Board (CIB) accused the Hai’a employee of unethical behavior and abusing his position. The Administrative Court at the Jizan Board of Grievances in Uhud Al-Masariha gave him 120 lashes for marrying more than four wives.

The Administrative Committee at Jizan Passport Administration fined the Hai’a employee SR3,000 and sentenced him to six weeks in prison for covering up for two women who didn’t have Iqamas.

Hasn't he been punished enough?

The case of the employee was discovered three years ago. He was arrested by the police and the Hai’a at a furnished apartment.

He was also ordered to memorize certain chapters of the Holy Qur’an and study their interpretation. He was also banned from traveling abroad for five years, delivering a speech in the mosque and leading prayers in the mosque.

Saudi religious police ban red items ahead of Valentine's Day

From AP:

The Saudi religious police are cracking down on stores selling items that are red or in any other way allude to banned celebrations of Valentine's Day.
A Saudi official says policemen are inspecting shops for red roses, heart-shaped products or gifts wrapped in red, and ordering storeowners to get rid of them.

Such items are legal at other times of the year, but as February 14 nears they become contraband.

Saudi Arabia bans celebration of Western holidays such as Valentine's Day, named after a Christian saint said to have been martyred by the Romans in the 3rd Century.

Most shops in Riyadh's upscale neighborhoods have removed all red items from their shelves.

Red wrapping paper is also forbidden.

The many Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia were warned not to do anything valentine-y in public on February 14th, including blowing kisses.

AP is watering down the reasons that the Saudis are against Valentine's Day. It is not strictly because it is a Christian holiday, but because (as I mentioned in a Saudi Vice episode two years ago)

As Muslims we shouldn't celebrate a non-Muslim celebration especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women.

Here's the perfect gift for Saudi Valentine's Day!

Saudi Vice, episode 17: Tat's all, folks

A Filipino worker in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was very happy with his life. He was so happy that he even got a tattoo during one of his visits home that said "Lady Hunter ... KSA."

He came back to the Kingdom and went about his business. But a Saudi Electricity Company worker noticed his tattoo and was aghast.

He followed the man home to find out his address, and then conscientiously called our heroes, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, telling them that clearly this man was aiming to have an illegal illicit affair with innocent Muslim Saudi women.

Our heroes at the Muttawa didn't waste any time investigating these allegations. They searched the man's home, and found even more reasons to punish the Filipino - he had pictures of Filipino women workers in his home!

Will the horrors never cease?

The Muttawa had seen enough. The man was deported away from the Kingdom and its holy places, and Saudi Arabia is a little bit safer from such deviants who dare have tattoos and pictures of women.

Saudi Vice, episode 16: The blasphemous barbers

A number of weeks ago a Saudi man went to a barber shop and heard something that made his skin crawl.

At least, he claims that he did. It is possible that he was in a bad mood, or that he got into an argument with the barber, or that he just didn't like his haircut.

At any rate, he knew that he had legal recourse. He immediately contacted our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, and told them that his Turkish barber had blasphemed Mohammed (PBUH.)

The Muttawa sprang into action. They immediately went to the barber shop and arrested the suspect, named Ersin Taze.

By an amazing coincidence, some 15 months ago another Turkish barber, Sabri Bogday, was arrested in Saudi Arabia by our same heroes for exactly the same offense.

In this case, the Turkish Embassy intervened and asked the Saudi justice system to expedite the trial, and the case against Mr. Taze was dismissed for lack of evidence.

Mr. Bogday, on the other hand, remains in jail, convicted and sentenced to death, as his appeals have not all been filed yet. Bogday got into an argument with his neighbor, an Egyptian tailor, and he was arrested after the tailor told the police that he had sworn at God. While Bogday has been in prison for over a year, the Egyptian who made the allegation has disappeared.

Mr. Taze is using his newfound freedom to get out of Saudi Arabia.

Our heroes at the Muttawa have therefore managed to get one blasphemous creature off the streets and another one out of the Kingdom.

A job well done, boys!

Saudi Vice, episode 6 (double episode) - Protecting Saudi Women

Two Saudi women were walking down the street in Alkhobar. Shockingly, they dared to do this act while wearing (Allah forbid) - makeup.

Luckily, our heroes from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice were on the scene to be able to kindly explain to them the error of their ways.

But these women, who had already proven that they didn't understand their proper role in the world, turned violent. They called the helpful Muttawa "terrorists," and one sprayed them with pepper spray while the other taped the incident on her cell phone.

As a Muttawa spokesperson, um, spokesman explained it: "Two members of the commission were attacked, cursed and sworn at by two women, who were blatantly dolled up."

The Commission sprang into action, and together with Saudi's Best security personnel they were able to subdue the women, who saw the error of their ways and apologized for their improper behavior.

Meanwhile, in Jeddah, many restaurants set up outdoor tables for their customers to eat their Iftar meals during the hot Ramadan nights. The Commission noticed that not only were men sitting at these tables, but their wives and daughters were as well!

Not only that, but some of the women also were "dolled up," wearing the Shaytan's (Satan's) makeup!

The Muttawa didn't hesitate. They immediately banned families from eating together to avoid the horrible crime of women eating in public with their husbands. Wives and daughters were forced to stand next to tables where the head of the household sat in all his splendor.

While the restaurant owners expressed some concern over losing business, they are nothing but infidels who do not realize the importance of maintaining high standards of modesty and decorum. How else can you properly defend women from male advances without forcing them to stay completely away from men?

Once again, the Kingdom is safer because of the courageous actions of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

Saudi Vice, episode 5: What's ummah, Doc?

Dr. Mamdooh Fahmy was a surgeon at the Albyaan Menfhoh Medical Center in Riyadh. His colleagues noticed that he didn't seem to practice Islam and they started trying to convince him to become Muslim and practice a religion that despises coercion.

After some time of enduring their repeated invitations to become Muslim, Fahmy finally told them that he was a Coptic Christian, and he would not be changing his beliefs any time soon.

Soon thereafter, Dr. Fahmy received a friendly visit from our heroes, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. They insulted him in front of patients and staff, confiscated his car keys, cell phone and wallet, handcuffed him and shackled his feet, and dragged him to a car where they nicely drove him to his house. They then raided his house and confiscated all his written materials, took him to the police station and placed him in solitary confinement.

After five days of this Muslim hospitality, they started interrogating him and referring to him as an 'infidel'.

His crime: Fahmy was accused of missionary activity. It seems that not allowing oneself to be pressured into becoming a Muslim is equivalent to asking people to become Christian, in Saudi Muslim thought.

When the Muttawa finally released him and he tried to get back to his home in Egypt, the Saudi government refused to give him a visa.

Finally, after months calls and letters, Saudi Arabia allowed him to go to Egypt this week.

Once again, the Commission has shown its hatred for vice and its promotion of virtue. Saudis can sleep soundly at night knowing that such zealous defenders of their lifestyle are on constant watch, ready to pounce at even the slightest whiff of infidelism.

Last episode here.

Saudi Vice, episode 4: The car washer.

In the holy city of Medina, a Bangladeshi man decided to wash his car.

Luckily, our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice noticed him and arrested him.

As you may have surmised by now, he was washing the car during prayer times.

Unfortunately, after his arrest there was a horrible accident, he "fainted" and died while in custody of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

The head of the Muttawa said that three Commission officers were questioned and found completely without guilt in the man's death.

Once again, our heroic Vice Squad has been proven to be an effective force in stopping immorality and vice, and promoting virtue, all throughout the Kingdom!

The last episode can be found here.

This week's episode of Saudi Vice

In this week's episode of Saudi Vice....

Ibrahim Mohammed Lawal is a Nigerian student living in Saudi Arabia. He recently converted to Islam and he was enthusiastic about his new religion. He would spend time looking for ways to share his beliefs with others and to do good deeds.

He had a sickly 63-year old neighbor who needed help. Ibrahim tirelessly brought her to hospital after hospital, only to see her being rejected by all of them for treatment. He finally appealed to Sheikh Fawaz, director of Badiya Islamic Center, who took pity on the woman and admitted her.

This horrific behavior could not be condoned, and it was a stain on all believing Muslims and Saudis.

Thank Allah, the heroic Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice swooped in and arrested him, as he visited the apartment of the sick woman and checked up on her status with three other relatives who live there. They placed him and the three other women in jail, thus ensuring that such a horrendous crime would be publicized and never repeated.

It causes one to shudder to contemplate the very idea of a young man, actually secluded alone multiple times with a sick 63-year old woman!

Saudi Vice, episode 28: Helping kids can be a crime

In the magic kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one can never be too careful in avoiding sin. Even acts that might look like they are laudatory may in fact just be fronts for perverted actions, and it is better to stay on the safe side rather than risk doing something awful...like Khilwa.

Khilwa, of course, is the illegal seclusion of a man and a woman, and something that our heroes, the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, is highly attuned to. Even the faintest odor of khilwa can cause the religious police to swoop down and take charge - in the name of protecting the innocent girl, of course.

From the Saudi Gazette:

The former neighbor of two homeless girls and their brother who he took into his home while attempting to find them suitable care through official channels has described his dismay at facing a month in prison after the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai’a) charged him with khilwa, or illegal seclusion with non-related members of the opposite sex.

“It is ironic that I now face a month in prison after the Hai’a arrested me for being in illicit seclusion with the girls,” said the former neighbor of the 13 and 14-year-old girls and their nine-year-old brother. “The case is still being looked into by a court in Makkah.”

The children had been living on the street after being abandoned by the uncle in whose custody they had been placed following their father’s imprisonment and their mother’s remarriage, until their former neighbor saw their plight and took them into his home with his own family while the Ministry of Social Affairs resolved the issue.

He has now spent nearly a year trying to resolve the situation through the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Committee for the Care of Prisoners, and Makkah’s Social Protection Home.

An official from Makkah Social Affairs, which has taken up the case, said the children had been subjected to violence by their uncle, and that an application for urgent shelter had been submitted to the Ministry of Social Affairs.

Indeed, from the Commission's perspective, it is far safer for two teenage girls to live on the street than to be taken into the house of a caring neighbor. Because that neighbor could be a pervert.

You might ask, who has such a twisted mind as to even consider that the girls could be molested by their neighbor? The answer, again, lies with our heroes, who only have the best interests of the girls at heart. If they can imagine it with their clean Koranic minds, it must be true.

Saudi Vice, episode 19: Sacrilegious sister

The lives of the prestigious members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice are not easy. All day they have to be on the alert, patrolling the streets of Saudi Arabia with an eagle eyes, tuned in the slightest hint of impropriety among the thankful Saudi populace.

But sometimes, the whiff of vice hits too close to home, and the results can be tragic.

In this case, one of our heroes, an upstanding member of the Muttawa, found out a terrible secret that his sister had been keeping from him:

She had converted to Christianity.

The woman, named Fatma Al-Matairi, confided in her brother about her terrible secret, secure in the knowledge that he would be understanding and supportive.

Little did the 26-year old know that her brother, as a member of the Commission, has a much higher moral code than just brotherhood and support. Converting to Christianity is blasphemy, and is punishable by death.

So he killed her.

Now, Saudi Arabia has one less blasphemer, and our hero can sleep well knowing he did the right thing.

UPDATE: It appears that it was her father that was a member of the Muttawa, and he cut out her tongue before burning her to death.

This week's episode of Saudi Vice

In this week's episode of Saudi Vice...

Muslims like to point out that in Mecca, it doesn't matter what race you belong to or what country you are from; there is a beautiful feeling of unity with all other Muslims worldwide for the pilgrims who travel there from near and far. As Ummah.net describes it:

Although Makkah is always filled with visitors, pilgrims wear special clothes: simple garments which strip away distinctions of class and culture, so that all stand equal before God.
Peace is the dominant theme. Peace with Allah, with one's soul, with one another, with all living creatures. To disturb the peace of anyone or any creature in any shape or form is strictly prohibited.
Muslims from all walks of life, from every corner of the globe assemble in in response to the call of Allah. There is no royalty, but there is loyalty of all to Allah, the Creator....It is also to remember the great assembly of the Day of Judgement when people will stand equal before Allah.

A group of eight pilgrims from the US and Britain of Iraqi descent visited Mecca last week with the intention of participating in this holy rite where all are equal before Allah.

But they were Shi'ite.

When they tried to perform a Shi'a - flavored version of the holy ritual while circling the holy Kaaba stone, they were arrested by our heroes, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

As was described by an infidel newspaper:

“While in police custody we were handcuffed and savagely beaten with chairs, bats, sticks, shoes and police radio communication devices,” 24-year-old pilgrim Amir Taki said.

He said they were refused food, water, medicine and access to toilets. One was told they would be “killed and thrown to the dogs”.

The group, aged between 16 and 26, said they were not allowed to contact their embassies or relatives.

However, using a cell phone hidden by one of the pilgrims, they were able to contact family members and were released after intervention from the embassies.

The Shi'ite infidels may have won this round, but the Commission (known as the Muttawa) will be ever vigilant to make sure that the sanctity and holiness of Mecca is unsullied by the infidels again.

Last week's episode is here.

Saudi Vice, episode 21: Marriage is no defense

Our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice know well how devious sinners can be. Some unmarried couples who may want to spend time together alone - which is the grievous sin of khulwa - will pretend to be married in order to keep the virtuous vice police off their backs.

So it is simple Muttawa logic that any man and woman who are alone must be unmarried!

This is why the Commission dispatched one of their ubiquitous white SUVs to Al-Jurf, west of Medina, to chase a couple in a car who were acting suspiciously - by being alone with each other at 1 AM.

As the Arab News reports:

“As we were driving home, my husband and I realized we were being followed by three men in a car,” said the woman, who did not want her name published. “They were coming from both sides of the car and (at one point in the chase) were also in front of our car. I was afraid of having an accident. The whole scene looked just like something in a movie.”
She also said that because no police officer was accompanying the three members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, her husband was afraid to stop. Eventually, the commission vehicle got in front of the car they were pursuing and forced the couple to stop, according to the woman.
Abdullah Al-Zahrani, the head of the Madinah branch of the commission, confirmed to Arab News yesterday that the commission was tailing the couple, but he maintains that the three commission members did not abuse the suspects. He also claims that the two are not married.
“The woman is neither his wife nor his cousin,” said Al-Zahrani.
According to the woman, she and her husband had been visiting her husband’s family and decided to return home late at night.
After the two were pulled over, said the woman, “one of them pulled my arm and was shouting at me, telling me to get into their car. I was shocked. How could a man from the commission touch a woman when he is not her mahram (a woman’s legal male escort or guardian)? He ordered me to get into the commission car and said they would keep everything secret in order to protect my reputation.”
The commission considers unrelated men and women in cars to be committing the moral crime of khulwa.
The woman said that her husband objected to her treatment, and asked the men to take him in custody instead. At that point, the woman said an older man who happened to be passing by intervened and protested against the commission members touching a woman, “but the commission member told him that I had forced him to do so.”
The woman says that two of the commission members got into her husband’s car with her and accused her of being an immoral woman for being out late at night with an unrelated man. The members of the commission also said that the woman had committed a crime and that she therefore deserved to be punished.
“This is the first time I have seen anything like this,” she said. “The members refused to come to the police during the investigation and said that I had insulted them. I did no such thing; I simply told them over and over: ‘I swear to God that I am this man’s wife.’”
The woman said that after hearing what had happened, her brothers went to the commission branch in Al-Jurf, furious and telling the commission members to stay away from their sister.
She said a commission member then hit one of her brothers and broke his nose.
“My brother became unconscious and an ambulance came and took him to the hospital,” she said.

Stupid unmarried woman! Doesn't she realize that the Commission is allowed to break Islamic law in order to uphold Islamic law?

It would be outrageous to think that Muttawa members go into that profession because they are a bunch of perverts who want to project their own desires and actions on others. Injuring, lying, khulwa, touching women - all are perfectly allowed for Commission members in their zeal to stop others from khulwa and touching women.

Our heroes have prevented another moral crime, and Saudi Arabia is a better place today because of their love of Sharia.

Saudi Vice, episode 15: The Evil Western Press

Our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice have been getting a lot of bad press recently, and it is time to put a stop to it:

Western media is deliberately trying to malign the commission for unknown reasons, said the national head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in a wide ranging interview with Arab News.

“Or else, why should a respectable institution be denigrated because a few of its officials committed some judgmental errors?” said Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, the commission president.
...
The commission chief also wondered why some sections of the media, particularly in the West, are hostile to the commission, which only aims to persuade people to adhere to their religion and prevent them from morally lapsing.

“Some people are quick to criticize the commission by betraying their ignorance about this noble institution. They are oblivious to the commission’s achievements. They purposefully highlight a few individual mistakes to portray the commission as an evil entity,” Al-Ghaith said.

He added that he disapproves of the term “religious police,” which is commonly used by the Western press to describe the commission. “The official name of the organization is the General Presidency of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,” Al-Ghaith said.

“The commission is keen to see that its officials are pious, knowledgeable, wise, moderate and gentle in all situations and, above all, never rude or violent,” he said.

“The commission has been offering special training to its field workers at all of its branch offices,” he said, adding that workers are asked to be gentle and told to improve their communication skills.

He also said that psychologists, sociologists, religious scholars, legal experts, educationists, professors and high-ranking officials deliver the training. “More than 80 percent of the commission’s field workers have attended various training programs."

We mentioned these training sessions in Episode 10, The Sting.

“Only five percent of cases we’ve dealt with were passed on to the police or the courts. The commission members are fully aware that publicity would only worsen the situation and leave ineffaceable social or psychological injuries to the youths involved. The members pass the suspects to legal authorities if only they are repeating the violation or do not listen to advice,” he added.

There are situations, which we cannot condone, he added. For example, if a man and woman are caught in a situation that is clearly spelled out in the Holy Qur’an or Sunnah to be wrong, then the commission has no choice but to hand those involved to the police, he said.

Do you see what a raw deal the Commission gets in the media?

Looking back at previous episodes, one can see that every single one was just a simple misunderstanding.

Saudi Vice, episode 30: That old black magic

From the Saudi Gazette:

After a two-year trial, a Madina court sentenced a Lebanese man, 47, to death Monday for practicing black magic.

The court held 10 hearing sessions to review the list of charges presented by the general prosecutor including using black magic, fraud, and breaking up marriages, which the man admitted.

The man, who had appeared on satellite channels practicing black magic, was caught red-handed in a hotel room in the Central Area in Madina two years ago with herbs, talismans, and some papers with strange drawings and writings.

The man has the right to appeal the sentence within 33 days. The Court of Cassations will review the sentence for approval.

I couldn't find anything in amnesty International about this specific type of sentence in Saudi Arabia, although it does mention

Saudi Arabian judges have wide discretion and can hand down death sentences for vaguely-worded and non-violent offences. Some migrant workers are reported to have even been unaware that they had been sentenced to death until the very morning of their execution.

See how efficient the Muttawa is? Too bad their Facebook page isn't more popular. Could be because they censor anyone who insults them (the heckler I mentioned this morning has disappeared from their Facebook wall.)

Lance Burton, stay out of the Middle East!

05/22 Links Pt2: Pierre Rehov: The U.S., Churchill and the Middle East; It’s Time To Pass The Taylor Force Act

From Ian:

Pierre Rehov: The U.S., Churchill and the Middle East

In addition, a new strand of American foreign policy is now opening up. Recently, Israel celebrated the 69th anniversary of its independence, and this week Israel will mark 50 years since the reunification of Jerusalem, liberated in 1967 from its illegal capture by Jordan in 1948, followed by Jordan's ethnic cleaning of Jews and the illegal confiscation of their property. The White House announced the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, provided that it ceases to finance and incite terrorism by making its child-killers national heroes and wage-earners funded by the West
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will no longer be able to continue to pretend to prepare his people for peace while at the same time calling for murder. About 10% of the Palestinian budget is spent on the salaries of terrorists imprisoned in Israel, and the prisoners' families.
Abbas evidently omitted this "detail" in his statements to the press during his recent visit to the White House.
Trump has apparently decided that on his visit to Israel this week, he will not announce the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem -- a move that will only make him look less strong to Arab leaders. They may not like all promises that are kept, but they do deeply respect and trust those who keep them. If promises are not kept to a friend, the thinking goes, why would they be kept to us? They will therefore be less happy with any promises to counter Shiite threats -- considerably more important to them than the location of an embassy. As Plato, Churchill and even Osama bin Laden understood, people respect only a strong horse, especially when one's adversaries can only survive by creating conflicts to distract their citizens from unaccountable governance. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu observed:
"Israel has clearly stated its position to the US and to the world multiple times. Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem won't harm the peace process. The opposite is true. It will correct a historic injustice by advancing the [peace process] and shattering a Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem isn't Israel's capital."
By recognizing the rights of Jerusalem's historical occupants of 3,000 years -- despite the lies of UNESCO and other UN organizations engulfed by the Arabs' automatic majority -- Trump could well demonstrate a new force that would elevate him to the same stature as Churchill, who said he regarded Islamism as the "greatest retrograde force of all time." No wonder Obama did not want his bust.

Michael Lumish: UC Berkeley Pits Liberalism Against ‘Islamophobia’

When one asks if terrorism and Islamic supremacism inspire Western anti-Muslim bigotry, the response is to accuse the questioner of “Islamophobia.” The problem, we are to believe, is not terrorism or the spread of Islamic supremacism into Europe. On the contrary, according to the general attitude of the conference, these are merely the natural responses of a people oppressed under the weight of voracious white, Western, racist, colonialist, imperialist aggression.
In other words, the real problem is not Osama Bin Laden, but George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
What is perhaps most disconcerting about the conference was the tendency to embrace anti-Semitic anti-Zionism while claiming to oppose ethnic prejudice. A perfect example of this was the use of anti-Semitic cartoonist Carlos Latuff to promote the event. Latuff specializes in demonizing Israeli Jews as violently inhumane creatures in much the same way the Nazis did with European Jews in the early to mid-twentieth-century. This is akin to promoting racist caricatures of African-Americans while professing to fight racism. It is inconceivable that Bazian and other conference organizers would use Latuff’s vile work unknowingly. Their actions reveal their intent to legitimize anti-Semitism by using it at a UC Berkeley event ostensibly dedicated to fighting racism.
Ultimately, UC Berkeley’s “Islamophobia” conference contradicted itself in at least two ways. Foremost was the morally reprehensible act of espousing anti-Semitism in order to combat anti-Muslim bigotry. The other was its insistence that the larger Muslim world, comprised of 1.6 billion people, about one-quarter of the world’s population, are fundamentally victims of aggressive Europeans imperial excess. Centuries of Muslim empire-building aside, playing the victim card simply allows Bazian and his colleagues to continue their aggressions against the West under the guise of moral purity.

Ben-Dror Yemini: An American president in the service of BDS

As times goes by, the chance increases that Israel will eventually miss former US President Barack Obama, despite his conduct on the Iranian nuclear issue. While he made quite a few mistakes, he was a friend. He strengthened the Israeli-American security cooperation and approved multi-year aid which no other president before him had approved.
When he visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority in March 2013, he presented a political vision which most Israelis would embrace. In Ramallah, in front of the Palestinian political echelon, he said: “We seek an independent, a viable and contiguous Palestinian state as the homeland of the Palestinian people, alongside the Jewish state of Israel.” Who needs the “nationality law” when we have Obama?
Two draft agreements were presented as part of former Secretary of State John Kerry’s shuttle diplomacy. The first, which was presented in January 2014, received quite a lot of support from Israel’s decision makers. Then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman gave his full backing to Tzipi Livni, who led the negotiations, and even stated: “Kerry’s proposals are the best Israel could hope for.” It wasn’t much different from the Clinton Parameters.
Peter Beinart, the guru of the Jewish Left in the United States, wrote at the time that “Kerry’s peace mission should worry liberal Zionists,” as it was not generous enough towards the Palestinians. That was foolish. Three days after the article was published, on March 17, 2014, Obama presented a peace plan to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It had everything in it, including Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital. It didn’t do any good. Abbas said no.
And US President Donald Trump? His understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is likely no different from his understanding of other international issues, which isn’t much. His diplomatic vision is: “Do whatever you like, one state, two states.” Never before has an American president given equal importance to a solution presented by the BDS movement, which is in fact the solution of Israel’s radical right as well—one state.

Saudi Vice, episode 31: Khulwa in an ambulance!

A car accident. A woman injured. Medics must transport her in an ambulance to a more modern facility to properly treat her. Then, they return back to their home hospital, knowing that they have done a good job in helping a human being become whole again.

But before the medics can resume their jobs, the ambulance is stopped by a higher authority.

Our Saudi heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice notice the ambulance, and when they see red, it is not from the flashing lights.

They see nurses sitting in the front seat.

Female nurses!

As everyone knows, this is an illegal mixing of the sexes, known as "khulwa."

Our heroes chased the ambulance and overtook it, forcing the driver and passengers to exit while they could interrogate them.

For an hour and a half.

After explaining the heinousness of their crime, the Muttawa/Hai'a allowed the medical workers to go on their way. Of course, the women were forced to sit in the rear.

The perpetrators were lucky, though. Firas Press reports that our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice uncovered another case of khulwa recently - a party where there were 11 men and 4 women together in the same room.

A Saudi court sentenced the party-goers, aged in their 20s and 30s, to 1-2 years of prison time and up to 80 lashes.

Saudi Vice, episode 14: Death is preferable to immorality

Yesterday, Saudi Arabia was host to another exciting, high speed car chase, courtesy of our heroes, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, otherwise known as the Muttawa.

Apparently two young couples had the audacity to travel in a car. It is unclear why exactly this is "haram" under shari'a law, but Allah knows best, and so do the Muttawa.

So our heroes, naturally, went in full pursuit with their signature white Toyota SUV:

Eyewitnesses said that they saw a commission SUV with two agents and a security officer inside following a white Ford until it crashed into a small farm with the four people inside. As the Ford was still absorbing the force of impact, the Commission’s agents fled the scene, they added.

An eyewitness said after the car had crashed into the farm, he waved at the Commission’s agents to stop but they ignored him, prompting him to report the incident and the license plate number of the SUV to the police. Another eyewitness confirmed that he saw the commission SUV at the scene of the crash as it happened.

A police source said that the eyewitnesses reported seeing the white Toyota SUV at the scene right after the crash and provided its license plate number.

Chief of Madina Traffic Department Col. Siraj Kamal said that early information and eyewitnesses’ accounts suggest that the commission SUV was in hot pursuit of the victims’ car. If the information and reports are confirmed, the case will be referred to authorities concerned, he said.

Firefighters extracted three bodies from the wreckage of the vehicle, said Madina Civil Defense spokesman Col. Mansour Al-Juhani.

The driver, 30, died of internal bleeding one hour later in hospital, said director of King Fahd Hospital in Madina Mutwakil Hajaj.

The four were not identified.

To be fair, the Muttawa deny any involvement despite the eyewitnesses. They also denied any involvement last month when eyewitnesses saw them chase another couple to their deaths.

Our heroes' body count has really been piling up in the past year, as the Saudi Gazette helpfully enumerates:

The Commission’s agents have been recently accused of involvement in many death cases.

Last week, a 29-year-old man jumped from the third-floor window of an apartment to his death while allegedly trying to avoid arrest by the Commission in Adama District, Dammam.

Earlier in March, a young man and a woman allegedly fleeing from agents of the Commission were killed when their speeding car smashed head-on into a truck on the Madina-Tabuk Road. Investigations in the above two cases are still under way.

In May 2007, the Commission’s agents in Riyadh were involved in a murder case during a forced entry into a house and the beating to death of Salman Al-Huraisi, a citizen, who allegedly possessed and sold alcohol. In June 2007, in Tabuk, the Commission’s agents spotted a 50-year-old family driver, Ahmed Al-Bulawi, driving with a woman in his car. They stopped the car, arrested the two and took the man to one of the Commission’s interrogation centers, where he died. The court ruled that the Commission’s agents were innocent in both death cases filed against it.

So the Muttawa death count is now at 9 in the past 10 months. Not bad, because, to the Commission, extremism in the defense of Sharia is no vice.

Saudi Vice, episode 11: Khulwa can be fatal

A young man and woman in Saudi Arabia decided to do the ultimate act of evil: to take a drive together in the man's Toyota Camry.

Of course, a man and woman being alone together - even in a car - is known as "khulwa" as can be punished with many lashes and a prison sentence.

Our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice got tipped off about this flagrant violation of human decency and started to go after the criminals.

The suspects, knowing that the SUV coming after them had the distinctive style of our Muttawa heroes, decided to try to avoid being detained.

Saudi law states that the Muttawa should never engage in a car chase, but should call police to arrest the criminals. Our heroes, though, knew that the police were not as efficient nor as single-minded about stamping out serious crimes like these as the members of the Commission, and it is an insult to think that the Muttawa cannot chase cars as well as any police officer.

On the Madina-Tabuk Road, in the Tabuk area, the chase ended when the Camry rammed head-on into a truck and burst into flames.

The man’s body was totally charred. The woman’s body was ripped into two by the force of the impact. They were too disfigured for immediate identification.

But most importantly, our heroes managed to stop a flagrant act of khulwa, and, especially, any unspeakable acts that might have followed.

Another fine day for our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice!

12/18 Links Pt2: Celebrating Israel; Anti-Semites Unwittingly Aid Israel; UN recognizes Yom Kippur

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Celebrating Israel

There is no shortage of negative news about Israel; Every once in a while we Israelis should remember there is much for which to be proud.
In large part due to slanted media reports, propaganda and downright lies, impressions of Israel worldwide tend to be negative – particularly among those who have never visited the country.
But according to the UN Human Development Index released this week, things in the Jewish state are not so bad. In fact, they are pretty good.
The index, which takes into consideration income, life expectancy and education for a combined development score, ranks Israel 18 out of 188 countries in human development. Not only did Israel’s score surpass by far all of its neighbors (Qatar is the highest ranked Arab state at No. 32; Saudi Arabia, 36; Lebanon 67; Jordan 80; Egypt, 108; and war-torn Syria at 134), but it outscored the EU and OECD averages as well. Countries such as France, Spain, Italy and even Japan scored lower than Israel. Sub-Saharan Africa scored the lowest.
A number of factors come together to give Israel one of the highest scores in the world. For instance, Israel has the second lowest rate of maternal mortality in the world with just two deaths for every 100,000 births. And at 2.9 births per woman, the Jewish state manages to maintain such a low mortality rate while having the highest fertility rate of any country in the “Very High Human Development” category (those countries ranked in the top 49). For the sake of comparison, the US has 28 maternal deaths per 100,000 births at a two-birthsper- woman average.

Anti-Semites Unwittingly Aid Israel

I admit to getting a kick out of seeing anti-Semites inadvertently help the very Jewish state they dream of destroying. And it happens more often than you might think, as was driven home by three very different news reports this week.
The first is that some 8,000 French Jews moved to Israel this year, topping last year’s all-time high of 7,000. Immigration is always good for Israel. Not only does each group of immigrants bring its own ideas and strengths that contribute to making Israel a better place, but the country simply needs a critical mass of people to survive as a Jewish state in an Arab region. Indeed, had it not been for the millions of Jews who immigrated since 1948, Israel might not have survived.
Most immigrants to Israel are Zionists; they genuinely care about the Jewish state. But even so, most of them wouldn’t have left comfortable lives elsewhere had there not been a push factor as well as a pull factor; that’s why most American Zionists still don’t come. And usually, anti-Semitism has been part of that push factor, just as it is for French Jews today.
So thank you, anti-Semites, for turning a country of 800,000 people into one eight million strong. It would never have happened without your help.

Book explodes myth of Moroccan coexistence

It is a sorry sign of how intolerant of minorities were the theologians of the al-Maliki school of Islam in the Maghreb until the colonial era, that the first thing they published when the printing press came to Morocco in the 19th century, was not a scientific tract, or even the Koran, but the Epistle against the Jews which al-Maghili wrote to the chieftains of Touat five centuries earlier.
Maghreb theologians preserved a strict interpretation of the dhimmi laws which governed the relationship of Jews and Muslims under the 8th century Pact of Omar. The prophet Muhammad had spared the lives of the defeated Jews and Christians as 'People of the Book', rather than put them to the sword, but they had to abide by rules denoting their subjugation and inferiority to Muslims.
Following codification in the 13th century by the literalist theologian Ibn Taymiyya, 'Dhimmi' acquired a precise meaning in Islamic jurisprudence: non-Muslims would be 'protected' by Muslims in return for a capitation or poll tax. This begs the question - protected against whom?
Violent mobs singled out the Jewish 'Other' for attack and looting. Jews would 'cop it' at times of political turmoil or trouble.
Jews could not build new synagogues or repair them without permission; they had to allow Muslims to enter them at will. Jewish homes had sometimes to be painted red or blue, even after Jews had been permitted in modern times to move out of the Jewish mellah into the medina.
Jews were forbidden from teaching their children the Koran. This was to prevent Jews engaging in theological polemics with Muslims.
Jews had to wear special badges and black attire. A Jew's djellaba was worn awkwardly 'off the shoulder' for maximum discomfort. Jews were not permitted to blow the ram's horn (shofar) in a public place. The Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem would use this pretext to incite anti-Jewish riots in 1929.