Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Islamophobia

Showing posts with label Islamophobia. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

The UN just said that burning the Quran is against international law

In 2019, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 73/328, "Promoting interreligious and intercultural dialogue and tolerance in countering hate speech." It included this paragraph:

Strongly deploring all acts of violence against persons on the basis of their religion or belief, as well as any such acts directed against their homes, businesses, properties, schools, cultural centres or places of worship, as well as all attacks on and in religious places, sites and shrines that are in violation of international law,

A resolution voted on yesterday thas an identical title. But it has a paragraph that says this:

Strongly deploring all acts of violence against persons on the basis of their religion or belief, as well as any such acts directed against their religious symbols, holy books, homes, businesses, properties, schools, cultural centres or places of worship, as well as all attacks on and in religious places, sites and shrines in violation of international law,

It adds "religious symbols" and "holy books" to what cannot be attacked, and it changes "that are in violation of international law" to "in violation of international law."

In other words, Pakistan just managed to pass a UNGA resolution that states that burning Qurans is against international law.

There was, by all accounts, a major debate. Spain tried to take out the words "in violation of international law" from the text, but its attempt was voted down, 62-44 with 24 abstentions.

And then the entire resolution was adopted by consensus.

While burning the Quran is something to be condemned, it is not against international law, and this is on the slippery slope of adopting Islamic concepts of blasphemy as something the entire world must adopt.

The text is in the preamble, and UNGA resolution itself, has no legal effect, but this is still significant - people use the text of UN resolutions as evidence of what international law is.

Two weeks ago, the UN Human Rights Council passed its own resolution that "Calls upon States to adopt national laws, policies and law enforcement frameworks that address, prevent and prosecute acts and advocacy of religious hatred that constitute incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, and to take immediate steps to ensure accountability."

As one critic notes, "One only has to look at some of the 28 states that voted in favor of the (HRC) resolution to realize that the real purpose is not to counter hate speech or foster equality and tolerance, but to provide authoritarian governments cover and legitimacy when suppressing dissent."

There is a thin line between hate speech that could lead to violence - which is incitement - and legitimate criticism. Muslim-majority states are trying to blur that line to force the West to adopt their own bans on blasphemy as international law.

As we saw in the UN yesterday, the West caved. But free speech is not something to give up on.

I don't have the text of the UNGA resolution, but the UNHRC resolution has at least two other problematic elements.

One is that, as we've seen, any statements against antisemitism are always paired with condemnations of Islamophobia. But the UNHRC resolution, supposedly against religious hatred, mentioned Islamophobia - and not a word about antisemitism. Which makes it pretty obvious that people are not serious about combating antisemitism.

The other is that the UNHRC resolution refers to the Quran consistently as "the Holy Qur’an." The word "Holy" should not be there - the Quran is only holy to Muslims. The insistence of that language indicates again that these resolutions are not meant to fight religious hatred as much as they are to elevate Islam as a belief over others.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Palestinian propaganda for the win

On Sunday, the official spokesman for the Palestinian president, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, claimed "the extremist Israeli government" is "fully responsible for the dangerous escalation against the Palestinian people, their land and sanctities."

He gave two examples.

One was "the burning of the house of citizen Ahmed Maher from the town of Sinjel in Ramallah by extremist settlers," and the other was "the Israeli occupation forces stormed the Al-Qibli prayer hall in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and assaulted those who were in i'tikaaf (staying in the mosque all day and night, usually done in the last days of Ramadan.)

Both of them are lies.

The house fire was almost certainly the result of a short circuit. There is literally zero evidence of any arson. No gas-soaked rags, no petrol bottles, no broken glass from Molotov cocktails, not a single burnt match. The only "proof" given was that one resident of Sinjil claims that he saw some settlers in a car nearby at roughly the same time - not even at the home.

The baseless, evidence-free accusation was enough for Arab media to repeat the lie as truth and for a government recognized by most of the world to make this baseless claim publicly.

The other incident has a grain of truth - Israeli forces did remove, without violence or incident, a number of Muslims who were staying in the Al Aqsa Mosque over night Saturday night. But what the anti-Israel media isn't reporting is that the people were breaking a long-negotiated deal between Israel and the Waqf:

According to police, the stay of Palestinians overnight in the mosque went against agreements made with the Waqf, adding that mosques outside the Temple Mount had been prepared for those wanting to stay overnight. Police attempted to get those barricaded inside to leave on their own accord, but most refused to leave.

Police stated that they removed the Palestinians as some of them were planning to conduct riots on Sunday morning during the dawn (Fajr) prayers and during visits by Jewish visitors.

Arabic language media confirms that Palestinian religious leaders called publicly for all Palestinians to perform i'tikaaf at Al Aqsa, specifically to confront and stop Jews from visiting the Temple Mount through the entire month of Ramadan.

Since 1967, there has only been one time that Palestinians attempted to spend the entire Ramadan in Al Aqsa - that was in 2015, and then the reason again had nothing to do with religious devotion but to attempt to stop Jews from ascending to Judaism's holiest site.

This attempt to have i'tikaaf for all of Ramadan is a violation of the status quo, which Jordan and the Palestinians pledged to keep during Ramadan this year in the joint communique issued at the Sharm el-Sheikh conference.

We also know there was a deal between Israel and the Waqf not to allow the i'tikaaf in Al Aqsa because there was no objection by the Jordanian government, which controls the Waqf, when Israeli forces removed the worshippers. Normally, the Jordanians are in the forefront of accusing Israel of violating Al Aqsa's sanctity, but here the police walked inside the mosque itself and removed people without a word from Jordan.

Even though Jordan knows about the deal to not allow i'tikaaf, it didn't say this publicly. Jordan wants to be known as the defender of Al Aqsa and admitting that they made this deal to tamp down violence would make them look weak to Palestinian and Jordanian Islamists. What this means, in effect, is that the most violent and extremist Muslims set the agenda and the Palestinian and Jordanian "moderates" follow the lead of the crazies to stay in power.

Here is yet more evidence that the Palestinian Authority, including Mahmoud Abbas' own office, regularly lies in their own press releases and statements, multiple times in a single day.

The Palestinian leaders have no disincentive to lie, because the world media doesn't call them on it. At best, the media might do a "he said, she said" version of events, and not bother to spend the slightest amount of time refuting the lying side.

These lies turn into incitement, the incitement turns into violence, and the violence turns into deaths. If the media would do its job, the Palestinians would be shamed to stop their lies and lives would be saved.

However, deep down, the reporters think that showing that the Palestinians are lying would be somehow "Islamophobic" or a demeaning of their culture. And they are complicit in the resulting violence.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Today's cartoons

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Book review: Can 'The Whole World' Be Wrong? by Richard Landes

Can “The Whole World” Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad, by Professor Richard Landes, is a hard but important book to read.

Landes does no less than directly taking on the orthodoxy of the liberal world that regards Israel as one of the worst human rights violators, that regards supporting the Palestinian cause as the archetype of progressive values, that regards the West as Islamophobic and institutionally racist. He challenges the reader - what if everything you have read is wrong, and I am right?

The first part of the book goes into some detail on four episodes from the early 2000s.

It is no surprise that one of those episodes is the Al Dura affair, which Landes is one of the world's experts in. It was indeed the first blood libel of the new millenium, where the media unquestioningly accepted and promoted the idea that Israeli forces murdered the child Al Dura on TV and in cold blood. The French reporter, Charles Enderlin, who spread the libel wasn't there and he trusted the reporting of a Palestinian cameraman. Hours of footage from the same scene showed it was essentially a soundstage, where Palestinians were play-acting injuries. Yet almost no Western reporters questioned the story, as the Arab media ran the footage non-stop for days.

Occuring only two days after Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in 2000, the incident inflamed the Palestinians and the Arab world. Indeed, it would not be inaccurate to call the second intifada the "al-Dura intifada," as it almost certainly was the spark that kept the brand new riots going.And it was all a lie - it is impossible that the IDF could have shot the child from their position.

The other incidents that Landes examines from the early part of the millenium are 9/11, the Jenin "massacre" that wasn't, and the Muslim world's reactions to the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Landes uses each of these incidents as springboards into examining the West's reactions, which often were, as he notes repeatedly, stupid. On page after page, Landes gives scores of examples of this stupidity: the reluctance by media to use the term "terrorism," the constant repetition that Islam is peace, the bending over backwards to find fault with Western and specifically Israeli actions and ascribing them the responsibility for Islamist violence.

It is easy to forget the early aughts of this century, but Landes reminds us that just as today we will see Western progressives justify Hamas rockets by asking "what choice do they have?," the reaction to the tsunami of suicide bombing attacks in Israel during the bloody years of 2000-2004 prompted the exact same justifications by the same crowd.

The other two major parts of the book examine the key players in pushing the bizarre mindset of Western self-blame and bending to the will of the Islamists (whom Landes terms "Caliphators") and the current outlook on the war between the West and apocalyptic Islam - and how the Islamists are winning the battle by disabling their enemy. On the way, Landes expertly analyzes the honor-shame culture and the zero-sum thinking of the Islamists as well as the stupid western tendency to project our own mindset onto them, even as they use our own strengths of self-criticism against us.

Throughout the book, Israel is the canary in the coal mine. By any objective standard, Israel is the most progressive and liberal state ever in an extended state of war. Its successful integration of a 20% Arab population as equals is far more successful than what we see in Paris or Malmo with a much smaller Muslim minority. Yet Israel is regarded, even by those other "enlightened" progressive European elites, as a "shitty little country" that has no right to exist.

As I said, it is a hard book to read. The amount of information is sometimes overwhelming - and often infuriating. Landes also often peppers the text with gems that demand to be re-read. Happily, he chooses to use footnotes instead of endnotes so one can dig deeper into his often offhand examples.

I have some nitpicks too. I didn't see that he has a glossary of terms, many of which he created, until I finished the book, so one often sees his coinages like "Y2KMind" or "Caliphator" a hundred pages before he defines them in the text. I'm not as convinced as Dr. Landes of the millennialist component of Islamist thinking.

The tone of the book is often more strident than objective, but it is hard to fault Dr. Landes for that, since the reader is apt to be upset along with the author. There is ample excuse to get angry while reading it. And while Landes gives some general advice on what the West needs to do in order to recognize and defeat the enemy of Islamism, I wish it was more actionable. (I have written and spoken about how I think the Arab honor/shame culture can be used to Western advantage.)

In general, though, this is an important book to read, and even those of us who are immersed in these topics will learn a great deal and see connections that we hadn't thought of before.

Disclosure: I am friends with Richard, and this site is mentioned at least three times in the book.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Survey: US Jews are not Islamophobic - but 26% of Muslims themselves are!

The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding has released its 2022 survey on Muslims in America.

The survey shows that Jews are the one faith group that is most tolerant towards Muslims.

Even more than Muslims themselves!

The Discrimination and Islamophobia section of the survey shows that in their Islamophobia Index, which averages to responses for several questions about Muslims, Jews were by far the most tolerant - and Muslims looked at themselves in a worse light than the average American does.

17% of Jews were considered Islamophobic according to this index, while 25% of the general public did - and 26% of Muslims themselves.

The findings on the specific questions that make up the definition of Islamophobia are even more interesting.

While only 9% of Jews say Muslims are prone to violence, 24% of Muslims say that - the highest faith group to believe that by far and nearly triple that of the general public.

For the question of "Do you agree that most Muslims living in the United States are hostile to the United States," again the highest score went to Muslims themselves - 19% - compared to only 4% for Jews.

Nearly identical results came from the question of whether respondents agree that US Muslims are less civilized than other Americans.

Another result of the survey is that white Muslims are far more Islamophobic than Muslims of color - and it is getting worse.

ISPU tries to spin these results, saying that the Muslims who are self-hating have been brainwashed by mainstream Islamophobic tropes.

Endorsing negative stereotypes about one’s own community is referred to as internalized oppression, or internalized bigotry or racism in the case of a racial group. ... Some studies on internalized racism have surprisingly found that endorsing negative stereotypes about one’s own group is associated with a higher locus of control. This suggests that internalized prejudice may actually be a defense mechanism against the trauma of bigotry at the hands of the dominant group by agreeing with those in power but believing one has the choice (locus of control) to not be like those tropes.

That would make sense if the mainstream was indeed bigoted - one could expect a small percentage of the minority group to be influenced by the majority. But as theses result show, the majority isn't Islamophobic compared to Muslims themselves, which makes that theory nonsensical.

One other point: if a Muslim organization has no problem noting that over a quarter of US Muslims are Islamophobic by their definition, why is it considered so awful for Jews to point out that some Jews are antisemitic?

(h/t Adam Albilya)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Antisemitic CAIR defines all pro-Israel Jews as "Islamophobic"

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which recently defended one of its officials who labeled virtually every organized synagogue in America "enemies," just issued a report on "Islamophobia in the mainstream."

The main point of the report is identifying "26 Islamophobia Network groups (that) spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about Muslims and Islam."

The members of this supposed "Islamophobia network" include Americans for Peace and Tolerance, CAMERA, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Gatestone Institute, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and The Lawfare Project.

The idea that this is an "Islamophobia Network" is insane.

But then they go into actual antisemitism. They identify some of the funders of these supposedly Islamophobic groups, and - surprise, surprise - they find Jews!

The Adelson Family Foundation, Arie and Ida Crown Memorial, Combined Jewish Philanthropies

of Greater Boston, Hochberg Family Foundation, Irving I Moskowitz Foundation, Jewish Communal

Fund, Jewish Community Federation of SF, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties, Jewish Community Foundation of the Jewish Fed. Council of Greater L.A., Kovner Foundation, Mirowski Family Foundation, Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg Family Foundation, and the The Jewish Community Foundation, plus others. All major Jewish charities or charities that give heavily to Jewish causes are..."Funders of Anti-Muslim Bigotry!"

Those irresponsible, bigoted Jews!

CAIR defines Islamophobia as "closed-minded prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims." So it should be simple for them to identify how, exactly, these organizations are Islamophobic, right?

Not one of the organizations I am familiar with fits their own definition of Islamophobic.

Here's how they describe CAMERA, the watchdog organization that points out anti-Israel bias in the news media: "This organization serves as a lobbying and media-monitoring group that spreads misinformation pertaining to Muslim Americans. Its overall mission is to undermine the credibility of Muslim American individuals and organizations. "

Good to know that CAIR knows CAMERA's mission better than CAMERA does!

They say the Foundation for Defense of Democracies is a "neoconservative lobbying group [that] encourages the Islamophobic “war on terror” narrative and policies." They say the phrase "war on terror" is Islamophobic. George W. Bush, who coined the term, must be an Islamophobe too.

Gatestone Institute is "an anti-Muslim hate group."

Investigative Project on Terrorism is a "hate group."

The Middle East Forum is "an anti-Muslim policy center that produces and perpetuates hate speech, propaganda, and misinformation."

The Lawfare Project is an "anti-Muslim hate group."

In none of these cases can they find evidence that supports their definition of Islamophobia. In a couple of cases they dig up old contextless quotes from members of these organizations that they claim are Islamophobic, but even those do not fit their own definition.

Their description of MEMRI is particularly absurd: "MEMRI is a pseudo-research organization that carefully selects and purposefully inaccurately translates news from Muslim-majority organizations to

provide justification for anti-Muslim propaganda. The organization’s translations have been widely criticized for inaccuracy and inflammatory representation. "

MEMRI's translations are accurate, full stop. I couldn't find a single criticism of the thousands of MEMRI translations that is less than ten years old. This academic paper criticizing MEMRI from a native Arabic speaker at a UAE university admits MEMRI's "accurate translations on a linguistic level."

The only thing these organizations have in common is that they do not support CAIR's antisemitism and its historic support for terror groups. That is CAIR's real definition of "Islamophobia."

The ADL - which somehow is not on CAIR's list - describes the organization and its founders:

Some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas. Hamas is designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the United States and is also viewed by the EU as a global terrorist organization.

In addition, some of CAIR’s leadership have used inflammatory anti-Zionist rhetoric that on a number of occasions has veered into antisemitic tropes related to Jewish influence over the media or political affairs.

Key CAIR leaders have frequently expressed vociferous opposition to Israel and Zionism, claiming at times that Zionism and Zionists are fundamentally racist. (See below: Key CAIR Staff on Israel and Zionism).

Antipathy towards Israel has been a CAIR staple since the group was founded in 1994 by several leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a now defunct organization that was once described by the U.S. government as part of “Hamas’ propaganda apparatus.” Nihad Awad, who was IAP’s Public Relations Director, became CAIR’s first Executive Director, a position he retains today. IAP was active in the U.S. from 1981 until about 2004, and categorically rejected a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, writing in a December 1989 communique: “The only way to liberate Palestine, all of Palestine, is the path of Jihad…Hamas is the conscience of the Palestinian Mujahid people.” In 1987, immediately following the establishment of Hamas, IAP began to print and distribute Hamas literature, including Hamas communiqués and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

In response to CAIR’s involvement with the Holy Land Foundation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation distanced itself from the organization. In the past, the FBI had interacted with CAIR representatives regarding community outreach activities, civil rights complaints and criminal investigations. However, in 2008, the FBI issued an instruction to its field offices that they should sharply curtail “non-investigative interactions” with CAIR.This instruction was elucidated in an April 2009 letter to the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, in which the FBI explained that it would cease to liaise with CAIR “until [they] resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas.” To our knowledge as of this writing, the FBI has not retracted this protocol.

CAIR has supported and advocated for Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted by an Israeli court in 1970 for her role in a 1969 bombing of a supermarket that killed two Israeli students, and who was later released as part of a prisoner exchange.

Israel-haters love to say that Zionists falsely accuse critics of Israel of antisemitism. As usual, this is projection. This report proves conclusively that CAIR falsely accuses critics of Islamic terrorist organizations of being "Islamophobic."

Palestinian leaders want to ban some Muslims from praying at Al Aqsa

When the UAE announced it would normalize relations with Israel:

The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, announced today that it is forbidden for Emiratis to pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to a fatwa he issued in 2012 against anyone who prints with and reconciles with Israel.

He told the German news agency (DPA) that he had issued a fatwa in 2012 “permitting visits to Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa within certain criteria, not including normalization.”

He added, “Since this (Emirati-Israeli) agreement bears the signs of normalization so visiting Jerusalem is not allowed and forbidden.

A major Islamic scholar st Al Azhar rejected the ban:

A grand scholar at Al Azhar Al Sharif, Egypt's renowned Islamic institution, has rejected a fatwa by Al Quds Mufti where he forbids the Emirati people from praying in Al-Aqsa Mosque following the UAE-Israeli peace accord.

"As a specialist in Islamic Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) I can't find any religious justification for declaring as haram (forbidden) the worship of any Muslim people in any mosque all over the world based on a political stance taken by these people's leadership. I reject any religious fatwa that is not based on Shari'a - compliant rules," Dr Abbas Shuman, a member of Al Azhar's Committee of Senior Scholars.

"To the best of my knowledge, our Islamic history has not witnessed any fatwa by the righteous forefathers and their descendants banning any Muslim from praying in any mosque around the world," he concluded.

The Mufti is appointed by the PA president Mahmoud Abbas, meaning that the PLO/PA are the ones banning Muslims from worshiping at Al Aqsa.

In fact, this isn't the first time, according to reports from 2017:

Al-Aqsa guards expelled yesterday a Bahraini delegation from the mosque’s holy site, local sources reported.

The sources added that the move came as the Bahraini delegation was reported to have visited the Jewish state to “normalise and strengthen ties with Israel” and to deliver “message of peace and brotherhood to Israel.”

Israel sometimes bans some Muslims from the site if they are a danger to public safety and security. The Palestinian leadership bans some Muslims from the site if they don't like the politics of the country they are from.

This is one reason why the Arab world is sick and tired of the Palestinians - they claim ownership over a holy site and politicize it. They claim that they want Muslim and Arab unity but they are willing to ostracize any Muslims they disagree with.

The Palestinians are burning their bridges very quickly.

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