Showing posts with label Petra MB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Petra MB. Show all posts
Monday, October 30, 2017
By Petra Marquardt-Bigman
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Most of you have probably already heard about Michael
Chikindas, a professor at Rutgers’ Department of Food Science. His research
interests sound professional and include
“Bacillus subtilis and lactic acid bacteria spp. as a host for overproduction
of biomolecules,” but the professor’s problem is an acute and apparently
untreated overproduction of bigotry. His numerous vile posts on Facebook were
first exposed
on Israellycool and then reported by many other sites, including The
Algemeiner and Tablet.
The writer John-Paul Pagano, who authored the Tablet piece, also posted
an archive
with screenshots of the Facebook posts Chikindas shared with the world – though
he apparently didn’t have many Facebook “friends” who noticed. (As I am writing
this, I see that John-Paul Pagano keeps finding more.)
While most of the material is shockingly vile, I was particularly
struck by one image – because it could have served as the perfect illustration
of one of Linda Sarsour’s tweets that I documented
earlier this year. As I noted back then, Sarsour wrote several tweets with a similar message,
but the one I immediately recalled when I
saw the Chikindas post is: “Homeless on the streets, Americans who haven’t
recovered from natural disasters, unemployment, and we have extra $$$ for
Israel. Smh. [Shaking my head].”
The interesting thing is of course that the image Chikindas
posted will be recognized by most people as antisemitic, while the text Sarsour
posted will be widely justified as legitimate criticism of US support for
Israel. Some people will also argue that Sarsour didn’t blame Jews – not even
“Zionists” – for the “extra $$$ for Israel” and that it is therefore entirely
unfair to compare her tweet with the vile image posted by Chikindas.
However, this argument works only if you look at this one
tweet in isolation, because Sarsour posted plenty of tweets suggesting that
Israel was either controlling or corrupting US lawmakers. As I pointed out in my
documentation, Sarsour repeatedly insinuated that American politicians who back
strong bonds between the US and Israel must be suspected of dual loyalties or
corruption. Echoing the “Israel-firster” slurs – which caused
much controversy
a few years ago and were widely
considered as reflecting antisemitic tropes – Sarsour suggested in July 2014 that “Israel should
give free citizenship to US politicians. They are more loyal to Israel than
they are to the American people.” She also asserted
that there was an “awkward moment when the White House goes off AIPAC [American
Israel Public Affairs Committee] script and says ‘Israel must end the
occupation;’” according to Sarsour, this meant for the White House that
“#theyareintroublenow.” Sarsour apparently also believes that AIPAC lobbies to
get the US to “revolve around Israel;” she therefore demanded in 2012: “Our
country’s future should not revolve around #Israel. #aipac2012.” Referring to
Hillary Clinton, Sarsour wondered last
year, “What was in Hilary’s goodie bag at AIPAC. Had to be real nice after that
speech that almost bought her a prime minister seat in Israel.” And at the end
of last year, Sarsour reacted to a
statement by Senator Lindsey Graham with the question “Are you a US Senator or
do you work for Israel?”
It is hard to imagine that someone who is as hyperactive
politically as Sarsour would not know that
US support for Israel enjoys broad
backing among Americans because Israel is widely regarded
as “a clear strategic asset to the United States,” and the bilateral
relationship is therefore widely seen as based
on “tangible, steadily increasing security and economic interests.”
Seen in this context, the message conveyed by Sarsour in her
repeated efforts to suggest [http://archive.is/kZpAj] that US military
assistance to Israel comes at the expense of health care, education funding and
various other social benefits for US citizens is not that
much different from the message Chikindas tried to convey with the vile image
of a greedy Jew stealing money from an American family begging on the streets.
Monday, October 23, 2017
- Monday, October 23, 2017
- Elder of Ziyon
- media bias, Opinion, Petra MB
The Washington Post markets its “World Views” column
as “smart analysis of the most important news,” and when you hover over
“Analysis,” a pop-up tells you it means “Interpretation of the news based on
evidence, including data, as well as anticipating how events might unfold based
on past events.” But Ishaan Tharoor’s recent
column about “Palestinian Gandhi” Issa Amro is just lazy journalism promoting
the kind of Palestinian propaganda that can be read on countless websites for
free: like other journalists before him, Tharoor made do with telling his
readers what Amro told him – all backed up by what supporters of Amro would
say…
So I decided to do the research Tharoor couldn’t be bothered
to do, and you can check out the resulting documentation
at Legal Insurrection. It is, admittedly, a longish post, but the title
gives it all away: “Issa Amro is no ‘Palestinian Gandhi.’”
As the documentation shows, Amro has longstanding and close
relations with several notorious professional anti-Israel activists who earn
their living by promoting the 21st century version of the Nazi slogan “The Jews
are our misfortune” – which is: “The Jewish state is our misfortune.” Moreover,
Amro has apparently never condemned Palestinian terrorism, and he enjoys the
full support of activists who are not only outspoken apologists for Hamas, but who
have repeatedly voiced support for the terror group. Amro himself has issued
repeated predictions and calls for another intifada. Particularly noteworthy is
the timing of his call for an intifada in May 2014, just four weeks before the
abduction and murder of three teenaged Israeli students by Hamas terrorists from
Amro’s hometown Hebron. Back then, Amro boasted about having a ‘secret plan’
for a “smart intifada.” Then there is his reported defense of a member of
Hebron’s Qawasmi clan – which is prominently associated with Hamas and includes
two of the perpetrators of the 2014 kidnapping and murder case. In addition, there
is quite a bit of evidence indicating that Amro’s group Youth Against Settlements
(YAS) is supportive of terrorism and is eager to incite Muslim religious
passions that are often an important motivation for Palestinian terrorists.
I think it’s unlikely that the Washington Post’s “Foreign
Affairs Writer” Ishaan Tharoor would be surprised by any of this. Given the
focus of his writings, he is presumably aware of the fact that so-called
“pro-Palestinian” activism is more correctly described as anti-Israel activism,
because the goal of most groups and campaigns is the replacement of the world’s
only Jewish state with yet another Arab-Muslim majority state.
This makes the title of Tharoor’s piece so devious: he
pretends to explain “Why a leading Palestinian activist isn’t fixated on a
Palestinian state” – but could he name any Palestinian or “pro-Palestinian”
activist who is “fixated” on a Palestinian state that would peacefully coexist
with a Jewish state of Israel? Indeed, it seems Tharoor didn’t even bother to
ask Amro directly if he would support a negotiated two-state solution – or
maybe he did, and Amro’s emphatic “no” is reflected in Tharoor’s opening
paragraph, where he sneers at the failure of Washington’s “diplomats, politicos
and wonks” to realize that “on
the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories, the two-state solution is a
mirage.” [Bold original]
And of course,
it’s all the fault of the “right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu” and “Israeli settlers” who “continue to expand across the
West Bank.” Since Tharoor’s “analysis” is supposedly “based on evidence,
including data,” he surely knows that this relentless expansion “across the
West Bank” over five decades has resulted in settlements that take up about 2%
(according to data) to 4% (estimate) of West-Bank territory.
Then there’s this
astonishing passage – with the first sentence bolded in the original:
“The repeated refrain from Netanyahu and other Israeli officials is that
the main obstacle to peace is Palestinian violence. But that argument falls short with
people like Amro, whose tactics include sit-ins and the monitoring of settlers
and Israeli security forces with video cameras. ‘They see us as the main
enemy,’ he told me. ‘They don’t know how to deal with nonviolence.’
‘It is particularly people like him that Israel is most uncomfortable with,
more than the militant carrying the weapon,’ said Yousef Munayyer, executive
director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. ‘People often ask, 'Where
is the Palestinian Gandhi?' You’ll often find many of them either in Israeli
prisons or shot or killed or otherwise oppressed from engaging in activism.’”
Right, of course:
the Palestinians are really a people of Gandhis, all imprisoned or shot or
killed for no reason whatsoever by a monstrously vicious Israel – “evidence, including data,” about Hamas and
longstanding broad popular support for terrorism among Palestinians be damned.
So let’s conclude
by looking at how Tharoor ends his piece:
“’It’s not about two states. It’s not about peace,’ Amro said, referring to
the aims of Netanyahu and his allies. ‘They believe that it’s all for them.’”
Well, here’s a
clue about what Amro believes: in a recently posted tweet, Amro’s group YAS claimed that “40,000
Israeli settlers storm into Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.” They repeated the same
claim a day later, linking in both tweets to an article
on the Islamist website MEMO, which often serves as
a mouthpiece for Hamas.
The article features a photo of a religious Jew accompanied
by a few children – which is presumably meant to illustrate how the “40,000
Israeli settlers” storming the “Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron” looked. Why
religious Jews with children would want to “storm” any mosque is probably not a
question that bothers the audience cheering Amro and YAS; but Amro and his
group know of course that long before there was an “Ibrahimi Mosque,” the site
was revered by Jews as the Cave
of Machpelah (Tomb of the Patriarchs), and it is considered Judaism’s
second holiest site after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Yet, most of the site
is controlled by a Muslim body (waqf), while Jewish access to the site is
severely restricted.
As is to be expected, the MEMO article Amro’s group
links to is trying very hard to present the Jews visiting the site to mark the
Jewish holiday of Sukkot as desecrating a holy place that rightfully belongs
only to Muslims. According to MEMO, “The Director and Head of the
Ibrahimi Mosque, Sheikh Hafthi Abu Esnaina, condemned the incursions. He
stressed that Israel is encouraging the Judaisation of Palestinian religious
sites. ‘The Ibrahimi Mosque will always be a holy site for Muslims only,’ he
insisted.”
Sounds an awful
lot like “They believe that it’s all for them.”
Monday, October 16, 2017
- Monday, October 16, 2017
- Elder of Ziyon
- Electronic Intifada, Opinion, Petra MB
By Petra Marquardt-Bigman
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
A few days ago, Ali Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada published
a
story about the situation in Gaza that started out with the untimely demise
of Nidal al-Jaafari, a recently married 29-year-old, who “was killed on 17
August in a suicide bombing near Gaza’s boundary with Egypt.”
Since Nidal al-Jaafari was a member of the Qassam Brigades,
he would have certainly been among those who would celebrate any suicide
bombing targeting Israelis. But other Islamist terror groups love suicide
bombings just as much as Hamas, and Jaafari was killed in a “bombing [that] was
attributed to the Islamic State group.”
Unsurprisingly, Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada
doesn’t mention terrorism in this story that is really about one terrorist
group – namely Hamas – being forced to fight another terrorist group – ISIS –
in order to appease the Egyptians.
The reader learns that already in June, “Hamas also began clearing a buffer zone along its boundary with Egypt” –
and the link leads to an article in Ha’aretz that notes that this “will
force a lot of families out of their homes.” Well, if even one Palestinian faced
the prospect of being forced to move just a few yards because of Israel,
Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada would have had plenty to say about this
terrible hardship…
But now that
Egypt is forcing Hamas to confront ISIS supporters in Gaza, it’s of course time
to trot out the usual variations of the Nazi slogan “The Jews are our
misfortune” – so here goes:
“Some also see an Israeli hand in the area.
Akram Attalla, a political analyst and columnist for al-Ayyam newspaper,
speculated that Islamic State in Gaza and the Sinai is funded by Israel in
order to undermine Hamas.
‘Israel is aware that the Palestinians have adapted to the division among
them and the siege,’ he told The Electronic Intifada. ‘Hence, Israel is trying
to create groups that can wear Hamas down.’
Omar Jaara, an Israel affairs expert and lecturer at An-Najah National
University in the West Bank, echoed this theory. Islamic State, he said, is a ‘tool
controlled by Israel to maintain instability’ at the boundary with Egypt. As
the group’s threat to Egypt grows, he added, it becomes a ‘wild card’ that
Israel can wield against Hamas.”
Well, if even an
“Israel affairs expert and lecturer at An-Najah National University” thinks
Israel is behind ISIS, there must be something to it, right? And indeed, I
think no one can deny that this view reflects as much “expertise” as Dr. Omar
Ja’ara’s amazing performance on Palestinian TV a few years ago, when he explained that “Moses the Muslim” led “the first
Palestinian liberation through armed struggle to liberate Palestine from the
nation of giants led by Goliath.” As he said: “This is our logic and this is
our culture.”
Monday, October 09, 2017
I recently came across a
report about a Canadian mosque that had removed a link from its website
after it was pointed out that the linked site promoted “anti-Semitic content
that urges an ‘Islamic jihad’ against Jews, denounces democracy and approves
the killing of ex-Muslims.” The offensive site was identified as Islamqa.info,
i.e. “Islam Question and Answer” and it
was noted that it “is run by a conservative Saudi cleric.”
As it happened, I was somewhat familiar with the site from
research I had done for some of my recent writings. The post I first read on Islam QA
responded to a questioner wondering about the difference between the Al-Aqsa
Mosque and the Dome of the Rock: “if the Masjid e Aqsa is different from the
Doom of the Rock, why do we see its picture representing Masjid e Aqsa at all
Islamic places, and I (and many other muslims) were completely inaware of the
difference.”
The response claimed that “the name of the mosque was
historically applied to the whole plateau,” (i.e. the Temple Mount), but also
stated: “The Muslims’ fondness for the picture of the Dome may be because of
the beauty of this building, but this does not excuse them from the resulting
mistake of not distinguishing between the Mosque and the buildings that
surround it.” To my amazement, the apparently widespread Muslim ignorance about
the difference between the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque was then
explained as a result of nefarious Jewish plots – which of course show how
urgent it would be “to cleanse al-Masjid al-Aqsa of the brothers of the monkeys
and pigs.”
Since the site prominently declares that Shaykh Muhammad
Saalih Al-Munajjid is its “General Supervisor,” I looked him up. According to Wikipedia, he is
“an Islamic scholar known for founding the website IslamQA.info, which provides
answers to questions in line with the Salafi school of thought.” Even though Salafists are
supposedly only a tiny minority of the world’s estimated 1.8 billion Muslims, the
entry notes that “IslamQA.info is one of the most popular websites providing
the Salafi perspective and is (as of November 2015) according to Alexa.com the
world’s most popular website on the topic of Islam generally.” Apparently, the
site still
holds its number 1 rank, and it seems to be well-funded since it can afford
to offer texts in more than a dozen languages. (E.g. the antisemitic post
explaining the difference between the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque
is available in English, Arabic, Uighur and Spanish).
As noted in the report on the Canadian mosque, Islam QA
includes plenty of posts encouraging Jew-hatred and hostility to western
values:
“’The Jews are people of treachery and
betrayal; it is not possible to trust them at all,’ reads a post on the
formerly-linked site, Islamqa.info […] ‘The hour (the Day of Judgment) will not
begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.’ […] another Islamqa.info
entry calls democracy ‘a system that is contrary to Islam’ and says ‘the main
goal of jihad is to make people worship Allah alone.’ A discussion on ‘why
death is the punishment for apostasy’ reads: ‘Whoever changes his religion,
kill him.’ As for homosexuals, it says to ‘drive them out of your town.’”
Another article
focusing on how Islam QA defines the status of women notes that “the
opinions […] read like documents from a time long, long ago;” one of the cited
examples is a ruling claiming that “Islam allows a man to have sexual
intercourse with a slave, no matter whether the man is married or single.”
It is worthwhile noting that the post (archived) describing Jews as “people of
treachery and betrayal” goes back to the early days of IslamQA: it was
published already in January 1999 and signed as written by Sheikh Muhammed
Salih Al-Munajjid himself; the text is available in English, Arabic, French,
Uighur and Indonesian, and it has also been posted on other sites (e.g. here, here,
and here;
also documented as inciting hate here).
I would urge everyone to read the post in full, because it is a breathtaking
example of the depth of Muslim Jew-hatred, which is justified both by invoking
Islamic scripture and by inventing Nazi-style fantasies about Jewish evil:
“There cannot be harmony between
Jews – who are usurpers and aggressors, who have oppressed and persecuted
others, and who are known for their treachery and corruption throughout the
world, historically and in the present age – and the purely monotheistic Muslim
owners of the land, whose menfolk the Jews have killed, and imprisoned their
sons, and destroyed their homes, and taken possession of their lands by force,
and prevented them from earning a proper living, and carried out chemical and
radiational experiments on their prisoners, and taken organs from them for
transplant into Jewish patients… and all other kinds of persecutions and
atrocities.”
During an appearance on a Saudi TV program last year, Al-Munajid
re-affirmed
similar views:
“The Jews are among the enemies of
(Islam). In fact, they are at the top of the list. The Jews today are the Jews
of the past. This requires no proof. Allah made their traits clear to us, and
the Prophet Muhammad clarified that our war with them will continue until the
end of time [...] Allah said that 'the Jews are the strongest in enmity to the
believers.' He said that the Jews 'strive to spread corruption in the land.' He
said: 'They hasten into sin and aggression.' He said: 'Nor did they forbid one
another the iniquities which they committed.'” […] “'The Jews are the nation
that incurred the wrath of Allah. They are a people of lies, fabrications,
treachery, and conspiracies. They are the slayers of prophets, the profiteers
from that which is forbidden. They are the filthiest of nations with the basest
of character.'”
No wonder the TV host thought it was entirely reasonable to
follow up with the question “Is hatred of Jews considered a form of worship in
and of itself?” Al-Munajid evaded a direct response, countering instead: “The
question should be: Do they hate us? These people believe that anyone who does
not adhere to their religion is a filthy pig. This is written in their distorted
Torah. Jews have the right to rape non-Jewish women. This is also written in
their books.”
How is that from a man who refers to Jews as “the brothers
of the monkeys and pigs” and insists that Islamic scripture gives Muslim men
the right to rape female slaves? Looks like Al-Munajid could greatly benefit
from reading a bit of Freud and learning about projection…
However, as already noted, even though Al-Munajid’s IslamQA is apparently the most popular
website on Islam, it supposedly reflects Salafist doctrine and therefore only
the beliefs of a small minority of Muslims. So it might be useful to look for
some comparable material on Jews from other sites. I noticed on one discussion
board that some Muslims who considered Al-Munajid’s IslamQA as too rigid and intolerant
recommended instead another IslamQA
(which has the extension .org instead of .info). One particularly fascinating
example is provided by two posts from the two sites (here and here) that address the
notorious hadith that predicts an end-time battle in which Muslims will
slaughter the Jews. In both cases, the person asking the question is wondering
how this violent hadith can be squared with Islam’s claim to be “a religion of
love and peace.”
On Al-Munajid’s IslamQA,
the response (also available
in Arabic) includes extensive quotes from Islamic scripture explaining and
justifying the hadith; the conclusion is that
“Allah, may He be exalted, will
honour the Muslims in this battle with this miracle, which is that rocks and
trees will speak and call the Muslims to come and kill the Jews who will be
hiding behind them.
All of this indicates that it will
be a just battle that Allah approves of, as was the case with all the Islamic
battles in which the aim was to make the word of Allah supreme on earth. ‘Whoever
fights so that the word of Allah will be supreme is fighting in the way of Allah.’”
On the supposedly more moderate IslamQA site, the response – provided by
a South-African
mufti who studied in India – is rather laconic (and can also be found here): “This will happen around
the time of Isa (alaihis salaam). The ones that are not bad will accept the
truth and hence will be Muslims.”
In other words: all the Jews “that are not bad” will
eventually convert to Islam, and the Jews who stubbornly remain Jews are
obviously so bad that they deserve to be slaughtered…
Here are a few more gems from the supposedly more moderate IslamQA:
“Are
Muslims supposed to hate Jews?” Well… yes, they are, because the “Qur’aan
is replete with the descriptions of the Jews” showing them as greedy,
ungrateful and murderous. So the post offers “just a few [examples] from an
infinite list of their disobediences and violations of Allah’s orders. Due to
their disobedience, Allah Ta’ala said, ‘Disgrace and need has been set on
them.’ Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) said, ‘Verily this (the Jews)
are a dirty nation. We do not need them.’”
“Why
Islam or Muslims are against Jews (in general)?” Well, naturally, this is
the fault of the Jews: “The holy Qur?aan declares them to harbour the most
enmity against us Muslims. This is one of the reasons the Muslims don?t get
along with them. The main reason for this enmity stems from jealousy.” (It’s a
bit ambiguous here who is jealous, isn’t it…)
“Why
are the Jews hated so much throughout the world?” Well, again – the Jews
deserve to be hated, of course: “Allah Ta’ala has cursed the jews for their
repeated disobedience of Allah Ta’ala, and has cursed their offspring for their
approval of the sins of their forefathers. This is why they are hated.”
Monday, September 25, 2017
By Petra Marquardt-Bigman
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
While many Jews were offline for a few days due to Rosh Hashanah, Valerie Plame Wilson – a former CIA operative who became a best-selling author after her cover was blown – got caught sharing a blatantly antisemitic article on Twitter. Even though the article’s title “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars” was a bit of a give-away, Plame Wilson at first doubled down when she was criticized for sharing the piece: she claimed to be “of Jewish decent” and explained that she was simply motivated by her support for the “Iran nuclear treaty” and her opposition to “war with Iran.” She urged her critics to read “the entire article” and to “put aside your biases and think clearly.”
So presumably, Plame Wilson herself had read the entire article and found nothing wrong with it. Among the points offered in the piece she recommended so warmly was the suggestion that some American Jewish commentators should be treated like rat poison in the US media:
“For those American Jews who lack any shred of integrity, the media should be required to label them at the bottom of the television screen whenever they pop up, e.g. Bill Kristol is ‘Jewish and an outspoken supporter of the state of Israel.’ That would be kind-of-like a warning label on a bottle of rat poison – translating roughly as ‘ingest even the tiniest little dosage of the nonsense spewed by Bill Kristol at your own peril.’”
It quickly turned out that this was not the first time Plame Wilson had shared articles from this website and this author – including one that claimed Israelis were celebrating after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and one that was entitled “Why I Still Dislike Israel.”
If you want to catch up on the details of the story and look at some of the tweets, see e.g. this report at The Times of Israel and the comment by Alan Dershowitz in The Algemeiner.
By now, the article Plame Wilson shared is adorned with an update informing readers that the author “was fired over the phone by The American Conservative, where he had been a regular contributor for fourteen years.”
On her Twitter page, Plame Wilson has just pinned a tweet that includes a thread offering a detailed explanation of her regrets:
“On Thursday, I shared a deeply offensive article on Twitter. The anti-Semitic tropes in the piece are vile and I do not, nor ever have, endorsed them. I regret adding to the already chaotic and sometimes hate-filled conversation on social media. In the past, I have also carelessly retweeted articles from this same site, the Unz Review, without closely examining content and authors. Now that I have, I am horrified and ashamed. The white supremacist and anti-Semitic propaganda espoused by this website is disgusting and I strongly condemn it. It is an affront to human dignity and does not reflect my values. I unequivocally oppose anti-Semitism and prejudice in every form. I believe we all have a moral responsibility to speak out when we see injustice and racism. Although I have strong opinions on public policy matters, going forward I will endeavor to avoid resorting to stereotypes to express my positions and ensure my arguments are grounded in facts. While intending to underscore the madness around those fanning flames of war w/ Iran and their efforts to kill the Iran nuclear deal I made a grave mistake and am deeply sorry for perpetuating any conversation that gives credence to anti-Semitism. Actions have consequences, and while I have been honored to serve on the board of the Ploughshares Fund to avoid detracting from their mission, I have resigned. I take full responsibility for my thoughtless and hurtful actions, and there are no excuses for what I did.”
Well, better late than never, I suppose – though it is infinitely depressing to think that a former CIA operative, i.e. someone presumably trained to evaluate information critically, could fall for the Unz Review – which after all advertises itself as “An Alternative Media Selection: A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media.” I would also have thought that for someone who is supposedly interested in news and politics, it should take just a glance at the contributors and offerings of the site to realize that something is fishy.
The Anti-Defamation League has described Unz cautiously as a “Controversial Writer and Funder of Anti-Israel Activists,” but the entry illustrates well that the sites and people supported by Unz provide a veritable intersectionality study of right- and left-wing antisemitism.
Last but not least, it’s also worthwhile pondering Omri Ceren’s view that Plame Wilson simply said “what many advocates of Obama’s realignment with Iran believe” and that her original tweet linking to the article from Unz’s website was therefore just “an increasingly routine attack on Jews mainstreamed by Obama admin & its echo chamber to sell the Iran deal.” Omri’s thread includes many relevant examples; one could arguably add a recent tweet from the influential Swedish politician and former EU and UN official Carl Bildt, who told his 650K Twitter followers: “Egged on by Netanyahu it seems Trump wants to take the US into a region-wide war with Iran. Europe will suffer. Everyone will lose.”
Maybe Bildt could write an article about it for Unz???
Monday, September 18, 2017
- Monday, September 18, 2017
- Elder of Ziyon
- Petra MB
Omar Suleiman is a young Palestinian-American imam who
counts Linda Sarsour among his many ardent admirers. According to one flattering
profile, Suleiman is “a new kind of American imam” with “a wildly popular
social-media presence:” his Facebook
page has more than 1.2 million “Likes” and followers, and his YouTube
sermons have garnered tens of millions of views. Another article
explains that due to “his charismatic sermons and message of inclusiveness,”
Suleiman “has gained a national following” and has become a leader “of Dallas’
social justice movement.” As far as Linda Sarsour is concerned, Omar Suleiman makes her “more proud to be a Muslim and a
Palestinian.”
All this praise prompted me to try to learn a bit more about
Suleiman. Of course, I was particularly interested in finding out what Suleiman
thinks about Israel and Jews. As I documented in two recent
articles
published by The Algemeiner, the results of my research were rather
depressing: Suleiman quite obviously thinks the world’s only Jewish state
should be replaced by yet another Arab-Muslim majority state, and despite his
efforts to present himself as a deeply spiritual and tolerant preacher, he can’t
quite hide his intense theological anti-Judaism.
As I argued in The Algemeiner, one example that
reveals Suleiman’s hostile views regarding Jews and Judaism is a
lecture he gave in January 2016 on “Masjid Al-Aqsa: The occupied
sanctuary.” The advertisement noted
that Suleiman’s “passion for this topic comes naturally” because he is “the son
of Palestinian parents.” In a short promotional clip for the lecture, Suleiman
denounced the “brutal occupation” of Al-Aqsa and claimed that “religious
rights” of Muslims were being “taken away,” noting dismissively that the site
was “being called ‘Temple Mount’ all of a sudden.”
This is truly breathtaking hypocrisy for a preacher who is
supposedly “a new kind of American imam:” while claiming that the “religious
rights” of Muslims were being “taken away,” Suleiman brazenly denies the Jewish
connection to Judaism’s holiest site.
Yet, since Suleiman himself is telling a revealing story
about the victorious Caliph Umar in his lecture, there can be no doubt that he knows
full well that Jerusalem’s Muslim conquerors built Islamic shrines over the
ruined Jewish Temple.
The story takes place after the Christian Patriarch
Sophronius surrendered Jerusalem in April 637. Umar supposedly went
to clean up what Suleiman calls “masjid Al-Aqsa,”i.e. the Temple Mount, which
had become a dumping ground. Suleiman reminds his audience (1:05) that “[in]
the middle of masjid Al-Aqsa, there is this rock, this rocky area, … and it’s
right in the center, and that’s believed where Suleiman [i.e. Solomon] …
established the Temple.”
When the area was cleaned up, Umar and his companions
supposedly asked a former Jewish rabbi who had converted to Islam where to pray
and where the mosque should be built — a question that obviously
shows that there was no trace of any mosque, which should indicate to any
thinking person that the tall tale about Muhammad’s supposed night journey to
“the farthest mosque” – a story Suleiman also tells in his lecture – cannot
refer to Jerusalem and the then obviously non-existent Al-Aqsa mosque. The
convert responded to Umar’s question about where to pray: “We should pray
behind the rock.” As Suleiman explained to his audience:
“Umar sensed from that that he
[i.e. the convert] felt a reverence towards this rock. So Umar [Arabic
blessing] said that must be your Jewish influence speaking. He says we’re gonna
pray in front of the rock, haha, we’re not gonna honor this rock, we’re gonna
pray in front of it, there’s nothing special about this rock.”
So much for Islam’s supposed respect for other religions.
Yet, completely oblivious to his own hypocrisy, Suleiman claims shortly after
telling the story of the triumphant Umar: “It’s proven that other religions
only flourished in Jerusalem under Muslim rule. It never happens any other way.”
According to Suleiman, it is therefore terribly unfair that Muslims have the “reputation”
that they “want to turn Jerusalem into some sort of blood bath.” Suleiman
rejects such suspicions: “No, we recognize the sanctity of that place, we love
that masjid, we love that land, we know what that land is. No one wants to do
anything with that land except restore it to the way that it was.”
But as far as Suleiman is concerned, “the way that it was”
means that there never was a Temple Mount – indeed, his long lecture about
Al-Aqsa is a determined effort to Islamicize Jerusalem’s entire history.
Right at the beginning of his lecture, Suleiman announces that
he wants to talk about “the history” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It
is noteworthy that he says “history” and not “myth” or “legend,” or even
“religious tradition” — because what follows is simply mind-boggling.
Unfortunately, the narrative he presents clearly reflects some mainstream
Muslim beliefs that are obviously a major factor in the widespread Muslim
hatred for Israel.
Suleiman notes early on in his lecture that people “might
think that Al-Aqsa was built maybe by a prophet of Bani Israel, maybe it’s
something that arose from the time of Solomon […] or Jacob.” Then he turns to
Muslim tradition to answer the question “What mosque was constructed on the
face of the earth first?” According to Suleiman, the answer is that the first
mosque was built in Mecca, and that 40 years later, the Al-Aqsa Mosque was
built.
Suleiman then goes on to explain that Muslim scholars
believe that Adam built the Kaaba in Mecca, and that he or maybe his son Seth then
built the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem – which obviously means that Muslims are
supposed to believe that many centuries, if not millennia before the rise of
Islam, there were people building mosques. Later on, Suleiman repeats the claim
that Abraham and his son Isaac “raised the pillars” of the Kaaba in Mecca, and
that they “did the same” at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa, which had both been
“constructed” and “made a sanctuary” by Adam. Suleiman then emphasizes again
that Abraham and his son built “two of the holiest masjids [mosques] in the
world.”
The bizarre assertion that the mosque in Mecca and the
Al-Aqsa Mosque go back to the time of Adam and were then built up by Abraham
and his son long before Muhammad introduced Islam is obviously intended to claim
these sites and their builders as part of Muslim heritage. Islamic supersessionism,
i.e the notion that Islam replaces and invalidates previous religions, notably
Judaism and Christianity, is apparently supposed to operate even retroactively.
In the case of Jerusalem, the claim that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was founded by the
biblical Adam and built up by Abraham serves to delegitimize all Jewish claims
to the Temple Mount — which is exactly what Suleiman is trying to do.
Thus, Suleiman tells his audience (from 18:00 of the speech)
that “Solomon is the most important king in the history of Jerusalem. Why? You
always hear of the Temple of Solomon.” While that sounds like an
acknowledgement of Jewish history, Suleiman immediately adds that Solomon “built
about 40 masjids [mosques],” including “Masjid Al-Aqsa.” He then proceeds to
spell out this vile effort to Islamicize Jewish history in some more detail:
“And as he [Solomon] builds Masjid
Al-Aqsa — and I want you guys to realize, so I’m just going to clear that
from now, Masjid Al-Aqsa is that entire rectangle, that entire sanctuary, it is
humongous, that is actually all Masjid Al-Aqsa; the Dome of the Rock is at the
center of it, so that entire compound is Masjid Al-Aqsa. So Solomon builds that
all out, the original Temple of Solomon, what’s known as the Temple of Solomon,
right, the first time that Masjid Al-Aqsa would be built in that caliber, right,
he built it throughout. The Old Testament has a lot of detail about how lavish
and how elaborate the masjid was when Suleiman [sic] built it, but we don’t
know if it’s actually true or not.”
So according to Suleiman, we may not know “how lavish and
how elaborate” Solomon’s buildings really were, but we do know that he didn’t
really build a Jewish Temple because he built “Masjid Al-Aqsa.” This is a
particularly pernicious form of Temple denial: following the bizarre “logic” of
Suleiman’s narrative — which apparently reflects mainstream Muslim myths
— there couldn’t be a legitimate Jewish Temple at the site that Muslim
imagine to have been “Masjid Al-Aqsa” since the time of Adam.
When I listened to Suleiman’s lecture I couldn’t help
wondering if Muslims don’t feel it is rather undignified to project the sway of
their faith back in time in order to claim an ancient holy site of followers of
another religion as their own. Does Suleiman’s ardent admirer and friend Linda
Sarsour support his pathetic claims that “Masjid Al-Aqsa” was built at the time
of Adam, and that Solomon’s Temple was merely a perhaps particularly elaborate
addition to what was a mosque compound since time immemorial? Or is the
“progressive” Sarsour appalled by this vile example of cultural appropriation?
And how does a “progressive” like Sarsour feel about the denial of the historic
Jewish attachment to the site where Muslim conquerors built Islamic shrines in
order to prevent a rebuilding of the destroyed Jewish Temple and to demonstrate
the splendor of their imperial power? Surely this should be completely
unacceptable for anti-imperialist progressives who champion the rights of indigenous
people?
In any case, it seems that some Muslims haven’t yet
understood that imams like Omar Suleiman expect them to insist that all of the
Temple Mount is the Al-Aqsa mosque. At the end of July, Suleiman posted
a photo (that was at least a year old) of
the Dome of the Rock surrounded by thousands of Muslim worshippers with the
text: “Breathtaking shot of worshippers at #alaqsa in prostration/protest. Wow.”
When several people noted that the photo didn’t show the Al-Aqsa mosque,
Suleiman responded on his Facebook page: “For those saying it’s not Al Aqsa,
the entire compound is Al Aqsa. Yes, Masjid Al Qibaly [i.e. the Al-Aqsa mosque]
is not in this photo.”
I can’t say I’m particularly astonished that Omar Suleiman
makes Linda Sarsour “more proud to be a Muslim and a Palestinian.” But decent
people who think Suleiman should be praised as “a new kind of American imam” are
sorely mistaken: Suleiman has only contempt for the Jews (e.g. he
claims they are to blame for the fact that food rots), and he loves to
depict Christian crusaders as beasts while presenting the Muslim conquerors of
a vast empire as admirable and benevolent rulers of the people they ruthlessly
subjugated. Suleiman probably regrets that he once publicly showed support
[archived] for the Muslim Brotherhood,
but given what he preaches, it seems clear that he would find a lot of common
ground with Islamists.
Monday, August 21, 2017
By Petra Marquardt-Bigman
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Women’s March identity politics 101
This will be only a very short post – I’m busy learning
identity politics from the Women’s March. I mean, it’s clear that without a
proper understanding of identity politics, one can’t be really woke, right?
Admittedly, since I’ve never had the privilege of holding
hands with Louis
Farrakhan, I’m not sure how woke I can ever be.
But I’m trying. So last week, the Women’s March issued a
really inspiring #SignOfResistance “from the white women of WM.” Linda Sarsour
re-tweeted it, so I’m sure it’s really very very woke!!!
So impressive!!! It got me thinking: clearly, that means
that also Muslim silence = Muslim consent, right? To get a bit creative, maybe
it could be presented like this – what do you think???
Now, related to identity politics, there was a bit of
confusion because after Al Jazeera decided a few days ago to feature
Manal Tamimi as a “Palestinian supermom,” Elder tweeted a
screenshot of one of her super-duper tweets.
Some people wondered if Al Jazeera’s Palestinian
supermom really meant to compare the Palestinians to the Nazi figure in the
image. As I explained when I wrote
about Manal Tamimi’s remarkable Twitter output, an obviously well-meaning Twitter
user warned her in Arabic that she had posted “a picture of Nazism” even though
“the Palestinians are more honorable than the Nazis, they are defending their
land and their freedom.” But Manal Tamimi wasn’t fazed and declared confidently:
“The important thing is the idea, we the Palestinians are the ones who are
going to teach Israel a lesson, we are going to hurt them and we will achieve
victory over them as well.”
Now, I’m pretty sure that identity politics requires that
everyone must respect the fact that Manal Tamimi self-identifies with the Nazis
because she hopes to emulate how they “hurt” the Jews and achieved “victory
over them.” Really, how could anyone dare to dictate (mansplain??? Whitesplain??????)
to a proud Palestinian supermom what she aspires to??? And last but by no means
least: let’s remember that Linda Sarsour often emphasizes that she’s
“unapologetically Muslim and Palestinian,” and “Palestinian supermom” Manal
Tamimi is clearly someone she’d admire – after all, Tamimi sends her kids to
throw stones at Israeli soldiers, which is, according
to Sarsour, “the definition of courage.”
Now excuse me, I have to make a list of all the things
Muslims and Palestinians have advocated while Linda Sarsour remained silent and
thus gave her consent…
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