Islamic Fatwa Council issues fatwa against Hamas

Fox News reports:

 In a groundbreaking ruling, an official Islamic legislative body based in the Arab world declared a "fatwa," or a legal opinion, against the Islamist militant group Hamas Thursday, calling its treatment of millions of Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip "inhumane" and urging the terrorist organization and its followers to immediately give up arms, sit down and make peace.

The unprecedented declaration, published by the Islamic Fatwa Council, a non-government body of Shiite, Sunni and Sufi clerics headquartered in the Iraqi spiritual capital of Najaf, states that Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, "bears responsibility for its own reign of corruption and terror against Palestinian civilians within Gaza" and deems "it prohibited to pray for, join, support, finance or fight on behalf of Hamas."

"As an Islamic legal body, we take note of the condition of the oppressed all over the world," Muhammad Ali Al-Maqdisi, a cleric for the council, said in a video statement shared with Fox News Digital. 

"We have seen what Gaza has been subjected to under Hamas’ rule. We have also seen the atrocities which, in our view, have been perpetrated against Palestinians — faithful and unarmed civilians — who have neither strength nor recourse. And, so, we believed it was our Islamic obligation to aid the oppressed." 

Here is the video statement from the Islamic Fatwa Council:

 The Whispered in Gaza video series is here.

(h/t Shachar Petrushka)

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01/17 Links Pt1: Israel blasts UN demand to lift PA sanctions, restore terror funds; Saudi Arabia's Challenge to Biden: Let's Abandon FDR's Deal With Ibn Saud

From Ian:

If the US wants a two-state solution, it must help the Palestinians help themselves

Specifically, Washington should focus energies and resources on assisting the Palestinians overcome five fundamental obstacles currently preventing peace with Israel and their own independence.

First, it must make its funding for the Palestinian Authority, currently about $235 million per year, contingent on a) the P.A. reforming its notorious educational materials to promote peace and co-existence to children, rather than terrorism and Jew hatred; and b) reforming government media so TV news broadcasts no longer deliver daily diatribes about “filthy Jews” and the Zionist enemy who “stole their land.”

Aid must also be conditioned on the Palestinian leadership ending its unconscionable “pay-for-slay” program—paying lifetime salaries to terrorists who kill innocent Jews. Currently the Palestinians spend some $300 million annually on this program. Ironically, rather than supporting peace initiatives, U.S. taxpayer dollars currently fund most of the pay-for slay program costs.

In short, the United States should reward good behavior and penalize bad behavior. It should stipulate that our financial support depends on the Palestinians ending terrorism and promoting peace. Without such incentives, there is surely no hope for the two-state solution that Biden and other Americans swear they are committed to.

Second, Washington must step up its support for the Abraham Accords, to promote Arab-Israeli cooperation and commerce. Simultaneously, it should invite the Palestinians to take part in the economic and cultural cooperation thriving around them, while making it clear that progress towards normalization and peace will continue with or without them.

Third, it must harshly condemn Hamas’s efforts in the Gaza Strip to lure Israel into wars by periodically launching unprovoked attacks against the Jewish state. Likewise, it should emphatically lend its support to the international community when Israel fights back.

Fourth, it needs to help the Palestinians develop economic self-sufficiency. Currently corruption abounds in the Palestinian economy, and about one in four Palestinians has no job. Without Western aid, the economy would collapse. No two-state solution can happen without a self-sustaining Palestinian economy.

The United States and European Union pour hundreds of millions of dollars into “support” for the Palestinians, but where does this money go? Where are the U.S.- and E.U.-sponsored training, incubator and economic development programs? The most lucrative opportunity in the self-ruled Palestinian territories should be meaningful employment, not terrorist pay-for-slay.

Fifth and finally, the United States should make a concerted effort to strengthen the P.A. and help it regain control of all autonomous Palestinian territories, including Gaza. Two states and Palestinian independence will remain a fantasy until the Palestinians achieve some level of political unity and stability—the structure and institutions of a state.

Caroline Glick: Saudi Arabia's Challenge to Biden: Let's Abandon FDR's Deal With Ibn Saud

Arabs, Ibn Saud said, "would choose to die rather than yield their land to the Jews."

Roosevelt, for his part, assured Ibn Saud "that he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people."

Generations of U.S. presidents kept Roosevelt's word. They accepted that Arab rejection of the Jews was legitimate, and that Jewish rights were, at best, contingent on Arab acceptance. The Trump administration was the first to depart from that position—and it did so only after the Arabs themselves abandoned it. Had the Emiratis not made clear they were unwilling to subordinate their national interest of peace with Israel to the Palestinians' intransigence, even President Trump likely would have continued to push Netanyahu to accept Palestinian demands.

Now, Ibn Saud's grandchildren are themselves willing to openly accept Israel, without preconditions. And the question is whether Joe Biden will act as Donald Trump did, and follow their lead.

Depressingly, it appears the Biden administration is not willing to walk away from the FDR-Ibn Saud deal, even though maintaining it alienates Ibn Saud's very heirs. Last week, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken participated in a summit of the Abraham Accords member states in Abu Dhabi. Blinken and other senior officials continued their efforts to stand the Abraham Accords on their head by peddling the outmoded "Palestinians first" paradigm, which dominated the Arab world's fraught relations with Israel until 2020. Blinken, State Department Counselor Derek Chollet, and State Department Spokesman Ned Price all made clear that the U.S. used its presence in Abu Dhabi to divert the discussions away from collective action against Iran and economic cooperation with Israel, and toward Palestinian grievances. Chollet said the U.S. is "fully supportive of the Palestinians joining" the Abraham Accords and that the summit "focused on strengthening the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of life of Palestinians."

While Israel, the Saudis, and the Arab members of the Abraham Accords are focused on blocking Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and becoming a regional hegemon, the Biden administration remains committed—despite its tepid denials—to achieving a nuclear deal, and broader rapprochement, with Iran. Such a deal will provide Iran with the financial means and international legitimacy to become a nuclear-armed regional hegemon that threatens the very existence of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Abraham Accords partners.

In other words, the Biden administration is committed to FDR's hostile posture on Israel, and opposes the Saudis' desire to abandon Ibn Saud's anti-Israel hostility.

The stakes for the U.S. couldn't be higher. If the Biden administration joins the Abraham Accords signees in their full acceptance of Israel as their brother and partner in the lands of Abraham's children, it will secure its legacy and America's posture as the lead superpower in the Middle East for years to come. If it refuses to do so, it will strike a mortal blow to America's alliance system in the Middle East, reducing U.S. power and influence in the region for years to come.

Netanyahu's strategy to strengthen Israel in its 75th year - opinion

Netanyahu has earned the stature to speak without ambiguity
LIKE HIM or not, having served Israel’s government for most of its life and his own, Netanyahu has earned the stature to speak without ambiguity. He ascended to the leadership of an Israel that was still a fledgling, quasi-socialist-agrarian nation in a hostile neighborhood, lacking the confidence to consolidate biblical lands at the core of Jewish identity, surprisingly recovered in the defensive Six Day War of 1967. Instead, he passively accepts his opponents’ descriptions of the territories as “disputed” and eventually “occupied.”

Under his leadership, Israel has been transformed into a vibrant market economy and a technological, intelligence and diplomatic powerhouse. Defying even his own expectations, Netanyahu secured peace agreements with a large portion of the Arab world; the Abraham Accords circle of peace is still expanding, and Israel is establishing diplomatic and economic relations globally at a spectacular pace.

This is Netanyahu-the-Diplomat’s moment to end the confusing dual-action tactic of sipping West Bank development while blowing two states bubbles from the same rhetorical straw.

Likud, religious Zionists, PA and Hamas are apparently unanimous on this: No one is interested in two states west of the Jordan River. Yet, 4 of their people of all cultures seem to coexist peaceably for mutual benefit without a political theater in the Old City of Jerusalem and these newer West Bank cities. More narrative clarity from Israel might help well-intentioned international allies move on, too.

A visible integration framework could include ending the occupation by suspending military law in the West Bank and applying Israeli civil law across the territories. As the functional integration described here advances, Israel could initiate a process for easing travel restrictions and work quotas for Palestinians between the territories and the rest of Israel.

Palestinian community leaders would have incentives to monitor and preempt security risks, which would be a paramount regulator of the pace and flow of integration for law-abiding Palestinians who would enjoy social mobility in Israel’s labor market. In other words, Palestinians’ individual and leaders’ choices would determine the pace of their access.

Continuing progress on these vectors of integration could deliver fair access to opportunity for all law-abiding inhabitants of the territories, consistent with Jewish religious and cultural principles. It would help to create a virtuous circle of development both within Judea and Samaria and the rest of Israel, consolidating support for the governing coalition within Israel and providing a realistic vision for diplomatic progress for all of Israel’s international allies, including supporting a core diplomatic priority of encouraging Saudi Arabia’s accession to the Abraham Accords circle of peace.

A new vision could be revealed in action, upgrading tentative words of defense. A new transparent narrative for a new process: freer movement and freer access to opportunity for all of Israel’s inhabitants. Ground-level practical integration could also involve community self-governance - always security-dependent - and in due course a constitutional path toward national participation on terms consistent with Israel’s unique status as a Jewish nation.

On the eve of Israel’s 75th anniversary, Netanyahu’s Likud and its partners have finally won the chance to reveal and deliver Israel’s destiny as the Prophet Isaiah’s light unto the nations, a beacon of spiritual and moral virtue for all humanity.

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