Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 31, 2009

Comments on comments

This blog got 1466 comments in August, a little higher than July's previous high. Monday alone saw 75 comments.

Most of the comments are quite good and the debates have been enjoyable, and it is making this blog not only a destination for reading posts but also a community, which is particularly gratifying.

I just wanted to thank everyone who jumps into the fray and who avoids ad hominem attacks. I would like this nascent community to be as welcoming, respectful and lively as possible.

Can soccer players break the Ramadan fast?

Controversy has erupted around a recent fatwa out of Egypt:

Egypt’s top religious institution has exempted the national football team from fasting during the holy month of Ramadan ahead of an international tournament, officials said, but the players have refused.

The fatwa or religious edict, which comes ahead of the World Youth Championship in Egypt due to kick off on September 24 just days after the end of Ramadan, has sparked the fury of the country’s hardliners.

Dar al-Ifta, the country’s institution which clarifies religious principles and issues edicts, “has allowed the players to break their fast,” so that fasting does not interfere with training for the Under-20 tournament, Egyptian Football Association spokesman Alaa Abdel Aziz told AFP.

“But it is the players who have refused. They insist on fasting,” he said.

Dar al-Ifta confirmed it had issued the edict explaining that “a player who is tied to a club by contract is obliged to perform his duties and if this work is his source of income and he has to participate in matches during Ramadan and fasting affects his performance then he is allowed to break the fast,” Dar al-Ifta spokesman Ibrahim Nigm told AFP.

Religious opinion states that “those who work difficult jobs and can become weaker as a result of fasting can break the fast,” Nigm said.

But the fatwa infuriated the Azhar Scholars Front, a group of fundamentalist religious scholars who issued a statement on their website denouncing the opinion.

“Playing is playing, it is not an essential part of life which justifies breaking the fast during Ramadan.”

During Ramadan, Muslims are required to abstain from food, drink and sex from dawn until dusk.

But a few days later, most of the players have decided they will take advantage of the leniency:

Reports have disclosed that the players of the Egypt side are willing to skip the Muslim Ramadan fasting on the day of their game against Rwanda in a decisive World Cup qualifier on September 5.

Islam makes it mandatory for its faithfulls to go without food and water for most of the day during the month of Ramadan, but even though the Rwanda World Cup clash falls within this period, the president of the Egypt Football Association (EFA), Sameer Zaher, has said the players think it is not a good idea to fast on that day and that they have received support from some clerics in this respect.

"All players are convinced not to fast on the match day," said Zaher.

This is a must-win match for Egypt, who are three points behind surprise leaders Algeria in their qualifying group after four rounds of matches.

Al Arabiya (Arabic) talks about the controversy, with some clerics very much against this idea. One, named Sheikh Farhat, agrees that travelers can skip the fast, but that soccer players do not have that status, no do they fit in the categories of others who can legally skip the fast like breastfeeding and menstruating women (if I am interpreting the article correctly.)

He also says that Israeli players would ask for a postponement for matches scheduled for Saturdays, and Muslims should do no less.

Unfortunately, most Israeli players are not quite that serious about the Sabbath.

100,000 Hamas campers learning to kill Jews

From the IDF:

700 summer camps, for children and teenagers, operated this summer by terror organizations along the Gaza Strip – operating under the slogan – A "Victory for Gaza – The Glory of Jerusalem". The camps are operated by the Hamas in order to encourage the next generation of this organization. In the same area many summer camps are operated by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) – the main "competition" of Hamas’s summer camps. The Hamas reacted by presenting the UNRWA camps as "child corrupters", trying to discourage the parents from sending their kids to the foreign aid organization's camp.

According to Arab and Palestinian media, 100 thousand children and teenagers participated in Hamas camps this year. The budget of these camps is estimated to be 2 Million Dollars. The youths were guided by 1,500 counselors that went through special training courses. A marketing campaign of the Al-Aqsa channel of the Hamas and a special internet site encouraged participation of children in these camps.

The children and teenagers in the summer camps undergo semi military training. The pictures and commercials published this year and last summer showed that part of the curriculum included firearm practices and grenades dismantling as well as military drills for the children, while holding life-like weapons.

What better excuse can there be for me to repost my video from last year, Hello Martyr, Hello Fatah:

(h/t Israel Matzav)

Hamas calls Holocaust education a "war crime"

I am hard pressed to come up with a better example of turnspeak:

A Hamas spiritual leader on Monday called teaching Palestinian children about the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews a "war crime," rejecting a reported U.N. proposal to include the Holocaust in Gaza's school curriculum.
Hamas spiritual leader Younis al-Astal lashed out after hearing that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the main U.N. body aiding Palestinian refugees, planned to introduce lessons about the Holocaust to Gaza students.
Adding the Holocaust to the curriculum would amount to "marketing a lie and spreading it," al-Astal wrote in a statement.
"I do not exaggerate when I say this issue is a war crime, because of how it serves the Zionist colonizers and deals with their hypocrisy and lies," he wrote.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri also objected to including what he referred to as the "so-called Holocaust" in the lesson plan. "We think it's more important to teach Palestinians the crimes of the Israeli occupation," he said.

Soon we will hear that Holocaust education is offensive to Muslims altogether, so therefore it should not be taught anywhere.

Hamas pirate graphic

Looking through some Palestinian Arab forums, I saw this image, edited from a Pirates of the Caribbean logo:

A dead al-Qassam Brigades member. What's not to like?

Hamas confiscates charity's cars

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas confiscated some 50 vehicles belonging to the National Center for Community Rehabilitation in Gaza, an organization that helps out disabled Gazans. The cars were used to transport the disabled to rehabilitation programs.

As a result, the organization today closed some of its offices and around 50 employees are out of a job.

Hamas at the time justified its seizure by saying that the organization didn't need the cars.

"Islamophobia" virtually nonexistent in NY

From the Times Herald-Record (h/t Vicious Babushka):

Jews were the top targets for hate crimes in New York state last year, followed by blacks, gay men and Hispanics, according to a report by the state Department of Criminal Justice Services.
The report analyzed crime data submitted to the state by police agencies from all 62 counties. The results of the state's number-crunching are distilled in an eight-page report made public last week.
The report found that police agencies identified 596 hate crimes throughout New York last year. Jews were targets 36 percent of the time, with blacks targeted 25 percent of the time, gay men, 11 percent, and Hispanics, 4 percent.

So what about anti-Muslim crimes? We hear so much about "Islamophobia," where are all the Muslim victims of bias?

One has to dig deep into the actual report to find out the numbers. For crimes against people, Muslims were targeted six times - 1.5% - vs. 129 such incidents against Jews (37.2%.)

What about vandalism against mosques or other Muslim property? Here, the percentage is even less - 2 incidents, 1%, compared to 92 cases against Jewish property, or 46.2%.

Remember that this is the state where Muslims murdered thousands of Americans in the name of Islam.

Just more proof that Islamophobia is a fiction that was created to make Muslims appear to be perpetual victims.

Bloggers' block open thread

I couldn't come up with anything else good this morning so I have to fall back on my old stand-byes, looking at whatever the Saudi Vice Squad is up to - and the dreaded Open Thread.

Saudi Vice squad vs. the circus

If this report is correct, the Saudi vice squad is sometimes going against the wishes of the Saudi government itself:

The Commission for Promotion of Virtues and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) is cracking down on summer festivals that the government hopes will promote domestic tourism.

“These acts contradict the faith and must not be done, taught, spread or encouraged,” the Hai’a spokesman Abdullah Al-Mashiti told Al-Watan Arabic daily this week, referring to circus acts such as fire-eating and lying on beds of glass that he believes is a form of magic prohibited by Islamic Shariah law.

“They must be fought and those performing them must be reported and punished so as to be deterred and their evil restricted,” he said.

Reports suggest that the Hai’a was behind the last minute cancellation of the Jeddah summer film festival.

This month music concerts were also banned from the Abha tourism festival, in the mountainous southwest of the Kingdom. “Unfortunately such actions carried on by them (the Hai’a) do not adhere to the official political will and they sabotage the government efforts to improve and maintain the internal tourism industry,” said Mahmoud Sabbagh, a newspaper columnist.

Meanwhile, the muttawa has other pressing issues as well:

Worshippers in the Eastern Province have been warned they could be arrested by officials if they conduct prayers in mosques sporting “unsuitable” fashions.

A notice from mosque Imams in the region has reportedly been circulated informing of a ban on persons wearing “unusual and immodest clothes” from entering mosque premises, including those with “strange hairstyles or who use women’s bands in their hair”.

One Imam who preferred not to be named said the move followed a noticeable increase in the popularity of leg-wear known as “tayyihni” – most commonly seen in low-slung jeans with a crotch reaching down to the knees to partially or fully expose the wearer’s undergarments – as well as “haircuts unsuitable for a Muslim at prayer,” in probable reference to the widespread “kadash” Afro hairstyle.

“There has been cooperation between Imams and the police and the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in order to detain these violators during prayer,” the Imam said.

If I understand things correctly, the Muttawa makes sure that people attend prayers (arresting those who keep their shops open during prayer time, for example,) and then they arrest those who wear clothing that it unsuitable for prayer. Which means that they enforce a dress code for the entire country.

They sure keep busy!

Honor, humility, and realism in Islam

Amr Khaled, the charismatic Egyptian preacher I just mentioned who is under fire for being to sympathetic to Jews, has an English section to his website. I found the following passage fascinating:

We have previously discussed the importance of not being passive and that we should take positive actions, and the importance of seriousness and perfecting what we do. This time we will talk about the Honor and Dignity ('Ezzah) of the Muslim Ummah. 'Ezzah encompasses meanings of Honor, Dignity, Might, and Glory, and its opposite is Zillah or humility. Today we will say, "Yes" to Honor and "No" to humility. A Muslim only accepts Honor and never settles to humility. Allah wants us to be an Honorable and Mighty Ummah, so why do we drift ourselves to the weakness of humility? Do you know how we sowed the seeds of humility in our Ummah? When a Muslim father slaps his wife on the face, in front of his children, he's sowing the seeds of humility. When a teacher beats a student or punishes him or her in a humiliating way and when a father punishes his son in front of his friends, they are both sowing seeds of humiliation. All these things make a Muslim used to humiliation and make us forget that we were to be honorable people.

From reading this passage and the rest of the lecture, it is clear that Islam does not distinguish between humility and humiliation! Khaled does later on give specific examples of when humility is allowed (towards Allah and towards one's parents) but for him the two words are synonymous.

Self-esteem and humility are not opposites. On the contrary: both attributes should reflect a realistic self-image. To give a personal example, I may consider myself a pretty good writer compared to many bloggers, but compared to others I know I am not good at all.

A realistic self-assessment should impel one to improve him or herself; it should not lead to either despair or to self-righteousness.

Yet this Muslim preacher - who by any account is more modern and progressive than most - cannot conceive this simple concept. To him, humility is the exact opposite of honor. Worse yet, neither concept is based on reality.

For Islam, honor is something to be demanded, not earned. In Islam, humility is shameful. Neither of those views has a grounding in truth, which means that Islam is based on self-deception.

What a contrast with the Talmudic expression "Whoever seeks prestige, it flees from him, but whoever flees from prestige, it comes seeking him." Honor is not a right and humility is not a shame.

As a result, Islam looks upon people who are genuinely humble as being weak. Which brings up an interesting Catch-22 when dealing with the Muslim world today: if the West portrays itself as humble, it indicates weakness and that it is ripe for attack; if the West portrays itself as strong, it is perceived as humiliating Muslims and therefore it must be attacked.

Never do Muslims look at themselves as being inconsequential to the rest of the world, which is the biggest humiliation of all. Another example from Khaled illustrates that neatly:

The day the Jews came into our country and occupied Al-Aqsa Mosque; they were chanting a certain song. If you listen to that song, you will feel so sorry for yourself and will be eaten up with grief. Do you know what they were singing when they seized Al-Aqsa Mosque? They chanted, Muhammad is dead, he only got daughters. This is not meant to insult women, but rather to insult men.

The story is of course absurd. When Jews returned to Jerusalem, the last thing they were thinking about was humiliating Muslims, it was sheer joy at recovering the holiest site in the world. Yet even well-spoken Muslims cannot conceive of a world where they are not constantly in the center of everyone else's thoughts; they have to make up a story of Jews humiliating Muslims.

Once again, we see an Islamic worldview that is based on anything but reality, whether it is false bravado or a false sense of humiliation. (Of course, it is not only Muslims who have this failing, but Islam embraces this attribute.)

One cannot understand the Islamic world without understanding this essential concept.

Followup on Egyptian preacher

Al Arabiya finally translated the article I mentioned last week about Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled's Ramadan TV show about the life of Moses and the criticism it came under for being too sympathetic to Jews.

While I was pretty accurate, one important subtlety was lost in the autotranslation.

Khaled's website asked general questions about the life of Moses to get his viewers to think out of the box:

"Think about these questions," he wrote on the website. "You will not find their answers in any book. They just need brains and imagination."

Among the questions posted were those asking: Why did the Pharaoh order male Jews to be killed? What do you think was Moses’ political goal? Was it saving the Israelites or talking the Pharaoh into believing in God? Why didn't Moses call upon Egyptians to join his faith?

The responses were remarkable because the majority linked the story of Moses to the current political situation in Egypt and viewed it as an incentive to rebel against repressive leaders.

So while the criticisms of the program were slanted as to make Khaled appear to be pro-Jewish, the real reasons that the Egyptian government is against this series is because the Koranic story of evil Pharaoh reminds a lot of Egyptians of Mubarak.

They just knew that they could use the accusation of Khaled being a "Jew sympathizer" to help discredit him in among Egyptians.

Khaled's website is here and the page about the current story of Moses is here.

Today's PalArab news (8/30/09)

There were two bombs set off in Gaza, one outside Hamas security headquarters and another outside Mahmoud Abbas' (presumably empty) Gaza residence. A third bomb was discovered and dismantled. Looks like Jund Ansar Allah is not quite dead yet.

Hamas abducted five Fatah members in Gaza. Happy Ramadan!

Hamas called in members of the Independent Commission for Human Rights for questioning. The commission had criticized Hamas for how it treats prisoners, and Hamas wasn't happy with the report. A little pressure is always a fun diversion.

A preacher at the Al Aqsa mosque complained that Arab and Islamic leaders have abandoned Jerusalem, leaving it as a "captive and sad orphan." I dunno, it seems like that description fit a bit better when Arabs controlled the city.