Desi Thoughts

Amrika, Pakistan, Islam and everything in between

Tag: israel

Politics (A rant)

October 15, 2010 / / 0 Comments

When i came to the USA some 10 odd years ago, i witnessed the first election in 2000; it was closely fought and very controversial. I looked at the election from a distance as i was working odd jobs and trying to make a living. From what i saw from far was a noble system that was working so well for the people. I would think then that this is the way Pakistan needs to be at, with elections held and results handled so well (although the results that year were decided by the supreme court very much in USA (Gore vs. Bush))

Muslims were very happy with the results, Gore had chosen a pro-israel politician to be his running mate and when bush defeated him, it was all cheers.

Well i am not going to talk about Muslims and USA or anything but coming back to my original point about the noble electoral system, i was fascinated. Later on i got a job where i had to commute 1 hour every day and i would listen to CSPAN Radio every morning. This was in 2003-2004 election season. By this time i have had some time and learned about the political system. As the election got closer, it became clearer that the system was as dirty as i had left behind in Pakistan. Politicians don’t work for their constituents, but they work for the party. Right or wrong, the party line was used to vote on critical issues and decisions that impacted citizens every day.

Attack campaigns and much uncivilized manner of political wrangling, use of lobbyists and many more dirty tricks were used to win elections, defeat bills and play the politics game. It is very interesting for me that in the last 10 years or so, i have seen the American society disintegrate into religious and liberal groups. This division was never this clear before but now it is clearer than before. The ads on TV now a day are based on lies, deceitful statements and religion. Is this is the United States of American or United States of Christian America?

Recently reading a book on a troublesome event in the history of Muslims, Siege of Mecca was about taking over the holiest place for Muslims by extremists, the author in the end had emphasized that after defeating the terrorists/extremists, the Saudi government gave in to their demands and adopted what they wanted to force on the society. It seems that after defeating the confederates in the civil war, the US government had adopted a lot of their extreme agendas and defeating them was nothing but a makeup with the extreme right. I think the reminiscence of those extreme are now part of Republicans.

Why have the British media killed the ‘Kill Khalid’ reviews?

March 23, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Despite rave reviews in the US, Paul McGeough’s book about a failed Mossad assassination attempt has been ignored by British media

By Phillip Knightley
LAST UPDATED 3:10 PM, JULY 21, 2009
In April this year Quartet Books published Kill Khalid: The Failed Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas. It was written by an Australian war correspondent, Paul McGeough, an expert on the Middle East.

The book had come out in the United States to ecstatic reviews. I had heard of McGeough and although I did not know him, when asked to provide a quote for the book’s dust-jacket, I read the manuscript and was happy to do so.

I found it a rare and most exciting book – a serious political history that the author had made into a fast-paced thriller. At its core is the story of how, in 1997, the Israeli intelligence service Mossad tried to assassinate the Hamas leader, Khalid Mishal, in broad daylight on the streets of Amman, Jordan. Under the cover of opening a can of Coca Cola, the assassins sprayed a deadly poison into his ear.

Israel handed over the antidote when Jordan threatened to hang their agentsBut the Mossad agents bungled their escape, Khalid’s bodyguards managed to capture two of them and the others had to hide in the Israeli embassy. As Khalid slipped into a coma, Jordanian troops surrounded the Israeli embassy and after a complaint from a furious King Hussein of Jordan, Bill Clinton pressured the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to try to right matters.

At first Netanyahu pleaded that it was too late to reverse the effects of the poison. But when Hussein added the threat that if Khalid died, the Mossad agents who were being held by Jordan would all be hanged, the antidote was quickly produced. Khalid survived, just, and the stage was set for his phenomenal political ascendancy.

Containing interviews with all the leading players, including unprecedented access to Khalid himself, McGeough’s book recounts the history of Hamas through a decade of suicide bombing attacks, political infighting and increasing public support, culminating in the battle for Gaza in 2007 and the present day political stalemate.

This is a serious book with an important message about one of the world’s most

turbulent trouble spots. But it received a strange reception in Britain. After two excellent reviews – in the London Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement – it has been virtually ignored.

The chairman of Quartet Books, Naim Attallah, was so concerned about this that he contacted the literary editors of all the major publications. Most told him that they did not plan to review the book. Further, his sales force informed him that some bookshops were reluctant even to stock it.

Attallah then issued a press release accusing the literary establishment of “an unspoken tactic to limit the book’s public circulation” because of a decision to “dismiss Hamas within the box of ‘terrorist organisation’ without granting a serious consideration to its valid aspects as a voice in the debate”.

He added: “Anyone who hopes for peace in the Middle East must surely recognise that Hamas is an integral part of any move towards a peace settlement. No progress can be achieved without their involvement.”

Khalid Mishal, ill after being poisoned by Mossad agents, is transferred to hospital

It is difficult to attribute motives to organisations for their non-action in any controversy. But it does seem to me that in this case the British literary establishment has a case to answer. I believe it has developed a mind-set that is adverse to controversy. Hamas has been designated a ‘terrorist organisation’. Therefore to review a book about a ‘terrorist organisation’ would leave a book editor open to criticism.

Further, it might provoke a complaint from one of the many organisations that supports Israel. This would require a response.
Memos would have to be exchanged and letters written.

At a time of reduced budgets and staff cuts, many a literary editor would be tempted to decide that to review a controversial book like Kill Khalid is simply not worth the trouble.

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/50995,news-comment,news-politics,british-media-kill-khalid-mishal-reviews-paul-mcgeough-mossad-israel-hamas-middle-east

KILL KHALID

March 23, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I have nearly read this book and this book is a very interesting account on Hamas and its history. A must read for anyone who wants to know about Hamas.

The Martyr Who Did Not Die
By REVIEW BY GREG MYRE
Sunday, March 8, 2009

KILL KHALID

The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise

of Hamas

By Paul McGeough

New Press. 477 pp. $26.95

Actuarial tables are not kind to the leaders of Hamas. The Israeli security forces reserve a special fury for the radical Islamic group, and it’s tough to be taken seriously as a Hamas leader unless you can prove that the Israelis tried to kill you at least once.

The group’s most notorious bomb maker was killed by an exploding cellphone in 1996. Its quadriplegic founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, was in his wheelchair on his way home from a mosque when an Israeli missile struck him down in 2004. This past New Year’s Day, a one-ton Israeli bomb flattened the apartment building that housed Hamas firebrand Nizar Rayyan, killing him, all four of his wives and 11 of their children.

Given this history, Khalid Mishal, a key figure in Hamas since the group was founded two decades ago, can consider himself very lucky indeed. His brush with death came on the streets of Amman, Jordan, in 1997, when an Israeli Mossad agent squirted an exotic poison in his ear. But the would-be assassin and an accomplice were quickly chased down by Mishal’s driver, his bodyguard and some passersby. Outraged that the attack took place on Jordanian soil, King Hussein demanded the antidote from Israel as part of the price for releasing the Mossad agents. Under U.S. pressure, the Israelis reluctantly complied.

This episode made Mishal an instant legend within Hamas. He became a martyr in a group that reveres them and did so without the inconvenience of dying. In “Kill Khalid,” Australian journalist Paul McGeough uses the botched assassination as the jumping-off point for a timely and thorough examination of Hamas, highlighting the ways in which Israel has intentionally and unintentionally aided its rise.

Mishal’s near-death experience has been well reported in previous books and articles, and this book runs the risk of being as stale as month-old hummus. But in the circular nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the same characters keep coming back around, and this 12-year-old drama couldn’t be more relevant today.

Binyamin Netanyahu was the Israeli prime minister who authorized the attempt on Mishal’s life. It proved to be a huge embarrassment, and though Hamas wasn’t part of the negotiations, the reckless Israeli action was one of a thousand cuts that drained the blood out of the peace process that had begun so hopefully with the 1993 Oslo accords.

So what’s new? Well, Netanyahu’s Likud party finished a close second in Israel’s February elections, and he has been trying to form a coalition government with himself as prime minister. If he succeeds, his most immediate security concern will be Hamas . . . led by Khalid Mishal.

Back in 1997, President Bill Clinton intervened to calm the Jordanians and contain the political damage from the attempted assassination. This past week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toured the region and met with Netanyahu in hopes of restarting negotiations. The cast may be familiar, but one huge difference between then and now is that Hamas is much more powerful, which will greatly complicate any peace effort.

McGeough documents how, two decades ago, Israel encouraged the development of Hamas by allowing it to establish schools, health clinics and other social services. Israel’s thinking at the time was that Hamas could serve as a religious counterweight to Yasser Arafat’s secular Fatah movement and splinter Palestinian loyalties. But once it put down roots, Hamas quickly expanded its role, moving from peace-process spoiler in the 1990s, to suicide-bombing assembly line at the beginning of this decade, to rulers of the ravaged Gaza Strip for the past three years.

For such a key figure, Mishal is not well known, even to Palestinians. He was just 11 when his family fled the West Bank in the wake of the 1967 war, and he last set foot there in 1975. After bouncing around the Middle East, he now maintains a relatively low profile in Damascus, where he lives in a guarded compound reserved mostly for Syrian VIPs and foreign diplomats. Yet as much as anyone else in the region today, Mishal is linked to all the key players. He tends to surface at vital moments — such as Israel’s assault on Gaza in December and January — and McGeough makes excellent use of him to explain the cross-currents that make the Middle East so messy.

To begin with, Mishal must negotiate the friction between Hamas “insiders,” the leaders based in Gaza, and the group’s “outsiders,” exiles such as himself. He also figures prominently in the tensions that pit Hamas against Fatah. He is a full-throated advocate of suicide bombings who issued predictably hard-line statements during the recent fighting in Gaza. Yet on those occasions when Hamas turns to diplomacy, Mishal pops up in Egypt or Saudi Arabia to guide the Hamas delegation.

He depends on Syria for his security and has links in Lebanon to Hezbollah, a group Hamas has long studied and emulated. Mishal is also on good terms with Hamas’s most important patron, Iran, which supplies cash and trains Hamas militants. In short, it’s hard to figure out the Mideast jigsaw puzzle without understanding where he fits in.

As a reporter, I covered Hamas for years, and it was always tricky gauging Mishal’s influence. His exhortations to strike at Israel certainly resonated with the radical youths in Gaza, yet at times it seemed that his perch in exile left him out of day-to-day decision-making by Hamas leaders on the ground.

But Israel has systematically killed many of those leaders, and Mishal’s prominence has grown by process of elimination. McGeough makes a strong case that, even from afar, Mishal is deeply involved in daily events in Gaza. The author was with Mishal in his Damascus compound in September 2007, when Al-Jazeera was broadcasting scenes of Hamas security forces beating Fatah protesters in Gaza. An exasperated Mishal spoke by phone to the Hamas security chief in Gaza and told him to ease up.

Far too many earnest, lumbering books on the Middle East propose recycled versions of the path to peace. McGeough doesn’t offer a solution to the conflict. But he provides a highly instructive account of how Hamas emerged as a potent force and why its faithful honor Mishal as the “martyr who did not die.”

View all comments that have been posted about this article.
© 2009 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR2009030602019_pf.html

Britain expels Israeli diplomat over Dubai passport row

March 23, 2010 / / 0 Comments

The UK is to expel an Israeli diplomat over the use of 12 forged British passports linked to the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the Commons there were “compelling reasons” to believe Israel was responsible for the passport “misuse”.
He said: “The government takes this matter extremely seriously. Such misuse of British passports is intolerable.”
Israel says there is no proof it was behind the killing in Dubai in January.
But Mr Milband said it was “highly likely” the Israeli secret service Mossad was involved and the fact that Israel was a close ally added “insult to injury”.
Strong message
“Given that this was a very sophisticated operation, in which high-quality forgeries were made, the government judges it is highly likely that the forgeries were made by a state intelligence service,” he said.
“We have concluded that there are compelling reasons to believe Israel was responsible for the misuse of the British passports.”
BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen said the expulsion sent a “very clear message” of British disapproval.

There can’t be a greater violation of trust for one ally to abuse the passports of another ally
Sir Menzies Campbell

Expulsion ‘a strong signal’
“It is a very big step for a government like the British to expel one of the diplomats belonging to one of its important allies,” he said.
The British government has stopped short of accusing Israel of the murder, but Mr Miliband has previously demanded full co-operation with its investigation into how the passports were obtained.
The foreign secretary’s statement indications from Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) that officers had found proof of the cloned passports.
Soca officers had travelled to Israel to speak to those whose passports were copied with new photographs inserted.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Hamas group said it welcomed the decision to expel the diplomat but wanted international efforts to track down the killers stepped up.
Former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, said for a diplomat to be expelled, Israel must have had “some hand” in the matter, or had been unwilling to co-operate with Soca.

ANALYSIS

Tim Franks, BBC News, Jerusalem
There is a clear Israeli desire to talk this argument down from one where it could damage the wider relationship.
As for the more general Israeli view, that is mixed. Many believe that there is a measure of slightly unconvincing righteous indignation from the countries whose nationals had their passports cloned. Those Israelis argue that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was as much an enemy of the West, as of Israel.
But there are a good number of Israelis who also believe this was a cack-handed operation, which blew the identities of 27 valuable agents, and caused an unnecessary diplomatic stink.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “It is very serious indeed… there can’t be a greater violation of trust for one ally to abuse the passports of another ally.”
Downing Street confirmed that the head of Britain’s diplomatic service, Peter Ricketts, met Israel’s ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, on Monday.
Last month Mr Miliband described the use of fake UK passports as an “outrage” and vowed that the inquiry would “get to the bottom” of the affair.
It is believed 12 fake British passports were used in the plot to murder Mr Mabhouh – the founder of Hamas’s military wing – in his hotel room in Dubai on 19 January.
The names and details on the UK passports used by eight of the 12 suspects belonged to British-Israeli citizens living in Israel. All of them have denied involvement.
Dubai police have used CCTV footage to identify 27 alleged members of the team that tracked and killed Mr Mabhouh.
Other members of the hit squad travelled on fake Irish, French and Australian travel documents, Dubai police said.
Dubai officials said they were “99% certain” that agents from Mossad were behind the killing but Israel has said there is no proof its agents were involved.
Following his death, Mr Mabhouh’s family said doctors who had examined him determined he had died after receiving a massive electric shock to the head. They also found evidence that he had been strangled.
Blood samples sent to a French laboratory confirmed he was killed by electric shock, after which the body was sent to Syria.
Thousands of people attended Mr Mabhouh’s funeral at the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, on the outskirts of Damascus in January.
In 1988 Britain expelled Israeli diplomat Arie Regev over a spying row. He was described by UK sources as a Mossad agent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8582518.stm

Dubai police '99% sure' Mossad was behind death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

February 18, 2010 / / 0 Comments

• Israeli ambassador told to explain use of fake passports
• Relations with Tel Aviv in ‘deep freeze’, warn British officials
Julian Borger and Mark Tran
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 February 2010 13.05 GMT

The father of Palestinian militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was killed recently, holds up a photograph of his son. Dubai police say they are virtually certain Mossad was behind the murder. Photograph: Hatem Moussa/AP

Dubai police said today they were virtually certain Mossad was behind the assassination of a Hamas commander, as the incident threatened to turn into a diplomatic row between Israel and Britain over the use of false British passports.

“Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. It is 99%, if not 100%, that Mossad is standing behind the murder,” Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim told the National newspaper in the United Arab Emirates.

Britain fired the first shot last night in a potentially explosive diplomatic row with Israel by calling in the country’s ambassador to explain the use of fake British passports by a hit squad who targeted Mabhouh in Dubai last month.

The Israeli ambassador was at the Foreign Office this morning for a brief meeting to “share information” about the assassins’ use of identities stolen from six British citizens living in Israel, as part of the meticulously orchestrated assassination of Mabhouh.

“After receiving an invitation last night, I met with Sir Peter Ricketts, deputy-general of the British foreign minister,” Ron Prosor said after the meeting. “Despite my willingness to co-operate with his request, I could not shed new light on the said matters.”

Britain has stopped short of accusing Israel of involvement, but to signal its displeasure the Foreign Office ignored an Israeli plea to keep the summons secret. “Relations were in the freezer before this. They are in the deep freeze now,” an official told the Guardian.

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, insisted he was determined to “get to the bottom of” how fake British passports were involved in the killing. He said he “hoped and expected” that Tel Aviv would co-operate fully with the investigation into the “outrage”.

Gordon Brown launched an investigation yesterday into the use of the fake passports, which will be led by the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The British embassy in Tel Aviv is also contacting the British nationals affected in the plot “and stands ready to provide them with the support they need”, the Foreign Office said last night.

“The British passport is an important part of being British and we have to make sure everything is done to protect it,” Brown told LBC Radio yesterday.

A UAE official said the number of suspects in the assassination had widened to at least 18. The official said the list included 11 people identified this week, two Palestinians in custody and five others. Two women were among the suspects.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz named the two Palestinians as Ahmad Hasnin, a Palestinian intelligence operative, and Anwar Shekhaiber, an employee of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. They were arrested in the Jordanian capital Amman and extradited to Dubai. Both worked for a property company in Dubai belonging to a senior official of Fatah, the political faction headed by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, the paper reported.

Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said there was no proof that Mossad was involved in Mabhouh’s killing in a Dubai hotel last month, but added that Israel had a “policy of ambiguity” on intelligence matters.

There were calls in Israel for an internal government inquiry into whether Mossad was responsible for identity theft from dual nationals, and criticism of its chief, Meir Dagan, for what critics described as a clumsy operation that risked alienating European allies.

“What began as a heart attack turned out to be an assassination, which led to a probe, which turned into the current passport affair,” a columnist, Yoav Limor, wrote in Israel Hayom, a pro-government newspaper. “It is doubtful whether this is the end of the affair.”

Yesterday more details emerged about the assassination plot:

• The Guardian learned that a key Hamas security official is under arrest in Syria on suspicion of having helped the assassins identify Mabhouh as their target.

• Authorities in Vienna have begun an investigation into whether Austria was used as a logistical hub for the operation. Seven of the mobile phones used by the killers had Austrian SIM cards.

• Three of the killers entered Dubai with forged Irish passports that had numbers lifted from legitimate travel documents.

It is not the first British-Israeli row over the misuse of British passports. British officials are particularly angry because the Israeli government pledged that there would be no repeat of an incident in 1987, in which Mossad agents acquired and tampered with British passports.

Lieberman said he believed relations with Britain would not be damaged. “I think Britain recognises that Israel is a responsible country and that our security activity is conducted according to very clear, cautious and responsible rules of the game. Therefore we have no cause for concern,” he said.

France yesterday also claimed the French passport used by one of the assassins had been forged. A source close to the French intelligence services told Reuters a French passport that Dubai said had been used in the operation had a valid number but incorrect name. “It was a very good fake,” the source said.

Hamas, meanwhile, vowed vengeance for Mabhouh’s killing. At a memorial rally in Gaza, Hamas militants vowed that the movement’s armed wing, Izz-el Deen al-Qassam, “will never rest until they reach his killers”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/18/dubai-police-certain-mossad-killing

Jewish Terrorism in Israel | Foreign Affairs

February 6, 2010 / / 0 Comments
Avoiding the pitfalls that generally confront the study of terrorism — either expressing outrage at such inhumane behavior or dismissing one man’s terrorist as another man’s freedom fighter — the authors dispassionately study the backgrounds, social networks, and motives of the terrorists.
Jewish Terrorism in Israel, the second book to appear in the Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare series, sets a high bar for subsequent works. After a brisk treatment of terrorism in ancient Israel (which often inspires today’s terrorism), it moves to modern times, documenting not just the well-remembered examples, such as the 1948 assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 mass murder in Hebron, and the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin but seemingly every terrorist act by Israeli Jews realized or aborted from 1948 to 2007. Avoiding the pitfalls that generally confront the study of terrorism — either expressing outrage at such inhumane behavior or dismissing one man’s terrorist as another man’s freedom fighter — the authors dispassionately study the backgrounds, social networks, and motives of the terrorists. Several of these case studies are based on interviews with perpetrators quaintly labeled as “retired.” Comparing Jewish terrorism to that of Islamists, the authors show that “religious terrorism is not a one-faith phenomenon.”

via Jewish Terrorism in Israel | Foreign Affairs.

Islam Religion of Terror

October 7, 2006 / / 0 Comments

An old Article but always nice to read it.

http://beliefnet.com/story/113/story_11347_1.html

In Defense of Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson and others are right about Islam being a violent religion. Look at the evidence for yourself.
Pat Robertson recently drew attacks from Muslim groups for calling Muhammad a “wild-eyed fanatic,” among other things. Robertson, as usual, states the case in excessively inflammatory terms.

But it must be said that Robertson’s basic critique of Islam as an inherently violent religion is accurate. This may not be politically correct to say, but one need only examine evidence. Islam is not only violent in its current practice but at its core–which is to say in its sacred text, the Qur’an.

Remember that Muhammad was a military leader and as such involved personally in a great deal of brutality. In the course of one battle, Muhammad’s troops raid a village and kill everyone “until there was no survivor left.” [Full citations provided below.] During another battle, Muhammad’s troops killed many men but the “prophet” is disturbed that male infants weren’t murdered too–and sends the troops back to finish the job.

The early Muslims are shown to be not only brutal but treacherous (a fact worth remembering as we consider peace treaties with Muslim nations). In one battle, the Muhammadans promised peace to a tribe nearby. Then, when the other tribe members were lulled into complacency, Muhammad massacred “all the males.” They kept the women as slaves.

The hatred for other faiths that we see in modern Islam has its roots in the Qur’an. The book tells how the Jews of the area had offered peace and Muhammad invited them to a ceremony to declare peace. Instead, Muhammad massacred the 950 of them.

Muhammad even countenances brutality against his own people. When a group in the region reputedly insulted Allah by worshiping an idol, Muhammad led the slaughter of 3,000 people in a single day. When some of his followers strayed by following non-Islamic sex practices, Allah literally directs Muhammad to slaughter another 24,000: “take all the heads of the people and hang them up before Allah against the sun.”

Under the Sharia, the Islamic law, even the slightest infractions are punished with brutal violence. Some foods were not cooked according to Halal laws? Two men were immediately executed.

The notion that Allah is a forgiving God is comical. At one point, Muhammad had led his troops to victory and then had his troops mutilate the genitalia of the opponents. He and his allies also set fire to a walled city and then waited for the victims to flee, at which point they were ambushed and slaughtered. Putting aside the historical accuracy of that account, is this really the “God of Peace” that Muslim leaders speak about?

The appalling treatment of women we see in Islamic countries today also has its roots in the Qur’an. When a mob of Muslims is attacking a man, he responds by offering his own daughter to be raped. Allah teaches the Muslims that to in order repopulate a diminished tribe, they should go to a nearby field, wait for the women to come out, and then kidnap, rape and marry them.

This is all very consistent with the basic theology of Islam spelled out in chilling clarity by Muhammed himself: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Finally, if there’s any doubt about the fanatical nature of the faith, it should be dispelled with this chilling passage: “Happy shall they be who take your little ones [babies] and dash them against the rock.”

If you are skeptical, I urge you to read the passages and citations yourself. It’s there in black and white.

Citations and documentation

Hmmm, I seem to have made a few errors with the attributions. The passages you’ve just read are not from the Qur’an; they’re from the Bible. Where I say Muhammad, I actually meant either Moses, Joshua, David, or another biblical figure. “I have not come to bring peace but a sword” was uttered by Jesus. When I say “Allah,” I actually meant God of the Hebrew Bible. And when I refer to Muhammed’s troops, I actually meant the Hebrews. There are obviously many other examples of brutality in the Bible (the best summary I’ve seen is Gregg Easterbrook’s “Beside Still Waters”).

Forgive my sloppiness, but it seemed useful to make a point, which is not that Christianity or Judaism are inherently violent but rather that the exercise of scanning ancient texts and pulling out passages depicting violence is of dubious value. Men and women of that earlier day were violent, and so was the God of their sacred book.

I am not saying Islam is a “religion of peace.” That actually seems as unprovable as saying it is a religion of violence. What matters fundamentally is how the religion is practiced now. Modern Christians and Jews have proven capable of rising above the violence of the Bible and so have many modern Muslims. That doesn’t mean they necessarily will in all cases, but if they choose a path of violence it is not because it is embedded in the Qur’an but rather because they, as individuals, are twisted.

Citations:

For a particularly nice summary of the Bible’s violent elements see Gregg Easterbrook’s wonderful book, “Beside Still Waters.”

Remember that Muhammad is a military leader and as such is involved personally a great deal of brutality. In the course of one battle led by Muhammad, he raids a village and kills everyone “until their was not one survivor left.” (This is actually from Numbers 21:35, the story of the taking of Bashan.) After another battle, Muhammad’s troops have slain many men but the “prophet” is disturbed that male infants weren’t killed–so he sends the troops back to finish the job. (This actually occurs in Numbers 31:14-17, when Israel takes vengeance on the Mid’ianites.)

They are shown to be not only brutal but treacherous (history worth remembering as we consider peace treaties). In one battle, the Muhammadans promised peace to a tribe nearby and then, when they were lulled into complacency, massacred “all the males.” They kept the women as slaves. (This is a story from Genesis 34:25, when Simeon and Levi take vengeance on Shechem, who had defiled their sister Dinah.)

More citations

The hatred for other faiths that we see in modern Islam has its roots in the Qur’an. At one point, the Jews of the area had offered peace and Muhammad invited them to a ceremony to declare peace. Instead, Muhammad massacred the 950 of them. (As Elijah does, in I Kings 18:40, to the followers of the false God Ba’al.)

But it goes beyond that; Muhammad even countenances brutality ag
ainst his own. When one group in the region reputedly insulted Allah by worshiping an idol, Muhammad led the slaughter of 3,000 people in a single day. Another group of dissenters prompted a bloody massacre led by Muhammed that killed 14,700 people, according to the Qur’an. (When Korah leads a rebellion against Moses and Aaron, a plague sent by God kills 14,700, Numbers 16:49). Later, when some of his followers strayed by following non-Islamic sex practices, Allah literally directs Muhammad to slaughter another 24,000: “take all the heads of the people and hang them up before Allah against the sun.” (This slaughter occured in Numbers 25:9, when some Isarelites were found to have joined the Moabites in improper sex.)

Under the Sharia, the Islamic law, even the slightest infractions are punished with brutal violence. In one case, some foods were not cooked according to Halal laws, and the two men were immediately executed. (The Lord smites Nadab and Abi’hu, the sons of Aaron, in Leviticus 10:2, for offering an unholy sacrifice.)

The notion that Allah is a forgiving God is comical. At one point, some people had the temerity to question one of the dietary laws and Allah supposedly responded by sending poisonous snakes to kill people. At another point, Muhammed had led his troops to victory but then proceeded to murder and then mutilate the genitalia of the opponents. In one case, they set fire to a walled city and then wait of the fleeing victims and slaughter them as they try to escape. (As Joshua and the people of Israel do to the city of Ai in Joshua 8:22.)

The appalling treatment of women in Islamic countries today has its roots in the Qur’an. In one case, a mob of Muslims is attacking a man and he responds by offering his own daughter to be raped. (As in Judges 19:24.) In some cases, it specifies that women who are raped should be executed. (One of these cases appear in Deuteronomy 22:23-27.) In another case, Allah literally instructs the Muslims that to repopulate a diminished tribe they should go to a nearby field, wait for the women to come out, kidnap, rape and marry them. (In Judges 21:20-24, Benjamite soldiers are told to repopulate their tribe by kidnapping the women of Shiloh.)

This is all very consistent and the theology that undergirds this is spelled out in chilling clarity, directly from Muhammad himself: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (This quote is actually attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, Matthew 10:34.)

Finally, if there’s any doubt about the fanatical nature of the faith, it should be dispelled with this chilling passage: “Happy shall they be who take your little ones [babies] and dash them against the rock.” (This quote is actually from the Psalms, 137:9, when the exiled Israelites dream of revenge against Babylon.)

Nuclear Iran

April 18, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Well I am not going to speculate about a nuclear Iran, It was definitely be a problem for Muslims (Sunni I mean) who dont like Iran. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan I am sure won’t be happy with that fact. Maybe they might even help USA some how covert to stop Tehran from getting closer to a full nuclear program. Shias in Pakistan are a minority and so are they in Saudi Arabia; A Nuclear Iran will help those minority get stronger.

Well I didn’t start the blog about this issue but as I was thinking of a possibility of an attack on Iran from USA, it will do a lot of opposite things that USA wouldn’t want. What am I talking about, well if GW decides to attack Iran that will result in the unthinkable i.e. Unite the Muslims.

Think about this, this will be the platform for Muslims, Sunni or Shia to come together to condemn USA. This will also bring them together to form anti US alliances in the Middle East which is exactly what the USA doesn’t want. So I guess Mr. Bush now you are at a cross roads, you have to protect Israel but can’t afford a united Muslim nations. The US policy and officials have to walk a very fine line on this issue. Israel and US strategic interests go way back and so does the distrust between Shia Sunnis. If the attack does happen, this will push Muslim to come together who won’t care if they are Shia or Sunni but their common ground will be hatred of US Policy.
Then it won’t be hard to imagine people like Zarqavi getting training and resources from Iran, they will open flood gates of problems for the Middle East rather than just USA.

Countries like Pakistan can get trouble and might not be a favorable please for a US friendly government. If Iran becomes hostile then Pakistan has to worry about unfriendly countries from most of its borders, they include Iran, India and Afghanistan. Currently internal problems in Pakistan are causing for them to rethink their policies, Balouch and NWFP problems and Army’s involvement is causing an ever deteriorating problem from getting stable to getting worse. In such scenarios Pakistan might not be able to handle another fiasco in the Middle East, i.e. Iran.

So I guess we can hope and pray that nothing like that happens. Inshallah :). But Bush will have to keep a cool mind and try to work with Iran.

the undeclared wars in muslim asia

March 12, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Well I thought I will document the undeclared, below radar wars going on in the world. These are mostly IT wars and take place constantly online, in forums, sometimes spills out in real life also.

1. Shia Sunni:
Very evident it is happening in Iraq, Pakistan and quite a few places. Shias hate Sunnis and vice versa. It is also happening online, just visit any community related to shias on Orkut or sunnis, you will find evidence of such battles.

2. West and Muslim World
This one is also very clear with Iraq, Muslims fighting West’s presence in Iraq, also in Pakistan, Iran resisting US Pressure on Nuclear ambitions and so on. This was is not about religion but clash between values and societies, Their civilizations and cultures.

3. Islam and Christianity
This war has been on for quite a while. The influx of missionaries who try to convert people to Christianity and Muslims following suit. sometimes it erupts in bloody conflict like Lebanon or Nigeria.

4. India Pakistan
This is a proxy war which has been going on for a long time. With the Afghan conflict out of hand Pakistani still wage this undeclared war until God knows Who.

5. Saudi/Pakistan and Iran
To counter shia Islam the sunnis countries try to fight the shia Islam in Iran and now maybe Iraq. Iran has been sponsoring shia militancy in Pakistan for quite a while. Saudi Arabia has supported Sunni militant groups in Pakistan for a long time.

6. China and India
These two powers have had clashed once and now fight unconventional wars between each other. China supports Pakistan in its efforts to match India’s might and china also achieves its hidden agenda also against India at the same time.

7. America and China
The war of economy and communism vs. capitalism goes on. China is being fought now by helping India.

8. Israel and Muslim World
The centuries old conflict with Jerusalem in the middle and Israeli occupancy also happening at the same time. Israel has USA on its side and non one can beat them economically or militarily.

Progressive Islaam

February 26, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Hmmmmm…

Muslims Wake Up, which was the blog name I saw on some site, which had a lot of interesting blogs and forum links. Well the title is not accurate; it should be Progressive Muslims Wake Up.
I realize that there is a lot of stuff that happens in the Muslim world which has nothing to do with Islam. Honor Killings are not Islamic, women are honored in Islam. Honor killing is a cultural aspect, not an Islamic tradition. Polygamy is a fact in Islam but if and only if you can do justice with your spouses and not violate their rights. Shariah and Hadood are a fact and should be prescribed in a Muslim country. Homosexuality is forbidden in the Quran and it is an act not welcome in any religion. There are so many things I can write here but I will put a stop to it.

I just imagine if the prophet was here during this time, what his opinion would be. Well he will not be happy with overall Muslims. They are not united or strong. They are fighting among themselves in so many sects. Muslims prefer non Muslims each other. Muslim’s love for the world is greater than for their own salvation. So many problems that exist in the Muslim societies but I just want to talk about one. i.e. Progressive Muslims

I am not a religious authority or not even enough learned about Islam but I can see a problem if there is one. Progressive Muslims have gotten a lot of attention in the recent years, due to their defiance of the Men’s dominance of Islam. A lot of women are spearheading this effort but men are also equally involved. Islam has never discouraged women’s role but the societies have done that very much. Islam came to give women rights in a society that never gave any to women.

Women leading the jumah and a lot of Muslims (men or women) praying behind them together.
Accepting Homosexuality in Islam.
No respect for Hijab.

I don’t know I was never brought up in a society that was conservative. My family was very liberal and I think I am still very liberal. But what is wrong is wrong. If I say the earth is flat, it doesn’t become flat or if I believe that it doesn’t become flat. Facts are facts, Islam has a lot of history and that history has been preserved maybe for days like this when people try to change Islam for their convenience.

If having illegitimate relations and having a child out of wedlock is acceptable in the society then I feel that we have reached that threshold which was told in the ahadith about days before the Day of Judgment.
Islam teaches us good things and noble aspects of human personality. If you believe in God you should obey the word of Allah. Let’s not try to find ways out of his laws. As the children of Israel did to fish on Fridays but not on the Sabbath and what happened to them is in the Quran. I guess we should learn from those lessons and ask Allah for forgiveness.

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