Solsticewitch13's BOS

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2880/islam-is-democracy

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To avoid Palestinians erupting against both Fatah and Hamas, the two parties are working to direct the heat toward Israel.

Hamas and Fatah have lately ratcheted up their rhetoric against Israel in a clear bid to distract attention from their failure to end their power struggle.

By backing a "popular resistance" against Israel, Hamas and Fatah are hoping to distract attention from their failure to end their dispute and form a unity government.

The two rival Palestinian parties are hoping that Palestinians would turn their anger and frustration toward Israel and not toward either of them.

This is why over the past few weeks leaders and officials representing Hamas and Fatah have been talking about a third intifada that is about to erupt in the West Bank and Gaza Strip against Israel.

Both Hamas and Fatah have been urging Palestinians to step up "popular resistance" against Israel.

The two parties are telling Palestinians that Israel does not want peace or a two-state solution and is only interested in maintaining control over Palestinian lands and "Judaizing" Jerusalem.

The stepped-up anti-Israel rhetoric has resulted in a sharp increase in Palestinian violence against IDF soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Israeli policemen in east Jerusalem.

Last week, a young Palestinian man from a village near Jerusalem was killed during a confrontation with IDF soldiers. The man, Talat Ramia, was among a group of Palestinian demonstrators who hurled stones at soldiers.

Ramia and his friends took to the streets because Fatah and Hamas had warned the Palestinians that Jewish extremists were planning to "storm" the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Because of the warning, hundreds of Muslim worshippers clashed with Israeli policemen following last Friday's prayer at the mosque.

At the same time, Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip have also gone on high alert by firing more rockets at Israeli targets.

Although the two parties have signed a number of "reconciliation" accords over the past few years, the latest being earlier this month in Qatar, they have failed to implement any of the agreements.

The most recent attempt to implement the Qatar-brokered agreement between Hamas and Fatah took place in Cairo last week. However, following three days of discussions, Hamas and Fatah agreed to delay talks over the formation of a unity government because of the wide gap between the two sides.

Many Palestinians are deeply disappointed with Fatah and Hamas, which have been fighting each other since the Islamist movement came to power in 2006. Hamas and Fatah are aware that many Palestinians are increasingly frustrated with the ongoing dispute between the two sides.

They are afraid that one day the Palestinians may erupt against Fatah and Hamas. Some Palestinians have even begun talking about organizing an uprising against the two parties.

To avoid such a scenario, Hamas and Fatah are now working hard to direct the heat toward Israel. Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Mashaal know that only a new intifada against Israel will help them stay in power: Palestinians will be too busy fighting Israel.

Related Topics: Khaled Abu Toameh

"Islam is Democracy!"
What Is the Muslim Brotherhood?

by Mudar Zahran
February 27, 2012 at 4:30 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2883/iranian-regime-rational

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"The organization was established in 1928 to re-establish the Caliphate destroyed by Ataurk [the founder if modern Turkey]…..With Allah's help [the Muslim Brotherhood] will institute the law of Allah." — Mohammed Shaker Sanar, Member of Muslim Brotherhood Parliament.

Since the launch of Arab Spring, Obama's administration has been supportive of the Arabs' call for freedom and democracy. Such a graceful stance, nonetheless, has been hindered by the administration's apparent tolerance of the succession of Islamists into power at the expense of emerging Arab democracies.

Apparently President Obama sees a point in accepting, and even welcoming, the arrival of Muslim Brotherhood members into power. Such a position will possibly soon prove a fatal one -- and an example of the Islamists outwitting the US through the ballot box as they have failed to do through bombs and explosives.

President Obama's original view of the Arab Spring was somewhat logical: if the Arabs wanted a change towards democracy, there was no point in stopping them or supporting the ailing regimes against which they were protesting.

Obama was not alone in his support; Senator John McCain shared the same view. In his speech before the World Economic Forum in Jordan, he said: "For decades, we in the United States were fed the belief that the so-called Arab Street was hostile to our interests and ideals. But now we are seeing that the opposite is true: The Arab Street wants political freedom, economic opportunity, equal justice and rights, and the chance to change their countries and their governments – not through suicide and murder, but peacefully, through politics."

In theory, the Obama administration's concept of supporting the Arab people's desire for peaceful change toward democracy is valid. The consequences that have emerged, however, have been alarming. The Islamists, and particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, have dominated the parliamentary seats in Tunisia; the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist Salafis have dominated 72 percent of the parliamentary seats in Egypt; and the King of Morocco's well-intentioned reforms have brought an Islamist government into power.

Some might argue that the Islamists' domination of emerging Arab democracies is not Obama's fault, but rather the free will of the Arabs who chose to vote for the Islamists. The problem is that there is evidence that the Administration has gone beyond tolerating the Arab people's support for Islamists.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US was willing to sit down with the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. She said: "It is in the interests of the United States to engage with all parties that are peaceful and committed to nonviolence that intend to compete for the parliament and the presidency," and she confirmed that contact with members of the Muslim Brotherhood is nothing new. She said the policy consisted of "continuing the approach of limited contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood that has existed on and off for about five or six years" -- meaning that contacts had begun during the Bush administration.

The New York Times confirmed that the Obama Administration was -- among other things -- holding high-level meetings with the Muslim Brotherhood: "The Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility as it seeks to forge closer ties with an organization once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to United States interests."

When the protests were still raging in Egypt, I suggested that the US administration should usher democratic-secular parties to come to power in Egypt rather than leaving them in the cold, and that "The challenge would be in nursing the fledgling democracies not to have them hijacked by radicals the way Lenin hijacked the Russian Revolution from Trotsky and Kerensky. Well-funded."

Nevertheless, Obama's current confidence in the Muslim Brotherhood must be weighed by facts, mainly: What is the Muslim Brotherhood and who does it represent?

For a start, the Muslim Brotherhood's logo exhibits a Qur'an, with two swords underneath; below that, the word "Aedou," which means "prepare" -- from Quranic verse 8:60: "Prepare against them [the enemy] whatever you are able of power and horses by which you may strike terror into the [hearts of] the enemy, of Allah, and your enemy and others besides them whom you do not know [but] whom Allah knows." Thus, the logo itself, usually sanitized and toned down in English translations, promotes terrorism as a virtue.

Similarly, the Brotherhood's motto, now totally sanitized off its English language website, is: "Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death in the way of Allah is our highest objective."

Ever since the brotherhood landed itself a majority in the Egyptian Parliament, it has also been hard at work against Israel, first by announcing it would consider putting Egypt's peace treaty with Israel to a referendum, while confirming that the Brotherhood will not recognize Israel. Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood has not only turned its back on Obama but also on the very people who launched the Egyptian revolution; for example: Egypt's ruling generals have been stating that they will try members of non-Islamist private organization on claims of suspicious foreign funding. When the US noted that the military government's actions might affect US aid to Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood went to the media "warning" that cutting US aid might impose Egypt's peace treaty with Israel -- which suggests members of the Muslim Brotherhood were pleased to see competing private organizations and charities shut down.

Further, the Muslim Brotherhood exists under the patronage of Hamas: most Hamas leaders and founders were Muslim Brotherhood members including its founding-father, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Hamas has since turned against the Palestinian Authority and ended up seizing the Gaza strip by force in 2006, throwing people who disagreed with it or from Fatah out of the 15th and 18th floors of buildings, and are still torturing and killing people Why would Hamas and its mentor, the Muslim Brotherhood, change when dealing with Obama's administration, especially now when they see themselves as triumphing?

The Muslim Brotherhood leaders are not reluctant about sharing their agenda when speaking in Arabic: at a meeting of the National Defense and Security Committee of the Egyptian Parliament held in January 2007, Muslim Brotherhood parliament member Mohammed Shaker Sanar said the Muslim Brotherhood was not concerned about Western democracy, adding that nothing about the Muslim Brotherhood had changed: "The organization was founded in 1928 to reestablish the Caliphate destroyed by Ataturk [the founder of modern Turkey]....With Allah's help [the Muslim Brotherhood] will institute the law of Allah."

In addition to the Muslim Brotherhood's domination of Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco, should Bashar Assad's regime fall, the Brotherhood will help itself to a major role in Syria. As the Wall Street Journal notes, the non-Muslim Brotherhood opposition has thus failed to "coalesce into a solid front," therefore the Muslim Brotherhood might "prove effective amid the power void of Syria's opposition." If Assad goes, another country will fall into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Obama administration would do well to reconsider its tolerance toward the Muslim Brotherhood. The administration should start building up and supporting genuinely democratic alternative secular Arab opposition movements, not the Muslim Brotherhood's "Islam is Democracy!" one [www.JCPA.org; Jonathan Halevi]. The US should also be developing long-term contingency plans to undermine the Muslim Brotherhood's new-found political power. If not, a future US administration will have to pay for Obama's connection to the Brotherhood -- a radical group that believes in transforming the world to Islam by infiltrating democratic institutions rather than by terrorism -- as it keeps moving closer, country by country, to achieving its ultimate goal of reestablishing a Muslim Empire.

Related Topics: Mudar Zahran

Is the Iranian Regime Rational?

by Harold Rhode
February 27, 2012 at 4:15 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2891/obama-islam

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Absolutely!... In its own rational Iranian context -- but not ours. For Iran's rulers, provoking a conflagration is eminently rational. But it is hard to believe that this is what General Dempsey had in mind.

Recently, the American Chairman of the Joint Chief Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey, said that the Iranian Regime is rational. It is rational….Absolutely! -- but within its own Iranian context of rational -- not ours.

The current leaders of Iran, according to the late Ayatollah Khomeini, are dangerous. When he ruled Iran, he did his best to keep them out of government: he knew Iran's current rulers believe that by provoking a conflagration, they would try to make their Mahdi -- their messiah - return.

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which worked against the Soviets, will not work here. Iran's current rulers --- most prominently the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Iran's fake "Grand Ayatollah" leader, Khamane'i, who has the formal rank of Hojat al-Islam -- a rank far below that of Grand Ayatollah, but he "crowned himself" Grand Ayatollah, like an African dictator, after he took over his country -- also adopted the title General, and believes that when their messiah arrives, this messiah will make clear that their form of Islam -- not Sunnism, or for that matter, any non-Muslim religion -- are all perversions of the one and only true faith -- theirs -- which itself is a perversion of mainline Shi'ism.

Destruction, for Iran's rulers, is an inducement, not a deterrent. From the point of view of Iran's rulers, provoking a conflagration is eminently rational. But it is somehow hard to believe that this is what General Dempsey had in mind when he said the Iranian regime is rational.

Related Topics: Harold Rhode

Obama: "Son of Islam"?

by Raymond Ibrahim
February 27, 2012 at 4:00 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2884/assad-slaughtering-syrian-christians

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According to Sharia law, if one's father is Muslim, one automatically becomes Muslim. "Most of the Muslims I know (me included) can't seem to accept that Obama is not a Muslim."

Many in the media are indignant with Reverend Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Invited on "Morning Joe" last Tuesday to discuss Christian persecution, Graham was asked whether he thought President Barack Obama was Christian or not. Although Graham concluded that Obama "has said he is a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is," he appeared skeptical, suggesting Obama's policies disagreed with Christian principles, thus earning the full ire of much of the fourth estate.

Graham, however, was absolutely right to say that, "under Islamic law, the Muslim world sees Barack Obama as a Muslim, as a son of Islam": according to Sharia law [Islamic religious law, which regulates all parts of a Muslim's life], if one's father is Muslim, one automatically becomes Muslim. The reason behind last week's church attack in Egypt, when thousands of Muslims tried to torch a church and kill its pastor, is that a Christian girl fled from her father after he converted to Islam: she did not want to be Muslim, and was rumored to be hiding in the church. This is not the first time in recent months that churches have been attacked on similar rumors.

In short, Sharia law's position is that anyone born to a Muslim father is a Muslim—with the death penalty should they seek to apostatize: the 34-year-old Iranian pastor sentenced to death simply for converting to Christianity is just the most visible example.

Because of this automatic passage of religion from father to son, and because Obama attended a madrassa (Muslim religious school during his youth in Indonesia), many Muslims are convinced that Obama is a "secret" Muslim. In a Forbes article, "My Muslim President Obama: Why members of the faith see him as one of the flock ," writer Asma Gull Hasan elaborates:

[S]ince Election Day, I have been part of more and more conversations with Muslims in which it was either offhandedly agreed that Obama is Muslim or enthusiastically blurted out. In commenting on our new president, "I have to support my fellow Muslim brother," would slip out of my mouth before I had a chance to think twice. "Well, I know he's not really Muslim," I would quickly add. But if the person I was talking to was Muslim, they would say, "yes he is." …. Most of the Muslims I know (me included) can't seem to accept that Obama is not Muslim. Of the few Muslims I polled who said that Obama is not Muslim, even they conceded that he had ties to Islam…. The rationalistic, Western side of me knows that Obama has denied being Muslim, that his father was non-practicing, that he doesn't attend a mosque. Many Muslims simply say back, "my father's not a strict Muslim either, and I haven't been to a mosque in years." Obama even told The New York Times he could recite the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, which the vast majority of Muslims, I would guess, do not know well enough to recite.

Read the entire article, which is more eye-opening than the author probably intended.

Another reason many Muslims believe Obama is a Muslim (and a reason Ms. Hasan's article understandably omits) is that, under the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya [dissimulation], Muslims are permitted—in certain contexts, and even encouraged—to deny being Muslim, if so doing secures them or Islam an advantage. Accordingly, Islamic history is full of stories of Muslims denying and publicly cursing Islam, and even pretending to be Christian, whenever there was a strategic advantage.

In other words, if an American president were a secret Muslim, and if he were lying about it, and even if he were secretly working to subvert the U.S. to Islam's advantage —not only would taqiyya, or dissimulation, be justified by Islam's doctrines of loyalty and deception, but it would have ample precedents, stretching back to the dawn of Islam. Muhammad, for example, commanded a convert from an adversarial tribe to conceal his new Muslim identity and go back to his tribe—which he cajoled with "You are my stock and my family, the dearest of men to me"—only to betray them to Islam's invading armies.

Graham further upset certain sensitivities by saying, "All I know is under Obama, President Obama, the Muslims of the world, he seems to be more concerned about them than the Christians that are being murdered in the Muslim countries," adding that "Islam has gotten a free pass under Obama."

Yet who can deny this? Whether by expunging any reference to Islam in U.S. security documents, or enabling Muslim persecution of Christians, or ordering NASA to make Muslims "feel good" about themselves, or bowing to the anti-Christian Saudi king—the President has made his partiality for Islam very clear: under Obama, Islam is undoubtedly getting a "free pass."

What Graham's critics seem not to understand is when it comes to Obama's religious identity, Graham probably has in mind Jesus' dictum: "By their fruits shall ye know them"—that is, pro-Islamic actions speak louder than Christian words.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Related Topics: Raymond Ibrahim

Assad Slaughtering Syrian Christians

by Hani Bader
February 27, 2012 at 3:45 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2888/row-may-hurt-turkish-intel-credibility

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"The Syrian authorities have been trying to force our [Christian] leaders to support Assad in public."

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's security forces last week killed Husam al Murra, a Syrian Christian who had joined the Syrian Free Army, which is fighting to topple the regime in Damascus.

Assad is angry with the Christians in his country because most of them have refused to support his atrocities against the Syrian people.

He is also angry with them because many Christians have played a major role in relief work to help the victims of Assad's bloody crackdown on his opponents.

At the beginning of the uprising, Assad's government forced leaders of the Christian community in Syria to hold public events in support of the regime. The leaders were instructed to pledge their loyalty to Assad and condemn the opposition as a "bunch of terrorists backed by the Zionists and the US."

But as Assad's forces stepped up their massacres and repression of the people, most Christians began speaking out against the regime, especially on Facebook and other social media networking.

The killing of al Murra highlights the growing plight of Syria's Christian minority, who make up less than 10% of the population.

This is a minority that seems to be caught between the hammer and anvil: Assad is persecuting and killing Christians, and Christians fear that if Muslim extremists come to power, they anyhow will be forced to relocate to the US and Europe.

The killing of the young man shows that Assad does not distinguish between one opponent and another in Syria -- Muslims or Christians.

Al Murra is not the first Syrian Christian to be killed by Assad's security forces since the beginning of the popular uprising nearly a year ago.

In recent weeks, several other Christian men have been shot and killed in different parts of the country. One of the victims was a priest from the city of Hama, who was killed while trying to provide humanitarian and medical aid to people injured by Syrian army gunfire.

According to a Christian lawyer in Damascus, Assad's security forces have also begun targeting churches, monasteries and schools under the pretext that they were being used as hideouts for "armed gangs."

Many Christians have stopped going to Church on Sundays, and some Christian schools have been forced to shut down out of fear of being targeted by Assad loyalists.

According to Open Doors, an international ministry supporting persecuted Christians around the world, more than 80% of Christians have fled the city of Homs, where fighting is the worst.

An Italian priest who had been living in Syria for the past two decades was asked to leave the country after he voiced public support for the Syrian people's struggle for reform and democracy.

"Most Christians in Syria are against this murderous regime," said George Saba, a Christian teacher from Damascus who fled to Jordan three months ago. "The Syrian authorities have been trying to force our leaders to support Assad in public. No Christian could ever support such heinous crimes against women and children."

Row May Hurt Turkish Intel's Credibility, Parliamentary Speaker Says
And more from the Turkish Press

by AK Group
February 27, 2012 at 3:00 am