Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Gatestone Update :: Khaled Abu Toameh: Jordan's King Abdullah Declares War on Internet, and more



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Jordan's King Abdullah Declares War on Internet

by Khaled Abu Toameh
September 4, 2012 at 5:00 am
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King Abdullah needs to know that in light of the calls for freedom and democracy, there is no room for such harsh measures against freedom of the media in the Arab world.
Is Jordan's King Abdullah trying to hide something from his people and the rest of the world?
Last week, the king managed to alienate journalists, bloggers and human rights and political activists by allowing his government to amend a law so it could impose severe restrictions on freedom of expression, including the blocking of websites.
The king's move will boomerang, encouraging his opponents to step up their efforts to destabilize the kingdom.
The drive to impose restrictions on the media and on freedom of speech has been condemned by many Jordanians as an attempt to silence the opposition and calls for reform and accountability.
The Jordanian monarch has long been witnessing a quiet Arab Spring that could one day erupt into violence. So far, however, King Abdullah has been careful not to push his opponents too much against the wall -- perhaps the reason anti-government protests in Jordan have so far not deteriorated into violence.
In a bid to appease the opposition, King Abdullah has called for parliamentary elections before the end of the year.
But the planned elections may be called off in the wake of a decision by Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood organization to boycott the vote. The king has now asked Hamas to act as a mediator between his government and the Muslim Brotherhood to end the boycott.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood are protesting against what its leaders call a scheme by King Abdullah to limit their representation in the Parliament. The Palestinians living in Jordan also fear that King Abdullah is trying to keep them out of the Parliament.
The Islamists and their political allies in Jordan fear that the Jordanian authorities will forge the results of the elections, as has been the case in the past.
The king's plan to hold new elections appears to be crumbling: only a few Jordanians have heeded government calls to register as voters.
King Abdullah now appears to be facing an even bigger challenge as his government moves to crack down on the media and Internet owners.
A group of Jordanian Internet users, known as 7oryanet (Freedom for the Internet) has initiated a campaign calling on local online news portals and websites to hold a one-day blackout on August 29 in protest against an amendment to the Press and Publications Law.
The proposed amendment requires the registration and licensing of online news media, social networks, review sites, media sharing services and blogs.
It also calls for significant fines and penalties against online media owners who break the law. The owners of websites will also be held responsible for the content of comments published by readers on their sites.
Even Jordan's former Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Minister Marwan Juma added his voice to the protests against the new legislation.
In a letter to the Jordanian government, Juma wrote: "I have an obligation to speak up. Not because I ran the first company that brought email to Jordan, or was one of the founders of Jordan's REACH initiative (Jordan's first national information technology strategy), and not because I recently served as Minister of ICT, but because what is taking place in our sector, namely the attempt to censor the Internet, is simply wrong if not bone-headed."
Unless King Abdullah backtracks, he will be providing even more ammunition to his enemies at home and abroad. He needs to know that in light of increased calls for reform and democracy, there is no room for such harsh measures against freedom of media in the Arab world.
Related Topics:  Khaled Abu Toameh

Egypt: Kill a Christian, Collect a Reward

by Raymond Ibrahim
September 4, 2012 at 4:45 am
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The flyers include the names and contact points for those Muslims who wish to collect their rewards for killing Christians.
Recently an Egyptian Muslim posted a YouTube videotape of himself cursing Islam and its holy book, the Koran; then tearing it to pieces and throwing it in the garbage. Here are excerpts of what he said:
There it is, Allah's book; this is the basic catastrophe. I don't know what day it is of this disgusting month of Ramadan. You are making the tearing of the Quran such a big and dangerous thing... it is instinctive to tear up this book, those sons of [profanity] think they can threaten me and challenge me not to tear up the Quran, but I want to prove to them that they are nothing, and what is the big deal in tearing up this book?! There it is [he starts tearing the Quran] in the trash. Are you feeling better now? You cannot touch a hair on my head. We keep blaming Hamas and Gaza, but it is not them, it is this son of [profanity] book that I am stepping on right now. That book is the source of all evil and the real catastrophe. There is nothing new here; it is not Omar Abdel Rahman, Abbud or all the others: it is this garbage that is causing us to run in a demonic, never-ending circle that will never end.
This latest Koran desecration is a reminder of the new Egypt—not merely that there are everyday Egyptians who are sick of the Islamization of Egypt, but aghast at what is in store for them.
On a recent talk show on Al Hafiz channel dealing with this incident of Koran-tearing, after playing the video of the man tearing the Koran, one of the guests, a bearded and white-robed Dr. Mahmoud Sha'ban, visibly shaken by what he had just seen, said:
Someone like him must receive the punishment he deserves—and it is death! He is an apostate… It is clear from what he says that he is a Muslim, and must be killed as an apostate. As for that act itself, it is an infidel act, and he deserves to be struck by the sword in a public place—and as soon as possible; as soon as possible; as soon as possible. It must be announced and photographed and disseminated among the people, so that all the people may know that we respect our Koran and its words from Allah, and whoever insults it, receives his punishment from Allah. If people like him are left alone, they will only get bolder and bolder.
The next guest, Sheikh Abdul Mohsin said: "I support the words of Sheikh Mahmoud [who just spoke], that this man must be killed fast, that he may be an example to others, so that all learn that we have reached a new phase in respecting Islam and the holy sanctity of the Koran and Sunna. This man has become an apostate and must suffer the penalty in front of the people."
The third and final guest Dr. Abdullah was somewhat critical of the first two Islamic scholars—not because they called for the man's death, but because, by focusing on the fact that the man had apostatized, it seemed as if they were exonerating non-Muslims: "The issue of killing him is not limited to his being a Muslim and then apostatizing. No, it is known to us from the Sharia that whoever insults the Prophet or tears the Koran, his judgment is death—whether he's a Muslim or non-Muslim."
Later, a listener called in saying, "Just so you know, if I ever meet one of these people, their life is void—they're simply dead." The talk show host, who agreed that the man must be slain, responded with some moderate talk about letting the state handle such people, to which the first sheikh, Dr. Mahmoud Sha'ban, erupted in rage:
"Man, we're talking about the religion of Allah! The religion! The religion!! The woman who insulted the Prophet, he voided her life! There were ten people at the conquest of Mecca whose lives the Prophet also voided!" When the host tried to get a word in, the cleric exclaimed: "I am the sheikh, not you. I am the sheikh, not you! I am the sheikh! Hear me to the end, before I get up and leave!"
Dr. Abdullah clarified for the host: "Do you know what the word 'void' [hadr] means [in Islamic jurisprudence]? It means it is the right for anyone who meets them [those who insult Islam] to kill them."
In other words, the host was wrong to think that those who insult Islam should be killed only by the state. Any good Muslim can—and should—kill them, wherever he finds them. Of course, with a Muslim Brotherhood president in office, whether those who offend Islam are killed by the state or by Islamic vigilantes becomes somewhat semantic.
Already under President Morsi's first two months, Islamists have become more emboldened—whether by pressuring women to wear the hijab, by killing a Muslim youth for publicly holding hands with his fiancée, or by disseminating flyers that call for the total genocide of Egypt's Christian Copts. The flyers include the names and contact points for those Muslims who wish to collect their rewards for killing Christians.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Related Topics:  Egypt  |  Raymond Ibrahim

Eight Reasons Why Containment Is Not an Option Against a Nuclear Iran

by Yaakov Lappin
September 4, 2012 at 4:00 am
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It is about Israel's Right to Life.
1. Iran's regime is outspokenly dedicated to the goal of destroying the State of Israel. Iranian political, religious, and military leaders have expressed their desire to annihilate Israel at every opportunity they have received. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says that the physical elimination of Israel is a religious duty. It would be criminally negligent to disregard Iran's official state ideology, and gamble with the lives of millions of Israelis on the unproven assumption that Iran will behave rationally as a nuclear-armed actor. For Israel, the struggle to keep Iran from going nuclear is not about regional influence or ensuring an edge over its enemies. It is about Israel's Right to Life.
2. The Iranian regime is filled with quarrelling factions that could in the future lead to a destabilization of the government, the military, and the Islamic Republic Guards Corps.
Some factions are influenced by radical Shi'ite ayatollahs such as Mezbah Yazdi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor. Yazdi not only says that Israel is the embodiment of evil on Earth, he has also called for the production of nuclear weapons. In any future destabilization of an Iranian regime armed with atomic bombs, a hardline faction could seize control of nuclear missile bases and order an attack. The security of Israel, the region, and the world would be held ransom to the outcome of domestic Iranian power struggles. No country can be expected to accept such a threat
3. Despite all of the above, some commentators continue to insist that facing a nuclear Iran can be compared to the superpower rivalries of the Cold War, which pitted the U.S. and the Soviet Union against one another, and resulted in both sides refraining from resorting to nuclear force, due to the threat of mutually assured destruction (MAD).
The analogy, however, does not work. Ideologically, there is a stark difference between hardline Shi'ite Iranian ideology, which adores the concept of martyrdom, and the secular Soviet ideology, which dismissed with contempt notions of religious war and ideas about divine rewards in the afterlife.
4. Even if we set aside difference in ideology, there are other reasons MAD is not applicable in Iran's case. Moscow and Washington established lines of direct communications that allowed them to deescalate standoffs. The open channels allowed the superpowers to walk away from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, thereby sparing the planet from a nuclear holocaust. Jerusalem and Tehran have no direct lines of communication whatsoever, and no way to deescalate future crises, which will surely arise.
5. Iran's territory is 70 times larger than Israel, a disparity that will form a constant temptation for Iranian leaders to realize their fantasy of destroying Israel. Iranian former president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, considered an Iranian "reformist," formulated this thinking, when he said in 2001: "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the… application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world."
With 70% of the Israeli population concentrated in cities on the Mediterranean coastal plain, Iranian leaders face the constant temptation of initiating a nuclear attack based on Rafsanjani's calculation. Israel has a population of 7.8 million. Iran has a population of 74.8 million.
6. Once Iran breaks through to the nuclear arms stage, it would automatically spark a Middle Eastern arms race, as Iran's frightened Sunni rivals would rush to get their own atomic bombs. Sunni states suffering from chronic instability, such as Egypt – already under Islamist rule – as well as other Sunni powers such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia would end up armed with nuclear weapons, too.
With the Middle East at its most unstable phase to date (the dissolution of Syria and concerns about its chemical weapons as a case in point), nuclear armed states could experience severe turbulence that would compromise the security of their nuclear arsenals, putting them within reach of fanatical factions or terror organizations.
7. Iran remains the region's number one state sponsor of terrorism. Operating through its extraterritorial covert elite unit, the Quds Force, Iran provides arms, tends of thousands of deadly rockets, explosives, cash, and logistical support to its Shi'ite proxy Hezbollah, as well as Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and several additional radical non-state actors around the region.
A nuclear armed Iran could in future use the same network to deliver dirty bombs filled with explosives and radioactive material to any of these terror entities. It could also plant an unconventional explosive on a ship, and send it sailing to any port in the world.
8. Future Iranian threats of annihilation against Israel that are backed atomic bomb capabilities could seriously harm Israel's economy, scare away foreign investors, and place Israel's civilian population under an intolerable threat. The threat itself becomes a strategic problem when backed by nuclear capabilities. Israelis having to wake up to images of nuclear tests in Iran, followed by a speech by Ali Khamenei about the need to remove "the cancer of Israel" would regrettably have to cope with unacceptable and levels of anxiety that would most likely be impossible to sustain.
Related Topics:  Iran  |  Yaakov Lappin
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