In this mailing:
- Khaled Abu Toameh: Is Abbas About To Join Hamas?
- Raymond Ibrahim: "Obey The Prophet, Even If He Tells You To Kill"
Is Abbas About To Join Hamas?
by Khaled Abu
Toameh
November 26, 2012 at 5:00 am
November 26, 2012 at 5:00 am
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It now
remains to be seen whether Hamas will forgive Abbas for
"collaborating" with Israel, and join forces with him.
As of last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will think
twice before he condemns any rocket or terror attack on Israel.Alarmed by Hamas's growing popularity among Palestinians, especially in wake of its purported "victory," Abbas appears to have completely changed his attitude toward the Islamist movement and its terror attacks against Israel.
Abbas's new attitude toward Hamas has prompted some Palestinians to wonder, quite sarcastically, whether he was planning to grow a beard and join the Islamist movement.
They pointed out that this was the same Abbas who, on more than one occasion, had accused Hamas of plotting to assassinate him and topple his regime in the West Bank. They also noted that this was the same Abbas whom Hamas had expelled from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007.
Abbas was one of the first Arab leaders to congratulate Hamas on its "victory" over Israel during the recent eight-day confrontation.
Hamas announced that Abbas phoned its prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, one day after the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire went into effect to "congratulate him on Hamas's victory and offer condolences for the martyrs."
Abbas's phone call to the Hamas leader did not come as a surprise.
Since the beginning of the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, Abbas has been begging Hamas to forget about its differences with his Fatah faction and agree to "national unity."
Until recently, Abbas used to mock Hamas's rockets, calling them "ineffective." It is not that Abbas was opposed to the idea of launching rockets at Israel; rather, his position was based on the argument that these rockets were not inflicting enough casualties and damage on the Israeli side.
Over the past few years, Abbas had publicly denounced Hamas for providing Israel with an "excuse" to attack the Gaza Strip by launching the "ineffective" rockets at Israeli cities and towns.
But during the last confrontation, Abbas did not utter a word against Hamas and other radical groups in the Gaza Strip.
Instead, he chose to issue strong condemnations against Israel, holding it fully responsible for initiating the violence.
In public statements, Abbas and his top aides in the West Bank accused Israel of perpetrating "war crimes" by targeting "innocent civilians." They also heaped praise on Hamas and Islamic Jihad for their "steadfastness in the face of Israeli aggression."
Not once did Abbas and his aides denounce Hamas and Islamic Jihad for firing rockets at Israel. The rockets, from their perspective, were no longer "ineffective" because this time they were extracting a heavy price from Israel.
As soon as the cease-fire went into effect, Abbas's top Fatah officials joined Hamas supporters in the Gaza Strip who took to the streets to celebrate "victory" over Israel.
Zakariya al-Agha, a senior Fatah leader, praised Hamas and Islamic Jihad for launching rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv "until Israel asked for a cease-fire."
Abbas Zaki, another Fatah official, boasted that Abbas and the Fatah leadership in the West Bank had helped provide "political justification" for the rocket attacks against Israel.
Until the last round of violence, Abbas considered Hamas to be his number one enemy. That view was why his security forces had been waging a relentless crackdown on Hamas supporters in the West Bank.
Obviously, Abbas has now changed his policy and Hamas is no longer a threat to him and his regime. Now he will have to stop arresting -- and torturing -- Hamas members in the West Bank in the hope that the Islamist movement will forgive him for "collaborating" with Israel.
It now remains to be seen whether Hamas will forgive Abbas for his "sins," and join forces with him.
Related Topics: Khaled Abu
Toameh
"Obey The Prophet, Even If He Tells You To Kill"
by Raymond Ibrahim
November 26, 2012 at 4:30 am
November 26, 2012 at 4:30 am
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Just as, in
the West, a general's orders – including to kill – are not to be questioned, so
in Islam, according to Qaradawi, the "Godfather" of the Muslim
Brotherhood, are Mohammed's orders not open to question by 1.5 billion
soldiers, Islam's "soldiers."
Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi — the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who
is now helping Egypt draft its new constitution, head of the International
Union of Muslim Scholars, and author of over 100 books on Muslim doctrine —
maintains that Muslims must obey the commands of Islam's prophet, even to
murder. This is the same Dr. Qaradawi that American academics such as
Georgetown professor John
Esposito praise for engaging in a "reformist interpretation of Islam
and its relationship to democracy, pluralism, and human rights."Qaradawi made this declaration, missed in the West, two years ago on his popular Arabic program, Al-Sharia wa Al-Haya ("Sharia and Life"), broadcast worldwide by al-Jazeera to an estimated audience of 60 million.
Towards the end of the show, the host asked Qaradawi what he thought of the fact that Sheikh Admad Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, had earlier said to an American delegation: "If [Muslim prophet] Muhammad asked me to reject Christianity or Judaism, I would have rejected him." Visibly agitated, Qaradawi answered as follows:
No scholar of Islam, or even an average Muslim would ever say such words. If you believe that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, then you must obey him—for he does not command except that which is good. So, even if he tells you to kill, you must— … The story about our prophet Musa [Moses], when al-Khidr killed the boy and Musa said "you killed and you did!," But then he [Khidr] revealed why he killed the boy, and why he punctured the boat. So we cannot distort the facts in order to please the people. Let the people be satisfied with the Truth [Sharia teachings], not the false.
Syria's grand mufti said many other things concerning goodwill for Christians that roused Qaradawi's ire. Addressing a large Christian gathering in Syria, where he was a guest speaker, for instance, he insisted that there were no differences between Christians and Muslims:
If Christianity is about believing in one God, so I believe in one God; if Christianity is about believing in Jesus, so I believe in Jesus; if Christianity is about believing in the New Testament, so I believe in the New Testament; if Christianity is about believing in the Old Testament, so I believe in the Old Testament; if Christianity is about believing that Mary was a pure virgin, so I believe she was a pure virgin, untouched by man; and if Christianity is about believing in the resurrection, so I believe in the resurrection—so what is the difference between me and Christians?
Qaradawi offered to correct Muslim doctrine in response to this otherwise egalitarian talk, confirming that, yes, Islam believes all these things—but according to its own narratives, not the ones recorded in the Bible, which, as the Quran teaches, have been distorted. Hence, if Muslims believe all those things that the Syrian grand mufti mentioned, they do not believe in the fundamentals of Christianity—including the Trinity, Christ's divinity or resurrection, and atonement of sins—hence they reject Christianity, as understood and practiced by over a billion Christians.
As for believing in the Old and New Testaments, the Quran claims that, once upon a time there were "true" versions, but that the current texts — which are older than the Quran itself—were "corrupted" to include, for examples, the fundamentals of Christianity. Thus the only "authentic" remnants of Christianity and Judaism are the ones Muhammad narrated in the Quran—where we meet many characters whose names are familiar, such as Isa [Jesus], but he a very different "Jesus": the Quran's Jesus was never crucified and will return to break all Christian crucifixes and kill all pigs.
It is this Muslim proclivity to create "parallel" characters, based on biblical figures, that explains Qaradawi's justification to murder people in blind obedience to the prophet. His reference to "Musa," is a reference to a story—possibly rooted in the 3rd century Alexander Romance and popularized by the 1970s martial arts movie, Circle of Iron—which, nonetheless, occurs in Quran, and so must be accepted literally.
According to the Quran's narrative (18:65-82), Musa seeks out al-Khidr—"the Green Man," who possesses powers of sight—and asks if he may follow him and learn from him. Al-Khidr reluctantly agrees, on condition that Musa not question anything he, the Green Man, does, until such time as the latter chooses to reveal the significance of his actions.
The Green Man, however, does strange things—such as randomly killing a young boy and destroying the boat that belonged to the people who helped give them passage—to which Musa demands immediate answers. The Green Man eventually explains that he killed the boy because his parents were good Muslims, while the boy was an infidel who would have burdened them with his transgressions; and he destroyed the boat of the good people because a king was about to seize it anyway.
Further, just as Islam introduced a parallel universe inhabited by figures based on Christianity and Judaism, it also introduced a parallel system of ethics and morality—one, as the Quran's Green Man shows, not to be questioned.
Just as a Western general's orders—including to kill—are not open to question by his soldiers, so, in Islam, according to Qaradawi, one of Islam's most authoritative voices, are the orders of Muhammad not open to question by the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, Islam's "soldiers."
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
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