Palestinians Plan Violence to Force the US to Extract Concessions from Israel

by Khaled Abu Toameh
February 22, 2013 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3598/palestinians-plan-violence

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The Palestinian leadership is hoping that anti-US demonstrations and uprisings will scare Obama and force him to exert even more pressure on Israel.

There are many signs that the Palestinian Authority is seeking to escalate tensions in the West Bank ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit to the region next month.
Although the Palestinian Authority probably does not want an all-out confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis at this stage, some Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah believe that a "mini-intifada" would serve the Palestinians' interests, especially on the eve of Obama's visit.
The officials hope that scenes of daily clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the West Bank will prompt Obama to exert pressure on the Israeli government to make far-reaching concessions to the Palestinian Authority.
This is why the Palestinian Authority leadership has been encouraging its constituents lately to wage a "popular intifada" against Israel, each time finding another excuse to initiate confrontations between Palestinians and Israel.
Now the Palestinian Authority is using the issue of Palestinian prisoners who are on hunger strike in Israeli prisons as an excuse to call for street protests and clashes with the Israel Defense Forces.
In recent days, dozens of Palestinian protesters have been injured in clashes with IDF soldiers in various parts of the West Bank. The protests are being held in solidarity with four hunger-strikers.
Before that, the Palestinian Authority used the issue of settlements as an accuse to call for widespread protests in the West Bank.
Before that, the Palestinian Authority leadership encouraged Palestinians to protest against Israeli "plans" to destroy the Aqsa Mosque and replace it with the Third Temple.
By encouraging a "popular intifada," the Palestinian Authority leadership is hoping to bring the Palestinian issue back to the top of the agenda of the US Administration and Israel.
Palestinian Authority officials have in recent months expressed concern over the lack of interest in the Palestinian issue both in the US and Israel.
The Palestinians have been absent from speeches delivered by Obama over the past few months, and the majority of parties that ran in the last Israeli elections did not even mention the Palestinian issue.
But now that all eyes are once again turned toward the Middle East in anticipation of Obama's planned visit, the Palestinian Authority is working hard to draw the world's attention to the Palestinian issue, and hoping to achieve its goal by encouraging clashes between Palestinian protesters and the IDF and Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
Although the violence has thus far remained on a low flame, it is expected to intensify as the date of Obama's visit approaches.
The belief in the Palestinian Authority is that the violence on the ground will push Obama to exert pressure on the Israeli government to comply with the Palestinian conditions for resuming the peace process, namely a full cessation of settlement construction and the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
There is also talk in Ramallah about organizing demonstrations during Obama's visit to the West Bank, where he is scheduled to meet with President Mahmoud Abbas. The demonstrations will be held to protest against US "bias" in favor of Israel.
The Palestinian Authority leadership is hoping that the anti-US protests will scare Obama and force him to exert even more pressure on Israel.
The Palestinian Authority's message to Obama: You must act quickly against Israel before things get out of hand.
It now remains to be seen whether Obama is aware of this attempt to put pressure on him, or whether he will continue to turn a blind eye to the Palestinian Authority's new-old tactic of initiating an escalation with the hope of extracting concessions from the US and Israel.

Related Topics: Khaled Abu Toameh

Muslims Behead Another Christian Pastor

by Raymond Ibrahim
February 22, 2013 at 4:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3599/muslims-behead-christian-pastor

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Does this conflict really revolve around the Muslim desire to never mistakenly to eat unpermitted meat, or are Muslims attacking and killing non-Muslims for being business competitors, while articulating their hostility in the garb of Islamic piety?

A Christian pastor was recently slaughtered in the Muslim-majority African nation of Tanzania. While butchering Christian minorities is becoming increasingly common in that part of the Muslim world, the context for this latest slaughter is somewhat different than the usual forms of Christian persecution under Islam -- such as using allegations of "blaspheming" the name of Muslim prophet Muhammad.
On February 11, Pastor Mathayo Kachili of the Tanzania Assemblies of God Church was beheaded by Muslims. According to the report, a spokesperson from the local police department
said conflicts had been boiling for quite a while now in the area where a section of what are believed to be Muslim leaders had demanded immediate closure of slaughterhouses owned by Christians. He said that a group of youths believed to be Muslims assaulted several Christians using sticks and machetes and attacked a slaughterhouse owner at Buseresere town. During the confrontations pastor Kachili was beheaded.
According to an article in Religious Liberty Monitoring , this latest slaying "has its source in a debate presently raging in Tanzania. Apparently it is a 'long-standing tradition' in Tanzania that Muslims have a monopoly on the meat industry. Recently however, Christians in Geita district, Mwanza region—on the southern shores of Lake Victoria—have entered the slaughtering trade, causing outrage amongst Muslims."
Tensions got to the point that the Minister of State in the President's Office responsible for social relations "categorically directed that the task of slaughtering animals for public consumption should be executed only by Muslims. He said that people of other faiths may slaughter animals if the meat is solely for family/private consumption—but certainly not for sale to, or consumption by, the general public."
But if they still insist on working in the trade, then they must, according to Karl Lyimo of the Citizen, be "ready, willing, able and glad to follow the Islamic rituals to the letter"—which is tantamount to saying Christians need to convert to Islam if they want to remain in the business.
The question is, does this conflict simply revolve around the Muslim desire never mistakenly to eat non-halal [not-religiously permitted] meat, or, as has been know to happen, are Muslims attacking and killing non-Muslims for being business competitors, while articulating their hostility in the garb of Islamic piety?
In Pakistan, for instance—which shares neither race, language nor culture with Tanzania—but shares only Islam, in March 2010, Rasheed Masih, described as a "devoted Christian," was butchered by Muslim men "with multiple axe blows for refusing to convert to Islam." Earlier, the "six men had threatened to kill 36-year-old Rasheed Masih unless he converted to Islam when they grew resentful of his potato business succeeding beyond their own." According to a pastor who knew Rasheed, "As the Christian family [of Rasheed] strengthened in business and earned more, the Muslim men began to harbor business resentment, as Muslims are not used to seeing Christians more respected and richer than them." Eventually he was lured to one of their farmhouses, where he was slaughtered by repeated axe blows. The autopsy revealed 24 wounds.
Where does this idea that non-Muslim minorities must not be allowed to compete with Muslims—certainly not surpass them? In the famous Conditions of Omar (also known as the Pact of Omar), for example, subjugated Christians had to agree, along with any number of debilitations and humiliations, to "not build houses overtopping the houses of the Muslims," as taller houses might imply a higher status. In the Medieval era, Islamic heavyweights such as Ibn Taymiyya—still revered among many Muslims, especially Salafis—issued fatwa after fatwa decreeing that non-Muslims, Christians chief among them, be dismissed from their positions. Centuries earlier, Caliph Harun al-Rashid—otherwise portrayed in the West as a "fun-loving" caliph—also fired Christians from their positions of employment to impoverish them, as well as destroying many churches.
According to the Islamic worldview, subdued "dhimmi" [second-class, "tolerated"] Christians cannot be better-off than Muslims. If they are—despite all the obstacles and debilitations set forth by Islamic law to see that they are not—then, as we are increasingly seeing, many Muslims may be taking things into their own hands.
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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