|
In this mailing:
- Bassam Tawil: Palestinians: More
Missed Opportunities
- Burak Bekdil: Erdogan: No
Moderate Islam
- Jonathan S. Tobin: Contrary to Media
Reports, FBI Hate Crime Statistics Do Not Support Claims of
Anti-Muslim Backlash
by Bassam Tawil • December 4,
2017 at 5:00 am
- The PFLP, like Hamas
and other Palestinian groups, makes no secret of its goal to
"liberate Palestine, from the (Jordan) River to the
(Mediterranean) Sea." All should be commended for their
honesty. If anyone has any doubts, their plan means the total
destruction of Israel. Thus, as chairman of the PLO, Mahmoud
Abbas cannot say that he represents the entire organization.
He has no leverage with the PFLP, DFLP and the remaining
terror groups operating under the umbrella of his PLO.
- And now we come to
the million dollar question: Does Abbas really represent all
of Fatah? The answer is simple and clear: No. Over the past
few decades, Fatah has witnessed sharp divisions and disputes,
resulting in a number of splinter groups that broke away and
are now openly challenging Abbas's leadership and policies.
- While Abbas is
making noises about a peace process, his own Fatah faction is
inciting violence and calling for the destruction of Israel.
While Abbas is talking about his interest in achieving a
two-state solution, his partners in the PLO, including the
PFLP and DFLP, are openly calling for the destruction of
Israel and advocating an armed struggle. While Abbas is
claiming that he is the legitimate president of the
Palestinians, many Palestinians, including senior officials in
his Fatah faction, are legitimately stating he has no mandate
from his people to sign any agreement with Israel.
Does
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas really represent all
of his Fatah faction? No. Over the past few decades, Fatah has
witnessed sharp divisions and disputes, resulting in a number of
splinter groups that broke away and are now openly challenging
Abbas's leadership and policies. Pictured: Abbas (center) meets
with the Central Committee of the Fatah movement July 13, 2014 in
Ramallah. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas
continues to mouth his "desire" to achieve peace with
Israel on the basis of a two-state solution. Abbas's ruling Fatah
faction and PLO partners, however, evidently have a different
agenda: to wage war on Israel until the "liberation of all of
Palestine."
In a speech delivered on his behalf by Riyad
Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, on November
30, Abbas repeated his commitment to a two-state solution based on
international law and the 1967 "borders."
Abbas called on the UN "to force Israel to
recognize the State of Palestine based on the 1967 borders as the
basis for a two-state solution, and to agree on a demarcation of
borders in line with the resolutions of the international
community."
by Burak Bekdil • December 4,
2017 at 4:30 am
- "Erdogan's
claims that 'There is no Islamic terror' have left several
Islamic terror organizations heart-broken. A press release
from al-Qaeda's press office read: 'The prime minister's
remarks are very discouraging. We are doing our best!'" –
Zaytung (satire website).
- In 2010, Barack
Obama referred to Turkey as a "great Muslim
democracy". Obama should have seen that a democracy is a
democracy -- without any religious prefix. He would see in
later years the difference between a democracy and a Muslim
democracy.
In
February, at a meeting in Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan slammed German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phrase
"Islamist terror". He angrily said to his guest,
"Islam means 'peace,' it can't come with 'terror'".
(Image source: Ruptly video screenshot)
Turkey's strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
may have exhibited all possible features of political Islam since
he came to power fifteen years ago, but at least he has been bold and
honest about his understanding of Islamism: There is no moderate
Islam, he recently said again.
This comment does not mark any U-turn, or a radical
deviation from his earlier freshman-self back in the 2000s. The
problem is that his Western "allies" have stubbornly
preferred to turn a blind eye to his poster-child Islamism. Worse,
they still do.
Several years ago, Erdogan's ideological-self
clearly stated that "Turkey is not a country where moderate
Islam prevails." In the same speech, his pragmatic-self -- the
one that wanted to look pretty to a chorus of Western praise --
added that, "We are Muslims who have found a middle
road". But which "middle road?"
by Jonathan S. Tobin • December
4, 2017 at 4:00 am
- Although the
instances of hate crimes documented by the government are
worrisome and deserving of condemnation, the statistics
published by the FBI over the last 17 years refute both the
Islamophobia narrative and the claim of a widespread backlash
against Muslims in the aftermath of terrorist attacks by
Islamists.
- The myth of a
post-9/11 "backlash" against Muslims is politically
motivated and spread by groups such as the Council of American
Islamic Relations (CAIR), which presents itself as a civil
rights group, but was founded to serve as a front organization
for the terrorist group Hamas. The effort to persuade the
public that America is Islamophobic stemmed largely from the
aim to shift the narrative about terrorism to that of an
Islamist war on the West to one according to which Muslims are
terrorized by and in the United States.
- Although Jew-hatred
remains a greater problem in America than hatred against
Muslims, this would not justify a charge that the United
States is an anti-Semitic country. By the same token, it is
unjust to call America Islamophobic.
Attorney
General Jeff Sessions speaks during a Hate Crimes Subcommittee summit
on June 29, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty
Images)
The annual release of the FBI's hate crime
statistics report has attracted little attention by the mainstream
media in the past few years. The most recent report, however --
revealing a rise in hate crimes targeting Muslims and whites in
2016 -- has been greeted with more notice than usual by the daily
newspapers; even CNN chimed in to highlight the results of the
report.
The reason for the sudden interest in the report was
that its data appeared to confirm some of the conventional wisdom
about the impact of the U.S. 2016 presidential election on
anti-Muslim sentiment in America. According to the report, compared
to 2015, there were increases in most categories of hate crimes.
The bulk of them were based on race, ethnicity and ancestry -- with
the total number of such incidents rising by 5%. Still, it is the
increase in anti-Muslim crimes, which increased by 20% since 2015,
that stands out.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment