I have written many times on this blog that I do not ascend the Temple Mount because my rabbis here in Israel have ruled that it is forbidden to do so until there is a sacrificed red heifer's ashes that can make us pure from the impurity of coming into contact with the dead (yes, that's the reason).
However, others do ascend to certain parts of the Mount, and this morning, two Jews had the audacity to prostrate themselves before God on the Mount in order to fulfill the command to bow before God on the Temple grounds on the three holidays (Pesach, Shavuot and Succot). Watch what happens.
Let's go to the videotape.
Can you imagine any other country in the world where everyone but the majority would have freedom of worship?
American Orthodox Jews fearful of 'gay marriage' decision
Maybe this will be an impetus for American Orthodox Jews to make aliya. There's some real fear going around about the future implications of last week's US Supreme Court decision forcing the states to allow 'gay marriage' and how that might impact Orthodox Jewish institutions.
[T]he Orthodox Jewish community has a different view. This was voiced
by, among others, the Orthodox Union and the Agudath Israel of America.
The latter, in a statement Friday, warned
that its members faced “moral opprobrium” and were in danger of
“tangible negative consequences” if “they refuse to transgress their
beliefs.”
To judge by recent events, they are understating the
case. The whole campaign for same sex marriage, however high-minded its
ideals and however real — and all too often violent — the injustices
endured by same-sex couples, has been levied at the expense of religious
Jews and Christians. The U.S. Supreme Court majority knows that full
well. But it dodged the issue, with Justice Anthony Kennedy, author of
the majority opinion, giving the fears of religious Americans less than a
paragraph.
Kennedy emphasized
that “religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may
continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine
precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.” He noted that the
First Amendment, part of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, “ensures
that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as
they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central
to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue
the family structure they have long revered.”
That was a reference to the free speech part of the
First Amendment. But it was startling — shocking even — that the
majority gave no mention at all of the Constitution’s second principle
of religious protection, the right to the “free exercise” of religion.
That is where the battle lines are being drawn by liberal and left-wing
factions in America seeking to force religious individuals to embrace
same-sex marriage.
In recent months, Americans have been reading about a
Christian baker who has been the subject of an enforcement action in
Colorado for declining to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding,
a husband-and-wife clerical team that reportedly may have to close
their for-profit wedding chapel because they won’t hold same-sex
nuptials in it, and a New York family that is tangled in a legal
proceeding for refusing to rent out their home for a same-sex wedding
reception. A Catholic adoption agency that would not work with same-sex
couples has been forced out of its charitable work.
“In all likelihood, many of these rear-guard actions
against marriage equality will soon fall of their own weight,” Jeffrey
Toobin, who covers the Constitution for the New Yorker, wrote
after the Supreme Court spoke. “Like so many of their fellow-Americans,
wedding photographers and the like will make their peace with the new
rules that guarantee their neighbors an equal chance at happiness.
(Besides, they need the business.)” Maybe, but I’m not so sure things
will go as smoothly as he imagines in the Orthodox Jewish world.
“The issue here is not whether all human beings are
created in the Divine Image, or whether they have inherent human
dignity. Of course they are, of course they do,” the Agudah said in a
statement after Obergefell vs. Hodges was handed down. But it went on to
assert that “the truths of Torah are eternal, and stand as our beacon
even in the face of shifting social mores.” At some point this is going
to come to a head in a way that will test George Washington’s promise to
the Jews to a degree that we haven’t yet seen.
I'll shut the comments on this post if I have to, but I can tell you that I would not want my children taught by someone who is openly gay. No way. I want my children to be able to look up at their teachers as religious role models. Then again, since I live in Israel, it's unlikely that any of my children's schools (except for the children in university, which is a different category) could be forced to hire gay teachers.
"No society, not even one that cossets the young as much as ours does,
can treat you as children forever. A central teaching of Genesis is that
knowledge is purchased at the expense of innocence. A core teaching of
the ancients is that personal dignity is obtained through habituation to
virtue. And at least one basic teaching of true liberalism is that the
essential right of free people is the right to offend, and an essential
responsibility of free people is to learn how to cope with being
offended."
Wall Street Journal (and former Jerusalem Post) editor Brett Stephens at
Haverford College Commencement. (Hat Tip: Gary P - a college classmate of mine).
Mauritania and Maldives, which
both permit citizens who renounce Islam to be sentenced to
death, were on Monday elected as vice-presidents of the United
Nations Human Rights Council in 2013.
...
Earlier on Monday, the rights records of Mauritania and
Maldives, where an elected president and former political
prisoner was ousted early this year in what he says was a
hard-line coup, came under fire from a global free-thought body.
In a report detailing persecution and discrimination faced
by atheists and humanists around the world, International
Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), said both impose Islam as the
sole religion of the state.
Mauritania, the report said, outlaws apostasy, or the
renunciation of the official religion for another or for a
philosophy that does not recognise the existence of a deity.
Anyone found guilty of the offence is given the opportunity
to repent within three days, according to the report. If this is
not done, the offender is sentenced to death and his property is
confiscated by the state.
Similar laws exist in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan - all of which are Islamic countries. How do you like that 'change from within' at the 'human rights council'?
I'm posting this video without comment and I have shut the comments off it. Anyone who really wants to comment can email me, and either I will answer you or I won't. I found this video - which is from 2006 - deeply disturbing, and important to publicize.
Freedom of Religion, Israeli style: Three Jews arrested for praying on Temple Mount
I want to preface this post by reminding all of you that I do not ascend the Temple Mount, because my rabbi rules that it's forbidden to ascend the Temple Mount until the Messiah comes and we can be purified with the ashes of a red heifer.
But other Jews do ascend the Temple Mount. And while Israel has been very good at guaranteeing free access to all religious sites for all religions since 1967 (unlike what happened between 1948-67 when the Jordanians were in charge), the Temple Mount has been a notable weak point. Non-Muslims are extremely restricted in when they can ascend the Mount, and Jews can be arrested if they are caught praying on the Mount. It happened again on Sunday, the 45th anniversary of Israel's renewed sovereignty in Jerusalem's Old City. Three Jews were arrested for praying on the Temple Mount.
During the tour of the site, [MK Michael] Ben Ari [National Union)] and a number of the other activists started praying out loud.
Police immediately asked Ben Ari to stop. After a number of the activists refused to stop, they were arrested by police. The rest of the tour continued as planned.
Due to delicate status quo agreements, Jewish worshippers are allowed to visit the Temple Mount during certain hours but are not allowed to openly pray at the site.
Itamar Ben Gvir, an activist an the spokesman for Ben Ari, accused the police of incitement. “Police are doing the work of the Waqf,” he said.
“We came today in order to remind the entire world what Mota Gur said – ‘The Temple Mount is in our hands!’” Uriel said in a statement released by his office. “The site is under Israeli sovereignty and therefore the Israeli government must allow every Jew to realize his autonomous rights and to go up to pray on the Temple Mount,” he added.
The problem is that the Israeli government has wimped out of the statement 'the Temple Mount is in our hands' and has changed it to 'the Western Wall is in our hands.' Our government lacks the intestinal fortitude to stand up for our rights.
Egypt’s most conservative Islamists endorsed a liberal Islamist for president late Saturday night, upending the political landscape and confounding expectations about the internal dynamics of the Islamist movement. The main missionary and political groups of the ultraconservatives, known as Salafis, threw their support behind Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a dissident former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood known for his tolerant and inclusive view of Islamic law. The endorsement goes a long way toward making Mr. Aboul Fotouh the front-runner in a campaign that could shape the ultimate outcome of the revolt that ousted the former strongman, Hosni Mubarak.
By declaring his candidacy, Aboul Fatouh was in fact taking a more radical approach. Later, when the Brotherhood felt more confident after winning almost half the parliamentary seats it became more aggressive. Most important of all, Aboul Fatouh is the candidate endorsed by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Qatar-based anti-American, antisemitic hardliner. Qaradawi would never endorse anyone who was actually “moderate” much less “liberal.”
Indeed, Abouel Fotouh’s exit from the Muslim Brotherhood hardly implies his moderation, and he has continued to embrace the Brotherhood’s core aim of establishing a sharia-based legal system. In this vein, his presidential platform calls for “the application of sharia law as a comprehensive concept for achieving the fundamental interests of the people,” which include ending poverty, unemployment, corruption, and “deviance.” Like the Muslim Brotherhood, Abouel Fotouh embraces an interpretive “maqasid” approach to sharia, which places a rhetorical emphasis on broader aims such as justice and compassion. But also like his colleagues in the Muslim Brotherhood, Abouel Fotouh’s progressive façade frequently slips. In this vein, when military vehicles ran over a Christian-led demonstration outside of Egypt’s state-run media building on October 9, killing 28 people, Abouel Fotouh blamed the Christians for choosing “the wrong place and the wrong time” to demand their rights. He further stated that the massacre advanced the “foreign and Zionist aims of igniting sectarian strife in Egypt.” Abouel Fotouh’s insensitive response to the killing of Christians was hardly out of character. When the U.S. released a report in 2007 criticizing the Mubarak regime’s treatment of Copts, Abouel Fotouh called it “divorced from reality,” and belittled anti-Coptic discrimination by claiming that anti-Muslim discrimination in the West was worse. Meanwhile, while reaching out to Salafists on the campaign trail, he qualified his prior support for non-Muslims running for president. “It’s the right of any faction, Islamist or non-Islamist, to nominate, or not nominate [candidates]—it’s up to them,” he said in a recent interview on Salafist satellite television. “But Egypt cannot have a president who does not have an Islamist orientation. The Egyptian people expressed this in the parliamentary elections, and in other elections.”
Yesterday, Kirkpatrick tweeted a link to a moderate sounding paper, Fotouh wrote for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2006. Among the topics covered in the paper was rights for religious minorities. (.pdf)
It is important to stress that Muslims cannot practice their beliefs except by protecting the non-Muslims among them and preserving their right to difference in religion. In reformist Islam the citizen is considered the foundation of society, regardless of his religion or color. Justice for all people is an Islamic value, as the Quran says “God commands justice.” The foundation on which the treatment of non-Muslims is built is that the individual is for society and society for the individual, with all that this entails in terms of cooperation, mutual understanding, love, and respect. We praise God that our society has never experienced the likes of what happened to Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, when she refused to give up her seat on the bus to an American who was just like her, only white, as the law at that time stipulated that the seats at the front of the bus were for white citizens, not black.
The implication here is that religious minorities in Egypt had more freedom than American blacks did in the 1950's. It's something he said on the Muslim Brotherhood website too, regarding a 2006 report on religious rights in Egypt.
For his part, Dr. Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) executive office, rejected the content of this report. " America should rather condemn itself first, and then issues reports against others are issued. The status quo is sour in Egypt, but we reject any intervention from the US administration for a blackmail ." He said he doesn"t want to comment of such a US report because the truth and neutrality of the US administration in issuing the reports is questioned and because it also exploits such reports to blackmail regimes in various countries. It doesn't aim to apply results of such reports results for the good of nations.
In other words, Copts were not singled out for special persecution or as Eric Trager commented:
In 2007, AbouelFotouh sided w/ Mubarak against US report on rel freedom in #Egypt & belittled anti-Copt discrimination
Kirkpatrick is the reporter covering "The New Islamists" for the New York Times. His portrayal of Aboul Fotouh as a liberal is pretty typical of his coverage of this story.
The newest heroes of the Palestinian cause are not burly young men hurling stones or wielding automatic weapons. They are gaunt adults, wrists in chains, starving themselves inside Israeli prisons.
Read the whole article, nowhere will you get a sense that Israel was justified in issuing the detention orders. Israel National News provides some context:
In late January, the GSS and Israel Police foiled a shooting attack planned by an Israeli Arab in collaboration with an Islamic Jihad terror cell from Tulkarem in northern Samaria. Last August, Islamic Jihad terrorists from Gaza were involved in the deadly cross-border ambush of an Israeli civilian bus that left 8 Israelis – 7 of them civilians – dead. ... On two separate occasions within the last month, terrorists associated with Islamic Jihad have been arrested attempting to smuggle pipe-bombs, firearms, knives, and ammunition into Israel.
The "Hunger Games" – hunger strikes by prisoners in administrative detention held without what they see as due process – began in Egypt, and spilled over into the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain, generating much attention and proving quite successful. Governments have shown they do not know how to cope with people willing to risk their lives for what is presented as a struggle for freedom and legal rights. This tactic has been adopted by the Palestinians, and as reflected on social networking sites, the Palestinians perceive that Israel too is hard pressed to cope with the quiet protest, that the expected damage to Israel’s image is substantial, and that therefore Israel ultimately will be forced to change its policy. This can be seen as an "upgrade" of the idea of shuhada, in that individuals are willing to sacrifice their lives for the Palestinian cause without mass killing. The relative calm in the security situation and the events in the Arab world are channeling attention to domestic affairs, both in Gaza under the Hamas government and in the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. An open and highly critical discussion is underway about the Palestinian leadership, its inability to achieve a solution to the Palestinian problem, and its inability to handle domestic affairs such as the economy, unemployment, corruption, and civil society institutions. Some users have expressed increasingly evident dissatisfaction with both the Gazan and the West Bank leaderships and are seeking ideas on cultivating a new leadership that champions social power, and not necessarily the struggle against Israel.
The repression also extends beyond Palestinian outlets. In July 2009, the Palestinian Authority banned Al-Jazeera from operating in the West Bank after the news channel reported on allegations that Abbas and former Gaza security chief Mohammad Dahlan were accomplices in the death of Yasser Arafat. In January 2011, following its publication of internal documents related to Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations known as the "Palestine Papers," Palestinian security officers (among others) attempted to storm Al-Jazeera's Ramallah offices. These and other incidents have had a chilling effect on reporting. As former Palestinian intelligence official Fahmi Shabaneh remarked in 2010, "al-Jazeera and other Arab media outlets... are afraid to publish anything that angers the Palestinian Authority." Amid such accounts, in April 2011, Human Rights Watch issued a 35-page report titled "No News is Good News: Abuses Against Journalists by Palestinian Security Forces." It revealed that Palestinian journalists in the West Bank "have had their equipment confiscated and been arbitrarily detained, barred from traveling abroad, assaulted, and in one case, tortured, by Palestinian security services."
There is another big story going on regarding the increasing stifling of dissent. That's just one story of many that the New York Times is paying no attention to. But if it is something that perpetuates the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians or, lacking context, makes Israel look bad, the New York Times won't miss it.
Here's one of the CBS 60 Minutes extras on the last all-Christian village in Israel.
I want you to watch the video and pay close attention to the question that gets asked around the 2:50 mark and to listen to the answer.
Let's go to the videotape.
Note that he asks how many Christians there were when the 'Israeli occupation' started, and the response was 'at least 2,000.' But the truth is - as even the 60 Minutes presentation admitted at the beginning of the main show - that Israel is the only country in the region where there are more Christians than there were 60 years ago. Yes, Christians are leaving Taibe, but that can be attributed to the Muslim-dominated 'Palestinian Authority' and not to 'Israeli occupation.' The question that the priest should have been asked is how many Christians there were in 1994.
Anyone want to bet that the answer would be a lot closer to 2,000 than to 780?
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Thursday, April 19.
1) Not a prayer
In the Times of Israel, Lyn Julius wrote an article, Why It Pays to Restore Synagogues in the Arab World, about cynical attempts of Arab countries to demonstrate their benevolence towards Jews. (h/t Daily Alert) In particular she writes about an article in the Christian Science Monitor about efforts to rebuild the Magen Avraham synagogue in Beirut:
The CSM report is typical of a trend in Middle Eastern reporting hailing the restoration of Jewish buildings in countries with no more than a handful of Jews as somehow indicative of pluralism and tolerance in the Arab world. Even Jews fall for the fantasy, grateful for the slightest acknowledgement that members of the Tribe once lived there. “Look, we even have Jews here!” a restored Jewish site proclaims. ... Picking up the Christian Science Monitor report, Stewart Winer in the Times of Israel recalled that last year, before his regime was shaken to its foundations by the “Arab Spring,” Bashar al-Assad announced plans to restore 11 Syrian synagogues. This is in a country incapable of assembling a minyan (quorum) of 10 able-bodied Jewish men.
Last month, Foreign Policy featured a photo essay of synagogues in the Arab world, with a description: "The uncertain revolutions of the past year may present the best chance for long-exiled Jewish communities across the Middle East to return home." The very first picture in the series is of David Gerbi standing in the ruins of the Dar Bishi synagogue in Tripoli, Libya. But as Jonathan Tobin noted:
In the first picture in the essay, the magazine notes the example of David Gerbi who returned to Libya after the fall of Qaddafi hoping to begin the reclaim a lost synagogue. But they fail to note that he was arrested and threaten with violence for doing so. In the next photo, they put forward the claim that Jews live freely in Iran and are not put out by the anti-Semitic invective that flows from its government. Here again, the caption fails to note that Iranian Jews are the subject of frequent persecution and are virtual hostages living under threat of punishment for speaking freely about their situation. The magazine’s portrayal is reminiscent of Roger Cohen’s infamous whitewash of Iran on this subject. There are some bright spots Foreign Policy can actually point to. One is Iraq where Hebrew studies have been encouraged. But this is more the work of the long American presence in the country than any popular sentiment to welcome home those who were victimized by pogroms in the 1940s. In Iraqi Kurdistan, there is the chance for good relations with Israel and the Jews but that only demonstrates the Kurds’ determination to reject the Islamism that dominates Iran and some parties in Iraq. However, the magazine altogether misses the one example of a successful Jewish community in the Arab world that predates the Arab spring: Tunisia where the Jews of Djerba have never left. Unfortunately, the rise of Islamist parties in post-authoritarian Tunisia makes their stay a bit more precarious.
Friedman knows very well that rocks are not a peaceful means to a peaceful end. He was attacked by Palestinian Arab rock throwers who stoned his car on Jerusalem’s Salahadin Street in 1988, just before leaving his job as the Jerusalem-based bureau chief of the Times. Friedman did not think of rocks then as peaceful protest. “If I had a gun I would have blasted the faces of all those sons of bitches,” Friedman reportedly yelled, returning from the Arab side of town to the Times office, then at Rivlin Street in the mostly Jewish downtown center. Apparently, he never mentioned the incident—or his strong reaction to it—in his many books or columns.
The attitude of outrage, recalls another famous Jewish reporter and his response to being targeted in different circumstances. Recalling his captivity in Iraq during the first Gulf War, Bob Simon recalled:
But hardly well, for Simon and crew were soon shifted to an intelligence center in downtown Baghdad. "Here the guards were animals—all they did was shout and beat," he says. One day an officer "grabbed me by the face, forced my mouth open and said, 'Yehudi, Yehudi,' which means 'Jew.' Then he spit at me and slapped me. I feared for my life, but I would have killed him if I could, with no more remorse than killing a cockroach."
I remember once watching a CBS report in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Israel and watching Simon smugly reporting on Israeli who were outraged by the violence, as if there was something extreme about their reaction. Fortunately, when other people are attacked, Friedman and Simon are both able to maintain their professional detachment.
This Ongoing War reminds us that rocks can kill, and did so recently:
The alleged killers of Asher Palmer and his son Yonatan [see 25-Sep-11: "Only" rock throwers - but now a father and his infant son are dead] were in front of a military court again this morning. [We went there to give some badly-needed moral support to the Palmers. The process of getting into the courtroom was challenging and after an hour of standing around frustrated and hot, we left. When we hear how today's proceedings, now underway, went, we will report.] Even if you're not a New York Times reporter, sometimes you actually need to see and meet and speak with the family of the victims of Thomas Friedman's rocks.
I have no idea whether or not Israel will attack Iran. Nor do I know whether Ehud Barak and others believe Israel has the capability to do serious damage to Iran’s nuclear program and how they view the likely fallout from an attack. My sense, though, based on conversations with Israeli leaders and Israel-watchers as well as years spent studying Israeli military operations and strategic thinking -- or what passes for strategic thinking in a country where domestic politics seems to determine everything -- is that Israel might be willing to roll the dice on an attack on Iran and, in effect, see what happens. That gamble could have grave consequences for regional stability and U.S. interests. In the meantime, both the Obama administration and the U.S. military will struggle to determine whether or not Israel will strike -- and how they should respond if it does.
The article is one of those "ungrateful ally" arguments. First of all his line about strategic thinking is false. If domestic politics were the sole or main driver behind Israeli strategic decision, Israel would have delivered more decisive blows to the PLO (Defensive Shield), Hezbollah (2006 Lebanon War) and Hamas (Cast Lead). However international pressure and American concerns played a role in Israel's decisions to limit those wars.
No doubt that if sanctions aren't effective, Israel will consider its options. American concerns will, no doubt, be one factor of many that Israel will take into account.
US commission blasts Turkey's lack of religious freedom
For the first time ever, a bipartisan US commission has blasted a NATO ally's lack of religious freedom. That ally is Turkey (Hat Tip: Dan F). More specifically, Turkey has been designated as a 'country of particular concern' for being "a nation whose government has engaged in, or tolerated, systematic and egregious violations of the universal right to freedom of religion and belief." I'm sure you're all shocked.
In its annual report released Tuesday, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom notes that, despite its status as an electoral democracy, Turkey under Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan has failed to recognize religious communities as independent entities with full legal status. Turkish government officials routinely control and meddle in the internal governance, education, and worship rights of these communities. The commission also calls out Turkey — along with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela – for its promotion and tolerance of anti-Semitism.
“Nations that trample upon the basic right of its citizens to freely practice any religion — or no religion — provide fertile ground for poverty, insecurity, war, terror, and the rise of radical movements and activities,” said commission chairman Leonard Leo. Officials at the Commission describe freedom of religion as, often, “the first freedom threatened by tyranny and terror.”
...
The full list of the commission’s 16 most egregious religious freedom violators comprises: Burma, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
Leo said, “It’s no coincidence that these nations are among the most dangerous and destabilizing places on earth,” emphasizing the relationship between a country’s stability and the way its government allows its citizens to freely practice, change their beliefs, or encourage others to join their religion.
The report notes that Turkey's designation was 'controversial,' with four of the nine commissioners dissenting. Given that the commission is described as 'bipartisan,' it would be interesting to note whether and to what extent the vote was divided by party lines. I could not tell by going through the report.
Today it is contraception and the morning-after pill. Tomorrow it will be kosher slaughter, or matrilineal descent, or circumcision, or other matters of existential importance to Jewish observance. If the Obama administration gets away with forcing Catholic institutions to step across lines of life and death in the name of “health,” the federal government will have a precedent to legislate Judaism out of existence–as several other countries have already tried to do.
Now the Obama administration has told Catholic institutions that they don’t have to dispense pills that kill babies. Instead, they can pay the insurance company, and the insurance company will dispense the pill for them. It is an accounting trick (as Paul Ryan called it) that the White House misrepresents as a compromise. The Catholic Bishops, of course, reject it. And only one Jewish organization, the haredi organization Agudath Israel, offered a sharp response. Its Washington director Abba Cohen stated:
Whether or not the White House’s new ‘compromise’ proposal adequately addresses the religious freedom concerns raised by the Catholic Church is for the Catholic Church to say, not us – and, frankly, not the White House, either. The important points here are that no religiously sponsored entity, and no religiously motivated individual, should be forced by government to violate its or his sincerely held religious principles; and that the determination of religious propriety must be left to the religious entity or individual, not to the government.
The Orthodox Union, according to press accounts, guardedly praised the “compromise,” saying: “The president’s stated commitment is a positive first step forward, the details of implementation are crucial and we look forward to working with the administration to see that through.” As a late-in-life returnee to Jewish observance, I habitually defer to the Orthodox Union leadership in such matters. Having had the misfortune to have spent half my life among the atheists and religion-haters, though, I know how embittered and unrelenting are the supposed disciples of science. They are in fact religious fanatics of the worst kind. You can’t make a deal with them. After they come for the Catholics, they will come for us. They already are coming for us all over the world.
The journalist, Hamza Kashgari, had been detained by the Malaysian police since Thursday, when he was stopped at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at the request of the Saudi government. Mr. Kashgari, a newspaper columnist based in Jidda, had fled Saudi Arabia amid public outrage after he wrote about an imaginary meeting with the Prophet Muhammad in a series of posts on Twitter, according to news reports. ... The Saudi king has reportedly called for his arrest, and many in the religiously conservative country have accused him of blasphemy, a capital offense in Saudi Arabia. Muhammad Afiq Bin Mohamad Noor, the Malaysian lawyer hired by Mr. Kashgari’s family, said he obtained an interim court order from the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Sunday afternoon that would have prevented the authorities from deporting Mr. Kashgari. He only discovered later on Sunday, when he spoke to an immigration officer at the Kuala Lumpur airport, that Mr. Kashgari had already been deported on a private Saudi jet.
This incident - of a Saudi national who had escaped Saudi Arabia only to be extradited by a different Muslim nation - ought to raise questions as to why the United States is involved in the Istanbul Process, which would criminalize defamation of religion internationally. This question is even more serious, because it has been charged (and denied) that Interpol played a role in Kashgari's identification and capture.
Back in December, Nina Shea wrote about the problems with the Istanbul Process advocated by the OIC and apparently encouraged by the State Department. Among the problems was:
It offered a transnational venue for the OIC to reintroduce its anti-defamation push, just as the issue had been laid to rest at the United Nations. The administration erred in viewing resolution 16/18 as a meeting of minds between the OIC and America on freedoms of religion and speech. In Istanbul, Clinton asserted that the United States does not want to see speech restrictions — but her conference announcement immediately reignited OIC demands for the West to punish anti-Islamic speech. As the OIC reported it: “The upcoming [Washington] meetings . . . [will] help in enacting domestic laws for the countries involved in the issue, as well as formulating international laws preventing inciting hatred resulting from the continued defamation of religions.”
The end of this process would be an international regimen for prosecuting anyone who could be said to be defaming Islam. Think about the fatwa against Salman Rushdie with the force of international law behind it.
2) The bliss of ignorance
Roger Cohen has written an important column called the Dilemmas of Islamic Power:
Major American Islamic organizations, their agendas often supported by clueless liberal publications (like the increasingly unserious New York Times), have in general made uncritical defense of Islam — rather than constructive criticism — the cornerstone of their policies and viewed deviation from the ever-refreshed victimhood narrative as unacceptable dissent. A recent New York Times editorial called a film that was critical of extreme Islam, a "hateful film."
Yet, as Beinart chronicles, major American Jewish organizations, their agendas often swayed by a few wealthy donors (like the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson), have in general made uncritical defense of Israel — rather than constructive criticism — the cornerstone of their policies and viewed deviation from the ever-refreshed victimhood narrative as unacceptable dissent. He quotes Abraham Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League: “Israeli democracy should decide; American Jews should support.”
Except that much criticism of Israel is not constructive, as Cohen, in his ignorance demonstrates in subsequent paragraphs.
Such prescriptions worked for an embattled little Israel and a generation of Holocaust survivors; they fall short today. “In their support for a halt to settlement growth and their comfort with public criticism of Israeli policy,” Beinart writes, “the mass of American Jews are to the left of the organizations that speak in their name, organizations that almost always oppose U.S. pressure on Israeli leaders and blame the Palestinians almost exclusively for the lack of Middle East peace.” Blaming Palestinians — for disunity, for grandstanding, for seeking not the 1967 lines but Israel’s disappearance — is easy enough, although increasingly an exercise in misrepresentation of the major Palestinian shifts under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The blame game would, however, be far more credible if the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had shown the least interest in peace; it has not. Subsidized West Bank settlement expansion continues, a claim in concrete to the land Netanyahu calls Judea and Samaria.
Granted, the mistakes in these quoted paragraphs would not be known to someone who only reads the New York Times for news on the Middle East, so maybe Cohen could be forgiven for his ignorance. However, since he has such a major platform, he ought to have done a bit more research.
The mass of American Jews are not "to the left" of organizations speaking in their name. If they were J-Street wouldn't have been reduced to a political footnote three years after its founding.
A few days after another agreement Fatah / Hamas agreement relegating Salam Fayyad to irrelevance it is amazing that Cohen appeals to "major shifts" under Fayyad. True, the Fatah / Hamas agreement may not actually come to fruition, but it is a sign of Fayyad's marginalization and reflects that he really had no political base in the first place. Even now Barry Rubin points out that Fatah's official new Facebook page denies Israel's right to exist and praises terrorists.
Beinart's thesis makes a lot of sense if one is ignorant about what is going on. But when the true story is known Beinart and Cohen are simply engaged in calumny against Israel and its supporters, especially Israel's Jewish supporters. It is they who embrace a hateful canard.
3) The attacks in India and Georgia
In Ha'aretz, Anshel Pfeffer suggests a reason why the Israeli embassies in India and Georgia were targeted (h/t Israel Matzav):
Hezbollah's and Iran's focus therefore has been centered on Israeli representations abroad. Attempts to attack targets in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and most recently Thailand were nipped in the bud through close cooperation between Israeli intelligence and the local security services. A Hezbollah cell operating in Western Europe was also apprehended last year before it could launch an operation. Two years ago, a shooting at cars carrying Israeli diplomats in Jordan resulted in no casualties. There were multiple intelligence warnings of a pending attack - and the recent assassinations of nuclear scientists in Tehran and mysterious explosions at various Iranian installations only added impetus. The twin locations, India and Georgia, are countries where Israel has close relationships with the local political leaderships and especially with the defense establishments. They are also countries where the security forces are not in total control of wide regions and borders.
Jackson Diehl considers an aspect of India's relationship with Iran and concludes that the attack may be a sign of desperation:
According to news service reports, a man on a motorcycle stuck a bomb on the van of the wife of an Israeli military attache as she drove to pick up her children from school. Israeli reports said she was moderately injured by shrapnel, and several Indians in her van also suffered injuries. Remarkably, the attack took place within a few hundred meters of the offices of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who just last week was resisting pressure from the United States to cut back on Indian purchases of Iranian oil. As Europe had applied an embargo on oil purchases, and even China has cut back, India has recently become Iran’s largest customer. It has even reportedly worked out barter arrangements to pay for continuing oil deliveries so that its banks are not exposed to U.S. sanctions. Having suffered repeated major terrorist attacks by Islamic militants in recent years, India takes terrorism very seriously. It is unlikely to respond mildly if today’s attack can be traced to Iran or to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia which serves as Iran’s proxy in countries around the world.
The silver lining on this unfortunate event is that it is a further proof of Hezbollah’s loss of the ability to carry out long-range terror attacks. While it has been generally assumed the Hezbollah is one of the most capable terrorist groups this morning was its first successful operation outside of Lebanon since 1996. Hezbollah has certainly had the motivation to carry out major terror attacks, particularly to avenge the assassination of its operations chief, the arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh. In the past I have argued that extensive international intelligence efforts against Hezbollah have taken a heavy toll, restricting their ability to carry out complex attacks abroad. While this morning’s attack was a tragedy it is a far cry from the devastating attacks Hezbollah launched in Argentina or against the Khobar Towers (or its initial attacks against the US Embassy and Marine Barracks in Lebanon.) Hezbollah has also assassinated its enemies, but the targets were carefully chosen – this morning’s attacks were more akin to targets of opportunity. It is of course possible that Hezbollah was merely holding its fire, that these were shots across the bow rather then full-fledged strikes. But the fact that a revenge attack for the Mughniyeh killing has only come four years does little to suggest that Hezbollah has maintained its once formidable international network. None of this is to suggest, that Hezbollah as been defanged. The efforts needed to keep Hezbollah international terror capabilities in check are essential - if they were not present the organization would probably be able to resume high-level attacks.
My favorite statement summing up the past year's complexities: The IDF has prepared humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees in a buffer zone between Syrian- and Israeli-controlled territory, including thousands from the ruling Alawite sect, prompting Israel's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, to muse: "I am not sure all the Alawites will run toward Israel," but many will do so.
Adnan Al-'Ar'our: Good people, this is shameful, by Allah. Good people, we don't want any weapons from you. All we want is for you to treat the wounded and open up your hospitals. Have your hearts become that cruel? Have you become such cowards? Open up your hospitals. Give us money to buy shrouds. […] Good people, there is an unwritten law with regard to treating the wounded. I think we should even appeal to Israel. Maybe that would be easier. Perhaps they would give us… If it is possible, we appeal to them to treat the wounded. Interviewer: But would the Syrian army allow the wounded safe passage through the Golan? Adnan Al-'Ar'our: Not, it would not.
The Catholic, the Protestant and the Jew stand united for religious freedom
Although it's way off this blog's normal fare, I want to point out this article in the Wall Street Journal, which speaks out against the Obama administration's latest attempt to infringe on the religious freedom of Americans (Hat Tip: Jack W).
Unfortunately, here in Israel, we have one of the highest abortion rates in the World, and I believe that our government pays for all of the measures discussed, although private employers don't pay for health insurance here except as a tax.
It's back to 1948-67 in Jerusalem. For the first time since 1967's Six Day War, Jews and Christians are officially barred from the Temple Mount.
The Israeli government is currently banning all non-Muslims from ascending the Temple Mount, considered the holiest site in Judaism.
"It seems freedom of religion in Israel is only for Muslims and not for Christians and Jews," Danny Danon, deputy speaker of the Knesset, told WND, referring to the new restrictions.
Jerusalem Police spokesman Shmulik Ben Ruby confirmed to WND that Jews and Christians are restricted from entering the Temple Mount due to safety concerns over the main access gate for non-Muslims, known as the Mughrabi Bridge.
Yesterday, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat officially ordered the bridge to be indefinitely closed due to petitions from the city's Antiquities Authority citing fears the weakened wooden structure may collapse or catch fire.
There are 15 gates leading into the Temple Mount compound, 10 of which are in use, but for Muslims only.
The Mughrabi Gate, located at the Western Wall plaza, is the only access for non-Muslims to enter the site, meaning its closure now prevents Jews, Christians and any tourists from visiting until a replacement structure is built.
Ben Ruby said there are no immediate plans for any of the 10 entrances to the Mount to be opened for non-Muslims, citing security concerns.
A replacement bridge could take several months to build. Arab countries are already warning any construction in the sensitive area could lead to violence, claiming the Jewish state is using the bridge renovation to threaten the al-Aqsa Mosque, located on the mount.
Read the whole thing. I've mentioned several times that I won't ascend the Mount because my rabbis don't allow it. But still, is this freedom of religion?
Iran has sentenced Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani to death unless he converts to Islam.
Youcef Nadarkhani, now 34, was arrested in 2009 for questioning the compulsory Islamic education of his children and for seeking to register a home-based church. He was sentenced to death in 2010.
Iran’s security officials recently delivered a book on Islam to Nadarkhani, Fox News said. He is in prison Rasht on the Caspian Sea coast.
The Iranian officials told “him they would be back to discuss the material and hear his opinion,” according to the report.
Fox cited “sources close to the case.”
David Parsons, spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday the new development is “very troubling.”
There need to be “three attempts to make him convert to Islam before they can kill him,” Parsons said. He cited Shari’a Islamic law as the basis for the threeattempts rule.
Iran “is going through the motions” and “trying to do it in a very public way for the Muslim world and maybe, in their mind, thinking they can placate the West. It is outrageous,” said Parsons, who is a contributing editor to The Jerusalem Post Christian Edition.
The case “should be an eye-opener for world leaders,” he said. “They should know what Islam teaches in terms of ‘inferior religions’ like Judaism and Christianity.”
Israel not the only ally unhappy over State Department religion report
Egypt is furious over a US State Department report that accuses the United States top ally in the Arab world of preventing the free practice of religion.
A spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry told reporters on Saturday that no country should give itself the right to act as a monitoring body on other sovereign nations. “Each country can understand its own problems and challenges and work on them efficiently,” the spokesman said in a statement.
Egypt is found on a list of 30 nations where “violations of religious freedom have been noteworthy” in the report’s Executive Summary.
The United States itself does not appear on the list; according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reports on domestic violations of religious freedom are prepared and issued separately and periodically throughout the year.
Striking was the lack of any mention of the harassment, official and otherwise, visited upon the small Jewish community in Egypt.
The Egyptians have a point, but their behavior is so flagrant that it's difficult not to comment about it. They're right that the Americans don't always know what's going on in a given country, but in the Egyptians' case, it's pretty easy to figure out.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
