#almost as insulting as serving the israelis against my will

[hexesandroses]

Had an American tourist come in at work today who looked all cheery. I asked her "how are you feeling today?" because. You know. And she goes "oh I'm all good! Enjoying my time in Greece 😊 my husband and I are devout followers of Jesus so you know-" and I thought ah. You.

[phroyd]

Reading this article, you see the similarity between right-Wing Orthodox Jewry and Fundamentalist Islam; THIS is why Israel has become an Apartheid, Fascist State, Right-Wing Religious Extremism! - Phroyd

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — The slaughter of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh elicited responses in Israel that echoed the reactions to anti-Semitic killings in Paris, Toulouse and Brussels: expressions of sympathy, reminders that hatred of Jews is as rampant as ever, reaffirmations of the need for a strong Israel.

But Saturday’s massacre also brought to the surface painful political and theological disagreements tearing at the fabric of Israeli society and driving a wedge between Israelis and American Jews.

Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi took pains to avoid the word “synagogue” to describe the scene of the crime — because it is not Orthodox, but Conservative, one of the liberal branches of Judaism that, despite their numerous adherents in the United States, are rejected by the religious authorities who determine the Jewish state’s definitions of Jewishness.

And the attacker’s anti-refugee, anti-Muslim fulminations on social media prompted some on the Israeli left — like many American Jewish liberals — to draw angry comparisons to views espoused by the increasingly nationalistic leaders who now hold sway in their governments.

The result has been a striking and lightning-fast politicization of the sort of tragedy that until now had only galvanized Jews across the world — not set them at one another’s throats.

Here in Israel, the decades-old animosity between left and right has reached new levels of enmity in recent years. Ultra-Orthodox parties that play a kingmaker’s role in the right-wing government are pressing to increase their influence and that of Jewish law on daily life, sparking bitter fights over everything from who serves in the military to whether trains can run and stores can open on the Sabbath. Jews from liberal American denominations feel increasingly alienated from Israel’s state-run religious life.

With the Israeli government, like many across Europe, also taking a decidedly nationalistic turn, the election of President Trump has only compounded that strife, widening the rift between Israeli and American Jews. Politically liberal American Jews have been repelled by Mr. Trump’s solid support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and by Mr. Netanyahu’s effusive embrace of Mr. Trump and his granting of a wish-list’s worth of political gifts. They range from scrapping the Iran nuclear agreement to repeatedly punishing the Palestinians and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

All of that, and more, bubbled up when one of Israel’s most influential politicians, Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party, jumped on a plane to Pittsburgh in his capacity as minister of diaspora affairs. Mr. Bennett gave voice only to unifying ideals: “Together we stand, Americans, Israelis — people who are, together, saying no to hatred,” he told a vigil there Sunday night. “The murderer’s bullet does not stop to ask, ‘Are you Conservative or Reform, are you Orthodox? Are you right-wing or left-wing?’ It has one goal, and that is to kill innocent people. Innocent Jews.”

No sooner had Mr. Bennett’s plane departed Ben-Gurion Airport than he was assailed by liberal Israeli critics, who among other things resurfaced a 2012 Facebook post in which he had accused leftists of promoting “crime and rape in Tel Aviv” because they wanted to allow African migrants who had entered the country illegally to stay.

“Is the Trump-supporting, African-migrant-bashing Naftali Bennett really the best person to represent Israel in Pittsburgh right now?” wrote Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz, the liberal daily.

Others cited a pro-Jewish Home party text message sent to Haifa residents in advance of Tuesday’s municipal elections. It warned Jewish voters fearful of “the flight of young Jews” and a “takeover” by “the sector”— shorthand for Israeli Arabs — to vote for the Jewish Home slate.

“That’s almost word-for-word the spirit of ‘Jews will not replace us,’” said Dahlia Scheindlin, a left-wing political consultant in Tel Aviv, recalling the chant of neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

Even Michael Oren, the American-born deputy minister from the right-of-center Kulanu party, faulted Mr. Bennett for having sided with the ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbinate, which refuses to recognize non-Orthodox denominations as sufficiently Jewish to participate fully in Israeli religious life.

“Liberal Jews were Jewish enough to be murdered, but their stream is not Jewish enough to be recognized by the Jewish State,” Mr. Oren wrote in Hebrew on Twitter, adding: “I call on Minister Bennett not to suffice with condolences, but to recognize liberal Jewish streams and unite the people.”

On the right, veteran activists in Likud, Mr. Netanyahu’s party, circulated an email on Sunday — which Mr. Netanyahu’s aides and party leaders disavowed within hours — noting that the Pittsburgh killer had denounced the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which “encouraged immigration” and “acted against Trump.”

“Did we or did we not say that the Left is guilty of encouraging anti-Semitism?,” wrote the email’s author, who responded to queries but declined to identify himself.

Many Israelis, of course, reacted with horror and grief as they tuned into coverage of the Pittsburgh massacre. In Beit Shemesh, a largely ultra-Orthodox city 20 minutes west of Jerusalem, Elisheva Gutman, 24, a social worker, said her parents had vacationed in Pittsburgh two weeks earlier and had attended Sabbath services down the street from the Tree of Life synagogue, the killing site. “When they go to Europe, my father takes off his kipa and puts on a hat,” for fear of attack, Ms. Gutman said. “It’s not supposed to be that way in the U.S.”

Chaim Zaid, 62, a paramedic from Kedumim, a West Bank settlement, said the shooting belied Israelis’ ideas of the United States as a “paradise” for Jews. “You think the big U.S., with the big F.B.I., will protect them, and nothing will change,” he said. “But that was a change point. My sister lives in Brooklyn and was afraid to come to my home. So Sunday morning I sent her a message: ‘Rivka, you were afraid to come to me?’”

If other Israelis were quick to score political points over the Pittsburgh killings, though, in a sense they had been preparing for this moment. The disagreements between American and Israeli Jews have been piling up.

Only last week, the Jewish Federations of North America’s yearly General Assembly drew hundreds of Americans to Tel Aviv for a three-day conference focused on the strains in the relationship, titled “We Need to Talk.”

In a provocative keynote, the head of Israel’s largest real estate company, Danna Azrieli, recited the litany of friction points. For Americans, she said, there are Mr. Netanyahu’s effusive embrace of Mr. Trump, whom most American Jews oppose; the Israeli occupation and Jewish settlements on the West Bank, which many American Jews believe block peace with the Palestinians; Mr. Netanyahu’s reneging on a deal last year to significantly upgrade and grant equal status to a mixed-gender, Reform and Conservative prayer space at the Western Wall; and Israel’s new nation-state law, which opponents call racist and anti-democratic because it enshrines the right of national self-determination in Israel as “unique to the Jewish people.”

For Israelis, Ms. Azrieli said, Americans don’t serve in the Israeli army, pay Israeli taxes or live under the threat of rockets, but also don’t let those realities stop them from trying to impose their views on Israelis.

Long as it was, that list had big omissions. Israelis on the left would add, at a minimum, the Netanyahu government’s warming up to increasingly authoritarian leaders in countries like Hungary and Poland, and its demonization of the Hungarian-born, liberal Jewish financier George Soros — who also is a frequent target of anti-Semitic attacks in the United States and Europe — for underwriting activist groups that oppose Mr. Netanyahu’s policies. Mr. Netanyahu’s own son even posted a meme attacking Mr. Soros with anti-Semitic imagery that drew praise from the likes of David Duke.

And Israelis on the right would add their lingering resentment of American Jews’ support for the Iran nuclear deal struck by President Obama, which Israelis saw as a matter of survival, according to the author Yossi Klein Halevi, a New York-born Jerusalemite.

Mr. Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, said the Pittsburgh shootings had exposed an even deeper and more worrisome divide between the two populations. “Each sees the other as in some sense threatening its most basic well-being,” he said. “American Jews don’t understand the depth of the Israeli sense of betrayal over the Iran deal. And Israelis don’t understand why American Jews regard Trump as a life-and-death threat to the liberal society that allowed American Jewry to become the most successful minority in Jewish history.”

How damaged is the relationship? In her keynote, Ms. Azrieli felt compelled to plead, “Don’t give up on our country,” adding: “Don’t walk away because your liberal sensibilities are insulted. Don’t assume that nothing can change. Things do change — just painfully, slowly, incrementally, and with all of our help.”

And yet among Israeli leaders, some already have given up on American Jews, said Mr. Oren, the deputy minister and a former Israeli ambassador in Washington, who also cited some American Jews’ opposition to President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“One school of thought is: ‘These are our people, we have to do everything possible to reach out.’ The second school says:, ‘It’s too late, they’re gone. After Iran, after Jerusalem, if we have limited resources we should invest in our base — evangelicals and the Orthodox.’”

“The first school, which is mine, is a beleaguered school,” Mr. Oren said. “The burden of doubt is on us; we have to prove that we’re still correct. It’s not easy.”

In Beit Shemesh, Zion Cohen, 66, a mall manager, lamented the acrimony. “I’m Likud, but what’s happened between Israel and America, I’m against it,” he said. “I know it’s painful to Jews in America how Israel acts toward them. The influence of the Orthodox and Haredim on the Israeli government is a catastrophe. And we need help from the Jews of the U.S., especially given how much anti-Semitism there is now in the world.”

He added: “We have to unite the whole Jewish people.”

Correction: October 30, 2018

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misspelled the surname of man shown standing in front of a mall in Beit Shemesh. He is Eli Peretz, not Teretz.

Phroyd

[jacobsvoice]

Lament From the South Hebron Hills

The New York Review of Books is not renowned for embracing Israel, unless it is with a literary choke-hold. Proudly identifying its focus on “the great political issues of power and its abuses,” Israel became an inviting target, especially for Jewish leftist contributors. Fifteen years ago historian Tony Judt who, as a besotted teenager had spent his high-school summers working on kibbutzim, labeled the Jewish state an “anachronism” that is “bad for the Jews.” Left-wing Israeli writers – Amos Oz, David Grossman and Avishai Margalit prominent among them – were welcomed by the Review to illuminate Israel’s moral deficiencies.

The mantle of Israel-bashing has been passed to other Jewish academics who, like Judt, believe that the Jewish state is worthy of their loathing. Its March 7 issue features a review of the newest book by historian David Shulman, who emigrated to Israel from Iowa following his graduation from high school after the Six-Day War. Serving in the IDF during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, he subsequently became an expert on the languages of India and enjoyed a distinguished academic career at the Hebrew University.

Winner of the Israel Prize in 2016, Shulman donated his award funds to Ta’ayush, the organization of his passion that supports Palestinian farmers living the South Hebron hills (between Hebron and Beersheva). There, for many years, he has spent every Shabbat protecting besieged Palestinian shepherds and farmers from the Jewish settlers whom he despises. Describing them as “sociopathetic” Israelis who enjoy “unfettered freedom to terrorize the local Palestinian population,” Shulman feels “responsible for the atrocities committed in my name” by settlers and the soldiers who protect them.

In Freedom and Despair (2018) Shulman confesses to a “nagging sense of futility and despair.” Once imagining that the peace camp that engages his passion was the catalyst for “a mass movement for peace,” his dream was shattered by “the vast machinery of the Occupation,” a “systemic wickedness” that is an “insult to human dignity on a mass scale.” Realizing that he “can never be free in any meaningful way if [Palestinians] are not free,” he laments “the brutal harassment by soldiers and settlers” of innocent shepherds as the Israeli government pursues its “greater annexationist goal.”

Nowhere in his book, focused on the South Hebron hills, does Shulman mention the horrific Arab massacre in Hebron (1929) when sixty-seven Jewish residents and yeshiva students were murdered for the crime of being Jews. Hebron became Judenrein until, after the Six-Day War, Jews began to return to their ancient holy city, burial place of the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people and King David’s first capital city. But Shulman lacerates Hebron (where several hundred Jews are surrounded by 200,000 Palestinians) and other settlements as a “corrupt regime of theft and dispossession.”

Shulman relentlessly focuses on the besieged Palestinian mountain village of Susya. Had Shulman bothered to Google Susya he would have learned that it is “the site of an ancient Jewish village” with archeological remains from a 4th-5th century synagogue. Who, then, are the “occupiers”: Jews, or the Islamic warriors who converted the site into a mosque and their Muslim disciples?

Freedom and Despair overflows with Shulman’s laments about “the Occupation” by Israel of its Biblical homeland, millennia before the arrival of Muslim conquerors. It is “wicked at the root and cannot be justified by any rational means.” Jewish “sociopathic settlers,” for Shulman, possess “a fanatical and lethal vision” whose occupation “embodies wickedness of such intensity that it calls into question the legitimacy” of Israel.

A frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, Shulman has been rewarded with a glowing review by Raja Shehadeh, the prominent Palestinian lawyer (and another familiar contributor) who founded the human rights group Al-Haq. Shehadeh focuses on violence (“almost weekly”) by “sociopathetic” settlers (Shulman’s label) against West Bank Palestinians. Palestinian violence against Jews is ignored – as it is by Shulman. The recent shooting of a pregnant Israel woman whose premature baby died three days later, and the rape and murder of a 19-year-old Israeli woman by a Hebron Moslem yearning to be a martyr occurred too late for inclusion – or evasion.

Shehadeh, like Shulman, believes that settler claims (to Biblical Judea and Samaria) are “mythical” - even (for Shulman) “absurd.” Drawing upon Shulman’s narrative, Shehadeh concludes that “in this battle against [Israeli] fascism,” Palestinians and Israelis ”must fight together.” Shulman and Shehadeh are their self-appointed verbal warriors.

While I was reading Shulman’s book and Shehadeh’s review, JNS published a brief account of the destruction by Arabs of 200 cherry trees and grapevines in Kfar Etzion, at the edge of Shulman’s beloved Palestinian enclave. Perhaps Shulman (and Shehadeh) will condemn the rampage in The New York Review of Books. More likely, not.

Jewish News Service (JNS) (March 6, 2019)

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel, 1896-2016 published by Academic Studies Press.

[basicsofislam]

PROPHET MUHAMMAD (PBUH)’s BIOGRAPHY : The Conquest of Makkah.4

Pulling Down the Idols!

The Qurayshi polytheists had erected 360 idols around the Kaaba. Those idols had been pinned with leads.[ Bukhari, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 62. ]

The Messenger of God, who had destroyed the idols in the minds, spirits and hearts with the belief of oneness he brought, and who had made  thousands of people turn around the light he brought like moths, started to clean the Kaaba from the idols.

He pointed at each idol with the stuff in his hand and read the following verse:

“Truth has (now) arrived, and Falsehood perished: for Falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish.”[ Al-Isra, 81. ] Each idol that was pointed at by the Prophet fell down. When the Prophet pointed at the face of the idol, it fell off face down. Thus, all of the idols in the Kaaba were demolished.[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 4, p. 59; Muslim, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 1408. ]

Adhan in the Kaaba!

It was time for the noon prayer.

Upon the order of the Messenger of God, Bilal started to call the adhan on top of the Kaaba.  

There was joy and liveliness in the believing hearts; there was sorrow and downfall in the unbelieving hearts. Bilal, who was a slave and whom the polytheistshad made walk around the streets with the rope they tied around his neck and upon whom they had inflicted undreamt tortures, was declaring the oneness on the Kaaba with his sonorous voice by making the polytheists go mad from jealousy. It sounded as if the mountains and stones were uttering adhan in their own language together with Bilal.

The polytheists were very depressed by the exceptional view. Meanwhile, Abu Sufyan, Attab b. Asid and Harith Ibn Hisham, the leaders of the Quraysh were talking to one another.

Attab said, “My father Asid was lucky because he did not witness this day.”

Insulting Bilal, Harith said, “Could Muhammad not find a person other than this black crow to appoint as a muez­zin?”

Abu Sufyan did not utter any negative words. He said,

“I am afraid I will not say anything. Even if there is no one else here, the sands and stones under our feet will inform him about what we say; and he will know all about it.”[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 4, p. 56; Ibn Qayyim, Zadu’l-Maad, Vol. 2, p. 184. ]

In fact, a few minutes later, the Messenger of God saw them and told them exactly what they were talking about. Then, Attab and Harith uttered kalima ash-shahada and accepted Islam.[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 4, p. 56. ]

Abu Sufyan said, “O Messenger of God! Fortunately, I did not say anything.”

The Messenger of God smiled at him when he said so.

The incidents that took place affected the people of Makkah profoundly. They made the people of Makkah feel good things toward Islam and eliminate the hatred and enmity they felt against the Messenger of God and the Companions. 

The Prophet Enters the Kaaba

The Messenger of God sent somebody to Uthman b. Talha and asked for the key to the Kaaba. Though Uthman b. Talha’s mother urged him not to give the key to the Kaaba to the Prophet, Talha gave him the key.

The Messenger of God entered the Kaaba together with Bilal, Usama b. Zayd and Uthman b. Talha (may God be pleased with them).[ Bukhari, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 62. ] He had ordered beforehand that the pictures and idols inside be removed; however, there were still some traces of them inside. He gave an order for those traces to be cleaned up.

After staying inside the Kaaba for a while, the Prophet came out. Meanwhile, almost all of the people of Makkah had gathered and were waiting for the decree of the Prophet about them.  

They wondered if the Messenger of God would throw tripe against their faces as they had done to him? Or, would he throw thorns on the road and make them walk on thorns? Or, would he torture and insult them? Would he put a rope around their necks and make them walk around the streets as they had done to some Companions? Would he torture them by making them lie down on scorching sand? Would he leave them hungry and thirsty? Or, would they be expelled?

No, Messenger of God, for whose sake the universe was created and who was sent as mercy for the realms, did not do any of them.

The Sermon of the Conquest

The Messenger of God stood by the door of the Kaaba. He was looking at the people with a smile on his face. After praising and thanking God, he recited the following sermon:

“There is no god but Allah; He has no partners.

He fulfilled His promise; He helped His slave and eliminated the enemies that gathered against him.

Know it well that all of the things that belong to the Era of Jahiliyya and that are regarded as means of pride like feuds, and conflicts regarding property have been abolished.

All people were created out of Adam; and Adam was created out of dust.

“O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).” (al-Hujurat, 13) [ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 4, p. 59; Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, Vol. 3, p. 410; Tirmidhi, ibid, Vol. 5, p. 389; Abu Dawud, Sunan, Vol. 4, p. 185. ]

General amnesty

After his sermon, the Messenger of God asked the people there: “O Qurayshis! What do you think I will do to you?”

The Qurayshis said, “You are a generous and good brother. You are a generous and good nephew. We think you will do good things about us.”

Thereupon, the Messenger of God said,

“My situation and your situation are like what Joseph (Yusuf) said to his brothers.”

“I am saying to you what Yusuf said to his brothers, ‘This day let no reproach be (cast) on you: God will forgive you, and He is the Most Merciful of those who show mercy’” (Yusuf, 92).

“You can leave; you are free.”[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 4, p. 55; Ibn Sa’d, ibid, Vol. 2, p. 142; Tabari, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 120. ]

The best pardoning is to pardon when one has power; the best favor is the favor done in return for bad deeds. The best mercy is to show mercy on those who have not shown mercy on you. That was what the Messenger of God did because he was taught the following by God Almighty:

“Hold to forgiveness; command what is right; but turn away from the ignorant.” [ al-A’raf, 199. ]

At that moment, the Qurayshis were waiting in the presence of the Messenger of God lowering their heads and opening their hands. If he had wished, he would have killed all of them in return for the oppression and tortures they had inflicted upon him or he would have enslaved them; he could have confiscated their land and exiled them.

However, the Prophet, who was sent as mercy to the realms, did not do any of them. His only aim was to conquer people’s hearts. Thanks to this exceptional attitude of his, the Prophet served his aim very well. Upon his merciful behavior, pardoning and generosity, the Qurayshi polytheists abandoned their feelings of hatred and enmity; they embraced Islam.  

History witnessed such a magnificent spiritual and ideological revolution for the first time.

No Migration after the Conquest

It was on the day when Makkah was conquered.

Abdurrahman b. Safwan brought his father to the presence of the Messenger of God. He said,

“O Messenger of God! My father will pay allegiance to you and promise to migrate.”

The Messenger of God said, “There is no migration after the conquest of Makkah.”

Nevertheless, Abdurrahman wanted his father to benefit from the spiritual reward of being a muhajir. Therefore, he went to Hazrat Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle. He asked Abbas, whom the Prophet loved a lot, to intercede for him.  

Abbas accepted Abdurrahman’s request and said to the Prophet, “O Messenger of God! You know my friendship with that person. His father came to you to pay allegiance by promising to migrate but you did not accept him.”

Makkah, which was the only remaining castle of the Arabian polytheists, had been conquered. Islam gained great strength through it. Therefore, the Prophet decided to end the institution of migration. That is why, he did not answer his uncle, whom he loved a lot positively. He said, “There is no allegiance for migration from now onward.”

The migration that the Messenger of God ended was migration from a Muslim land, where Muslims could practice Islam freely to another Muslim land. That is, it was migration from Makkah and places near Makkah to Madinah when the Prophet was alive.

The Second Sermon of the Prophet

On the second day of the conquest, after the noon prayer, the Messenger of God went up the ladder of the Kaaba, leaned back the Kaaba, praised God and addressed the people as follows:

“O people!

There is no doubt that God rendered Makkah haram and untouchable on the day He created the skies and the earth, the sun and the moon; it will remain haram and untouchable until the Doomsday.

It is not permissible for a person who believes in God and the hereafter to shed blood and to cut trees within the boundaries of the Haram of Makkah. To shed blood in Makkah was not permissible before me and it will not be permissible after me, either.

Those who are listening to me here should convey what I say to those who are not here.

…

From his point onward, the family of a person who is killed will have two choices. They will want either the killer to be executed or blood money to be paid to them.

There is no doubt that the most disrespectful, ferocious and fiercest person toward God Almighty among people is the one that kills a person or kills a person other than his murderer or that kills a person in order to take revenge remaining from the Era of Jahiliyya.  

A person cannot attribute himself to anybody except his father or a relative of his fathers. A child that is born belongs to the owner of the bed.

It is the duty of the plaintiff to bring evidence to prove his claim and it is the duty of the denier to swear an oath.

There is no Jahiliyya treaty in Islam or migration after the conquest.

A Muslim is a brother of another Muslim; all Muslims are brothers. Muslims are like a single hand against their enemies; they act in cooperation.

...

The bloods of Muslims are equal to one another. They try to fulfill their duties; the weakest of them try to fulfill even the most difficult ones.  

Know it very well that a believer, a Muslim cannot be killed for an unbeliever; nor those who have vows among them can be killed for unbelievers living in the land of unbelievers due to their vows.

There is no exchange marriage without dowers in Islam.

A man cannot marry the aunt of his wife while he is married with her.

It is not permissible for a woman to give away the goods of his husband without his permission.

A woman is not allowed to go on a three-day journey or a longer one without being accompanied by one of her mahram men.

Know it very well that a will is not necessary for inheritance. Members of different religion cannot be the inheritors of one another.

The diyah of one finger is ten camels. The diyah of a deep wound under which the bone is seen is five camels.  

No prayer can be performed after the morning prayer until the sun rises. No prayer can be performed after the afternoon prayer until the sun sets.

I prohibit you from fasting on two days: One of them is the day of eid al-adha, the other is the day of eid al-fitr.

I showed you the way that you can understand.”[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 4, p. 58; Ibn Sa’d, ibid, Vol. 2, p. 137; Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, ibid, Vol. 4, p. 32, Vol. 2, p. 207-211; Bukhari, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 63-66. ]

The Duties of Siqaya and Hijaba are left to the Same People

The Messenger of God stated during the Sermon of the Conquest that all of the transactions, tasks and cases of the Era of Jahiliyya except the services of Siqaya and Hijaba had been abolished.

Siqaya, which was the duty of giving water to hajjis, belonged to Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet.

Hijaba, which was the duty of serving the Kaaba, belonged to Uthman b. Talha.

Abbas applied to the Prophet and asked the Prophet to give both duties to him. However, the Messenger of God regarded it appropriate for him to maintain the duty of Siqaya only as he did it before the conquest.

The Messenger of God was holding the key to the Kaaba. Many Muslims were expecting to have this honorable duty. However, the Prophet summoned Uthman b. Tal­ha and recited the following verse: “God doth command you to render back your Trusts to those to whom they are due; and when ye judge between people that ye judge with justice.” Then he said, “O Uthman! Here is your key. Take it. Today is the day of goodness and keeping promises.”[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 4, p. 55; Ibn Sayyid, ibid, Vol. 2, p. 178. ]Then, he gave the key to the Kaaba to uthman.

When Uthman b. Talha took the key and started to walk, the Messenger of God said to him, “Did what I once told you not happen?”

Uthman b. Talha remembered the incident and conversation between him and the Messenger of God and confirmed him:

“Yes, I witness that you are definitely the Messenger of God.”[ Ibn Qayyim, ibid, Vol. 2, p. 184 ]

The incident and the conversation that the Prophet wanted to remind had taken place as follows:

It was before the Migration. Uthman b. Talha had not become a Muslim yet. Once the Prophet wanted to enter the Kaaba but Uthman b. Talha prevented him. Let alone preventing, Talha treated the Prophet rudely and unpleasantly. The Messenger of God did not get furious; as if he had seen the victory of Islam in the future, he calmly and leniently said, “O Uthman! One day will come, I hope you will find me having this key and the power of being able to give it to anybody I wish.” Uthman b. Talha said, “It means the Quraysh will have been eliminated then.” The Prophet said, “No, O Uthman! The Quraysh will attain the real power and honor then.”[ Ibn Sayyid, ibid, Vol. 2, p. 178. ]

Makkans Pay Allegiance to the Prophet

After declaring a general amnesty, the Messenger of God went up the Safa Hill and accepted the allegiance of the Qurayshis. Many years ago, he had declared his prophethood there but he was rejected then. Now, he was accepting the allegiance to Islam from the same people on the same hill.

The allegiance of men to Islam and jihad witnessing that there was no god but Allah and that Muhammad (pbuh) was His Messenger was followed by the allegiance of women.

The Allegiance of Women

The women also paid allegiance to the Prophet by promising not to associate any partners with God, not to steal, not to kill their daughters, not to fornicate and to protect their chastity.”[ Nasafi, Tafsir, Vol. 4, p. 250. ]

Among the leaders of the women who paid allegiance were famous women like Um­muhan, Hazrat Ali’s daughter, Umm Habiba, As b. Umayy’s daughter, Attab Ibn Asid’s aunts, Arwa, Abu As’ daughter Atika, Harith b. Hisham’s daughter and Abu Jahl’s son Ikrima’s wife Um­m Ha­kim and Khalid b. Walid’s sister Fatima. Hind, Abu Sufyan’s wife, about whom the Messenger of God said, “Kill her wherever you see her”, was also among them. She disguised herself and joined the women so that she would not be recognized. She regretted what she had done against the Prophet and Muslims in the past. Despite what she had done, the Messenger of God forgave Hind, who had become a Muslim, and accepted her allegiance.  

Abu Quhafa Becomes a Muslim

A person who attains happiness wants his beloved ones to share the same happiness. This feeling is inherent in man.

Hazrat Abu Bakr attained this happiness by being a Muslim. However, his father Abu Quhafa was deprived of this happiness. His son wanted his father to share the same peace and happiness with him. Therefore, he held his father’s hand and took him to the Prophet.

The respectable Prophet, who had expressed perfection of his ethics by saying “My Lord taught me good manners. That is why I have the best manners!”, became very sorry when he saw that Abu Bakr brought his old father to his presence. He showed his kindness and modesty by saying, “It would have been better if you had not brought him here; we would have visited him in his house.”

Hazrat Abu Bakr, who was educated by the Prophet, who was educated by divine manners, said, “O Messenger of God! It is more appropriate for him to visit you than your visiting him.”

After this short conversation, the Messenger of God put his blessed hands on the chest of Abu Quhafa and wiped his chest. Then, he said, “O Abu Quahafa! Become a Muslim.”

Abu Quahafa, who was addressed like that, became a Muslim at once and made his son happy.[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 4, p. 48; Ibn Sa’d, ibid, Vol. 5, p. 451. ]

Those who had been Ordered to be Killed Become Muslims

When Utba bint Hind, the wife of Abu Sufyan, one of the fiercest enemies of Islam was forgiven, those who had been ordered to be killed wherever they were seen started to become hopeful. They also became Muslims and were forgiven by the Messenger of God. Among those people were  Ikrima b. Abi Jahl, Abdullah b. Abi Sarh (he had converted from Islam), Safwan b. Umayya, Suhayl b. Amr, Wahshi, who had murdered Hazrat Hamza, Abdullah b. Zabari, the poet, Harith b. Hisham and Anas b. Zunaym.

Is it possible to see another person who treated his most ferocious enemies so kindly, who showed mercy on them, forgave them, opened his heart to them and accepted them to his rank in the world history?

The Bedouin Shakes

Makkah had been conquered.

Faces and hearts were joyful. There was an exceptional atmosphere of festival in the city.

Meanwhile, a Bedouin approached the Prophet. He was shaking and shivering because of the nervousness and fear of being in the presence of a prophet.

When the Messenger of God noticed the situation, he said, “What are you doing? Come to your senses! I am not a king; I am the son of a Qurayshi woman who lived on dried pieces of meat under the sun.”[Ibn Kathir, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 556; Halabi, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 43; Qadi Iyad, ash-Shifa, Vol. 1, p. 266.]

With those words, the Prophet set a unique example of modesty. When he was left free to choose between becoming a prophet who is a king and a prophet who is a servant, he chose to be a prophet who is a servant.

Modesty was always prevalent in his heart.

When the Bedouin heard those words from the Messenger of God, he felt relieved and stopped shaking.

An Example of Justice

Makkah had been conquered but the Messenger of God had not left this holy land yet.  

A woman from Sons of Mahzum called Fatima bint Aswad committed theft. She was a respectable, noble woman and the Qurayshis respected her.  

The Prophet was informed about the situation. They knew that the hand of a person who stole would be cut off. However, they were thinking about it and asking one another, “How could the hand of a woman of high rank be cut off?”

The family of Fatima was looking for a gleam of hope to save Fatima’s hand. They wanted someone to go to the Prophet and be an intercessor. However, nobody dared it.

Eventually, Usama b. Zayd undertook this duty. Usama was loved by the Prophet a lot. He probably accepted to talk to the Prophet about the issue by trusting his love.  

When Usama asked the Messenger of God to forgive the woman, the color of the face of the Messenger of God changed and he said,

“Are you talking to me about forgiving a penalty that God imposed in order to stop bad deeds?”

Usama felt sorry and said, “O Messenger of God! Ask God to forgive me for this behavior of mine.”

After teaching Usama a lesson, the Messenger of God stood up in the evening, praised God and addressed the people around as follows:

“Those before you were destroyed because of the following attitudes:

When a person of high status stole, they let him go, and when a person of low status stole, they enforced the sentence on to him.

I swear by God, in whose hand is the existence of Muhammad, if Fatima, Muhammad's daughter, stole, I would cut her hand off”:

Then, he ordered the hand of the woman be cut off. The hand of the woman was cut off.

The woman repented and then got married. She often visited Hazrat Aisha after that.[ Bukhari, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 65; Muslim, ibid, Vol. 5, p. 114. ]

With this attitude, the Prophet set a unique example of justice, which is indispensable for the continuation of a nation.

The Places around Makkah are Cleaned of Idols

After cleaning the Kaaba and Makkah from the idols, the Prophet wanted to eliminate the idols around the city.

He sent Khalid b. Walid with a group of thirty people to demolish the idol Uzza, which was in Nahla. Upon this order, Khalid demolished Uzza, which was regarded as the greatest idol among the Qurayshis.[ ]Ibn Sa’d, ibid, Vol. 2, p. 145.]

The Prophet sent Sa’d b. Zayd al-Ashhal in order to demolish Manat, the idol on the mount of Mushallal. It was the idol of Aws and Khazraj tribes. Upon the order of the Prophet Sa’d b. Zayd went there with the Muslims near him, demolished Manat and returned.

Another famous idol of the polytheists was Suwa. It was in a place about three miles away from Makkah. The Messenger of God sent Amr b. As to demolish that idol, which was the idol of the Sons of Kinana, Huzays and Muzaynas. Amr fulfilled his duty and returned to Makkah.[ ]Ibn Sa’d, ibid, Vol. 2, p. 146. ]

With the conquest of Makkah, both the inside of Makkah and the places around it were cleaned of idols; the hearts of the Qurayshis were also cleaned of polytheism and became spotless with the light of oneness.

[newstfionline]

Pittsburgh Killing Aftermath Bares Jewish Rifts in Israel and America

By David M. Halbfinger, NY Times, Oct. 29, 2018

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel--The slaughter of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh elicited responses in Israel that echoed the reactions to anti-Semitic killings in Paris, Toulouse and Brussels: expressions of sympathy, reminders that hatred of Jews is as rampant as ever, reaffirmations of the need for a strong Israel.

But Saturday’s massacre also brought to the surface painful political and theological disagreements tearing at the fabric of Israeli society and driving a wedge between Israelis and American Jews.

Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi took pains to avoid the word “synagogue” to describe the scene of the crime--because it is not Orthodox, but Conservative, one of the liberal branches of Judaism that, despite their numerous adherents in the United States, are rejected by the religious authorities who determine the Jewish state’s definitions of Jewishness.

And the attacker’s anti-refugee, anti-Muslim fulminations on social media prompted some on the Israeli left--like many American Jewish liberals--to draw angry comparisons to views espoused by the increasingly nationalistic leaders who now hold sway in their governments.

The result has been a striking and lightning-fast politicization of the sort of tragedy that until now had only galvanized Jews across the world--not set them at one another’s throats.

Here in Israel, the decades-old animosity between left and right has reached new levels of enmity in recent years. Ultra-Orthodox parties that play a kingmaker’s role in the right-wing government are pressing to increase their influence and that of Jewish law on daily life, sparking bitter fights over everything from who serves in the military to whether trains can run and stores can open on the Sabbath. Jews from liberal American denominations feel increasingly alienated from Israel’s state-run religious life.

With the Israeli government, like many across Europe, also taking a decidedly nationalistic turn, the election of President Trump has only compounded that strife, widening the rift between Israeli and American Jews. Politically liberal American Jews have been repelled by Mr. Trump’s solid support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and by Mr. Netanyahu’s effusive embrace of Mr. Trump and his granting of a wish-list’s worth of political gifts. They range from scrapping the Iran nuclear agreement to repeatedly punishing the Palestinians and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

All of that, and more, bubbled up when one of Israel’s most influential politicians, Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party, jumped on a plane to Pittsburgh in his capacity as minister of diaspora affairs. Mr. Bennett gave voice only to unifying ideals: “Together we stand, Americans, Israelis--people who are, together, saying no to hatred,” he told a vigil there Sunday night. “The murderer’s bullet does not stop to ask, ‘Are you Conservative or Reform, are you Orthodox? Are you right-wing or left-wing?’ It has one goal, and that is to kill innocent people. Innocent Jews.”

No sooner had Mr. Bennett’s plane departed Ben-Gurion Airport than he was assailed by liberal Israeli critics, who among other things resurfaced a 2012 Facebook post in which he had accused leftists of promoting “crime and rape in Tel Aviv” because they wanted to allow African migrants who had entered the country illegally to stay.

“Is the Trump-supporting, African-migrant-bashing Naftali Bennett really the best person to represent Israel in Pittsburgh right now?” wrote Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz, the liberal daily.

Others cited a pro-Jewish Home party text message sent to Haifa residents in advance of Tuesday’s municipal elections. It warned Jewish voters fearful of “the flight of young Jews” and a “takeover” by “the sector”--shorthand for Israeli Arabs--to vote for the Jewish Home slate.

“That’s almost word-for-word the spirit of ‘Jews will not replace us,’” said Dahlia Scheindlin, a left-wing political consultant in Tel Aviv, recalling the chant of neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

Even Michael Oren, the American-born deputy minister from the right-of-center Kulanu party, faulted Mr. Bennett for having sided with the ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbinate, which refuses to recognize non-Orthodox denominations as sufficiently Jewish to participate fully in Israeli religious life.

“Liberal Jews were Jewish enough to be murdered, but their stream is not Jewish enough to be recognized by the Jewish State,” Mr. Oren wrote in Hebrew on Twitter, adding: “I call on Minister Bennett not to suffice with condolences, but to recognize liberal Jewish streams and unite the people.”

On the right, veteran activists in Likud, Mr. Netanyahu’s party, circulated an email on Sunday--which Mr. Netanyahu’s aides and party leaders disavowed within hours--noting that the Pittsburgh killer had denounced the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which “encouraged immigration” and “acted against Trump.”

“Did we or did we not say that the Left is guilty of encouraging anti-Semitism?,” wrote the email’s author, who responded to queries but declined to identify himself.

Many Israelis, of course, reacted with horror and grief as they tuned into coverage of the Pittsburgh massacre. In Beit Shemesh, a largely ultra-Orthodox city 20 minutes west of Jerusalem, Elisheva Gutman, 24, a social worker, said her parents had vacationed in Pittsburgh two weeks earlier and had attended Sabbath services down the street from the Tree of Life synagogue, the killing site. “When they go to Europe, my father takes off his kipa and puts on a hat,” for fear of attack, Ms. Gutman said. “It’s not supposed to be that way in the U.S.”

Chaim Zaid, 62, a paramedic from Kedumim, a West Bank settlement, said the shooting belied Israelis’ ideas of the United States as a “paradise” for Jews. “You think the big U.S., with the big F.B.I., will protect them, and nothing will change,” he said. “But that was a change point. My sister lives in Brooklyn and was afraid to come to my home. So Sunday morning I sent her a message: ‘Rivka, you were afraid to come to me?’”

If other Israelis were quick to score political points over the Pittsburgh killings, though, in a sense they had been preparing for this moment. The disagreements between American and Israeli Jews have been piling up.

Only last week, the Jewish Federations of North America’s yearly General Assembly drew hundreds of Americans to Tel Aviv for a three-day conference focused on the strains in the relationship, titled “We Need to Talk.”

In a provocative keynote, the head of Israel’s largest real estate company, Danna Azrieli, recited the litany of friction points. For Americans, she said, there are Mr. Netanyahu’s effusive embrace of Mr. Trump, whom most American Jews oppose; the Israeli occupation and Jewish settlements on the West Bank, which many American Jews believe block peace with the Palestinians; Mr. Netanyahu’s reneging on a deal last year to significantly upgrade and grant equal status to a mixed-gender, Reform and Conservative prayer space at the Western Wall; and Israel’s new nation-state law, which opponents call racist and anti-democratic because it enshrines the right of national self-determination in Israel as “unique to the Jewish people.”

Long as it was, that list had big omissions. Israelis on the left would add, at a minimum, the Netanyahu government’s warming up to increasingly authoritarian leaders in countries like Hungary and Poland, and its demonization of the Hungarian-born, liberal Jewish financier George Soros--who also is a frequent target of anti-Semitic attacks in the United States and Europe--for underwriting activist groups that oppose Mr. Netanyahu’s policies. Mr. Netanyahu’s own son even posted a meme attacking Mr. Soros with anti-Semitic imagery that drew praise from the likes of David Duke.

And Israelis on the right would add their lingering resentment of American Jews’ support for the Iran nuclear deal struck by President Obama, which Israelis saw as a matter of survival, according to the author Yossi Klein Halevi, a New York-born Jerusalemite.

Mr. Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, said the Pittsburgh shootings had exposed an even deeper and more worrisome divide between the two populations. “Each sees the other as in some sense threatening its most basic well-being,” he said. “American Jews don’t understand the depth of the Israeli sense of betrayal over the Iran deal. And Israelis don’t understand why American Jews regard Trump as a life-and-death threat to the liberal society that allowed American Jewry to become the most successful minority in Jewish history.”

How damaged is the relationship? In her keynote, Ms. Azrieli felt compelled to plead, “Don’t give up on our country,” adding: “Don’t walk away because your liberal sensibilities are insulted. Don’t assume that nothing can change. Things do change--just painfully, slowly, incrementally, and with all of our help.”

And yet among Israeli leaders, some already have given up on American Jews, said Mr. Oren, the deputy minister and a former Israeli ambassador in Washington, who also cited some American Jews’ opposition to President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“One school of thought is: ‘These are our people, we have to do everything possible to reach out.’ The second school says:, ‘It’s too late, they’re gone. After Iran, after Jerusalem, if we have limited resources we should invest in our base--evangelicals and the Orthodox.’”

In Beit Shemesh, Zion Cohen, 66, a mall manager, lamented the acrimony. “I’m Likud, but what’s happened between Israel and America, I’m against it,” he said. “I know it’s painful to Jews in America how Israel acts toward them. The influence of the Orthodox and Haredim on the Israeli government is a catastrophe. And we need help from the Jews of the U.S., especially given how much anti-Semitism there is now in the world.”

[ruminativerabbi]

Blasphemy

Readers of these letters will know already that one of the areas that I find the most interesting—and also the most challenging— to write about is the precise way my commitment to the values that underlie our American republic meshes (or doesn’t mesh) with my equally strong commitment to the Torah-based values that inhere in traditional Jewish life.

That was the reason I chose to write a few weeks ago about the Supreme Court’s decision to consider the case of the Colorado baker who declined to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, and why I continue to find that case so interesting. On the one hand, as someone unambiguously committed the notion that the civil rights of gay people deserve to be protected by law no less forcefully or fully than the civil rights of any other group within our American society, I can easily identify with the couple who felt discriminated against by the baker’s refusal to serve them. On the other hand, I also feel—and just as strongly—that it can never be a good thing—not for members of religious minorities but also not for the nation itself—for the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to be attenuated by restrictive legislation or undermined by the courts. I wrote then how struck I was by the many articles and essays I read on both sides of the issue that appeared to consider the matter as unambiguously simple and clear-cut, whereas to me it seemed and seems thorny and complex.

I do not wish to write again about that specific case today, but rather to address a very interesting issue that I see growing out of it: the question of whether the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution should rationally be taken to include speech itself. The baker, after all, is not arguing that anyone has restricted his right to practice his faith at home or in church in whatever manner he wishes, but rather that custom-baking a cake for a gay wedding reception would imply that he personally supports the notion of same-sex marriage and should for that reason only be something he has the constitutional right to decline to do. Leaving aside the question of whether non-verbal activity like baking a cake—even a super-fancy one—should be considered speech at all, I would like instead to consider the question of whether speech itself is can be reasonably qualified as enough of a religious act to be protected by the First Amendment.

Our Jewish tradition certainly thinks so, making blasphemy into the kind of capital crime so potentially injurious to the public weal that the entire people is called upon to participate together in the blasphemer’s execution. Nor does Scripture allow for the possibility that this is meant as some sort of kashrut-style prohibition meant to apply solely to Israelites: “as well the stranger as he that is born in the land,” the Torah solemnly announces, “when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death.” So that’s clear enough, but what is being prohibited exactly? Our ancient sources go back on forth regarding the details, but those discussions mostly center around the question of what specifically someone would have to do actually to merit execution as a blasphemer—whether such a person has to curse God using the most sacred of divine names, whether it counts if someone curses another individual using that name of God as part of the imprecation, whether speaking in a vulgar way about God is enough to warrant indictment, whether insulting God’s Torah counts, whether the crime even can be committed by someone who does not speak Hebrew, etc. But the notion that speaking aloud in a way that disrespects the name of God is sinful and wrong is a cornerstone of our Torah’s approach to the morality of speech itself.

And that brings me to a remarkable booklet entitled Respecting Rights? Measuring the World’s Blasphemy Laws, published just this last July by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, the federal commission with the mandate specifically to report on violations of religious freedom internationally and to make policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and to the Congress. It is, to say the least, an eye-opening read. (Click here to the see the full report online and here to see an abbreviated version.)

To my slight amazement, it turns out that a full third of the world’s nations, 71 countries in all, have laws that make blasphemy illegal. How this is specifically defined varies, but the basic principle is that there are 71 countries in which you can face serious punishment if you are convicted of having spoken out in a way deemed insulting to God or, in some cases, to religion itself.

Some of the countries on the list were no surprise at all, countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, and Syria. But others were amazing to me, particularly Western-style democracies like Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland, and Spain. Israel is on the list. And, most unexpected of all (to me personally, at any rate), so is Canada.

The laws themselves vary widely. But the punishments are severe in almost every case: of the 71 nations that have laws prohibiting blasphemy, 59 punish individuals convicted of the crime with imprisonment. In two other nations, Iran and Pakistan, convicted blasphemers risk execution. Two more, Russia and Kazakhstan, punish convicted blasphemers with compulsory or corrective labor. One country, Sudan, punishes the blasphemer with the kind of corporal punishment administered with a whip.  Ireland, Spain, and Switzerland levy fines against anyone convicted of blasphemy. Three countries, Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Saudi Arabia, do not have specific punishments enshrined in law and rather ominously leave the decision in the hands of the presiding judge.

I read it, but I couldn’t believe it. Canada really imprisons blasphemers? In what century? And yet…there it is, in the Criminal Code of Canada, article 296: “Everyone who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.” Yes, the is a huge “but” that is also enshrined in Canadian law to the effect that no one may be convicted of an offense under this section of the code merely for expressing “in good faith and in decent language…an opinion on a religious subject.” So that softens the blow considerably: to qualify for your up-to-two years in prison, you have either to express your blasphemy hypocritically or to couch it in foul language. I was unable to discover how many Canadians, if any at all, have been convicted lately of blasphemy, but I suspect the number is quite low. In fairness, I should also note there is a bill before the House of Commons right now that would repeal the law in its entirety. But the fact that the law exists at all is what amazed me. And continues to amaze me!

What nations mean by blasphemy also varies. The law in Brazil refers to someone “publicly vilifying an act or object of religious worship.” The law in Bangladesh is much broader and makes indictable the individual who merely speaks in such a way that “hurts the religious sentiments” of another person. Finland takes a more biblical approach, specifically directing the law against any who “publicly blasphemes against God.” Article 173 of the Israeli Penal Code is somewhere in the middle and threatens with one single year’s imprisonment anyone who “publishes a publication that is liable to crudely offend the religious faith or sentiment of others” or who “voices in a public place and in the hearing of another person any word or sound that is liable to crudely offend the religious faith or sentiment of others.” In Indonesia, anyone who expresses “feelings of hostility, hatred, or contempt” towards any religion at all with the intention of discouraging someone from adhering to that faith or who speaks “disgracefully” about any religion is liable to up to five years in prison. You get the idea.

In America, of course, we have no such laws. The American approach was probably best summed up by Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, who wrote in 1952 that, “from the standpoint of freedom of speech and the press, it is enough to point out that the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraints upon the expression of those views. It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches, or motion pictures.” So that’s clear enough.

But what about me? I live within a tradition that takes blasphemy seriously and considers it the kind of offense that should apply to all, as a kind of universal wrong that society would do well to outlaw. But the American in me is with Justice Clark and finds the thought of punishing Americans for speaking out hostilely towards any religion—or towards religion itself or towards God—not something merely to be condemned a tasteless, but something wholly inconsonant with our democratic ideals as enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

So I get the baker’s argument that he does not wish to be forced by the courts to “say” something he finds spiritually repugnant. I wouldn’t wish to be either. Yet, for all the reasons I detailed in my previous letter, I think the Supreme Court should nevertheless uphold the lower court’s rulings and require that he not discriminate against gay couples merely because he doesn’t approve of same-sex unions. I suppose I can live with a little inconsistency when it comes to squaring my rootedness in Torah values and my devotion to the principles that underlie our American democracy. Just you’d think I’d be better at it by now!  

[up-bookends]

America as the Last Man Standing

Geert Wilders is a Dutch Member of Parliament

Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, at the Four Seasons, New York, introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem.

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for inviting me.

I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.

First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe. Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem.

The Europe you know is changing.

You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.

All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entireMuslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, streetby street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.

In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.

Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear, 'whore, whore.' Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.

In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.

In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during theRamadan.

Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe.San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.

The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages -at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.

Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to theQuran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.

This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the frontlines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, SouthernThailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a danger greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe, American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

[cfijerusalem]

PRAYING THROUGH THE DARKNESS

“Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.” (Psalm 64:1)

Whether we are pleading or crying out to God to preserve Israel from the dreaded peril of her enemies, or to keep her safe in dangerous times, there is no darkness that can keep the light of prayer from shining through. Many in Islam today are enslaved to the adversary, serving a false god and under the dominion of the kingdom of darkness. Many do not know they are in bondage, some live in a state of denial and refuse to admit that they need to be rescued from the domain of darkness.

Since ancient Bible times, Israel’s enemies have been taunting her, boasting against her, and threatening her with insulting remarks and offensive provocations. International media bias and fake news serve the world with a Menu of Headlines such as: “Hezbollah Chief Tells Jews to Flee Before Israel Devastated by War”, (Dov Lieber article, Times of Israel). “For mine enemies speak against me...” (Psalm 71:10a).

An entire listing of Islamic boasting against the Jewish state could be listed, but just as the giant Goliath boasted against little David, I believe the giant this time (Islam) will be defeated by David (Israel) when the first shot fired begins a war in the north. Israel has been preparing for months how to handle an outbreak of another conflict with Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamic terrorists. It is our work, as Watchmen on the Walls, to fight the war with her, in the Spirit of Prayer. What can be accomplished in the spirit, are great things for God but we must stay at our Posts and never pull back. May God grant the grace and fortitude to the faithful prayer warriors and intercessors who meet together to pray for Israel, in whatever nation you are from. We are all deeply grateful here in Jerusalem for those whose voices are raised to God on a continual basis and who continue to pray through the darkest of times.

LET’S ENTER THE THRONE ROOM OF PRAYER

Pray for the Palestinian couple who last month discovered their teenage son had planned to carry out a terrorist attack against Israeli soldiers. Often when they stand up for Israel, they are persecuted. Pray for their protection and thank God that they were honest and caring people who turned him in before innocent lives were taken. “...through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee” (Psalm 66:3b). Also thank God that a recent article stated that ...”the head of a Palestinian village in Jerusalem says almost all of the city’s Arabs would prefer to live peacefully under Israeli administration.”

Pray Fervently that Hamas operatives will stop digging terrorist tunnels into Israel. Israel has given a warning to them to stop. Pray that finances and budgets to dig tunnels to infiltrate Israel will dry up in order for secret plots of wicked people to be thwarted. “Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity” (Psalm 64:2).

Beseech the Lord that more faith, more believers, more God Fearers will be warriors in the Israel Defense Forces and serve in the strength of the Lord. Even though it is made up of many different Israelis from all walks of life, let us pray for great integrity, wisdom and standards to prevail in the IDF and all Israeli military forces. “I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD...” (Psalm 71:16a).

Petition the Lord for His mercies this year for much rain for the Land. According to the news reports, the thirsty Sea of Galilee is sinking toward the lowest level ever recorded as Northern Israel experiences one of the worst droughts in 100 years. Pray for the water tables to rise rapidly once God sends rain. God often withholds rain when He wants His People to repent. Pray that much prayer here will go up for early and latter rains....some of which has already fallen during Succot. “And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit” (James 5:18).

Thank God for our Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has proclaimed that no more settlements will be uprooted in the Land of Israel. “And I will plant them upon their land, and the shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God” (Amos 9:15).

Praise God for the breakthrough in the IDF that the military rolled out measures to quit selling harmful cigarettes on army bases. This is a very good step not only for health purposes, but for a cleaner environment for them to work in and also to take care of their bodies. Praise God for this move by the military.

Much continues to take place in the Nation of Israel that signals spiritual strength is gaining ground over the many vices that have entered in through other nations, or the desire to be like other nations. Please keep praying for our Beloved Israel to truly be a “light to the nations” and to lead the world in Godly ways in preparation for the Coming Kingdom of God to this earth: to Jerusalem. May God prepare His Nation, and the true Church, for the days ahead.

From Israel with Love, Sharon Sanders

Christian Friends of Israel - Jerusalem email: prayer@cfijerusalem.org

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Dear Mr Mundell, It was a pleasure meeting you at the Dumfries Agricultural Show. If you recall, we talked briefly about Mrs May’s perverse plan to celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration “with pride” and invite Israel’s PM Netanyahu to the jollifications. The infamous Declaration was a pledge contrived by Zionists inside and outside the British Government. It was in effect a ‘promissory note’ to the Zionist movement for their help in bringing the US into WW1; and it was made with utter disregard to the consequences for the majority Arab population in Palestine. Worse, it amounted to a betrayal of our Arab allies, cutting across an earlier promise for their help against the Turks. There was strong opposition in Parliament even from Lord Montague, the only Jew in the Cabinet. Lord Sydenham remarked: What we have done, by concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend. Well, we know now. And it’s high time the wound was healed. The Declaration by Balfour, a Zionist convert, needs to be read in parallel with The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism, a joint statement by the heads of Palestinian Christian churches which rejects Christian Zionist doctrine as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation. We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States [they could have added the UK] that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine…. We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war. Justice groups are urging the British Government to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration in November by saying sorry instead of toasting the blunder in champagne. Mrs May could do some real good here. She could, at a stroke, help quell the destructive turmoil in the Middle East and begin repairing Britain’s tattered image. She could even open new trade routes into Islamic markets, vitally important as we leave the EU. By apologising on our behalf for 100 years of agony inflicted on lovely people in a lovely part of the world Mrs May could take a giant step for mankind on the world stage. But no, she’s pressing ahead with the revelry. And her principal guest, the ruthless Israeli prime minister, is on many a wanted list for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He’s also under investigation in his own country for corruption. This is not just poor judgment on Mrs May’s part but insanely provocative when a UN report recently branded Israel an apartheid regime. It’s even more regrettable considering the desperate cry for help a few weeks ago  from the National Coalition of Christian Organizations in Palestine in an open letter to the World Council of Churches and the ecumenical movement, signed by over 30 organisations in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. You can read this disturbing document here. They issued a similar cry for help 10 years ago but the tyranny of the occupying forces has gone from very bad to much worse. Their latest message is frighteningly stark: Things are beyond urgent. We are on the verge of a catastrophic collapse. The current status-quo is unsustainable. This could be our last chance to achieve a just peace. As a Palestinian Christian community, this could be our last opportunity to save the Christian presence in this land. “The name of the game: Erasing Palestine” (Miko Peled) I was encouraged to hear you say that you visited Occupied Palestine independently rather than accept the usual propaganda tour organised by Conservative Friends of Israel and the Israeli government. Nevertheless, claims by the CFoI that 80 percent of Conservative MPs and MEPs are signed up members is alarming and puts us almost on a par with US Congress which is controlled by the Israel lobby through AIPAC. It is ludicrous that a foreign military power which has no respect for international law and rejects weapons conventions and safeguards can exert such influence on foreign policy in the US and UK. Pandering to Israel has been immensely costly in blood and treasure and damaging to our reputation. Everyone outside the Westminster bubble knows perfectly well that there can be no peace in the Holy Land without justice. Everyone knows that international law and countless UN resolutions still wait to be enforced. Everyone knows that Israel won’t comply unless sanctions are imposed. Everyone knows that the siege on Gaza won’t be lifted until warships are sent. Miko Peled, son of an Israeli general, former Israeli soldier and now a leading voice in the struggle for Palestinian freedom, tells us that “by 1993 the Israelis had achieved their mission to make the conquest of the West Bank irreversible [and] the Israeli government knew for certain that a Palestinian state could not be established in the West Bank”. What’s more, everyone now knows that the US is not an honest broker and peace won’t come from sham ‘negotiations’ between the weak and the all-powerful. Everyone knows who is the real threat to peace in the Middle East. And everyone knows that Her Majesty’s Government’s hand-wringing  and empty words serve no purpose except to prolong the daily misery and buy time for Israel to complete its criminal scheme to make the occupation permanent. Mrs May praises Israel for being “a thriving democracy, a beacon of tolerance”, when it is obviously neither. She says our two countries share “common values” when we obviously don’t; and given the Israeli regime’s incessant crimes against humanity and cruelty to the indigenous people it terrorises such a remark is insulting to anyone who lives by Christian values. She even claims that Israel is a country where people of all religions “are free and equal in the eyes of the law” and “Israel guarantees the rights of people of all religions, races and sexualities, and it wants to enable everyone to flourish”. This is arrant nonsense. The lady needs to tone down her misguided adoration of the rogue regime. She also needs to call off attempts to criminalise the successful BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign calling it wrong and warning that her government will “have no truck with those who subscribe to it”.  Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights bestows on everyone “the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. As the Secretary of State for Scotland, the senior Central Government figure hereabouts and a member of the Cabinet, you have the ear of the PM on heavyweight matters of state — such as this. I hope you’ll allow me, please, to pursue the  through your goodself (keeping my MP Alister Jack informed).  I do not wish to receive the usual proforma reply from the Foreign Office about the UK’s adherence to the 2-state solution — a futile position, as anyone paying attention to the situation has known for years. What I do hope for is reasons why HMG is still exporting weaponry to Israel when it is used against the Palestinians to maintain the illegal occupation, why no move is made to break the 10-year blockade of Gaza which has brought nearly 2 million citizens to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, why HMG keeps rewarding Israel for its other never-ending crimes, its contempt for international law, its disregard for the provisions of the UN Charter, and its continued breaches of the EU-Israel Agreement. And why Mrs May seeks to appeal against the recent court decision defending our right to boycott Israel. Does she not realise that HMG’s inaction leaves civil society no choice but to resort to BDS? In particular I’d like to know, please, Mrs May’s reaction to the desperate plea from the Christian churches in the Holy Land, and I hope you’ll bring to her notice that letter to the WCC if she hasn’t already seen it. She wears her Christianity on her sleeve, is seen regularly attending church etc, but her faith credentials will be in question if she ignores the contents of the letter. Whether the questions raised here are tiresomely ducked as usual or given the consideration they deserve, the story will find wide circulation. This request is therefore sent as an open letter. http://clubof.info/