A "righteous Islamic caliphate" rising out of the ruins of the state of Israel?

...An Islamic caliphate on the ruins of Israel -- that's what the Islamic Movement wants. Openly, and without fear. Because of our helplessness. It's not only Europe -- here, too, the call to turn Israel into an Islamist caliphate is seen as "nonviolent." For all the "human rights," we've forgotten about the right of the Jews to live in their own land. No more. The Zionists changed the rules and turned the tables. Better late than never. A democracy has to defend itself against those who exploit the freedom it grants as a way of destroying it. There is no reason to get upset over the threats and the riots and the "days of rage"; that's their way of deterring the powers that be from enforcing the law. Will government declarations be enforced when it comes to Islamic Movement-affiliated groups that hide behind a thousand different names? Let's hope so. We must not let up. It's time for action.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
18 November '15..

In October 2014, Kamal Khatib, the deputy head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, stood in the midst of a crowd of supporters in Jerusalem and announced: "Jerusalem will not be only the capital of the Palestinian state, but the capital of the coming righteous Islamic caliphate." (Thanks to Dr. Moti Kedar.) In June 2011, Khatib said of "resistance for the purpose of freeing the land from the occupier" that he did not make a distinction between soldiers and civilians: "It's obvious that every Jew is a soldier in the reserves of the Israeli army, so there's no difference between a civilian and a soldier" (MEMRI).

Next to Khatib happened to be standing, ironically enough, Hanin Zoabi and Basel Ghattas, two MKs from the Balad party -- a secular Arab nationalistic movement. The Islamic State, Hamas, and the other jihadist movements have already taught us what will happen in such a "righteous" Islamic caliphate: Hanin Zoabi will go underground, if she isn't caught before that and sentenced to death for being a woman who does not obey the laws of Islam. Ghattas, as a Christian, will meet an even worse fate: He will be crucified. So what were these two doing next to the caliph's second in command? In the fight against the Jewish state, the enemy of my enemy is an ally.

Islamic Movement head Sheikh Raad Salah is the main person responsible for the constant incitement about Al-Aqsa mosque being "in danger." The blood of the Jews (and Arabs) killed as a result is on his hands. This past September, he half warned about and half called for "a third intifada in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem." In 2011, at a conference of the Supreme Arab Governing Committee (of which the Islamic Movement is a member), Salah said, "By 2020, the State of Israel will no longer exist." In light (or in darkness) of the man's incitement activity, this was no mere opinion, but a plan of action. Why are this man and his cohort free? Why do they have Israeli citizenship?

Israel's Islamic movement, the far more dangerous enemy within

...Is it reasonable and sensible to permit the northern branch of the Islamic Movement to function when their activities are obviously aimed at the destruction of Israel?

Moshe Arens..
Haaretz..
03 June '14..

Israel is not short of enemies – Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, terrorist gangs in Sinai, assorted terrorist groups near the border on the Golan Heights since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, and farther afield the atomic ayatollahs in Iran. But far more dangerous, there is an enemy within – the northern branch of the Islamic Movement headed by Raed Salah from the Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm in Wadi Ara.

The northern branch of the Islamic Movement is for years actively engaged in subversive activity aimed at destroying the State of Israel and establishing in its place an Islamic State. This is their openly declared aim and, believe it or not, they are making progress toward achieving that aim. Progress, toward achieving what to many might seem an impossible mission, is being made by gradually mobilizing the Muslim population in Israel in an anti-Israeli crusade. By preaching to them that Israel is their enemy, inciting them to violence against Israel, and fighting tooth and nail against any move toward integration by Israel’s Arab citizens into Israeli society.

If you don’t believe it just take a look at the Bedouin population in the Negev. Over 30 years ago the Bedouin Negev did not identify with the Palestinian national movement, they were friendly to Israel, many of their young men volunteered for service in the IDF and, although Muslim, were not particularly observant and did not see themselves as part of an Islamic army waging war against Israel.

That was before the Islamic Movement began its activity among the Negev Bedouin. Since then they have been sending religious emissaries from the north to the Bedouin in the Negev, teachers from the north have infiltrated the Bedouin school system in the Negev, and the Islamic Movement has been regularly organizing demonstrations and riots in the Negev. They are busy spreading anti-Israel propaganda. Their message to the Bedouin Negev is that they are Palestinians, that Israel is their enemy, and that they are not allowed to enlist in the IDF, the army of their enemy. In recent years this effort is being spearheaded by the northern branch of the Islamic Movement.

Once a year the northern branch holds a mass anti-Israel propaganda festival in Umm al-Fahm, under the slogan “The Al Aqsa mosque is in danger.” There tens of thousands of Israeli Muslims are being incited to believe that Israel is planning the destruction of the Al Aqsa mosque, and are urged to be prepared to give their lives to prevent this “abomination.”

Dare to dream of a rebuilt Temple

Michael Freund
JPost
28 October 09

Something astonishing, even alarming, is taking place in the battle over the future of Jerusalem. Even as Palestinian rioters run amok on the Temple Mount, egged on by the radicals of the Islamic Movement, much of the anger and dismay in the Israeli and international press is being directed, ironically enough, at Jews who merely wish to visit the site.

Mustering all the righteous indignation at their disposal, the media have been filled in recent days with all kinds of pejoratives to describe them, ranging from "extremist" to "fringe" to "ultra-right-wing,' as though a Jew's desire to exercise his basic, fundamental rights somehow constitutes an act of provocation.

Local pundits and commentators alike have also joined the fray, going to great lengths to justify the restrictions imposed by the police on Jews wishing to visit the Mount, even accusing the would-be pilgrims of seeking to trigger a firestorm of Islamic fury. It does not seem to bother them one whit that the policy in place today is entirely discriminatory in nature, as the followers of Muhammad are allowed to visit and pray where Solomon's Temple once stood, but not the followers of Moses.

Indeed, all the enlightened defenders of civil rights, and the champions of equality before the law suddenly fall silent when capitulation to Muslim threats is given preference over respecting vital Jewish rights.

And why not, you might be asking. After all, if it is just a bunch of kooks who want to ascend the Mount, why go to all this trouble on their behalf? Needless to say, this approach plays straight into the hands of our foes, whose ultimate goal is to wrestle the holy site away from us by denying its historical and spiritual connection with the Jewish people.

AND WHAT a sad and pitiful sight this is to behold. Before our very eyes, we are witnessing a concerted effort to delegitimize and even demonize our people's most cherished dream: the longing for the Temple. The very aspiration that was born in the moments when Roman flames engulfed the Second Temple more than 1,900 years ago, and which was carried in Jewish hearts throughout centuries of exile, has now become an object of scorn, mockery and ridicule.

Make no mistake: This is nothing less than an unbridled assault on Judaism itself, and it is time for the derision and name-calling to stop.

Opine all you want about how to "solve" the Jerusalem issue, but don't
belittle the place of the Temple in Jewish eschatology or belief. Like it or not, the longing for a rebuilt Temple is no less central to Judaism than the desire for peace or social justice. And dreaming of a time when the Temple will stand again is no more fanciful or fanatical than hoping for the day when poverty and hunger will be eliminated.

Just open any prayer book and you will see what I mean. Every day, three times a day, Jews conclude the Amida prayer, which is central to our liturgy, with the following plea: "May it be Your will, O Lord our God and the God of our forefathers, that the Holy Temple be rebuilt, speedily in our days."

Does this mean that every Jew who prays daily is a wild-eyed extremist? And just a few weeks ago, in the Musaf prayer recited on the festival of Succot, we implored God to "be compassionate to us and to Your Temple with great mercy, and rebuild it soon and magnify its glory."

Is this utterance the province merely of the "ultra-right-wing"?

The Temple and its sacrificial rites are a core component of our faith, and they play a central role in the Jewish vision of a better world. Vilifying those who uphold this belief is simply an act of small-minded intolerance and bigotry, and it has no place in the current debate.

And denying Jews the right to visit the Temple Mount is no less objectionable, for it tramples upon the principal constitutional values which underpin our democracy.

As Thomas Jefferson pointed out some two centuries ago, "The most sacred of the duties of a government is to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens." That means that when Palestinian Arabs try to prevent Israeli Jews from visiting the Temple Mount, it is the responsibility of the powers that be to come to the defense of the latter, rather than to capitulate to the former.

So let's stop bad-mouthing those who want to visit or pray where our forefathers once stood. And let's bear in mind one very important rule: The real extremism is not to dream of a Temple, but to attempt to silence those who do.
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Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood: Connecting the Dots

Backspin/Honest Reporting
19 October 09

My antennae are still twitching over a report in The Guardian about Hamas efforts to impose religious law, and Gazan efforts to resist. This was a rare occasion where a Western reporter connected the dots between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Reporter Rory McCarthy writes:

The Hamas campaign was not inevitable. Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a broader Islamist movement present in most Arab and Islamic countries, which generally believes in winning over supporters by encouragement and debate one mind at a time, rather than by imposing decrees from above.

You can't understand Hamas without also understanding the Brotherhood. Consider the following:

• Since the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, "Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mahdi Akif has been serving as a replacement Hamas spiritual leader."
• Several key positions in Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood are held by Hamas personalities, not Jordanians.
• The Brotherhood even has a branch in Israel called The Islamic Movement. Its leader, Sheikh Raed Salah, was recently arrested for inciting Palestinians in Jerusalem. The arrest, according was a message to Hamas not to further inflame tensions.
• The FBI has been asked to investigate whether George Galloway's recent visit to U. California-Irvine illegally raised money for Hamas. It's worth asking whether the Muslim student groups hosting Galloway have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a US branch.
• President Obama didn't help his popularity in Israel when Brotherhood membersreceived invitations to his Cairo speech.

The Hamas charter clearly identifies itself as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. So if you wonder why I'm skeptical when people talk about Hamas moderating itself, it's because global movements like the Brotherhood don't drop their ideology very easily.

I'm impressed that The Guardian noted how Hamas ordered shopkeepers to get rid of mannequins displaying lingerie, how women are banned from riding motorbikes, and the resistance female lawyers raised when they were told to wear full lenth gowns and a hijab in court.

Is this misogynist government an example of what we'll see if the Brotherhood seizes power in the 16 countries where it already has official branches?
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The Latest Round of War

carolineglick.com
10 October 09

An atmosphere of fantasy pervaded US President Barack Obama's Middle East peace processor George Mitchell's meetings with Israeli leaders on Thursday. In separate photo opportunities, Mitchell stood next to President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak and pledged to surmount all obstacles to achieve peace not only between Israel and the Palestinians but between Israel and Syria and Lebanon and with the whole Arab world.

Mitchell's remarks were even more stunning than similar statements from him during previous visits, because this week the Palestinians launched their newest terror campaign against Israel. Like previous rounds of Palestinian terror against Jews beginning in 1929, the latest round has been precipitated by wholly fabricated claims by Muslim leaders that Israel is asserting Jewish rights to the Temple Mount - Judaism's most sacred site - and so endangering the Muslim claim to the sole right to worship at the site that was never even mentioned in the Koran.

Beginning last week, convicted felon Raed Salah - who served a prison sentence for his Israeli Islamic Movement's northern branch's financial and other ties to Hamas - began inciting Israeli and Palestinian Muslim worshipers to make war against Israel. As he does every few months, Salah claimed falsely that Jews were committing the unforgivable "crime" of seeking to worship on the Temple Mount during Succot. Succot, which we observed this past week, is of course one of the three harvest festivals in which Jews are commanded to go up to the Temple Mount. This time, Salah's lies were accompanied by similar ones from Hamas leaders and Fatah leaders alike.

As is their standard practice, Palestinian leaders used known euphemisms in their declarations of war. Rather than openly call for Jews to be slaughtered, they called on Muslims to defend the Temple Mount from fictional Jewish assault. Wheelbarrows of rocks were found stockpiled on the Temple Mount on Monday. The rocks made clear the intention of Muslim leaders to reenact the 1990 stoning of Jewish Succot worshipers at the Western Wall. That Muslim assault precipitated a steep increase in Palestinian terror during the months that followed.

This week's riots similarly recall the 1996 Palestinian onslaught. That aggression was justified by the false Palestinian allegation that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to open the Western Wall archeological tunnel was part of a secret plot to dislodge the Aksa Mosque. Yasser Arafat used his manufactured libel as an excuse to order his US-trained and Israeli-armed Palestinian security forces to open fire at IDF soldiers. In the violence that followed some 15 soldiers were killed.

The most violent exploitation of fabricated claims of Jewish aggression against Judaism's most sacred site to date, of course, came in September 2000. Then Arafat and his deputies in Fatah supported by Hamas and the Israeli Islamic Movement claimed that then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon's September 28, 2000, visit to the Temple Mount - a visit that had been coordinated in advance with the PA - was an act of war against the Palestinians and against Islam as a whole. More than 1,500 Israelis were killed in the seven years of terror war that followed.

Perhaps the most overt call for a renewal of jihad against Israel this week came from Fatah leader and titular PA President Mahmoud Abbas. In an interview on Yemenite television, Abbas said, "The second intifada erupted because of Sharon's visit to [the Temple Mount] and... it lasted seven years. This time, therefore the matter of Jerusalem requires a much greater effort [by the Palestinians], something more practical. It's not enough to talk about Jerusalem in books, or to give sermons in mosques. There is a need to work for it."

THE NEWEST round of violence has been building up for the past month. According to data released by the IDF, over the past month, the volume of terror attacks nearly doubled, from 53 attacks in August to 95 in September. This week's spike in violence caused IDF commanders to warn of the possibility that the violence will spread throughout Judea and Samaria. With the near seamless integration of Arab Israeli leaders in the incitement of violence, there is good reason for concern that Arab Israelis will play a prominent role in the newest round of jihad against Israel.

Abbas and his prime minister Salaam Fayad have augmented their violent attacks against Israel with a renewed diplomatic assault against the Jewish state. Fayad and Abbas have both called for the US and European governments to condemn Israel's imaginary provocations and moves to "Judaize" the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Rather than condemn these Fatah leaders for their key roles in inciting violence, the Europeans have been embracing them. Led by Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, European governments have demanded that Israel end its provocative behavior.

For its part, rather than dismissing these obviously false allegations out of hand, the Obama administration demanded that Israel give an accounting of its actions to prove that it is not provoking Palestinian violence.
(Continue)

The Old "Aksa is in Danger" Trick (2000)

In September of 2000, Arik Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. A place "Holy to Christians, Moslems, and Jews". The visit seemed to spark wild rumors of an attack on Al Aksa. Al Aksa is the Mosque built (between 709-715 C.E.) over the ruins of the temple built by Solomon almost 3,000 years ago and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., and later of the second temple, razed by the Romans in 70 C.E..

The irrational hysteria built, rioting spread, and ballooned into the grotesque violence called "the Al Aksa Intifada."

Months later that we discovered that the whole operation had been carefully planned in advance.

As I write this commentary, in February of 2007, wild rumors of an attack on Al Aksa are once again being spread. The hysteria is, once again, building rapidly.

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Maxwell Smart was the funny American Secret Agent in the 1960's"Get Smart" TV comedy. Each week Max would fall into some outlandishly improbable trap. Then, showing his professionalism, he'd explain that he had fallen for "The Old Roller Skate on the Stairway Trick" or "The Old Bomb in the Pizza Trick" or whatever. Funny enough, but without fail, the real belly laugh came when poor Max would get tricked again ...the same way!

As I read of the new rumors of a Jewish attack on Al Aksa, in my mind I hear the voice of Maxwell Smart, Secret Agent number 86.

What he's saying is: "It's the Old 'Aksa is in Danger' Trick, ...Again."

Who is really to blame for the tensions on the Temple Mount?

Avi Isaacharoff
Haaretz
05 October 09

"Sunday, however, it seemed as if the appropriate conclusions had been drawn: After learning that dozens of Muslims planned to await the arrival of "extremist Jews" at the Temple Mount, the police decided that the entire area would remain closed to non-Muslim visitors."

Palestinian clashes with Israeli police on Sunday and on the day before Yom Kippur near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City have made foreign diplomats wonder whether Israel is enacting a new policy on the Temple Mount, which is serving to exacerbate tensions.

Media outlets and senior Palestinian Authority officials have contributed significantly to this perception after repeatedly claiming that Israel is planning to allow a group of "extremist settlers" to pray at the mosque. Even the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, has blamed Israel for implementing a dangerous policy on the Temple Mount that is liable to lead to a conflagration.

Yet, reality, as always, is a bit more complicated. The status quo in the plaza surrounding the Al-Aqsa Mosque has in fact not changed since 2003. The entry of Jews and tourists is permitted on the Temple Mount from 7:30 to 10 A.M., and from 12:30 to 1:30 P.M. These visits do not have to be coordinated with officials of the Waqf (Muslim trust) and take place without any interference. Indeed, last Thursday, for example, the area was totally calm. At 1 P.M., dozens of tourists could be seen wandering around the plaza.

The advent of the holiday season in Israel, combined with the desire of Palestinian politicians to win a few minutes of fame, has recently led, however, to various violent incidents.

At present, the PA is not doing enough to ease tensions, while the Islamic Movement's northern faction is apparently working in concert with a number of Palestinian figures in an effort to spark an escalation of hostilities on the mount.

In the past, revenues generated by the tourist visits there; which reached some $200,000 per month; were transferred to the Waqf, which is run by Jordanian authorities. Since the outbreak of the second intifada, however, there has been no coordination of visits with the Waqf, and in 2003, Israel unilaterally opened the Temple Mount to tourists.

Sheikh Azzam Al-Khatib, the head of the Waqf, said that just before Yom Kippur, a number of Jewish groups distributed notices announcing that they planned to visit the Temple Mount on the eve of the holiday. In response, the former mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, called on Muslim worshipers to gather at Al-Aqsa Mosque last Sunday, to defend it against the Jews. His call was also taken up by Hatem Abdel Khader, the Fatah official who holds the Jerusalem portfolio, and other factions belonging to the Islamic Movement.

After morning prayers that day, some 200 people gathered at the square waiting for the Jews to enter.

"The police knew about this," Al-Khatib said. "One of the officers who is responsible for police coordination with the Waqf, called me and I warned him not to open the Temple Mount to Jewish worshipers."

At 7:30 A.M., the Mughrabim Gate was opened and a group of tourists entered the compound. Muslims began hurling stones at them and at the police officers who tried to hurry the tourists away from the scene.

Sunday, however, it seemed as if the appropriate conclusions had been drawn: After learning that dozens of Muslims planned to await the arrival of "extremist Jews" at the Temple Mount, the police decided that the entire area would remain closed to non-Muslim visitors.

Related: Another Day In Israel
Temple Mount: 'Palestinians' Riot
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