Try Zero. What The "2 State Solution" Has to Do with the Rise of Islamic Extremism

...Last month, over 120 Sunni scholars issued an open letter denouncing the Islamic State and its religious arguments. "You have misinterpreted Islam into a religion of harshness, brutality, torture and murder," the letter said. "This is a great wrong and an offence to Islam, to Muslims and to the entire world." Needless to say, the scholars did not mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a cause for the rise of Islamic State. That is because unlike Kerry, the Sunni scholars know that the Islamic State is completely unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And unlike Kerry, the Muslim scholars fully understand that Islamic State has more to do with Islam and terrorism than with any other conflict.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
20 October '14..

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's claim that the lack of a "two-state solution" has fueled the rise of the Islamic State [IS] terrorist group reinforces how clueless the U.S. Administration is about what is happening in the Arab and Islamic countries.

Speaking at a State Department ceremony marking the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Kerry said that the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians was vital in the fight against Islamic extremism, including Islamic State.

"There wasn't a leader I met with in the region who didn't raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation," Kerry said. "People need to understand the connection of that. And it has something to do with the humiliation and denial and absence of dignity."

The U.S. State Department later denied that Kerry had made the statement attributed to him.

Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters that Kerry's comments were distorted for political gains; she pointed a finger at Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett.

"What [Kerry] said was that during his travels to build a coalition against the Islamic State, he was told that should the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be resolved, the Middle East would be a better place," Harf explained.

The Islamic State is one of the by-products of the "Arab Spring," which began as a secular revolt against Arab dictatorships and degenerated into anarchy, lawlessness, terrorism and massacres that have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims.

The "Arab Spring" did not erupt as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, it was the natural and inevitable outcome of decades of tyranny and corruption in the Arab world.

The Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans and Yemenis who removed their dictators from power did not do so because of the lack of a "two-state solution."

Nor did the Arabs revolt because of the failure of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. This is the last thing these Arabs had in mind when they took to the streets to protest against decades of dictatorship and bad government.

It is this "Arab Spring," and not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt. And it is the same "Arab Spring" that saw the emergence of Islamic terror groups such as the Al-Nusra Front, the Islamic Front, the Army of Mujahedeen, Jund al-Sham and, most recently, the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

The rise of the Islamic State is a direct result of the anarchy and extremism that have been sweeping the Arab and Islamic countries over the past few years.

Leibler - On distinguishing between good and evil

Isi Leibler
Israel Hayom
07 September '11

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=445

The recent monstrous slaughter of 80 Norwegians by the demented neo-Nazi psychopath Anders Breivik is being exploited by the far-Left and Muslim groups to suppress legitimate condemnation or designation of extremist Islamic behavior as evil, even accusing critics of inciting mass murder.

But this is hardly a new phenomenon. Can you recollect having recently engaged in a serious discussion in which the word evil was mentioned? Unlikely, because employing such a term today would be considered politically incorrect and likely to lead to accusations of bias or bigotry. During World War II, defining Nazis as evil was never in dispute. This does not imply that the Allies were perfect. The Versailles settlement was unjust. Mistakes were made and there were undoubtedly degenerates in our ranks who committed crimes. And we were certainly conscious of the moral shortcomings of our Soviet allies.

But we unequivocally recognized that the Nazis represented evil incarnate and we were willing to stake our lives in the battle against the forces of darkness which sought to undermine freedom and civilization.

Over the past half century, as post-modernism enveloped the new Europe, conflicts became increasingly viewed from the perspective of moral equivalency. Today, it is considered bigoted to define religious or nationalist crimes as evil.

This change in outlook was linked to the erosion of Judeo-Christian values, which, while admittedly more frequently breached than implemented, did in the past at least provide a moral framework in which to distinguish between right and wrong.

It is no coincidence that Christianity in Europe has declined dramatically, with more Muslims praying at mosques in the U.K. than Anglicans attending churches. Christian beliefs have been replaced by secularism and some churches have themselves adopted post-modernist concepts.

In contrast, in the U.S., where religion continues to occupy a dominant role, morality remains relevant and politicians are obliged to frame their policies in a manner perceived to be ethical. In this climate, many liberals have abdicated from the battle against the new totalitarian threat. They fail to acknowledge that the radical elements dominating the Muslim world today represent no less a threat to western civilization than the Nazis in the 1930s. Even Anti-Defamation League chief Abe Foxman accuses those who regard Islam as an existential threat to the West of promoting “hysteria” and “ideological Islamophobia”.

The threat posed by radical Islam is probably best understood by posing a few questions: Do Islamic leaders and activists promote moderation or do they, at best, stand aside and avoid condemning the jihadists? Do most share the goal of imposing Shariah law throughout the world? Endorse freedom of worship? Protest against the violence and murder directed at critics of their prophet or Islam? Seek to curb the violent passions which incite hatred and extremism in their mosques, media outlets and schools?

A Tale of two “dissidents”: Chomsky denied entry to West Bank; Wilders denied entry to Britain

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
20 May '10

Consider two examples of a western democracy refusing entry through its borders to a foreign dignitary on the grounds of a disagreement with his political beliefs.

In the first case, the man in question was denied entry for fear of offending a Muslim minority. He is in constant danger of assassination for his opinions, and he is being prosecuted for them by his home government. If that prosecution (which will start in October) is successful he could well become the first political prisoner on his continent since the end of the Cold War. To be sure, his views are controversial, and though he does not incite violence or racial prejudice he is sometimes abusive and insulting about the religion of Islam. However, he does not bear any grudge against the country that denied him entry, and has never defamed its reputation.

That man is Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who was denied entry to Britain by the Labour government in 2009. Much of the liberal intelligentsia in Britain was broadly supportive of the decision to ban him, and demonstrations were launched against him after the government finally did allow him into Britain in 2010.

Now consider the second case, of a man who was briefly denied entry to the West Bank by Israeli officials at the border with Jordan this week.

The man in question is one of the most prominent apologists for Islamist extremism in the world. More precisely, he is the leading evangelist for western self-hatred in the American and European opinion forming classes. Absurdly enough, he considers himself a “dissident” but lives a comfortable life free from any form of intimidation. He refers to the colonisation of the Americas by Europeans as a “Hitlerite” enterprise. He has consorted with Holocaust deniers, including Hezbollah. As far as the country which denied him entry is concerned, he despises it, he has built a career out of demonising it across the world, and he is fundamentally opposed to its existence in its present form. He is, another words, a far-Left extremist who has made of himself an implacable enemy of the country which denied him entry.

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