Islam in Turkey > Is Turkey becoming less tolerant and more Sharia compliant?

 

For a hundred years, Turkey has been one of the, if not the, most tolerant Muslim country. Tayyip Erdogan has been doing his best to change that and make Turkey a devout example of Islam so that he can recreate a form of the Ottoman Empire with himself as Caliph.

His reversal of a very long-term policy of leaving the Haggia Sophia as a museum and turning it into a mosque is a stinging slap in the face of God. When he spoke from the pulpit last year, it occurred to me that it might well be the fullfilment of the prophecy:

Matthew 24:15,16 - 15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains."

The Haggia Sophia was the largest building in the world for more than a thousand years and the center of Christianity for more than a millenia.

Turkey: Muslims screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ attack cafes

for selling alcohol and serving unveiled women

Aug 30, 2024 12:00 pm By Robert Spencer

Once again we see that Sharia adherence is not brought about because people think Sharia is wonderful, but rather by means of fear and intimidation.

Diyarbakır cafes faced with Islamist attacks over alcohol sale,

women’s clothing

by Evrim Deniz, Bianet, August 27, 2024:

Two popular cafes in Diyarbakır’s historic Suriçi district, Karga and Hewş, have been repeatedly targeted by attackers demanding the prohibition of alcohol and stricter dress codes for customers. These incidents have sparked concerns about increasing religious extremism in the area.

The attacks began on Jul 11, when three individuals, later identified through security footage, launched an assault involving gunfire and sound bombs on the cafes. The attackers, who had demanded that the cafes stop serving alcohol and that patrons adhere to conservative dress codes, were detained but released after spending about a month in custody.

On Aug 25, two of the previously detained individuals, identified as V.G. and U.Y., returned to one of the cafes, threatening the staff. According to reports, they demanded that the cafe stop allowing women dressed in what they deemed inappropriate clothing to visit the establishment. Following a verbal altercation, V.G. and U.Y. physically assaulted the cafe employees.

Despite the presence of police officers in armored vehicles, who were stationed nearby due to the previous attacks, the situation escalated. During the incident, one of the attackers reportedly attempted to grab a weapon from a police officer.

The cafe’s operator, Bahoz Damlayıcı, expressed his frustration, telling the media, “Just an hour ago, I informed you that these individuals attacked us in front of dozens of police officers, and now they have been released. If anything happens to us, those who allowed their release are responsible.”

Damlayıcı explained that the threats began in May, with the situation deteriorating to violence in July. He also highlighted the attackers’ ability to return freely to the scene of the crime despite their previous actions. “We don’t understand how these people, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar,’ could just walk back into this street. If anything happens to us, they are to blame. We demand our safety be ensured and warn that these attacks on our lifestyle could soon threaten everyone in Diyarbakır. I call on everyone to stand in solidarity with us.”…

Sin is progressive. Sharia is progressive Islam. 

 

Islam - This Day in History > Jews and the Myth of Tolerance in Islamic Spain

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Jews and the Myth of Tolerance in Islamic Spain

APR 14, 2023 10:00 AM 

BY HUGH FITZGERALD

Jihad Watch

Cordoba Cathedral

Many know about the falsification of history that underlies the claim that Islamic Spain was a place of remarkable harmony among Muslims, Jews, and Christians, a “convivencia” that testified to the benign nature of Muslim rule. Among the best known champions of this myth was the late Yale professor Maria Rosa Menocal, with her 2003 book The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain.

The myths about Islamic Spain (known collectively as the “myth of Andalusia”) have their origins in the romantic writers of the early 19th century. Just as Sir Walter Scott, venturing beyond Scotland, painted a completely fictional portrait in The Talisman of the “noble Saracens” tutoring the Christians in chivalrous behavior, so the myths of wonderful tolerant Andalusia owes its existence to two highly imaginative works by two of the most eloquent and convincing of writers: Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving and Le Dernier des Abencérages by Chateaubriand. The latter, of course, thought nothing of making things up even about his own life — some of his entirely fictional trips are set down as fact in Memoires d’Outre-Tombe, including a visit to Lexington, to see where the first battle of the American Revolution took place — a visit that he never made, but made up out of whole cloth.

The apotheosis of this is the dreamy effort of Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World, which purports to be about Cordoba, where members of the “three faiths” lived, she would like us to believe, in complete harmony. Now the first thing to know about this impressionistic fantasy is that it completely ignores, does not even mention in its bibliography, any of the major scholarly works on Muslim Spain — including those of Evariste Lévi-Provencal, of Dufourcq, of Bousquet, of many others. It ignores a good deal else as well, including Maimonides’ own words: “…the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us…Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they…”

This is particularly disturbing because this book received all sorts of praise when it appeared in 2003. The author was then a “professor at Yale” and the “Director of the Whitney Humanities Center” which impressed those who cannot see beyond the credentials. Sensible people cannot be expected to ake what are comically called academic standards very seriously anymore, what with the clownish Cornel West being snapped up, first by Princeton, then by Harvard, and now by Union Theological Seminary, and the sinister Rashid Khalidi, a former propagandist in Beirut for the PLO, still offering his PLO propaganda, but now he does it from his eminent perch high up on Morningside Heights as that appetizing thing, a full professor, at Columbia, and let’s not forget the army of academics carrying on about “post-colonial hegemonic discourse” as they dig ever deeper the graves of Academe. One cannot here resist the temptation to report that more than one teacher of literature has publicly expressed his long-past-receiving-tenure version of a deathbed conversion, and publicly admits that all that theory, that post-hegemonic discourse, whether of the Derrida-delirium, or Saidian swamp variety, was a monstrous error, and that one would do better to teach students in this audiovisual age to read books with attention, affection, and a well-stocked mind, rather than embrace the latest “theory of literature” arriving at American universities from across the Atlantic.

The myth of Islamic Spain’s fabled tolerance has been repeatedly punctured, but it lives on nonetheless. So many non-Muslims, after all, have a psychological stake, and so many Muslims have a geopolitical one, in its being accepted as true. Fabled and fabulous Al-Andalus and the city of Cordoba, with its red gitanillas in pots, flowing over the ornamental balconies that hang high above the whitewashed walls flanking the narrow alleys, and from outside one can hear the pleasing plash of fountains in the hidden courtyards, and one can see, in one’s imagination, three venerable old scholars, one Muslim, one Jew, one Christian (in a kind of backdated Benetton ad), walking together, talking animatedly of philosophy and spiritual matters, in an atmosphere of the highest mutual regard and understanding — for that was Al-Andalus, wasn’t it? — and the omnipresent smell of the orange blossoms, a whole city holiendo a azahar, and in the beautiful distance a glimpse of the Guadalquivir, and….fill in the rest yourself, courtesy of the Tourist Board of Spain and your own imagination.

Islamic Spain was far from being a paradise. Cordoba was no tolerant “ornament of the world.” Maimonides had to flee the city because of the persecution of the Almohads, but even before the fanatical Alhomads arrived from Morocco, the treatment of non-Muslims was dismal. When Joseph ibn Naghrela became Grand Vizier in Grenada, ordinary Muslims were incensed, believing that he had been given too much power by the Muslim ruler. In 1066, a Muslim mob assembled, murdered Ibn Naghrela, and then crucified his dead body. They then put to sword almost the entire Jewish community of Grenada, the very city celebrated as a place of tolerance by Washington Irving in his Tales of the Alhambra. There were other major massacres of Jews. One of them, committed by Christians in this supposed land of “tolerance among the three faiths,” took place in 1391, nearly simultaneously in Seville, Castile, and Aragon.

Richard Fletcher’s Moorish Spain and the scholarship of Evariste Lévi-Provencal and others all show that this “tolerance” myth was born from the Romantic poets-in-prose mentioned above and is directly contradicted by the historical evidence. The records of the Muslim jurists, such as Ibn Abdun, confirm that the tolerance of Muslim Spain has been greatly exaggerated. In his opinion on the treatment of the Christians and Jews of Seville, Ibn Abdun insisted that “No…Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided. It is forbidden to accost them with the greeting, ‘Peace be upon you’…In effect, ‘Satan has gained possession of them, and caused them to forget God’s warning. They are the confederates of Satan’s path; Satan’s confederates will surely be the losers! (Quran 58:19). A distinct sign must be imposed upon them in order that they may be recognized and this will be for them a form of disgrace.”

A well-known jurist and poet of Muslim Spain may have helped to promote the Grenada massacres in his famous anti-Jewish poem:

Bring them [the Jews] down to their place and Return them to the most abject station. They used to roam around us in tatters Covered with contempt, humiliation, and scorn. They used to rummage amongst the dungheaps for a bit of a filthy rag To serve as a shroud for a man to be buried in…Do not consider that killing them is treachery. Nay, it would be treachery to leave them scoffing.

That is the real story of the Jews in Islamic Spain. It was not Maria Rosa Menocal’s paradise of tolerance, but a place where Jews could be robbed, beaten, extorted, their property seized, even their lives forfeited, by the Muslims who ruled over them. They lived in a state of constant fear, never knowing when a Muslim ruler, or a Muslim mob, might find a reason to turn on them. That is the dismal truth.

Pakistan Organizes Event to Discuss Feminism With All Male Panel

Pakistan is one of the most Islamic countries in the world (95% Muslim) and is typical of a country that has a strong Muslim majority. Most people want Sharia as the law of the land, and most people identify as Muslim before Pakistani. Islam is hopelessly misogynistic.

‘We’ll teach them how to menstruate!’ Uproar after Pakistani feminism event featured
NO WOMEN

A woman hold sign as she takes part in an Aurat March, or Women's March in Karachi, Pakistan March 8, 2018. © REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

A feminism discussion organized by the Arts Council of Pakistan has been changed to include women, after social media users blasted the panel for being all-male.

The Karachi event, billed as “Feminism: The Other Perspective,” originally featured a panel of five prominent men involved in media, entertainment, and activism in Pakistan. The only woman included in the line-up was the event’s female moderator, whose name was put at the bottom of the promotional flyer. Social media users expressed near unanimous disgust with the panel, arguing that it reflected Pakistan’s extremely conservative, male-dominated society.

This is not out of step with a society that prefers to keep its women invisible.

Atiya Abbas
@AtiyaAbbas_
should ve just called it men's day 
and why are all these men agreeing to participating? @manelwatchpk

One upset netizen accused the event organizers of "exploiting feminism" to benefit men.

Some criticism was more light-hearted. Comedian Shehzad Ghias Shaikh joked that he would be hosting a “workshop on how to menstruate,” followed by a talk on breastfeeding.

“Please join me in teaching the world about women’s lives,” he wrote on Twitter.

Responding to the backlash, the panel’s female moderator said that the discussion was meant to focus around what men “think and perceive about feminism,” the “other perspective.”

uzma alkarim
@uzmaalkarim
Hello all, We are now re-framing the event and including a more diverse group of speakers. Requesting all of you to attend as your participation will add value to the conversation around understanding "feminism” together.

She announced that two women would be added to the panel and that the event’s name would be changed to “Understanding Feminism.”

With 5 men and 2 women. That's a far as the organizers were willing to go. Good grief!

When the British Home Office Crosses the Line...

Violent Somali criminal awaiting deportation awarded almost £80,000

By Richard Spillett, Crime Correspondent For Mailonline

Somali criminal Abdulrahman Mohammed will get £80,000 from the British taxpayer after a judge ruled he was unlawfully detained after authorities failed to deport him

A violent Somali criminal with 30 convictions to his name has won almost £80,000 compensation from the government after he was locked up for too long.

Abdulrahman Mohammed, 39, has been jailed more than a dozen times for crimes including affray, knife possession and multiple assaults and robberies.

But a judge has now ruled that the Home Office kept him in prison for 445 days too long whilst trying to deport him.

Despite describing him as 'a prolific and violent offender', Judge Edward Pepperall QC awarded him £78,500 in compensation.

In a description described as 'ironic understatement' in court, Mohammed's own lawyer had said 'he might not be considered an asset to society'.

The judge said: 'I can well understand why the Home Secretary might wish to deport him.' 

But Judge Pepperall ruled that Mohammed had been 'falsely imprisoned' and was 'entitled to justice in a civilised society'.

The European Court of Human Rights had ordered that he stay in Britain despite the government's attempts to deport him and it has now been ruled he was unlawfully detained while authorities worked out how to handle his case.

The three periods of unlawful detention are believed to have come after lawful prison terms, following which the Home Office kept him in while his deportation was considered. 

The court heard Mohammed became a 'habitual and violent criminal' after coming to the UK

Mohammed suffered torture and 'unimaginable barbarity' when he was 13 and living with his family in Mogadishu, the court heard.

His uncle was shot dead and a girl was raped in front of him, before thugs sliced through his cheeks with bayonets in a bid to cut out his tongue.

He was then 'branded with a burning cattle prod' before his torturers told him, 'remember us by this'.

After he managed to flee Somalia, he spent two years in a refugee camp before finally making his way to Britain in 1996, aged 17.

The court heard he had been left with post traumatic stress by his youth in Somalia.

But after getting into Britain, he embarked upon a life as 'a habitual and violent criminal', the court heard.

Judge Edward Pepperall said he understood the Home Office wanted rid of Mohammed, but it had no reason to detain him

The judge listed a total of 30 convictions on his record between 1998 and 2013, for which he served 13 custodial sentences.

He later said in a statement: 'I was a young boy in a new country with freedoms and a culture unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I was drawn to so many things which were not good for me and I did not know how to stop or impose any limits on myself.'

After being refused asylum on entering Britain, he had been granted leave to remain - but only until August 2000.

In January 2008, the Home Secretary decided enough was enough and made a deportation order against him.

But lawyers took his case to the European Court of Human Rights and the UK was ordered not to remove him from the country 'until further notice'.

There was no prospect of deporting him, but he was kept in immigration detention for three periods between 2012 and 2016.

Labour's Jacqui Smith was Home Secretary when deportation proceedings began. Theresa May was in charge of the Home Office when Mohammed was unlawfully detained

Home Office lawyers accepted at a late stage in the case that he had been unlawfully detained for 445 days in total, the judge said.

Judge Pepparall said there was 'clear independent evidence' that Mohammed had been tortured and Government officials had not 'seriously engaged' with his rights.

'The Home Office's own policy required it to release Mr Mohammed unless there were exceptional circumstances justifying continued detention.

'As the Home Office now concedes, there weren't', the judge said.

He added: 'Mr Mohammed is prolific and violent offender. I can well understand why the Home Secretary might wish to deport him. She has not, however, been able to do so, largely because of the very real risk that deportation to Somalia would pose.'

It is believed Mohammed was kept in immigration detention centres (like that pictured) while his deportation was considered. File photo

The judge concluded: 'Some reading this judgment might well question why a foreign citizen who has so thoroughly abused the hospitality of this country by the commission of serious criminal offences is entitled to any compensation.

'But there are few principles more important in a civilised society than that no one should be deprived of their liberty without lawful authority.

'Justice should be done to all people.'

'He is not the most wicked of men, but his presence in the UK is not conducive to public good. Nevertheless, in a civilised society, he is entitled to justice.'

'Specifically, he is entitled not to be falsely imprisoned and... he is now entitled to the compensation that I have awarded.'

My question is, did this guy ever get any counselling with regard to his torture and trauma endured in Somalia? Did he ever get any counselling with regard to British society as opposed to Somali society, if society is a valid term to use in relation to Somalia? Isn't it more than a little naive to think that someone could make that jump from an extremely legalistic Muslim world into European society without some help?

Fifteen years of chaos: The long rap sheet of Somali handed £80,000:

2 February 1998 - Community service for shoplifting

30 July 1998 - Fined for criminal damage failing to surrender to

20 November 1998 - Fined for allowing himself to be carried in a vehicle taken without authority and failing to surrender to custody

12 January 1999 - Four months detention in a young offenders' institution for burglary

29 March 1999 - Conditional discharge for possession of an offensive weapon

26 March 2002 - Fined for possession of cannabis and resisting/obstructing a constable

6 November 2002 - Four years imprisonment for two offences of robbery

25 February 2002 - Fined for deception

17 March 2006 - Two years jail for robbery

20 April 2009 - Fined for disorderly behaviour

28 May 2010 - Community order for criminal damage

13 January 2011 - Suspended sentence for using racially or religiously aggravated words

17 February 2011 - Suspended sentence for twice failing to surrender to custody and failing to comply with a community order

17 March 2011 - Three months jail for failing to comply with the community requirements of a suspended sentence

23 May 2011 - Ten weeks jail for two assaults

25 July 2011 - One day in prison for disorderly behaviour

17 November 2011 - Four months jail for possession of a knife

24 May 2012 - Five months jail for affray

22 August 2012 - Fined for using threatening, abusive or insulting word with intent to cause fear of violence and shoplifting

24 August 2012 - Five months jail for common assault

26 November 2012 - Eighteen weeks jail for common assault

14 June 2013 - Fined for possession of cannabis

5 December 2013 - Jailed for four years for robbery

Erdogan Rejects ‘Moderate Islam’ as a Western Tool to Weaken Muslims

© Faisal Al Nasser / Reuters

The idea of ‘moderate Islam’ was invented by the West and is being used to weaken the ancient religion, Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan has said in reference to Saudi Arabia’s reforms, while also lashing out at the EU’s “discrimination” of Muslims.

Last month, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, vowed to restore “moderate” Islam to the kingdom considered to be "home" of the religion. The Gulf monarchy currently follows a Salafist or Wahhabi version of Islam that is often described as being "ultraconservative" and administered through Islamic Sharia law. 

In what appears to be a direct reference to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Erdogan denounced a “moderate” interpretation of Islam in a speech delivered at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Women’s Advisory Council on Friday.

“The term ‘moderate Islam’ is being lathered up again. The patent of moderate Islam belongs to the West. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam; Islam is one. The aim of using such terms is to weaken Islam,” Erdogan said in Ankara.

“Perhaps the person voicing this concept thinks it belongs to him. No, it does not belong to you,” he added, recalling, that he was “asked about ‘moderate Islam’ at meetings in the European Parliament many years ago.”

The thrust of Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030, is to socially transform the Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam, which bans gender mixing, concerts and cinemas. Starting in the summer of next year, women in Saudi Arabia will be permitted to drive. In the new year, women would also be allowed to attend sporting events as the monarchy continues to usher in its liberalization reforms.

Last month the Prince unveiled a plan to construct a $500-billion state of the art city across its borders into Jordan and Egypt. The new mega-city is to be erected with the aim of diversifying the Arab country’s economy and reducing its dependency on oil.

Riyadh’s reforms have been accompanied by a massive anti-corruption drive, which saw a purge of the kingdom’s political and business elite, including 11 princes. The kingdom’s closest ally, the US, has welcomed the campaign, with President Donald Trump saying those arrested had been “milking their country for years”.

“They say we will return to moderate Islam, but they still don’t give women the right to drive. Is there such a thing in Islam? I guess they will give this right when they turn to the moderate one,” Erdogan noted Friday.

The Turkish president also lashed out against the EU for approving a series of so-called “burka bans” introduced in recent years, calling it a “discrimination against Muslim women.”

"Headscarves are gradually being banned in EU states with the public - personal space trick, attempting to bar Muslim women from entering social life. Attempts to incarcerate Muslim women in their homes is spreading like a virus," Erdogan said.

Traditional Islamic head and face coverings have long been controversial in Europe, where they are often seen as incompatible with secular values. France became the first European country to impose a ban on full-face coverings in 2011. Belgium followed suit shortly thereafter. German MPs approved a partial ban on full-face veils this April, saying it’s the country’s duty to present itself “in an ideologically and religiously neutral manner.” Austria’s parliament also endorsed a package of measures that outlaws distribution of the Koran and wearing traditional Islamic full-face veils in public.

"Those who are teaching us lessons on human rights are unfortunately applauding as the most basic human rights are being trampled in their countries," said Erdogan.

Arab ‘Mafia’ Infiltrates German Police, State Services – German Police Union Official

Germany's fear of xenophobia far exceeds its fear of Islamic criminals.

It is possibly that very thing that feeds xenophobia!

FILE PHOTO © Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Powerful Arab criminal clans are actively trying to plant their members into Berlin’s police and other state services, a local German Police Union head has claimed. He went on to say the mafia gangs are seeking to control police actions.

Large criminal clans of migrant descent are purposefully seeking to provide some of their members access to the inner working of the state services, Bodo Pfalzgraf, the head of the Berlin branch of the German Police Union, told the German ZDF broadcaster Wednesday. “The truth should be revealed,” he said.

Now what kind of attitude is that? What will Frau Merkel think?

“There are clear indications that big Arab clans have a [infiltration] strategy and try to keep certain family members away from criminal activities so that they could later infiltrate into any state services,” Pfalzgraf explained as he appeared on ZDF’s ‘Morgen Magazin’ program. The migrant mafia has “a vital interest in first-hand knowledge of how the state works, how police operates and when searches [and raids] are conducted,” he said.

These developments require special attention from the German authorities, he said, adding, that allegations against police should be investigated not by the police itself but by a special task force instead. At the same time, he warned against racial or other forms of profiling by saying that no one should be “denied access to the state services just because of their name.”

Pfalzgraf also called for a stricter admission criteria for police enrolments. He said such admission criteria have not been amended for a long period and are currently failing to meet contemporary realities.

Berlin police was, however, quick to dispute the allegations concerning potential infiltration by migrant mafia clans. “These claims are definitely false,” Berlin police chief, Klaus Kandt, said at a special meeting of Berlin’s parliament on Wednesday.

He words were echoed by the Deputy Head of the Berlin Police Department, Margarete Koppers, who said during the same session that any infiltration into police by criminal Arab clans is “ruled out.” She went on to say that no members of such clans are studying in any police educational facilities.

The accusations and counter-statements come amid a high profile scandal involving a law student who undertook an internship at one of the German capital’s police departments.  The student at the Berlin School of Economics and Law, who is from Arab descent, was arrested after she took photos of confidential police documents and sent them to an unknown contact via the WhatsApp messenger service.

According to the local BZ daily, the female student, 22, particularly took pictures of the photos of wanted members of a suspected Arab criminal clan. The student reportedly volunteered to an internship in this particular police department, the daily added. The incident took place in late October but surfaced in the German media only this week.

Berlin’s Interior Minister has meanwhile warned against the rise of xenophobia and prejudice against police officers of migrant descent. “That is something I would not tolerate,” Andreas Geisel said as Germany records a growing number of complaints against immigrant recruits within the police.

It started about a week ago when a lecturer at the Berlin Police Academy was heard complaining in a leaked recording about poor language skills, lack of respect, and disloyalty of ethnic Turks and Arabs who study at the facility.

Is that xenophobia or is it a lack of respect, disloyalty, and poor language skills? Is it xenophobia to state the obvious? Is it necessary to hide the truth or outright lie in order to not be seen as xenophobic? Is it worth it?

Xenophobia, I believe, is fed by government and police ignoring or hiding the dangers and the realities of Islamization. Because they are not doing their jobs of protecting Germans, Germans are likely to rise up to protect themselves. It would be far better for the authorities to do their jobs rather than to pretend everything is great.

The first leak was then followed by a series of new accusations that came in a form of anonymous letters allegedly sent by other members of the German police community. One such letter published by the Tagesspiegel daily said: “The police ranks are open to criminal clans.” Recruits from these big clans are allowed to join the ranks of police despite previous criminal records, the document allegedly written by a long serving member of Berlin’s criminal investigation department, said.

UK's Finsbury Park Mosque Trustee Exposed as Hamas Political Influencer

Not a criminal because he is not military, he's a terrorist!

Mohammed Sawalha. © habibi / YouTube

A leading member of one of Britain’s most prominent mosques is a senior member of Hamas, it has emerged. Mohammed Sawalha, a trustee of Finsbury Park Mosque, is a top figure in the Palestinian group, considered a terrorist organization by the UK and US.

In Britain, only the military wing of Hamas is banned, which means that Sawalha has not committed an offence. He is not thought to be involved with the outlawed Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Hamas grew out of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Islamist group was founded to fight Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories and to deliver aid to its own communities in the Gaza Strip, where their Fatah rivals in the Palestinian Authority were seen to be failing.

Sawalha moved to the UK as a refugee in the 1990s and now lives in a council house worth £500,000 ($655,000) in Kingsbury, northwest London, the Sunday Times reports.

In 2008, he was named in court documents as having previously been “in charge of Hamas terrorist operations in the West Bank.”

OK, so help me understand this. He has not committed an offence because he is not part of Hamas' military wing - he is part of their terrorist wing!!??? Is that how it works?

Sawalha’s role in the political bureau of Hamas was exposed after the names of a delegation to Moscow were announced.

He has been a Finsbury Park Mosque trustee since 2010 and is a former director of the Muslim Association of Britain. Sawalha was also a director of the Islam Expo and has been involved in the arrangement of delegations to Gaza.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has refused to rule out including Hamas in peace talks, but last week rounded on the group, calling on its leaders to “stop spewing out anti-Semitic propaganda.”

Good luck with that!

Finsbury Park Mosque says it has no dealings with terrorist organizations, stating that it is a “British charity and has no relationship with Hamas.”

And God knows a Palestinian wouldn't lie!!!

The mosque was at the center of a suspected Islamophobic terrorist attack in June when a van driver ploughed into worshippers as they left Ramadan prayers.

The religious center has spent the last decade trying to undo a bad reputation. Abu Hamza, currently jailed in the US for terrorism offences, was imam at the mosque for many years.

Beware of the Muslim Brotherhood, Expert Warns

 Ian MacLeod, Ottawa Citizen

Authorities should be concerned about the unseen hand of the Muslim Brotherhood gripping sections of Canada’s diverse Muslim community, says a U.S. security expert.

The movement has planted its revivalist interpretation of Islam, political ideology and activism among some Muslims here and sees itself as a minder and broker between them and the rest of society, Lorenzo Vidino, who specializes in Islamism and political violence, told the Senate’s national security committee recently.

“They basically aim to be the gatekeepers to Muslim communities, that whenever politicians, governments or the media try to get the Muslim voice, if there were such a thing, they would go through them, sort of the self‑appointed leaders of Muslim communities,” he said.

Vidino is director of the program on extremism at George Washington University and author of The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Columbia University Press, 2010). He sees no direct links to terrorism among the group’s western supporters. In fact, some work to prevent violent radicalization, he said.

“It would be an analytical mistake to lump them, as some do, with al-Qaida or ISIL. These are not organizations that plan attacks in the West, and actually in many cases they do condemn them.”

The problem is more indirect, Vidino said. “Generally speaking, the movement has not abandoned violence as a tool to advance its agenda.” Tactically, it doesn’t pursue violence, “but it’s not heartfelt,” he said.

“They have this narrative where they lump together foreign policy issues with issues like cartoons and so on as part of a big narrative that proves this point that the West hates Muslims and Islam. It’s that mainstreaming of this narrative which is very much the staircase to violent radicalization and the brotherhood does mainstream that. It provides somewhat of a fertile environment.

“That kind of narrative in the mind a 16- or 18-year-old is extremely dangerous, because violence is justified when Muslims are under attack. If it’s OK in Gaza and Afghanistan, why is it not OK in the West, where you’re also telling me that Islam is under attack?”

The brotherhood is a banned terrorist organization in some Middle East and other countries, notably Egypt, where the movement was born. But it has different profile in the West.

To start, there is no group calling itself the “Muslim Brotherhood” in North America. Instead, a few hundred sophisticated, politically savvy and well-funded supporters in Canada have over the past 50 years created vocal and visible organizations that represent a very small part of the Muslim community. They exert a disproportional influence over mosques, schools and spaces where Muslims come together, said Vidino.

While they don’t take orders from any Arab capital, they “are part of an informal network where you have strong links based on personal and financial connections, and at the end of the day what matters the most: ideology. They all embrace a certain world view.”

Groups sometimes go to great lengths to sever or hide such ties, Vidino told the committee. He said they include the Muslim Association of Canada and what used to be called CAIR-CAN, now the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

Another group he identified is The International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy – Canada, IRFAN. Its charitable status was revoked after the government alleged the organization sent almost $15 million to groups affiliated with the Palestinian terror outfit Hamas between 2005 and 2009. IRFAN has since been listed as a banned terrorist organization in Canada.

Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the NCCM, said Vidino is misinformed.

“The NCCM is an independent, non-partisan and non-profit grassroots Canadian civil liberties and advocacy organization with a public track record spanning 15 years,” said Gardee. “The NCCM is not a religious group and does not and has never had any affiliations, links, ideological or of any other kind, with the Muslim Brotherhood or any other overseas group.”

The Muslim Association of Canada did not respond to a request for comment. But its website traces its roots to the teachings of Egyptian Hassan al-Banna, who founded the brotherhood in 1928 to revive and integrate traditional Islamic teaching and practices, such as sharia law, with modern society.

Vidion’s parting advice to the committee: “Engage with knowledge. Know that they have an agenda.”

What is their agenda? Is it to prepare Muslims for mass radicalization whenever the right issue or the right leader arises? 

Germany: Full Censorship Now Official; UK: Islamophobia More Important Than Terrorism

Is it any wonder why much of Europe is now Lurching to Starboard?

This left-wing lunacy is steering the ship.

by Judith Bergman
for Gatestone Institute

Germany has made no secret of its desire to see its new law copied by the rest of the EU.

When employees of social media companies are appointed as the state's private thought police and given the power to shape the form of current political and cultural discourse by deciding who shall be allowed to speak and what to say, and who shall be shut down, free speech becomes nothing more than a fairy tale. Or is that perhaps the point?

Perhaps fighting "Islamophobia" is now a higher priority than fighting terrorism?

A new German law introducing state censorship on social media platforms came into effect on October 1, 2017. The new law requires social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, to censor their users on behalf of the German state. Social media companies are obliged to delete or block any online "criminal offenses" such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint -- regardless of whether or the content is accurate or not. Social media companies receive seven days for more complicated cases. If they fail to do so, the German government can fine them up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law.

This state censorship makes free speech subject to the arbitrary decisions of corporate entities that are likely to censor more than absolutely necessary, rather than risk a crushing fine. When employees of social media companies are appointed as the state's private thought police and given the power to shape the form of current political and cultural discourse by deciding who shall be allowed to speak and what to say, and who shall be shut down, free speech becomes nothing more than a fairy tale. Or is that perhaps the point?

Meanwhile, the district court in Munich recently sentenced a German journalist, Michael Stürzenberger, to six months in jail for posting on his Facebook page a historical photo of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, shaking the hand of a senior Nazi official in Berlin in 1941. The prosecution accused Stürzenberger of "inciting hatred towards Islam" and "denigrating Islam" by publishing the photograph. The court found Stürzenberger guilty of "disseminating the propaganda of anti-constitutional organizations". While the mutual admiration that once existed between al-Husseini and German Nazis is an undisputed historical fact, now evidently history is being rewritten by German courts. Stürzenberger has appealed the verdict.

A German court recently sentenced journalist Michael Stürzenberger (pictured) to six months in jail for posting on his Facebook page a historical photo of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, shaking the hand of a Nazi official in Berlin, in 1941. The prosecution accused Stürzenberger of "inciting hatred towards Islam" and "denigrating Islam" by publishing the photograph. (Image Source: PI News video screenshot)

Germany has made no secret of its desire to see its new law copied by the rest of the EU, which already has a similar code of conduct for social media giants. The EU Justice Commissioner, Vera Jourova, recently said she might be willing to legislate in the future if the voluntary code of conduct does not produce the desired results. She said, however, that the voluntary code was working "relatively" well, with Facebook removing 66.5% of the material they had been notified was "hateful" between December and May this year. Twitter removed 37.4%, and YouTube took action on 66% of the notifications from users.

While purportedly concerned about online "hate speech," one EU organization, the EU Parliament, had no qualms about letting its premises be used to host a convicted Arab terrorist, Leila Khaled, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) at a conference about "The Role of Women in the Palestinian Popular Struggle" in September. (The EU, the US, Canada, and Australia, have all designated the PFLP a terrorist organization). The conference was organized by, among others, the Spanish delegation of Izquierda Unida (United Left) as part of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left bloc in the European Parliament.

In the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May also said that she will tell internet firms to tackle extremist content:

"Industry needs to go further and faster in automating the detection and removal of terrorist content online... ultimately it is not just the terrorists themselves who we need to defeat. It is the extremist ideologies that fuel them. It is the ideologies that preach hatred, sow division and undermine our common humanity. We must be far more robust in identifying these ideologies and defeating them -- across all parts of our societies."

Prime Minister May keeps insisting that "these ideologies" are spread "across all parts of our societies" when in reality, virtually all terrorism is Islamic. 

It's not just terrorism that May is talking about here but the rise in neo-Nazism and the rise in anti-Islamic acts of violence. All speech that promotes violence should be subject to censorship.

Meanwhile, her own Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, has refused to ban the political wing of Hezbollah. Hezbollah's hate speech, apparently, is perfectly acceptable to the British authorities. So is that of South African Muslim cleric and hate preacher Ebrahim Bham, who was once an interpreter to the Taliban's head legal advisor. He was allowed to enter the UK to speak in the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, a government building, at the "Palestine Expo" a large Jew-hate event in London in July. Bham is known for quoting Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels and saying that all Jews and Christians are "agents of Satan". Meanwhile, a scholar such as Robert Spencer is banned from entering the UK, supposedly on the grounds that what he reports -- accurately -- is "Islamophobic".

The British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) also recently stated that online "hate crimes" will be prosecuted "with the same robust and proactive approach used with offline offending". The decision to treat online offenses in the same way as offline offenses is expected to increase hate crime prosecutions, already at the highest recorded level ever. Prosecutors completed 15,442 hate crime cases in 2015-16.

Jews in Britain, who have experienced a dramatic increase in anti-Semitism over the past three years, are frequently on the receiving end of hate crimes. Nevertheless, their cases constitute less than a fraction of the statistics. In 2016/17, the CPS prosecuted 14,480 hate crimes. According to the Campaign Against Antisemitism:

"we have yet to see a single year in which more than a couple of dozen anti-Semitic hate crimes were prosecuted. So far in 2017, we are aware of... 21 prosecutions, in 2016 there were 20, and in 2015 there were just 12. So serious are the failures by the CPS to take action that we have had to privately prosecute alleged anti-Semites ourselves and challenge the CPS through judicial review, the first of which we won in March. Last year only 1.9% of hate crime against Jews was prosecuted, signaling to police forces that their effort in investigating hate crimes against Jews might be wasted, and sending the strong message to anti-Semites that they need not fear the law... Each year since 2014 has been a record-breaking year for anti-Semitic crime: between 2014 and 2016, anti-Semitic crime surged by 45%".

Almost one in three British Jews have apparently considered leaving Britain due to anti-Semitism in the past two years.

British authorities seem far more concerned with "Islamophobia" than with the increase in hate crimes against Jews. In fact, the police has teamed up with Transport for London authorities to encourage people to report hate crimes during "National Hate Crime Awareness Week", which runs from October 14-21. Transport for London and the Metropolitan Police will hold more than 200 community events to "reassure communities that London's public transport system is safe for everyone". The events are specifically targeted at Muslims; officers have visited the East London Mosque to encourage reporting hate crimes.

Last year, London mayor Sadiq Khan's Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac) announced it was spending £1,730,726 of taxpayer money policing speech online after applying for a grant from the Home Office. Meanwhile, Khan said that he does not have the funds to monitor the 200 jihadists estimated to be in London, out of the 400 jihadists who have so far returned to the capital from Syria and Iraq. (He also implicitly admitted that he does not know the whereabouts of the jihadists who have returned). When asked by the journalist Piers Morgan why the mayor could not have them monitored, Khan answered:

"Because the Met Police budget, roughly speaking, 15 percent, 20 percent is funded by me, the mayor. The rest comes from central government. If the Met Police is being shrunk and reduced, they've got to prioritize and use their resources in a sensible, savvy way."

When Morgan asked what could possibly be a bigger priority than, "people coming back from a Syrian battlefield with intent to harm British citizens", Khan did not answer. Perhaps because it is hard to admit in public that fighting "Islamophobia" is now a higher priority than fighting terrorism?

Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.