Daniel Greenfield : Run, Hide and Deny in London

Run, Hide and Deny in London

Islamic terrorism has no religion even when it’s shouting, “This is for Islam.”

June 5, 2017

Daniel Greenfield

As Muslim terrorists rampaged around London, Met police debuted the new “Run, Hide and Tell” program. But instead some Londoners chose to stand and fight. They fought with pint glasses and barstools as the Muslim killers shouting, “This is for Allah” stabbed women in trendy eateries.


Some drivers tried to ram the killers. An unarmed police officer attacked the terrorists with a baton. An off-duty police officer tackled one of the Muslim terrorists. Both men were severely wounded.

Other unarmed police officers ran away.

Met counter-terrorism chief Mark Rowley sympathetically noted that, "If someone acts on instinct and perhaps decides to fight because they have no choice, we would never criticise them for that.”

It was kind of him not to criticize those Londoners who reacted with their base instincts and tried to fight the Muslim killers instead of running, hiding and telling, then reemerging for a vigil or a concert.


After the Manchester Arena attack, Rowley had urged, “Enjoy yourselves. We can’t let the terrorists win by dissuading us from going about our normal business.”
Going about our normal business has become the highest form of courage. Run, Hide and Deny.

Ariana Grande’s manager described her upcoming Manchester concert as representing, “courage, bravery and defiance in the face of fear”. “We're going to go shopping' - How defiant Londoners refused to bow to terrorists,” an article at The Independent boasts. Courage, bravery and defiance used to be found on the beaches of Normandy. Now they come from attending a concert or trying on a new blouse.

Londoners took Rowley’s advice. And then they found themselves running and hiding from Muslim killers. Video shows cringing diners lying on the floor of “London’s Coolest Bierkeller” as frantic Met police scream, “Get down”. In the Black & Blue Restaurant, the first “modern American steakhouse” in the city, some hid under the tables. Four friends jammed inside a toilet stall while the screams went on outside. A woman barricaded the door while other diners fled through the back.
At Elliot’s, an eatery “based in the inspiring environment that is Borough Market”, a Muslim terrorist stabbed a waitress hiding behind a partition. At El Pastor, where the tacos are "made from scratch in house every day", a woman was stabbed before diners drove the terrorist away by throwing chairs at him and then barricaded themselves inside. Diners on lobster risotto at Applebee’s huddled in terror.
Pictures show courageous and defiant revelers trooping out with their hands behind their heads.

Bravely and courageously having butterfly prawns in crispy breadcrumbs or listening to a pop star trying to lip sync only works until grim men shouting about Allah come through the door. And then it’s time to try out the Met’s advice. "Hide: Turn your phone to silent. Barricade yourself in if you can."

It is at these moments where the real courage of resisting Islamic terrorism is divided from the false courage of going out for a night on the town in “defiance” of terror.

There is no bravery or courage in denying reality. It’s just another form of cowardice.

The champions of nightlife courage mock those who warn of Islamic terrorism for “giving in to fear”. 
President Trump has been accused of “stoking fear” for calling for common sense migration reform in response to the attacks. 
Only fools and idiots aren’t afraid of a serious threat. 
The hollow courage of holding up candles at a vigil or heading to a trendy nightlife spot is no match for the reality of terror.
Denial is always cowardice. 
When the UK PM claims that, Islamic terrorism “is a perversion of Islam”, that’s cowardice after an attack in which the Islamic killers made a point of proclaiming, “This is for Islam” and “This is for Allah”.

While the latest wave of Islamic terror swept across the UK, the University of London hosted the Muslim World League’s conference on “Tolerance in Islam”. The League is a Saudi group that has been linked to Al Qaeda whose employees included Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law and one of the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists. The Secretary General of the League has insisted that “terrorism has no religion”.
Indeed.


Meanwhile a friend of one of the attackers claimed that the terrorist had been influenced by the Islamic teachings of Sheikh Ahmad Musa Jibril: a Palestinian Muslim cleric in Dearborn who is popular with Al Qaeda and ISIS Jihadists. He has a degree in Sharia law from the Islamic University in Saudi Arabia.

Jibril was inspired by Salman Al-Awdah, a Saudi sheikh associated with the monarchy. Also inspired by Al-Awdah was a devout Muslim by the name of Osama bin Laden. Jibril’s site urged Muslims that their “heart must contain nothing but HATE to all kafers [non-Muslims]… Not just plain hate it must be the peak of hate”. And “Give them a knife and a bulletful of gun.”

And so the Muslim terrorists in London, inspired by Saudi Sharia scholarship, with hearts containing nothing but hatred for the non-Muslims dining out at trendy nightspots, gave them the knife.

But Islamic terrorism has no religion. Even when it’s stabbing you while shouting, “This is for Islam.”

Courage means running for cover when an attack happens and then denying the obvious. 
It means believing that what the terrorists really want is to prevent us from enjoying our dinner rather than forcing us to submit to Islamic law.

“We ran into the restaurant and tried to find a safe place but there wasn’t one,” an eyewitness to the attack said.

Run, Hide and Tell. We’ve been running away for generations. The Jewish and Christian populations of the Middle East have mostly fled to America, Europe and Israel. Now there are no more places to hide.

We’re swiftly running out of safe places. There are thousands of soldiers in the streets of London and Paris. German cities on New Year’s Eve are no-go zones. There are thousands of potential terrorists under investigation in every state in the United States. Thousands more in the UK and Europe.
We can stand up to Islamic terror migration. Or hide under the tables and hope they don’t notice us.
The Islamic terrorists are no longer just in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. They’re here. They’re outside the room. They’re coming in with knives, guns and bombs. We’re running out of places to hide. And there’s nothing left to deny when the killers shout that they are murdering us for Islam and Allah.

Opposition to Islamic migration reform is support for Islamic terror. We can build walls and border controls. Or we can build barricades of tables in bloodied eateries and throw chairs at the attackers.
We can defend our countries at the border or desperately try to survive a night on the town.
We can acknowledge that the problem is Islam. Or we can courageously eat out while trying not to wonder if that grimacing man with his hand under his coat muttering about Allah is here to kill us now.

About Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Read More

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266896/run-hide-and-deny-london-daniel-greenfield

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Robert Spencer : Theresa May’s New Approach: More of the Same

Theresa May’s New Approach: More of the Same

“Enough is enough,” she says after the London attacks, but clearly she wants more.

June 5, 2017

Robert Spencer

The United Kingdom has just suffered its second major jihad massacre in as many weeks, and Prime Minister Theresa May, facing an unexpectedly tough electoral challenge, is talking tough. “It is time,” she proclaimed, “to say enough is enough….Our society should continue to function in accordance with our values but when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism things need to change.”
 Indeed they do.

Nothing is clearer at this point than the catastrophic failure of the approach to jihad terrorism that May and her predecessors David Cameron, Gordon Brown, and Tony Blair have pursued since 9/11. 

For years, the British government has hounded, stigmatized, and demonized foes of jihad terror, falsely claiming that they represent a “far-right” equivalent to jihad terrorists, and has appeased and accommodated Muslim groups in Britain, many of which were by no stretch of the imagination “moderate,” and allowing numerous jihad preachers to operate without hindrance.


What has been the result? The jihad massacre at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in May, and Saturday night’s jihad attacks in London. And there is much, much more to come. The British government’s approach has failed so dismally that “when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism things need to change” may be wisest thing Theresa May has ever said, or ever will say, during her tenure as Prime Minister.


One of the chief things that needs to change, if May is really serious about “taking on extremism and terrorism,” is the official denial of the jihad terrorists’ motivating ideology. 

No one can defeat an enemy that he doesn’t understand, much less one that he refuses to understand, and yet that is the position of the May government (and of the U.S. government as well, although we may hope that this swamp will eventually be drained): jihad terror has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.


Yet the London attackers were hardly shy about what motivated them. One eyewitness recounted: “They went, ‘This is for Allah,’ and they had a woman on the floor, and they were stabbing her, all three, constantly.” The mother of a young man who was wounded in the attacks said: “He just stepped outside the bar for a second and a man ran up to him and said: ‘This is for my family, this is for Islam’, and stuck a knife straight in him. He’s got a seven-inch scar going from his belly round to his back.”


But Theresa May is convinced that they didn’t do it for Allah or Islam at all. She said that the jihadis were “bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism. It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam. It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth.”

“A perversion of Islam.” May didn’t bother to explain how killing non-Muslims was a “perversion” of a religion with a holy book that thrice exhorts believers to kill those who dare to worship others besides Allah (cf. 2:191, 4:89, 9:5), tells them to “strike the necks” of the unbelievers (47:4) and to fight “the People of the Book” (primarily Jews and Christians) “until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29). She didn’t elucidate the mysterious process by which Muhammad, who is supposed to be the founder of Islam, ending up holding a “perversion” of it, as he directed his followers to invite unbelievers to accept Islam or pay the jizya, or to go to war with them if they refused both options (Sahih Muslim 4294).

May’s continuing willful ignorance will doom to defeat her effort to change things, if she really attempts one at all. The main thing she needs to change is her mindset, and that of the British political and law enforcement establishment.

But the mindset of denial and willful ignorance is deeply entrenched in Britain, such that if she loses the upcoming election, the new Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn, will make her look, of all things, tough on terror.

And so it is likely that in the near future, the British people will look back on the good old days when Islamic jihadis hit Manchester and London within two weeks, and marvel that they waited so long between terror attacks. Jihad mass murder is going to be an increasingly common feature of the British landscape for a considerable period to come, and for that, Britons have no one to thank more than…Theresa May.


Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.



http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266895/theresa-mays-new-approach-more-same-robert-spencer
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Henrik Raeder Clausen : The jihad attacks in Britain: This is war, not criminal activity

Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

The jihad attacks in Britain: This is war, not criminal activity

June 4, 2017 7:42 am By Henrik Raeder Clausen 

Editor’s note: this piece was written before the jihad attacks in London last night, but its message is all the more urgent in light of them.

It was meant to be a happy and memorable evening last Monday in Manchester Arena, as youth pop star Ariana Grande had ended her concert and her fans started leaving. But in the lobby, a soldier of the Islamic State was waiting, his backpack packed with explosives. He detonated this with devastating effect at 10:30 PM, killing 22 fans and wounding 119, as they were peacefully heading home.

The natural terror of the attack blends with fear and confusion, leading to questions and statements such as “Why on Earth??”, “Will this happen again?” and “We shall not change our way of life!” These reactions are becoming routine, along with odd symbolic statements, such as turning off the lights of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Obviously, our “candles and teddy bears” reactions have not helped us yet, and we need to do something entirely different.

This is not crime – this is war

British police and intelligence services will of course take up their task of discovering networks and connections to the 22-year old Libyan citizen Salman Abedi. As thousands of Islamic warriors before him, he sacrificed his life in order to kill as many “enemies” as possible. In Islamic tradition, this makes him a “Shaheed” (often mistranslated as “Martyr”), a person who dies in the ongoing war against non-Muslims.

The police and intelligence efforts are necessary, yet insufficient. For as the direct perpetrator was the first person to die in the attack, no further punishment of him is possible. His friends, connections and trainers can be found, punished or even assassinated. While that would be effective against criminal networks, it is much less so against networks considering themselves soldiers, proving in word and in action their willingness to die for their cause.

And this willingness is a hallmark feature of Jihadis such as those fighting for the Islamic State. Suicide missions by the hundreds, if not by the thousands, are the most deadly weapons used by the Islamic State in their wars in Middle East. It is a well-known fact that thousands more have been trained and motivated in the battlefield, but have since returned to Western countries who have issued them citizenship and passports.

Further elevating the risk is the declaration of “Total Confrontation” recently issued by the Islamic State, from the start of the Islamic “holy” month of Ramadan – that is, May 27, 2017. Originally a plan devised by Al-Qaeda, this is a call for all Islamic sleeper cells to start attacking their host countries.

As the Islamic State considers itself to be the Caliphate, Islamic tradition and law requires it to be in a permanent state of war against non-Muslims, in order to spread Islam and Sharia. This is expressed in a series of attacks against civilian targets in the West, with more to come. The next logical step is the use of military force to establish Islamic enclaves in the host countries.

An example of using force to establish purely Islamic enclaves can be observed in the Philippines, whose president Duterte recently went to Moscow, practically begging for weapons to restore the constitutional order. There can be little doubt that Russia will, on its own terms, be happy to take over the role previously held by the US as the main supplier of the Philippine Army.

What did the Islamic State say?

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Manchester attack by issuing this statement (emphasis in the original):

“With Allah’s grace and support, a soldier of the Khilafah managed to place explosive devices in the midst of the gatherings of the Crusaders in the British city of Manchester, in revenge for Allah’s religion, in an endeavor to terrorize the mushrikin, and in response to their transgressions against the land of the Muslims. The explosive devices were detonated in the shameless concert arena, resulting in 30 Crusaders being killed and 70 others being wounded. And what comes next will be more severe on the worshipers of the Cross and their allies, by Allah’s permission. And all praises due to Allah, Lord of the creation.”

Here, the Islamic State reiterates that it is the Caliphate, that one of their soldiers carried out the attack, that is was an Islamic act of revenge, and that the intention indeed is to terrorize their enemies.

A key justification for Islamic State to attack the Manchester Arena was that the participants in the concert supposedly constituted “Crusaders.” This, of course, is a reference to the famous European counter-offensive against Islam that took place eight centuries ago. In this famous offensive against Islamic Jihad, European armies conquered Jerusalem and established several Christian kingdoms that existed for some 150 years.

The Crusades seriously harmed the Islamic self-perception as being ever-expanding, and is neither forgotten or forgiven by Islamic jihadists today. The presence of British forces in the ongoing battle against the Islamic State thus becomes a rationale for attacking civilian targets in Britain, probably in order to turn the tide on the battlefields in the Middle East.

And turning the development in the battlefield is something that the Islamic State desperately needs. Their forces are being decimated at the hands of Kurdish, Syrian, Iraqi, Russian and American military, and most of their financial and military supply lines have been cut off. If this battle is allowed to run its course, the Caliphate in the Middle East will not last many months. Thus the need to resort to desperate measures, such as bombing concerts or creating false flag chemical attacks.

Another gripe from the Islamic State concerns the loss of civilian lives in American air attacks in Mosul and elsewhere. This is a delicate problem, for it has great intrinsic propaganda value. Islamic jihadists such as Hamas are known to use civilians as “bomb shields,” forcing them into harms’ way, in order to create civilian losses, and then use it in their propaganda. So when the US complains about “brutal” Russian air strikes, yet gets criticized by the United Nations for excessive use of air force in Mosul, this carries quite a sting, not least due to the impression of hypocrisy one gets.

It takes a stiff upper lip to stay on course in spite of such criticism, and this is what the Islamic State tries to exploit. To do so, it is well worth understanding and publicizing the suffering of civilians – in particular non-Muslims – ruled by the Islamic State and other Islamic supremacists. The liberation of Aleppo (Syria) from Al-Nusrah showed this clearly: As soon as they got the opportunity to escape from the terror regime they had suffered for over four years, they did so, thousands after thousands.

Also well worth noting is the word “shameless.” This can refer to the singer Ariana Grande, whose performances would never be permitted under Islamic law (Sharia), or to an audience with many young women freely in attendance. It constitutes a message to women everywhere, Muslims and non-Muslims: “Such behaviour is in violation of Islamic law, and we shall act to stop it.”

The worst is yet to come

Islamic State had this final thing to say before their mandatory praise of Allah:

“And what comes next will be more severe on the worshipers of the Cross and their allies.”

Thus their act of war in Manchester is far from the last of its kind – they explicitly tell us that they will escalate their terrorist activities. At this point in time, holding on to their last cities in Syria and Iraq seems futile – and their goals certainly are not restricted to that: Based on classical Islamic ideology, their goal is to spread Islamic rule and Sharia globally, eliminating all forms of democracy and human rights in the process.

The Islamic State has repeatedly declared that they consider themselves at war with the West, and they are executing on that. The motivation and training of Islamic warriors drive them to consider the “Cause of Allah” (Jihad) to be more important than their own lives. This willingness to die for their ideology makes it challenging to put and end to terrorism – even if a considerable part of the terror plots are foiled, too many succeed, with deadly results as we’ve seen often in 2016.

At this point, business as usual no longer even seems to work. Countering Jihad with candles, flowers and teddy bears did not cause Islamic warriors to stop attacking us. The proper response to a declaration of war is to conduct war on the issuer, no matter who it is, with an intensity that forces him to either accept defeat, or eliminates him.

We went into a full war against the national socialists during World War II, and can do the same against the Islamic State. As was the case then, it is vital to understand the ideology that drives the enemy, and act on that understanding. And this is getting urgent: the Islamic State has declared that at the start of Islamic Ramadan, it will initiate “Total Confrontation,” calling upon everyone loyal to them to conduct any form of attack they can. This is now.

Thus, we need urgent action against everything that puts us at risk of terrorist attacks. The Islamic State has openly said that it smuggles their warriors to Europe among refugees. Thus, we should halt immigration from Islamic countries at least until the Islamic State is defeated. And we must go after anyone supporting the Islamic State from our countries, just as Germans and Japanese in our countries were controlled or even jailed during World War II. Working for the Islamic State and Sharia simply means working for the enemy, and that is not protected by freedom of speech or religion.

Yet military action is only one aspect of the struggle required, and hardly the largest. More dangerous in the long term is the culture wars: By permitting Sharia to take root in our societies, we are already in the process of losing the freedoms we used to take for granted. This means freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and equal rights for women. This happens while our classical city centers are starting to show that we are under siege by placing concrete blocks everywhere, and the army is being deployed. Dystopian prophecies about our future with Islam are coming true, now.

Urgent action required

After more than 15 years of sorrow, flowers and declarations of sympathy, it is clear that this does not stop the Jihad against us. We need to take the lead in the war that has been forced upon us. This requires an unconstrained analysis of our enemy, of his objectives and methods, and use this knowledge to hit the enemy where he’s weakest. By studying the political aspect of Islam, it becomes easy to separate political aims from religious ones, and act accordingly – even in śpite of the risk of short-term unrest and increases in terrorist attacks.

This means rejecting any and all demands to promote Sharia, to imprison or deport individuals on grounds of treason, and dissolve all organisations supporting this purpose. This is perfectly doable: As we saw in the American Holy Land Foundation trials, proper investigation can easily lead to conviction on a rich number of crimes and felonies, including very severe ones.

Finally, it is high time for NATO to acknowledge the declaration of war that we have been served, and deploy the full force its expensive arsenals against the Islamic State.

Sources:


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/world/middleeast/us-iraq-mosul-investigation-airstrike-civilian-deaths.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4010690/Around-1-500-European-jihadists-return-Mideast-report.html
http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/05/23/17/philippines-needs-modern-weapons-vs-isis-duterte-tells-putin
www.ambrosekane.com/2015/08/18/stephen-coughlins-red-pill-presentation-a-must-watch/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/manchester-terror-attack-everything-know-far/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Temperer
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/26/islamic-state-calls-all-out-war-west-start-ramadan-manchester/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10430/terrorism-candles-teddy-bears
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-23/islamic-state-claims-responsibility-manchester-bombing
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/opinion/coptic-christians-islamic-states-favorite-prey.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-air-strike-mosul-200-civilians-killed-isis-northern-iraq-pentagon-central-command-islamic-state-a7651451.html
https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2013/05/25/an-explanatory-memorandum-from-the-archives-of-the-muslim-brotherhood-in-america/
http://www.reuters.com/article/britain-security-manchester-islamic-stat-idUSL8N1IP096

https://clarionproject.org/holy-land-foundation-terror-financing-trial-documents-50/

http://media.clarionproject.org/misc/pdf/List+of+Unindicted+HLF+Co-conspirators.pdf

https://clarionproject.org/muslim_brotherhood_explanatory_memorandum/

 

An unedited form of this piece originally appeared in 10news.one


 https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/06/the-jihad-attacks-in-britain-this-is-war-not-criminal-activity
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Shireen Qudosi : Egypt's Battle Against Islamic Extremism

Egypt's Battle Against Islamic Extremism

by Shireen Qudosi
June 3, 2017 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10458/egypt-islamic-extremism

• When it comes to regional interests in the Middle East, the priority is the most dominant and violent force.
• Egypt stands out as a primary target, given the cocktail of challenges that position it as a center of radical Islam. Egypt faces political, violent, and theological militancy within its borders.
• For a nation to do what it must to survive, it needs the steadfast support of world powers. Step one is annihilating all sources of violent Islam.

For a Western audience, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is a complex figure, who was shunned by the Obama administration. There appear truly pressing, immediate priorities in Egypt, such as developing the economy and combating the avalanche of extremist attempts to overthrow him. Among Middle East and North African territories, Egypt stands out as a primary target, given the cocktail of challenges that position it as a center of radical Islam.

President Sisi faces violent extremist hotbeds in the Sinai Peninsula, and the still-destabilizing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood (a political arm of violent radicals). Most notably, Sisi brought a reality check to the Arab Spring when he led the military overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013, ushering a spiritual and cultural Islamic reformation with widespread popular support from Egyptians on a grass-roots level.

Sisi faces more than just militant and political extremists within Egypt's borders; he is also walking a theological tightrope. Egypt is home to the regressive theocratic influence of the most revered Islamic institution in the Sunni world, Cairo's Al-Azhar University, which openly views freedom as a "ticking time-bomb."

Being held hostage intellectually by the grip of Al-Azhar University ensures that there is a constant supply when it comes to producing the next generation of militant and political Islamists.

Egypt also faces extremist infiltration from neighboring Libya, a nation caught in a power vacuum after the murder of its leader, Col. Muammar Gaddafi. This vacuum has been readily filled by Islamic militants, including ISIS.

Upon returning home in April from his first visit to the U.S. since 2013, Sisi faced a series of domestic terror attacks that once again put Egypt in a global spotlight. On Palm Sunday, in April, two suicide bombings in Coptic Christian churches killed more than 45 people and injured another 120. For Egypt, one of the last regional strongholds that still has a vibrant non-Muslim minority population, violent eruptions on major Christian holidays have become routine.

In England, just days after the May 22 Manchester suicide bombing, attention was once again on Egypt where 29 Coptic Christians were gunned down on a bus traveling to a monastery near the city of Minya. The attack was launched by masked terrorists who arrived in three pick-up trucks and opened fire on the passengers, many of whom were children. Egyptian intelligence believes the Minya attack was led by ISIS jihadists based in Libya. In February, the aspiring terrorist caliphate also launched a campaign against Egypt's Christian population. The Egyptian military responded swiftly with air strikes against terrorist camps, along with a televised warning against sponsored terrorism.

President Sisi's response to the brutal slaughter of peaceful Christian worshippers is being called rare but should not be surprising, considering the aggressive measures that need to be taken to hold extremism at bay, and to eradicate the threat that local groups pose to the Egyptian people. Coming out of the Riyadh Summit, where President Trump and a host of Muslim nations, including Egypt, agreed to drive out extremism, Sisi's reaction was necessary.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (front row, far-right) attended the May 21 Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, along with U.S. President Donald Trump (front-center). The problems of Islamic extremism and terrorism were much-discussed at the summit. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)

In a war that is equally ideological and kinetic, Muslim nations and others trying to survive the plague of Islamic terrorism will need to be as ruthless as their extremist counterparts. That is something that the warring political factions in the U.S. quickly need to understand. When it comes to regional interests in the Middle East, the priority is combating the most dominant and violent force. If that force wins, human rights are completely off the table. Beyond Egypt, President Trump has received considerable backlash in the U.S. for siding with what are seen as repressive regimes, whether it was hosting Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the White House or engaging with dictators and monarchs during the Riyadh Summit.

In order to bring security to the region, alliances need to look at the real instigators and agents of chaos. There is a metastasizing threat that requires a new coalition of the willing. For a nation to do what it must to survive, it needs the steadfast support of world powers. Step one is annihilating all sources of violent Islam.

Shireen Qudosi is the Director of Muslim Matters, with America Matters.

• Follow Shireen Qudosi on Twitter and Facebook

Majid Rafizadeh : Death of a Religious Minority Under Radical Islam - the persecution of the Baha'i faith

Death of a Religious Minority Under Radical Islam

by Majid Rafizadeh
June 4, 2017 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10353/iran-bahai-minority

• How can a religion seize so much power in a country? Before Islamists come to power, they make sham promises to every faith and political party. Using charm, manipulation, and community infiltration, they give the impression that they will be defenders of minorities, the poor, and local politics. Once they are in power, when it is too late to stop them, anyone who does not comply with their narrow view of religion and politics will be eliminated under the name of God and Islam.
• The authorities engaged in hate speech and allowed hate crimes to be committed with impunity against Baha'is, and imprisoned scores of Baha'is on trumped-up national security charges, imposed for peacefully practicing their religious beliefs. Allegations of torture of 24 Baha'is in Golestan Province were not investigated. The authorities forcibly closed down dozens of Baha'i-owned businesses and detained Baha'i students.
• It is not an "Iran problem", it is an epidemic of hatred and violence that will continue to spread if something is not done to stop it.

They were quiet family, not politically minded, and they did not get involved in community unrest or gossip. Fear of people knocking on the door, or of a stranger showing up in the neighborhood with unknown intentions, drove them to withdraw from society. They were careful, so careful, that they barely mingled with anyone. They were our neighbors in Iran and trusted us enough to visit with us, until one day, they no longer did.

We checked on them out of concern. Their house was empty. There was no note, no goodbyes to anyone; they were just gone. Despite being our friends, they had never mentioned their last name. We had no way to track them down, to make sure they were safe and unharmed.

Then someone mentioned that they were from the Baha'i religious minority. He explained that the government had finally come for them. All of their fear and seclusion now had a reason. You could see how protective and careful the father was, how fearful and silent the mother was, and how their daughter would never venture far from home. I had thought their problem was just paranoia. In that moment, you see that you, too, have reason to be afraid.

May 14 is the ninth anniversary of the arrest of Bahai's leadership which included the arrest of seven Baha'i leaders known as "Yaran" or "Friends in Iran".
The Baha'i faith is monotheistic, but a religious minority in Iran. The Baha'i community has been peaceful and apolitical for a long time.

What is important to know is that despite all those slogans by Islamists who claim acceptance and tolerance, if you are living under radical Islamist laws, you are at risk, particularly if you are not a Muslim. You are then viewed by the ruling Islamist imams and clerics as a national security and religious threat. There will be a dark undercurrent of harassment, cruelty, and attacks against any member of a religious minority.

How can a religion seize so much power in a country?

Before Islamists come to power, they make sham promises to every faith and political party. Using charm, manipulation, and community infiltration, they give the impression that they will be defenders of minorities and the poor. Once they are in power, when it is too late to stop them, anyone who does not comply with their narrow view of religion and politics will be eliminated under the name of God and Islam.

That is what happened to, and will continue to happen to, those in the Baha'i community.

Told to believe that it was an inclusive and democratic revolution, many Baha'is participated in Iran's 1979 revolution. Once the Islamist party of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took power, however, its members began eliminating anyone who did not share their religious or political views.

Since the establishment of the Islamic regime, the Baha'i communities have been systematically persecuted socially, economically, religiously and politically. Tens of thousands have been executed, tortured and imprisoned.

Since the establishment of Iran's Islamic regime, the minority Baha'i communities have been systematically persecuted socially, economically, religiously and politically. Pictured at right: Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Image source: Khamenei.ir via Wikimedia Commons)

Why are the Baha'is targeted? Because of their faith. The Baha'i community, with barely 300,000 members in Iran, became one of most persecuted religious minorities, along with Christians, in Iran.

Discrimination permeates every sector, and hate speech against the Baha'is is allowed under Iran's Islamist law. According to the 2016/2017 Iran report by Amnesty International, Baha'is face:

"discrimination in law and practice, including in education, employment and inheritance, and were persecuted for practising their faith.
"The authorities engaged in hate speech and allowed hate crimes to be committed with impunity against Baha'is, and imprisoned scores of Baha'is on trumped-up national security charges imposed for peacefully practising their religious beliefs. Allegations of torture of 24 Baha'is in Golestan Province were not investigated. The authorities forcibly closed down dozens of Baha'i-owned businesses and detained Baha'i students who publicly criticized the authorities for denying them access to higher education."

The situation of the Baha'is has recently undergone an extreme deterioration, under the so-called moderate government of Iran. According to the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA), the businesses of 17 Baha'is in the province of Kerman, and 25 Baha'is in the city of Rafsanjan, were sealed shut by the Iranian regime since the April 29, 2015. Why? Because the stores had "one day closure for a religious holiday."

Last month, three Baha'i residents of Mashhad. Khashayar Taffazoli, Shayan Taffazoli, and Sina Aghdaszadeh were sentenced to one year of prison each, on charges of "acting against national security by teaching the Baha'i Faith." Their crime was their religion; there is no question that they will be tortured as they serve out their sentence.

In addition, according to Bahai News, 18 Baha'i-owned businesses in Shaheen-Shahr, Isfahan Province, were sealed by Iranian officials on May 1, 2017. Although the owners complied with the law, their businesses were closed down without notice. According to a source for Bahai News:

"the officers only targeted the Baha'i businesses and accused them of not complying with the labour law of their trade; but they have sealed the shops because of the Baha'i Holy Day festivities, a time when Baha'is close their businesses of their own volition. This sealing of the Baha'i shops happens systematically every year."

To persecute further those of the Baha'i faith, many of their sacred places have been demolished. This act was carried out by men who are reportedly affiliated with the Iranian regime and its intelligence forces.

The objectives of the Islamist law of the Iranian regime appear to be to eliminate the culture, history, faith, and community of the Baha'is. These oppressive acts of hostility go unchecked due to the stranglehold Iran's regime has on its people, created by fear. Families, like our neighbors, simply vanish.

There are currently two resolutions in the U.S. House of Representatives, House Resolution 274, and in the Senate, Senate Resolution 139. According to the Office of Public Affairs of the Baha'is of the United States:

"These resolutions shine a light on the actions of the Iranian authorities, and they contribute to an international outcry that has helped to mitigate the severity of the persecution."
...
"These resolutions detail the systematic and brutal persecution of the Baha'i community in Iran, and condemn the actions of the Iranian government toward its Baha'i citizens. They call for the release of all Baha'i prisoners – including the Baha'i leaders – and all other religious prisoners in Iran. They also express the desire of the Congress that the President and Secretary of State demand the release of these individuals. Finally, they call on the President and Secretary of State to impose sanctions on individual officials within the Iranian government who are responsible for serious human rights abuses."

Anyone who advocates peace and human rights, anyone who stands for victims of radical Islamist laws, should come to the aid of this religious minority. It will take the action and influence of outside forces to save this community from having its own government destroy it. It is not an "Iran problem", it is an epidemic of hatred and violence that will continue to spread if something is not done to stop it.

I hope that that nice Baha'i family that lived next to us are now living in peace somewhere and practicing their faith without fear of who might knock on the door. There are still entire families, hiding from the threat of persecution, torture, and death that hangs over them in their own country. They deserve to practice their faith, not in the shadows and with fear of imprisonment and torture, but with the ability to rejoice. This should be a basic right for all of us.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He is a Harvard-educated and world-renowned Iranian-American political scientist, business advisor, and author of "Peaceful Reformation in Iran's Islam". He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu.

• Follow Majid Rafizadeh on Twitter

Nonie Darwish : Accept Islamic Terror as the New Normal?

Accept Islamic Terror as the New Normal?

by Nonie Darwish
June 4, 2017 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10474/islamic-terror-new-normal

The use of terror under this doctrine [Targhib wal tarhib, "luring and terrorizing"] is a legitimate sharia obligation." — Salman Al Awda, mainstream Muslim sheikh, on the Al Jazeera television show "Sharia and Life".

1. Part of the tarhib or "terrorizing" side of this doctrine is to make a cruel example of those who do not comply with the requirements of Islam. That is the reason Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, and entities such as ISIS, intentionally hold ceremonial public beheadings, floggings, and amputation of limbs.
2. Islamic jihad has always counted on people in conquered lands eventually to yield, give up and accept terrorism as part of life, similar to natural disasters, earthquakes and floods.

After terror attacks, we often hear from Western media and politicians that we must accept terrorist attacks as the "new normal."
For Western citizens, this phrase is dangerous.

Islam's doctrine of jihad, expansion and dawah (Islamic outreach, proselytizing) rely heavily on the use of both terror and luring. Targhib wal tarhib is an Islamic doctrine that means "seducing (luring) and terrorizing" as a tool for dawah, to conquer nations and force citizens to submit to Islamic law, sharia. It amounts to manipulating the instinctive parts of the human brain with extreme opposing pressures of pleasure and pain -- rewarding, then severely punishing -- to brainwash people into complying with Islam.

Most ordinary Muslims are not even aware of this doctrine, but Islamic books have been written about it. Mainstream Muslim sheikhs such as Salman Al Awda have discussed it on Al Jazeera TV. On a show called "Sharia and Life," Al Awda recommended using extremes "to exaggerate... reward and punishment, morally and materially... in both directions". "The use of terror under this doctrine,"' he said, "is a legitimate sharia obligation."

People in the West think of terror as something that Islamic jihadists inflict on non-Muslims, and it is. But terror is also the mechanism for ensuring compliance within Islam. Under Islamic law, jihadists who evade performing jihad are to be killed. Terror is thus the threat that keeps jihadists on their missions, and that make ordinary Muslims obey sharia.

An online course for recruiting jihadists contains this description:

"Individual Dawa depends on eliciting emotional responses from recruits (and building a personal relationship). Abu 'Amr's approach illustrates a recruitment concept called al-targhib wa'l-tarhib, which is a carrot-and-stick technique of extolling the benefits of action while explaining the frightening costs of inaction. The concept was introduced in the Qur'an and is discussed by many Islamic thinkers exploring the best way to call people to Islam (several scholars, for example, have written books titled al-targhib wa'l-tarhib). According to Abu 'Amr, recruiters should apply the concept throughout the recruitment process, but emphasize the benefits of action early in the process and the costs of inaction later."

In other words, recruiters of jihadists should start by emphasizing the "good stuff" first, the "lure" -- the future glory, supremacy and fulfillment of every lustful wish, such as virgins in heaven. Later, they should threaten the recruits with "terror" and shame -- the consequence if they fail to participate in jihad.

Part of the tarhib or "terrorizing" side of this doctrine is to make a cruel example of those who do not comply with the requirements of Islam. That is the reason Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, and entities such as ISIS, intentionally hold ceremonial public beheadings, floggings, and amputation of limbs.
Countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey are more discrete, but they tolerate and support honor killings; killing apostates; beating women and children, and torture and murder in their jails. The doctrine of targhib and tarhib is alive and well, not just in Islamic theocracies but also in the so-called "moderate" Muslim countries.

Islam has been using these "pleasure and pain" brainwashing techniques, and cruel and unusual punishment, from its inception and until today. While the Bible -- the Western Judeo-Christian tradition -- is in harmony with, and nurtures, kindness in human nature, Islam does the opposite: it uses the human instincts for self-preservation and survival to break the people's will and brainwash them into slavish obedience.

Like the majority of Muslims, I never heard of this foundational Islamic doctrine when I was growing up in Egypt, but have felt the impact of this doctrine on my life -- in every aspect of Islamic culture; in Islamic preaching, in my Islamic family relations; in how Islamic governments operate and how people of authority, in general, treat the people under them.

The Islamic doctrine of "lure and terror" has produced a culture of toxic extremes: distrust and fear, pride and shame, permission to lie ("taqiyya"), and rejecting taking responsibility for one's actions.

Having lived most of my life under Islam, I am sad to say that people the West calls "moderate Muslims" are frequently, in fact, citizens who have learned to live with and accept terror as normal. 
For centuries, many have made excuses for terror, condemned victims of terror, remained silent or equivocal, and have even compromised with the terrorists to survive. 
The Islamic culture in which I lived looked the other way when women were beaten. When girls were honor-murdered, the question was "what did she do?" instead of "how could that be?" 
When Christians were killed and persecuted, many blamed the Christians for their own persecution at the hands of Muslims. 
The normal Islamic response to terror became: "None of my business."

And now the Islamic doctrine of Targhib wal Tarhib, has moved to the West and aims at changing Western humanistic culture. It would replace respect for human rights, caring for one's neighbor and the values of freedom and peace, with the values of bondage, terror, tyranny and fear.
Islamic jihad has always counted on people in conquered lands eventually to yield, give up and accept terrorism as part of life, similar to natural disasters, earthquakes and floods.
It did not take long for the Islamic doctrine of Targhib wal Tarhib to work on the psyche of Western leaders and media, who are now telling us to live with it as the "new normal." Islam counts on turning everyone into "moderate" Muslims who will eventually look the other way when terror happens to the person next to you.

The new normal? Police help survivors of the terrorist attack on London Bridge, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Nonie Darwish, born and raised in Egypt, is the author of "Wholly Different; Why I chose Biblical Values Over Islamic Values."

Giulio Meotti : After Middle East, Will Islamists Uproot Christians in Europe?

After Middle East, Will Islamists Uproot Christians in Europe?

by Giulio Meotti
June 4, 2017 at 6:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10455/islamists-uproot-christians

• About terrorism and Islamist violence, Christian leaders offer only words of relativism and moral equivalence. Is it possible that after two recent big massacres of Christians, Catholic leaders have not a single word of courage and honor, but only the same offer of the other cheek?
• Our secular elites condemn proselytizing only when it is practiced by Christians, never when practiced by Muslims.
• In Syria and Iraq, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of places of Christian worship that Islamic fundamentalists have demolished in the past three years. These images, along with the mass decapitations and the rape of the minorities, shock the public, it seems, for one day.

We do not yet know enough about the three terrorists who, saying "This is for Allah!", killed and wounded so many in London on June 4, but consider these two recent scenes:

Scene one: Manchester, United Kingdom, the "free world". A British-born Muslim terrorist prays in a former church. All around him, the Christian sites and congregations accepted being turned into Islamic sites. The day after, this terrorist goes on a rampage, murdering 22 concert-goers.

Scene two: Minya, Egypt, the "unfree world". An Islamist terror group stops a bus full of Christian pilgrims. The terrorists demand that their victims recite the Islamic creed, the shahaada. The Christians refuse to abandon Christianity and become Muslims. The Islamists murder them, one by one.

What do these scenes tell us? Christians resist Islam more in the Middle East than in Europe.

Salman Abedi, the British terrorist who massacred 22 innocent men, women and children at the Manchester Arena, could, every day, enter what was once a beautiful Christian church, consecrated in 1883. It was desecrated in the 1960s, during a great wave of secularization. 
People still remember the Methodist Church that it was until it was bought by the local Syrian Muslim community to make it a place of Islamic worship, the Didsbury Mosque. 
One can still see the typical architecture of a church, from the bell tower to the windows. But inside, instead of an altar, Abedi would be headed to the mihrab, the niche in the mosque that indicates the direction of Mecca. 
The pulpit is still there, but it is no longer used by a Christian pastor. It is used by the imam for the Khutba, the Islamic prayer.
Outside the Didsbury Mosque there is a sign announcing: "Do you want to know more about Islam? Come and socialize". Such a sign for Christianity would be unthinkable in any European city. Our secular elites condemn proselytizing only when it is practiced by Christians, never when practiced by Muslims. 
On YouTube, an Islamist organization celebrates "the church converted to a mosque". Instead of the times for Mass, there is another sign: "Prayer Room for Men".

A few days after the Manchester attack, Islamists again struck Christians; this time, pilgrims in Egypt. That attack took place after Pope Francis's trip to Egypt, where he offered the local suffering Christians only a vague condemnation of "every form of hatred in the name of religion".
The head of the Catholic Church evidently did not have the courage to address the question of Islamic fundamentalism, as had his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, at Regensburg.

"Religions do not cause violence and terrorism", assured the new head of Italian bishops, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, after the massacre in Manchester, adding: "Muslims, Jews and Christians believe in a single creator". 
Unfortunately, the terrorists murdered the Christians in Minya because they believe Allah is superior to the Judeo-Christian religion, and gives them the right to take the lives of "disbelievers".

About terrorism and Islamist violence, Christian leaders offer only words of relativism and moral equivalence.

Is it possible that after two big massacres of Christians, Catholic leaders have not a single word of courage and honor, but only the same offer of the other cheek?

The most honest Catholic prelate was the Archbishop of Ferrara, Luigi Negri, who said:

"I hope that some of these gurus -- cultural, political and religious -- in this situation will hold back words and not invoke the usual speeches to say that 'it is not a war of religion'. I hope there is a silent moment of respect".

The gurus, unfortunately, did not hold back; they had words only of weakness and confusion.

These Islamic fighters, such as those who hit Manchester and Minya, are not "radicalized"; they follow an Islamic religious dictate according to a literal reading of the Koran. They attack Europeans because they believe that Islam is superior and stronger than Europe. They feel that Allah and history are on their side. They want to see the flag of Islam flying across Western capitals.

The jihadists might think they can do to Europe what they did to Christians in Niniveh, Iraq. The only way we can win is by defeating them; no compromise is possible.
But Europe speaks of "inclusion" and "integration", never of victory.

While Muslims pray in Europe's former Christian sites, Christians in the Middle East are murdered for refusing to renounce Christianity and convert to Islam.

Father Antonio Gabriel, of the San Mina parish of the Coptic church in Rome, in the course of an interview with Tg2000, revealed the dynamics of the new Islamist aggression against the Egyptian Coptic community. The terrorists, before killing the passengers of two buses traveling to the San Samuele monastery, "asked them to give up Christ and become Muslims". But, at the demand for apostasy, the Christian Copts responded negatively. The rejection of conversion to Islam triggered the fury of terrorists, who "put the gun on the head and neck" of pilgrims "to kill them directly".

"If they had accepted", Father Gabriel pointed out, "they would have spared them".
The same strong-arming took place in Iraq. When ISIS militants gave four Iraqi children the choice of converting to Islam or death by beheading, the children chose to follow Jesus and were murdered.

But these amazing stories never reach the European mainstream newspapers and televisions, as if the information might disturb our self-righteous certainties. "For decades, the Middle East's increasingly beleaguered Christian communities have suffered from a fatal invisibility in the Western world", Ross Douthat wrote in the New York Times. Is that invisibility the result of the West forsaking of its own identity, as happened with the church in Manchester?

In Syria and Iraq, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of places of Christian worship that Islamic fundamentalists have demolished in the past three years. 
These images shock public opinion, it seems, for one day -- along with the mass decapitations and the rape of the minorities. Churches, cemeteries and archaeological sites -- every building that carried the symbols of the Christian faith (crosses, statues of the Virgin Mary, icons of the saints, even graves) -- were razed to the ground. 

But is the demise of Christianity in the heart of Europe, by churches converted to mosques, less severe? And why has Pope Francis not condemned the abandonment of Christian holy sites and their takeover by Islam?

Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov, chairman of the Russian Orthodox Church Commission on Family Matters, recently announced:

"There is very little time left until the death of the entire Christian Civilization. Several decades, perhaps 30 years, well, maybe in Russia it will last 50, no longer."

It is impossible for any observer to deny that Christianity is descending into a terminal crisis in Europe. Catholic leaders in the Netherlands estimate that two-thirds of their 1,600 churches will be out of use in a decade, and that 700 Dutch Protestant churches will be closed within four years. 

The Church of England closes around 20 churches a year. The Catholic Church in Germany has closed about 515 churches over the last ten years. You find the same scenario everywhere in Europe.

"I have often heard from Muslims that their goal is to conquer Europe with two weapons: their faith and their birthrate," said the Maronite patriarch of Antioch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai. "So when they come to Europe and see the empty churches, and find the unbelief of Europeans, they immediately think that they will fill that void".

This is one of the most tragic ironies of our time: that Christians in Europe, including Pope Francis, have a lot to learn from Christians in Egypt, Syria and Iraq.

Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, the Maronite patriarch of Antioch, has said "I have often heard from Muslims that their goal is to conquer Europe with two weapons: their faith and their birthrate... So when they come to Europe and see the empty churches, and find the unbelief of Europeans, they immediately think that they will fill that void". (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)

After another ISIS jihadist slit the throat of an 85-year-old priest, Father Jacques Hamel, during a Catholic mass in France, no rally was called to protest his murder. No secular personality or newspaper said, "We are all Christians". The entire Christian establishment refused to write the word "Islam".

Make no mistake; these Islamists are very clear in their goal: eradicating Christians not only from Mosul, as they did in 2014, but also uprooting Christians from Manchester, where churches are already converted to Islam. The pumped-up forces who drove Christians out of their ancestral lands rightly thought: Why not continue in the West the work begun so well in the East?

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.