Germany Avoids Criticizing Radical Islam and Radical Muslims

By Sami Alrabaa

The German media and some German public figures are soft, too soft, on radical Islam and avoid critics and critique of this violent “religion.” The audio-visual media invite only uncritical talking heads. The print media publish only articles by apologists of Islam. Here are some examples:

The recent confession of the four Muslim terrorists, also called the “Suaerland Group,” who were planning to kill as many Americans in Germany as they could, was hailed by the judge, state prosecutor, and the media. The devastating terrorist attack prepared by these men was foiled from a tip by the CIA, which the German media depict as not abiding by the law and acting against human rights.

The German media and some German politicians hailed the confession and deliberately ignored the ideological/religious sources of their attack, namely the Koran and Hadith, which incite Muslims to kill non-Muslims.

In an interview with Al Arabiya TV (August 16th), Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a leading politician of the Green Party in the European Parliament, presented radical Muslims as “part of a socio-political religious movement across the world, like the RAF, the German terrorist group we had in the 1970s.”

Cohn-Bendit argued that a dialogue with radical Muslims must be established, also with the Taliban. He reminded his interviewer that he (Cohn-Bendit) and the former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer used to sympathize with the RAF.

They took to the street and threw stones on the police. “As the Green Party was established as a radical social ecological movement, I joined the party. Little by little, the Green party was accepted by the German political establishment, and now it is a full-fledged political party.” Cohn-Bendit added.

Also, Cohn-Bendit praised Turkey for reconciling Islam with democracy.

The truth of the matter, the AKP, the Islamic party that is ruling Turkey is slowly but steadily Islamizing Turkey. It is also true that Islam is against democracy and formation of parties. Both the Koran and Hadith reject democracy and the formation of political parties. According to a recent poll, the ultimate aim of Islamic Turkey is Sharia, and this what the majority of Turks inside and outside turkey want to see established.

To add insult to injury, Cohn-Bendit said the maiming and killing of innocent people “has nothing to do with Islam.” And radical Muslims are fighting a justice war against their oppressors. He also argued that foreign troops must leave Afghanistan and Iraq and “leave the people of these nations in peace.”

In other words, fanatic Muslim regimes in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia must be left alone, rule against human rights and export terrorisms. Hence Cohn-Bendit and his ilk have joined the Muslim chaplains on Muslim media.

Further, Cohn-Bendit suggested that Islam “be modernized and can be modernized, like all other religions.”

Read more here,,,,

Source: Europe News

Is Britain's Dialogue with Hezbollah Misleading?

By Walid Phares

The British government's recent announcement that it will open a dialogue with "the political wing of Hezbollah" is most troubling.

In a statement before a parliamentary committee, Bill Rammell, the British foreign office's minister for Middle East affairs, rationalized the decision on the grounds of what his office perceives to be "more positive developments within Lebanon."

This British declaration underscores a pervasive failure to properly understand the structure of the Iranian-backed terrorist organization. At worst, the call to distinguish between the group's political and military wings (in terms of decision-making) may be driven by a desire to construct imaginary facts for diplomatic and political purposes. Are officials selling a false image of what Hezbollah is so that they join in the "sitting, talking and listening" with Iran and Syria's regimes now underway?

Very possible. But it would have been much better to inform the public that the government intends to talk to a terrorist organization for purpose of national interest, rather than claiming the talks are only with the political wing. Eight years after 9/11 and the subsequent attacks worldwide, citizens are much better informed about jihadist organizations than they were in the 1990's.

Officials in the United Kingdom and the United States must realize that claiming there are two Hezbollahs will not fly with most of the public.

Hezbollah was founded by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) in 1981. Its military organization, responsible for terror operations, is part of the Consultative Council (al majliss al Istisharee), which is Hezbollah's supreme command, along with the organization's legislators, Fatwa clerics, financial executives and political operatives. This Hezbollah "politburo" oversees the military, security, doctrinal and political actions of the entire apparatus — there is no structural delineation.

Furthermore, the Jihad Council — Hezbollah's War Department — which issues the orders for acts of terror, is headed by the secretary general of the organization, Hassan Nasrallah. The council includes many of the organization's "political leaders" — Hashem Safi al Din, Hussein al Khalil, Abbas Ruhani, Ibrahim Aqil, Fuad Shukr, Nabil Kauq and others.

Hezbollah is not the I.R.A., which had a clearer delineation between its militia and its military wing, the Sin Fein. Moreover, Lebanon is not Northern Ireland. Yes, British citizens can be easily led to make the comparison by government officials who use the clichés by which most Britons remember the I.R.A., but the attempt to fool the public will be short-lived. The lack of separation between Hezbollah's political and military operations is well documented in public sources. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply ridiculous.

If the British government wishes to make that distinction, they will find themselves incapable of answering the most basic questions. Nasrallah, as the secretary general and purported partner in any dialogue, is at the same time the chief political executive of the organization and Hezbollah's supreme military commander. How then will meeting Nasrallah be political, when he is the commander in chief of the militia and its security apparatuses? Will diplomats meet with him between 9:00 and 11:00 AM when he is a secretary general and avoid him at other hours when he wears his military hat? It simply doesn't make sense.

If the British government wishes to engage in talks with a terrorist organization, it must make that case and not obfuscate its true intentions of working with Hezbollah's political wing. At the end of the day, Hezbollah will remain who it is, who it says it is and who it will continue to be: a terrorist organization devoted to Jihad against the West. It is more honest to try to convince the public that the time to talk with Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, and even perhaps Hamas, has come. It will be more productive to acknowledge that some liberal democracies aren't able to carry the load of a confrontation with the jihadists than to attempt to rewrite history and reality.

Even if the British government chooses to engage with Hezbollah — which is certainly a questionable strategy — they should not do so on the false pretense that there are "two Hezbollahs" just as there were two I.R.A.s. There are not, and the British people are well aware of that fact. Moreover, any negotiations which are premised on such a mischaracterization by the interlocutor cannot possibly succeed for the British. Hezbollah, on the other hand, can and likely will.

Dr. Walid Phares, author of "The Confrontation: Winning the War on Future Jihad" is the director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

Source: EuropeNews

Death threats for French imam who preaches peace with Jewish neighbours

Women walk past a synagogue in Lille, northern France, tagged with
the inscription Zog (Zionist Occupation Government) and a swastika.

By Lizzy Davies

Hassen Chalghoumi has devoted his life to bringing people together. For years he has preached the values of inter-faith harmony from his mosque in Paris's poor and fractious north-eastern suburbs, working with Jewish leaders, inviting them to his home and urging young people of all religions to embrace harmony in place of hatred.

But today the imam, whose work has been hailed by religious and political leaders, was in fear of his life and under police protection in Drancy after the tensions lying dormant in his community were reawoken by the conflict over 2,000 miles away in Gaza.

Enraged by his determination to show solidarity with the Jewish community at a time when they feel the battle lines are clear, unknown French Muslims have left death threats on his mobile phone. Some have stopped him in the street to warn him he is going "too far". His car has been vandalised and drenched in fuel. Read more ...

Source: GuardianImam Hassen Chalghoumi
Latest recipient of The MASH Award

Muslim converts to Christianity ask religious experts at Vatican meeting for religious freedom

Muslim converts to Christianity ask religious experts at Vatican meeting for religious freedom
An appeal by 144 people calls on experts engaged in talks not to forget the difficult predicament in which Christians live. Often treated as “outsiders and outcastes”, they urgently demand protection for the right to change religion.

Rome (AsiaNews) – A group of 144 Christians, including 77 Muslims who converted to Christianity, have launched an appeal to Muslim and Catholics scholars who are currently meeting in the Vatican not to forget Christian minorities and new Christian converts living in Islamic countries. The petitioners, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestants from North Africa and the Middle Eat, want the meeting in the Vatican to agree to the following points:

1. that Islamic law does not apply to non-Muslims;

2. that dhimmi (or second class) status be abolished;

3. that the right to change religion be recognised as a fundamental right.

The appeal that was sent to AsiaNews was also published on an Algerian Christian site, Notre Dame de Kabylie (in French).

Those who signed the appeal are happy for the steps taken in the last few years and for the Letter signed by 128 Muslim scholars which many see as a sign that “Islam is not anti-Christian.”

They stress however that the minority condition endured by Christians in Muslim countries, already influenced by the unbearable status of dhimmi (group protection extended by Islamic rulers to their non-Muslim subjects in exchange for paying a tax, which in effect denies them equal treatment in society), has worsened lately as a result of the rise of militant Islamism.

“As for new Christians or converts, they are denied the right to express their new religious identity unless they are prepared to run the risk of being called apostate, which, if they can, effectively forces them into exile,” the appeal said.

Those who signed the appeal want the meeting between the Vatican and Muslim scholars to focus on “three urgent topics”:

1. that Islamic law not be applied to non-Muslims;

2. that dhimmi status, which marginalises Christians and turns them into outcastes, no longer be acceptable and be abolished instead because like slavery it offends human dignity;

3. that the right to change religions be recognised as a fundamental right since it comes from God who does not force anyone to worship him.”

To buttress its arguments, the appeal also points out that in the Qur’an there verses that are in favour of religious freedom even if some hadith call for the death of apostates.

“Sadly, some states have incorporated the latter in their constitution (ex. Mauritania), which they enforce despite the 1948 Universal declaration of Human Rights.”

In reaffirming the need for an Islamic-Christian dialogue, the signers of the appeal urge the experts “to take into account Christian communities who live in the said ‘Muslim’ world, or who hail from there. Leaving us out or forgetting about us can only be a sign of ignorance or a deliberate attempt to avoid the issues that cause problems. It is sad to say that current news reports unfailingly show that Christians in the Muslim world are in grave peril.”

Source: Asia News

When Dialogue Becomes Dangerous

By Mark Silverberg

Last month's meeting between former President Jimmy Carter and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus has once again highlighted the perils of negotiating with terrorists. Carter emerged from that meeting and declared that Hamas, under certain conditions, was prepared to recognize Israel. Like so many other naïve idealists, he does not understand that Hamas was, is and remains an uncompromising jihadist organization bent on the conquest of its neighbor, regardless of what it says.

In March 2007, the Director of the Centre for Defense Studies at King's College, Peter R. Neumann, laid out the essential premise for not negotiating with terrorists: "Democracies must never give in to violence, and terrorists must never be rewarded for using it. Negotiations give legitimacy to terrorists and their methods undermine actors who have pursued political change through peaceful means. Talks can destabilize the negotiating governments' political systems and undercut international efforts to outlaw terrorism." Read more ...

Source: Family Security Matters