RUTHFULLY YOURS

Vadim Nikitim is the genius who last week proposed not only that we treat ISIS as a state, but that we grant ISIS diplomatic recognition.

Rather than realizing that the Soviet Union collapsed because of its economic system, Nikitim seems to think it fell apart because countries such as the US and UK recognized it diplomatically — demonstrating that there is no better way to get the present wrong than by getting the past wrong.

The case of Saudi prince Saud bin Abdulaziz Bin Nasir might give the impression that you can rape and kill a manservant in a London hotel and get away with only the lightest of sentences.

Ambassadors from ISIS, on the other hand, will need to prove themselves somewhat, and first funnel many lucrative contracts our way before behavior like this becomes acceptable.

Of course, there is always that pesky problem: What if militant Islam (or Iran) does not want to “forge a long (or short) peace” with us? Is there a Plan B?

It is that Dumb Idea of the Year Award time again, and among the many stellar contenders, one in particular stands out.

Rome — “I was forced to flee the country with my family after a violent attack on my residence by extremists,” said Dr. Paul Bhatti, a surgeon who had to flee his homeland of Pakistan. Speaking to an international conference on religious liberty (titled “Under Caesar’s Sword”) here this month, he said: “One morning, I awoke to find extremists trying to cut the steel security bars on the front windows of my residence. This was unsettling, to say the least.”

He understates it because, in retrospect, it was far from the worst his family would suffer.

Dr. Bhatti decided for the sake of his family and career to move to Italy, disappointing his brother, Shahbaz. Paul wanted Shahbaz to leave too; Shahbaz wanted Paul to return. “He was trying to convince me to return to Pakistan because of the dire and pressing needs of the community, while I was arguing with him that he should move to Europe because his very life was in danger. Shahbaz was no stranger to death threats by men who despised his religion and his work on behalf of the helpless. Looking back, I realize I was arguing from a rational and human perspective with a man whose gaze was fixed on Heaven.” Paul was begging Shahbaz to leave Pakistan, but he was insistent on staying and doing what he could to helping others. One friend recalls a young girl who was raped, whom no one else would help because she came from a Christian family.

Shahbaz Bhatti stayed, explaining that, as Paul recounted, “he had surrendered his life into Jesus’ hands and would follow Jesus until his last breath.” During their last conversation, in which Shahbaz urged his brother to come home, Paul replied, “You are calling me to leave paradise for hell.” Shahbaz insisted: “The road leading to paradise starts in Pakistan.”

Shahbaz was murdered in March 2011, while serving as minister for minority affairs. “His determination to stop all kinds of injustices and to protect the oppressed and marginalized communities cost him his life,” his brother explains.

Paul’s reaction was the natural one. “The news of Shahbaz’s murder shook me to the core. I was devastated, disheartened, and furious all at the same time. I immediately flew to Pakistan to attend my brother’s funeral. My intention was to retrieve members of my family and move them to safety in Italy and Canada, and say farewell to Pakistan forever. My conviction, at that moment, was that Pakistan was unworthy of the services of my family.”

In 1965 Elizabeth Warnock Fernea joined her husband, a social anthropologist, in a southern Iraqi village. Her time there is recorded in Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. Although balking at first, she decides to wear the “servile garment” [or abayah] in order to be “well thought of in [her] new home.” She discovers that in this society “an uncovered woman is an immoral woman” and “women don’t appear in the market.” These same women are often illiterate, make camel dung pancakes for fuel, may be one of the many wives of the sheik, and prepare food for any guests that appear since “tradition decrees that any guest may expect food and a bed for three days without any questions asked.”

Fernea also learns that “a Shiite Moslem . . . would not eat food which had been touched by Christians, and any dish from which a Christian guest had eaten or drunk was smashed so that the infidel wouldn’t contaminate the faithful.” Since she and her husband were Christian, no one in the village would do their laundry.

In addition, “paternal first-cousin marriage was the preferred marriage arrangement.”

One young girl, Amina had been “married to a sixty-five year old man when she was fifteen. Her marriage brought nothing but grief for she nearly died delivering a stillborn son.” When her husband died, she was purchased for twenty pounds and given to the sheik’s wife. Yet, Aimna considered herself very fortunate since she could “have as much bread as she want[ed] every day.”

Fernea describes the period of deepest mourning in the Islamic month of Muharram. In the seventh century, Hussein, grandson of the prophet Mohammed was slain in battle on the plains of Karbala. His death contributed to the split into Shiite and Sunni sects. During this month, the Shiite communities in Iraq, Iran and India commemorate Hussein’s martyrdom. Though some Iraqis found the ceremonies, i.e., flagellation, uncivilized and backward, the ritual persists to present day.

Fernea explains that while every Moslem hopes to visit Mecca, the Shiite Moslem has an additional duty to visit the shrines of the twelve imams of the Shiite sect and “the essential character of the pilgrimage has not changed much in a thousand years.

Fast forward to Mahtob Mahmoody’s book entitled My Name Is Mahtob where the reader learns of the events following the daring escape of Betty Mahmoody recounted in Not Without My Daughter. On August 1, 1984, Mahtob’s father took his wife and daughter back to Iran for a two-week vacation. But it was not until 1986, that Betty and her daughter would escape the tyranny of her husband and return to America. Now in 2015, Mahtob writes about the trials and triumphs that have colored her life. She describes how “the women wore black chadors . . . revealing only a portion of the face. The chador was held in place from the inside, so even the skin of their hands was hidden.” She had a glimpse of her future when her father stated “you are in Iran until you die. Now you’re in my country. You’ll abide by my rules.” Betty and Mahtob constantly feared for their lives.

These barbarians are now called “Islamic State Militants” instead of terrorists?……rsk

BAGHDAD—Islamic State fighters fled their last bastion in the center of the city of Ramadi on Sunday, putting Iraqi forces and their allies within reach of their third major victory in as many months against the extremist group.
Though the Iraqi forces have built up momentum against the militants, Islamic State still controls major cities and vast territory in both Iraq and Syria and has carried out or inspired recent terror attacks from Paris to California.
State television beamed images of young men cheering, dancing and singing in streets across Iraq while greeting passing soldiers, even though the army hadn’t yet declared Ramadi completely under its control.
Security forces have encircled a former government compound that was the last area of the city held by Islamic State and prepared a final push to clear out any remaining fighters and explosives, Iraqi officials said. A number of Iraqi leaders said they were confident the city would fall imminently, once the army cleared hundreds of land mines and other explosives.
“Our forces reached the government compound and surrounded it,” said Capt. Rami Emad, a military spokesman. “We don’t think the forces will enter the compound tonight since it has become dark and they are clearing the surrounding roads and buildings of improvised explosive devices.”

The great struggle against radical Islam is being complicated in the West by a phobia of Islamophobia.
Of course, prejudice against Muslims should be condemned. But the accusation of Islamophobia confuses prejudice with legitimate criticism of Islam and concerns about Islamic extremism.
An example of this has surfaced in Britain with the publication by an organization called Hope not Hate (HnH), titled, “The Counter-Jihad Movement: Anti-Muslim Hatred from the Margins to the Mainstream.”
This document profiles 920 organizations and individuals in 22 countries. It says that they make no distinction between moderate Muslims and extremists, that they are “mainstreaming” anti-Muslim hatred, and that their “anti-Muslim rhetoric poisons the political discourse sometimes with deadly effect.”
Outrageously, the document links neo-Nazi and fascist groups with Middle East scholars such as Dr. Daniel Pipes and even with courageous Muslim reformers such as Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, and stellar counter- jihadists such as the Somalian campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
A number of these counter-jihadists already live under a permanent Islamist threat to their lives. Yet, astoundingly, HnH accuses them of spreading anti-Muslim hatred.
I, too, am included in this grotesque list, even though I have repeatedly acknowledged the many millions of Muslims who are neither extreme nor violent and emphasized that the Islamist perspective is merely one interpretation of Islam. Moreover, I am described as a “supporter of Israel” – as if it is axiomatic that Israel supporters will be Muslim-bashers.
Like several other victims of this document’s smears, I have placed this matter in the hands of my lawyers. But there is a yet more disturbing aspect to this calumny. For HnH is supported and backed by mainstream UK Jewish organizations.

Other than the need to discredit her party’s former leader and push what might be termed the Turnbull Doctrine of warm-and-cuddly relativism, what in the name of Heaven could have possessed the Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs to present Islamic dogma as incontrovertible fact?
It is entirely appropriate for Australians to hold Muslims accountable for the statements and actions of their religious leaders. Writing in The Australian, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has attempted to throw light on the challenge of Islamic radicalism. She offers a ‘reality check’ by injecting what she asserts are ‘basic facts’ into the public debate. However she only succeeds in promoting misinformation and multiplying confusion.

Why must the Australian assistant minister for multicultural affairs present Islamic dogma as incontrovertible fact? Fierravanti-Wells astonishingly declares the Koran to be ‘a collection of revelations from God to the Prophet Mohammed.’ Does she really accept it as a ‘basic fact’ – for the purpose of public debate – that Mohammed was God’s prophet, or that the Koran is a genuine revelation from God? Surely only a believing Muslim could make such a declaration and mean it?

Why can Fierravanti-Wells not show more sensitivity to disbelievers in Islam – the majority of her audience – by adopting an objective stance, for example by saying ‘Muslims believe the Koran to be a collection of revelations from God,’ or ‘Muslims believe Mohammed to be a prophet’?

Good for a Laugh

Why are Christians mocked with a vitriol that would be “hate speech” if directed at any other group? Opposition by some of Christ’s followers to elements of the liberal-progressive agenda must surely be one reason. Another might be that our brave artists target only those who turn the other cheek
Picture this: on the side of a van in a busy street, a larger-than-life representation of the holy Prophet himself, stepping out on a journey, perhaps en route to Medina during the Hegira. He is carrying a heavy burden. Between him and a bystander, who seems rather taken aback by this apparition, a bubble contains the words, “How much to Ballarat?”

The van belongs to an “art courier” called Artist Moving Artists, and you can see the image on its website (www.artistmovingartists.com.au). But just before you check, of course the image doesn’t represent Mohammed. As if it would and the van still be driving freely around. Someone would have complained by now or sued under Section 18C citing Islamophobia. In some places—perhaps even here soon—the van would be torched or the driver decapitated.

No, the image represents Christ and He is carrying His cross, and for all the apparent ease with which He is depicted shouldering this burden, He is on His way to be crucified. The crucifixion of Christ, as Quadrant readers will not need to be reminded, but a lot of other people these days evidently do, is at the heart of the Christian religion. It and the scourging and the long trek up the hill to Calvary which preceded it are not only sacred redemptive events for Christians but in human terms a horrifying sequence of brutality and suffering. So of course to a certain mind they are a perfect topic to make fun of, a golden opportunity for satirising a bruised and bleeding man on his way to a cruel death.

The Christians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are no different from their brothers in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Libya, who face a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing at the hands Islamist groups. Yet Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders want the world to blame only Israel for the predicament of Christians.

The PA’s decision to cancel Christmas celebrations had nothing to do with Israel or the “intifada.” It came after threats by Muslim extremists to target Christians and their holy sites.

On Christmas Day, Muslim Palestinians hurled stones at the car taking the head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land to Bethlehem. It would not surprise anyone if next year the PA decides to cancel Christmas celebrations for “security reasons.”

If, in the media and the international community, this strategy of turning a blind eye to the Muslim persecution of Christians continues, next year’s Christmas in Bethlehem is sure to be an even less happy one.

This was not a happy Christmas for our Palestinian brothers in the West Bank who happen to be Christian. The Palestinian Christians have now become a tiny minority in Bethlehem. This year, they were just lucky that Christmas passed without a major terrorist attack or serious outbreaks of violence.

On Christmas day, Muslim Palestinians hurled stones at the car taking the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, to Bethlehem. Twal, head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, was fortunately not hurt in the attack. The stone-throwers, local residents said, were from a refugee camp near Bethlehem. They had apparently said they were opposed to holding any form of celebrations in Bethlehem — on the pretext that there is no reason to celebrate while Palestinians are being killed by Israelis — who, by the way, have merely been trying to stop Palestinians from killing them.

Butchering innocents is standard operating procedure for Arab/Moslem barbarians….remember this atrocity? ” …..an attack on a Jewish family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank took place on 11 March 2011, in which five members of the same family were murdered in their beds. The victims were the father Ehud (Udi) Fogel, the mother Ruth Fogel, and three of their six children—Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, the youngest, a three-month-old infant. The infant was decapitated. rsk

“People are even killed inside the camps, and the refugees are afraid to say if they saw somebody get killed. … they’re buying and selling ladies and even girls.”— Former ISIS operative.

“We will not stop hunting Christians and burning churches. Christians are Allah’s enemies!” — Extremist Islamic leaders, Indonesia.

“My family members and I have been marked for death, and everyone in the community denied ever knowing my family or me…” — A convert to Christianity, Nigeria.

“In Bangladesh, Christians are a weak minority and this is why Muslims are attacking us.” — Nirmal Rozario, general secretary of the Bangladesh Christian Association.

Teams of trained killers disguised as refugees were sent by the Islamic State (IS) into U.N. refugee camps to kill Christians, including “in their beds,” and to kidnap young girls to sell or use as slaves. This was revealed on October 24, according to a report, soon after an IS operative “got cold feet and renounced jihad after witnessing Christians helping out other refugees within the camp. He then revealed that he had been sent with an Islamist hit squad to eliminate Christians as part of the hate group’s ideological drive to wipe the religion off the map.” The report also quoted an aid worker saying:

They’re like a mafia. People are even killed inside the camps, and the refugees are afraid to say if they saw somebody get killed. If you ask them, they’ll say, “I don’t know, I was asleep.”… The camps are dangerous because they have IS, Iraqi militias and Syrian militias. It’s another place for gangs…. They’re killing inside the camps, and they’re buying and selling ladies and even girls.

A woman falsely accused of burning a Koran was ripped to pieces by a mob in Afghanistan. The woman, Farkhunda Malikzada, was falsely accused by a merchant who was selling Viagra and magical pregnancy amulets.

The tormented final hours of Farkhunda Malikzada, a 27-year-old aspiring student of Islam who was [falsely] accused of burning a Quran in a Muslim shrine, shocked Afghans across the country. That is because many of her killers filmed one another beating her and posted clips of her broken body on social media. Hundreds of other men watched, holding their phones aloft to try to get a glimpse of the violence, but never making a move to intervene. Those standing by included several police officers.

At first, the trial and convictions that followed seemed a victory in the long struggle to give Afghan women their due in a court of law. But a deeper look suggests otherwise. The fortuneteller who several investigators believe set the events in motion was found not guilty on appeal. The shrine’s custodian, who concocted the false charge of Quran burning and incited the mob, had his death sentence commuted. Police officers who failed to send help and others who stood by received slaps on the wrist, at most. Some attackers identifiable in the videos avoided capture altogether.

Farkhunda’s death and the legal system’s response call into question more than a decade of Western efforts in Afghanistan to instill a rule of law and improve the status of women. The United States alone has spent more than $1 billion to train lawyers and judges and to improve legal protections for women; European countries have provided tens of millions more.