RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/islam-global-muslim-jew-hatred-and-failed-jewish-andrew-g-bostom/

[Editor’s note: Below is the text of Dr. Andrew Bostom’s 10-minute talk in Nashville TN, on Thursday Feb 27, 2020, during a ‘Proclaiming Justice to The Nations, Panel on Antisemitism’, at The National Religious Broadcasters Convention.]

Islamic Law, Sharia, per Koran 9:29—the 9th sura or chapter, the 29th verse—mandates waging jihad war to submit Jews and Christians to a humiliating status of religious discrimination, and legal inequality, if they do not accept the true faith, i.e., Islam.

Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

But Islam also singles the Jews out, uniquely, for opprobrium, as is evident in the 7th verse of the Koran’s first chapter, called the “fatiha,” or “opening,” which pious Muslims repeat 17- times daily. This verse refers to those who have “incurred Allah’s anger”, and both a tradition of Islam’s prophet Muhammad himself, and over 13 centuries of authoritative Koranic commentaries, till now, maintain this reference is to the Jews. Why have they engendered Allah’s anger? Here is a 1940 summary “rationale” by the great scholar of Islam’s anti-Jewish polemic Moshe Perlmann, from a chapter entitled, “Jews in the Koran and Traditions” (which mirrors a 1966 work by Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, modern Sunni Islam’s greatest Koranic commentator, and Papal equivalent Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s Vatican, from 1996 to 2010, also entitled, “Jews in the Koran and Traditions”):

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/iran-becomes-ground-zero-coronavirus-pandemic-ari-lieberman/

On Monday, Iran’s Ministry of Health released new data concerning the coronavirus. It said that 66 people have died from the virus while 1501 have been infected. But given the Health Ministry’s propensity for lying, the figure for those dead and infected is likely much greater.

The rampant spread of coronavirus in Iran was a problem largely the result of the Islamic Republic’s own making. In early February, Iranian officials were aware of a potential problem in the city of Qom, where a shrine holy to Shia Muslims served as a breeding ground for the transmission of the virus. Yet authorities took no action to quarantine the city or even warn residents to take safety precautions. The shrine still remains open to visitors and video has recently emerged showing people licking the shrine.

By the time health officials began taking action, it was a case of too little too late. Iran’s Deputy Health Minister, Iraj Harirchi, downplayed claims made a city lawmaker that deaths from COVID-19 had reached 50 and said that he would resign from his post if that assertion was accurate. A day later, Harirchi became a victim of COVID-19 and was under quarantine but not before he was observed coughing on those adjacent to him during the previous day’s press briefing. Several other Iranian diplomats and parliamentarians have since been infected, and at least two have died including a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran’s bumbling and incompetence in dealing with the health crisis can be attributed to the Islamic Republic’s unwillingness to acknowledge weakness and vulnerability. Its healthcare system is woefully inadequate. There are dire shortages of masks, medicines and testing kits. In the final analysis, the regime’s deceit, incompetence and corruption has spread fear and cost lives.

Iran’s handling of the crisis stands in marked contrast to how its arch nemesis Israel is addressing the issue. While Iranian officials are spewing little else but propaganda, the Israelis are at the forefront of inventing cures and treatments for the coronavirus.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15638/china-religion-crackdown

“In practice, your religion no longer matters, if you are Buddhist, or Taoist, or Muslim or Christian: the only religion allowed is faith in the Chinese Communist Party.” — A Catholic priest, AsiaNews.it, December 31, 2019.

One mother, who is a member of The Church of Almighty God, said that her son told her to abandon her faith when he returned home after school. “My son told me that if I get arrested, our entire family will be finished. He threatened to jump off the building to end his life if I continued practicing my faith,” she recently told Bitter Winter.

One shop-owner told Bitter Winter, “A few years ago, many shops sold religious couplets. In 2018, the government started banning them. Last year, all couplets were confiscated from shops, and this year, sellers are threatened to be fined and imprisoned. No one sells them in Shangqiu anymore. Who dares to risk?”

China, meanwhile, maintains that its human rights record is admirable. According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, “The Chinese people are in the best position to judge China’s human rights condition, which is at its historical best.” — Time.com, January 15, 2020.

China is increasing its already extremely severe suppression of religious freedom. More than a year ago, at a November 2018 hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, the President of the Religious Freedom Institute, Thomas F. Farr, described China’s religious suppression as “the most systematic and brutal attempt to control Chinese religious communities since the Cultural Revolution.”

On December 30, 2019, China’s Communist Party (CCP) announced new “Administrative Measures for Religious Groups”. The measures — which came into force on February 1, 2020 — stipulate that religious organizations exist to promote the CCP and its ideology, according to Bitter Winter, a magazine on religious liberty and human rights in China.

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/europe-appeasement/

The word “appeasement” evokes dark memories of the Munich 1938 agreement, in which Britain and France made far-reaching concessions to the aggressive German Nazi state in order to avoid violent conflict. The betrayed victim was Czechoslovakia, which was not even invited to the conference at which its fate was to be decided. The outbreak of WWII in 1939 showed, of course, that the agreement was a gross error in judgment. Sadly, the West does not appear to have learned much from Neville Chamberlain’s misguided proclamation of “peace in our time”.

The reality that antisemitism is an integral part of European culture is not the only issue dividing the EU and Israel. There is also the serious problem of chronic and habitual appeasement, though it is not often identified as such.

The quintessential example of Western appeasement in recent years was the 2015 nuclear agreement forged by the Obama administration with the Islamic Republic of Iran (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). The four other members of the Security Council plus Germany all signed this flawed agreement alongside the Americans. The pact, which was ostensibly intended to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of Tehran’s Islamist regime, allowed it to continue to design and test missiles and develop advanced centrifuges.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before the US Congress to protest the agreement—a highly unusual and undiplomatic act, but justified under the circumstances. Obama was appeasing an aggressive and hostile Iranian regime that made (and continues to make) unceasing threats to destroy the State of Israel.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15660/iran-elections-outcome

For the first time in 40 years…. [t]he so-called “moderates” and “reformists” whose task was to give a North Korean-style regime a Scandinavian varnish have been reduced to insignificance…. Thus even without Ahmadinejad’s bloc, the IRGC and affiliates enjoy a solid majority.

The fact that the new Majlis reflects the true nature of the regime as never before must be regarded as a positive development…. In foreign policy, the new Majlis could end the illusion, most recently entertained by former US President Barack Obama, that the way to bring Iran back into the international fold is to back the “moderate” faction by offering concessions to the regime.

The next Majlis reveals the true nature of the Khomeinist system as a typical “Third World” regime with a military-security backbone and a thin ideological varnish. Something like the Castroist outfit in Cuba, the Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe, and, above all, North Korea, which is Khamenei’s ideal model of government…. Seen in that light, no one would expect the Islamic Republic to respect human rights, encourage citizen participation in decision-making and put the quest for economic development above obsession with ideological purity.

The results show that the overwhelming majority of Iranians either reject the current regime or, at last no longer actively support it…. For the Iranian opposition, the unmasking of the regime is a great boon; knowing who exactly one is fighting against is the first step towards shaping a credible strategy for change.

Describing the latest exercise in voting in Iran’s “elections” may require a high degree of indulgence. When all candidates are pre-approved by the authorities and no one is declared a winner without the stamp of the “Supreme Guide”, to speak of elections would mean stretching lexical flexibility to breaking point. And, yet, the rigmarole in question merits attention for a number of reasons.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15658/german-court-rejects-attempt-to-enshrine-sharia

“From a constitutional-law perspective, the legislature’s decision to establish a duty of neutral conduct with respect to ideological and religious matters for legal trainees must therefore be respected….” — Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court

“The proper functioning of the justice system requires that society not only place trust in individual judges, but also in the justice system in general.” — Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court

“With this groundbreaking decision, the court sent an important signal in favor of the ideological neutrality of state institutions. Especially in today’s society, in which people from many countries around the world live with different cultural biographies and also with different religions, the state order must place more value than ever on its ideological neutrality. This is only possible if the state parties to judicial proceedings are not allowed to show religious insignia.” — Hesse’s Minister of Justice Eva Kühne-Hörmann

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that the constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms of Muslims can be curtailed if public displays of religiosity — in this case wearing Islamic headscarves in German courtrooms — endanger the ideological and religious neutrality of the state.

The court’s landmark ruling effectively smashes a backdoor effort to enshrine Sharia law into the German legal system.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/irans_parliamentary_election_was_a_test_of_survival.html

You can probably guess whether the Islamic Republic passed or failed

The Ministry of the Interior finally announced the results of the election on Sunday, after a prolonged delay.  According to Interior minister Rahmani Fazli, out of approximately 58 million eligible voters, only 24.5 million participated in the election.  This means that tonly 42.5% of citizens voted, the lowest level of turnout in the last 41 years.  The Ministry of Interior added that the turnout in Tehran was 25%, meaning that 75% of the population did not participate at all.

The state-run newspaper Jahan-e San’at wrote on February 23: “The government avoids presenting any statistics that directly or indirectly show the total number of voters[.] … What comes to mind, however, is that the total number of votes cast by Iranian citizens was not significant.  The regime is keen to increase this number to prove its legitimacy.”

This is precisely the proof of the claims from the Iranian opposition, the MEK, about fake statistics during all elections.  Another state-run newspaper wrote, “Tehran has gone through one of the most unprecedented and low-profile elections in history.” 

Reporters who had traveled to Iran at the time of the election testified to widespread boycotts, despite visiting pre-determined constituencies.  The international community has doubts about the Iranian regime’s heavy defeat in this election.  This is while the Islamic Republic of Iran has continuously tried to say during the elections — presidential and parliamentary — that these elections are a referendum, and citizens are voting yes to the system with their participation.