Arab states support Israel against Hamas:

NYT
By The Newspaper's Correspondent
Updated Aug 01, 2014 02:32pm

TOPSHOTS Palestinian firefighters try to extinguish fire at UN storehouse after an Israeli

military strike in an area west of Gaza City. AFP file photo
NEW YORK: Egypt is leading a new coalition of Arab states including Jordan, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight
against Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip, says the New York Times in a report published on
Thursday.
The newspaper said that after the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last
year, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi might have contributed to the failure of the
antagonists to reach a negotiated ceasefire even after more than three weeks of bloodshed.
Battling Hamas in Gaza two years ago, Israel found itself pressed from all sides by unfriendly
Arab neighbours to end the fighting.
However, the newspaper says the Arab states loathing and fear of political Islam is so strong
that it outweighs their allergy to Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, said
Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Wilson Centre in Washington and a former Middle East
negotiator under several presidents.
Truck by truck, Israel builds trade gateway to Arab world
I have never seen a situation like it, where you have so many Arab states acquiescing in the
death and destruction in Gaza and the pummelling of Hamas, he said.
The silence is deafening, the newspaper quoted Mr Miller as saying.
Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2014

Dr. Syed Nazir Gilani

For Arabs self-preservation and power are more important than Muslims causes
anywhere in the world in particular in Gaza or Kashmir (Kashmir is a Muslim
majority cause). They are scared of one person one vote and democracy and
have to shrug off any such political symbols in the region. Hamas has emerged
as a politico-religious discipline and the neighbours are nervous.
Arabs abuse human rights of their people and of those resident in their countries
and wash their hands clean as people throw banana peels and move on. A word
on human rights opens a can of worms for them. Therefore Saudi Arabia the de

facto leader of the majority Sunni Muslim world consciously shared collective
silence on Gaza for over three weeks, which were enough for Israel to downgrade
the effectiveness of Hamas as a fighting discipline and slaughter as many
children, women, men, youth and elderly that it would take Palestinians a
generation to come out of mourning and grief.
On Friday, 01 August 2014, a statement was read out on State television on
behalf of Saudi Arabias King Abdullah on Gaza. It criticized international inaction
over Israels offensive in Gaza, which he described as involving war crimes
against humanity and mass slaughter. One could see the depleted merit of this
statement when he chose the occasion to slam militants who he said were killing
innocent people and mutilating their bodies in contravention of Islamic teachings
and called on the regions leaders and religious scholars to prevent Islam from
being hijacked by militants. In fact he was referring to violence in neighbouring
countries, including Iraq and Syria, where the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham
(ISIS) has captured swaths of territory, killing scores of people and forcing
Christians to flee.
Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) both oppose the al-Saud monarchy in favour of
the establishment of a caliphate. So, the statement is really not so much a
matter of love for humanity in Gaza as it must be clear from KSAs record of
human rights and foreign policies, as it is of self-preservation and power. Saudi
Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, sees itself as a main player in the Middle East.
But it has played only a low-key role in diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in
Gaza, leaving the main Arab efforts to its close ally Egypt and fellow Gulf
monarchy Qatar.
After more than three weeks since the beginning of the Operation Protective
Edge, Saudi Arabias King Abdullah has finally come out with a strong-worded
statement accusing Israel of war crimes and taking terrorists to task for
maligning Islam simultaneously. The Saudi King also lamented the silence of both
the Muslim world and the international community describing it to be
inexcusable.
Israel and USA would not read much into this statement. They know that leaders
of Middle Eastern countries including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have been
under immense pressure from the largely pro-Palestine populations and even the
media, in some cases, to take a strong stance against the ongoing Israeli
offensive in Gaza. The public is naturally outraged to find that the spirit of
Muslim unity and brotherhood isnt truly reflected in their respective countries
foreign policy. The statement is more of a political posturing to assuage the
popular anger than to be of any consequence to the situation in Gaza.
It is a well-known fact is that Saudi Arabia doesnt view Hamas favourably.
Hamas, although a Sunni organisation, is supported by the Kingdoms Shia rivals
Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Syria, the KSA is funding groups which are
fighting to overthrow the Iran-backed Assad regime. In the context of Middle
Eastern sectarian politics, Saudi Arabia doesnt mind Israel degrading a notable
entity backed by Iran such as Hamas, which explains why the King has taken
quite some time before sharing his thoughts.
Israel two years ago in her battle with Palestinian militants in Gaza found itself
pressed from all sides by unfriendly Arab neighbours to end the fighting. Not this

time. Israel is allowed a no holds barred by the Arabs against Hamas in Operation
Protective Edge. After the Arab Spring in Egypt, there is a new coalition of Arab
states including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that has
effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas, the Islamist movement
that controls the Gaza Strip.
Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington and a former
Middle East negotiator under several presidents stated that The Arab states
loathing and fear of political Islam is so strong that it outweighs their allergy to
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. I have never seen a situation
like it, where you have so many Arab states acquiescing in the death and
destruction in Gaza and the pummelling of Hamas. The silence is deafening.
Khaled Elgindy, a former adviser to Palestinian negotiators who is now a fellow at
the Brookings Institution in Washington says that There is clearly a convergence
of interests of these various regimes with Israel. He holds that In the battle
with Hamas, the Egyptian fight against the forces of political Islam and the Israeli
struggle against Palestinian militants were nearly identical. The dynamic has
inverted all expectations of the Arab Spring uprisings. As recently as 18 months
ago, most analysts in Israel, Washington and the Palestinian territories expected
the Egypt and other Arab states, especially the Persian Gulf monarchies of Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are finding themselves allied with Israel in
a common opposition to Iran, a rival regional power that has a history of funding
and arming Hamas.
Gazans have difficult times ahead and Arab betrayal is the most disturbing link in
the chain of difficulties. The pro-government Egyptian news media has continued
to rail against Hamas as a tool of a regional Islamist plot to destabilize Egypt and
the region, just as it has since the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi of
the Muslim Brotherhood one year ago. (Egyptian prosecutors have charged
Hamas with instigating violence in Egypt, killing its soldiers and police officers,
and even breaking Mr. Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders out of jail during the
2011 uprising.) The diatribes against Hamas by at least one popular progovernment talk show host in Egypt were so extreme that the government of
Israel broadcast some of them into Gaza. They use it to say, See, your
supposed friends are encouraging us to kill you! Maisam Abumorr, a
Palestinian student in Gaza City, said in a telephone interview.
Kashmir
Arab dictators are more interested in keeping good relationship with Israel to
retain a favourable US policy on these regimes than discharging their assumed
responsibilities towards the world of Islam. Arab interest in particular and Muslim
interest in general in Gaza has jolted the Kashmiri leadership into a realization
that any reliance on these gulf countries for the resolution of Kashmir issue
would be a serious mistake. Arab indifference towards Palestinian cause is a
wakeup call and as I have been advocating that OIC interest in Kashmir does not
travel beyond a clerical effort of issuing invitations to Kashmiri leaders, ritual
meetings and a recycling of a resolution of solidarity with the people of Kashmir.
All those who attend these meetings and beef up the propaganda of an
achievement on the question of Kashmiris right to self-determination have been
accomplices in misleading the people of Kashmir.

OIC should have assisted the people of Kashmir on the jurisprudence of the case
through the United Nations. If it had supplemented the UN mechanism on
Kashmir, things would have been a lot better than as we see them after 24 years
since the start of an armed resistance. We have either failed in good faith or
have done it as for ulterior purpose to hold it from the people of Kashmir that OIC
countries off the Kashmir meetings have no issue with India on the question of
Kashmir. It is a political posturing for the moment and does not carry any merit
beyond the meeting.
Not all but only the conformists and opportunists who have turned Kashmir into a
business enterprise carry the major blame for all the recent failures since 1990.
A simple mathematics is required to point fingers towards the various variables
engaged on one or the other pretext in seeking the right of self-determination of
the people of Kashmir, where the end game has been a personal profit or filial
interest. Kashmir is not a private business project. It has been ratified by 194
member nations of the world and every discipline that works for the equality of
people has endorsed the right of self-determination.
Gaza has its impact on the streets of Kashmir. Every human habitat around the
world has felt the anguish and pain. There is a real possibility that post Gaza
scene might shape the political thinking in Kashmir as well. People of Kashmir are
a real people and the fact that they are on the streets of Kashmir to support and
sympathise with Gaza child, woman, man, elderly and those who stand up for
their rights, accredits the people of Kashmir as selfless as well. Kashmiris are not
selfish either. They need an independent non-party audit of the manner of their
politics to succeed.

Hamas Still Has Some Friends Left

Mirren Gidda @MirrenGidda

July 25, 2014

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters at

parliament wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh, in Ankara, July 22, 2014. Burhan
OzbiliciAP

Though Egypt has turned its back on Hamas, other countries

are coming in from the cold
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With the fighting in Gaza intensifying daily, the ruling militant group Hamas is finding itself
pushed to the limit. Trying to match Israels vast military might is an impossible task, and
even finding the resources to launch rocket attacks against Israeli targets could only be
achieved by heavy foreign investment.
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But which country wants to invest in Hamas? The West certainly doesnt. The militant
Palestinian organization has been a firm fixture on the United States Foreign Terrorist
Organizations list since 1997. Hamas only hope is its neighbors in the Arab world.

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Hamas has two clear allies, according to Middle East experts: Qatar and Turkey. Both have
given Hamas their public support and financial assistance estimated to be in the hundreds of
millions of dollars.
Qatar also hosts Hamas political bureau which includes Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal,
says Shashank Joshi, Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. Qatar
has a long history of providing shelter to Islamist groups, amongst them the Muslim
Brotherhood and the Taliban.
Turkeys ruling Justice and Development Party, which came to power in 2002, supports what
Joshi calls other neo-Islamist allies. Though the Turkish government explicitly rejects the
label Islamist, their social conservatism is inspired by an Islamic ideology that Hamas
shares. Last year, Meshaal visited Turkey and met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan for several hours.
Both Qatar one of the worlds richest states and Turkey are powerful allies to have, but
Hamas might wish for more support given the breadth of the Arab world. It once had it, too.
Hamas used to be strongly allied with both Iran and Syria, with the former giving Hamas an
estimated $13-15 million a month as recently as 2011, as well as long-range missiles. Hamas
political bureau used to be based in the Syrian capital of Damascus before its move to Qatar
in 2012.
But relations cooled dramatically with Iran and Syria amid sectarian divisions following the
outbreak of the Syrian civil war. Iran, a Shia-majority country, backed the government of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad whose Alawite faith is a branch of Shia Islam. Hezbollah, a
powerful Shia Islamist group based in Lebanon, also took Assads side.
However Hamas, a Sunni-led faction, sided, as most of the Arab world did, with the rebels.
Cue Tehran cutting their allowance, Hezbollah allegedly ordering Hamas members out of
Lebanon, and Hamas packing their bags for Qatar.
Irans relationship with Hamas was always problematic, says Chris Doyle, director of the
Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding. Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni
group and Iran is Shia. Nevertheless, Hamas was their entry into the issue of Palestine.
Seeking to regain its influence over this issue, Iran has attempted to foster a reconciliation
with Hamas over the last 18 months. Farwaz Gerges, professor on the Middle East at the
London School of Economics says the conflict in Gaza is the reason. The current crisis has
brought a kind of rapprochement between Iranian leaders and Hamas.
Hezbollah too, Gerges notes, has invited Hamas back into the fold. On Monday, the
Hezbollah-owned television channel Al Manar reported that Hezbollah leader, Hassan
Nasrallah, praised Meshaal for the persistence of the Hamas resistance. The TV station
added he strongly supported their rightful demands to end the current battle.
Gerges is quick to point out that this doesnt signal a return to the warm days of the Iran,
Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. However he adds: Out of this particular crisis, a new

realignment might happen. That may sound like good news for Hamas, but theres another
Arab country that is of late vehemently opposed to it. That would be Egypt, the largest and
most influential country in the Arab world and the one responsible for drafting a potential
cease-fire.
From 2012 to 2013, Hamas enjoyed Egypts munificence under the leadership of former
President Mohamed Morsi, a longtime member of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood of which
Hamas is an offshoot. When Morsi was ousted last year and replaced with Abdul Fattah alSisi, Hamas knew the good times were over.
The most devastating thing that has happened to Hamas is the ousting of Mohamed Morsi,
comments Gerges. Sisi, whose government has orchestrated a violent crackdown on the
Muslim Brotherhood, destroyed Hamas tunnel network into Egypt and closed the border
crossing at Rafah, devastating Hamas finances. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia,
two of Egypts financial backers, are also hostile to Hamas. Like Egypt, they view the
Muslim Brotherhood as a clear domestic threat and Hamas is guilty by association.
But perhaps Hamas doesnt need Egypt. As the death toll continues to rise in Gaza, there is a
groundswell of public sympathy across the Arab world for the group.
Hamas in terms of people on the street is at the height of its political power in every single
Arab country with the exception of Egypt, says Gerges. The longer the conflict continues,
the more they gain in popularity. And for Hamas, what really matters is the public pulse.

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Hotspots and Incidents Conflicts

Gaza Carnage: Merry time for Muslim

Zionists

23.07.2014
Note from editors: The following piece appears on Pravda.Ru unedited and may not coincide
with the point of view of Pravda.Ru editors
By M. I. Bhat

"We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children." Former Israeli Prime Minister
Golda Meir. (emphasis added).
That was in early 1970s, long before Hamas existed. Four decades on we hear the same
argument not just from Israel but also from its Western benefactors.
The news reports and graphics of Israeli relentless and barbaric carnage and destruction
coming out of Gaza convey one simple and clear message, which is this: You may blame
Hitler for killing innumerable innocents but he definitely left a hell lot of evil seeds
untouched.
We get this message again and again from Palestine in general for the last six and a half
decades but most viciously and horribly fourth time over in the past 8 years from Gaza in
particular.

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Post-WW2, these evil seeds germinated and sprouted not just in Palestine where they created
their own largest evil-weed-farm, called Israel, but broadly all over the North America and
Europe where they grew and thrive as parasitic-evil-weed slowly and surely sucking moral,
religious and economic life out of the ordinary Christians. Lately we find the weed has also
spread over much of the Muslim world having mutated the DNA of its ruling class especially
in its core countries. Unsurprisingly then we have the Christian Zionists and the Muslim
Zionists shoulder-to-shoulder fighting Israel's cause, feeling absolutely immune to the cost
their abject subservience to Israel exacts from their own brethren.
Christians supporting Zionist Jews in establishing and sustaining their independent-evilweed-farm is not surprising because one could argue that it is a sort of reparations being paid
by the modern-day Christians for the historical wrongs by their co-religionists to Jews. Or, as
the owners they have to defend their 'infected dog," as Robert de Niro would say it.

But why should Muslim political leadership when it is the Muslims who are suffering so
horribly at the hands of Zionist Jews despite the fact - accepted even by many Jew historians
- that Jews have historically found peace and solace among Muslim communities?
The short and long answer is that the current Muslim leadership is as Zionist as their
Christian counterparts. The only difference between the two being that the later, having
turned vast majority of their population pro-Zionists (Friends of Israel, Christians United For
Israel), doesn't feel hamstrung to openly accept and flaunt the fact while the former plays it
stealthily because the very illegal entity, born out of grave injustice, is anathema to the faith
and recent experiences of their people.
Without a word of sympathy for the carnage and destruction, Gazans have been collectively
suffering for the past over two and a half weeks, all we hear the Western leaders lead by
President Obama and his European minions saying, "Israel has right to self-defense." What
about Gazans right to life without Israeli siege, let alone freedom from Israeli occupation, is
off Obama's table. The man has revealed himself black not merely in the color of his skin but
deep in his heart and soul.
What really is surprising is that whatever condemnation we hear of Israel and its continuing
war crimes in Gaza it is by the so-called "self-hating Jews" and "anti-Semitic" Christians but
nothing from Muslim Zionists.
Here is a sample from a Christian:
"Right now as I type, everyone is becoming a Palestinian. Everyone is a now a Muslim, a
Jew, a Christian a China Man, a Russian. We are at the very beginning of a new one love
humanity that will look back at our primitive years in the 20th century as a shameful
backward sense of being." - Johnny Punish, who rightly calls Gaza the "Auschwitz Gaza" and
"The Maximum Security Prison."
And a Jew:
"The international community has not done enough to stop the Israeli regime of occupation...
As a result, Israel does not pay any price for seriously violating international law and human
values... We, the citizens of Israel and the stateless people of Palestine ...... need you to
prosecute the Israeli government and army, we need you to boycott Israeli economy and
culture, we need you to urge your government to stop profiting from the occupation..." -Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a professor at Hebrew University, Israel.
In contrast, here is one of Zionist al-Sisi's infected dog:
"Thank you Netanyahu, and God give us more men like you to destroy Hamas!"-- Azza Sami,
a writer for government daily Al-Ahram.
The Muslim Zionists have forked tongues. One part they use in kissing American ass and the
other they (a few among them with the intention of claiming leadership of the Muslim world)
use to express outrage against Israeli siege and bombardment of Gazans. Had they been
sincere in their sympathy for the Palestinians, Arab League or Organization of "Islamic"
Countries wouldn't have let Egypt close Rafa crossing that continues even during the current
indescribably horrible circumstances for the Gazans.

The drama played at the UN by the Muslim Zionists of the Arab League to seek halt to the
Israeli bombardment on the caged Gazans wasn't for the love of those hapless but a PR
exercise for their own oppressed populace. The Zionist al-Sisi (most likely in consultation
with Saudi King) went a step further by brokering on his own a ceasefire deal with Israel with
the sinister motive to delegitimize Hamas - a democratically-elected political entity more
legitimate than the Jewish-, Christian- and Muslim-Zionist co-opted Mahmoud Abbas' soldout PLO. Credit goes to the political sagacity of the Hamas leadership that smelled the foul
play right in the nick of time and rejected the deal.
Hamas' Islamic ideological moorings is as grave a threat for the current Muslim political
leadership as it is for Israel. Both are illegitimate and occupying forces. It is therefore natural
that the Arab world's three most politically and religiously important countries - Saudi Arabia
(where the reigning king claims to be self-appointed "custodian" of the Islam's two holiest
mosques), Jordan (where King Abdullah claims direct lineage through his mother with
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)), and Egypt (largest Arab Muslim country) -- stand together with
Israel against Hamas. Unlike Egypt and Jordan, Saudi Arabia may not have designated
Hamas as a terrorist organization but for all practical purposes Riyadh treats it as one - there
is no official communication or contact between the two except for once in 2007 when Saudi
Government invited Hamas leadership to Makkah to work out reconciliation between Hamas
and PLO post-Hamas' electoral victory in Gaza. Secular Christians and even Christians
Zionists among them don't have any problem with Christian Democrats but the flag bearer of
Islam can't tolerate Muslim Brotherhood!
Then we have Turkey where Prime Minister Erdogan says "[Israelis] have no conscience, no
honor, no pride. They curse Hitler day and night, but they have surpassed Hitler in
barbarism." His EU Minister "curs[s] Israel's atrocity" on Gazans, accuses EU of "double
standards, and hypocrisy," and slams Muslim countries for "remaining silent" But themselves
they never expressed shame for their predecessors for being the first Muslim country to
recognize Israel and establish close military ties or have no qualms in continuing to host
Israeli Embassy! Unmitigated hypocrisy.
Why should Israel take Muslim protestation - if at all there is any -- seriously when it knows
it is false and phony? Aren't Saudi's and Turkish working together with the US in causing
death and destruction of Syrians for the sole benefit of Israel? Didn't Saudis and Israelis
jointly help al-Sisi enact military coup against duly elected President Morsi to, again, help
Israeli cause? Isn't Saudi Arabia helping US in its destruction of Yemen? Aren't Saudis one
with Israel and the US against Iran? Name a Muslim country that didn't side with the US in
destroying Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Of the 54 countries known to have hosted American
torture centers for Muslims, 20 are Muslim countries. The first thing the wretched Kurdish
did the moment they got a chance to exercise independent control over their territory was to
sell their oil, of all in the world, to Israel! Don't be surprised if tomorrow they would be firing
Israel-made missiles into Iran.
A few hundred or thousand deaths of Gazans that Israeli war may claim again this time from
Gaza won't make much difference to the ever-increasing death toll of the Muslims that the US
and Muslim Zionists are jointly and individually claiming from Philippines to Morocco.
Israelis tried it several times earlier and they know it for certain that it is will not stop
Palestinians from fighting for freedom. They know they are losing this cruel war on innocent
citizens of Gaza for each indiscriminate bomb and tank and naval shell on residences,
business, mosques, and even hospitals, ambulances, schools and UN establishments and the

resultant massacre of whole families, infants, children, old, women, infirm and disabled is
pushing them into pariah corner and strengthening BDS movement.
But the worst and new losers in all this are going to be Muslim Zionists of the Arab world.
They should know it is very short distance for their own IS (ISIS/ISIL) fighters from Bagdad
to Riyadh and Aleppo to Amman and beyond. And they know Allah surely has promised (Al
Quran - 5:145) the hottest part of the hell for hypocrites.
Hamas will be committing suicide if it succumbs to accept the repackaged Zionist al-Sisi's
ceasefire deal being negotiated by the UN Secretary General Banki Moon and the US
Secretary with Mahmoud Abbas. They can't trust those who have repeatedly ditched them and
they can't expect Israel to treat this ceasefire any differently from the one it agreed to as
recently as in 2012. They should stick to their own set of conditions, most importantly lifting
of Israeli siege and release of prisoners.
P.S.: Netanyahu says, 'Hamas is like ISIS, Hamas is like al-Qaida, Hamas is like Hezbollah,
Hamas is like Boko Haram, like so many other extremist Islamist groups who reject
pluralistic democracy.' Wow! See who is talking of "Pluralistic democracy!' Whatever
happened to his demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jews-only state? What about
on-going ethnic cleansing of Israel and West Bank? He seems to think Max Blumenthal's
'Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel' doesn't exist or didn't get distributed worldwide
for people to know what Israel means for the second class Arab Israelis even without it being
recognized as the Jews-only state! Zionist tongue after all.

War on Gaza and the response of Muslim

regimes

by Yusuf Dhia-Allah
August, 2014

It is revealing that Muslim regimes in the Middle East that eagerly give billions to takfiri
terrorists to kill fellow Muslims are completely silent about zionist killings of Palestinians.
During times of crises, Muslims naturally ask what the regimes in the Muslim world and

indeed regimes in the rest of the world are doing to help the suffering people. The Zionist
onslaught on Gaza has led to similar questions from Muslims. While the question is natural,
the answer, sadly, is anything but satisfactory.
Ordinary Muslims are forced to ask this question because there are many problems
confronting Muslims in different parts of the world. They feel deep sympathy for and
empathy with them. While they want to express solidarity and help in whatever way possible,
such help is limited in scope and impact. Individuals can at best donate money to a charity to
help alleviate some suffering and/or participate in rallies to vent their anger and frustration at
the ongoing injustices but these cannot resolve the basic problem. It is for governments to
take action to stop aggression against Muslims and to institute policies that would ensure
such crises do not erupt again.
The expectations of ordinary Muslims vis--vis the regimes spring from two diametrically
opposite sentiments. The first is their genuine concern for fellow Muslims suffering anywhere
in the world. The second is predicated on the assumption that the Muslim regimes can do
something. This is a faulty assumption and empirical evidence from repeated crises has
demonstrated this beyond doubt that such expectations are misplaced. With few exceptions,
people in control of regimes in the Muslim world are agents of imperialism and Zionism;
their overriding concern is self-preservation, not alleviating the suffering of oppressed
Muslims. In fact, these regimes do not care for people in their own societies either so this
should put to rest any notions that they would help Muslims elsewhere.
The suffering of Palestinian people facing a barbaric Zionist onslaught has moved Muslims
worldwide, especially during the days of fasting in Ramadan. Seeing little children being
blown to pieces on television screens has moved even non-Muslims to condemn Zionist
barbarism, notwithstanding the support their regimes have extended to the illegal entity in
Occupied Palestine. Most people are also aware that Gaza has been under an illegal siege
since 2007 that has caused extreme hardship among Palestinians. Add to that the repeated
Zionist attacks on the enclave destroying whatever infrastructure they have managed to build,
naturally causes deep anguish.
Let us, therefore, consider what the reaction of the various regimes in the Muslim world has
been to the latest Zionist onslaught on Gaza. We start with the Saudi regime that has donned
the mantle of leader of the Sunnis and the self-styled Custodian of the Two Holy Cities.
The Saudi regime is also flush with petrodollars; it earns an estimated $300 billion in annual
oil sales; its reserves are estimated to be more than $1 trillion. This is no small sum.
Question about the Saudi regimes conduct is important because it has pumped an estimated
$6 billion to takfiri groups in Syria and Iraq ostensibly because they are fighting against
Shia governments there. To the best of our knowledge, there are no Shias in Palestine or
Gaza. We must, therefore, ask: what has the Saudi regime done to help the suffering Sunni
people of Gaza; more particularly, how many guns, rockets or missiles it has sent to the
resistance in Gaza to face the Zionist onslaught? The takfiri terrorists in Syria and Iraq have
no shortage of weapons or other war materiel, thanks to the Saudis and their tribal allies in
the region. If the Saudis are championing the cause of the Sunnis, why are the poor
oppressed Palestinians not included in this list?
Instead, what we find is that the Saudis and their allies are actively collaborating with the

zionists to destroy such resistance groups as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah. This leads
us to conclude that the Saudis do not represent the interests of Sunnis despite claiming to
champion their cause. This is just a ploy to use against those countries and movements that
are predominantly Shia in order to play on the sectarian emotions of ordinary Muslims.
Egypt that has a border with Gaza has kept it shut preventing any relief supplies from
reaching the besieged enclave. Similarly the Egyptian military regime tried to stab Hamas in
the back by brokering a ceasefire agreement dictated by the zionists that would have put
Hamas at serious disadvantage and risk had it accepted its terms. Hamas was not even
consulted about the ceasefire agreement. It is important to note that the Egyptian military
regime is closely aligned with and financed by the Saudi tribal regime.
What is the reaction of the other Sunni governments in the region? Since most are tribal
regimes and little more than city-states even if flushed with oil and gas wealth, they carry
little weight in international politics. They are more concerned about self-preservation than
worrying about suffering Muslims elsewhere. The only exception to this is Turkey that is a
serious regional player. What has been its role?
Rhetorically, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan has lashed out at Israel and
criticized its attack on Gaza. Has he done anything practical to help the Palestinians? Turkey
is among the few Muslim countriesEgypt and Jordan are othersthat have diplomatic
relations with the Zionist entity. Has Turkey withdrawn its ambassador from Tel Aviv or sent
the ambassador of the illegal Zionist entity packing home? Turkey was the first Sunni
Muslim country to establish diplomatic relations with the zionist state as soon as this cancer
emerged in the heartland of Islam. True, Turkey was at the time under Kemalist rule but if the
present government is more representative of the people, then it should have no problem
severing diplomatic ties with one of the most oppressive and criminal regimes in the world.
The overwhelming majority of Turkish people are totally opposed to the Zionist regime and
its criminal policies. They have had direct experience of Zionist crimes when the Mavi
Marmara was attacked in international waters killing nine Turkish citizens and injuring
dozens of others on May 31, 2010.
The Mavi Marmara was taking relief supplies, not guns or bombs, to the besieged people of
Gaza yet the Turkish government has taken no steps to prosecute the Zionist war criminals
that perpetrated war crimes on the open seas against its citizens. Further, Turkish-Israeli trade
has continued to grow. So how can anyone take Erdogans anti-Israel rhetoric seriously? It is
clear that he is playing to the public gallery without taking any concrete steps to help the
suffering Palestinian people.
We must now turn to the policies of the two countries that have been at the receiving end of
Saudi-zionist-imperialist conspiracy: Islamic Iran and Syria. Iran has been especially targeted
and branded by the Saudis as a Shia State (instead of the Islamic State, as if Shias are not
Muslims) in a despicable attempt to delegitimize it in the eyes of the Sunni majority
worldwide.
While the overwhelming majority of Sunni Muslims have not fallen for this vile
propaganda, some nave Sunnis have.
Has Iran done anything practical to help the Palestinians, especially Hamas and Islamic
Jihad? The technology, though primitive, used by the two resistance groups to develop their

missiles has been provided by Islamic Iranyes Shia Iran of the Saudi conception to
Sunni Hamas and Islamic Jihad. While these rockets and missiles have caused little damage
to the Zionist state, the fact that the Palestinians can continue to stand up to the Zionist bully
gives them enormous self-confidence and tells the resisters that their cause is not lost.
Unfortunately, Iran has no direct borders with Palestine. It is, therefore, forced to resort to
ingenuity to deliver the technical know-how to the Palestinians to stand on their feet. Without
such help, the Palestinian resistance groups would have been wiped out and the cause of
Palestine completely forgotten. Those Muslims that are swayed by sectarian rhetoric should
ask themselves the simple question: which country has done the most for the suffering
Palestinians? Also, they should consider the price Iran has had to pay in terms of the illegal
sanctions it has endured for more than three decades because of its principled stand of
supporting the Palestinian cause.
In November 2012, following the last Zionist attack on Gaza, leaders of Islamic Jihad and
Hamas acknowledged at a Cairo press conference the practical help Islamic Iran had
extended to their groups. Dr Ramadan Abdallah, leader of Islamic Jihad was the first to speak
out. Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamass Political Bureau spoke next and he also thanked
Islamic Iran. No other country was mentioned. Those that harbor sectarian tendencies should
reflect on the public acknowledgement of help extended by Islamic Iran to the resistance
groups in Palestine.
There is one other country whose policy we need to consider: Syria. Mercenaries from 83
countries have flooded into Syria targeting its government. They are financed by regimes in
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Turkey and such other well-known anti-Muslim
entities as the Zionist regime in Occupied Palestine and the US. When the mayhem in Syria
started in March 2011, there were numerous Palestinian organizations that had offices in
Damascus. These offices had existed for more than two decades. Slowly, the Palestinian
groups influenced by their sponsors in Qatar and elsewhere persuaded them to close their
offices and relocate despite the fact that the Syrian government showed no hostility to them.
Unfortunately, some Hamas members have also gone to Syria to fight against the forces of
the government of Bashar al-Asad.
Under such circumstances and with such hostility shown by some members of Hamas toward
Asads government, it would be reasonable to expect that he too would be hostile to them.
Yet, we find that far from showing hostility, he has adopted a principled stand far more
honorable than many of the so-called friends among other regimes have shown to the
Palestinian cause.
At his swearing-in ceremony on July 16, Asad addressed the assembled gathering and he took
the Arabian regimes to task that have and continue to finance the takfiri terrorists in Syria. We
quote at length from his speech to grasp the message that he delivered by exposing those
behind the terrorist campaign in Syria, Iraq and Gaza. Referring to the Arabian tyrannical
regimes, he said:
The existence of these countries is the Wests most important achievement and the most
significant cause for Israels successes and continued existence. There is no clearer evidence
than their current stand regarding the Israeli aggression against Gaza. Where is the alleged
zeal and ardor that they showed towards Syria or the Syrian people? Why havent they
supported Gaza with arms and money? Where are their jihadists; and why havent they sent

them to defend our people in Palestine?

In order to know the answer, we should know that what is happening today in Gaza is not
a separate or passing event. It is an integrated chain of events: from the occupation of
Palestine, to the invasion of Iraq and trying to divide it now and the division of the Sudan all
planned by Israel and the West and always executed by the states of tyranny and
backwardness in our Arab world.
Was it not Abdul Aziz Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Faisal [ibn Saud] who conceded to Britain that
he does not object to giving Palestine to the poor Jews in 1915? Did those states not incite
the 1967 war, whose price we are still paying today, in order to get rid of the [Gamal] Abdul
Nasser phenomenon? Did those states not support Iran under the Shah, only to stand against
it when it decided to support the Palestinian people and turn the Israeli embassy into a
Palestinian embassy after the revolution?
Those are the countries that made the King Fahd Peace Initiative in 1981 and threatened
the Palestinians with rivers of blood if they dont accept it. When the Palestinian factions
rejected it, and in less than a year, there was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon [June 1982] and
the ejection of the PLO from Lebanon, not out of concern for Lebanon, but for Israel.
Those same states surprised us in 2002 with their greatest concession: normalization in
return for peace, which was later modified to become the Arab Peace Initiative in the
Beirut summit.
When Israel attacked Lebanon in 2006, it was those same countries that encouraged Israel
and the West not to accept a cease-fire until the Lebanese resistance [Hizbullah] was
destroyed, describing them as adventurous. Because these satellite countries succeeded in
their tasks, they were charged with funding chaos under the name of the Arab spring, and
with leading the Arab League after other Arab countries abandoned their roles. The Arab
League itself was reduced to summoning NATO and imposing a siege on the Arab states that
refused to comply.
All of these events constitute a strongly linked chain aimed at liquidating the Palestinian
cause; all the money spent by those countries since their creation has been for this purpose.
And here they are today playing the same role: in Gaza through Israeli terrorism, and in Syria
through terrorism belonging to 83 nationalities. The methods may differ but their objective is
the same.
This leads me to another important issue. Some [inside Syria] have expressed indifference
towards Gaza, on the premise that we have our fair share of national problems; others have
gloated at the Israeli aggression as a reaction to the ingratitude and disloyalty of some
Palestinians towards Syria and everything we have offered for decades. Both cases however,
reflect nave thinking; what is happening in Syria and the region as a whole is strongly linked
to what is happening in Palestine. Dissociating ourselves from these events would be like
watching a neighbors house burning and not offering to help.
That is why those who believe that we can live in safety and distance ourselves from the
Palestinian cause are mistaken. It will remain the central cause based on principles and the
reality that links what is happening in Palestine with what is happening in Syria. We need to
distinguish between the resistant Palestinian people and the ungrateful Palestinians, between
true resistance fighterswho we should supportand the amateurs who mask themselves in

the mantle of resistance to serve their interests, improve their image or strengthen their
authority; otherwise, we will beconsciously or unconsciouslyserving Israels objectives of
dividing us even further and making us believe that our crisis is local and isolated.
For Asad to show such clarity of understanding at a time when Syria is still faced with a
mercenary onslaught is encouraging. He could easily have turned on the Palestinian groups
and said it served them right for turning against him. Instead, he has shown understanding
and realized the importance of the Palestinian cause by linking it with the broader imperialistzionist conspiracy aided and abetted by the Arabian regimes, to make the region subservient
to foreign interests.

Facts All US Citizens Need to Know About

Israel and Palestine
Posted on July 12, 2014 by Robert Barsocchini
Gaza (along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem) is occupied Palestinian territory
under international law, determined by the vast majority of the world, as well as the
highest court in the world, the UNs International Court of Justice. Gaza cannot
commit aggression against Israel, since Israel is in constant and continual commission
of illegal aggression against Palestine by occupying it (illegally and sadistically
blockading it and frequently committing terrorism against its civilians, including by
targeting them with chemical weapons provided by US taxpayers see Rain of Fire
by Human Rights Watch). As documented by Amnesty Intl, Human Rights Watch,
and many others, Israel intentionally targets and murders civilians, including
children, en masse.

Israel also kidnaps and tortures children, including by keeping them in outdoor cages,
over night, in winter.

But, even ignoring international law and that Gaza is under illegal Israeli occupation,
Gaza did not initiate this current round of violence; Israel did:
o

Western/US/Israeli propaganda says the violence started with the kidnapping

and killing of three Israeli youths on June 12th. That is a lie:

On May 20th, the Israeli government murdered 2 unarmed Palestinian teens,

one on video, and wounded a third.

The firing of pathetic scrap metal rockets from impoverished Gaza, which
have killed no one, were in fact launched in response to earlier Israeli
bombings, killings, assassinations, and arrests of Palestinians, including
children.

Since the year 2000, Israel has killed 1,500 Palestinian children, while Palestinians
have killed 132 Israeli children. That means Israel has killed over 1,000% percent
more Palestinian children than vice versa.

As documented by the Washington DC based non-Profit, The Jerusalem Fund, Israel

breaks far more ceasefires than Palestine this includes firing of the Palestinian scrap
metal rockets.
o

For example, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and many other
human rights organizations reported that in Israels 2009 Gaza Massacre,
Israel killed about 450 children, and it was Israel, they documented, that broke
the ceasefire. (In that massacre, Israel killed overall from 1,400 to 7,000
Palestinians, almost all civilians, while 13 Israelis were killed, several from
friendly fire.)

According to a landmark, comprehensive study of all of Israels wars, by Zeev Maoz,

Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis, former head of
the Graduate School of Government and Policy and of the Jaffee Center for Strategic
Studies at Tel Aviv University, and former academic director of the M.A. Program at
the Israeli Defense Forces National Defense College:
o

. most of the wars in which Israel was involved were the result of deliberate Israeli
aggressive design . None of these wars with the possible exception of the 1948 War
of independence was what Israel refers to as Milhemet Ein Berah (war of
necessity). They were all wars of choice . Defending the Holy Land, pg. 35,
(bold added)

I review a number of peace-related opportunities ranging from the ZionistHashemite collusion in 1947 through the collapse of the Oslo Process in 2000. In all
those cases I find that Israeli decision makers who had been willing to embark upon
bold and daring military adventures were extremely reluctant to make even the
smallest concessions for peace . I also find in many cases Israel was engaged in
systematic violations of agreements and tacit understandings between itself and its
neighbors. Defending the Holy Land, pg. 40

Israel has violated more UN resolutions than any other country. That includes Iraq
under Hussein.

Hamas is the government elected by Gaza in elections that Jimmy Carter (and many
others) observed and said were completely fair and free. Israel constantly says Hamas
uses human shields. But in Israels biggest massacre of Gaza, the one in 2009, all the
human rights organizations, including Amnesty, HRW, and the jurist Richard
Goldstone, found that Hamas DID NOT use human shields. On the contrary, Israel
used human shields, which is a regular practice for Israel. Israel uses civilians as
human shields.
o

Israel forced Palestinian civilians to dig and lay naked in trenches around
Israeli tanks. See here at 6:45.

Goldstone Report:

XIV. THE USE OF PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS AS HUMAN

SHIELDS

The Mission received allegations that in two areas in north Gaza

Israeli troops used Palestinian men as human shields The Mission
found the foregoing witnesses to be credible and reliable. It has no
reason to doubt the veracity of their accounts and found that the
different stories serve to support the allegation that Palestinians were
used as human shields.

Noam Chomsky: Hamas is regularly described as Iranian-backed Hamas, which is

dedicated to the destruction of Israel. One will be hard put to find something like
democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement
in accord with the international consensusblocked for over 30 years by the US and
Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.

In the history of all rocket and mortar fire into Israel, 26 people, total, have been
killed. And remember, Palestine breaks ceasefires far less often than Israel, as
documented above.

This number of 26 is in contrast to the minimum number of 1,400 people who

were murdered by Israel in a single one of its terrorist atrocities, the 2009
Gaza Massacre.

Noting that in the current massacre, zero Israelis and over 100 Palestinians
have thus far been killed, and noting that Gaza is a concentration camp Israel
allows no one to enter or leave Dan Sanchez gives a perfect description of
the disparity in arms between the US/Israeli war machine and Palestinian
scrap metal projectiles: They [the Gazans] are like fish in a barrel, being
blasted by a shotgun from above. Its like some of the fish in the barrel
pathetically spitting water at the gunman, and [US media calls] that a
shooting battle.

The rhetoric and tactics of Hamas and other groups resisting Israeli occupation and
colonization can be brutal (though far less so than Israel). Propagandists try to
attribute this to anti-Semitism, to distract from the fact that these groups are resisting
having their country stolen and their people dispossessed and annihilated. Native
American resistance to European colonizers was sometimes extremely brutal, as was
their rhetoric, but everyone universally recognizes that this was not because of antiWhite-ism, or anti-European-ism, but because they were having their land stolen
and their people massacred, the same thing that Israel is doing to the Palestinians.
o

Palestinians have the right under international law to resist occupation, ethnic
cleansing, colonization, aggression, and annexation. Miko Peled, son of an
Israeli general, recently stated that if Israel doesnt Like rockets, they should
decolonize Palestine. Dr. Norman Finkelstein notes that The Palestinians
have the right to use arms to resist an occupation . However, the fact that
morally and legally they have that right doesnt mean that its the most prudent
strategy. In my opinion, a national Palestinian leadership committed to

mobilizing nonviolent resistance can defeat the Israeli occupation if those of

us living abroad lend support to it.

In 1948, the people who wanted to form a Jewish state carried out a massive terror
and ethnic cleansing campaign against the occupants of Palestine, expelling about half
of them (750,000) from their land and into concentrated areas (Gaza and West Bank).
Israel has slowly continued colonizing even those areas, which were specifically
reserved by the UN for Palestinians. Israel takes all the best land and resources, such
as water. Here is a visualization of what has happened, and is currently happening
with massive support from Obama:

Obama requested more military aid for Israel than any president ever.

Israeli settlement building in Palestine is a war crime under international law. Under
Obama, Israeli settlement building is up over 130%.

For about 40 years, there has been an international consensus that Israel must stop
colonizing territory outside its 1967 borders. The consensus has been blocked by the
United States, in isolation from the international community (much like the USAs
isolated, strong support for South African Apartheid). Every year there is a UN vote

on the issue, and every year it goes about 165 to 2, the world against the US and
Israel. This continues under Obama. All human rights groups support the consensus,
as does Hamas, the Arab League, Iran, the Organization of the Islamic Conference
Virtually everyone, except the US and Israel. (More details on this page.)

Palestinians are brutalized, repressed and impoverished by Israel. To get a quick

visual understanding of the difference between Gaza and Israel, take a look at the
images of people and cities being wantonly pummeled by Israeli terrorism when you
search the word Gaza, and the images of opulence, wealth and luxury that come up
when you search Tel Aviv.

Israel has an illegal stash of hundreds of nuclear weapons.

Israel, whose government intentionally targets, tortures, and murders civilians,

including children, including with chemical weapons, and whose government uses
Palestinian civilians as human shields, and whose government is the last entity on
Earth carrying out old-style ethnic cleansing and colonization of foreign countries, is
the single biggest recipient of US aid, at over three billion dollars a year and huge
amounts of lethal weaponry such as attack helicopters and white phosphorous
chemical explosives.

To reiterate, Obama requested more military aid for Israel than any president ever.
This is not because Obama and the USA love Jewish people. Obama was recently an
accomplice in a literal neo-Nazi-led coup detat in Ukraine, and is currently fully
supporting the junta-integrated Ukrainian government, which is staffed with several
neo-Nazis in high ministries, and which uses neo-Nazi paramilitaries to carry out
massacres (and possibly genocide) against people resistant to the junta. The actual
reason the US supports Israel is discussed below.

As Amnesty International has noted, all aid to Israel is illegal under international (and
US) law, because Israel is a consistent violator of human rights.

Amnesty International also noted that Israels 2009 massacre of Gaza would not have been
possible without the illegal funding (money and weapons) and support Israel gets from the
USA.
This is also true of the current massacre Israel is committing in Gaza.
However, in a way, that is good news.
That means US citizens can STOP the massacres.
If we stop our money and weapons-flow to Israel, which is illegal anyway, we stop Israeli
terrorism! All we have to do is stop committing a crime, and we will stop more crimes! Thats
great news.
Here is a previous example of how this has worked: When the USA cut its funding for
Indonesias genocide against East Timor, which the USA was funding almost exclusively,
Indonesia was forced to stop and withdraw. All it took was cutting off our illegal flow of
money and weapons to the criminals.

The same thing would happen if we cut our illegal funding for Israels genocides and acts of
terrorism, ethnic cleansing, colonization, and annexation against Palestine.
But since the USA is an anti-democratic country, the only way to stop US plutocrats from
using our money to fund Israeli terrorism is to force it through massive, non-violent pressure.
One way it happens is when it becomes too politically costly for the plutocracy to keep
funding genocide and terror, meaning the costs of their illegal support outweigh the benefits,
as in Indonesia. In that case, massive publicity and indigenous resistance accomplished the
goal.
But Israel is the USAs main imperial and nuclear base for controlling the Middle East,
which US planners, in 1945, called the greatest material prize in world history, due to the oil
and gas. Thus, it might require more, as in non-violently making our country into a
democracy so that people control their own institutions and money, and thus the way we
operate as a society and interact with the world.
Last note: To be clear, Israel is a legal state, but only within the borders allotted to it by the
United Nations the Pre-1967 borders, which existed before Israel started eating away,
through terror, ethnic cleansing, colonization, and annexation, at the areas reserved by the
United Nations for Palestinians, as well as areas of other countries, such as Syria (the Golan
Heights).
Per international law, US domestic law, and common sense, Israel doesnt deserve any
support until it abandons isolationism and accepts that it cant steal other peoples countries,
and stops blockading and withdraws its soldiers and settlers, all there illegally, from those
countries.
Israel is, militarily, the most powerful country in the Middle East, by far. Removing our
support for the Israeli government (which we are legally required to do) will not put Israelis
in danger. It will pressure the Israeli government to stop doing what endangers Israelis, which
is committing aggressive acts against Israels neighbors.
If Israel ends its status as a consistent violator of human rights, decolonizes Palestine, and
respects its neighbors, it could be a pleasure and legal to work with and support Israel.
Germany, Japan, and South Africa went from being the most reviled countries on Earth to
being some of the most admired. Maybe Israel could undergo the same transformation, but
not unless we, US citizens, help by ceasing to enable Israeli terrorism and war crimes by
illegally supporting them.

By: Shaikh (Dr) Haitham Al-Haddad

Source: http://www.islam21c.com/

A brother that I know, Dr Saleh al-Ayid, wrote the following just a few minutes after Turkeys
electoral authorities announced that Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the general Presidential
Turkish Election:
In the summer of the year 1421 AH, 2001 CE, I was with a group of friends on holiday in
Turkey. During our stay my colleague, Dr Khalid al-Ajimy and I visited the great scholar
Mohammed Ameen Siraaj at his home in Istanbul. When we entered his house we found
sitting with him Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan. So we sat to discuss general affairs over tea and
coffee, and we noticed Erdogan speaking in an impeccably polite manner with his Sheikh.
So my colleague Dr Khalid started to speak about Erdogans efforts in the Turkish renascence
taking place in Istanbul during his period as mayor of the city, and he praised him abundantly
while Sheikh Mohammed Ameen Siraaj was translating into Turkish for Erdogan to
understand. Erdogan displayed extreme humbleness upon hearing his words. When my
colleague finished speaking, Sheikh Mohammed Ameen Siraaj turned to us and said:
It is neither our Ambition nor Recep Tayyip Erdogans to succeed in leading a province even
if it is the size of Istanbul, instead we are training him to be a successful President, and you
will see him soon become the President of Turkey by the will of Allh.
Here we are now, 14 years later, witnessing the promise of Sheikh Mohammed Ameen Siraaj
with the help of Allh, come to life as Recep Tayyip Erdogan becomes the President of the
nation of Turkey today. And Allh has full power and control over His Affairs, but most of
men know not.
Muslims on social media, particularly Arabs, have been busy exchanging greetings and
congratulations for the victory of Erdogan. News and comments about him and his victory
even overtook the topic of Gaza. The question is, however: why? There are a multitude of
reasons for this. Muslims have been wanting to prove to the whole world that if they were to
be given the choice, they would choose a Muslim leader who is sincere in working for
his Ummah.
Turkey is proof that if Muslims enjoy good leadership, they are capable of transforming their
countries from so-called developing ones to advanced, powerful countries as Erdogan and
his party did. It is a matter of a few short years in which Erdogans Justice and Development
Party, elected into power in 2002, transformed Turkey from a debt-ridden, ruined country,
shattered by valueless secularism and deep-rooted corruption to one of the strongest countries
in the world. In only 10 years, from 2002 to 2012, Turkish exports hit $152 billion, marking a
ten-fold increase. Turkeys overwhelming annual inflation rate of up to 100% was watered
down to single figures, whilst its GDP rose by over 45%. Erdogan is now resolute in bringing
his economy into the top 10 in the world by 2023, having completely erased its 52-year-old
debt to the IMF in 2013.
Born in 1954, Erdogan is the son of a coastguard in the city of Rize. During his early life he
sold lemonade and buns for some pocket money, being a member of a poor family. Erdogan
attended an Islamic school, before studying management at Istanbuls Marmara University.
Here he met Turkeys first Islamist Prime Minister, Necmettin Erbakan, and began his
fascinating political career. In 1994, he became the mayor of Istanbul, converting the city
from a slum into one of the worlds key destinations for tourism, and a beauty of a city for

local residents. His commitment to Islm and its values were relentless and in 1998 he was
detained for four months for reciting a poem on a public stage, containing line:
The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the
faithful our soldiers.
His release and rise in positions of leadership, from Prime Minister in 2003-2014 to now
President the first to be directly elected by the people in Turkeys history with 52% of the
electorate voting for him. This landmark victory suggests that secularism is a foreign
phenomenon for our Islamic societies. Despite the fact that Turkey was once the mother and
heartland of secularism in the Muslim world, it can so easily turn to Islam once the socioeconomic pressure applied by the secularists is lifted.
Many Muslims are ecstatic at the victory Erdogan has achieved. It marks a continuation to the
unprecedented support Turkey has provided for the Syrian revolution. Many analysts confirm
that had the authorities in Turkey acted against the interests of the Syrian people and their
revolution, the tyrant regime in Syria would have regained power and wiped out the entire
struggle. Turkeys borders with Syria, particularly its southern border to Aleppo, are the
majorif not the onlybreathing space for the Syrian Islamic revolution.
Palestinians in general and Gaza specifically are particularly overwhelmed with joy. For too
long they have witnessed the entire world turning against them while the very few who may
support them do so for no political gain. No one can forget Israels raid on the Turkish, Gazabound flotilla and the political aftermath that ensued. No one can deny that it is Erdogans
government, more than any other in the world today, that is ardently supporting Gaza and
bitterly attacking Israel as much as the rules of international politics allow. The victory of
Erdogan has moreover come as a slap on the face of the many Arab and Gulf countries that
have paid millions and billions of dollars in support of his main, secular competitor.
There is no doubt that despite the atrocities the Ummah is going through, Allh is showing us
rays of light, and glimmers of hope, to keep us optimistic and motivated and to give us the
ability to bear the responsibilities He commanded us to bear.
Allh has promised those among you who believe, and do righteous good deeds, that He will
certainly grant them succession to (the present rulers) in the earth, as He granted it to those
before them, and that He will grant them the authority to practise their religion, that which He
has chosen for them. And He will surely give them in exchange a safe security after their fear
(provided) they (believers) worship Me and do not associate anything (in worship) with Me.
But whoever disbelieved after this, they are the Fsiqn (rebellious, disobedient to Allh).
The views expressed in this article are the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of
MuslimVillage.com.

Over 191k killed in Syria since March 2011: UN

Damaged buildings are seen in Mleiha on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus on
August 15, 2014.
Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:59PM GMT

1
2
3
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More than 191,000 people have been killed in over three years of fighting in warravaged Syria, says the United Nations.
In a report released on Friday, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR) announced the death toll, the first issued since July 2013 with a figure standing at
100,000.
The Geneva-based OHCHR said the death figure documented between March 2011 and the
end of April 2014 amounted to 191,369 people.
Tragically, it is probably an underestimate of the real total number of people killed during
the first three years of this murderous conflict, said UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights Navi Pillay, who oversees OHCHR, in a statement that accompanied the report.
Pillay said other armed crises have made Syrias drop off the international radar, noting,
there is a strong likelihood for a significant number of killings not to have been reported at
all.
There were nearly 52,000 other reported killings, not included due to the lack of ample
information.
Around 9.3 percent of the documented victims are women in the list, which also includes
8,803 minors, with 2,165 of them children under the age of ten.
On Thursday, the UN rights chief lambasted the UN Security Council for its failing to thwart
conflicts across the globe.

"Greater responsiveness by this council would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives,"
she told the 15-member world body, adding, "Conflict prevention is complex, but it can be
achieved."
Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011 with ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently
controlling parts of it in the east.
The Western powers and their regional allies -- especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and, Turkey -are reportedly supporting the militants operating inside Syria.
A four-year-old Israeli boy has been killed following a retaliatory rocket attack against
Sha'ar HaNegev in the northwestern Negev Desert.
On Friday, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian resistance
movement Hamas, continued firing rockets into Israel in retaliation for Tel Avivs onslaught
on the besieged Gaza Strip.
Following the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "Hamas will pay a
heavy price.
According to the Israeli military, Palestinian resistance fighters have fired more than 430
rockets into Israel since the collapse of temporary truce talks last week.
Meanwhile, a synagogue was hit in the port city of Ashdod where at least three Israelis were
injured. Another was also injured by shrapnel in Be'er Sheva.
On Tuesday, Tel Aviv resumed its aggression towards Gazans after the truce talks collapsed
and the Israeli negotiators left the Egyptian capital Cairo.
While the Israelis accused Hamas of violating the truce by firing rockets into Israel, the
Palestinians blamed Israel for the collapse of the talks.
Israeli warplanes and tanks have been pounding the blockaded enclave since early July,
inflicting heavy losses on the Palestinian land.
More than 2,090 people, mostly civilians, have lost their lives and over 10,200 have been
injured despite pressure from the international community on the Tel Aviv regime to end
aggression against Palestinians.
Nearly 400,000 Palestinian children are in immediate need of psychological help due to
catastrophic and tragic impact of the Israeli war, according to the United Nations
Childrens Fund (UNICEF).
NT/MHB/MAM

Hamas executes 18 Israeli informants in Gaza Strip

Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:42AM GMT
14

48
107
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Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, has executed 18 informants for Israel in the
besieged Gaza Strip, a day after three Hamas commanders were assassinated in Tel
Avivs onslaught.
Palestinian security officials say the executions occurred at the Gaza City police headquarters
early on Friday.
Sources say the convicts had been previously sentenced by the Gaza courts for collaborating
with Israel. Palestinian officials said they were executed after the completion of legal
procedures.
The resistance group had also on Thursday executed three people on charges of cooperating
with Israel.
The latest developments come after Israel said it had killed three top Hamas military
commanders in an airstrike on a house in southern part of the Palestinian besieged enclave.
The three men were the commanders of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing
of Hamas.
Hamas has said that the killing of the three commanders will demoralize neither the
Palestinians nor the resistance movement, warning that the Tel Aviv regime will pay the price
for killing them.
Israel has claimed that the three commanders played an important role in expanding Hamas'
military capabilities in recent years.

Meanwhile, 30 Palestinians, including many children, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in
less than 24 hours.
The fresh deaths bring the death toll from the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip to over 2090.
Some 10,300 others have been wounded since the Israeli aggression began on July 8.
The UN and several other international bodies have denounced the destruction and death toll
as appalling.
JR/AB/SS
Palestinian resistance fighters have ramped up their rocket strikes on Israel in
retaliation for Tel Avivs airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
The retaliatory rockets were fired from Gaza on several Israeli cities, including Eshkol and
Ashkelon, setting off alert sirens there.
Earlier, Palestinian fighters targeted the Kissufim airbase in Israel. The Israeli military says
Palestinians have fired over 60 rockets at Israeli cities and communities since midnight.
Palestinian fighters also fired rockets on Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport.
Friday marked the third day of continued fighting in the coastal enclave following the
collapse of ceasefire talks in Egypt.
The death toll from the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip stands at nearly 2,090. Some 10,300
others have also been wounded since the Israeli aggression began on July 8.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have called for more retaliatory responses to the Israeli attacks
following the killing of three senior commanders of the Palestinian resistance movement,
Hamas, in an airstrike in Rafah.
Mohammed Abu Shammala, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhoum, the commanders of the
Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which is the military wing of Hamas, were killed in an Israeli
airstrike on the Tel al-Sultan refugee camp in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday.
Thousands of people in Gaza took part in the funeral of the three leaders on Thursday,
demanding more retaliatory rockets against Israel.
HN/HJL/HMV
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Iran ready to fully support Palestinian resistance: IRGC
Mon Aug 4, 2014 12:13PM GMT
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A senior Iranian military commander says Iran is ready to fully support the "growing"
Palestinian resistance movement.
We are prepared to support the Palestinian resistance in various aspects. In defending
Muslims, we recognize no distinction between Shias and Sunnis, commander of the Islamic
Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said on Monday.
He added that the Gaza conflict indicated that the power of Palestinian resistance is endless
and growing.
The IRGC commander further emphasized that the number of rockets launched into Israel
and the Palestinian fighters' ability in confronting the Israeli ground invasion is proof to the
Palestinian resistances growing power.
He added that the events in the Gaza Strip and Iraq are the result of the joint US-Israeli
policies.
The Zionist regime [of Israel] will collapse soon as a result of the unity among Shia and
Sunni Muslims and we are ready for that day, Jafari pointed out.
Medical sources say at least 1,822 people, including 400 children, have been killed and over
9,400 injured since the Israeli regime began its offensive against the Gaza Strip on July 8.
Palestinian resistance fighters are continuing their rocket attacks against Israeli cities in
retaliation for the Tel Aviv regimes relentless onslaught on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military says 64 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the four-week conflict, but
Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, puts the fatalities at more than 150.
A political analyst says the tightening of sanctions by the United States and the
European Union (EU) against Russia is counterproductive, Press TV reports.
In an interview with Press TV, Jan Oberg said the US-EU move to impose sanctions against
Russia over the Ukrainian tension is self-defeating as it harms the economy of the West as
well.
I think it is utterly counter-productive and I dont understand myself why people have not
understood that this is not the way to deal with Russia, Oberg said.
Its self-damaging; it destroys your own economy; it has a negative influence that you
cannot trade, he added.
The analyst said that the bans could prove ineffective as they have encouraged Russia to seek
other trade partners.
Russia will turn to [other] BRICS countries. It is already happening with the oil deal
between Russia and China. It will turn to Iran, it will turn to India, [and] it will turn to South
Africa, he said.
The BRICS is the group of five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China,
and South Africa. BRICS countries represent 40 percent of the worlds population and a fifth
of the global economy.
Over the past months, Western states have placed sanctions on Russias businesses, including
on its financial and energy sectors over the tension in Ukraine.
Kiev and its Western allies accuse Russia of arming pro-Russia forces in the east of Ukraine,
an allegation rejected by Moscow.
The US and EU have also imposed an array of embargoes on Russian individuals close to
President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has retaliated against Western sanctions, banning most food imports from the United
States and the European Union. Moscow is reportedly considering car imports ban from
Western nations as well.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin says Moscow is not intimidated by
the recent European Union sanctions, warning that the bans will only harm Russias
relations with Europe.
In a meeting with EU envoy to Russia Vygaudas Usackas on Friday, Karasin said the 28nation blocs move to impose new sanctions on Moscow will prompt a retaliatory response.
"The Russian side stressed that EU sanctions against Russian individuals and entities are not
scaring anyone. They only escalate the situation and lead it to a dead end, Russias Foreign
Ministry quoted Karasin as saying.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that the Russian government had been forced to
adopt restrictive measures to protect the countrys national security in the face of the Western
sanctions.
As we have repeatedly stated, it is not our choice, but we will not leave the escalation of
sanctions [by the West] unanswered, the statement said.
The United States, the European Union and their allies have introduced several rounds of
targeted sanctions against Russian companies and individuals over the current crisis in east
Ukraine following Crimeas reunification with Russia. Crimea held a referendum in March to
join Russia. Kiev and its western allies do not recognize the results of the referendum saying
the peninsula belongs to Ukraine. Following the move, a few other regions in eastern Ukraine
inhabited by pro-Russians, have called for joining Moscow.
The Western powers accuse Moscow of playing a role in the crisis in eastern Ukraine, which
broke out when Kiev launched military operations to silence pro-Russia protests in April, but
the Kremlin denies the accusation.

Gunmen kill at least 68 in attack on Iraq

Sunni mosque
#IraqatWar
It is not yet clear who is responsible for killing at least 68 people in a mosque north of
Baghdad

Violence in Iraq has escalated since the Islamic State campaign gained momentum in June
(AA)
MEE and agencies
Friday 22 August 2014 13:30 BST

Last update:
August 22 Aug 2014 3:05 BST
Topics:
IraqatWar
Tags:
Islamic State; War
0 comments
Gunmen opened fire on worshippers during Friday prayers at a Sunni mosque in the town of
Imam Wais, northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 68 people, Reuters reported.
Accounts of the attack, which also wounded dozens, varied sharply, with some sources
blaming Shiite militiamen and others pointing to militants from the Islamic State (IS), a
Sunni militant group.
A resident of the town said the attack was carried out by Shiite militiamen in revenge for a
roadside bomb that struck one of their patrols, an account backed up by MP Nahida al-Daini.
But an army captain and a police officer said the attack was the work of four IS militants - a
suicide bomber who detonated explosives inside the mosque and three gunmen who fired on
fleeing worshippers.
IS militants spearheaded a sweeping insurgent offensive that was launched in June and has
since overrun large areas of five provinces.
The initial onslaught swept security forces aside, and the government responded by turning to
Shiite militiamen it fought in past years to bolster its flagging troops.

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/breaking-gunmen-kill-least-32-attack-iraqsunni-mosque-355207774#sthash.8q6W6Re7.dpuf