The United Nations marked the “International Day for the Prevention of Violent Extremism as and when Conducive to Terrorism” on February 12, 2023. To mark the occasion, the head of the U.N., Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres condemned the scourge when he led that “Terrorism is an affront to humanity.”
It is indeed heinous and evil to the core.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, January 2023
The leader of the global body unfortunately then went woke and counterfactual when he called out only one variety of the evil: neo-Nazis.
“Terrorist and violent extremist groups are finding fertile ground on the Internet to spew their vicious venom. Neo-Nazi, white supremacist movements are becoming more dangerous by the day. They now represent the number one internal security threat in several countries — and the fastest growing.“
The neo-Nazis and White Supremacist movements are absolutely evil and dangerous. But they are a small fraction of violent extremism that has infected the world.
In 2020, an estimated 22,847 people were killed by terrorism, below the previous decade annual average of roughly 26,000 deaths. The leading countries were Afghanistan; Nigeria; Congo; and Ethiopia by a wide margin. The countries with the next highest number of deaths from terrorism were Syria; Yemen; Somalia; Mozambique; Burkina Faso; Mali and Iraq.
The data for 2021 from another source listed the worst countries as: Afghanistan; Iraq; Somalia; Burkina Faso; Syria; Nigeria; Mali; Niger; Pakistan; Cameroon; India and Mozambique. An almost identical set of countries.
It may not surprise anyone that the none of these murders were from Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists. By far, the leading cause of deaths from terrorism every year is from the noxious evil of radical Islam.
The leading cause of deaths from terrorism every year is from the noxious evil of radical Islam
The world is so cowed by the power of radical Islamic jihadists that it refuses to confront it, let alone call it out directly. Instead, it bows to its master, as over 25% of the United Nations’ member countries have a Muslim majority which may not take kindly to being called out. So the timid Portuguese U.N. Secretary General gives them cover and beats up Europeans and other western countries.
It is time to admit that the United Nations is hopelessly broken, when it becomes a vehicle to protect the worst regimes in the world.
It is time to admit that the United Nations is hopelessly broken, when it becomes a vehicle to protect the worst regimes in the world.
As we watch Islamic extremism kill tens of thousands of people and decimate societies every year, we bicker about White supremacy and nationalism. It is through that jaundiced lens that leftists at the United Nations and mainstream media berate Israel, blind to the radical jihadist neighbors attempting to destroy the Jewish State, and acutely sensitive to a false notion of White Israeli Privilege (when less than one-third of Israelis are Ashkenazi Jews).
US President Joe Biden announced on July 31 that he had ordered the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a mastermind of several terrorist attacks against the United States. In his comments about the targeted assassination of one of the leaders of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Biden said “Justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more.”
Biden added that “We make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.” However, it is unclear whether al-Zawahiri posed any current threat to the United States. Biden administration officials made no attempt to relay any planned attacks and did not offer whether there was any attempt to arrest al-Zawahiri instead of killing him.
The justice was seemingly solely based on al-Zawahiri’s past actions killing thousands of innocent lives.
Biden’s view of justice served to terrorists is in sharp contrast to the Palestinian Authority that same day.
To mark the twentieth anniversary of Palestinian Arabs blowing up a cafeteria at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, murdering nine and injuring over 80, the Palestinian Authority raised the salaries of four terrorists by 14.29%.
As reported by Palestinian Media Watch, “Four of the members of the terrorist cell that carried out the attack – Wael Qassem, Wassim Abbasi, Alla Aldin Abbasi and Muhammed Odeh – were arrested shortly after [the bombing], in August 2002. Having now spent 20 years in prison, this month, the PA will give each of the terrorists a 14.29% rise in their basic salary, from 7,000 ($2,251) to 8,000 shekels/month ($2,572). Since the terrorists were residents of Jerusalem, the PA pays them an additional supplement of 300 shekels/month ($96). To date, the PA has paid each of the these four terrorists a sum of 1,034,500 shekels ($332,637). Four of the other terrorists convicted for their part in the attack on the university and other attacks include Muhammad Arman, Walid Anjas, Abdallah Barghouti and Ibrahim Hamed. Each of these terrorists is similarly receiving a monthly salary from the PA.
“To date, the PA rewarded the terrorists responsible for the bombing 8,022,600 shekels ($2,579,614).”
PA President Mahmoud Abbas defended these payment before the United Nations in September when he said “Why should we have to clarify and justify providing assistance to families of prisoners and martyrs, who are the victims of the occupation and its oppressive policies? We cannot abandon our people and we will continue striving to free all our prisoners.“
US President Joe Biden and PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, July 2022. The leaders have very different views of how to deal with terrorists. (photo: Reuters)
The murder of innocent civilians is reprehensible. While it is unfortunate that the offending terrorists are killed instead of tried and imprisoned, it is often necessary. Justice requires as much.
The stain of inhumanity is not confined to the terrorists but permeates those who support, encourage and incentivize them. The Palestinian Authority has shown its moral code in its twisted definition of justice as rewarding terrorists.
In the United States, justice for terrorists and their victims means punishing terrorists. For Palestinian Arabs, justice requires cash compensation for the murderers and falsely labeling the slain victims as foreign invaders.
Reuters is a global news agency whose stories are picked up and disseminated around the world. Its reporting is thereby magnified as it is often the only source about events in many parts of the world.
The agency has a history of actively choosing to whitewash the terrorism of Palestinian groups, opting instead to call them “militants” while simultaneously calling out other organizations.
Consider the P.K.K., the Kurdistan Working Party:
July 21, 2022: “...militants of the Kurdish PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Ankara regards both as terrorist groups…. Cavusoglu said reports blaming Turkey for the attack were attempts by the PKK to hinder Ankara’s counter-terrorism…. ‘Following this attack, which we believe the (PKK) terrorist organisation carried out,‘”
June 29, 2022: “… it views as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which is also deemed a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.“
May 14, 2022: “…engaging with PKK and YPG. These are terrorist organisations that have been attacking our troops…. ‘it is unacceptable and outrageous that our friends and allies are supporting this terrorist organisation’“
April 21, 2022: “The military action was part of a long-running Turkish campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, both regarded as terrorist groups by Ankara.“
Reuters similarly treats the terrorist group al-Shabaab in a similar fashion by clearly stating its objectives:
July 19, 2022: “…two al Shabaab terrorists were killed in action,“
April 5, 2022: “The al Shabaab group linked to al Qaeda…. Violence by the group, which aims to topple the central government and impose its own severe version of Islamic law,” didn’t specify terrorism but linked it to a well known terrorist group ad stated the groups goal to topple the government of Somalia.
Meanwhile, articles about Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas, Al-Aqsa Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are cleansed of the terrorist label and instead referred to as “militant groups” and “Islamists.”
July 24, 2022: “The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant group claimed the two Palestinians slain… which is ruled by Hamas Islamists.“
June 7, 2022: “…the enclave now governed by Hamas Islamists.“
May 27, 2022: “The Islamist group Hamas in Gaza has warned of another war…“
April 15, 2022: “…the armed Islamist group Hamas, which rules the enclave,“
People around the world reading Reuters are left with an impression that Hamas is somehow not out to destroy Israel, nor a designated terrorist group by the United States, European Union and many other countries. The group thereby becomes legitimized, in sharp contrast to how the media portrays other terrorist groups when it informs the world about the violent threats such groups pose.
Anti-Zionism is pervasive, and the media is an active participant in whitewashing the terrorism and genocidal aspirations of many Palestinian Arabs.
The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres addressed the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on March 22, 2022. He heaped praise on an organization that mocks the very values and actions he cherishes.
Guterres led with:
“The United Nations and the OIC enjoy a close, decades-long relationship rooted in trust and based on the shared belief in the values of multilateral cooperation, dialogue, and solidarity. Across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and beyond, our two organizations have worked together to nurture a culture of peace, tolerance, and understanding.
“In recent years, we have successfully deepened our collaboration on key areas of mutual concern — including mediation, countering terrorism, preventing violent extremism, combating anti-Muslim hatred, and promoting religious tolerance. Today, the imperative to join forces, devise common strategies, and draw on our comparative advantages is more urgent than ever.”
The UN and OIC almost seemed bound at the hip. Using the phrases “close”, “relationship rooted in trust”, “shared belief”, “solidarity”, “worked together”, “deepened our collaboration”, “mutual concern” and “common strategies” in just two paragraphs appeared as an embarrassing overuse of a thesaurus.
In political circles, this is called “bending the knee” to a powerful group.
The list of subjects highlighted as being a focus for shared collaboration with Islamic countries is laughable:
Countering terrorism and preventing violent extremism. The worst terrorist groups in the world today are all Islamic, including: ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas, Taliban, Hezbollah, al-Shabaab, Lashkar, Haqqani and al-Nusra to name a few.
Promoting religious tolerance. Islamic states are the worst at promoting peace between religions. Changing religions is a basic human right, but apostasy is illegal in Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Edicts to that effect have happened in Morocco and Pakistan. Islamic countries are by far the most anti-Semitic in the world. Palestinian Arabs – 93% of whom are anti-Semitic – voted the terrorist group Hamas to a majority of parliament, with full knowledge that the group has the most anti-Semitic charter ever written.
And Guterres not only ignored these facts, not only whitewashed them, not only absolved them – but promoted the Islamic nations as defenders of the crimes they actually commit! No wonder that the heads of the United Nations promote the idea that Hamas should be a legitimate part of the Palestinian Authority.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the High Level Segment of the 37th Session of the Human Rights Council. 26 February 2018.
This phenomenon existed with Guterres’ predecessor Ban Ki Moon as well. He stood in Istanbul, Turkey at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit and heaped praise on Turkish leader Recep Erdogan despite the fact that he jailed more journalists than any nation in the world. Ban Ki made Ahmed Al Meraikhi of Qatar his “Humanitarian Envoy“, despite many human rights abuses.
So why do the heads of the United Nations prostrate to the Islamic world, erasing their human rights abuses?
Could it be that there are between 1.6 and 1.8 billion Muslims in the world? That there are 57 Islamic states? Due to the fact that a huge percentage of the world is Islamic, the United Nations must bend to the whims of these autocrats and dictators who trample on the founding principles of the UN.
Further, the UN is always in need of money, and the Islamic sheikdoms control an enormous amount of the world’s energy supply and riches.
So the world listens and complies with Islamic demands regardless of being immoral or non-factual. It agrees that Jews should not be allowed to pray at their holiest location or live in certain parts of their holy land because radical Islamists demand as much. It echoes nonsense that Israel is an “apartheid” state, seemingly having no idea what the word means. It ignores thousands of years of Jewish history in the land of Israel and calls Israeli Jews “colonialists.” And most importantly, it will allow the Islamic Republic of Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism which called for the destruction of Israel, to have a legal pathway to nuclear weapons.
Its unearned wealth and enormous size confers power to the Islamic world to which the head of the UN must submit. He dutifully bows to their entitled status and defecates on decency and human rights. Joining him is the leader of the free world, the president of the United States, who will enable an Islamic terrorist state to obtain nuclear weapons.
The sole Jewish State is unique in many ways. One situation that causes constant strain is that it is surrounded by armed terrorist groups.
To the north is Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to recent reports, the Iranian-backed terrorist group “currently possesses between 120,000-140,000 short-range rockets (range of 25-28 miles), which cover Israel’s north, including Haifa Bay and Tiberias; several thousand medium-range rockets (range of 56 miles), which can reach the Sharon coastal plain and northern suburbs of Gush Dan; and several hundred long-range rockets and missiles (range of hundreds of miles), including Scud missiles from Syrian military warehouses, capable of hitting targets anywhere in Israel.“
To the west is the terrorist enclave of Gaza. The terrorist group Hamas has launched several wars against Israel since taking over the region.
In the east, Israel has to face Hamas as well, which has significant support in Areas A and B of the West Bank. Palestinians maintain that the best way of dealing with Israel is through armed conflict, and support a number of Palestinian terrorist groups which operate both west and east of Israel including: Palestine Liberation Front (PLF); Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ); Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC); Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB); and Army of Islam (AOI).
To the south, there is another terrorist group that operates out of the Sinai Peninsula called Wilayat Sinai, or ISIS in the Sinai. They have been fighting both Egypt and Israel.
Israel is surrounded by terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism
Wilayat Sinai
Wilayat Sinai began in 2011 around the time of the “Arab Spring” under the name Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, before pledging its allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014 as that group was gaining prominence and then change its name. Like many of the terrorist groups in the region, it’s banner is jihad and the imposition of Islamic Sharia law throughout the region.
Wilayat’s main target is the Egyptian government which is viewed as too secular. Not only did Egypt make peace with Israel, but it actively opposes the Muslim Brotherhood.
The group stepped up its attacks against Egypt in 2014 when Abdul Fattah al-Sisi ascended to power after forcing out Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. With the support of Israel, al-Sisi began to clamp down on the smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza which were instrumental in the Hamas war against Israel in that year. Israel would go on to allow Egypt to expand its military presence in the Sinai, above the limits set in place by the 1979 Peace Agreement. By 2018, 42,000 Egyptian soldiers were in the Sinai.
In February of that year, al-Sisi launched an aggressive “Operation Sinai 2018” campaign against Wilayat Sinai with Israeli support. The actions severely curtailed the groups ability to operate.
The attacks have not been limited to Egypt. In 2015, the group downed a Russian civilian airplane killing 224 because of Russian attacks against ISIS in Syria.
In 2011, attackers from Sinai – including some terrorists from Gaza – shot and killed Israelis near the resort city of Eilat. In 2012, rockets were fired into Eilat and later that year armed men from Hamas and Wilayat Sinai killed Egyptian soldiers and attacked Israeli Defense Forces at the Kerem Shalom Crossing near Gaza. The group would fire more rockets into Israel in 2017.
While Hamas gets most of the attention because of its vile anti-Semitic foundational charter and persistent attacks against Israel, the Jewish State is completely surrounded by terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism. While each has a different take on the goals of imposing Sharia law and establishing a caliphate, they all seek a purely Islamic region and an end to the Jewish State.
On October 27, 2021, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) received a threat in the mail from a “deranged” person. It’s a terrible state of affairs that people try to physically harm others and/or threaten to do so. Omar rightfully called it out on Twitter.
Ilhan Omar tweets about threat she received in the mail
What is upsetting (repulsive) is that Omar said that she understands the “reality of having [to need] security” after receiving a threat in the mail, but could not understand or approve of helping replenish Israel’s defensive Iron Dome system which intercepts missiles from Palestinian Arab terrorist aimed at Israeli civilians. How can a paper threat trump thousands of missiles? It can’t. It’s just that she sees no value in the lives of Israeli civilians as evidenced by her ongoing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic votes and comments.
As Omar voted against Israel’s defensive system she tweeted “we continue to pay lip service to human rights, peace and a two state solution. Yet we also continue to provide Israel with funding without addressing the underlying issue of the occupation.” Omar seemingly wants to see thousands of dead Israelis because that will somehow make Israel want to give even more land to Palestinian Arabs as its worked out so well when Israel left Gaza (sarcasm).
Using her own litmus test, perhaps the United States should hold back on providing any security for Ilhan Omar unless and until she addresses her own vile underlying anti-Semitism.
There were three epicenters of the terrorists attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001: New York City; the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.; and a field in Pennsylvania which took the place of the U.S. Capitol Building due to the efforts of heroes aboard an ill-fated flight. The jihadists attacks on the hearts of America’s financial, military and political centers was deliberate, evil and immediate. The ramifications reverberated in the years that followed.
The Epicenter
I worked across the street from New York City’s World Trade Centers in 2001 and the impact on me was direct.
I first felt the vocal rumblings of 9/11 during the prior week. I spent Labor Day weekend in New York City while most of the city’s residents were on vacation. As I picked up some late night foods at the Fairway market on the Upper West Side, I stood on line behind a woman who was nearly blind, who I guessed hailed from Pakistan. She talked for some time to the cashier, a much younger man, about how everything was about to change forever and that the world would finally wake up. The conversation made me extremely uneasy and I relayed to my wife how I had suddenly felt like a vulnerable minority in New York for the first time.
That sense of dread gained credence as news trickled in from the weeklong UN-sponsored Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa which ended on September 8. Rather than serve as an opportunity to address xenophobia and racism’s oldest form – anti-Semitism – the conference twisted the notions of “colonialism”, “imperialism”, and rights of “indigenous peoples” as condemning articles against Israel, labeling it as an “apartheid” state, in a slur to resuscitate the UN’s 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution.
On the morning of Monday, September 10th, I boarded a flight bound for Kansas City for business. As the plane pulled away from the gate, it clipped the wing of a plane parked next to it in a freak accident, grounding both planes. Instead of having a full day meeting in KC and then continuing on to a conference in San Diego, I ended up spending the day and the next in New York, and planned on flying out to California late on 11th.
As it turned out, staying home on the 11th allowed me to vote during the New York Democratic primary. I voted for whoever was running against Mark Green and then walked to the Broadway and 72nd street subway station to head to my office downtown. I boarded the number 2 express train which would take me on my regular route to Chambers Street before switching to the 1 train for one stop to Cortland St. That train station was under the World Trade Center and I would normally walk out one of the corridors to my office at 130 Liberty Street, a 39-story tower known as the the Deutsche Bank Building, sometime around 9:00am each weekday. I was running slightly later that day because of my morning visit to the polling station.
Fate intervened.
A woman on the subway said in a loud voice that filled the subway car, that she heard that a plane just hit the World Trade Center. I worked on the 30th floor of the Deutsche Bank building facing south towards the Statue of Liberty and would often see planes flying up the Hudson River, sometimes seemingly way too low. I assumed one of those flights lost control and hit one of the tall towers. Before the subway doors closed, I switched to the local train to work out of the firm’s midtown office on 52nd street to avoid the craziness of the incident.
When I emerged from the 50th Street subway stop a short time later, a Black middle-aged woman walking on Broadway said to me that she just heard that both towers were hit. I replied that I heard that a plane hit one tower and she said “no, it’s both of them.” I ran to my office where there were a number of colleagues already standing and watching the television screen that was suspended from the ceiling. We would watch it for a few hours as the towers came crashing down to our utter shock. As we stared, people from our downtown office started to arrive in that midtown location. One of them was a former marine who said he had never seen anything like what he had just witnessed as he fell into my arms, exhausted. He said the sound of bodies popping as they hit the pavement as they jumped from the burning buildings would never leave his mind.
By early afternoon people began to head home, if they could, as the transportation system came to a halt. I walked towards my apartment and stopped for lunch at a pizza store named Pizza Cave on 72nd Street between Broadway and West End Avenue. I saw a friend who was shaken up by the events and had no way of getting home to Riverdale in the Bronx. He came to my apartment and hung out until he was able to figure out a way home.
After he left, I grabbed a video camera and headed with my wife and two young kids to Riverside Park. Hundreds of people went out to the pier that stretched into the Hudson River to watch dozens of ambulances race down the west side highway towards the giant cloud coming from downtown Manhattan. People stared overhead to see military aircraft race across the skies of New York City. Some just sat in the warm September sun.
The days that followed in New York were not moments of coming together as described by politicians today but a range of manifestations from post-traumatic stress disorder. I was glued to the television set so purchased a second one so my children could keep watching their kids shows. Everyone in the city talked about taping up their windows as the smell of ash, smoke and unknown scents hung over the city. People put up posters of “missing” family members all over walls of buildings, even though everyone understood they were dead in the rubble.
The days turned to weeks as people learned who died from their firms and apartment buildings.
The South Tower fell into my office building, shearing the entire front of the building and the debris filled the first floors, killing the security guard. One of the junior people on my team was allowed to go into the building in full hazmat attire to retrieve a handful of items left behind. He brought me back a cookie jar with my kids handprints and footprints which my wife had given me a few months earlier for Father’s Day. The tefillin from my bar mitzvah, which I kept in my desk drawer for situations when I worked late or needed to fly somewhere last minute did not make it out. The building was ultimately demolished in 2011, almost ten years after the attacks because human remains continued to be discovered as they methodically removed one floor at a time.
Cookie jar salvaged from 9/11/2001 attacks
The world eventually learned the name of the attackers, Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi who was “fixated on American imperialism“, and his organization, al Qaeda, which was “dedicated to opposing non-Islamic governments with force and violence,” from bases of operation in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, and even the United States. Looking out from the epicenter, those days were mixed with pain, fear, anger and desire for revenge.
During those initial weeks, I would stop on various Manhattan streets to watch ceremonies of firefighters honoring the memories of fallen colleagues who died in their attempts to rescue people from the towers. The whole city felt a huge debt to these heroes who did their best to save hundreds of people. I would have personal encounters with some of those people in the following years.
The Diameter of 9/11
The Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai’s poem “The Diameter of the Bomb,” captures the essence of people and places impacted by destruction beyond those in the immediate vicinity of the blast radius. The diameter of the 9/11 attacks covered the entire planet.
On a personal level, my work relocated to Baltimore for several months after the attacks. The Amtrak train ride to the city was loaded with tension of people shuttling between the epicenters of New York and Washington. I recall the voices of riders expressing their disgust with members of Congress standing on the steps of the Capitol in a canned photo op, as people noted it was those very people who had failed to protect America.
About two and a half years after the attacks, I sold my Upper West Side apartment to a 9/11 widow. She had lost her firefighter husband on that dreadful day, and then married his best friend, also a firefighter. Her new husband divorced his wife a year after the attacks, and this new couple opted to start a new life together in my old home, with the help of millions of dollars she received as compensation for the bravery of her deceased spouse.
Thousands of additional people would die in the “global war on terror (GWOT)” and the “wars of terror (WofT)” in the months and years ahead.
The United States enlisted dozens of countries to help fight the scourge of Islamic extremist violence, principally in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in Libya, Nigeria and Somalia. As the GWOT fought on, the WofT hit England, France, Spain and Israel, as genocidal jihadists continued to fight perceived infidels. Sometimes the WofT attacks were on a large scale, like the 2004 Madrid bombings, while at other times it was personal, like the beheading of the Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.
After the relief from the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011, the global fear of extremist Islamic terrorism came to the fore again in 2014 and 2015 when a new brand of radicals – ISIS – showed shocking videos of its members burning people alive and decapitating them. It declared a new Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq as it sought to reverse “western imperialism” which divided the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Islamic radicals went on to kill cartoonists and Jews in Paris, France in January 2015; celebrants of Bastille Day in Nice in July 2016 and hundreds in London and Manchester, England throughout 2016 and 2017.
While new epicenters emerged, the mayhem largely stayed off of American shores.
The Echoes
Twenty years after the infamous attacks, America pulled its troops from Afghanistan and prays that the silence from the paucity of successful jihadi attacks in the United States, continues.
But in that silence, a drumbeat of new local jihadists on America’s college campuses and the halls of Congress, echo the sentiments of al Qaeda and ISIS.
Professors from Rutgers University and San Francisco State marked the 20th anniversary of the slaughter of innocent Americans with a forum that blamed the original attacks and the responding war on terror on the false idea of “US and Israeli exceptionalism” and promoted the absurd notion that each country needed a new adversary after the fall of the Soviet Union, so they manufactured Islam as the new bogeyman. One speaker said that “For me, the horror wasn’t 911 itself, which I experienced back when I was living in North Carolina. For me the horror was George W. Bush’s speech, I found his speech to be completely horrific, because here he was openly declaring, quote, forever wars.” In short, the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent Americans did not bother the professor as much as the advance of “American imperialism” against Islamic countries, now under the guise of a “war on terror.”
Those same outrageous chants are now heard repeatedly in Congress, with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) decrying the United States’ “western imperialism” and claiming that the U.S. and Israel foster racism for profit. The talking points of the Durban Conference, al Qaeda and ISIS are coalescing and becoming embedded in left-wing America.
On 9/11/01, Islamic extremists killed thousands of innocent civilians in the United States, vandalized America’s skyline and instilled a deep fear of their disregard for human life, in what President Obama referred to as an “evil ideology“, copied by a variety of jihadists groups. Those Islamic groups are fighting the wounds from end of World War I, which they perceive as western powers defeating the Islamic Ottoman Empire, carving it up in the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 and inserting a colonial beachhead of Jews in Palestine with the Balfour Declaration of 1917. They are slowly gathering support for their cause against “western imperialism” and “Zionism” as they muster influence in the west.
The scars of 9/11 may have healed for some, making it easier to consider that the need for a global war on terror should come to an end. But the jihadist war is only entering its next phase, as it enlists westerners to undermine its own interests and values.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the Palestinian political-terrorist group HAMAS congratulated the Taliban in Afghanistan for defeating the United States. The Twitter account for HAMAS noted that the Taliban “faced America and its agents, refusing half-solutions with them. The Taliban was not deceived by the slogans of democracy and elections and fake promises. This is a lesson for all oppressed people.” #WePrayMeToo
The leaders of the Taliban and HAMAS before a picture of Jerusalem, as posted in a congratulatory note from HAMAS to the Taliban after taking over Afghanistan.
The Taliban victory represents the HAMAS ideal: the oppression of women; the murder and wiping out of non-Muslim infidels; the violent over-through of a secular liberal society and the installation of sharia law and jihadi culture.
Oppression of Women
The Taliban doesn’t allow women to travel outside without a male escort, receive an education or marry outside of family-approved unions. The penalty for breaking Taliban law ranges from whipping to being put to death.
Girl in Afghanistan
Afghanistan has around 150 ‘honor killings’ every year, whereby family members kill a sister/mother/daughter for bringing shame to family honor because they dressed inappropriately or refused to marry a designated mate. After HAMAS took over Gaza, the number of honor killings jumped dramatically. In 2011, 2012 and 2013 the numbers jumped from 5 to 13 to 27, respectively. It was projected to jump again in 2014 when news reports silenced publishing the statistics because it hurt public perception of the terrorist group. On a proportionate basis, Gaza had more honor killings than Afghanistan.
Sometimes the family doesn’t take to killing the woman but the “aggrieved” male who was “hurt” by the woman’s rejection, disfigures the woman on his own by pouring acid on her face or cutting off her nose and ears. Roughly 1,500 women each year suffer this fate in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India and Pakistan. The practice hasn’t been exported to other jihadi societies like Gaza. Yet.
Fragile Beauty in the Far East (music by Bon Jovi)
Destroying the Infidelsand Installing Sharia Law
While ISIS gained more infamy for destroying pieces of history in Iraq’s museums, the Taliban was already destroying human history in blowing up ‘idols’ before the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Buddhist statue from the 6th century destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001
Palestinians have been destroying archeological treasures for a long time. Whether ancient cities in Gaza, biblical treasures from the time of Joshua, or even Joseph’s tomb. On Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Arabs have been excavating underground to create new mosques, destroying Jewish history.
It is not a surprise as the Palestinians have tried to deny Jewish history in Israel repeatedly and outrageously state that Israel is trying to “Judaize” Jerusalem, as if there wasn’t 3,000-years of Jewish history and Jews weren’t the majority of the city since the 1860’s.
HAMAS’s charter makes clear that they want a purely Islamic society that wipes out the Jews.
“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.”
“Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people.”
“In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised“
“Moslems were able to retrieve the land only when they stood under the wing of their religious banner… This is the only way to liberate Palestine“
World Response
Some countries may not be all that upset by the rise of the Taliban and HAMAS as they adopt some worst practices.
Consider the United Kingdom which ignored and enabled Pakistani ‘grooming gangs’ to rape and beat thousands of young women over the past decade. An estimated 1,400 girls in Rotherham were abused and 700 in Newcastle. The press talked about it for a day and then – complete silence.
This is the same England which had the head of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, refer to the terrorist groups HAMAS and Hezbollah as “friends.” These highbrow oppressors of women and Jews enjoy their tea as they watch their friendly jihadists on the ‘tele’.
There’s a creeping jihad in England which is slowly killing democracy like boiling a lobster.
The world must decide on the appropriate response to the new reality of Taliban’s Afghanistan. Will it send money to “rebuild” the way it does to HAMAS’s Gaza? Will it give it succor by recognizing the government with embassies and foreign relations as the countries in Latin America have done for ‘Palestine’? Will it refuse to call out terrorism if the Taliban keeps it local, the way it absolves the crimes against humanity perpetrated regularly by HAMAS?
There may be limits to our ability to combat extremists but there is no excuse for empowering them.
Palestine declared itself as an independent state in 1988 to the joy of the Muslim and Arab world. Algeria, Libya, Iraq and dozens of other countries rushed to recognize the country. They believed that this was the fair thing to do, even as they refused to recognize the Jewish State of Israel.
Much of the western world refuses to recognize a Palestinian state as they wait for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to negotiate a peace agreement. However, the Palestinian Authority has aggressively pushed for broader recognition and effectively broke through to many South American countries in the 2009 to 2011 time frame.
After multiple wars and terrorist attacks launched from Gaza, it is time for those South American countries to rescind their recognition.
On May 17, 2021, the Organization of American States (OAS), stated unequivocally that Hamas is a terrorist group that targets civilians:
“Hamas’s terrorist aggression is unlimited and always seeks civilian victims, seeks to escalate conflict dynamics and armed actions, as well as sowing terror among innocent populations, be they Israeli or Palestinian.
“The immoral and unworthy use of children and women as human shields, as well as the militarization of residential areas, constitute in themselves acts that deserve the most absolute repudiation and condemnation.”
These are plain facts but the OAS has not reflected on its own statement.
Hamas is not an outlier terrorist group but the leading political party in Palestinian parliament, having won 58% of the seats the last time elections were held. It controls the entirety of the Gaza Strip. It is predicted to win the presidency according to Palestinian polls if elections are held again.
As such, recognizing a State of Palestine today is to legitimize terrorism. It is not only immoral to do so but stands against the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism, adopted by the OAS in 2002, which affirmed “the need to adopt effective steps in the inter-American system to prevent, punish, and eliminate terrorism through the broadest cooperation.“
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pictured in 2009, when he abolished term limits, took over the banks, severed relations with Israel and recognized a State of Palestine.Things have only gotten worse.
It is time for the countries of Latin America to sever ties with “Palestine.”
Hamas is a very popular political-terrorist group among Palestinian Arabs. According to recent polls, Palestinians support attacking Jewish civilians inside of Israel and were thrilled by Hamas’s rocket attacks against Israel a couple of months ago. Should Palestinian elections ever be held again, Hamas is expected to win both the presidency and the majority of parliament.
But beyond the blood lust desire to kill Jews and destroy Israel, what drives Hamas to abuse the dead?
On August 1, 2014, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, officers in the Israeli Defense Forces, were abducted and killed during a US-sponsored ceasefire between Hamasand Israel. Seven years later, Hamas continues to hold their bodies and refuses to return them to their families in Israel. It is a flagrant violation of human rights and decency and the United Nations does nothing.
Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin
Hamas’s mutilation of dead bodies is also a crime. They kill suspected collaborators and drag their bodies through the streets in an effort to intimidate the public, much like ISIS burning people alive.
Members of Hamas drag man through the streets of Gaza in November, 2012
This kind of barbarism is not confined to Hamas in Gaza. At the beginning of the Second Intifada, a mob broke into a police station and dragged two Israeli soldiers into a room where they killed them and then threw the bodies to the street where the Palestinian mob trampled them beyond recognition.
Lynching of Israeli soldiers in Ramallah at start of Second Intifada
Today, people celebrate these atrocities and barbarians. In Amsterdam people chant “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas,” while in the streets of Brooklyn marchers call for the destruction of Israel.
And in the halls of Congress, Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) says that the people of Gaza “just want to live” and have “dignity,” to shield their vile actions and intentions.
If Tlaib wants to put a pretty face on Hamas, the minimum she should do is to get the political-terrorist group to release the bodies of the two Jewish men who have been withheld from their families for last seven years.
FirstOneThrough 