FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2012
MIDDLE EAST AND TERRORISM
by Mordechai Kedar
Muhammad As’ad Bayoudh al-Tamimi is a Palestinian columnist living in Jordan. In the past he has often clearly expressed the opinions of the man on the Arab street. Following the interview that Muhammad Abbas gave to Channel 2, in which he gave up the right to return to live in Safed, Israel rejoiced that Abu Mazen had surrendered the "right of return" in the name of the Palestinian people. Abbas himself denied doing so afterward, but "the horse had escaped from the barn".
In response to the surrender of Mahmoud Abbas, al-Tamimi wrote the following article, entitled: "Abbas, get lost, Palestine belongs to us and we will only replace it with Paradise". The title lends itself to two short explanatory comments:
1. The expression "Get lost" was the slogan that accompanied the "Arab Spring". It was the peoples' call to bin Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt, Qadhaffi in Libya, Saleh in Yemen and Asad in Syria. What al-Tamimi hints at is that Abbas has no more legitimacy as a leader than did, and therefore his future will be like theirs.
2. Paradise in this context is death, meaning "Palestine or Death".
Below is the article (with my comments, M.K.)
1. As of the writing of these lines, the article is in more than twenty two thousand Internet sites, which reflects the popularity of the content.
2. The article does not mention "Israel" and "Zionists", but rather only "the Jews", which emphasizes the religious aspect of the conflict with Israel. The writer does not differentiate between Jews who live in Israel and those who live in any other place in the world.
3. Al-Tamimi's claim that Mahmoud Abbas is not an Arab but of Iranian origin and is not Muslim but Bahai and therefore a heretic to Islam is not new. His supporters refute this very energetically, and his detractors bring it up every time he says or does something they don't agree with. This claim is intended to undermine the legitimacy of Abbas to rule or to surrender what they see as their historical inheritance, which they received from Him who dwells on high.
4. The attitude that is expressed in this article must be made clear to all those who think that the conflict between Israel and her neighbors is territorial, national or political, because the basis for this conflict is religious, between the Muslims and the Jews, between what Muslims see as "Din al-Haq" - the religion of truth which is Islam, and what they call "din al-Batal" - a religion of falsehood, which is Judaism. Incidentally, Christianity is also a religion of falsehood according to their point of view.
Whoever ignores the religious basis of the conflict misses the root of the problem and therefore will not be able to arrive at the correct solution.
The solution to the problem that Islam has with Judaism is by means of a mechanism of "temporary peace" that Islam can give to an illegitimate but strong state which it cannot defeat, a temporary peace that can survive forever, as long as this state is strong and invincible.
Only religious people can arrive at a religious solution to the conflict between Israel and her neighbors, because only they have the legitimacy to cope with religious arguments like those of al-Tamimi. Only religious Muslims have the authority to decide when "al-Masalha" - the overall interest - obligates the Muslims to come to an agreement with invincible infidels. This is no simple matter, but possible, and throughout the history of Islam there have been not a few instances when those with religious authority have reluctantly found creative solutions to religious-based issues. The conflict between Israel and the Islamic world is no different in its basic character from other instances.
Because of people like Tamimi and the tens of thousands who have similar attitudes, Israel must continually be perceived as an invincible state. Only thus will she win a peace, temporary but unlimited in time, which will win the seal of approval from the religious people of Islam.
===============
Dr. Kedar is available for lectures
Dr. Mordechai Kedar (Mordechai.Kedar@biu.ac.il) is an Israeli scholar of Arabic and Islam, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. He specializes in Islamic ideology and movements, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.
Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav with the permission of the author.
Links to Dr. Kedar's recent articles on this blog:
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
by Mordechai Kedar
Muhammad As’ad Bayoudh al-Tamimi is a Palestinian columnist living in Jordan. In the past he has often clearly expressed the opinions of the man on the Arab street. Following the interview that Muhammad Abbas gave to Channel 2, in which he gave up the right to return to live in Safed, Israel rejoiced that Abu Mazen had surrendered the "right of return" in the name of the Palestinian people. Abbas himself denied doing so afterward, but "the horse had escaped from the barn".
In response to the surrender of Mahmoud Abbas, al-Tamimi wrote the following article, entitled: "Abbas, get lost, Palestine belongs to us and we will only replace it with Paradise". The title lends itself to two short explanatory comments:
1. The expression "Get lost" was the slogan that accompanied the "Arab Spring". It was the peoples' call to bin Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt, Qadhaffi in Libya, Saleh in Yemen and Asad in Syria. What al-Tamimi hints at is that Abbas has no more legitimacy as a leader than did, and therefore his future will be like theirs.
2. Paradise in this context is death, meaning "Palestine or Death".
Below is the article (with my comments, M.K.)
The recent declarations of the person who is called "Abu Mazen" (whose real name is, M.K.) Mahmoud Rida Abbas Mirza, and is of Iranian origin, appeared on the 95th anniversary of the notorious Balfour Declaration, according to which "Great Britain" awarded Palestine - the blessed land (the name for Palestine based on the Qur'an, M.K.), our homeland, the land of Islam - to the Jews whose rights to the land don't even amount to the weight of a mustard seed. The declarations (of Abbas, M.K.) are a confirmation of the promise of Balfour and are a great betrayal on the part of anyone who claims to be a leader of the Palestinian people and its legitimate representative, and I don't know where he who is nicknamed "Abu Mazen" (a mocking reference, M.K.) got his legitimacy and who brought him to be a leader.
The Palestinian people know how this man with Iranian roots and Bahai faith (a religion that originates from Islam, M. K.) a Safavid (a member of an Iranian dynasty, M.K.) was brought in, to sit on the neck and the back of the Palestinian people, in order to fulfill the role of faithful watchdog, and the one who brought him is Sharon who used tanks to impose his leadership as prime minister of the virtual authority in order to usurp forcefully the authorities of Arafat, who refused to surrender the right of return and Jerusalem, just as he refused to come to a historical agreement with the Jews. Therefore he (Sharon, M.K.) had no choice but to get rid of Arafat. Sharon began a war against the Palestinian people and invaded the West Bank in 2000, ruined the Muqata in Ramallah where Arafat was holed up, proclaimed Abu Mazen as prime minister and the spy Muhammad Dahlan as minister of the interior, and these things cleared the way for the physical elimination of Arafat after they eliminated him politically by the order of Sharon... and after these two served the role that Sharon assigned to them, a disagreement broke out between them about who would inherit the leadership, and Abu Mazen won with the support of the Jews, which he got because of his ideological closeness to them.
This is why he fulfilled the task that was imposed upon him with complete faithfulness, since this mission is to oppress the Palestinian people, to tyrannize it and to humiliate it in the name of the thieving entity (a name for Israel, M.K.), because the Jewish entity, ever since its inception, has never enjoyed as much peace and tranquility as it does now, in the time of Mahmoud Rida Abbas Mirza, which proves how much he hates the Palestinian people, and how faithful he is to the Jews. Whether there is a reason for it or not, he always emphasizes his faithfulness to them by requesting friendship with them, flattering them, satisfying their desires and submitting to them. He again says with the deepest disgrace, humiliation, sordidness and weakness, that we have no choice but to surrender and enter into negotiations on the terms of the surrender.
He enraged the Palestinians with his declaration, whether they live in Palestine or in the diaspora, because he said that he does not want to return to Safed; he has no permission to return to it and to live in it because Palestine is only within the borders of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, forever.
But he is not Palestinian at all and he is not from Safed, because he is of Iranian origins, from the city of Bandar Khamir, the city that his grandfather - the founder of the Bahai religion, Rida ‘Ullah Mirza – left to come to Palestine in the year 1882. Can a Palestinian - even if he is a traitor - say that I have no right to live in my homeland if I return to it?
In the interview he also said that he will not allow another intifada to break out against the Jewish entity or to use weapons against it as long as he sits in his chair. When he said this he pointed to the chair on which he was sitting, but this is not a chair, but rather a khazuk (a knife that is stuck in his flesh, M.K.). He also emphasized that he will take only diplomatic and political steps in order to cope with the thieving Jews. And in the past he has announced that Israel will remain forever.
What kind of leader is this?!?!?! Can anything be better than this for the Jews?? He is faithful to them, believes in their entity and surrenders Palestine to them for free with the height of generosity, as if it is his private property that he inherited from his father the Bahai, Rida Abbas Mirza. If he had the conscience of the tortured, oppressed Palestinian people, who have the legitimate and historical rights to Palestine, if he was really a Palestinian from Safed, if he was a Muslim, he would not have been able emotionally to make these declarations, even as a political ploy...
O Mahmoud Mirza, Palestine does not belong to you, nor to your father or grandfather, you are not from Palestine and you do not belong to the religion of its owners and therefore you cannot give it away to the Jews as a gift as your previous master, the foreign minister of Britain, Balfour, did in 1917, when he gave what was not his to those who have no right even to the size of a seed of the land of Palestine.
O, Abbas Mirza, Palestine belongs to us, the Muslims, who declare the unity of the Master of the universe, because we inherited it from our fathers and grandfathers even before there were Muslims... Allah stated in several passages of the Qur'an that no one will surrender it in the future because he - Who knows all hidden things - knew that the Islamic nation will undergo a dangerous phase of great weakness and a terrible void regarding both leadership and politics as it has been since the fall of the Ottoman state, the last Islamic state, and as a result of this, Jews will rule over Palestine and people such as you will steal into the nation in order to dismantle it and surrender it to the Jews.
O, Mahmoud Rida Abbas Mirza, Palestine is the property of the grandchildren of the companions of the prophet Muhammad who conquered it; it belongs to Umar bin al-Khattab (the second caliph who conquered Palestine in 637, M.K.)... It is Islam that liberated Palestine from the Byzantines, and Islam rescued it from the Tatars and the Mongols, and liberated it from the Jews, because the faithful, righteous, Muslims who wage jihad for Allah are the ones who liberated it from you and from the Jews. Behold, they are coming, so don't rejoice, you and your masters, the Jews.
Now a dark period reigns because of a summer cloud that soon will dissipate. The Jews, and you are one of them, know the truth, that they have not taken Palestine from the Palestinian people because of their heroism and courage but rather because of an international plot of many participants, a plot with many resources at its disposal in the leadership of Great Britain and because of the betrayal of the Arab countries at the historical moment when the nation was in its weakest state.
O Mahmoud Abbas Mirza, behold the nation which has begun to heal, to awaken and to stand on its feet. Do not be fooled by the temporary quiet of the Palestinian people because this is the calm before the storm of rage and a frenzied volcano. For these hundred years this people has been in a state of struggle with the entity that is alien to blessed Palestine, it has not surrendered and has not raised the white flag. However much you and your Jewish masters oppress us, the Palestinian people will not surrender, will not wave the white flag, and will not cease to struggle except after this entity will be eliminated from reality and after our holy land will be cleansed from its corruption.
Palestine belongs to us from Rosh Hanikra in the north to Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat, M.K.) in the south, from the Jordan River in the East to the Mediterranean Sea in the West. We will return to her one day and if Allah wills, that day will be soon. We will burst upon the land from the four corners of the heavens and we will conquer it while praising and exalting Allah, just as we entered her the first time under the command of Umar bin al-Khattab... and we will liberate her like Salah-a-din al-Ayubi liberated her from the crusaders (towards the end of the 12th century, M.K.)...
We say to you, O Mirza, "No", a thousand million times: "No", the Jewish entity will not remain in our land, in the blessed land of Islam, and it is walking toward oblivion despite your anger, the anger of the Jews, the anger of the East, the anger of the West and the anger of all the traitors. The day will come when the call for the prayer of victory will be sounded from the minarets of the mosque of al-Jazzar in Acre, the mosque of Hasan Beck in Jaffa, the mosque of al-Istqlal in Haifa, the great mosque of Safed, and the other mosques of Safed: the red mosque, the mosque of al-Saraya and the mosque of al-Yunsi. This eternal call will join the call of the prophet Muhammad and his companions in the victorious battles of Badr (623 CE), in Yarmouk (636), in al-Qadasiya (635), in Hattin (1187) and in Constantinople (1453).
O Abbas Mirza, this entity is a totally alien body in the region, ideologically, philosophically and culturally just like you are, and the Palestinian people and all Muslims will continue forever to refuse to accept it just like they refuse to accept you and they will vomit it out just as they will vomit you out until you will be totally lost like the alien crusader entity was thrown out after two hundred years by the believers in the unity of the Master of the world. This is what our Master promised us, and you are headed for the trash heap of history.
We say to you, O Mahmoud Rida Abbas Mizra, "Abu Mazen": who are you to surrender the blessed land of Palestine, and if you wish to surrender the blessed land of Palestine, the land of Islam, you must collect the signatures of all the Muslims, the living as well as the dead, since Islam came to the world, because Palestine belongs to all of the Muslims, the living and the dead, for these 1400 years. It is not your private property so you cannot give it to your Jewish lovers and masters, while totally debasing the Palestinian people and all of the Muslims.
Go, Abbas, and leave us, because Palestine, from the river to the sea is ours, go and leave us because we will not exchange Palestine except for Paradise, we do not want to surrender our homeland, we return to it, O Palestine, from every state and land, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar and may Allah be praised.This concludes the main content of al-Tamimi's words. It is important to note several points regarding this article:
1. As of the writing of these lines, the article is in more than twenty two thousand Internet sites, which reflects the popularity of the content.
2. The article does not mention "Israel" and "Zionists", but rather only "the Jews", which emphasizes the religious aspect of the conflict with Israel. The writer does not differentiate between Jews who live in Israel and those who live in any other place in the world.
3. Al-Tamimi's claim that Mahmoud Abbas is not an Arab but of Iranian origin and is not Muslim but Bahai and therefore a heretic to Islam is not new. His supporters refute this very energetically, and his detractors bring it up every time he says or does something they don't agree with. This claim is intended to undermine the legitimacy of Abbas to rule or to surrender what they see as their historical inheritance, which they received from Him who dwells on high.
4. The attitude that is expressed in this article must be made clear to all those who think that the conflict between Israel and her neighbors is territorial, national or political, because the basis for this conflict is religious, between the Muslims and the Jews, between what Muslims see as "Din al-Haq" - the religion of truth which is Islam, and what they call "din al-Batal" - a religion of falsehood, which is Judaism. Incidentally, Christianity is also a religion of falsehood according to their point of view.
Whoever ignores the religious basis of the conflict misses the root of the problem and therefore will not be able to arrive at the correct solution.
The solution to the problem that Islam has with Judaism is by means of a mechanism of "temporary peace" that Islam can give to an illegitimate but strong state which it cannot defeat, a temporary peace that can survive forever, as long as this state is strong and invincible.
Only religious people can arrive at a religious solution to the conflict between Israel and her neighbors, because only they have the legitimacy to cope with religious arguments like those of al-Tamimi. Only religious Muslims have the authority to decide when "al-Masalha" - the overall interest - obligates the Muslims to come to an agreement with invincible infidels. This is no simple matter, but possible, and throughout the history of Islam there have been not a few instances when those with religious authority have reluctantly found creative solutions to religious-based issues. The conflict between Israel and the Islamic world is no different in its basic character from other instances.
Because of people like Tamimi and the tens of thousands who have similar attitudes, Israel must continually be perceived as an invincible state. Only thus will she win a peace, temporary but unlimited in time, which will win the seal of approval from the religious people of Islam.
===============
Dr. Kedar is available for lectures
Dr. Mordechai Kedar (Mordechai.Kedar@biu.ac.il) is an Israeli scholar of Arabic and Islam, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. He specializes in Islamic ideology and movements, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.
Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav with the permission of the author.
Links to Dr. Kedar's recent articles on this blog:
- Iran has Defeated the US in Iraq
- Congratulations, Hamas
- The Enemy in the Tent
- Hizb'Allah Gets Trashed
- Turkey Becomes Entangled
- The End of Oslo - and a Glimmer of Hope
- Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
- The Terror of the Alawites Becomes Reality
- The Turban Burns on the Head of the Liar
- The Sectarian Genie
- Diplomacy of Rabbis
- King Mursi the First
- Terror on the Border - Who is the Actual Victim?
- Christians of the Middle East - Endangered Communities
- Total Destruction
- On Academia, Politics and Survival in the Middle East
- Tribal Democracy
- Jordan and Radical Islam
- The Brothers and the Muslms
- What's Next for Saudi Arabia?
- An Open Letter to President Asad
- The Suffering of Africa - Sins of Europe - Guilt of Israel
- What Drives Turkey?
- Engulfed by Fear
- The Syrian Crisis Spills Over into Lebanon
- The Frustrated Intellectual
- Syria, Iraq, the Gulf and the Iranian Tentacles
- The Failure of the Palestinian Venture
- Is Islam the Solution?
- Radical Islam in Africa
- What's Really Going on in Gaza?
- The Alternative Homeland
- The Real Thing
- The Division of Syria
- The Death Throes of the Lion
- An Old Governmental System in Formation
- Frustration and Extortion
- Thank You, Hamas
- Drums of War in the Gulf
- 2011: The Year of the Arab Winter
- And This is the Gate of Heaven
- In the Shadow of the Rising Islamic Crescent
- Who Stole My Revolution
- The Noose Tightens
- The Desert of Death
- Jihad Forever
Source: The article is published in the framework of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. Also published in Makor Rishon, a Hebrew weekly newspaper.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
