KwAcKy's Konfessional |
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Nothing of interest; just mindless links to bikes Birmingham City Football Club and useless junk  
  
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22 May 2004
Whilst the World continues to tut and shake its collective head at the maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners, Israel goes about it's business of ethnic cleansing. At least ten Palestinians, three of them children, were killed and some 55 others were injured, as shrapnel and explosives tore their bodies when Israeli tanks and attack choppers fired heavy artillery and missiles shells at a non-violent demonstration in Rarafah. 43 Palestinians have been killed thus far and scores of homes - 191 house - have been destroyed in the latest Israeli army carnage in the Gaza Strip. Overwhelmed doctors, who were treating the injured on blood-drenched hospital floors, said most of the injured were also children. The contested area is an extremely densely populated yet arid region. Enclosed by a security fence on three sides and the Mediterranean Sea on the fourth, Gaza has become a prison for most of the population. Within it live 1.3 million Palestinians, of which over 900,000 are refugees who moved to the region after losing their homes in 1948. There is barely any industry in the Strip, and very few residents have been able to obtain permits to leave in search of work. Unemployment rate is estimated at 50 percent, and figures indicate that 84 percent of the Palestinian residents live in poverty, with an average per capita income of $2 per day. Considering that the Strip is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis, it is not surprising that most people have become dependent on aid handouts. Practically all doors have been closed, except, of course, the mosque doors. Sharon, so it seems, is destroying Gaza in order to withdraw from it, thus suggesting that the new Sharon is still the old Sharon. His myopic plans, informed by short term security concerns, totally ignore Israel’s aspiration to be a democratic state in the Middle East and have nothing to do with a vision of peace. Regardless of whether he manages to implement his plan, the vision of a Greater Israel, as opposed to a state of Israel, has, for the time being, triumphed. 
The effect of all this? An opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian studies center in the West Bank has revealed that 31% would vote for Hamas while 27.1% would vote for Fatah in any local elections. This is the first time that Hamas wins top spot in any poll in the West Bank. Although Islam prohibits suicide, the Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes explains that there are Muslims who argue that going into war knowing with certainty that one will die, is not suicide (intihar) but martyrdom (istishhad). Istishhad is a much-praised form of self-sacrifice in the path of God, and a way to win the eternal affection of the virgins in paradise. In addition as the quote given above (3.169) demonstrates the Koran says that martyrs do not die. Therefore they are not really suicides. Nasra Hassan wrote an article called "An Arsenal of Believers" for the New Yorker 11/19/01 for which he interviewed would be suicide bombers. He wrote: One condition of the interviews was that, in our discussions, I not refer to their deeds as "suicide," which is forbidden in Islam. (Their preferred term is "sacred explosions.") One member of al-Qassam said, "We do not have tanks or rockets, but we have something superior—our exploding Islamic human bombs. In place of a nuclear arsenal, we are proud of our arsenal of believers. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi issued a fatwah legitimizing suicide attacks in which he argued that suicide bombings are not suicide. His fatwah stated: The actions committed by the young Muslims who defend the land of Islam are the greatest form of Jihad for the sake of God and they are part of the permitted terror which the Quran talked about...It's a mistake to call these actions suicide because they are brave actions for the sake of God and the ones who commit them are considered 'shuhadaa' for the sake of God." One of the masterminds of the terrorist attack in Bali, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim was interviewed by Australia's channel 9 television (worldnetdaily 5/18/03). When asked if he was a terrorist Amrozi replied: Terrorism is ordered by Allah in the Quran. Richard Roberts in a great article called "Why There Can be No Peace in the Middle East" wrote: Moderate Muslims, who fear Wahabbism or Islamism as much as Westerners, claim that it is an aberration and contrary to the Koran; yet on closer examination of the Koran, we find that the faithful are enjoined “to fight in the cause of Allah.” Indeed, the only guarantee of attaining Heaven with Allah is through the “sacrifice of life in the service of Allah.” Those Muslims who refuse to fight in the cause of Allah will find themselves in Hell drinking boiling water. Thus, the only “peaceful” or moderate Muslims one will encounter are those who have rejected these parts of the Koran’s behest to murder non-Believers. There are Moslems who say suicide bombing is against their religion. Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America in an OpEd in the New York Post of 5/24/02, wrote that Muslim-Americans and their leaders need to reject violence in all its forms -- particularly the terrible suicide bombings that stand in such stark opposition to everything that Islam represents. Even the mufti of the most fundamentalist school of law in Islam, the "Wahhabi" sect, declared that suicide bombings have never been an accepted method of fighting in Islam. The mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Al-'Aziz Al-Sheikh, declared, "To my knowledge, so called 'suicide missions' do not have any legal basis in Islam and do not constitute a form of jihad. I fear that they are nothing but a form of suicide and suicide is also prohibited in Islam." This echoes an earlier fatwa by his predecessor, the late Saudi mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz.... The Islamic rules of military conduct never permit using civilians as targets or as hostages.... The popular, yet controversial, Islamic scholar Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi issued a fatwa condemning the tragic suicide attacks of 9/11 stating: "Even in times of war, Muslims are not allowed to kill anybody save the one who is indulged in face to face confrontation with them." He added that they are not allowed to kill women, old persons or children, and that haphazard killing is totally forbidden in Islam. Another widely followed religious scholar, As-Sayyid Tantawi, Grand Shaykh of Islam's highest institution of learning, the University of Al-Azhar, has said that attacks against women and children are "not accepted by Islamic law." Al-Azhar's Research Academy, shortly after Sept. 11, declared that a "Muslim should only fight those who fight him; children, women and the elderly must be spared."... God says in the Qur'an, "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loves not transgressors." Jamie Glazov in his article "Suicide For Allah" (FrontPageMagazine.com 2/7/02) wrote: Many of Islam’s apologists insist that suicide bombing is not Islamic because the Koran forbids suicide. Mmm-hmm. So where are all the Muslims gathering in mass demonstrations to vehemently condemn this practice that slanders their religion? Why does contemporary Islam promote “martyrdom” as the highest duty of Muslims? Why are photographs of suicide bombers plastered everywhere in Beirut? Because Islam is what Islam does |
