Moderate Faisal Husseini Says Land of Israel Belongs to Islam, thus Lasting Peace Is Impossible

It is notorious by now that shortly after signing the ceremony for the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, yasser arafat traveled to South Africa where he told a Muslim audience that these accords should be seen like the Hudaybiyyah truce accord that Muhammad, the Muslim prophet, made with the Meccans. It was meant to last ten years. But a couple of years later, after Muhammad felt that the Muslims were now sufficiently strong to defeat the Meccans, he and his men broke the truce and defeated the Meccans and captured Mecca.

What I did not know about is what Faisal Husseini told an Israeli reporter, Daniel Haik, two years after Oslo in 1995:

This celebrated [Arab] notable, nephew of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseni, but more "moderate" in appearance, received me in his luxurious villa in one of the neighborhoods in the eastern part of Jerusalem. I especially remember one question that I asked him during the interview . . .: "Will the Palestinians agree to recognize the presence forever of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel that you call Palestine?" His answer was direct: "That will be impossible because we can never recognize a Jewish presence on land belonging to Islam." [HaGuesher, 1-17-2018 in French ici ]

There you have it. The motive for the Arab refusal of Israel has to do with Islam, with Islam's supposed ownership of the Land of Israel which the Muslims consider to belong to the Islamic nation or Umma in perpetuity by the principle of waqf. But the West and the so-called Leftists invented for themselves all sorts of other reasons and excuses for Arab intransigence. What is interesting here is that the "Leftists" always used to disqualify movements for being religious. It was on that ground that the Communists rejected Zionism. And here we have a frank declaration by a Palestinian Arab leader that the motive for denying Israel's right to exist in perpetuity is -- Islam, a religion. Yet that religious motive does not seem to bother the Left, not the social democrats, not the Marxist-Leninists so-called, nor any other species of Leftist that I am aware of.

Bear in mind that although Jews lived in Arabia in the days of Muhammad, and he fought battles against those Jews and massacred the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe, Jews have been forbidden to live in Arabia [except for Yemen which was under different rulers] for more than 1000 years. Saudi Arabia maintained that law for many years although after the Six Day War of 1967 when Jews came there as representatives of important foreign powers [like Kissinger representing the USA], the law had to be waived.

As to the Land of Israel, Husseini was simply enunciating the old Islamic principle of waqf. Land that has been conquered by Muslims belongs to the Muslim community in perpetuity and cannot, must not, be alienated. Waqf land is sacred, inalienable property of the Muslim Umma, the Islamic nation. Of course, we know that vast areas in Europe and Asia and Africa were once conquered by Muslims.  Most of Spain and large parts of southern Italy, France, Greece, the Balkans, the Ukraine of today, and even Hungary were under Islamic domain for longer and shorter periods. Muslims no longer make a vocal call for that land to come back to Islam. This means that they recognize superior strength as do most people. However, jihadi extremists like the clerics who have guided Hamas, have said that Spain, etc, must come back to Islam. So the claim of waqf ownership of Spain, southern France, etc, is in abeyance but has not been cancelled in principle by the true, strict Islamists. This may seem odd to those aware that the Quran itself recognizes Jewish/Israelite ownership of the Land of Israel, sometimes called Holy Land or blessed land in the Quran. However, other Quranic verses seem to abrogate this recognition of Jewish ownership of the Land of Israel. And the waqf principle is above all. Hence, Islamists challenge not only the legitimacy of Israel but of many other countries.
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Quote in French original of Faisal Husseini's crucial response:
Ce sera impossible, car nous ne pourrons jamais reconnaître une présence juive sur cette terre appartenant à l'Islam [Daniel Haik in HaGuesher, 1-17-2018; p6]
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Erdogan's Turkey Goes for Teaching "Good Jihad"

If you are one of those who dislike President Trump, however much you may dislike him, remember all of Obama's kind gestures, his love of peaceful Islam, his friendship with Erdogan, his thwarted efforts to put the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt and to keep it there, and so on. And you may mellow on Trump.

Obama was notoriously close to Erdogan in the first few years of his regime, so much so that he and Erdung were called BFFs [best female friends]. Obama was apparently in cahoots with Erdung over the Mavi Marmara siege-breaking affair [2010], among other things. Now the would-be sultan of a restored Ottoman Empire is introducing "good jihad" into Turkish schools. Excerpt translated below with original:

Starting with the return to school in September, the concept of "jihad" will be taught in most schools in the country, according to the new curriculum conceived by the Islamo-conservative government and made public on July 18. It is not a matter of learning holy war but rather "the good jihad," the jihad that exalts "love of the fatherland", Ismet Yilmaz, minister of national education, hastened to clarify. "Jihad exists in our religion and it is one of the duties of the ministry of education to see to it that this concept is taught in a correct and appropriate manner," he insisted.

À partir de la rentrée scolaire, en septembre, le concept de « djihad » sera enseigné dans la plupart des écoles du pays, selon le nouveau programme conçu par le gouvernement islamo-conservateur et rendu public mardi 18 juillet. Il n’est pas question d’apprendre la guerre sainte mais plutôt « le bon djihad », celui qui exalte « l’amour de la patrie », s’est empressé de préciser Ismet Yilmaz, le ministre de l’éducation nationale. « Le djihad existe dans notre religion et il est du devoir du ministère de l’éducation de veiller à ce que ce concept soit enseigné de façon juste et appropriée », a-t-il insisté.

Marie Jego, Istanbul, for Le Monde 7-28-2017

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More on Erdogan: here & here & here & here

The role of Qatar and Washington insiders in the Mavi Marmara affair here

Quality Turkish Education? Whither? [here]

The "Peace Process" Is a War Process -- Daniel Pipes Realizes

UPDATING 4-19-2010 see at bottom

The "peace process" means peace of mind for antisemites.

Daniel Pipes made some quite correct observations about the "peace process" in a recent column.
They should be obvious to everyone but are not. Pipes makes these observations while writing about the "silver lining" of the present Israel-USA contretemps.

First, the "peace process" is in actuality a "war process." Diplomatic negotiations through the 1990s led to a parade of Israeli retreats that had the perverse effect of turning the middling-bad situation of 1993 into the awful one of 2000. Painful Israeli concessions, we now know, stimulate not reciprocal Palestinian goodwill but rather irredentism, ambition, fury, and violence.
. . . .
Fourth, U.S.-Israel tensions increase Palestinian intransigence and demands. Israel in bad standing empowers their leaders; and if the tensions arise from U.S. pressure for concessions to the Palestinians, the latter sit back and enjoy the show. This happened in mid-2009, when Mahmoud Abbas instructed Americans what to extract from Jerusalem. . . [here]

As a Jerusalemite, I can confirm Pipes' observation that the peace process is a war process. The more "peace processing" going on, the more Arab terrorism. More Israeli withdrawals or concessions of territory lead to rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. We live in an Orwellian world.

And of course, Washington hostility to Israel just encourages the intransigence of Arabs who have no desire to make peace with Israel and are inspired by Washington's hostility to Israel. Indeed, hostility to Jews is deeply embedded in the Muslim religion since Muhammad. Likewise the belief in perpetual war against the infidels is embedded in Islam --with truces, to be sure, when the infidels are stronger. The Quran does not make peace a supreme principle but rather war to subdue and humiliate the infidels and make them pay tribute. This is enunciated in Quran 9:29 in regard to Jews and Christians specifically.

Of course, some Arabs prefer peace to war. But an Arab leader/ruler has to justify peace --needs an excuse for peace-- by pointing to the greater strength of the infidel, in this case Israel. By weakening Israel strategically through territorial concessions of strategic areas needed for defense (such as the Jordan Valley and the north-south Judea-Samaria mountain ridge), Israel becomes obviously weaker. In this case, leaders/rulers who prefer peace would lose their excuse for peace because Israel would seem obviously weaker.

And all of the above does not deal with the issue of denying the human and civil rights of Jews by, for example, forbidding them to live in parts of Jerusalem. Yet Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority population since the mid-19th century, since 1853 at least, according to the French historian and diplomat of that time, Cesar Famin, whose figures were published by Karl Marx in an article in the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley's paper, on 15 April 1854. Furthermore, Arab forces began driving Jews out of parts of Jerusalem in December 1947. These parts became parts of what was the Judenrein "Arab East Jerusalem" for 19 years between 1948 and 1967, a sector of the city occupied by the Arab Legion of Jordan. This is in addition to the importance of Jerusalem to the world, especially to Christians and Muslims, being due to its ancient role in Jewish history and religion.

Obama's anti-Israel policy, his favoring of a racist anti-Jewish apartheid policy is dangerous, threatening and repugnant. However, as Pipes says, it may have its silver lining.
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UPDATING 4-19-2010 Lebanese blogger Tony Badran writes about how Syrian thug-in-chief, Bashar Assad, views peace and war:
"Assad’s mantra is that 'peace and resistance are two sides of the same coin.' As he sees things, it’s not either peace or resistance. For him the two are simultaneous tools of attrition, with peace talks providing Syria with impunity as Assad pursues “resistance.” In his conceptual framework, the peace process is just warfare by other means." [here]
Veteran "peace processor", Aaron David Miller, looks at the "process" and at Washington's ME policy more skeptically now. He compares it to a dogmatic religion [here]. Rick Richman comments on Miller's comments [here]
Youssef Ibrahim of the NYSun, formerly ME correspondent for the NY Times, quotes from and comments on A D Miller's article [here]. Ibrahim shows that the so-called "palestinian" issue is not the main concern of several important Arab govts. Yet the Obama gang keeps on hawking that issue's supposed centrality to Arab and Middle Eastern concerns like a huckster in the marketplace, although nobody's buying.

The Islamic law of War and Peace [according to Prof Majid Khadduri]

Where does Islam really stand on the issue of war and peace?

Yoram Ettinger has kindly brought together significant quotes from the book, War and Peace in the Law of Islam, by Prof Majid Khadduri. Khadduri was an Arab nationalist historian who was made a professor at Johns Hopkins University [1949]. This happened long before Edward Said got into American academe. So Khadduri [b. 1909-d. 2007] was a strong voice --and not the only one-- representing Islam and Arab nationalism in the American university, although Said complained in his books that the Western university world was not listening to the poor Arabs and Muslims, nor trying to succor them and their manifold afflictions in their time of difficulty. Khadduri was an admirer of Haj Amin el-Husseini [al-Husayni], Hitler's chief Arab collaborator --a collaborator in the Holocaust too. Emet m'Tsiyon has already posted several items that quote from Khadduri's book, Independent Iraq. These excerpts from Khadduri's book concern the 1933 massacre of Assyrians, the 1941 massacre of Jews [called the Farhud], Amin el-Husseini's connections with the highest echelons of the Iraqi government and his dealings with the British, etc. Khadduri wrote a hagiography of Husseini in his Arab Contemporaries (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ Press 1973). It is noteworthy that he chose to focus on Husseini who had long been relatively inactive politically when Khadduri's book was published [1973], whereas the whole book only offers biog sketches of Husseini and two or three others. Our previous post quoting an old book on Husseini's Holocaust role may help to correct the rosey colored hues of Khadduri's hagiography of this mass murder collaborator.

As indicated, Khadduri had the habit of omitting significant facts that might put the Arabs in a bad light, a habit not so unusual after all among historians, including Arabs, "leftists," and Westerners. But Edward Said wanted to complain that the Arabs were being unfairly and unkindly portrayed. Be that as it may, the fact that Khadduri was inclined to leave out facts and events unfavorable to Arabs [not all such facts, to be sure], gives more credibility to what he says about the Islamic law of war and peace, which does put the Arabs and Muslims in a bad light, at least among reasonable people.

Now, the first edition of Khadduri's book on the Islamic law of war and peace was published in 1940 and the second edition in 1955. So there has been plenty of time for Western diplomats, international relations specialists [like walt & mearsheimer and Condoleezza Rice, etc], politicians, "statesmen," even journalists, to read it and get a realistic view of how Muslims, particularly Arab Muslims, view war. Khadduri points out, as quoted below, that war is the normal state of relations between Muslim states and non-Muslim states. In that case, it is obvious that when Arabs/Muslims believe that they have a geostrategic or other advantage over a non-Muslim adversary, they will exploit that advantage and go to war. Surely they would do it in the case of Jews whom they hate anyhow and have hated for centuries. So if Western policymakers and diplomats really believe that peace is possible between militant Arab nationalists and a weakened Israel, then they are stupid and/or ignorant. On the other hand, maybe they merely pretend that peace is possible in such circumstances. Then they are liars. In either case, Khadduri's authoritative book has been around for a long time.

Here is Ettinger's presentation of Khadduri's conclusions:
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Straight From The Jerusalem Cloakroom #208, Nov. 2, 2007

A WAKE UP CALL BEFORE ANNAPOLIS - WAR AND PEACE IN ISLAM

1. While western democracies consider Peace a permanent and a sublime strategic goal, Islamic law defines peace as a tactic and as the short intervals which are not war.

2. 1,300 years (since the 7th century) of inter-Arab, inter-Muslim and Muslim-Non-Muslim conflicts, wars, terrorism and violation of commitments are lucidly explained by “War And Peace In The Law Of Islam”, authored by the leading global authority on Islamic war & peace making, the late Prof. Majid Khadduri (Johns Hopkins University):

“The Jihad, reflecting the normal war relations between Arabs and non-Muslims…was a product of a warlike people…Islam could not abolish the warlike character of the Arabs who were constantly at war with each other…institutionalizing war as part of the Muslim legal system…transforming war into a holy war, ceaselessly declared against those who failed to become Muslims…The short intervals which are not war, are peace (pp. 53-4).”

“The importance of the Jihad lay in shifting the focus of attention of the tribes from their intertribal warfare to the outside world…The world…was sharply divided in Muslim law into the abode of Islam and the abode of war… The abode of Islam was always, in theory, at war with the abode of war (p. 62, p. 52).”

“Throughout the history of Islam, fighting between Muslim rulers and contending [Muslim domestic] parties was as continuous as between Islam and external enemies…This state of affairs accentuated the struggle for power and created instability and anarchy in the world of Islam (p. 69).”

“The Jihad may be stated as a doctrine of a permanent state of war, not a continuous fighting…The concept of Jihad underwent certain changes. These changes did not imply abandonment of the Jihad duty, it only meant the entry of the obligation into a period of suspension – it assumed a dormant status, from which the [leader] may revive it at any time he deems necessary…No [permanent] compromise is permitted with those who fail to believe in God. They have either to accept Islam or fight (pp. 64-75).”

“If a catastrophe had befallen the Muslims, [they] might come to terms with the enemy… on the grounds of force majeur, provided that the Muslims should resume the Jihad after the expiration of the treaty…Defeated Muslims always maintained that their battle with the enemy would be resumed, however long they had to wait for the second round (pp. 154-6).”

“The Prophet Muhammad has set the classic example by concluding a [628 A.D.] treaty with the Makkans, known as the Hudaybiya Treaty…as a model for subsequent treaties…A peace treaty with the enemy is a valid instrument if it serves Muslim interests…The Prophet and his successors, however, always reserved their right to repudiate any treaty or arrangement which they considered as harmful to Islam…The Hudaybiya Treaty established the precedent that Muslim authorities might come to terms with [the enemy], provided it was only for a temporary period…A temporary peace with the enemy is not inconsistent with Islam’s interests (pp. 203-12).”

“Treaties must be of temporary duration, for in Muslim legal theory the normal relations between Muslim and non-Muslim territories are not peaceful, but warlike…If the [leader] entered a treaty which he was incapable of fulfilling, the treaty was regarded as void (batil). He was permitted to declare its termination…(pp. 220-1).”

3. A WAKE UP CALL BEFORE ANNAPOLIS: The Two State Solution defies Prof. Majid Khadduri’s teachings. It constitutes a phase in the permanent Jihad to eliminate the Jewish State, the outpost of western democracies, the Abode of War. Ignoring Prof. Khadduri’s teachings rewards terrorists and rogue regimes, radicalizes Arab expectations/demands, exacerbates Arab terrorism, fuels an all out war, further destabilizes the Mideast and damages the pursuit of long-term peace, thus undermining vital US national security interests.
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Islamic law favors war against non-Muslim enemies --only desisting from war against them [jihad] when the non-Muslim enemy, the Harby, is too strong. Hence, by weakening Israel by giving territory strategically necessary to Israel away to Israel's enemies, the Western powers, especially including the USA, the UK, and Germany, are encouraging the Arabs to make war on Israel, an Israel weakened by territorial loss and partly demoralized for that same reason. Arab states that have been dissuaded from warring on Israel due to its control of strategic, mountainous territory in Judea-Samaria, will have to think again about making war. That is because their religion commands them to make war when they are stronger than the Harby. Consider how Muslims think about peace treaties after reading about the Hudaybiyyah Treaty mentioned above.

STOP THE ANNAPOLIS WAR & GENOCIDE CONFERENCE NOW!!!

Note: if you look at Khadduri's book, Independent Iraq, bear in mind that the first and second editions are not so close. The second edition has some important info about Husseini that is not in the first edition, and the first edition may have some info not found in the second.
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Coming: peace follies, propaganda, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, Land of Israel, the Annapolis war and genocide conference, etc.

Sociology of Arab Imperialism (according to Schumpeter) -- Part Seven

This is the last excerpt from Schumpeter on Arab imperialism. Here he explores psychological and religious motives for holy war, jihad.

[p 42]
This does not, of course, mean that we deny the signifigance of religious commandments in the consciousness of the people. Had an Arab been asked why he fought, he might, as a born warrior, on proper reflection have countered with the question as to why one lived. That is how self-evident, how far above all rational thought, war and the urge for expansion were to him. But he would not have given such a reply. He would have said: "I fight because Allah and his Prophet will it." And this reply gave him an emotional prop in his struggle, provided him with a mode of conduct that preserved his character as a warrior. Religion was more than a mere reflex, certainly within the body social. It is not my intention to pursue this approach to the extreme, particularly since we here touch on problems that reach far too deeply to be disposed of within the framework of our topic. It was for that reason that I emphasized just now the possibility of the religious idea's taking on a social life of its own, in the example of Christianity. But the imperialism of a people or a state can never be explained in this fashion.

Arab imperialism was, among other things, a form of [p 43] popular imperialism.

Here we have it. Arab imperialism was an imperialism of the people. Democratic no doubt. The people wanted it. The Arabs seem to have enjoyed living off the labor of others, the dhimmis who paid tribute. To sum up Schumpeter's views on Arab imperialism: 1) the warlike, conquest-seeking nature of Islam flows from the warlike nature of the pre-Islamic Arabs; 2) the early Arab-Muslim empire was concerned with living as a superior, parasitic warrior caste ruling over non-Muslim subject peoples and exploiting their labor and economic productivity.
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coming soon: oppression of Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Land of Israel