Malaysiakini : ‘History lesson’

Tajuddin does not offer any differences, merely launches into a history lesson about Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Lee Kuan Yew (he will always be Harry to me) both of who the author claims used realpolitik strategies in dealing with public perception and the business of governance.

The problem with these types of claims is the efficacy of these strategies is the long-term outcome of both countries. With one, we can see how the strategy used has had a deleterious effect on the country and its institutions of governance and the other, well the trains run on time.

Tajuddin likes to talk about the Islamic reform movement he was a part of back in the day, while I can only rely on the fact that I a non-Muslim, was serving king and country.

So, I may have no useful insight about Islamic reform or politics beyond firsthand experience in how it reshaped the various branches of the state and federal government.

I can make no useful contribution to this discourse beyond the first-hand experience of racial and religious prerogatives that seeped into the system alienating many serving officers. This was not confined to the security apparatus but also the civil service.

In fact, Malaysians of a certain age have nothing to contribute to this discussion because their experience as Malaysians – whatever their ethnic heritage – means nothing when it comes to politics and Islamic reform which swept through this country but which is apparently something we cannot comprehend.

Controlling narrative

Tajuddin talks of Mahathir wanting to control the narrative which is exactly the point I made in my piece he finds so objectionable – “Dr Mahathir Mohamad, when in power, played it both ways. He demonised PAS and allowed his bureaucracy to be shaped by religious forces which had deep roots in both the political Islam of PAS and whatever was shaping the Middle East back in the day.” This is the part that Tajuddin overlooks.

The author dismisses Sisters of Islam and I, which is fine because people should be free to express their dismissal of other people’s opinions as they see fit, but the problem with the strategy of controlling the Islamic narrative by empowering governmental agencies like Mahathir did, was an organisation like Sisters of Islam was deemed as deviant.

Now perhaps the author could explain the “good” this does when it comes to the religious discourse in the majority community. By controlling the religious narrative this way, did Mahathir change mindsets or merely get Umno the vote, while embedding the community with anti-democratic impulses and empowering a theocratic class?

Now what Tajuddin should explain to the reader is how exactly Anwar's religious narrative is helping subdue the religious forces in this country as Mahathir’s did at that time.

Mind you I do not think Mahathir was successful because in attempting to control the religious narrative what he did was plant the seeds for a theocratic class which Anwar and PAS are attempting to control and use now.

I get some people are fixated when Mahathir and Harry Lee are mentioned in the same sentence but what I find interesting, is that Mahathir with his run-in with the royalty for instance (for self-serving interests no doubt) enhanced the democratic processes in this country by curtailing their powers.

Of course, he messed up the judiciary but there you go. What is the upside of what Madani is doing?

Changing whose mindset?

Now for Tajuddin, all this sandiwara by Anwar is an attempt to change mindsets. We have to ask ourselves two questions.

The first is what mindset is Anwar trying to change? We know PAS’ religious positions, what is the different position that Madani wants the Malays to change to?

The second question, if there is no difference between these positions, then what was so egregious about my piece that warranted his response?

In other words, since I apparently know nothing about politics and Islamic reform, please enlighten us as to how this sandiwara helps us reinforce the democratic guard rails of this country and maintain the racial and religious equilibrium of this country? Or is this not what this reform is about?

When the democratic guardrails in this country have been supplanted by theocratic diktats, would we be shocked that “…. political change requires many other art forms and war strategies …” and wonder where it all went wrong?

Look how the country has changed over the years. You see, politicians do not use religion to empower people. They never have. What they use religion for, is to subjugate people. This is why the country has changed so much after all these brilliant art forms and war strategies.

Maybe if folks in power and people who gave them power, listened to people writing from conscience (which is never easy because you alienate so many people as people have always been tribal in their political allegiances and you open yourself up to abuse), we could have had a real chance for political change.

Malaysiakini : ‘Cowardly Madani’

Madani was too cowardly to put forward an alternative Islamic narrative. Dr Mahathir Mohamad, when in power, played it both ways. He demonised PAS and allowed his bureaucracy to be shaped by religious forces which had deep roots in both the political Islam of PAS and whatever was shaping the Middle East back in the day.

Both PAS and Madani do not think that Malaysia is a secular country. This is what PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said -"Malaysia is not a secular country. If it was, why should DAP include ‘to fight for a secular country’ in its own manifesto?

"Islam is the official religion of the federation. Then there is the idea of Malaysian Malaysia. No Malay can accept the concept of equality."

And here is what the prime minister thinks of secularism - “Sometimes these politicians will say that if Anwar becomes prime minister then Islam will be ruined, secularism and communism will gain a foothold, and LGBT will be recognised.

“This is a delusion. Of course, it will not happen and God willing, under my administration, this is not going to happen,” the Malay Mail Online reported Anwar as saying.

Now, to be fair to the prime minister, he did define secularism here in a more “moderate way” - “There is no issue about complete separation of state and religion because Islam is the religion of the federation, but it is not a theocratic state where you can impose Islamic laws on everybody, including non-Muslims.”

Limited secularism?

Keep in mind that this moderate form of secularism does not apply to unilateral conversion or the banning of words, films and any other things that would offend the sensitivities of Muslims in this country.

Hence, to claim that Islamic imperatives would not be imposed on non-Muslims is complete horse manure. It certainly does not apply to the new media bill which nobody voted for because they are cowards and charlatans, but non-Muslims were told this bill was needed to maintain stability and of course "think of the children".

These days, it is Putrajaya who is pursuing the Federal Territories Mufti Bill which would radically transform the powers of the religious far right in this country. This is something that PAS dreams of. This is something the deep Islamic state has been preparing for.

The bill is best defined by Sisters in Islam – “The Mufti Bill, which grants unelected officials the power to legislate without transparency or due process, exemplifies the dangerous erosion of democratic principles and constitutional rights.

“Such laws risk undermining the fundamental freedoms of Malaysians, fostering a culture of control rather than empowerment, and silencing diverse perspectives crucial for a progressive society.”

Keep in mind that the bill comes on the heels of a recent Federal Court ruling which struck down 16 criminal syariah provisions in Kelantan.

The Federal Court ruling is perhaps one of the strongest rejections by the diminishing centre-right establishment of the theocratic agenda, pushed by political operatives like PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.

Theocrats do not like pushback and when this happens, they stir the pot even more. What this Federal Court ruling has demonstrated is that there are still constraints from the federal government.

When people say the atmosphere is charged, what they are really saying is that the people against this Federal Court ruling are spooked.

Now isn't the mufti bill, something that PAS desires? Think about it this way. Can anyone point to overt differences in religious policies when it comes to PAS and the government?

When a PAS operative decided to ban lotto shops in Kedah, what was the response from the federal government? What was Madani’s response to the caning of syariah offences in Johor?

What was Madani's response to rainbow-coloured Swatch watches? What was Madani's response to the socks controversy? What was Madani’s response to unilateral conversion? What was Madani's response when Umno Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh viciously attacked a non-Muslim member of its coalition?

In 2017, while still incarcerated and Hadi was on a rampage using Act 355 to stake the religious high ground, as reported in the press, Anwar was not against the idea merely that he had his own ideas about strengthening religious law in this country. We now know what those ideas are.

In times of economic uncertainty, it benefits PAS to portray itself as an outsider. It gets to point to a convenient scapegoat - the Chinese community by demonising the DAP and playing the victim card when it comes to the way this government persecutes its political rivals. In or out of government, PAS is getting exactly what it wants.

Rational Malaysians are merely getting a view of the shape of things to come.

Malaysiakini : A product of her environment

Upbringing and social interaction in childhood are important. Siti’s immediate environment is a country that is compartmentalised into different races and religions. It is not entirely her fault because all she knows is what happens under her tiny tempurung.

If anyone is to be blamed, it is our leaders for failing to smash this coconut shell. Siti’s poor knowledge of Chinese surnames and family names showed that her integration with non-Malays was non-existent.

One does not need a PhD for this, but common sense and community spirit will suffice.

As a first-term MP, Siti probably received her guidance from her observations of our state assemblies and Parliament.

Day in, day out, all they ever talk about are race, religion and royalty. There are more important matters than these 3Rs but why would she know any better?

This is her limited exposure, from the time she was born, to the day she was in court to receive her judgement for defamation.

Moreover, she’d seen how MPs who made racist comments were rarely punished, if at all.

Would the police charge her for making the provocative remarks? Umno-Baru’s Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh and PAS’ Kedah menteri besar, Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor escaped punishment for their racist slurs, and Siti probably thought she too was “an untouchable”.

Umno-shaped elephant in room

Interestingly, Siti’s problems can be traced to Umno-Baru, the party that now stands tall in the federal coalition government. Siti claimed that she had sourced her information from an Umno-Baru/BN election pamphlet which has since been discredited.

When precisely was it discredited? Before or after Siti was taken to court. So, is the rakyat expected to say, “Oh, it’s all right then! Umno-Baru is a coalition partner, so the Lims and Teresa Kok should not create a fuss.”

What has happened to the police probe about this contentious pamphlet? What excuse has the Umno-Baru president concocted about this “source”, which Siti once treated as her bible?

Umno-Baru commissioned this pamphlet. What does that say about the integrity of our Madani administration?

Don’t just blame Siti, because the system in which she was raised is also at fault.

More importantly, we should apportion a large part of the blame on successive leaders who failed to change the narrative about Malaysia.

Malaysia has never been led by “true” leaders. Those who claim to be leaders merely have huge egos. They’re too timid to make a real difference, and not brave enough to initiate meaningful change.

Spiralling higher education standards

Siti would have spent at least three years working on her PhD but by the end of her 45-minute speech last year, during campaigning in the Kemaman by-election, her integrity was thrown into the gutter.

Malaysia mass produces thousands of PhD graduates every year, from 1,247 in 2010 to 4,560 in 2021. Siti’s failure to fact-check and list her sources, caused many Malaysians to doubt her PhD and thesis. They are right to blame her recklessness and irresponsibility.

However, they should also question the quality of our universities and academics. If standards have slipped, what is the Education Ministry’s response?

The minister should be held responsible for the low standard of education. Quality matters more than quantity.

Aping her seniors

Siti was failed by the system. She could have done so much good to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Malaysians, especially the Malays.

She could have used her influence as an MP to lift Malay women out of the poverty trap and to exercise their women's rights, especially in conservative Malay communities.

She could have taken advantage of her position as a politician to unite the rakyat.

Instead of doing all the wonderful things we hoped our politicians would do, Siti decided to stick to the same well-trodden path as her party elders, to bash the DAP, Chinese, communists, and Singapore.

She tried to emulate the male MPs in her party and continue their rhetoric about saving Islam and defending the Malays, but this time, she decided to raise the stakes.

She made defamatory remarks about three DAP leaders having blood ties with communist leader, Chin Peng and the late Singapore prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew.

Did she think she had successfully earned the praise and attention of the PAS leaders? They did not come to her defence after she made the inflammatory remarks. Poor Siti, even PAS leaders failed her.

However, don’t just blame Siti. Blame the system and the failure of our leaders to change it for a better multicultural Malaysia.

Islam does not allow for democracy because of its commitment to Allah Watch on You Tube Oxford Debate

Malaysiakini : In Malaysia, of course, the sensitivities of non-Muslims when it comes to free speech are not taken into account.

When it comes to Muslim hate speech, anything goes in Malaysia where even someone like Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali got away with threatening to burn Bibles in 2014 because in the words of the attorney-general, “This is not a sentiment or intention to cause religious disharmony, but this is defending the sanctity of Islam that is clearly defined in laws.”

Indeed, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, when touching on the bible burning issue said, as reported by The Edge - “As decided by the court, before a statement is said to have seditious tendencies the statement must be viewed in the context it was made... When studied in its entire context, Datuk Ibrahim’s statement is not categorised as having seditious tendencies.

“It was clear Datuk Ibrahim Ali had no intention to create religious tensions but was only defending the purity of Islam.”

Hoodwinking rakyat

It is amazing the lengths that Madani and its enablers would go to gaslight the rakyat into believing that this is for our own good. DAP MP Syerleena Abdul Rashid in carrying water for Madani attempts to use the “think of the children” gambit.

She writes: “This is our moment to act. By supporting these changes, we stand against the darkness of exploitation and for the light of safety, justice, and hope.

“In Malaysia, there will be zero tolerance for those who prey on our children and the protection of our children remains non-negotiable.”

Really? Adults who prey on children are mainstream in Malaysia. What do you think child marriage is? Why do you think that an organisation like Sister in Islam is hell-bent on leather urging authorities to end this practice?

Here is the latest dispatch from Sisters in Islam regarding this issue, as reported by the Malay Mail Online: “In Malaysia, there are several provisions within the Islamic laws which inadvertently may necessitate the child bride or her parent to choose marriage rather than other alternatives, often under the guise of ‘social protection’.

”This practice not only endangers young girls but also undermines Malaysia’s commitment to safeguarding children’s welfare.”

So, get off your high horse and your bellicose rant about having “zero mercy” and “non-negotiable” and attempt to correct a serious problem here in Malaysia without hoodwinking the rakyat with these appeals to emotions and gaslighting, for amendments that would irremovably damage freedom of speech here in Malaysia.

If you read all these amendments, which seem to have come from the “how to be a fascist and force people to like you” playbook, the Madani government is gaslighting people into thinking that these proposed laws are well defined but, as nearly everyone has pointed out, they are open to interpretation and gives the state obscene power to interpret it as it sees fit.

Of course, some people are still under the illusion that these laws would be used to contain the likes of Umno Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh but the reality is that not only would they be used to go after whomever the state thinks aggrieve it but also be used to reinforce certain narratives at the expense of the moderate centre.

This is exactly what an operative like Akmal does.

‘Super liberals’

I’ll give you an example. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim talks of the “super liberals”. In this country, the Islamists, Malay far-right and even mainstream Malay political operatives demonise these groups which they consider anathema to their race and religion.

Is this a form of hurting the sensitivities of a specific group or is it a way how the state marginalise certain groups? Which narrative does the revised CMA favour?

Let us have another go at this. Recently, PAS MP Siti Mastura Muhammad said she would study the judgment made against her to pay Lim Kit Siang, DAP chairperson Lim Guan Eng, and Seputeh MP Teresa Kok for defaming them.

How exactly did she defame them? Well, she linked them to the defunct Communist Party of Malaya’s big cheese. Now we know what the state thinks of communists, right?

The state even took action against a coffee shop for allegedly using utensils featuring images of communist leaders, I can’t believe I typed these words but there you go.

So, would this PAS MP be sanctioned by the state using the CMA? If you believe that, then you would believe anything.

In fact, seeing how the state views communists, by claiming that members of the ruling coalition were part of some sort of communist identity, should have warranted intervention by the state security apparatus. But nada, this PAS MP got away with saying what she said.

Why? It is because although they got some form of justice from the courts, what she said was acceptable narratives by the mainstream Malay political establishment and have been used by Malay uber alles political operatives from the establishment and opposition to demonise specific communities.

And this is really what the CMA amendments are about. It is about the state wanting no dissent from the narratives that Madani is attempting to shape.

Worse, Madani is building the foundation for a theocratic state to inherit and build upon. The state wants you to believe that this is done for political stability.

Syrian rebel forces take Aleppo city center

During the first two centuries of Islam, Muslim armies faced the most prolonged fighting on the Syrian front, since it was here that Islam faced its most formidable enemy, the Byzantine Empire. Syria, therefore, is the key area for Islamic apocalyptic speculation. And the videos that are coming in prove it.

Syrian rebels in pick-ups with machine guns, carrying weapons supplied by Turkey, after having conquered Aleppo in a few hours, are on the road to Homs and Damascus. Alongside them ride British jihadists who converted to Islam after a privileged childhood spent in the Anglican Church.

The jihadists began kidnapping Kurdish girls, like the little Yazidi sex slave in Gaza.

A war of all with and against all for the sole glory of Islam.

Never has a book been so direct about Islam as “The Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel Huntington: “Islam has bloody borders”.

In Gaza, the barbarity of Hamas. In Lebanon, the barbarity of Hezbollah. In Syria, barbarians against barbarians. And in the midst of all this there is a small blue enclave, a land of Western civilization and culture: Israel.

In Syria there are the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Hezbollah militias in crisis who are shooting at the militias of Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Syrian rebels are Sunni. The Syrian regime is Alawite, a small and heretical syncretistic minority that makes them natural allies of Tehran, which cannot afford the collapse of Damascus. Assad has an ostrich neck and shifty eyes, but he is cunning and brutal. And he will do practically anything to survive.

Meanwhile the barbarians have already started cutting off heads again.

The Christians, as usual, will pay. My thoughts are with them, with the women and with the Christians.

And since Qatar and Turkey and Saudis arm Sunni Muslims and Russia arms Shiites in a new Great Game, European countries should have armed Christians, like the Christian militias that fought against ISIS in Iraq.

America is historically in the Sunni axis (the Turks who send the jihadists are actually the second largest army in NATO) and the Eurocrats just hope only to calm their internal Sunni populations who are on everyone’s side, with Iran but also with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Distinguishing the right Syrian rebels from the wrong ones is a bit complicated.

Considered the greatest living Arab poet and a major figure in world poetry, the Syrian Adonis is one of the favorites for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year. He will not win it because he is “Islamophobic”. Adonis told Libération: “In more than sixty years, we see whether the life of the Arabs has progressed or declined. Where was Iraq and where is it today? The same goes for Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt… All are in continuous decline. Why have all the peoples of the world made progress in knowledge and the Arabs nothing? They lack nothing and yet they continue to decline. Because we live in the past and fourteen centuries later, the references remain the caliphs.”

And it is a religious problem, says Adonis. “My position is that the Arabs will never advance as long as religion is their political reference point. The relationship between Islam and man must be based on law and freedoms, while Islam gives more rights to Muslims than to non-Muslims. Syria, for example, is full of non-Muslims. But the non-Muslim will always be second class, without the same rights as the Muslim.”

The violence in the Middle East is not caused by Israel, it is caused by Islam.

And it should concern us, as the Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal said in 2016:

“The only force deeply rooted in Arab-Muslim society is religion. The Islamist movement occupies space and prevents the emergence of any other ideology. There is, of course, a competition between Salafi Islam and traditional Islam, between Shiites and Sunnis. However, today we see that the differences are fading within the Sunni world, while the confrontation between Shiites and Sunnis is taking place. But here too, strategic alliances are being formed. Little by little, the Muslim world is rebuilding itself and regaining its original ambitions and its hegemonic will. The frontier with the West is beginning to be abolished because political Islam is opening up spaces in London, Paris and Brussels. We can imagine that in thirty years Islam will govern the entire Muslim world that it will have unified. In sixty years it will set out to conquer Western civilization.”

We have already lived it, barely ten years ago.

François Hollande, called to testify at the trial for the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris, confessed that the government "knew that operations were being prepared." The former president revealed in court that the socialist government of the time knew that "operations were being prepared and that individuals had put themselves in the river of refugees to deceive the surveillance."

"All the members of the commandos, foreigners or French who remained in Syria, took the migratory route from Eastern Europe," confirmed Jean-Charles Brisard, president of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, to Le Figaro. "They took the Balkan route, after Kosovo opened the passage in 2015, to get to Hungary."

The list of terrorists in Paris and Brussels and the borders through which they entered Europe a few weeks before the massacres: Ten members of the terrorist cell responsible for the attacks in Paris and Brussels stayed or transited in Hungary between July and November 2015, taking advantage of the flow of migrants. They will all pass through Budapest's Keleti station, which in those days was full of journalists there to tell us how bad Viktor Orban's government was in wanting to stop the flow of migrants. In those days Hollande was busy announcing that France would welcome migrants.

Here we go again. At this very moment, future massacres in Europe are being prepared.

Anti-Jewish hatred is exacerbated by political, media, and academic establishments that provide no counterbalance and instead rewrite history, for example, by denying the Jews’ unbroken connection to their homeland as reflected in the archeological record and whitewashing the persecution of Jews under Islam. They are quick to denounce any perceived affront to Arab or Muslim sensibilities and just as quick to denigrate any expressions of Jewish pride or Israeli sovereignty.

Indeed, the mainstream generally refuses to acknowledge Muslim antisemitism, the relationship between radical Islam and terrorism, or the history of jihadist colonialism. Liberal pundits instead wax poetic about claims of Islamic tolerance, while rationalizing any antisemitic or anti-western excesses as reactions to Israeli provocations or American imperialism.

Unable to tolerate criticism of their own warped and bigoted views, they invariably claim to be victims of censorship whenever their screeds against Jews and Israel are exposed as antisemitic vitriol (though it seems nobody ever prevents them from speaking). But they remain mute regarding the historical subjugation and negative imagery of Jews under Islam, the influence of this imagery on anti-Israel rejectionism, and the cultural justifications for the murder, rape, and torture of Israelis.

To most progressives, Hamas and Hezbollah are neither extreme nor radical; and in the historical context of Islamist supremacism, they might actually have a point.

Traditionally, life was difficult for non-Muslims under Islam – particularly Jews, who were dispossessed from their land by conquest, relegated to dhimmi status, and generally degraded, abused, and denied human rights. Despite claims of tolerance throughout the Islamic world, the general treatment of Jews was often no better than in Christian Europe.

During the early Islamic period, for example, Jews were forced to wear distinctive badges or metal seals around their necks. Starting in ninth-century Baghdad, they were required to wear yellow badges (a practice that was brought to Europe by returning crusaders) and were often physically branded, while in Egypt they were required to wear bells on their garments. Throughout the Islamic world, Jews were often isolated or confined to ghettos, forbidden from using the same bathhouses as Muslims, and subjected to pogroms, massacres and forced conversions just as they were in Christian Europe.

Despite the fantasy of equity and prosperity during the Golden Age of Spain, Jews in the Iberian Peninsula often fared little better than their brethren under Christian rule. This reality was illustrated by the experiences of Rambam (Maimonides) and his family, who left their native Cordoba, not because of Christian Jew-hatred, but because the ruling Almohads gave the Jewish community the choice of conversion, exile, or death – centuries before the expulsion from Christian Spain.

The idea that Jewish life in the Islamic world was idyllic until the establishment of modern Israel is preposterous. Antisemitism was ubiquitous after the rise of Islam and ultimately influenced Arab hostility towards the reborn Jewish nation. Those who believe the myth of peaceful coexistence are not typically of Sephardic, Mizrachi or Yemenite Jewish descent. If they were, they would be more likely to know from the experiences of parents and grandparents how precarious Jewish life was in Arab lands and how antisemitism there preceded Israel’s rebirth by centuries.

Anti-Jewish sources appear in both written and oral tradition, for example, in Quranic verses accusing the Jews of perverting scripture (e.g., Sura 3:63; 3:71; 4:46), eschatological passages from the Hadith foretelling their ultimate extermination (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 4, Book 56, No. 791), and references in both to the slaughter of the Jews known as Banu Qurayza in Medina. Thus, it is not surprising that Jews in Islamic society were scorned, demeaned, and subjugated; and given the doctrinal basis for this enmity, hostility for the state of Israel was inevitable.

The reality of Muslim antisemitism is ignored by those who believe that obsequious apologetics is necessary to atone for past colonialism. But Islamist Jew-hatred is fully embraced by radical progressives, whose chants of “from the river to the sea…” are really calls for genocide. The irony is lost on these useful idiots that the fundamentalist ideology they deem politically virtuous rejects the foundation of their woke identities. There are no “Queers for Palestine” or “CODEPINK” feminists who would be welcome in a fundamentalist Islamic state where women are subjugated, and gay people are killed.

What western apologists fail to appreciate is the integral persistence of dogma that divides the world into “dar al-Islam” (house of Islam) and “dar al-Harb” (house of war) and demands the subjugation of infidels. And in the absence of theological reformation, it seems unlikely that pandering dialogue will ever foster sincere acceptance of non-Islamic cultures or true peace with a Jewish state.

The affinity between radical Islamists and the progressive left seems counterintuitive given the left’s disdain for religion in its own cultural backyard. But the so-called “red-green alliance” makes perfect sense considering that leftists and Islamists share a common hatred of western democratic values – and of Jews and Israel.

It is this shared hatred that influences progressives to (a) rationalize tenets that justify atrocities against Jews and (b) cheer Hamas for resisting an “occupation” that only exists in the minds of leftists, terrorists, and Palestinian Arab revisionists. The progressive refusal to acknowledge the religious basis of anti-Israel hatred suggests a worldview shaped either by ignorance or a repudiation of history, democratic values, and common decency.

Whatever the motivation, the progressive coddling of Islamists clearly is no path to peace. Nor is pressuring Israel to cease defending herself before achieving her objectives against Iran and its terrorist proxies. The road to peace, moreover, does not require a two-state solution with people who deny Jewish history. Rather, it depends on genuine acceptance of the Jews’ sovereignty in their homeland, which necessarily requires a reformation of thought, ideology, and doctrine.

But what encourages such reformation, and can it be imposed from without?

The traditional peace process always ignored the elephant in the room – i.e., the faith-based foundation of anti-Israel rejectionism – and demanded unilateral concessions by Israel based on revisionist presumptions, e.g., the validity of a Palestinian Arab narrative that denies Jewish history. This was true of Oslo, the Obama-era strategy of bullying Israel and appeasing Iran, and the Biden embrace of anti-Israel and antisemitic progressives.

If anything, October 7th proved the fecklessness of these policies and the two-state concept.

The only deviation from the policy failures of past administrations was the Abraham Accords during President Trump’s first term, which sought normalization through shared economic, cultural, and strategic interests. Perhaps this strategy could facilitate the doctrinal change necessary for reformation – and perhaps not. But reinvigorating the accords as a paradigm while simultaneously renewing America’s commitment to a strong Israel might pave the way for real ideological change that could significantly influence the geopolitical landscape of the Mideast during a second Trump term.

And why not?

BBC : It was RSF fighters, along with allied Arab militias, who ran amok in el-Geneina last year, mainly targeting residents from the non-Arab Masalit community in what human rights groups, including UN experts, have described as ethnic cleansing and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch concluded it was a possible genocide.

The Sudanese army has also come under sharp criticism. Arab civilians were also reported to have perished in this turmoil, many from shelling by army tanks, or in blistering air raids.

Both the RSF and the SAF deny accusations of war crimes and point accusing fingers at their rivals.

Joyce Liu / BBC

Lyse Doucet / BBC

In el-Geneina, our first stop is a modest health centre in the al-Riyadh displacement camp, where Sudanese women in brightly coloured veils sit in chairs along the wall, or huddle on bamboo mats on the floor.

A delegation of mainly elderly men, some with crutches, sit closer to the front under the shade of the corrugated metal roof and wide-boughed trees which frame an open wall.

It feels like a different el-Geneina. There's no visible presence of armed RSF men in a leafy neighbourhood lined with humble mud houses. Young boys turn cartwheels, women in vivid head-to-toe veils walk purposively past, and donkey carts ferrying water drums trot along dusty dirt roads.

“We have suffered a lot,” underlines a community elder, a white-turbaned teacher who is the first to address the visiting UN team in their signature blue vests. He speaks precisely and carefully.

“It’s true that when the war started some people supported SAF, and some supported RSF. But as displaced people we are neutral and in need of every kind of assistance.”

This camp was first established in 2003, a reminder that Darfur's agony erupted two decades ago when the infamous Arab militia known as the Janjaweed sowed terror among non-Arab communities and was also accused of multiple war crimes. It gave rise to the RSF.

The teacher listed a catalogue of basic needs – from food for malnourished women and children, to schools and clean water. He also explained that most women are now in charge of their families.

Some of the young women, only their eyes visible, film the meeting on their phones, perhaps wanting some record of this rare event.

Mr Fletcher addressed them directly.

“You must often feel that no-one is listening and that no-one understands what you have endured, more than anyone else in the population, and maybe more than anyone else in the world.” They respond with vigorous clapping.

The UN's next stop, behind closed doors, is even more forthright when Mr Fletcher and his colleagues sit in front of a gathering of Sudanese and international NGOs based in Darfur who are struggling to respond to this enormous catastrophe.

Unlike the UN, they haven’t waited for permissions from Gen Burhan’s government to operate here; approval for the UN’s international staff to be based here was recently revoked.

Twenty NGOs, working without reliable internet or electricity or even phones, and struggling to obtain more Sudanese visas for staff, say they’re trying to help the 99.9% of the population in need. Their message was clear – the UN system was failing them.

Joyce Liu / BBC

Yet, there must have been Arab hatred and resentment of Jews festering beneath the surface calm of Hebron because upon receiving the Mufti’s false message that the Jews were storming Al Aqsa, a mob of thousands of armed Arabs descended on the small unarmed Jewish community of Hebron, murdering, maiming stealing and destroying.

Having trusted their Arab neighbors, only a few of whom tried to help them (despite the Jews having helped them in many ways through the years, ed.) and protect them, the Jews of Hebron including the Yeshiva students, their rabbis, Jewish merchants, and Jewish women and children were murdered and maimed in gory and grotesque ways. The Arab pogromists murdered David Shainberg of Memphis, Tennessee that day along with many others. Schwartz does not spare the details of the butchery and those details are very reminiscent of October 7.

Although there were few officials and police available to protect the Jews in Hebron, most of the policemen were Arabs, some of whom joined in the pogrom. (Ed. See Rabbi Kook's efforts here.) To their credit, a few Arabs of Hebron not only refused to join in but protected Jews at some risk to themselves. Nevertheless, Arab pogromists killed more Jews in the Hebron Massacre of 1929 than European pogromists murdered in the more famous Kishineff pogrom of 1903.

From that pogrom Ghosts of a Holy War draws a straight line, mostly through the person of the Mufti, from the Hebron Massacre to the weak-kneed response of the British to the two year campaign of murder and destruction conducted by Arabs in Israel from 1936-1938 (sometimes called “The Arab Revolt”) to the Mufti being expelled from Mandate Palestine just before World War Two and obtaining refuge in Berlin with his hero, Adolph Hitler, who gave the Mufti the job of propagandizing the Arab world against the Jews and recruiting Arab soldiers to fight the Allies.

After Israeli independence the Arab world seethed with even more hatred for Jews, made all the worse because the Arabs were unable to defeat Israel on the battlefield, even with substantial aid from their Soviet sponsors. By the 1960s the Arab war against the Jews, which after consultation in Moscow the Arabs decided was a ‘national liberation movement,’ was led by the Mufti’s cousin’s son, Yasser Arafat, in his campaign of murder, bombing and kidnapping against Jews.

Schwartz recounts that Arafat was offered a so-called ‘two state solution’ on multiple occasions and turned it down rather than recognize the existence of Israel as a legitimate state.

More recently Schwarz visited Hebron to find that Hebron is an Arab city whose mayor is a convicted terrorist-murderer who was released by Israel in a prisoner swap and whose constituents see his status as terrorist and murderer as a feature not a defect.

She found that after October 7, the Arab lies about what had happened were similar to those which had been spread by the Mufti after the Hebron Massacre. After the Hebron massacre the Mufti had spread the lie that it was the British who had murdered the Jews of Hebron, or the Jews murdered themselves in order to cause a wave of sympathy for Zionism, or that it was the Jews who attacked the Arabs and the Arabs murdered the Jews in self-defense and that, in any event, it was not nearly as bad as the Jewish victims and survivors claimed.

Likewise, after the October 7 massacres across southern Israel, the common talking points in the Arab world have included that it was not so bad, not that many Jews were killed, no one was raped, the victims did not include civilians or women and children but were only soldiers on military bases and that the Israeli Defense Forces themselves killed most of the victims.

The Arab apologists don’t explain why Hamas is still holding Israeli hostages more than a year later, except to say that October 7 was a legitimate reaction to Israeli oppression. Even the Arab apologists don’t explain why, if that is so, something so similar happened on multiple occasions before Israeli statehood in Jerusalem in 1920, in Hebron and Jerusalem in 1929 and throughout the 1930s.

No one wants to say that some Arabs are so soaked in hatred of Jews that they will commit any atrocity and tell any lie to excuse it.

Shwartz is clearly ambivalent about the current situation in Israel and believes that Arabs within Israel ought to have full political and civil rights and be able to live in peace within Israel’s borders and that Israelis ought to have peace and recognition. She dislikes ‘settlers’ in Judea and Samaria who she claims unnecessarily provoke Arabs. She also dislikes the murder and violence perpetrated by Arabs against Jews. A sense of human decency permeates her book.

To her credit, Schwartz has done a good job of telling the story of the Hebron Massacre and its consequences and showing the connections between that event almost one hundred years ago and today.

If there is one failing to this well-researched and well-written book it is that Schwartz does not inquire deeply into the ideological, social and cultural factors that could turn Arab farmers and merchants into a howling, murdering, pillaging mob just on the say-so of one man most of them had never even seen or heard.

Still, Ghosts of a Holy War is worth the reader’s time and attention as a solid history and review of the Arab War against Jewish civilians.

Malaysiakini : It kept his system of governance in power and this included the crackdowns on a whole range of civil rights issues and racial excesses. 

One could make the argument that the Madani regime is playing from the same playbook, not realising that the political terrain has changed after the racial and religious indoctrination of the BN era.

So, if you agree with Wong - a Sunway University political scientist - what we have to ask ourselves is what does political stability mean in the Malaysian context?

What’s the difference?

Wong believes that the potential need for power sharing after an election between different political groups would ensure some form of stability. Now, this would mean something if there was any real ideological difference between these disparate parties.

Mahathir, like any successful demagogue, views politics through a Manichean lens and was very successful. He understands that there are two kinds of political ideologies in this country. Ketuanism and Pak Turut-ism (for the non-Malays).

The Madani government is a perfect example of this. There is very little sunlight between the Malay power structures in the Madani government and the very potent Malay Perikatan Nasional opposition.

The DAP, which should have been an outspoken political bloc in the regime, is neutered by Umno and sidelined by the chief executive because Anwar Ibrahim understands that the very appearance of relying on them or defiance from them, would be bad optics for the voting base he wants to cultivate.

When it comes to core ketuanan (supremacy) values, the establishment and the opposition are simpatico.

Malay rights have been weaponised to the point that the Madani regime would rather not carry out any utilitarian policies that would benefit everyone, especially the Malays because they are the majority for fear of the opposition claiming that Malay/Muslim rights are being sidelined because of the DAP.

Mahathir, if you remember, said that the Chinese were helped “… but what we gave to them was very small (compared to what the Malays got). But we could not say it then because then the Chinese would be angry.”

But, of course, these same Malay power brokers would use the DAP when they needed support. And I say this with some sarcasm but mostly understanding because the DAP have been loyal partners.

Ripe to be taken advantage of

Former prime minister Muhyddin Yassin is attempting to burnish PN credentials with non-Malays at the moment, but remember how it was when he was collaborating with the DAP?

Former deputy minister Liew Chin Tong’s description of how the DAP gave everything to then-home minister Muhyiddin but still wasn’t enough, points to how non-Malay political operatives were desperate for some sort of consensus or compromise but this still made them targets of opportunity for the Malay establishment.

And this is the way how it was always played, as Wong reminds us - “This is structurally the reason why soft-spoken (former Umno vice-president) Hishammuddin Hussein raised his “keris” for three consecutive years in Umno assemblies, even though BN benefited from non-Malay support for its landslide.”

But it gets complicated because, like Mahathir, non-Malays have a Manichean view of the party that represents them when the truth, as former Malaysiakini staffer Martin Vengadesan pointed out a couple of years ago, is much more complicated.

Martin wrote about this complexity here, about how DAP is essentially a Chinese-based party with token Indian and other representations all wrapped up in a weird cult-like ideology of toxic online behaviour and national victimhood.

It is as if Umno’s Chinese bogeyman political party was willed into existence after decades of racial and religious policies and a certain percentage of the electorate is suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Don’t rock the boat

In my experience, conservatism in the Malaysian context means “do not spook the Malays”, which essentially translates to “do not disrupt the existing political paradigm” even though it has proven extremely toxic economically, socially, and politically to the majority community.

The DAP, like the MCA, has engaged with Malay power structures in much the same way, through appeasement and rejecting the secular and egalitarian values they preach to their base.

While there may have been benefits to this in the past as some sort of moderating influence and, of course, communal benefit, the political landscape has changed.

This has always been the problem for Malaysians who want an honest deal. This is the definition of “moderate politics” in Malaysia and it has resulted in the erosion of our public and private spaces because the Malay political establishment had no pushback whatsoever from compliant non-Malay political partners.

All this would have been the compromises rational Malaysians had to make if it meant that the centre was holding and we could live with this kind of political stability.

However, the reality is that the second part of the ideological equation in Malaysia, subservience, is slowly eroding. What form of moderation to keep the centre holding is slowly being chipped away by the Madani regime, for inexplicable reasons.

So what we get under the Madani regime, as far as political stability is concerned, are institutions that appear to be weaponised, enabling the religious bureaucracy, turning a blind eye to the corruption scandals-laden personalities that form this coalition government, coddling religious and racial agitators within the regime, and of course, a clampdown on speech.

All of which are fatal to democracies.

In other words, political stability in the Malaysian context is a hangman’s noose.

Murray Hunter : The building of flood mitigation and drainage infrastructure is neglected, or prized pet drainage projects without no science and thought behind them are created, where well connected local crony-contractors benefit.

Floods are the result of greed and stupidity

Most of the floods are the result of environmental vandalism. Logging concessions are given to cronies who strip the land of jungle and trees which assist the soil take up moisture. These bare hills with the soil in direct contact with rain and flowing water take away good top soils with them and make the flooding problem worse.

Facebook: Abdul Barr Kelantan today.

Contractors build roads without proper drainage, where the roads act as a block to retreating water. The water has no where to go and floods out local towns. Streets within towns are just built with inadequate drainage systems. That’s why towns flood first.

The biggest neglect comes from the federal government which allocates development funds to crony projects, rather than spending time, effort and money on necessary drainage projects.

Einstein said something like when you do the same thing, the same way over and over again, but expect a different result is insanity. That’s bureaucracy, insanity connected to greed.

Floods are a good scam for politicians

The best thing for those politically connected is the assistance and refuge given to those in need during flood season. The catering is done by political cronies, and the cost of supplies such as boats and tents are supplied at inflated prices to government.

Whoopie, there are some very happy politicians tonight making money out of peoples’ misery. How many people will needlessly lose their lives this time from neglect?

Half of the peninsula under flood today.

Malaysiakini : Just before the 15th general election, the prime minister of the day, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, ordered the declassification of a report detailing Putrajaya’s investigation into the former attorney-general’s book so it could be used as political “bullets” to attack Pakatan Harapan.

At an election rally in Bagan Datuk, he declared: “I have given you bullets. In the Thomas case, we exposed (the report) by the special task force. I have given lots of bullets here.”

Just shoot

Over the past months, these words of entitlement (and much more serious ones), which in Malaysian politics translate as acts of bravado, have continued to be heard - albeit on a higher pitch.

There had been no necessity to verify its accuracy or truthfulness, and in colloquial language, just “tembak” (shoot).

The makers, having enjoyed immunity, have upped the ante so much that they now have photographs of people posing with samurai swords to reinforce the message and instil fear.

Except for a couple in the doghouse, many are now part of the Madani government and continue to take potshots and make embarrassing statements, which does not reflect the government of the day. This includes members of the cabinet.

So, when Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said he was astonished that his disclosure of the travels was blasted, saying the reaction reflected a “crazy era” where wrongdoers are glorified. At the same time, clean and transparent initiatives are condemned.

“In this country, if we keep entertaining those who steal, plunder, and rob, they are glorified, but when we try to run programmes cleanly and properly, we are criticised.

“This is what’s called jaman edan or half-crazed,” he told a town hall session on Saturday during the second anniversary of the Madani government.

Runaway train

How and why did this come about?

For political expediency or “solidarity and stability”, as politicians call it, the Madani government never acted or acted selectively against such claims, some of which have breached various law provisions.

Reluctantly, I must agree that we are in that crazy era of putting up or even believing that there are semblances of truth in them.

We have allowed the politics of hatred and smear to simmer with those within stirring the pot. There are no indications they are abating.

We never attempted to nip the problem in the bud, fearing, maybe, loss of political support or fear of offending specific communities or groups.

It’s a recipe for disaster and mayhem, but no one wants to stop those empty vessels as if they were on a runaway train.

Zahid the choirmaster

Why is Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi allowed to lead the choir in singing “Justice for Najib” in unison? Isn’t that undermining the judiciary? Why is it being allowed to continue?

Have they developed such short memories that they are willing to ignore the multi-billion-ringgit hole we continually try to fill?

They have become brazen, even venturing into a forbidden area - touching on royalty - but while Joe Public is pulled up for even the smallest of breaches, politicians remain untouched when they make.

Some believe that the fallacy of only confrontation with hurtful words can galvanise support and remain in the forefront. They continue to think politeness and civility have no place in the dog-eat-dog world - even if they are dragged to the gutter.

Like Anwar, I believe the government can better implement reform over time, but I disagree that his Madani administration is still new.

How much more time does the government need?

Two years have been enough to show that you have the political will and determination to make the changes, but there are few signs of your intentions.

For a start, how about ensuring that the laws are applied and enforced without fear or favour? Impart confidence in the people that the government means business and that no one will be treated unfairly or differently.

Just do not act against critics of the government but those who make what you have described as “crazy”. Spare no one - even if he heads a group that props up your government.

If you don’t start now, you will run out of time by the time your term ends in 2027, by then, it will be yet another crazy era.

Jihad: A Term with a Clear History of Violence

Rashid’s and other Muslims’ portrayal of “jihad” as merely a benign “inner struggle” is not just misleading—it’s a dangerous and most deliberate obfuscation. The term has historically and repeatedly referred to holy war in the context of expanding Islamic supremacy. Islamic texts, particularly the Quran and Hadiths, emphasize jihad as a form of warfare meant to spread Islam by force. Quranic verses exempting only the weak or disabled from jihad (4:95, 9:91) illustrate that jihad has consistently been a physical, often violent, effort. By portraying jihad as an exclusively personal or introspective struggle, apologists ignore this broader context and obscure the truth.

Unlike the sanitized version popularized in modern discourse, the concept of jihad historically is categorically a militant struggle. The writings of the most reliable Hadith compilers, such as Sahih Bukhari, reference jihad in terms of warfare over fifty times. These interpretations, embedded in Islamic jurisprudence and doctrine, provide a clear picture: jihad is intrinsically linked to the spread of Islam through force.

Media’s Complicity: The Role of Left-Wing Outlets in Obscuring the Threat

By echoing narratives from Islamic supremacists, left-wing media outlets like The New Republic are complicit in a campaign that distorts the true nature of jihad. Allowing writers like Hafiz Rashid to misrepresent jihad as harmless, they shield dangerous ideologies from scrutiny and portray legitimate security concerns as “Islamophobia.” By recasting Lutnick’s call for vigilance as a “bigoted swipe at Muslims,” they attempt to silence critical debate and label any concern over jihadist violence as prejudice.

Recognizing the Reality: Islamic Jihad as a Threat to National Security

Lutnick’s call to action is not about targeting a religion but about confronting a violent ideology, albeit a major component of a religion. Jihadists have been responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide, including those on 9/11. By failing to address this head-on, media outlets enable the spread of an ideology that stands in direct opposition to American values of freedom, security, and democracy. The reluctance to name jihadist extremism for what it is—a militant ideology bent on undermining the West—is an abandonment of the media’s duty to inform the public truthfully.

The Path Forward: Confronting Jihadist Terrorism with Clarity and Resolve

Howard Lutnick’s message at the Madison Square Garden rally is a reminder that America cannot afford to be complacent in the face of ongoing jihadist threats. The tragedy of 9/11 and the numerous Islamic attacks across the West should serve as a constant reminder of what can happen when this ideology is allowed to thrive unchecked. By downplaying jihad and labeling calls to action as “bigoted,” media outlets fail in their responsibility to protect American lives and uphold American values.

The United States deserves leaders and media willing to confront Islam with clarity and courage, rejecting euphemisms and half-truths. The first step toward a safer nation is recognizing the threat for what it is and holding accountable those who try to hide it.

Especially after 911, we live in a world where Islamophobia is so normalized that even Muslims sometimes feel that Islamophobia is normal, and the causal life of a Muslim entails Islamophobia at almost every level. And so we ask the larger community to acknowledge this reality and work at undoing this normalization of Islamophobia.

Since he doesn’t give any concrete examples of what he is referring to, it sounds as if he and CAIR are trying to create a problem that isn’t there. In fact, nowhere in CAIR’s report does the organization offer an example of the problem of Islamophobia that could be verified in a news report.

Here is another example from CAIR’s report:

Had 4 police officers try to intimidate me while creating chalk art to protest the occupation. The administration has also been limiting this chalk art and censoring it consistently, calling it “offensive”, though it has been factually based and innocuous. I also have been threatened with disciplinary action if I don’t stay within a small boundary that they’ve designated as the “free speech” area. HISPANIC OR LATINO MALE, FOOTHILL COLLEGE” (page 16)

In CAIR’s Methodology section, they explain how they chose participants.

The surveys were collected through two primary methods:

1) in-person distribution to college students attending “Know Your Rights” sessions held across the state and

2) digital distribution via QR codes provided through various outreach channels, both online and in person. CAIR-CA used its network of partners, including religious centers, student organizations, and community-based organizations, to conduct outreach and request survey responses. These efforts included making announcements at large community gatherings such as Jumu’ah (Friday communal prayers), setting up information tables and distributing flyers at relevant events, reaching out to college-based student organizations, and using community newsletters and email lists. Additionally, survey links were shared on websites, social media platforms, and WhatsApp groups to ensure broad visibility and accessibility.

In other words, they are sampling their friends, like-minded people. They always do this. It is true of all their reports.

On May 16, 2024, CAIR denounced a letter sent by “U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer and Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, asking the Department of the Treasury to disclose any Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) submitted by banks to the department regarding various American campus student groups, civil rights organizations, human rights groups, and advocacy groups supportive of Palestinian human rights, as well as numerous left-leaning foundations such.”

Those groups included Students for Justice in Palestine, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and American Muslims for Palestine, among others.

Both CAIR and the AMP have their origins in the Islamic Association for Palestine, a Hamas front in America. Before leaving to form CAIR in 1994, Nihad Awad, the current Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was the public relations director for the Islamic Association for Palestine. Indeed, Awad attended and partially led the 1993 Philadelphia Meeting, a summit meeting of senior Hamas leaders in this country. The meeting was called for by the Palestine Committee, the Hamas support group in America in response to the signing of the Oslo Accords that threatened Hamas’ authority in Palestine. The purpose of the 1993 meeting was to thwart the peace process, and to continue to support Hamas in the likelihood that the U.S. government declared Hamas a terrorist organization.

Nihad Awad, at least in the past, was among the inner circle of Hamas leadership in this country.

As for the American Muslims for Palestine, ten years after Nihad Awad left the Islamic Association for Palestine, a jury found the IAP liable in the Hamas drive-by assassination of David Boim. Rather than pay the $156 million awarded to the Boim family, the IAP shut down, only to return a short time later under a new name, the American Muslims for Palestine. The Boims are now suing the AMP.

The American Muslims for Palestine is facing new legal challenges in the wake of the atrocities of October 7.

Also in May, a lawsuit was filed by Greenberg Traurig, LLP, the National Jewish Advocacy Center, the Schoen Law Firm, and Holtzman Vogel, on behalf of a group of American and Israeli victims of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack,

seeking compensatory damages from AJP Educational Foundation Inc. (also known as American Muslims for Palestine or AMP) and the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), alleging that these organizations provided material support to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Then in June, only a month after the letter sent by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability to the Department of the Treasury, the Attorney General of Virginia began an investigation into the AMP.

Attorney General Jason Miyares today announced that a Virginia court ordered the AJP Educational Foundation, Inc., also known as American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), to produce records requested by a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) issued by his office. The Court denied AMP’s petition to set aside the CID. Under Virginia law, the Office of the Attorney General has the jurisdiction to investigate possible violations of the Commonwealth’s charitable registration and solicitation laws. In October 2023, the Virginia Office of the Attorney General issued a CID to AMP seeking information regarding its compliance with Virginia’s charitable registration and solicitation laws. The AJP Educational Foundation Inc. is a public nonprofit with its headquarters located in Falls Church, Virginia.

The following month, in July, the investigation proceeded with a major ruling that ordered the AMP to

 turn over closely guarded financial documents requested by the state attorney general as part of an investigation into its funding sources, according to a statement released by his office. The highly anticipated decision represents a significant setback for American Muslims for Palestine, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization that could now be compelled to turn over sensitive financial records, including donor information it has long successfully shielded from public view.

All this is the backdrop to H.R. 9495, which seeks to revoke the non-profit tax exempt organizations that support terrorism, such the AMP and CAIR.

On page 42 of CAIR’s Campus Climate report, they include in their list of recommended student resources, American Muslims for Palestine.

This is not just a protest but a violent rejection of truth, justice, and history. The attack is a deliberate act to prevent Hindus from reclaiming what was taken from them centuries ago. And it is not an isolated incident—it is part of a larger historical and ideological pattern of Islamic conquest and triumphalism.  The Pattern: Building Over Conquered Cultures

Islam’s history of conquest is marked by the destruction of sacred sites belonging to other religions and the deliberate construction of Islamic structures on the ruins of preceding cultures. Time and again, mosques have replaced temples, churches, and synagogues as symbols of domination. This is not coincidental but a calculated act of erasure meant to humiliate and assert Islamic supremacy over the conquered. 

    In India:
        Babri Masjid (Ayodhya): Built after razing, a temple marking the birthplace of Lord Ram, one of the most revered Hindu gods. Its demolition in 1992 was the culmination of decades of Hindu frustration over historical oppression.
        Gyanvapi Mosque (Varanasi): Erected after partially destroying the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, one of Hinduism’s holiest shrines. The mosque’s very existence is an open wound for Hindus.
        Shahi Idgah Mosque (Mathura): Constructed over Krishna Janmabhoomi, the birthplace of Lord Krishna, another deeply sacred Hindu site.
    Globally:
        The Dome of the Rock (Jerusalem): Built over Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, as a bold statement of Islamic conquest. To this day, Jews are barred from praying on their own sacred ground.
        Hagia Sophia (Istanbul): The greatest Christian cathedral of the Byzantine Empire, seized and turned into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest, erasing its Christian identity.
        The Great Mosque of Cordoba (Spain): Built over the Christian Church of St. Vincent after Muslims conquered Spain, symbolizing their domination over Iberian Christians.
    Modern Examples in the West:
        The Cordoba House Proposal (New York City): A mosque planned near Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks was provocatively named after the Great Mosque of Cordoba—a blatant nod to Islamic conquest in Spain. It was seen by many as an attempt to turn the site of tragedy into a symbol of triumph.

Why Sambhal Matters

What is happening in Sambhal is not just about one mosque or one city. It is a continuation of the same strategy used for centuries: conquer, erase, and dominate. Hindus have endured this for generations, and the Shahi Jama Masjid is another reminder of their historical subjugation.

The violent resistance to a court-ordered survey is another example of Muslims in India resorting to mob rule to suppress the truth. This is not just about land or buildings—it’s about rewriting history to deny Hindus their heritage and rights. By attacking the survey team and police, the mob sent a clear message: they will not allow the truth to come to light, even if it means resorting to terror.

Emerging No-Go Zones: Sharia Supremacy in Action

The events in Sambhal are part of a disturbing pattern seen across India: the creation of no-go zones where Muslims have seized de facto control, negated the rule of law, and undermined the sovereignty of the legitimate government. These areas operate outside the rule of law, where Indian governance is rejected, and Islamic laws—often Sharia-based—are enforced in their place. Non-Muslims, particularly Hindus, are excluded or harassed if they enter these zones, with devastating consequences for communal harmony and national integrity.

During the violence in Sambhal, Muslims from nearby areas joined the mob, raising religious slogans and resorting to arson, further demonstrating how these zones act as rallying points for radical elements. Speaking about the stone-pelting, BJP MP Kangana Ranaut recently exposed the reality of these zones:

    “It is no more hidden that not only Sambhal but there are a lot of places in our country where Hindus are not able to enter. In such areas, people are trying to implement Sharia laws, and refugees are being given fake identities… We can see the importance of our mantra ‘Ek hain to safe hain’ [If we are united, we are safe] and ‘Batenge to katenge’ [If we divide, we will be cut]. We have to stay united in our country.”

#WATCH | Delhi | On incident of stone pelting in UP's Sambhal, BJP MP Kangana Ranaut says, "It is no more hidden that not only Sambhal but there are a lot of places in our country where Hindus are not able to enter. In such areas, people are trying to implement Sharia laws and… pic.twitter.com/obRIshL9Y6

— ANI (@ANI) November 24, 2024

Her statement highlights a grim truth: Sambhal is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a larger problem. These zones have become breeding grounds for Islamic terror, where efforts to enforce Indian law are met with hostility, violence, and outright defiance. The mob in Sambhal, fueled by jihadis, proves that such zones are not merely lawless—they are anti-national spaces actively undermining the nation’s sovereignty. 

The Global Parallel This tactic isn’t confined to India. Across the world, Muslims use violence, intimidation, and tactical symbolism to assert dominance over other cultures. For instance, days of rage are organized in response to any perceived disrespect toward Islamic symbols or scripture, as defined by them. Whether it’s the construction of mosques on sacred sites, demands for special privileges, or violent reactions to perceived challenges, the goal remains the same: to project supremacy, silence dissent, and force non-Muslims into submission. 

In Europe, this pattern has manifested through the emergence of lawless no-go zones, areas where local laws are ignored, and Islamic law (Sharia) is imposed by organized Muslim communities. These zones, found in cities like Paris, Brussels, and Malmö, operate outside national legal frameworks. Non-Muslims face harassment or violence if they enter, and law enforcement, along with emergency services, is often attacked for attempting to enforce order or provide assistance. These zones mirror the lawlessness witnessed in Sambhal, where a Muslim mob rejected Indian legal authority, resorting to violence and terror to suppress the truth and preserve the dominance of the mosque, built on the ruins of a conquered Hindu temple. 

From the riots in Leicester to the growing influence of no-go zones in European cities, the refusal to integrate and the push for dominance follow the same historical script. The events in Sambhal are not isolated; they are part of a global strategy to undermine state sovereignty and impose Islamic supremacy. From the riots in Leicester to the growing influence of no-go zones in European cities, the refusal to integrate and the push for dominance follow the same historical script. The Sambhal incident serves as a stark reminder of how Islamic supremacy fosters parallel systems of governance, undermining national sovereignty and erasing cultural identity. Western nations must pay attention. 

The same radical ideology fueling violence in Sambhal is at work in their own backyards. Whether it’s the rejection of national laws in India or the establishment of parallel systems in Europe, the ultimate goal is the same: to create pockets of control where Islamic dominance erases the rule of law, cultural heritage, and societal integration. Stand Up for Truth What happened in Sambhal is not just an attack on Hindus—it’s an attack on history, justice, and the rule of law. It’s time to call this out for what it is: Islamic aggression rooted in a centuries-old strategy of erasure and conquest. 

The brave police officers and the court-ordered survey team are fighting not just for Hindus but for historical truth and justice. The world must not remain silent. Sambhal is a reminder that appeasement emboldens radicals. Whether in India or the West, the answer is clear: stand firm against Islamic aggression, uncover the truth, and refuse to let history be erased, or your land will be conquered.