Smooth Stone has moved
Smooth Stone has moved to its permanent home at http://smoothstoneblog.com
Please update your bookmarks and I look forward to seeing you there.
Smuggling tunnels
As long as the rats continue to smuggle weaponry from Egypt into Gaza to be used to kill Israelis, Israel will be justified in killing the smugglers, the Gazan Arabs and anyone else who is involved in the genocide of the Jewish people. As long as the US government refuses to recognize the threat that these tunnels represent to Israel, America better keep its mouth shut about Israel following any goddamned “roadmap to peace”.
Deconstructing poverty as a root cause of Muslim terror
This paper investigates the ways in which terrorism is linked to education and poverty using data newly culled from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) documentary sources. The paper presents a statistical analysis of the determinants of participation in terrorist activities by members of the Hamas and PIJ between the late 1980s and May 2002.
The resulting evidence suggests that both higher education and standard of living are positively associated with participation in Hamas or PIJ and with becoming a suicide bomber, while being married significantly reduces the probability of participation in terrorist activities.
Read it and weep, arabist apologists.
What are the causes of Muslim Israelophobia?
Muslims believe that destroying the Jewish Holy Temple Mount promotes and expedites the Islamic goal to ethnically cleanse Jews from the Middle East. By invalidating claims to the historic Jewish presence of the Holy Jewish Temple Mount and by destroying any trace or any artifacts of the Jewish Holy Temple Mount, Muslims can declare supremacy over Judaism. We hear that desire all the time. We consistently hear Muslims invoke, demand, command, preach and pray that Israel “should not exist”, “will not exist”, “never existed”, “does not exist”, “can’t exist”.
Let’s say Israel doesn’t exist in an imaginary scenario. Israel is not here, there are no Jews, the legitimate and sovereign nation of Israel is gone. Let’s explore what this imaginary non-existent Israel provides to Islam’s baseline of thought: what does Israel – this piece of land and its Jewish inhabitants therein – represent to Muslims that Muslims simply cannot tolerate? We have all heard the propaganda that Israel is a virus, Israel is a cancer, etc, but we have not heard what the actual threat is that Israel represents to Muslims.
A cause to rule out is Jews offend Muslims while proselytizing to them – but Jews don’t do that. They don’t ask others to convert to Judaism. Besides, if a Muslim’s faith in his god is anchored, there should be no logical basis to feel threatened, so if Israel does exist, then the existence of Judaism would not be a threat because Muslims would be secure in faith in Allah, so there would be no impetus to destroy Judaism. So, clearly the source of Muslim Israelphobia is not faith based.
Maybe the source of Muslim Israelphobia is racism. But since Jews come in every color and race, we have to reject attempts to legitimize racial causes for Muslims to eliminate Jews because of race. Besides, racism refers only to racial issues, not to views on culture, religion, or ideology.
So maybe the reason why Muslims want to eliminate Israel is because it is a territory. Let’s imagine, then that in this imaginary scenario of a Middle East without an Israel, Muslims would have more territory and therefore, Muslims would occupy what once was Israel. Perhaps this is all about land. Perhaps Muslim Israelphobia is just a case for a land grab. In political economics, lots of land is a good thing. The more land owned by Muslims allows for the spread of more Muslim supremacy. But is any of this true according to the Koran?
According to the Koran, no person, people or religious community can claim a permanent right of possession over a certain territory, since the earth belongs exclusively to God, Who is free to entrust sovereign right to everyone He likes and for as long as He likes:
Say: O God, King of the kingdom, Thou givest the kingdom to whom Thou pleasest, and Thou strippest off the kingdom from whom Thou pleasest. Thou endurest with honor whom Thou pleasest, and Thou bringest low whom Thou pleasest. All the best is in Thy hand. Verily, Thou hast power over all things. (Koran, Sura 3:26, “The Imrans”)
From this verse one can filter a basic principle of the monotheistic philosophy of Judaism and Christianity, both which preceded Islam: God can control relationships between people and countries. Sometimes God gives a land to a people, and sometime He takes land back and gives it to another people.
Maybe Muslims hate Jews simply because Muslims politically identify with others who look, act and behave like Muslims. It’s hard to ignore the parts of the Koran which asks Muslims to kill or abduct all those who refuse to become members of their belief. This is the precise and official text given by Mohammed:
“So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.” (Koran, surat IX, 5)
But then it’s just too difficult to ignore the racism one finds in the Koran. Islam officially encourages racism and discrimination which is contrary to Human Rights and democratic laws:
“O you who believe! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.” (Koran, surat V, 51)
As Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi writes,
“The idea of Islam as a factor that prevents Arabs from recognizing any sovereign right of Jews over Palestine is quite recent and can by no means be found in Islamic classical sources. To see anti-Zionism as a direct consequence of Islam is a form of explicit misunderstanding which implies the transformation of Islam from a religion into a secularized ideology.”
So it does come down to ideology. Palazzi says the most common argument against Islamic acknowledgement of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem is that, since al-Quds is a holy place for Muslims, they cannot accept it being ruled by non-Muslims, because such acceptance would be a betrayal of Islam.
Yet, Muslims seek to convey to non-Muslims that Islam is a tolerant religion.
So how does one explain this intolerance when the Muslim Hamas terror organization is planning a radio broadcast Wednesday from the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest site –while the Israeli government has completely banned Jews and Christians from ascending the Mount that same day for fear of offending Muslims?
Wednesday marks the Muslim holiday of Ein ul-Adhaa, which commemorates the Islamic belief of Abraham’s willingness to sacrificehis son Ishmael for Allah. The Torah says Abraham nearly sacrificedhis son Isaac, not Ishmael.
Wednesday is also the Jewish fast day of the Tenth of Tevet, which commemorates the start of the siege of Jerusalem leading up to the destruction of the First Jewish Temple during the reign of the Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar. The fast also was proclaimed to mourn the First Temple’s destruction.
The Islamic Jihad terror organization exclusively broadcast daily Ramadan prayers from the Mount on their official station, the Al Quds Network. The radio network regularly features Iranian and anti-Semitic propaganda and death threats against Jews.
This is not tolerance. This is a crapstorm.
Professor Moshe Sharon writes:
“There is no Fundamental Islam. Fundamentalism is a word that came from the heart of the Christian religion. It means faith that goes by the word of the Bible. Fundamental Christianity, or going with the Bible, does not mean going around and killing people. There is no fundamental Islam. There is only Islam full stop. The question is how the Koran is interpreted.”
Muslim Israelphobia is clearly a matter of how the Koran is interpreted. The more one studies the Koran, the more clear the idea becomes that by removing Israel, the whole Middle East world would become a Muslim world, and moreso, that the whole world would be subdued under the rule of Islam.
But the most dificult content to digest regarding Muslim hatred of Israel is the way in which it is to be fulfilled. The Koran teaches Muslims to give their lives in exchange for assurances of paradise. Suicide bombings is one example. Suicide bombings are condoned by major authoritative Muslim voices whereas suicide bombings are absolutley unacceptable in Judaism and Christianity.
The accounts of Muhammad’s actions and personal statements (hadith) elaborate on the Koran, providing specific dictations regarding treaties, pay, booty, prisoners, tactics, and much else. During his years in power, Mohammed engaged in an average of nine military campaigns a year, or one every five to six weeks.
Conquering and humiliating non-Muslims was a main feature of the Mohammed and his jihad. We can say for sure that Islam is not at all like Judaism and Christianity. Evidently there is more than one reason why Muslims share such pronounced Israelphobia and no, the Koranic texts were not taken out of context. The Koranic quotes mentioned in this post were made in context. Perhaps the answer is best described here:
“Jerusalem is a symbol for every Muslim in the world. The claim of the Jews to the right over it is false, and we recognize nothing but an entirely Islamic Jerusalem under Islamic supervision…” — PA Mufti Ikrama Sabri, Al-Bilad, July 31, 1997
Although the Koran never mentions Jerusalem once, and regardless of the fact that the Torah mentions Jerusalem over 600 times, these will just be more documented facts relegated to the back alley of Muslim ignorance and blood libel, to be used as a religious rationale for Muslim imperialism, supremacy and Jewicide.
Questions about Palestinian Aid
From Questions about Palestinian Aid:
The argument for increasing foreign aid to the Palestinians stems from the belief that the way to defeat radicalism is to eliminate its ostensible cause – poverty and ignorance. But as early as 1958, Daniel Lerner discerned that political activism in the Middle East was not driven by the “have nots,” but rather by the “want mores.”
Claude Berrebi of Princeton University analyzed Palestinian terrorism and determined that “if anything…those with higher education and higher living standards are more likely to participate in terrorist activity.” Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova in the Journal of Economic Perspectives found that Palestinian suicide bombers were more likely than the general population to have completed secondary education and were less likely to come from an impoverished environment. They also found similar results associated with membership in Hizbullah.
The pathology of palestinianism presented in Art
I enjoyed this story and I’m glad his work was ruined. Perhaps Banksy will realize he’s wasting his art on barbarians and their barbaric causes to ethnically Jews from their indigenous homeland. From Palestinians Vandalize Mural by British Artist:
Bethlehem residents have painted over a satirical mural by the graffiti artist Banksy that was meant to highlight their plight. The British artist had painted six images around the town to help drum up tourism before Christmas.
But the irony behind the depiction of an Israeli soldier checking a donkey’s identity papers was lost on some residents, who found it offensive.
Like rats, they retreat underground
The airraids are working because the vermin are retreating. But unfortunately, too many of them are still breathing and, alas, capable of breeding. From One Kassam Rocket Too Many:
The combination of Israeli air attacks, a tight economic blockade, and increasing losses among the terror organizations is putting Hamas under considerable pressure. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh may speak of a tahdiya (lull, or quiet), though not a hudna (cease-fire), but Hamas’ military wing, headed by Ahmad Jabari, does not accept his leadership. Hamas and Islamic Jihad forces number slightly over 10,000 men at arms. Dozens of gunmen are killed in Gaza every month.
Since ten Islamic Jihad militants were killed this week, several of them high up in the organization’s military wing, there has been a decrease in rocket fire by Islamic Jihad. The militants fear the Israeli security services have succeeded in infiltrating their ranks and they have gone underground to limit the damage.
While Hamas is not launching Kassam rockets, it makes do with firing mortars at IDF bases and Israeli communities adjacent to Gaza. The military wing of Hamas is working on spectacular operations, along the lines of the abduction of IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit. IDF operations two or three kilometers inside Gazan territory are aimed in part at preventing the excavation of tunnels that would enable terrorists to infiltrate IDF bases or kibbutzim close to the border, with the goal of abducting or killing Israelis.
What are the links between domestic violence, misogyny and Jihad?
Front Page interviewed Jeffrey Denning, co-owner of Liberty Protective Solutions, LLC, a private security consulting company, and who was a former police officer, SWAT team leader and Federal Air Marshal. Denning believes
…that one of the reasons ethically and civilly-minded societies fail in their approach to stop or predict terrorism at the tactical level is because we try to place our moral value system on an amoral enemy. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t do a proper threat assessment unless you can really get into the mind of the terrorist. These men and women aren’t superheroes; they are people. Sure, that sounds plainly obvious, but I believe most of the free world has a misconception of what a terrorist is and what one can do.
Denning also believes that they “do not hate us because we’re rich or free, or even because we might appear collectively arrogant. They don’t attack us today solely based on our foreign policy, the Christian Crusades, or in the case of Israel , because of a land dispute. Those things play a part, but when you really begin understanding Islamic terrorism, it goes much, much deeper than that. “
Here’s the clincher, folks, and it turned a key for me. Denning says:
The more we understand terrorists the greater their vulnerability becomes. They are strengthened by their own anonymity. And we give them power by labeling them as some difficult to understand entity. We empower them unintentionally by calling them terrorists. We mustn’t confuse a tactic with a vulnerable and angry human being with weaknesses. Words like jihadist, holy warrior—mujahideen or mujahidat—and al Qaeda don’t show who they really are. Abu Mushakil, literally the father of trouble, seems more accurate.
If we made fun of them or occasionally taunted and humiliated them, that might help destroy the mystic of these criminals who use terror tactics. What, are they going to hate us more? I don’t think so. But joking a bit may ease our fear of them on some level. I could tell you some funny and totally stupid things terrorists have done. Most of them could be put in for the Darwin Awards or the world’s dumbest criminals. If we could really understand terrorists, if we could speak with them face to face and learn about them, we’d lose our sense of fear towards them entirely. And, it would shock us at how foolish we were to ever embolden them with any sort of power.
{…}
The truth is there’s a huge similarity between domestic violence, misogyny and terrorism on a bigger scale. Interestingly, I have read letters from stalkers who want to kill their victims. Not a few read like this: “If I can’t have you on earth, we’ll both be in heaven together.” These stalkers, like many terrorists, have a homicide-suicide type mentality. The allure of an Islamic terrorist seeking intimate relations in the afterlife is also evident.
Moreover, when a female is murdered in a domestic abuse relationship, she is often left naked and exposed—almost like a sadistic sexual punishment. And when it comes to these so-called terrorists, sex crimes and their associated terror acts seem united.
{…}
I don’t think that Islamic extremists have begun hating their own women more in recent years. I think we may have just uncovered some of the irregular abuses and horrible atrocities that have been occurring for years. Since 9/11 we’ve tended to speak up a little more and shed some light in the dark corner. Like abusive relationships are often done in secret, the same could be said of the abuses against women within Islam. Generally speaking, all of them are debased and devalued. Devaluing women is a cultural thing with them. It’s terrible and horrible. It’s sad.
Just the other day I overheard a co-worker and good friend of mine talk about his experiences as a corrections officer and policeman. He was telling someone about the many transsexual men in prison. He said that when they get confused about their own sexuality they often become engaged in violent and bizarre crimes.
That encapsulates much of the reasons why Islamic terrorist-criminals do what they do; they’re confused. Many of them are homosexual. They hate women and yet they wish for 72 black-eyed virgins? As Dr. Kobrin teaches, “for Islamic male dominated terrorist groups, the female is sexually terrifying.” She’s absolutely right. Moreover, she teaches that they subconsciously hate their own mothers and that’s one of the reasons they act out. That’s almost the antithesis of my situation.
Lastly, they dehumanize us. That’s one of the reasons it was so easy for the mob in Fallujah , Iraq to mutilate, and then hang from the bridge, the immolated carcasses of the three U.S. government contractors in March 2003. Remember, they danced and cheered and smiled? I can’t even imagine the worst of all neighborhoods doing that. But, then again, I can because I’ve seen the evil that people are capable of.
Click here to read the whole interview. Click here to visit Jeffrey Denning’s blog.
It’s called payback, baaaby
What a perfect occurrence to follow the Muslim purposeful desecration of our Jewish forefather’s graves. Five years after he tried to blow up an Israeli apartment building, Muslim terrorist Salid Ziwad was shot and captured early Wednesday morning. Ziwad was responsible for one of the most dramatic near-attacks in recent history. An Islamic Muslim Jihad terrorist, he arranged for a car packed with some 400 kilograms of explosives to be brought into Israel, where it was to be detonated aside a residential building and thus bring it down. The attack was thwarted, however, when the car was found – unoccupied – at a Border Guard checkpoint near Givat Ada in the Hadera region.
Rest in pieces, you inferior mongrel.
Arabs Desecrate Grave of Biblical Joshua
Just when you thought that Muslims couldn’t stoop any lower, what do they do? They go and desecrate the graves of the great Jewish Biblical Joshua, Caleb and Nun (Joshua’s father). Joshua served as the Jewish Nation’s Prime Minister from the year 2488 until 2516 on the Hebrew calendar (1272 BCE – 1300 BCE). Members of the One Shechem organization that organizes visits to the graves arrived in the village of Timnat (Kifl) Haress, near Ariel in Samaria, to prepare for a special prayer gathering, discovered that Muslim barbarians had desecrated the village’s Jewish tombs. The tombs of Yehoshua (Joshua) ben Nun, Nun, and Calev (Caleb) ben Yefuneh were covered with garbage and feces – both human and animal, and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans and symbols had been painted in the area.
Can you imagine if the abomination referred to as the al-aqsa mosque had been slopped with feces? There’d be no end to the international outrage, because frankly, everyone loves Muslims, because Muslims are scary and threatening and dangerous – and everyone hates the Jew because we are actually winsome, weak, and cowardly.
Nevertheless, Jewish worshippers still gathered at the tombs Tuesday night for special prayers on the tenth of Tevet, the day Kaddish and other prayers are recited for those whose date of death is unknown, such as Calev ben Yefuneh.
The prayers were also to mark the end of the 30-day increased-stricture mourning period for murdered Jewish father Ido Zoldan of Kedumim, by a Muslim police officer.
See, that’s the difference between Jews and the Muslim miscreant. We pray for the dead, while Muslims pray to be dead.
Don’t ever let me hear any one of you say that “we all worship the same god”. Like hell, we do.
Click here for an Arutz-7 Exclusive Photo Essay of a midnight visit to the graves of Joshua, Calev and Nun.