15-Apr-16: Stand by for a united Islamic assault on terror... and possibly some other things as well

Erdogan addresses Muslim kings and prime ministers yesterday in Istanbul [Image Source]

Almost entirely unreported at this early stage, might it be that the Islamic world has decided, finally, to do something serious to curb terrorism? Perhaps, but in the circumstances (which we're about to describe) it would be wise to suspend judgment for a while. That's because it's not that clear what sort of steps they are planning to take. Or against whom exactly. Or frankly for what purpose.

It stems from a major announcement by Turkey's most powerful politician.

Today, Friday, is the second day of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) 13th Islamic Summit Conference. Held once every three years, the event is hosted this time by Turkey in Istanbul with the attendance of "prime ministers and presidents from over 30 countries".

The OIC, about which we have posted several times in the past [click], was formed in 1969 and is made up of 57 member states. It calls itself "the collective voice of the Muslim world" working to "safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony".

Peace and harmony, let's concede, are in notably short supply these days, and strikingly so in a significant number of the Muslim countries and even at the summit itself (see "OIC conference begins with Iran-Saudi spat"). Indeed Turkey's foreign minister, quoted today by Aljazeera ["Islamic world leaders seek to bridge differences"], reveals that

"the Islamic world is experiencing many disputes within itself. Fratricidal conflict causes great pain. Sectarianism divides the ummah," he told OIC foreign ministers on Tuesday, using the Arabic world for the Muslim community. "Hopefully, this summit will pave the way for healing some wounds." [Aljazeera, April 14, 2016]

Healing wounds? The Russian RT news outlet helps us understand how they are going about that. It reports this morning that terrorism (and not violent extremism, please note) has emerged as a core feature of this OIC summit:

Turkey is trying to unite the Islamic world and lead it in the fight against terror with a new Istanbul-based police force tasked with tackling extremism in the region... Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has accepted his proposal to create a multinational police center based in Istanbul to battle international terrorism. The new structure is to be called the OIC Center for Police Cooperation and Coordination... “It would be helpful to establish a structure among member states that will strengthen and institutionalize cooperation against terror and other crimes,” he said, during a speech... The aim, according to Erdogan, is to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq, Syria and Libya and Boko Haram and Al Shabaab in Africa, as “all these terror organizations oppress and harm all Muslims."

Turkey's Davutoglu and PA's Abbas yesterday at OIC summit.
Probably preparing their attack on terrorists [Image Source]

However, and it's a rather big but, that's not all they want to fight. RT explains that

While the details of the new Islamic anti-terror police force yet to be made public, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is already calling to “liberate all Islamic lands under occupation.”

The Turkish daily Hurriyet expands: 

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has put forth a call to “liberate all Islamic lands under occupation,” while also asking for a common and broader view of Muslims in order to discuss the problems of the Muslim world with maturity. “We need a common stance for the liberation of all the Islamic lands that are under occupation, especially Palestine,” said Davutoğlu April 14, while delivering an opening speech... “The most important indicator which would show the effectiveness of the OIC is protecting Muslim minorities and liberating occupied lands such as Palestine, Karabakh and Crimea,” Davutoğlu said... [explaining that in these places] the Islamic identity is under threat of being demolished... “Despite differences of opinion, we need to maximize political relations and improve bilateral contacts in maturity so we can discuss all problems in the Muslim world,” he said. ["Turkish PM calls for broader view of Muslims", Hurriyet, April 15, 2016]

(In passing, we will mention that the editorial offices of Hurriyet, whose line is considered liberal and secular, were sacked by pro-Erdogan mobs screaming Islamist slogans several times in the past year. Still, they managed to escape the fate of their larger competitor Zaman, Turkey's biggest-circulating newspaper; it was shut down by court order last month and placed under state control. BBC says "no reason was given by the court for the decision", and quotes Davutoglu as cryptically explaining the takeover was "legal, not political".)

We have found relatively few mentions in online news channels today of the two-pronged strategy announced by the Turks. This report ["Muslim countries have agreed to work together to fight terrorism: Turkey President Erdogan"] for instance, from a respected Mumbai-based news service seems to have been written by someone who was out of the room when Palestine came up. The same with yesterday morning's Reuters despatch ["Muslim nations agree to work closely to fight terrorism: Turkey's Erdogan"] The Gulf News editors saw fit [here] to report how Erdogan "noted that the majority of the victims of terrorism are Muslims and called it a “source of shame” that most of those who risk their lives at sea to reach Europe are Muslims." But didn't mention the Palestine angle either.

Perhaps we'll be seeing some more-comprehensive news reporting later today. But it seems an odd dropping of the ball.

Being opposed to terror is one of those abstractions that tend to have more to do with prevailing cultural values than with the plain meaning of the words. Sometimes, too, the results of attitude polls into such matters as how people feel about terror and human bomb attacks just don't make sense without drilling down into how they understand some of the basic words.

To illustrate, this might be a good time to review how "terror" seems to mean radically different things at different times and in different contexts. For instance, "03-Nov-15: What do they mean when the Palestinian Arabs say they oppose terror?" And for a specifically-Turkish context, "6-Jun-10: It's not that complicated: Is IHH a humanitarian group or a terrorist group?"

Finally a reminder of how the juxtaposition of the words victim, terror and Israel tends to make some people loses their moral compass completely: "03-Mar-16: When the UN responds to terrorism, which victims does it entirely ignore?"

09-Apr-16: In Turkey, serious problems with terror and tourism

Three Israelis were among the four visitors murdered in the Istanbul
human bomb attack three weeks ago. From left: Simha Dimri, 60, 
Yonathan Suher, 40, and Avraham Goldman, 69 [Image Source]

It's now less than two weeks to the start of Passover, and in Israel that means hundreds of thousands of people are making out-bound travel plans. Two travel advisories issued in the past 36 hours are making justifiable waves here and beyond.

Times of Israel reported on Friday afternoon, just before the onset of the Sabbath here, that the government's Counter-Terrorism Bureau, a unit of the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem

issued a rare statement underlining a recent travel warning calling on Israelis to avoid visiting Turkey, and urging those currently there to leave as soon as possible... The warning, which raised the terror risk in Turkey from level 2 (high concrete threat) to level 1 (highest concrete threat level), came following a terror attack in central Istanbul last month, in which three Israelis were killed and several others wounded. The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for the attack... [Times of Israel, April 8, 2016]

The alert comes after a lethal attack, done in the name of ISIS, in the heart of Istanbul exactly three weeks ago ["19-Mar-16: In human bomb attack today in Istanbul, numerous Israelis among the victims"].

The Israeli warning comes not only after the March 19, 2016 attack but also in the wake of three others since the start of 2016,. A bombing in Turkey's capital, Ankara, just a couple of days earler killed at least 37 people. The Israeli travel advisory says the threat of jihadist attacks is valid for all of Turkey, not only Istanbul and not only the major tourist attractions.

Real and immediate terror threats remain throughout the country... [Israelis visiting Turkey should] avoid crowded tourist areas, follow instructions of local authorities and get out as soon as possible... There are immediate risks of attacks being carried out in the country, and we stress the threat applies to all tourism sites in Turkey... [Times of Israel, April 8, 2016]

Prior to the alert, it was reported (via Israel's Channel Two news on Wednesday) that more than 110,000 Israelis have plans to travel to Turkey during this Passover. The numbers were much larger in the not-so-distant past. An analytical piece in Haaretz pointed out some weeks ago that

Israelis used to travel in droves to Turkey... But travel plunged after the May 2010 raid by Israeli commandoes on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was trying to break the blockade of Gaza. Diplomatic relations grew tense and tourism dived, never quite recovering. The record year for Israelis visiting Turkey was 2008, when some 540,000 arrived. But the year after the Mavi Marmara incident, the number plummeted to just 75,000. It has climbed since then, but last year the number of Israeli tourist arrivals was only 224,000 – well under half the record number. The Israelis who do travel to Turkey tend to be Arabs, with the rest of the seats on flights taken by business-people and travelers making connections to other destinations through Istanbul. ["Even Before Terror Attacks, Jewish-Israeli Tourists Were Avoiding Turkey", Rina Rozenberg, Haaretz, March 20, 2016] 

Naturally, Israel is not alone in its concern with what is happening in Turkey. The families of American diplomats and military personnel based in southern Turkey were ordered to leave in the wake of elevated security concerns two weeks ago:

"We understand this is disruptive to our military families, but we must keep them safe and ensure the combat effectiveness of our forces to support our strong ally Turkey in the fight against terrorism,” said Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command. [Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2016]

Tonight (Saturday), the US kicked up its concerns a notch, warning Americans of immediate "credible threats" to Turkish tourist areas

in particular to public squares and docks in Istanbul and Antalya... Please exercise extreme caution if you are in the vicinity of such areas,” read the statement. [Consulate General of the United States in Istanbul, this evening] 

The economic impact is serious. Foreign visitors to Turkey brought in almost $31.5 billion in revenues in 2015. But visitor traffic was already down by more than 10 percent in February 2016, prior to the human bomb attack in central Istanbul:

[T]ourism was hit by a crisis in relations with Russia and security fears after a series of attacks. The number of foreigners entering Turkey fell 10.32 percent in February from the same period the year earlier, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said in its latest monthly statistics. Tourism from Russia recorded one of the biggest falls amid the crisis in relations following Turkey's shooting down of a Russian war plane in November, with visitor numbers plunging over 51.5 percent. Georgians -- who frequently head over the land border on shopping trips -- were the most frequent visitors to Turkey, followed by Germans and Iranians, it said. Tourism from Iran was one of the few sectors to show an upsurge, with visitor numbers rising almost 17 percent in the period. ["Turkey tourism dives amid security fears", AFP, March 29, 2016]

Istanbul [Image Source]

Since starting to write this post, we have gotten word of two more Istanbul terror incidents:

A small bomb left on the side of a road in central Istanbul exploded late Saturday, slightly wounding three people, Turkey's state-run news agency reported. The bomb, which was designed to create a loud noise, was left near an overpass in the city's central Mecidiyekoy district, the Anadolu Agency reported. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Three people were hospitalized, but were not in serious condition, the report said. [Associated Press, tonight]

And

Turkish police carried out a controlled explosion of a bag left in Istanbul's popular Taksim square on Saturday, a Reuters witness at the scene says, hours after the U.S. embassy warned of "credible threats" to tourist areas. Police cordoned off Taksim, a square lined with hotels and restaurants frequented by tourists, while a member of the police bomb squad was seen opening what appeared to be a bag, the witness says. The bomb squad later detonated it in a controlled explosion, causing a loud boom to echo across the square, the witness says. [Reuters, today]

(Click here for some of our previous Turkey-focused blog posts.)

Whatever Muslim-on-Muslim security concerns the authorities in Turkey already had, things are likely get substantially more tense for them Sunday when

The world's Islamic countries began their annual meeting Sunday in Istanbul, where they are set to focus on the Palestinian cause, conflicts in member states and combating terrorism. The meeting of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) comes once again at a time of turmoil in many Muslim nations, with conflicts in Syria and Yemen dragging on, and several states including Turkey, bloodied by militant attacks. The 13th annual OIC conference began with senior officials adopting the agenda and will be followed by a foreign ministers meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Over 30 heads of state and government will attend the summit hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday and Friday. With guests set to include Saudi King Salman, the event is taking place under the highest security, with police stationed all around the venue in central Istanbul. The OIC said the summit was to issue a resolution on the Palestinian issue and support for international efforts to relaunch a "collective political process". The gathering comes at a time of rising Islamophobia in many western nations in response to a spate of attacks by the Islamic State group. ["Islamic countries to focus on Palestinian cause at Turkey summit", The Arab Weekly, April 10, 2016]

We can assume the "rising Islamophobia" of this report does not affect the Erdogan regime since, notwithstanding the blood-letting on the streets of its largest cities, what's principally on their minds is fixing the Arab/Israel conflict. Good luck.

11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising

Mutual admiration society: Hamas' Haniye, Turkey's Erdogan
[Image Source]

It was always clear that the release of 1,027 convicted and imprisoned Arab terrorists from Israeli jails in the ill-conceived Shalit Deal would lead to, and has in fact caused, the deaths of numerous innocent Israeli victims.

What is less clear even now is the enabling role provided by certain countries in empowering a cohort of Shalit Deal graduates to emerge as key figures in a campaign of anti-Israel terrorism by remote control. The note below focuses on just four: Turkey, Qatar, Jordan and Malaysia.

A small flurry of media attention in the past day indicates that the worst of the deadly consequences of the 2011 Shalit Deal are still ahead:

Palestinian prisoners released and deported to Gaza, Turkey, and Qatar as part of the Shalit deal are organizing their own terrorist cells in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, according to a report on Thursday. The deported prisoners, who are members of Hamas’ military wing, are providing guidance and funds to these cells, Hamas sources told Ynet...  The operation is being run by senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri, who is based in Turkey... The exiled Hamas members also have created their own cells in the West Bank to incite, protest and clash with Israeli security forces... The sources said, according to the report, that the Hamas leadership in Gaza is pushing for suicide bomb attacks to be carried out in the West Bank and east Jerusalem...  Israeli officials are convinced that Hamas will make every effort to execute a large-scale attack by using whatever means are available to its men in the field. Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior figure in Hamas' political bureau, told an Islamist-affiliated web site in Gaza in October that he was hopeful the current violence would escalate into "an armed intifada." ["Freed Hamas prisoners from Schalit deal forming independent terror cells, says report", Jerusalem Post, December 10, 2015]

Al-Zahar, Hamas foreign minister [Image Source: Reuters]

(We would add that Mahmoud al-Zahar, mentioned above, is more than just a senior Hamas figure. He's usually identified as Hamas' foreign minister in the media. Not being part of Hamas' armed "wing" doesn't prevent him from saying he is hopeful the violence now happening here daily will evolve into "an armed intifada".)

Quoted in the little-noticed Jerusalem Post article, the Ynet report written by Elior Levy, describes a shadow organization, largely independent of both Fatah and Hamas and with an intense focus on doing terror. Members of its leadership, taking advantage of the unjustified freedom handed to them via the government of Israel and the extortion made possible by the Shalit transaction

are using the connections they made in the villages and cities of the West Bank and East Jerusalem before they were arrested. They each operate separately, working with a contact in the territories, each in a different area. The expelled prisoners provide their contacts in the territories with funding and guidance, while the contacts form the cells. The fact the communication between the expelled prisoners and their contact in the West Bank is done directly makes these military cells decentralized and compartmentalized. These operations are led and financed by the head of the Hamas military wing's West Bank Division, Saleh al-Arouri, who is located in Turkey... According to the Hamas source, an escalation of the situation in the West Bank will provide the terror organization with a way out of the crisis it faces in the Gaza Strip. [Ynet, December 10, 2015] 

This emerging branch of Palestinian Arab terror has been evident for some time. The existence of an amorphous terror structure operating from Judea and Samaria and led by released Palestinian Arab prisoners was documented this past summer in a monograph [here] published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, directed by Dr. Reuven Erlich (it's often called ITIC). The report focuses on three men, all sentenced by Israeli courts to long prison terms for terror, all freed and all currently engaged in plotting fresh murders from the safety of other countries. Two were released in the Shalit Deal; the third was released from prison in 2010 and took an active, perhaps key, role in the Shalit negotiations.

• Turkey-based Saleh Mohammed Suleiman Al-Arouri is a founder of Hamas' so-called military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. He spent 18 years behind Israeli bars until being freed in the year before the Shalit Deal. He was then deported to Jordan, moving on from there to Syria from where he had a hand in the Shalit negotiations. When Hamas abandoned Damascus, he moved on to Turkey. He's based there now as the person in charge of Hamas terrorist operations in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. He's also a member of the Hamas political bureau. He claimed credit in a public speech last year [here] for the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens. (Hamas' strategy of having ostensibly separate political and military "wings" aims to shield its terror-spouting leaders from from responsibility for Hamas terrorism - a shabby form of plausible deniability that confers fig-leaf protection for reporters and politicians seeking a cost-free engagement with the blood-lusting Islamist terrorists.) 
• Hussam Atef Badran, released in the Shalit Deal, living and operating freely in Qatar from where he often appears in global news media as Hamas spokesman. An Islamist terror insider, he has responsibilities in the fields of terrorist network management and recruitment in Judea and Samaria. ITIC says he also spends terror-related time in Turkey.
• Ahmed al-Najjar, convicted for the terror-related shooting murders of six Israelis, was also released in the 2011 Shalit Deal. He holds US citizenship, according to ITIC quoting an Arabic-language report from March 19, 2011 on the amin.org site, shortly before being let loose. Deported to the Gaza Strip, he moved on to Jordan from where he oversees terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria. The murder of Malachi Rosenfeld in July 2015 ["19-Aug-15: The road to Malachi's death and the decisions that made it possible"] is one of them. 

Hussam Badran, Hamas's Qatar-based spokesman, appearing on
Turkey's TRT television, June 2014 [Image Source]

Many of our readers live in countries that have ongoing diplomatic and friendly ties with the states that host these terrorists and their operations. ITIC describes how those states play an invaluable role in anti-Israel terror:

Communication between the handlers and the operatives in Judea and Samaria is mainly by phone or via the Internet. Money transfers are performed by utilizing people who hold an entry permit into Israel (for example, for medical treatment) and the Palestinian Authority. In some cases, meetings are held outside Judea and Samaria by means of a courier who goes abroad. In the ITIC’s assessment, Turkey and Jordan are the two countries of choice for these meetings. This is due to their geographical proximity to Judea and Samaria and the relative ease with which one can create a suitable cover story in order to travel to them. [ITIC Report, August 4, 2015 - page 7]

Turkey also provides a congenial setting for field training of freshly-recruited terrorists

Saleh al-Arouri and additional operatives at the military headquarters in Turkey are also engaged in training operatives recruited by Hamas. Some of the terrorist operatives exposed in Judea and Samaria in August and September 2014 had received training in Turkey on planning military operations and methods for carrying out attacks against targets in Israeli territory, in Judea and Samaria, and abroad. After completing their military training, the recruits were given various tasks and assigned to squads by senior Hamas officials in Turkey... [ITIC Report, August 4, 2015 - page 11]

We noted in a blog post a year ago ["27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved"] that several bloody attacks - along with even more that were thwarted thanks to good Israeli intelligence - would probably have been labeled "lone wolf" terrorism if not for the now-exposed role, mostly ignored outside Israel, of these terror manipulators working unhindered from Jordan, Qatar and Turkey.

And before anyone makes holiday plans for Turkey in particular, here's a reminder of some thoughts we shared here some months ago? ["25-Feb-15: Talking Turkey on terror"]

ITIC has collected evidence that Malaysia provides the Hamas terrorists with covert support (though Malaysian sources deny this), partly based on things the Shin Bet has said. Wasim Qawasmeh, a resident of Hebron and one of numerous Qawasmehs to be mentioned in this blog over the years for their passion for murdering Jews, was recruited by Hamas in Malaysia [details here], as were numerous other Palestinian Arabs studying there. Other reports have mentioned Palestinian Arabs having undergone hang glider training in Malaysia, intended to be applied to terrorist attacks against Israelis.

When we wrote about Malaysia here some months back ["28-Apr-15: In Malaysia, years of anti-semitic exhortations along the path to anti-Israel terror"] we referred to the nauseating incitement that has emanated at intervals from the country's prominent, though it has to be said somewhat bizarre, former leader Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He was his country's prime minister for 22 years between 1981 and 2002:

"I am glad to be labelled anti-Semitic... How can I be otherwise, when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hard-heartedness towards not just their enemies but even towards their allies should any try to stop the senseless killing of their Palestinian enemies..."

And this from Mahathir's speech to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit in 2003, published in The Malaysian Insider:

"[T]he Nazis killed six million Jews out of 12 million (during the Holocaust). But today, the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them"... adding this time that any sympathy accorded to the victims of the Holocaust was "wasted and misplaced".

Worth noting that Malaysia currently occupies one of the non-permanent-member seats on the
United Nations Security Council.

We plan to come back to the roles of Jordan and Qatar shortly.

28-Apr-15: In Malaysia, years of antisemitic exhortations along the path to anti-Israel terror

"Glad to be labeled anti-semitic": Malaysia's longest-serving 

political leader Mahathir Mohamad demonstrating characteristic

chumminess in Kuala Lumpur two years ago with Hamas 

arch-terrorist Khaled Meshaal [Image Source]

Israel's Shin Bet internal security service is said - according to an expose published today on the Haaretz English-language news site - to have publicly revealed detailed evidence of terrorism-centred activities by the loathsome Hamas jihadists in far-off Malaysia. [Source: "Shin Bet: Hamas training Palestinian students in Malaysia" | Haaretz | April 28, 2015]

Among the allegations:

• Hamas is taking Palestinian Arabs to Malaysia for training as 'operatives' (meaning terrorists). On their return, these people are to carry out undercover operations in the West Bank.
• A Palestinian Arab from Hebron, Waseem Qawasmeh, 24, is on trial in an IDF military court, charged with membership of a banned organization, with having contact with the enemy and receiving money from the enemy. He was arrested on February 13 at the Allenby Bridge which crosses the Jordan River, providing a road connection between the Hashemite Kingdom and the areas controlled by the Mahmoud Abbas-controlled PA. He had just returned from Malaysia, as well as having spent part of his training period in Hamas-friendly Turkey. The indictment papers were filed with the court on March 18, according to the Haaretz article and form the basis of its expose.
• Senior Hamas officials including Ma'an Hatib and Radwan al-Atrash, live in Malaysia and took part in the events giving rise to the indictment. The Shin Bet says Hatib is "responsible in Malaysia for the Hamas foreign desk", while the well-named Atrash is "a senior figure" in its Shura Council, a religion-connected body that includes Islamist figures tied to Hamas.
• Part of the terrorism prep training involves pushing the Pal Arab jihadism cadets into joining the Malaysian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and getting involved with pro-Palestinian charities active in that country.
• Among their missions, these recruits then serve as courier/messengers between the PA-controlled areas and third countries, as well as being involved with clandestine transfers of funds to serve the Hamas terror organization's requirements.

Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel. Support for Hamas and its overt embrace of terror has been part of its political figures' public declarations for years. The current prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, visited the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in January 2013.

Malaysia's Jewish population, always a tiny number, has shrunk further in the wake of years of vile, fully-open Jew-hatred spouted from the country's highest political echelons. A 2012 article in Canada's National Post ["Anti-Semitism without Jews in Malaysia"] notes that Malaysia's

politicians and civil servants devote a surprising amount of time to thinking about Israel, 7,612 km away. Sometimes they appear to be obsessed by it. Malaysia has never had a dispute with Israel, but the government encourages the citizens to hate Israel and also to hate Jews whether they are Israelis or not. Few Malaysians have laid eyes on a Jew; the tiny Jewish community emigrated decades ago. Nevertheless, Malaysia has become an example of a phenomenon called “Anti-Semitism without Jews.” Last March, for instance, the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department sent out an official sermon to be read in all mosques, stating that “Muslims must understand Jews are the main enemy to Muslims as proven by their egotistical behaviour and murders performed by them.” About 60% of Malaysians are Muslim. In Kuala Lumpur, it’s routine to blame the Jews for everything from economic failures to the bad press Malaysia gets in foreign (“Jewish-owned”) newspapers...

If that's an exaggeration, it's not much of one.

A Malaysian newspaper, showcasing the career of the most prominent of Malaysia's leaders, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who served as the country's prime minister for 22 years between 1981 and 2002. provides some illustrative quotes:

"I am glad to be labelled antisemitic... How can I be otherwise, when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hard-heartedness towards not just their enemies but even towards their allies should any try to stop the senseless killing of their Palestinian enemies..."

That article, published in The Malaysian Insider, refers to Mahathir's speech to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit in 2003:

"[T]he Nazis killed six million Jews out of 12 million (during the Holocaust). But today, the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them"... adding this time that any sympathy accorded to the victims of the Holocaust was "wasted and misplaced".

Keep in mind Malaysia currently sits on the UN Security Council, where one of its most senior diplomats sees it having a role he bizarrely calls "constructive" in resolving a certain generations-long confrontation. See "Malaysia wants role in finding UN solution to Palestine-Israel conflict", a Malaysian news report from less than a week ago.

This might be a very good moment to review some of the thousands of Google links that pop up when you search on the term "Moderate Malaysia". Here's a fine example from 2009 among many others: "The Myth Of A Moderate Malaysia", from Forbes Magazine, in which the author addresses himself to

those scanning the globe for a Muslim-majority country that inspires neither dread nor despair [and] often alight upon Malaysia.

He explains why this optimism could be a teeny bit misplaced.

We are currently scanning the on-line Malaysian media to see how those years of foaming-at-the-mouth racist Mahathir-isms, are impacting on this latest round of made-in-Malaysia terrorism-friendly developments. Stay tuned.

25-Nov-14: How different from the Nigerian Islamists are the Pal Arab terrorists?

Two girls did, in fact, come back today - with bombs

inside their clothes. The others are still where they were

[Image Source]

The largest city in the Nigerian state of Borno, is Maiduguri, with a population of about 1.2 million, most of them Muslim.

In 2006, at the height of the drama over a newspaper in far-off Denmark publishing cartoon images of the central figure in Islam, riots broke out, fifteen people were killed there and twelve Christian houses of worship were destroyed. And then things got devastatingly worse.

Nigeria's highest profile terrorist organization, Boko Haram, visited phenomenal violence on the area in July 2009, leaving 700 people dead in its wake. They have continued to carry out mind-numbingly bloody attacks right up to this month. Despite this, according to its Wikipedia entry, Maiduguri is popularly known as the City of Peace. But possibly not after today.

This morning, two female human bombs walked into Maiduguri's crowded main market a little after 11 o'clock. One exploded, and it appears three women were killed. Then when (as Nigeria's most influential newspaper puts it)

unsuspecting sympathisers gathered to watch the scene, the second girl who was also heavily wired with explosives screamed and then the device hidden under her garment blew up killing about 30 persons.... The Civilian-JTF chieftain explained that "from what one of the survivors told me while being helped to get to the hospital, the bombers were two girls dressed in full hijab..." [Leadership, Nigeria, today]

(UPDATE: Another Nigerian source says the death toll has risen to 45 and that the second human bomb was male; the explosion ensures it will be hard to tell from visual inspection.)

Boko Haram is said to mean "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language, according to the BBC, and it is

waging an insurgency in Nigeria. It was based in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, after its formation in 2002, but it has since been driven out of the city by the military and vigilante groups. It now controls a large number of towns and villages in Borno, amid fears that it is preparing to launch an assault to capture Maiduguri. [BBC, today]

From the time it was formed, it claimed to be "opposing Western education". But an education campaign like this is unique in historical terms. Today, the Boko Haram people are open about seeking to create an Islamic state by military means; education has evidently slipped down their list of goals. And military in their case means kidnapping hundreds of school-girls in April 2014 (and still holding most of them despite Mrs Obama's Instagram campaign), and by mutilating shoppers and traders in open-air market places; a July 2014 truck bomb in the same city killed at least 56 people.

In the wake of previous Boko Haram massacres, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the describes itself as "the largest bloc of Islamic states with 57 members and the only official voice of the Muslim world", condemned the group's "barbaric acts of violence in the strongest terms" on the basis of their

having nothing to do with Islam and against its basic tenets. The OIC continues to issue statements condemning every heinous killing and destruction of property committed by this group and urging the authorities to intensify their efforts to end these acts of terrorism and violence and bring the perpetrators to justice while offering its solidarity and assistance. [Alarabiya, July 2014]

Click here to see dozens more examples

But how different are Boko Haram from the other Islamist barbarians Hamas and Hezbollah, or from so-called secular Arab terrorists groups like Fatah and PFLP that are the "freedom fighting" darlings of the OIC? 

And do their values and their actions really have nothing to do with Islam?

• Boko Haram send female human bombs to cause devastating explosions. And what was the Palestinian Arab woman Wafa Idris? 
• Boko Haram send immature boys ("A gunman who looked like a 12-year old boy") to do their terrorist bidding. Husam Abdo, a 'mentally challenged' 14 year old Palestinian Arab boy was sent by his Fatah handlers to a certain death, with 8 kilo of explosives strapped to his torso, convinced that this was his best chance of having sex with 72 virgins. This is no figure of speech, but to be taken literally; see this BBC report and this CBS News report, "Bomb Boy's Family Mad At Militants".
• Boko Haram send little girls to be human bombs (see "10-Yr-Old Girl Strapped To Explosive Belt"). On the Palestinian Arab side, aged either 16 or 18 at the time, a female human bomb called Ayat Al-Akhras, recruited by the Fatah/Tanzim organization that was headed by Marwan Barghouti at the time walked into a Jerusalem supermarket and exploded, there with the expected lethal results. Incidentally one of the most prominent 'activists' in the current "Free Marwan Barghouti" campaign is a high profile South African religious figure, Desmond Tutu. 
• Add to this that Palestinian Authority TV routinely screens children's programs in which teenagers and pre-teens, like the little girl in the screenshot above right, probably 10 or 11 years old, sing of their desire to die as martyrs for the Palestinian Arab cause. Dozens of additional instances appear on this Palestinian Media Watch page and throughout the web.
• The mass murderers of Boko Haram don't regard themselves as having "nothing to do with Islam". Their leader, Abubakar Shekau , said just three months ago [BBC, August 25, 2014] that his forces have "set up an Islamic state in the towns and villages it has seized in north-eastern Nigeria." He makes it clear that his men, women and children are saving the world for Islam.

Flag of Boko Haram which, as the

Organization of Islamic

Cooperation says, has nothing

to do with Islam [Image Source]

We feel the embarrassment of the writer from the Organization of Islamic Co-operation ["Denying Boko Haram its assumed Islamic identity", July 15, 2014] . Who wants to be classified as being "like" the blood-lusting savages of Boko Haram, most of whose victims are said to be Muslims? But then how different is that from the blood-lusting ISIS killers of (mainly) Muslims in Iraq and Syria?

The Pew Research people said in July ["Concerns about Islamic Extremism on the Rise in Middle East"] that

publics hold very negative opinions of well-known extremist groups, such as al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. In Nigeria, the vast majority of respondents, both Muslims and Christians alike, have an unfavorable view of Boko Haram, the terrorist group that recently kidnapped hundreds of girls in the restive north of the country. And a majority of Pakistanis have an unfavorable view of the Taliban... as well-publicized bouts of violence, from civil war to suicide bombings, plague the Middle East, Africa and South Asia... [Pew Research]

But if people's lives depended on what public opinion feels about terrorists, then public opinion pollsters like Pew would be running states. As we know, they don't. In reality, acts of terror consistently get huge support from certain specific demographics, Pew's research notwithstanding. And major international roof-bodies - like OIC which speaks for 56 nations [listed here] making it the largest international grouping of countries after the UN - line right up behind the terror organizations that do them,

And leaving aside what "publics" think, can we look at how the OIC - the "only official voice of the Muslim world" - looks at Hamas and the other jihad organizations? How, for instance, does it feel about Hamas training Palestinian Arab children to want to die as young martyrs? What does it consider to be the very worst kind of terrorism? As it happens, this we can answer:

At the 34th Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM), an OIC section, in May 2007, the foreign ministers termed Islamophobia the worst form of terrorism... [source]

On April 3, 2002, a few months after the Hamas-engineered massacre that took the life of our daughter Malki, the OIC adopted and published a cornerstone policy document entitled "The Kuala Lumpur Declaration on International Terrorism" [full text here]. Some of its highlights:

• "We reject any attempt to link terrorism to the struggle of the Palestinian people in the exercise of their inalienable right to establish their independent state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital... We reject any attempt to associate Islamic states or Palestinian and Lebanese resistance with terrorism which constitutes an impediment to the global struggle against terrorism..." A clearer vote of confidence in Hezbollah, Hamas and Fatah would be hard to find.
• And it articulated this clear warning: "We reject any unilateral action taken against any Islamic country under the pretext of combating international terrorism, as this will undermine global cooperation against terrorism".
• It established a thirteen member ministerial-level OIC Committee on International Terrorism. If that committee has done anything, or even put out a press release since 2002, we can;t find any sign on-line. Seems to be nothing more than a fig leaf.

Faced with acts of beastial savagery like the axe/hatchet/butcher knife attack on Jews at prayer in a Jerusalem synagogue, the otherwise voluble OIC - which expresses views on a wide range of issues all the time - is silent. Its search engine [here] seems to let a person search on any word and see what the OIC stand is. But if you enter "Jerusalem"... well, try it and see what happens.

14-Feb-14: As its children face major new threat, Hamas leadership in Gaza gears up for another crisis

Click for the AP/NP article

In Hamas-controlled Gaza, the ever-alert commissars of the ruling jihadist organization have been forced to take bold steps to preserve the absolute corest of their core values. A widely-published Associated Press [Canada's National Post has it here] describes it this way:

Gaza’s Hamas authorities have blocked a UN refugee agency from introducing textbooks promoting human rights into local schools, saying it ignores Palestinian cultural mores and focuses too heavily on “peaceful” means of conflict resolution. Motesem al-Minawi, spokesman for the Hamas-run Education Ministry, said Thursday that the government believes the curriculum does not match the “ideology and philosophy” of the local population. He said the textbooks, used in grades 7 through 9, did not sufficiently address Palestinian suffering and did not acknowledge the right to battle Israel. “There is a tremendous focus on the peaceful resistance as the only tool to achieve freedom and independence,” he said. [Ibrahim Barzak, Associated Press, February 13, 2014 3:55 PM ET]

Al-Minawi, who fronts for the educational actions of the Islamist terrorists, clarifies the Hamas objections by pointing to the unacceptable (to them) mention in their school textbooks of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, the milestone UDHR recognizes "the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family." You can immediately see their problem with that. AP says Hamas views the declaration as violating Islamic law by advocating for "the right of people of different faiths to marry and the right to change one's religion".

So the UN agency, ever ready to accommodate Hamas, met with people from Al-Minawi's office and

"offered to form a joint committee to revise the book. Adnan Abu Hassna, a local UNRWA spokesman, confirmed that the curriculum had been suspended while the sides work out their differences." [AP]

Incidentally, who makes this pusillanimous mode of conduct possible? You, and the people living around you - assuming you pay taxes to the governments of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, the UK, the Netherlands, the United States, the European Union, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy or Spain. It's your money that makes this kind of thing possible. Nearly everyone else can relax. Oh, and if you happen to live in an Arab country, the good news is you are completely off the hook since Arab governments have historically contributed close to nothing to the education and welfare work of UNRWA, that extremely odd special-purpose body that is supposed to benefit the Palestinian Arabs. You can see the list of payers at "20-Nov-13: It's Wednesday. Time for yet another UNRWA funding crisis". 

(As an aside, if you read our blog, we assume you're not that happy about your hard-earned income tax money being used in this hideous way. So listen up: it's happening anyway and it will keep happening. Only your political leaders and you and your neighbours can change that.)

AP's article fails, oddly, to make any mention of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. It's highly relevant in this context. The CDHRI is 

a declaration of the member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference adopted in Cairo, Egypt, in 1990 which provides an overview on the Islamic perspective on human rights, and affirms Islamic Shari'ah as its sole source. CDHRI declares its purpose to be "general guidance for Member States [of the OIC] in the field of human rights". [Wikipedia]

Article 24 of the Cairo Declaration  says "All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Sharia." Article 19 says "There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Sharia." This not-so-universal approach has attracted a certain degree of criticism from serious multilateral bodies, but that's not our focus here. CDHRI a major document reflecting a major political/legal push that gets major respect in major parts of the world. It's their response to the UDHR, and their idea of what has to replace it.

Its author and inspiration for the Cairo Declaration is the OIC. Now renamed the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (in 2011), it is far from being some minor marginal body, speaking in the name of 57 member states as "the collective voice of the Muslim world". Its mission is to "safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony". The OIC has Permanent Observer Mission status at the UN and is often described as the largest international organisation outside the United Nations. Iran's representative to the UN explained his side's view of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1981, explaining that it was

a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing Islamic law.

It's not just Hamas, in other words.

Down there in darkest Gaza, Hamas is expressing in its typically ham-fisted and savagely violent - but heart-felt - way a view that has support throughout the world. Our children don't need to know about the global struggle for human rights, they are saying. Our children's cultural mores, ideology and philosophy are best respected by focusing on their victimhood and on the need for them to wage war against a hated "other", the Israelis. Pizza shops, school buses, hospitals - these and skillful practice of the tools of death are the correct and proper targets for the energies of our children.

So while we and other large part of the world's communities focus on educating our children about the need to prevent incitement to religious and race-based hatred and the other values embedded in the UDHR, proponents of the Cairo Declaration, including but by no means limited to Hamas are driving in the opposite direction.

And in Gaza they don't just say it. They clearly mean it, as frequent reports about Hamas regime programs for instilling the values of jihad in their school-age children make clear to all but the most ideologically colour-blind observers. We have offered background to this in our blog posts here - for instance "15-Jan-14: When a society praises itself for turning its children into human bombs, whose problem is that?" 

As with that post, we end this one with the question that everyone ought to be asking. 

The real story is not the military-style training and the pledges by children to die for the values of those hideous, terror-addicted Hamas insiders. It's this: where in Heaven's name is the outrage of the civilized world? Where are the voices of the people whose tax money pays for this? Where are the politicians who speak up for human rights at cocktail gatherings but lose their courage when human rights are actually being trampled - and by means of their funding?

And another question. Are UNICEF, Defence for Children International, UNESCO, Child Rights International Network, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Washington-based Jerusalem Fund, the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Save the Children Sweden, Arab Council for Childhood Development and so many other child-focused NGOs silent about the disaster in Gaza for a reason? If there is a reason, let them say it. It's inconceivable that they are unaware of the horrors perpetrated every day on innocent children by the vile "educators" of Gaza and their willing co-conspirators.

22-Jan-13: Malaysian prime minister feels like "one nation" with the terrorists of Gaza

Malaysia's PM grips fist of Hamas arch-terrorist - and says
he's 'happy' [Image Source]

Reuters is reporting this afternoon on an official visit to the Gaza Strip by Malaysia's prime minister. The Reuters report calls it part of "a diplomatic push by Gaza's Islamist rulers" without mentioning that this is only the second time ever that a head of state has paid obeisance to the terrorist clique in control of the Gaza Strip. The first was when the owner emir of Qatar came for four hours in November 2012.

Though they don't say it, most journalists know that more circumspect political figures have avoided setting foot there lest they be politically damaged by the vile odor emanating from the bloodstained involvement of the Hamas leadership in mass killings of their fellow Palestinian Arabs, and of Israeli children, women and men.

Not so Mr Muhammad Najib Abdul Razak.

Malaysia's top politician, accompanied by his wife and foreign minister, crossed over from Egypt to Rafah for a ten-hour visit today that appears to have gone without a hitch. The drama, if any exists, comes from the suggestion by Saleh Salem, the writer who authored the news report for Reuters, that today's visit somehow "defied Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip" (his words).

Blockade-busting? It's an odd characterization for a serious global newsagency to reach for. Are we being invited to imagine him and his first lady in frogman's outfits scuba-diving their way to the Gaza shore?

For the benefit of the Reuters editors in far-off London, we will point out that Gaza has a border with Egypt, and a gate in the Rafah Crossing that is not controlled by Israel. Egypt sometimes, presumably for good reasons, has imposed restrictions on incomings and outgoings. Does that qualify as an "Israeli blockade"? Qatar's Al-Thani drove through it with an equally small degree of drama at the start of his visit two months ago.

A Malaysian news report describes in lurid detail how this afternoon's blockade busting went:

Travelling by land from El Arish International Airport in Egypt near the Gaza border, Najib and Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor went to the border crossing at Rafah and entered a holding room while waiting to have their passports to be processed. After their passports were processed they entered the Gaza side and were met by Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh.

On today's agenda: laying a foundation stone for new office premises to house "the Palestinian Prime Minister's office". (The Malaysian report seems to overlook the existence of two different Palestinian prime ministers; we assume Salam Fayyad of Ramallah is not the kind to take it personally.) He also got an honorary doctorate from Al-Aqsa University; a Malaysian report says his acceptance speech included the disclosure that "some people were unhappy with his visit to Gaza". Nevertheless:

"I decided to follow my heart. and my heart says I should be with the Palestinian people."

Reuters story says the Malaysian party paid their respects to

the family of top Hamas military chief Ahmed Al-Jaabari, whose assassination by Israel in November started an eight-day war in which more than 160 Palestinians and six Israelis died.

without mentioning a word of Jaabari's direct responsibility for the "deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians" [Wikipedia] or the senior management role this "military chief" took took in "coordinating" the collection of charity money for Hamas and the spending of that cash on terrorist activities [Haaretz].

So where do the Malaysians stand on the fight to stop terrrorism? Answer: side by side with the child-killers. Here's a direct quote from the Palestinian Maan News coverage of Abdul Razak's speech:

"We may be far from you in distance, but we are one nation and believe in the struggle of the Palestinian people... 

Here's what his host, the arch-terrorist and head of the Hamas regime, Ismail Haniyeh, said in response:

"Haniyeh said the [Malaysian's] trip was a response to a visit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made to the Western Wall in Jerusalem after casting his vote in the election. The Hamas leader said the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest existing prayer site, was "a Palestinian, Arab and Islamic Wall" and Jerusalem was an "an Islamic, Arab and Palestinian city."

Unlike the smooth talking Malaysian, there are some serious nations that see through the Hamas "struggle of the Palestinian people" rhetoric. Which of them designate Hamas as a terrorist organization? Currently, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Canada, Israel and Japan; Australia goes part of the way, banning Hamas' "military" division. This diplomatic boycott by Western countries of Hamas is because of "its refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist, honor past Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and renounce violence" [Haaretz].

It's encouraging to see there are Malaysian voices quite outraged by Muhammad Najib Abdul Razak's kowtowing visit to the baby-killers of Gaza. Click here to view an example in the Malaysian language, which is published under an English-language headline "Shame on you, Najib!!". Thanks to Google Translate, here is a brief excerpt from that Malaysian message:

"People of this country also need to be convinced that this country will never cooperate with terrorists like Hamas as did the Najib administration. We will not elect a government that collaborate with terrorists who kill children and innocent people in Israel."

Warms the heart.

25-Sep-11: "Only" rock throwers but now a father and his infant son are dead

Rocks, slings and young men: Irresistible romantic imagery
for dishonest editors - and the source for a rising death toll of
innocent civilians 

Two of the constants in this part of the world are (a) the phenomenon of Palestinian Arab men - some young, but not all - hurling rocks at fast-moving Israeli cars; and (b) the wilful but completely dishonest minimization of the deadly threat posed by such attacks. Here's the latest illustration of why this double-headed problem is so serious.

What seemed on Friday to be a routine car accident now turns out to have been an attack by terrorists in the vicinity of the Jewish community of Kiryat Arba. [Source]. The Jerusalem Post reports this evening that police now believe that rock throwing was the cause of the car accident that killed Asher Hillel Palmer, 25, and his one-year-old son Yonatan on Friday. At a court hearing today, counsel for the police said that it now appears the car veered off the road after a rock shattered its  windshield. "The police said that the front window was shattered, and a large rock was found inside the car with Palmer's blood on it. People close to the victims claimed that the police quickly determined it as a car accident in order not to inflame the region."

A young man and his baby son are dead and a family is forever shattered.

It's possible the perpetrators drew inspiration from a highly publicized ambush by masked rock-throwing children of an Israeli in Jerusalem's suburbs last October. You might remember the incident (see video below): the Arab media and especially Al Jazeera presented what happened in their customary Daoud vs Goliath fashion: "innocent" and "meek" Arab schoolboys, armed only with loincloths and slingshots callously run down by aggressive Israeli in his armored Zionist vehicle. The presence of a phalanx of cameramen, clearly positioning themselves at that location because of the expectation that there would be some highly photogenic violence is completely absent from the anti-Israel reporting. Likewise the cynical abuse of Palestinian Arab children by their adults (Arabs) who are at the scene.

Throwing rocks at moving cars is an act of terrorism. Terrorism means the deliberate inflicting of violence on civilians in order to intimidate a population - to paraphrase the United Nations General Assembly's draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. That's a convention that is highly unlikely ever to be enacted, by the way, given the perpetual opposition to it from the UN's most powerful lobby, the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Throwing rocks is as deadly as firing a rifle or throwing a grenade. The people who routinely portray rock throwing Palestinian Arabs as liberation warriors in training know this. That's why despicable is too mild a word for scurrilous advocacy/reportage pieces like "Throwing rocks at the occupation – and Western prejudice too" [Electronic Intifada] and "Forget rock-throwing teens. Growing peaceful Palestinian resistance could tip the conflict" [Christian Science Monitor].

Like some other kinds of terrorists, rock throwing youths can seem like romantic figures - especially when portrayed that way by naive or activist editors - right up until the moment they bring tragedy into your own family or community.

UPDATE 3-Oct-11: We just found this photograph (at left) of the father and son killed by rock-hurling thugs: Asher Hillel Palmer, and his infant son Yonatan Z"L. May their memories serve as a blessing, and may their family find comfort among the mourners of Zion.

UPDATE 27-Jan-12: There's a further postscript here.