Dear Family & Friends,

Nice to see “The Hudabaiya Treaty” explained & expounded upon by others. Today: Steven Shamrak from Australia. Manny Winston, z’l, wrote at least 11 articles about Mohammed’s ‘head-chopping’ i.e., decapitation of 800 conquered Jewish men when he conquered the Jewish Qaraish (sp. varies) tribe in Mecca in order to initiate Muslim prayers at the monolith “Kaba’a Stone” after signing “The Hudabaiya Treaty” guaranteeing ‘peace’ with the Jewish tribe in Mecca for 10 years. The Kaba’a Stone is the symbol (idol) toward which Muslims bow to the ground during their prayers. You can see photos of masses of Muslims bowing toward Mecca with their back-sides facing the Temples’ site on the Temple Mount.

Do you remember when Arafat signed the First Oslo Accords that he told his audience in Arabic that he had signed “A Hudabaiya Treaty”? He had no intention of keeping the Oslo provisions for peace. That’s another pillar of Islam: “Taqqiyah” or Deception. In other words, lying to gain your own advantage for Islam was deemed ‘proper’ morality by Islam. How then do we Westerners try to make peace with Muslims on their terms? Why do we surrender our own Land, homes, synagogues, schools, cemeteries to create peace with an enemy who promises to annihilate the Jewish people & the Jewish State and which continually breaks all its agreements with their adversaries?

The Islamic Jihadis consult only one ‘Law’ book to rule their lives via Islam: The Koran & the Hadith (Oral traditions) or stories about Mohammed’s life are used to govern their own lives. Those traditions are the root of the decapitation brutally rearing its ugly head wherever Islamic Jihad is warring against each other or Westerners – especially Jews & Christians.

Too much but, it’s all good. Dip in. Watch out for the bonfires that traditionally light up the skies & every vacant plot of land the kids can get to with all the wood they can find.

Enjoy this mystical Chag. Have a great, safe night & carefree day.

All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom

2.Obama is Willingly Fooled by Classic Muslim Ploy From: Steven Shamrak

4.The Enlightened Kingdoms of San Remo

5.High suspense as coalition talks down to wire

6.Bennett’s dangerous game by Mati Tuchfeld

7.The Right’s self-destructive tendencies by Dr. Haim Shine

8.The Waqf and the Temple Mount By: Paul Gherkin

9.The Erosion of Free Speech by Denis MacEoin

10.PM orders demolition of EU-funded Palestinian ‘settlements’ in West Bank

Published on 06/29/2008 | by Emanuel Winston | Archived in: Muslim Policy

Why pretend that Arab Muslims will ever commit to a lasting peace with the Jewish State of Israel? The bedrock of their inconstancy comes from the Koran. Even when Arab Muslim leaders are not observant Muslims, they invariably fall back on the instructions of Koranic law and Mohammed’s teaching through the ‘Hadith’ (Islamic oral teachings) when they need to stir up their people.

Another reason for this deep and abiding hatred for non-Muslims is a backward society, locked in the time warp of the 7th Century by the Mullahs who condemn their people to jealousy and hatred for any people who trek forward and accomplish.

Every country’s Foreign Ministry with well-educated bureaucrats would know that making an agreement with Islamic-driven nation is like using disappearing ink. The leaders of the 22 Arab and/or the total 57 Islamic countries make agreements with impunity, knowing they can and will break them at any time convenient or necessary to them.

In fact, according to Islamic law, they must break said agreements made with ‘infidels’ (non-Muslims) within 10 years …according to the Hudaibiya Treaty Mohammed made in the 7th Century with the richest of the Jewish tribes, the Banu Quraizah (allies of the Quraish Tribe).

He made that treaty while he was militarily weak so he could worship at Mecca. But, in two years he returned with a strong army, broke the 10 year treaty, brutally murdered and decapitated all the 800 men, captured and enslaved the women and children of the Banu Quraizah Tribe. (1)

The very day Yassir Arafat signed the Oslo Accords he told his Arab audience in Arabic that the Oslo Accord was like the Hudaibiya Treaty. He would break it as soon as he was stronger. And, of course, he did – as often as he could. He unleashed his PLO Terrorists to rise up in their various ‘intifadas’ no matter how much the Jews foolishly offered them ancient Land G-d gave to the Jews in perpetuity. (2)

So-called diplomats in America, Europe, Asia and Russia know that when a Muslim/Arab leader is displaced by age, assassination or overthrow by a religious sect, the next leader must disavow all prior “peace” agreements in order to justify their new order of rule. The diplomats know the Arabs pay lip service to keep prior agreements if it serves the “Jihad”.

For example, Bashar Assad, President of Syria replaced his father, Hafez al-Assad when he died. Assad’s families and a small contingent of Alawite Muslim generals rule Syria with an iron hand and they easily control Bashar. The Alawites are roughly 10% of Syria’s population with the Sunnis about 80%. When (not if) the Sunnis overthrow the Alawites and Bashar, there will be a “New Order” of conduct and all prior agreements will be declared null and void. That would include Ehud Olmert’s transfer of the Golan Heights in a bid for a Gaza-like peace.

The Alawite minority with long-term pre-planning will escape to the sea-side fortress city of Latakia which the Assad family and the Generals have fortified with the best armaments taken from Syrian Army stores.

When the Sunnis control Syria and the Golan Heights, which Olmert-Livni- Barak – encouraged by Condoleezza Rice – wish to surrender to Syria, Israel will once again be under the guns, missiles and rockets of the radical Islamists.

Any prior agreements which Israel has or will sign, will be null and void (following Mohammed’s Hudaibiya Treaty). Be assured that the neither the U.S. State Department nor the European Union will object. As for the U.N., it votes and performs as if it’s a radical Third World nation controlled by the Arab Oil Bloc.

We have already seen how the Muslim Arabs behave when offered Jewish “Land for Peace” after the abandonment of Gush Katif/Gaza and 4 North Samarian communities in the name of peace. As forecast by this writer and many others, “Judenrein” (Jew-free) Gaza has morphed into a Global Terrorist firing base for Kassam rockets, mortars and Katyusha missiles.

Oslo failed and Gaza was even worse as Israeli leaders showed their inability to conduct the affairs of the nation and keep their citizens safe.

All the explosives, ammunition and high tech weaponry were sent by Iran and Syria, to be smuggled into Gaza with the assistance of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. The nations, including the Bush-Rice regime, had detailed intelligence about it but didn’t give a damn.

Remember when Israel made a grand gesture for the Camp David Accords? Israel surrendered the entire Sinai Desert with the oil fields discovered and brought to production by the Israelis that could have kept Israel energy independent. This “gift” of infrastructure, military bases, cities and homes as well as the energy was valued at $17 Billion at the time – probably many times that by today’s inflated dollars. This was another failed gesture to appease the Arab Muslims.

All Israel got in return was a piece of paper with all sorts of “peace” agreements and side letters but, the writing by the State Department, President Clinton and then President Anwar Sadat was in disappearing ink. None of the responsibilities stipulated for Egypt were kept – except for the absence of a full scale assault until Egypt wishes to join Syrian, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Hamas, Hezb’Allah and the Muslim Arab Palestinians in their next war, their “Final Solution to their Jewish problem” of the State of Israel in the Muslim crescent of the Middle East.

When Mubarak dies, retires or is assassinated, Egypt will likely come under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. All prior agreements made with Israel, with America as the guarantor, will disappear in an instant. The Muslim Brotherhood will control the vast Egyptian Army and the now (at least) $80 Billion of advanced armaments given (virtually free) to Egypt by America (who gave Egypt the money to pay for them) so Egypt could act as U.S. representative to occupy the Saudi oil fields as American care-takers. No doubt, Egypt, under the Muslim Brotherhood will occupy Saudi Arabia but, NOT on behalf of American interests.

That has been the Arabist State Department’s policy since the time Jimmy Carter effectively toppled the Shah of Iran and brought to power the then-exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. With the fall of Iran, America lost her Iranian “cop-on-the- block” the U.S. had used to protect the Gulf Oil States and the immense high tech American arms stockpile. America also lost their Phoenix missile system and her F14 Tomcat advanced fighter jet technology – which was passed on to the Soviets. Ex-President Jimmy Carter (called by some the worst President in U.S. history) is still stumbling around the Middle East, causing as much trouble as he can.

Perhaps you are starting to get the idea that trusting Muslim/Arab rulers to remain compliant and keep peace agreements is like squeezing Jell-O. Of course, if you are a Super Power like America, Russia or China, you can play that game of “pretended” agreements which you know won’t be kept – because history tells you so.

But, if you are a minuscule country like Israel, squeezed between hostile Muslim nations pledged to “Jihad” (holy war for Islam), with hundreds of thousands of hostile “Palestinians” festering inside your country, you cannot abandon defensive territory as confidence building gestures to strengthen your enemies who vow to destroy you.

The surrender of Land does, indeed, establish confidence but, it’s the kind of confidence that assures the Muslim Arabs that Israeli leaders are weak and ready to accept and encourage defeat. Regrettably, Israel’s present leaders meet the criteria of being weak, corrupt, crooked, and incompetent – except in maneuvers to keep their power – even if Israel is forced to accept a re-partition at their hands.

Recently, MK Aryeh Eldad, reading from Israel’s established and mandatory laws, states clearly that any Israeli attempting to give away their G-d given Land is either to be imprisoned for life or executed.

###

1. “War on Jihad” <http://www.waronjihad.org/ islam200905.html>www. waronjihad. org/islam200905.html

2. “ARAFAT OPTS FOR THE ‘HUDAIBIYAH’ TREATY” by Emanuel A. Winston June 27, 2002
<http://www.gamla. org.il/english/ article/2002/ june/win1. htm>www.gamla. org.il/english/ article/2002/june/win1.htm
Here is a short list of articles we have written about the HUDAIBIYAH TREATY:

“WORDS ARE NOT BINDING” August 1998

“CNN: EYELESS IN GAZA” January 1999

“THE GREATEST LIE EVER TOLD ABOUT JERUSALEM” January 10, 2001

“A DIPLOMATIC PERFIDY” March 3, 2002

“KISS THE HAND OF YOUR ENEMY UNTIL YOU CAN CUT IT OFF” August 1, 2002

“ISLAM HAS DECLARED WAR WITH EVERYONE!” October 5, 2003

“KILLING AMERICANS IN GAZA” October 16. 2003

“MUSLIM BAIT & SWITCH” Sep 9, 2004 & “BEWARE MUSLIM BAIT & SWITCH” Sep. 13, 2004

“ARAFAT MURDERED U.S. DIPLOMATS” September 29, 2004

“WHAT IS ARAB ISLAMIC TRADITION & HISTORY WHEN IT COMES TO TREATIES & PEACE-MAKING? ” Nov. 2006

P.S. [I definitely remember reading that Hosni Mubarak (Egyptian President since Sadat was assassinated) declared that the Camp David Peace Treaty was null and void after 10 years (like the Hudaibiya Treaty) – but, no one noticed. However, I cannot find the reference – Gail Winston]

Emanuel Winston

About the Author: BIOGRAPHY OF EMANUEL A. WINSTON by GAIL WINSTON

Manny Winston, my late husband, flew from Chicago to Israel to volunteer during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. He arrived with US secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s first ceasefire on October 21; I followed on October 30th.

Manny was picking grapefruit at Kibbutz Dalia when his friend, the artists, Sol Baskin called with a permit to enter the war zone. They drove to meet Gen. Ariel “Arik” Sharon at the Suez Canal. “Shalom” Baskin was part of the Mahal volunteers from America to the IDF, and a commissioned officer in Mahal. He was Arik’s commanding officer during the 1948 War of Independence, and they remained friends.

Manny brought his two Leica cameras and photographed an outstanding photo exposé on October 29 and 30. He saw and smelled the “killing fields” He met with Sharon, the young soldiers who had survived the destroyed tanks and he saw how the blown tank turret, flipped upside down destroyed the lives of those brave souls inside.

Manny did see these effects and, because he was a true Renaissance man, a graphic thinker who was a painter, sculptor and political analyst, he envisioned a solution to the weak point of the tank. He described a technique to conquer that weakness to Sharon, who sent him to Maj.-Gen. Israel Tal, the developer of the famed Merkava tank.

Manny’s “leap of imagination” created what became “Blazer” or “Reactive” Armor. He designed rectangles of hollow metal boxes with an explosive charge inside. These ‘so-called’ “skirts” were placed around the neck of the tank turret so that when hit, the explosive charge therein would push the incoming ballistic missile out, thereby saving the tank and its crew. This was compatible with the primary goal of Gen. Tal’s Merkava tanks: Defense of the Tank Crew.

That, along with speed, maneuverability, effective shooting and protection against damaging desert sand, were what made the Merkava “The Tank a Jewish Mother Would Love,” as Manny called it.

He also designed a better bridge for crossing the Canal – easier to carry and assemble, and less susceptible to the huge holes the tanks had already created on the day’s existing bridge.

Manny continued to submit creative concepts for defense and offense to Israel’s military industries – for which he received his Israeli citizenship and security clearance. Many of his concepts and ideas were adopted throughout the years. He never asked for credit or remuneration but even today, I see his concepts being used, either in action or in military articles.

Someday I hope to publish the “WINSTON DEFENSE DESIGNS,” either online or in a book – a very big book, with his original drawings.

The Yom Kippur War was a seminal turning point in Israel’s history. We did win. It was a miracle, given the forces mounted against us, in number and backed up the Soviet Union.

We have 40 mounted color photographs by Emanuel A. Winston, ready to show at a traveling or permanent exhibition, which will enhance our appreciation of what our men and generals went through and achieved.

The Yom Kippur War was also a seminal turning point in the lives of the Winston family. It was our second trip to Israel. We had tried to make Aliyah in 1962 but didn’t succeed. I made Aliyah on November 7, 1979. Manny died on June 12, 2012, and is now buried on the Mount of Olives.

I sold the home he built in Highland Park, Illinois in August 2012, and brought his manuscripts and published papers, to the home I built in Israel in 1992. Two of our sons and their families also live in the Jewish State.

My heartfelt message for you, dear reader, is to invite all my friends, family and Internet friends to come to Israel. This is where a Jew can be truly Jewish.

Related Posts

A Muslim Tells the Jews to Evacuate the Tomb of Our Patriarchs ?

Children as Time Bombs ?

Arafat Opts for the ‘Hudaibiya’ Treaty ?

From: Steven Shamrak, Australia by shamrakreport@gmail.com

2.Obama is Willingly Fooled by Classic Muslim Ploy

[see EA Winston above]

“If one wishes to have even a basic understanding of the underlying principles involved in Middle East politics, then one must first understand the history and implications of the Treaty of Hudaibiyah,” Joel Richardson, author of the New York Times-best seller “The Islamic Antichrist”.

He believes Obama committed a “brazenly amateur” gaffe by failing to understand who he was dealing with – an Iranian regime steeped in Islamic law. (Obama is not fooled – he studied the Islamic law during his schooling in Indonesia!)

The rules the mullahs follow trace back to the life and example of Muhammad, he said. “And one of the most important tactical victories in Muhammad’s career is what is known as the Treaty of Hudaibiyah.” [See above & on our Website: “Don’t Pretend! Read “The Hudaibiyah Treaty.” By Emanuel A. Winston

Muhammad made this treaty with the pagan Quraysh tribe of Mecca, which was the most powerful tribe in the region at the time.

The Qurayshis entered into a 10-year peace pact with Muhammad and lived to regret it. But Muhammad saw an opportunity.

Freed from any military threat from the most powerful tribe in the region, he suddenly “received a revelation” from Allah, Richardson said.

This revelation can be found in Surah 48 of the Quran. It begins with “Surely We (Allah) have given to you a clear victory.”

With the Qurayshis sidelined, Muhammad began attacking several large Jewish tribes in Arabia.

Any men who joined the Muslims in war would receive a significant share of the plunder, booty, slaves and female prisoners.

Change of Rules of War is Needed by Gedalyah Reback May 4 & 5 Conference

Israelis have long complained about double standards when it comes to their right to fight wars of self-defense. Often times there is a level of scrutiny on Israel’s battlefield operations, unmatched compared to international media evaluations of wars launched by Western countries or even the recent Saudi air campaign in Yemen. Even at a fundamental level, there are some points when Israel’s entire justification for a war of self-defense is undermined by Israel’s detractors eager to delegitimize any substantial military action takes, no matter its opponent…

An issue raised by many in the legal arena – not only in Israel – is that the current rules of war enshrined in the Geneva Conventions do not weigh proper consideration for the effect of non-state actors: terrorist organizations, rebel groups, separatist provinces and the like. Asymmetric warfare presents major issues where enemy fighters operate among civilians and will often wear plain clothes. Thus, without being able to identify an enemy combatant by his uniform, a soldier will avoid an apparent civilian who is actually a legitimate target…

“We need urgently to discuss fresh ideas for removing the incentive for Hamas and other armed terrorist groups like the PLO and Hezbollah to break the law when they fight against democracies like Israel,” said Darshan-Leitner of Israeli law center Shurat HaDin.

What is lacking in international law that requires this conference here and now? Is it the lack of solid definitions of terms like “proportionality” and “terrorism?” Is it broader than that?

From: Steven Shamrak, Australia by shamrakreport@gmail.com [Pt. 2 cont.]

IDF Mission in Nepal

Dozens of countries send rescue teams to disaster areas around the world, but none of them have such professional, devoted, brave and experienced doctors and officers like the Israelis. Israel’s aid team to the earthquake-battered Himalayan nation of Nepal is the largest in manpower of any international aid mission.

There is a strange potion called Israeliness: It melts the “impossible” and creates resourcefulness and determination even when the odds seem slim. If there are no Nepalese drivers at night, they are woken up; if the trucks don’t fit, their side panels are removed; when the locals say “we can only do it tomorrow,” they are woken up shortly after midnight.

The Israeli rescue force includes the best people in the country. We arrived in Nepal and we have been to Haiti and Turkey. If needed, we’ll go all the way to Antarctica.

No UN Condemnations – No ICC Investigations!

An observer group says US strikes hit town without any terrorists in it, killing 7 children, although more are still trapped in the rubble. The incident brings to mind reports last November showing that 96.5% of the casualties from US drone strikes in the Middle East were civilians, a figure which shows how remarkable the IDF’s.

Food for Thought by Steven Shamrak

International anti-Semitic bigots deliberately ignore the facts that Israel has no legitimate negotiation partner – the last PA election was won by Hamas and new elections are long overdue; and it was Abbas who ended negotiations with Israel by starting international an anti-Israel diplomatic assault in the UN and ICC! Now, the ‘Islamic revolution’ infiltrated the Western world – 47% of European Jihadists in Syria, Iraq are French – but its leaders are still deliberately blind!

Israel Eleventh Happiest Country

Israel was the eleventh happiest country in the world in 2014 – outranking the US, UK, and numerous European countries. The world’s top 10 happiest last year were Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia.

Calm is just Another Temporary Fix!

For several weeks now, official representatives from Israel have been holding a real dialogue with an Islamic terrorist group in a bid to reach a long-term calm on the Gaza border. (At any time convenient for them, the enemy will break an agreement with Israel. Only the removal all of them from Jewish land will bring peace to Israel!)

Keep Enemy Supporters Away from Israel

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman slammed South Africa, after the country’s communist party labeled Israel an “apartheid state”. The South African Communist Party’s (SACP) statement came after Israel refused to grant an entry visa to the party’s Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzmande, to visit PA-controlled territories. (What chutzpah – they are killing Africans from other states, but condemn Israel!)

Anti-Semitic Justice of the US Government!

Former CIA Director David Petraeus was given two years of suspended sentence, plus a $100,000 fine for giving his mistress classified material while she was working on a book. (Jonathan Pollard, who gave Israel information about enemies – which the US, supposedly friend of the Jewish state, should provide but had kept hidden – is still serving a life sentence in the US prison! Many of us would pay a $100,000 fine for his freedom!)

Hezbollah Built Airstrip for Drones

Hezbollah has reportedly built an airstrip designed for its fleet of unmanned aerial vehicle. Earlier this month, a US Army report said Iran is building a fleet of so-called “suicide kamikaze drones,” and providing know-how on assembling these new weapons to its terrorist allies Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

IAF Struck Hezbollah Scud Missile Convoys

The targets were centers and mobile forces from Brigades 65, 155 and 192 of the Syrian Army, which possess heavy missiles that were meant for Hezbollah, the Shiite Lebanese militia that is a proxy of Iran. One strike targeted a convoy that carried surface-to-surface missiles, Scuds, to Hezbollah. Another raid hit a missile depot in the strategic western Syrian region at al-Qalamoun.

Israel Must Look at Other Fighter Jet Options

France is making an aggressive bid to sideline the F-35 and to sell its own jet fighter, Rafale, to Canada, offering to transfer technology. Right now the F-35 is the best choice for sneaking past enemy ground radar, but this may change in the future.

F35 Range – 2,220 km Top speed – 1,930 km/h

Rafale Range – 3,700 km Top speed – 2,130 km/h

(With technology transfer option Israel will be able built an even better fighter!)

Iranian Nuclear Business as Usual

Britain has informed a United Nations sanctions panel of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to two blacklisted firms, according to a confidential report by the panel seen by Reuters. The existence of such a network could add to Western concerns over whether Tehran can be trusted to adhere to a nuclear deal due by June 30 in which it would agree to restrict sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief. But, the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency have repeatedly said that Tehran has so far complied with the terms of a limited agreement struck in November 2013.

Double Israeli Trade within a Decade

The incoming Chinese Ambassador Zhan Yongxin presented his diplomatic credentials to Rivlin, he said, “I bring with me the greetings of the Chinese President, and wish to express my appreciation of the warm welcome I have received in Israel.” The talk of doubling trade volume comes as Israel and China plan to discuss a Free Trade Agreement this year, amid rapidly growing bilateral ties. Israel has been actively developing an Asian alliance, boosting ties with China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India.

Quotes of the Week:

“Much has been said about the strange behaviour of Barack Obama, who can’t let a day go without maligning Israel and Mr. Netanyahu… No doubt the dislike is there, but what underlies the animosity of Obama toward PM Netanyahu goes beyond schmoozability to seismic differences in outlook and policy. In fact, at Mr. Netanyahu’s very first White House meeting, before they really knew each other, Obama purposely mistreated PM Netanyahu by forcing him to enter through a side entrance and, then, abruptly left the meeting and went upstairs by himself for dinner while leaving PM Netanyahu and his staff without hospitality or even a piece of bread. This was a deliberate, unheard of disparagement, directed more at Israel, the state represented by Netanyahu.” – Rabbi Aryeh Spero – It is most likely the ingrained anti-Semitism or/and hidden Islamism behind the anti-Israel tendency of Obama!

Presented by www.shamrak.com

8.The Waqf and the Temple Mount By: Paul Gherkin JewishPress.com Pub: May 4, 2015

Discovery of Jewish artifacts at base of Temple Mount dating to period before creation of Islam

{Originally posted to the author’s website, FirstOne Through} Summary: According to Muslims, the Temple Mount is held in “trusteeship” by the Islamic Waqf, which assures its use and access as a mosque. The role of the Waqf has nothing to do with sovereignty of the land on which it resides. The most sensitive issue of the Israel-Arab conflict is considered to be the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

TEMPLE MOUNT

The Temple Mount is a 35 acre platform that held the second Jewish Temple from around 515CE to 70CE. Herod extended the platform on which the Temple sat southward to enable the greater flow of the thousands of Jews that came to the Temple to perform their rituals. The platform extension project ran from 19BCE to 63CE and Jews enjoyed the benefit of his work until the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70CE.

The area is considered sacred to Muslims as they believe Mohammed had a night journey from Saudi Arabia on a flying horse to that location before ascending to heaven. When Arabs invaded Jerusalem in 627CE, they built the al Aqsa Mosque on the southern edge of Temple Mount (completed in 705CE and rebuilt in 1033) to commemorate the importance of the location. The other structures on the Temple Mount include the Dome of the Rock, the Dome of the Chain, the Dome of the Prophet and various other structures which are NOT mosques, but shrines.

Jews had access and were able to pray on the Temple Mount until around the year 1550, when Suleiman I began a series of “improvements” to Jerusalem. He ordered the rebuilding of the city walls and moved the Jews off of the mount to an area now referred to as the “Kotel” or “Wailing Wall” or “Western Wall”, a sliver of the western retaining wall built by Herod. Since that time, prayer on the Mount has been restricted only for Muslim use.

MODERN HISTORY

Seven Arab armies attacked Israel at its founding in 1948. At the end of the war in 1949, Jerusalem became divided with the western half (almost all completely established since the 1850s) under Israeli sovereignty, and the eastern half (including the Old City dating back 4000 years) under Jordanian sovereignty (which was not recognized by the United Nations). The Jordanians evicted all of the Jews and barred their reentry, even to visit their holy sites, counter to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

In 1967, the Jordanians again attacked Israel. They lost the eastern half of Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria, which they had annexed in 1950. Israel reunified the city and made clear that people of all religions – not just Jews – would have access and rights to their holy places. Non-Muslims were once again allowed onto the platform, and Israel gave administrative oversight of the Temple Mount compound to the Jordanian Waqf. Israel annexed the area and the rest of eastern Jerusalem in a move not recognized globally.

In 1988, Jordan gave up all claims to lands it lost to Israel in the 1967 war, and signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. In that peace agreement, several key clauses were added to address Jerusalem, Article 9:

· Each Party will provide freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance.

· In this regard, in accordance with the Washington Declaration, Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.

· The Parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working towards religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.

WAQF

Islam allows Muslims to place property (land or any object) into a “Waqf”. By doing so, the item comes under the trusteeship of the party specified in the declaration. In the case of the al Aqsa Mosque, the building is considered to be for the public use of all Muslims under the administration of the Jordanian Waqf.

When the al Aqsa mosque was taken over by Crusaders in the 12th century, the place did not lose its special status for Muslims. As stated in Issue 2697: ““If the Waqfed property is ruined, its position as Waqf is not affected, except when the Waqf is of a special nature, and that special feature ceases to exist. For example, if a person endows a garden and the garden is ruined, the Waqf becomes void and the garden reverts to the heirs of the person.”

Properties or entities like the Old City of Jerusalem or the Temple Mount itself can be subdivided according to Islam. As written in Issue 2698: “If one part of a property has been waqfed and the other part is not, and the property is undivided, the Mujtahid, or the trustee of the Waqf, or the beneficiaries can divide the property and separate the Waqf part in consultation with the experts.”

As described above, the Jordanian Waqf took control of the Temple Mount in 1949 and Israel has continued to let the Waqf administer the site. The Jordanian Waqf now employs 500 people to run the mosque. It does this, while Israel maintains all security controls & runs it as part & parcel of Israel.

It would appear that the actions of 1967, 1988 and 1994 laid the groundwork for a sharing of the Temple Mount between Jews and Muslims again. However, it has continued to be a struggle.

POLITICS and PROPAGANDA

Over the last few years, the Waqf has become more politicized, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel, as it was decades ago. Public statements from the Waqf:

· Deny Jewish history at the Temple Mount

· Attempt to deny Jewish rights of access

· Deny Jewish rights to prayer (agreed to by the Israeli government)

· Deny sovereignty of the Jewish State and Jerusalem municipality (agreed by many countries in the United Nations)

Consider a recent discovery of ancient Judaica near the Temple Mount. The Waqf issued a statement that the findings were “an attempt to support Israeli claims about Jewish rights in the holy city and to impose Israeli sovereignty on the occupied holy compound through the use of fake evidence….An immediate Arab and Muslim campaign is needed to stop the Israeli attempts to Judaise the holy city of Jerusalem,”

It is interesting that the Waqf would make a claim of “Judaising” the city of Jerusalem which has had a Jewish majority for 150 years. It was also this same Jordanian Waqf that participated in expelling Jews from the Old City of Jerusalem and barring their entry from 1949-1967.

PEACE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT

Israel’s perspective: Israel has sought a peaceful situation on the Temple Mount from the very beginning of reunifying Jerusalem. In 1967, Moshe Dayan announced: “To our Arab neighbors we extend, especially at this hour, the hand of peace. To members of the other religions, Christians and Muslims, I hereby promise faithfully that their full freedom and all their religious rights will be preserved. We did not come to Jerusalem to conquer the Holy Places of others.”

The declaration was followed by the establishment of the Protection of Holy Places Law which ensured the rights of all religions to pray at their holy sites.

Today, in an effort to appease the extremist views of the Waqf, radical Palestinians and the Jordanian government itself which threatened to break its peace treaty with Israel, the Israeli government has continued to enforce a ban on Jewish prayer on the Mount.

Muslims’ Perspective: Suleiman pushed the Jews off of the Temple Mount in 1550 and Jordanian Arabs expelled the Jews from the entire Old City in 1949. Muslims and Arabs would clearly prefer that there be no Jews in Jerusalem.

However, according to Islam, there is no conflict with the Temple Mount being completely under Israeli sovereignty as detailed above.

According to the Peace Treaty between Israel and Jordan, the Temple Mount (outside of al Aqsa Mosque) should permit non-Mulsim prayer, despite Jordan’s recent protests.

Israel has continued to extend its full hand to share the Temple Mount. Meanwhile, the Arab world took initial steps some decades ago to recognize Jewish history and rights which do not conflict with Islamic law. Regrettably, recent history has witnessed a more hostile Arab approach.

Perhaps the future will witness peace on the Temple Mount with full access and rights for Jews at their holiest location.

Sources:

Waqf rules: http://www.al-islam. org/islamic-laws-ayatullah- ali-al-husayni-al-sistani/ rules-regarding-waqf

Noble Sanctuary:http://www. noblesanctuary.com/AQSAMosque. html

Palestinian women fight Jews on Temple Mount:http://www.nytimes.com/ 2015/04/17/world/middleeast/ palestinian-women-join-effort- to-keep-jews-from-contested- holy-site.html

9.The Erosion of Free Speech by Denis MacEoin
May 3, 2015 at 5:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute. org/5676/free-speech-erosion

“If PEN as a free speech organization can’t defend and celebrate people who have been murdered for drawing pictures, then frankly the organization is not worth the name.” — Salman Rushdie, former President of PEN.

Anyone who has had much to do with publishing, or anyone who cares about books and free speech, will be familiar with the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, an enduring champion of the First Amendment and the public’s right to read whatever they please — without the interference and censorship of self-appointed guardians of inoffensiveness and sexual purity.

Every year, the ALA mounts Banned Books Week, a nationwide celebration of our freedom to read. And every year it issues an unnerving list of Frequently Challenged Books. Unnerving because of the pettiness and obsession betrayed by the people who try to have books banned in local libraries, school boards, and even bookshops. For years, most of the attempts to ban books have come from fundamentalist Christian groups; the reasons have mainly been sex, offensive language, or “controversial issues,” whatever they are. God forbid that anyone in the United States be exposed to “controversial issues.”

This year a new note has entered Banned Books Week. Elizabeth McKinstry, a graduate student at Georgia’s Valdosta State University (which earlier in April witnessed students trampling on the American flag) launched a petition about ALA’s anti-censorship poster, calling it “Islamophobic.” There is nothing on the poster, however, that relates in the slightest way to Islam. The poster shows the top of a woman’s head, then her clothed chest and arms. She is not wearing Islamic dress on her head, and her arms and hands are bare. In front of her face, she holds what looks like a book bearing the text “Readstricted.” Her eyes can be seen looking through the cover where it bears the universal symbol for “Restricted” (a red circle with a white bar). That is all.

In her petition, McKinstry writes, “This poster uses undeniably Islamophobic imagery of a woman in a niqab, appears to equate Islam with censorship, and muslim (sic) women as victims.” She goes on to demand that the poster be “removed immediately from the ALA Graphics store, and the ALA Graphics Store and Office of Intellectual Freedom should apologize and explain how they will prevent using discriminatory imagery in the future.” To make matters worse, she goes on to write: “Whether the poster was intentionally or accidentally a racist design, it is still racist and alienating.”

Not only is this possibly an example of political correctness in overdrive, but the greater irony lies in that McKinstry is studying for an MA in library and information science; works as a library associate, and is a member of the ALA. Here we see a distortion of thinking that is grotesque: a person claiming to be “progressive,” trying to ban an anti-censorship poster in an organization that works to end censorship.

* * *

PEN International is known worldwide as an association of writers. Together they work tirelessly for the freedom of authors from imprisonment, torture, or other restrictions on their freedom to write honestly and controversially. This year, PEN’s American Center plans to present its annual Freedom of Expression Award during its May 5 gala to the French satirical magazineCharlie Hebdo. The award will be handed to Gerard Biart, the publication’s editor-in-chief, and to Jean-Baptiste Thorat, a staff member who arrived late on the day when Muslim radicals slaughtered twelve of his colleagues. This is the sort of thing PEN does well: upholding everyone’s right to speak out even when offence is taken.

This year, however, six PEN members, almost predictably, have already condemned the decision to give the award to Charlie Hebdo, and have refused to attend the gala. Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi have exercised their right to double standards by blaming Charlie Hebdo for its offensiveness. Kushner expressed her discomfort with the magazine’s “cultural intolerance.” Does that mean that PEN should never have supported Salman Rushdie for having offended millions of Muslims just to express his feelings about Islam?

Peter Carey expressed his support, not for the satirists, but for the Muslim minority in France, speaking of “PEN’s seeming blindness to the cultural arrogance of the French nation, which does not recognize its moral obligation to a large and disempowered segment of their population.” We never heard him speaking out when Ilan Halimi was tortured to death for weeks, or when Jews in Toulouse were shot. He seems to be saying that the French government should shut up any writer or artist who offends the extreme sensitivities of a small percent of its population.

Teju Cole remarked, in the wake of the killings, that Charlie Hebdo claimed to offend all parties but had recently “gone specifically for racist and Islamophobic provocations.” But Islam is not a race, and the magazine has never been racist, so why charge that in response to the sort of free speech PEN has always worked hard to advance?

A sensible and nuanced rebuttal of these charges came from Salman Rushdie himself, a former president of PEN: “If PEN as a free speech organization can’t defend and celebrate people who have been murdered for drawing pictures, then frankly the organization is not worth the name. What I would say to both Peter and Michael and the others is, I hope nobody ever comes after them.”

Those six have now morphed into something like 145. By April 30, Carey and they were joined by another 139 members who signed a protest petition. Writers, some distinguished, some obscure, have taken up their pens to defy the principle of free speech in an organization dedicated to free speech, and many of whom live in a land that protects it precisely for their benefit with a First Amendment.

Another irony, at least as distasteful as the one just described, took place on April 22, when Northern Ireland’s leading academic institution, Queen’s University in Belfast, announced thecancellation of a conference planned for June. The conference, organized by the university’s Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, was about free speech after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. You could not make this up. The reason given was that the institute had not prepared a proper risk assessment. Risk? Risk to what? To free speech? What a silly thought! No, it turned out to be risk of an Islamist attack in Belfast, a city long weary from terrorism. Finally, on May 1, the university reversed its decision and announced that the event will go ahead.

The following day, the University of Maryland, many miles to the west, banned a showing of the film American Sniper after complaints from Muslim students. Whether the film was good or bad, free speech was snuffed.[1]

The oddity is that today, newspaper headlines, news websites, radio and television news bulletins are packed every day with stories about the chaos in the Middle East, the threat of Iranian access to nuclear weapons, the march of ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, al-Shabaab, and dozens of other terrorist groups across the region. This year’sCharlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket slayings, the rise of anti-Semitism across Europe (closely linked to Islamism), demonstrations filling the streets with chants such as “Hamas, Hamas Jews to the Gas,” and all the other atrocities and social disjunctions that arise from the revival of fundamentalist Islam.

America and Britain have fought, with allies, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as of this writing, the United States is carrying out air strikes against ISIS in Syria.

Such news stories are not occasional, they are everyday. Stories of this kind are seldom crowded out by anything but the most important news items, such as a major airline crash or significant domestic political events. Such stories are even more visible than Cold War geopolitical new ever was, due to the immense proliferation of news outlets since the 1990s. The citizens of the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia and (above all) Israel do not face a remote threat from a distant country, but daily threats of being blown up in their own streets almost every day. The British security services announce almost daily the likelihood of a terrorist event.

But where are the novels? Where are the Le Carrés and Ludlums, the Flemings and Clancys? The number of novels dealing with Islamist, terrorist, or state-sponsored threats to the world’s stability (and hence to our own stability and safety) are so few in number, I cannot remember even one. Back to the comfort zone.[2]

This bears thinking about. Is it just a matter of fashion, or are there deeper reasons for this apparent neglect of the most important political and military issues of the present day? Is the literary issue a canary in a coal mine of much greater extent?

The answer is yes. Western culture, once built in part on the principle of free speech — a principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and promoted in all liberal democracies — has been weakened by attacks on the right of everyone to right to speak openly about politics, religion, sexuality, and a host of other things.

The first blow to free speech came in 1989 with demonstrations and riots over British author Salman Rushdie’s controversial 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses; and fears grew when Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie.

Many people died in riots or were murdered because of association with the book. Bookshops were firebombed in the U.S. and UK; publishers were attacked; booksellers often refused to stock the novel; editors wrote to authors like myself, asking us to decide whether some forthcoming publications dealing with Islam could be safely published, and free speech was under attack.

The most harmful blow, however, came when some Western so-called intellectuals and religious leaders condemned Rushdie and supported a ban on his novel. Immanuel Jakobovits, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, opposed the book’s publication.[3] The Archbishop of Canterbury called for a law of blasphemy that would cover other religions than just Christianity, opening up the spectre that religions, even violent ones such as Islam, could be privileged above other societal actors in a democracy.[4] Sadly, this pattern of betrayal by Western thinkers has been repeated ever since.

What impact has this had? Here is a simple example: Early in 2012, a controversy stormed up in church circles in the United States. Three well-known Christian publishers, Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and Frontiers were accused of having pandered to Muslims in their new Arabic and Turkish translations of the New Testament. The translators had replaced terms such as Father (for God) and Son to conform to the Koranic doctrine that God did not have a son and was not a father of anyone. In the Frontiers and SIL translation into Turkish, “guardian” replaces “Father” and “representative” or “proxy” is used for “Son.” Such considerations did not deter earlier Bible translators into Islamic language from an honest statement of a fundamental Christian doctrine. But today, a genuine fear of retribution for a “blasphemous” statement has subdued the will to stand up for one’s own beliefs, values and the right to speak out. This fear has made much of the West submissive, just as Islam — in both its name [Islam means “submission”] and declarations — openly wants.

Since then, the attacks from Islamists on this most basic of Western principles — the central plank in the platform of true democracy and the feature that most distinguishes it from totalitarianism of all forms — have multiplied, culminating in the slaughter carried out by Muslims extremists at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7, 2015.

Beneath the sporadic physical assaults lies a deeper layer of coercion: the fear lest anyone commit that apparently most unforgiveable crime of all, “Islamophobia!” It now seems that almost anything non-Muslims do may result in such accusations — a bigotry that has also become conflated with racism. The mere criticism of a religious belief shared by people mainly in the Third World has been linked, with no justification, to their genuine prejudice against the inhabitants of the developed world. But since it is Muslims who have been allowed to define “Islamophobia,” often at whim, even the mildest remarks can lead to serious accusations, lawsuits, and criminal attacks.[5]

In the case of Sherry Jones’s novel The Jewel of Medina, historically “revised” to be sympathetic to Islam, Random House in 1988 cancelled the novel’s publication. Its spokesperson stated that the publishing house had been given “cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”[6]

This time, the condemnation had not come in a fatwa from Iran’s Supreme Leader, but from a Western academic, whose identity is not known to me. On September 28, 2008, British extremist Ali Beheshti and two accomplices set fire to the house of the owner of the UK publishing company that had bought The Jewel of Medina. Fortunately, nobody was killed. But the vise of subjugation to Islamic dictats was tightening round the neck of the free world.

* * *

Rushdie knew he was being controversial; for those who protested, the attacks on him, however reprehensible, had a bizarre justification. Condemnation from Western academics, journalists, interfaith clerics, and politicians shows not how successful intimidation has become, but how timid and craven we have become. To surrender with such spinelessness can only mean that we have entered the first stages of the decline of the Enlightenment values that made the modern West the greatest upholder of human rights and freedoms in history.

Criticism of Islam and everything else will — and should — continue, produced by courageous writers and journalists. Certainly, we know how many times politicians in the United States and Europe have delusionally tried to persuade us that Islamist violence “has nothing to do with Islam.”

There have been many attacks and murders already. Perhaps the best known of these — until the Charlie Hebdo murders — was the murder of Dutch film-maker, Theo van Gogh, on November 2, 2004. Van Gogh had directed a short film called Submission, written by Muslim dissident Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had worked extensively in women’s shelters in the Netherlands, where she had observed that most of the women were Muslim. Van Gogh’s killer, a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan named Mohammed Bouyeri, now serving a life sentence, has described democracy as utterly abhorrent to Islam. (This view, for anyone who cares about the continuation of the West, is held by many Muslims. For them, democracy, made by man, is illegitimate, compared to shari’a law, made by Allah, and therefore the only form of government that is legitimate.) In court, Bouyeri said that ‘the law [shari’a law] compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet.”

The threat of murder has become ever more real. It is no longer possible to dismiss death threats from Muslims as the work of “lone wolves,” “deviant personalities,” or attention seekers. It is the use of death threats that has given radical Muslims the power to deter most writers, film-makers, TV producers, and politicians from tackling Islamic issues. The threat of calling people “racist” as a tool for suppressing critical voices has cast a dark shadow over normal democratic life. Some have died for free speech about Islam; others have faced ostracism, imprisonment, flogging and the loss of a normal life. [7]

Salman Rushdie lives under constant guard. Molly Norris, an American artist who drew a cartoon of Mohammed and proposed an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” has lived in hiding since 2010. On advice from the FBI, she changed her identity and cut off all links with family and friends. The Dutch politician Geert Wilders has been tried for “hate speech,” barely acquitted, and is now being tried for “hate speech” again.

These are just a few of the casualties who have paid a heavy price for their willingness to treat Islam as any of us might treat other subjects or other faiths. No Christian scholar will be tried for arguing that the Gospels contain contradictions, no Reform Jew will be arraigned for criticism of ultra-Orthodox beliefs, no politician will be brought before the law for denouncing the ideologies of Communism or Fascism. You can say that Karl Marx was misguided or that a U.S. president is terrible, and on and on, without dreading for a moment an assassin’s footfall or being locked up for your remarks.

Incidents such as these or UK Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband’s promise to make Islamophobia a hate crime (without even defining Islamophobia) illustrate the most dangerous result of Islamic agitation and asserted victimhood: it has caused us to turn on ourselves, to abandon our commitment to free speech, open academic enquiry, and the readiness to question everything — the very qualities that have made us strong in the past. When Western so-called intellectuals such as Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash condemn a Muslim apostate such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali for her criticisms of radical Islamism, or when Brandeis University withdraws its offer of an honorary degree for Ms. Ali when Muslim students object, we see our intellectual foundations shake. [8]

It is also necessary to ask, if Geert Wilders and others are being accused of hate speech, then why isn’t the Koran — with its calls for smiting necks and killing infidels — also being accused of hate speech?

If we do not reverse this trend of submission, censorship, blasphemy laws and all the other encumbrances of totalitarianism will return to our lives. The bullies will win, and the Enlightenment will fade and pass away from mankind. Political correctness and shari’a law will rule. How tragic if a senseless fear causes us to do this to ourselves.

Denis MacEoin is a lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies. He has an MA in Persian, Arabic and Islamic Studies from Edinburgh University, a PhD in Persian Studies from Cambridge (King’s College) and an MA in English Language and Literature from Trinity College, Dublin.

[1] If you are old enough to remember the Cold War, you will also recall the remarkable outpouring of literary engagement with the issues it provoked. Not just dissident narratives likeAlexander Solzhenitsyn‘s Gulag Archipelago or novels such as his One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, but the many spy thrillers by mainly British authors like John Le Carré, Len Deighton, Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond), and many others, Trevor Dudley-Smith (‘Adam Hall’), and Jack Higgins. Later, several Americans came to match the popularity of their British counterparts: Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Nelson DeMille, and others. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union as a threat, Cold War themes rapidly died out.

[2] There have been several films such as The Siege or the more recent American Sniper, and TV shows such as Homeland and the BBC’s award-winning drama The Honourable Woman. In 2014, a new drama appeared on BBC America and is due to play in the UK this April: The Game is set in the 1970s and tells a story of spies fighting the Cold War.

[3] The Times, 4 March 1989.

[4] Michael Walzer, “The Sins of Salman,” The New Republic, 10 April 1989.

[5] The most notorious of the many cases involving perceptions of blasphemy started November 25, 2007, when an English kindergarten teacher at a school in Sudan, Gillian Gibbons, was arrested, interrogated and finally put in a cell at a local police station. Her crime? She had allowed her class of six-year-olds to name their teddy bear “Muhammad.” From this innocent mistake, matters got worse for Gibbons. On November 26, 2007, she was formally charged under Section 125 of the Sudanese Criminal Act, for “insulting religion, inciting hatred, sexual harassment, racism, prostitution and showing contempt for religious beliefs.” Sudan’s top clerics called for the full measure of the law [death] to be used against Mrs. Gibbons; and labeled her actions part of a Western plot against Islam.

On November 29, she was found guilty of “insulting religion” and was sentenced to 15 days’ imprisonment and deportation. The next day, approximately 10,000 protesters, some of them waving swords and machetes, took to the streets in Khartoum, demanding Gibbons’s execution.

In the end, Gibbons was released from jail and allowed to return to Britain. But her case put the fear of savagery in many people’s hearts, as they recognized that it take nothing more than a slip of tongue to bring down death on oneself.

In yet another irony, Sherry Jones, an American writer who said she wanted to bring people together, wrote a novel entitled The Jewel of Medina, a story of the romance (if that is the word) between the Prophet Muhammad and his child bride A’isha, who came to be his most beloved wife. This was a noble project designed to show that Westerners are not all “Islamophobes,” and written in sentimental prose to reassure Muslims of Jones’s warm feelings towards their prophet. Random House bought the story for a large fee. Influenced by the leading apologist for Muhammad, the anti-historian, Karen Armstrong, Jones even bowdlerizes the tale, delaying consummation of the marriage until A’isha had fully attained puberty (despite what the Islamic historians tell us, which is that marriage was apparently consummated when A’isha was nine).

A publication date in 2008 was set and a nationwide tour planned – a promotion few new authors get. But neither Jones nor one of America’s oldest and biggest publishing houses had reckoned with the fallout from The Satanic Verses.

[6] Cited Nick Cohen, You Can’t Read this Book, rev. ed., London, 2013, p. 72.

[7] Danish author Lars Hedegaard has suffered an attack on his life and lives in a secret location. Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist, has suffered an axe attack that failed, and is under permanent protection the of intelligence services. In 2009, Austrian, a politician, Susanne Winter, was found guilty of “anti-Muslim incitement,” for saying, “In today’s system, the Prophet Mohammad would be considered child-molester,” and that Islam “should be thrown back where it came from, behind the Mediterranean.” She was fined 24,000 euros ($31,000) and given a three-month suspended sentence. In 2011, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a former Austrian diplomat and teacher, was put on trial for “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion,” found guilty twice, and ordered to pay a fine or face 60 days in prison. Some of her comments may have seemed extreme and fit for criticism, but the court’s failure to engage with her historically accurate charge that Muhammad had sex with a nine-year-old girl and continued to have sex with her until she turned eighteen, regarding her criticism of it as somehow defamatory, and the judge’s decision to punish her for saying something that can be found in Islamic sources, illustrates the betrayal of Western values of free speech in defense of something we would normally penalize.

[8] This backing away from our Enlightenment values has been documented and criticized by many writers, notably Paul Berman in his 2010 The Flight of the Intellectuals, Britain’s Douglas Murray in Islamophilia (2013), or Nick Cohen in You can’t read this book (2012)