Islamic Societies Review WEEKLY

Friday, February 06, 2015

Erdoğan wants more power, so he asks for 400 deputies for his former AKP at Turkish elections -- Fethullah Gulen: Turkey’s Eroding Democracy

Friday, February 06, 2015 No comments

Erdoğan wants 400 deputies for his former AKP at Turkish elections
Disregarding opposition criticism of his direct involvement in politics, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan once again appealed for votes for his former Justice and Development Party (AKP) without explicitly giving the party’s name, declaring that “400 lawmakers” are needed for a “new Turkey.”

“If we want a new Turkey at the June 7 elections, we will give it 400 lawmakers,” Erdoğan said, speaking at a public rally in the northwestern province of Bursa on Feb. 6.

He linked several key issues to this newly set goal, including his desired shift to the presidential system.

“What we say is that if we want a new constitution, we have to reach 400 lawmakers,” he said.
At least 330 deputies in parliament are needed to change the constitution.

“If we want the presidential system, then we have to give 400 lawmakers. If we want the resolution process to continue, we have to give 400 lawmakers so that a strong party can come to power to realize it,” Erdoğan added, referring to the ongoing talks to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue.

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Fethullah Gulen: Turkey’s Eroding Democracy
By FETHULLAH GULEN

SAYLORSBURG, Pa. — It is deeply disappointing to see what has become of Turkey in the last few years. Not long ago, it was the envy of Muslim-majority countries: a viable candidate for the European Union on its path to becoming a functioning democracy that upholds universal human rights, gender equality, the rule of law and the rights of Kurdish and non-Muslim citizens. This historic opportunity now appears to have been squandered as Turkey’s ruling party, known as the A.K.P., reverses that progress and clamps down on civil society, media, the judiciary and free enterprise.

Turkey’s current leaders seem to claim an absolute mandate by virtue of winning elections. But victory doesn’t grant them permission to ignore the Constitution or suppress dissent, especially when election victories are built on crony capitalism and media subservience. The A.K.P.’s leaders now depict every democratic criticism of them as an attack on the state. By viewing every critical voice as an enemy — or worse, a traitor — they are leading the country toward totalitarianism.

The latest victims of the clampdown are the staff, executives and editors of independent media organizations who were detained and are now facing charges made possible by recent changes to the laws and the court system. The director of one of the most popular TV channels, arrested in December, is still behind bars. Public officials investigating corruption charges have also been purged and jailed for simply doing their jobs. An independent judiciary, a functioning civil society and media are checks and balances against government transgressions. Such harassment sends the message that whoever stands in the way of the ruling party’s agenda will be targeted by slander, sanctions and even trumped-up charges.

Turkey’s rulers have not only alienated the West, they are also now losing credibility in the Middle East. Turkey’s ability to assert positive influence in the region depends not only on its economy but also on the health of its own democracy.

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Thursday, February 05, 2015

At Prayer Breakfast, Obama Decries 'Distortions' of Faith to Justify Violence

Thursday, February 05, 2015 No comments

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington Thursday, President Barack Obama decried groups like ISIS that commit violence in the name of religion and warned that such "distortions" are not unique to any one group of people.

"We see faith driving us to do right," he said. "But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, being used as a wedge - or worse, sometimes used as a weapon."

Calling the Islamic terror group known as ISIS or ISIL "a brutal, vicious death cult," Obama noted that its extremists oppress minorities and rape women in the name of religion.

And, he said, any faith can be "twisted" by humans to justify acts of injustice and violence.

"There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency, that can pervert and distort our faith," he said.

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ISIL kills 3 of its Chinese members who attempted to leave

Thursday, February 05, 2015 No comments

The Islamic State (IS) has killed three Chinese militants who tried to leave the group, an official from the Kurdish security force in Iraq told the Global Times.

The Kurdish security official said Wednesday that in the past six months, IS has executed 120 of its members who attempted to escape from the group and leave Iraq and Syria. Among the 120, three were Chinese citizens and were members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a terrorist organization that is also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party.

One of the Chinese militants was seized and executed last September, according to the official. He became disillusioned with IS after arriving in Syria, but was later caught and executed after an unsuccessful attempt to flee to Turkey.

The official said the other two Chinese militants were executed last December in Iraq along with 11 other IS members from six countries. They were executed for "treason."

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Wednesday, February 04, 2015

More evidence about Saudi connections to terror organizations emerging at an increased rate

Wednesday, February 04, 2015 No comments

There has long been evidence that wealthy Saudis provided support for bin Laden, the son of a Saudi construction magnate, and Al Qaeda before the 2001 attacks. Saudi Arabia had worked closely with the United States to finance Islamic militants fighting the Soviet Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and Al Qaeda drew its members from those militant fighters.

“I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia,” wrote Mr. Graham, who has long demanded the release of 28 pages of the congressional report on the attacks that explore Saudi connections and remain classified.

Mr. Kerrey said in the affidavit that it was “fundamentally inaccurate and misleading” to argue, as lawyers for Saudi Arabia have, that the 9/11 Commission exonerated the Saudi government.

The three former officials’ statements did not address Mr. Moussaoui’s testimony.

The 9/11 lawsuit was initially filed in 2002 but has faced years of legal obstacles. It was dismissed in 2005 on the grounds that Saudi Arabia enjoyed “sovereign immunity,” and the dismissal was upheld on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

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No limits to ISIL cruelty: Jordan, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia facilited the funding and arming of fighters who eventually joined ISIL

Wednesday, February 04, 2015 No comments

Just when its cruel and degrading ways is thought to have peak, ISIL finds ways to shock even its own supporters: Jordanian Salafis and others react.

Safi al-Kasasbeh, the pilot's father, called for the Jordanian government to do "more than just executing prisoners".

"I call for [IS] to be eliminated completely," he told reporters on Wednesday.

An official Saudi Arabian source quoted by the country's SPA news agency described the killing as a "barbaric, cowardly act, which is not sanctioned by the principles of tolerant Islam... and cannot be perpetrated except by the bitterest enemies of Islam".

Arab League secretary general Nabil al-Arabi said the killing was "brutal" and "beyond belief", adding that IS was "a menace which should be stopped".

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar University in Egypt and one of the leading authorities in Sunni Islam condemned the killing, saying the burning to death of Lt Kasasbeh violated Islam's prohibition on the mutilation of bodies.

Even clerics sympathetic to the jihadist cause said the act of burning a man alive and filming the killing would damage Islamic State, an al-Qaida offshoot which controls wide territory in Syria and Iraq, and is also known as ISIL or ISIS.

"This weakens the popularity of Islamic State because we look at Islam as a religion of mercy and tolerance. Even in the heat of battle, a prisoner of war is given good treatment," said Abu Sayaf, a Jordanian Salafist cleric also known as Mohamed al-Shalabi who spent almost ten years in Jordanian prisons for militant activity including a plot to attack U.S. troops.

"Even if the Islamic State says Muath had bombed, and burnt and killed us and we punished him in the way he did to us, we say, OK but why film the video in this shocking way?" he told Reuters. "This method has turned society against them."

SITE, a U.S.-based monitoring service, quoted Abdullah bin Muhammad al-Muhaysini, whom it described as a Saudi jihadi, as saying on Twitter it would have been better if Kasaesbeh's captors had swapped him for "Muslim captives." His killing would make ordinary people sympathetic to Kasaesbeh, he said.

America's Allies Funded ISIL

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.

The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region. There, the threat of Iran, Assad, and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war trumps the U.S. goal of stability and moderation in the region.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Jordan to Execute al-Qaeda Prisoners After ISIL Burns Pilot Taken Hostage

Tuesday, February 03, 2015 No comments

Jordanian pilot taken hostage by ISIL in December has been killed by the militant group. Jordan will execute al-Qaeda prisoners: Sajida al-Rishawi, Ziad al-Karbouli and four other militants.

The Jordanian pilot, Muath al-Kasaesbeh, who was captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in December after his plane crashed on the terrorist-controlled territory in Syria, has reportedly been burned alive on Tuesday.

Jordan has been making efforts to exchange the pilot for an al-Qaeda prisoner Sajida al-Rishawi, who was arrested after a failed suicide bombing attempt. However, one of the conditions for the exchange was that ISIL shows proof of the pilot being alive.

Earlier, Jordan has threatened to hang every ISIL prisoner they currently hold if their pilot was harmed.

A video that shows the pilot being burned alive was distributed on a twitter account that posts ISIL related propaganda.

The video shows Kasaesbeh wearing an orange jumpsuit, inside a cage, being consumed by fire.

The pilot's family and Jordanian officials have confirmed the video is authentic. Jordanian State TV reported that he was killed back on January 3, 2015.

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Sunday, February 01, 2015

How Americans really feel about Netanyahu and why it matters

Sunday, February 01, 2015 No comments

By Shibley Telhami January 30

The controversy over an invitation to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address Congress shortly before Israeli elections has polarized the U.S. political scene. Netanyahu has been here before, of course. His transparent support for the Republican candidate for president in 2012, Mitt Romney, generated much resentment in the Democratic Party hierarchy, and certainly in the Obama administration. But this time – together with House Speaker John Boehner – he is a central player in a highly charged national political environment pitting a Republican-controlled Congress against a Democratic president; public and media attention is much greater, and the consequences potentially higher.

How this will play out in terms of U.S. politics and the impact on relations with Israel depends in part upon a more basic question: How do Americans see Bibi Netanyahu in the first place? And how do these attitudes play into a broader, and growing national divide about policy toward Israel? Some of the questions in a November 2014 poll I conducted – fielded by the research company GfK – among a nationally representative panel of 1008 Americans offer some intriguing evidence.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

CIA and Mossad killed senior Hezbollah figure in car bombing

Saturday, January 31, 2015 No comments

On Feb. 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, walked on a quiet nighttime street in Damascus after dinner at a nearby restaurant. Not far away, a team of CIA spotters in the Syrian capital was tracking his movements.

As Mughniyah approached a parked SUV, a bomb planted in a spare tire on the back of the vehicle exploded, sending a burst of shrapnel across a tight radius. He was killed instantly.

The device was triggered remotely from Tel Aviv by agents with Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, who were in communication with the operatives on the ground in Damascus. “The way it was set up, the U.S. could object and call it off, but it could not execute,” said a former U.S. intelligence official.

The United States helped build the bomb, the former official said, and tested it repeatedly at a CIA facility in North Carolina to ensure the potential blast area was contained and would not result in collateral damage.

“We probably blew up 25 bombs to make sure we got it right,” the former official said.

The extraordinarily close cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services suggested the importance of the target — a man who over the years had been implicated in some of Hezbollah’s most spectacular terrorist attacks, including those against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina.

The United States has never acknowledged participation in the killing of Mughniyah, which Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Until now, there has been little detail about the joint operation by the CIA and Mossad to kill him, how the car bombing was planned or the exact U.S. role. With the exception of the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, the mission marked one of the most high-risk covert actions by the United States in recent years.

U.S. involvement in the killing, which was confirmed by five former U.S. intelligence officials, also pushed American legal boundaries.

Friday, January 30, 2015

New Saudi king announces major government shake-up

Friday, January 30, 2015 No comments

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia's new King Salman on Thursday (Jan 29) further cemented his hold on power, with a sweeping shakeup that saw two sons of the late King Abdullah fired, and the heads of intelligence and other key agencies replaced alongside a cabinet shuffle.

Top officials from the Ports Authority, the National Anti-Corruption Commission and the conservative Islamic kingdom's religious police were among those let go.

The new appointments came a week after Salman acceded to the throne following the death of Abdullah, aged about 90.

Salman also reached out directly to his subjects on Thursday. One of his more than 30 decrees ordered "two months' basic salary to all Saudi government civil and military employees," the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said. Students and pensioners got similar bonuses.

"Dear people: You deserve more and whatever I do will not be able to give you what you deserve," the king said later on his official Twitter account. He asked his citizens to "not forget me in your prayers".

SPA said Salman "issued a royal order today, relieving Prince Khalid bin Bandar bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, Chief of General Intelligence, of his post."

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Ancient Sea Rise Tale Told Accurately for 10,000 Years

Wednesday, January 28, 2015 No comments

Aboriginal stories of lost islands match up with underwater finds in Australia

Melbourne, the southernmost state capital of the Australian mainland, was established by Europeans a couple hundred years ago at the juncture of a great river and a wind-whipped bay. Port Phillip Bay sprawls over 750 square miles, providing feeding grounds for whales and sheltering coastlines for brine-scented beach towns. But it’s an exceptionally shallow waterway, less than 30 feet in most places. It’s so shallow that 10,000 years ago, when ice sheets and glaciers held far more of the planet’s water than is the case today, most of the bay floor was high and dry and grazed upon by kangaroos.

To most of us, the rush of the oceans that followed the last ice age seems like a prehistoric epoch. But the historic occasion was dutifully recorded—coast to coast—by the original inhabitants of the land Down Under.

Without using written languages, Australian tribes passed memories of life before, and during, post-glacial shoreline inundations through hundreds of generations as high-fidelity oral history. Some tribes can still point to islands that no longer exist—and provide their original names.

That’s the conclusion of linguists and a geographer, who have together identified 18 Aboriginal stories—many of which were transcribed by early settlers before the tribes that told them succumbed to murderous and disease-spreading immigrants from afar—that they say accurately described geographical features that predated the last post-ice age rising of the seas.