Reprint from a News Group


Struggle Against Israel is a Religious War

"..Hamas regards the struggle against Israel and the Jews
as part of a broader religious war waged between the Islamic and
Western civilizations. It is the latest and most fateful phase of the
relentless onslaught waged by Western imperialism and culture against
Islam since the time of the Crusades. Both the capitalist West and the
Communist East are regarded as one entity in this context because of
their support for Zionism. Thus Hamas depicted the 1991 Gulf War as a
war of the `crusaders [Western] coalition' against Islam in order to
complete what Zionism had been unable to do." [Meir Litvak, "The Islamization
of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict: the case of Hamas" (01/01/1998) - Middle
Eastern Studies referencing Hamas Charter, article 15; Handbills Nos.
10, 31, 63. ]

"In addition, the Jews were sometimes portrayed as instruments of the
West, or alternatively as the power which controls and manipulates the
West. The US, for instance, was described as a servant of Israel and
as seeking to subjugate the Arabs according to the Jewish plan."
(Litvak referencing Handbills Nos. 10, 24, 71, 72; `al-bayan al-thani
lil-harakat al-islamiyya', FM, March 1991)

"Such a view had been formulated by the Egyptian Muslim Brethren
already in the 1930s, and it is shared by most modern Islamist
movements. Hasan al-Banna described Zionism as a threat and a
challenge to the Muslim world, but also as a beneficial experience
(manha), which exposes the decadence in the Islamic world and offers
it a chance of self-purification." (Litvak)

(For the Muslim Brethren's perception, see Richard Mitchell, The
Society of the Muslim Brotherhood (Oxford, 1969), pp.227ff.; `Abd
al-Fattah al-`Uwaysi, Tasawwur al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin li-qadiyat
Filastin (Cairo, n.d.); `Filastin fi fikr al-imam al-shahid Hasan
al-Banna,' Liwa al-Islam, 7 Feb. 1989)

The Muslim Brotherhood, out of which came Yasser Arafat is an Islamic
organization which sought to "emulate the pure Islamic society created by
the Wahhabi Ikhwan." (Dore Gold, "Hatred's Kingdom" 2003)

"God is our objective, Quran (his spelling) is our constitution; the
Prophet is our leader; struggle is our way, and death for the sake of God
is the highest of our aspirations." (Muslim Brotherhood Creedo)

While Wahhabism was among the most extreme forms of Islam, and Wahhabis
considered non-Wahhabis "polytheists" and had no compulsion against
killing them, it was of necessity that Osama bin Laden made concessions to
fight alongside them against the Christians and the Jews. There are
examples of this. In Khartoum in 1991 there was a coference of Islamist
leaders from 55 countries of many different factions, even nominally
secular activists and against a follow-up conference in 95 with such
divergent Islamic groups as the Algerian Front Islamique du Salud (FIS),
Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hizballah, and pro-Iranian Shiite
groups. Bin laden established new relationships at these conferences. The
Saudis provided funding for some of these groups. (Reference: Dore Gold
("Hatred's Kingdom") and Shimon Shapira, "Hizballah Between Iran and
Lebanon" (Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2000))

Oil is the driving force, the money that fuels the organizations, whose
intent it is to kill Christians and Jews and comes from the Saudi
government with profits going to the U.S. and British oil cabal, in which
George Bush is also a benefactor.

"Many Egyptian members of the Muslim Brotherhood (where it had it's
beginnings) who had been driven out of Egypt by Nasser's regime found
refuge in Saudi Arabia, and some received stipends from the Saudi
government. Palestinian Muslim Brothers followed. Abu Jihad (Khalil
al-Wazir), who before becoming one of the founders of the Fatah (Arafat's
Fatah Movement) had been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, left
Egyptian-controlled Gaza to teach in Saudi Arabia. Yasser Arafat, who,
though not formally a Muslim Brother, had fought as a sympathizer with
their units in 1948, applied for a Saudi visa in 1957, but then decided to
move to Kuwait. (Decades later, Saudi Arabia would again become a refuge
for the Muslim Brotherhood. When the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood split,
after it was crushed by President Hafez al-Assad in 1982, at least one of
its factions took refuge in Saudi Arabia. Sudanese Muslim Brothers also
came to the Saudi kingdom for political asylum. The number of Muslim
Brotherhood refugees who fled to Saudi Arabia reached the thousands.) Some
of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers who arrived in Saudi Arabia in the late
1950s became promient at the Islamic University of Medina, which was
founded in 1961, following consultations between many of these foreign
fundamentalists, the Wahhabi ulama, and other Saudi authorities." (Gold)

Saudi Arabia, with two of the holiest sites in the Muslim world is also
where radical Islamists are united in their opposition to Jews and
Christians. All Muslims are exposed to extremism at one time in their life
when they make the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

"In 628 Muhammad entered into a truce with his adversaries in Mecca,
thereby guaranteeing his followers the right to perform the pilgrimage. It
was a cultural tradition the new faith had proved unable to render
moribund. In Muhaammad's mind the truce was a temporary necessity in order
to gain peaceful access to Mecca, placating followers whose traditional
reverence for Mecca remained strong. Muhammad also wished to bring certain
Meccans over to his side..... (Charles Sutherland, "Diciples of
Destruction: The Religious Origins of War and Terrorism" 87 Prometheus
Books)

"Despite the truce, effectuated principally to restrain his own restive
followers, and with his position consolidate dand his military forces
prepared, Muhammad reciprocated the graciousness of the people of Mecca by
successfully cutting off their trade routes and leading an army against
them. He was quickly victorious, seized the city, and celebrated his
triumph by personally smashing the 360 idols in the Meccan sanctuary,
proclaiming, "Truth has come and falsehood has vanished." Unmentioned were
the lies of truce that had allowed the "truth" to come. Muhammad's victory
over Mecca was marked by uncommon restraint and little persecution, but
despite swift military success Muhammad's evangelism of the citizenry
encountered protracted resistance. In order to avoid prolonged
hostilities, Muhammad negotiated with city leaders, agreeing that if they
submitted to Islam he would make pilgrimage to Mecca a requirment of the
new religion. This assured a continuation of the present pilgrimage and
tourist traffic and even promised a great increase in it. The pagan Kaaba
would be transformed into the holiest of Muslim shrines. Muhammad
accordingly prescribed that all Muslims should endeavor to make at least
one pilgrimage to Mecca during their lifetimes, more if possible. The
pilgrimage was called the Hajj. The merchant community quickly realizedthe
material possiblities of this devine arrangement, and submitted to the new
theology with an understanding of its economic if not its celestial
rewards. Thus did Mecca adopt the Islamic faith. Muhammad had made an
offer they couldn't refuse." (Sutherland)

And that is how it has always been. Pagan beliefs and some Jewish and
Christian customs and enough promises of things to come, to win over local
populations along with the greatest promise of all, of a better after-life
than the one most people had (and still have) in this one, and then also a
great expectations of what could be plundered by Muhammad's counquering
army - as it spread over the rest of the world as far as it could reach,
was enough to win over a lot of converts, and still is. The promise today
comes with the priviso that adherents must return to a pure observance of
Islam as dictated by new warlords like Osama bin Laden and radical Islamic
clerics.

Hank Roth
http://pnews.org/