Two Faces of Islam in Charlie Hebdo Attacks

 

There were two faces of Islam displayed in Paris, France this past week and the world will probably forget the one and long recall the other. The predominant story was the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine, where the editor and many of the cartoonists and other staff were slaughtered. The final tallying of victims released revealed that eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor were killed in the attack. The police murdered lost their lives in the attempt to arrest the terrorists at the scene. The rest of the story from the side of the terrorists will be a secondary series of events which will likely be retold with every rendition of the entire episode. The primary part of the following series of events will recount the standoff between the French Special Forces units outside of Paris where the brothers hid with their hostage in a printing house on Friday, after they hijacked a car and police followed them to a village near the Paris main airport. These two segments, or episodes, of these twisted events which together make up the entirety of the horrors where the brothers, Cherif Kouachi and Said Kouachi, spent much time threatening, first their original target of Charlie Hebdo then second their standoff at the printing house located in the small industrial town of Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris, in a massive operation to seize the brothers. This side of the story will emphasize the violence and heinous acts of Cherif Kouachi and Said Kouachi interspersed with reminders stating that ‘Islam is the Religion of Peace’ stressing that it would be evil and inexcusable to use these events to excuse acts against Muslims or expressing or holding thoughts that Islam authorizes or even condones violence against innocents.

 

There was another event related to the brothers that took place parallel to the standoff in Dammartin-en-Goele. That event occurred in Porte de Vincennes neighborhood of Paris, the outskirts of Paris, at a Hyper Cacher kosher market which was filled with customers, many of them may have been shopping for the coming of Sabbath. Upon crashing into the market, a terrorist named Amedy Coulibaly, who had already murdered a female police officer the day before, stormed into the store in a sustained burst of gunfire murdering four innocent patrons and taking an additional sixteen hostage declaring “You know who I am.” A Muslim employee at the market, Lassana Bathily’s quick thinking may have saved a number of the hostages from harm. This hero downplayed his actions recounting the events telling reporters how he helped several customers to safety as the chaos unfolded. He spoke recounted his story, “I went down to the freezer, I opened the door, there were several people who went in with me. I turned off the light and the freezer. I brought them inside and I told them to stay calm here, I’m going to go out. When they got out, they thanked me.” He had also turned the temperature up in the freezer to make their hiding place just a little less uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Coulibaly kept threatening to murder more of his hostages right up to when the police made their raid ending the drama and preventing any further loss of life.

 

Lassana Bathily represented the other face of Islam, the face of being a peaceful member of a multicultural community whose religion as he practices it is the religion of peace that we all hear about after each horrific terror attack made by those Muslims who do not practice Islam peacefully causing all their fellow Muslims a severe discomfort and a rough road as they attempt to reclaim their place as peaceful members in their diverse society. Lassana Bathily was one of the members of the Muslim community whose quick thinking and resulting actions placed a number of patrons from the market safely beyond the reach of the murderous terrorist upstairs. He did not place himself in that safe area and instead guarded their safety from outside the freezer where he hid them. His actions were not broadcast to the world during those tense hours before the police and security personnel raided both sites ending what seemed to be a longer period than the few days which actually passed. The violent terrorists were the ones highlighted during the standoffs as the selfless acts of Mr. Bathily were performed in the secret of the background. His bravery and gallantry placing the safety of the patrons before his own only became known in the hours immediately after the standoff was resolved. He became a part of the story after most had already moved on having taken the rescue operation to be the final act. Many will never have heard and those who do remember do so under the disadvantage of the fact that Mr. Bathily’s story will only receive a lessor coverage which is often the case when acts of sanity become the exceptional acts of bravery. We all owe Mr. Bathily the respect of noting his actions and remembering that people such as he will be the ones who hopefully will define Islam in the future. For posterity’s sake I offer a picture of a hero, a picture of Lassana Bathily below.

 

 

Lassana Bathily Charlie Hebdo Hyper Cacher kosher market Muslim Hero

 

 

Earlier in the week there was another whose actions require our respect and whose sacrifice must not be allowed to fade into the dim recesses that singular actions of bravery often do as the final fiery acts which end the eventual standoff rightfully steal the limelight. There were two French police murdered during the initial attempts to capture the terrorists at the scene of the Charlie Hebdo attack, Franck Brinsolaro and Ahmed Merabet. The names of both these men will also fade faster than the names of the brothers who used their religion as a cudgel with which to silence all who they felt had treated the name of their prophet blasphemously. May their names be stricken from the public memory and replaced with the names which can be raised with pride and held as exemplary rather than name those who should be despised. We need to celebrate the names of the police who gave their all in the effort to protect society, the names Ahmed Merabet and Franck Brinsolaro should be held alongside Lassana Bathily as the saviors who acted above and beyond anything required of them and by doing so raised the level of honor and care in the current society so needful of such souls to laud.

 

Franck Brinsolaro was murdered inside the offices of Charlie Hebdo and was the officer tasked with guarding editor Stéphane Charbonnier while Ahmed Merabet arrived on the scene and was initially injured by the terrorist brothers who then subsequently executed Officer Merabet as he raised his empty hands signaling that he was unarmed and posed no threat to their escape. This murder was possibly the most heinous of the murders of that fateful morning. There was a hashtag of “#JesuisAhmed”, in addition to “#JesuisCharlie”, started on Twitter to honor Officer Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim police officer who arrived to the scene and paid for his efforts with his life. Ahmed Merabet was another whose actions honored Islam and was an example of Muslims who are amongst the most integral members of Parisians who answered the call when the public needed him. Officer Ahmed Merabet, as was pointed out on Twitter feeds under his honorable hashtag, represented all that we could ask for from the Islamic community or any other community. Hopefully he will be remembered with respect and honor.

 

Often in the discussions which follow terror attacks such as we experienced in Paris this week concerns what is the real face of Islam. This usually results in much heated debate which inevitably results in the conclusion that it will take the Muslims who desire to live as contributing members of Islamic society to reclaim their religion and defined Islam peacefully. This will be a monumental task as nobody has yet come up with a plan for how such might be achieved. It does not help that the Quran appears to have conflicts within its writing which tend to be dependent on when and where they were written. If Islam is going to be shaped by its peaceful, open and cooperative writings then the Mecca Quranic verses need to be made predominant and the Medina writings given less weight. This will be difficult with the majority of Imams stressing that the later verses supercede the earlier verses when a conflict between the two appear. For a discussion which gives a general background and tries to explain the differences between the Mecca verses against the Medina verse can be found in this article Which Quran, Mecca or Medina?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Mahmoud Abbas’s Not So Secret Weapon

 

Mahmoud Abbas has a weapon which he utilizes to inflict blunt force trauma bludgeoning Israel before a world that just demands that the violence end, but end without any use of force by Israel. Israel is in the position of a battered spouse who for reason of the expectations of the society surrounding it demands that Israel rehabilitate the abusive spouse and save the troubled relationship. Every time Israel petitions for a divorce the world as the judge orders Israel and its abusive spouse, the Abbas Arab body, to get counselling and make the marriage work. Israel is consistently instructed to find some magic by which to transform the abusive Abbas Arab body into a functional state living side by side with Israel in a harmonious relationship. Mahmoud Abbas as the controlling conscience of the Israeli spouse refuses to give up in the tantrums and violence as Abbas has learned that as long as he continues the violence, the more the world insists that it is Israel’s fault and that Israel has simply not tried with sufficient dedication, insight and motivation and if only Israel works with just a little more efforts and sacrifices then the Abbas controlled Arab body will transform and settle in to a decent civilized behavior and the world will be so proud to have successfully played matchmaker and successfully saved the Arab-Israeli marriage. The world refuses to give up and Israel will eventually reach a breaking point which might lead to more than simply answering the violence of their partner with Israeli violence of their own and instead simply force the Abbas Arab body out of the house and demand a complete and permanent divorce from the abusive Abbas Arab body.

 

The vital secret which the world has realized and uses against Israel is that the psychology of the Israeli state is centered around a core drive to find acceptance and to meet the expectation in order to feel fully accepted by the body of nations. Israel continues to seek the approval of the other nations of the world including the Europeans who have no desire to be bothered by relations with Israel unless Israel can make peace with her abusive spouse. Israeli relations with the United States has always been amicable mixed with the United States urging that Israel continue to work on her relations with her abusive spouse if for no other reason than to please the Europeans and placate the Arab and Muslim world. The Arab and Muslim world and their allies in the developing nations refuse to be placated and often threaten to erupt in violence in support in both manner and kind with the Abbas Arab abusive relations with Israel. When the Arab relatives of the Abbas Arab body, the Europeans panic and start pressuring Israel to take even suicidal measures to succumb to the abusiveness of the Abbas Arab body so that their relatives in the Arab and Muslim world will calm and Europe will be assured of a uninterrupted, consistent and ample supply of the societal oil balm which is supplied and controlled by the Arab and Muslim world and the Europeans are addicted to thus having their own abusive relationship of the addicted to their provider. Europe learned their lesson very well when in the 1970’s they were threatened by the Arab and Muslim world with an embargo of that oil followed by a ramping price increase in the price for that societal balm that tripled the price of oil in a short period. The price of even getting the oil flowing again was to sacrifice Israel and to force Israel to meet and conform to the demands of the Arab and Muslim world who completely sided with their relative, Israel’s spouse the Abbas Arab body.

 

There has been a change in the formula working over the past six years which has recently threatened to turn a major player in this situation from Israeli supporter to the harbinger of a forced reconciliation demanded by her former stalwart who having experienced a change in management now has joined Europe and the Arab and Muslim world in demanding Israel find the necessary sacrifice which will satiate the ravenous desire of the abusive spouse, the Abbas Arab body, by Israel subjecting herself to one final battering and granting the abuser to dictate their terms for a final solution. This demand that Israel suffer a final battering which very likely would result in a fatality, Israel’s, may have a deadline presented and adopted by the United Nations Security Council as Jordan, the nation scheduled to assume the presidency of the Security Council in January, will be presenting a draft for a resolution which will give Israel a deadline to placate her abusive spouse within two years or face the potential for the combined military force of the nations of the world who will come and aid the Abbas Arab body in inflicting one final and potentially fatal beating upon Israel under the title of resolving the conflict. There has been no exploration as to whether forcing Israel under threat of military Armageddon to surrender to every last territorial demand of her abusive Abbas Arab body will actually end the terroristic abuse by Israel’s spouse. What is the world going to do when once they have berated and beaten Israel into compliance in what they believe with absolute certainty will be a final end to the abusive interaction between Israel and the Abbas Arab body and their relatives known as the Arab and Muslim world and the terrorist abuse from the Abbas Arab body continues against Israel? Will the Europeans and the rest of the compliant world which folds and bows before the Arab and Muslim world in the case of their desires concerning Israel then demand that Israel give in to the final demands of the Abbas Arab body and surrender the remainder of the lands that make up Israel and dissolve the state of Israel? If they do demand this of Israel, and the world dances once again to the tune of the spousal abuse, berating and terrorizing Israel with a rejuvenated Abbas Arab body filled with European treasures and assurances as they rise in a chorus of squawking Euro-political spineless eunuchs braying as a cacophonous chorus echoing the swan song of the Arab and Muslim world, adding their voices to the demand that then the Abbas Arab body will be permitted one final destructive, fatal and abusive bludgeoning of Israel.

 

The question that the world must also decide upon granting the Abbas Arab body their wildest dreams as a reward for their spousal abuse of Israel is, where are the Jews to go and where will they be accepted once they have been successfully evicted from their ancestral homelands once again? Also, Israel has already warned that she will not go quietly into the cattle cars taking them to the crematoria, this time they will fight with ferocity unseen and a determination by each and every Jew close to that of David in his vanquishing the giant Goliath. This is the home of Israel, the home of Yaakov as the heir of Isaac who was the chosen of Abraham to whom these lands were awarded. These lands were rewarded the Israelites when they liberated them after Moses brought the Israelite People out from their bondage in Egypt and who were led by Joshua into the Promised Lands and vanquished the Canaanite Kings forming the first nation of Israel, the first nation state of Yaakov’s descendants, the lands we have returned and liberated with the Six Day War. The Six Day War as a defensive war that placed many lands under Israeli control of which over ninety percent has already been surrendered to Egypt to make peace and then there is Gaza also returned stripped of all Israeli and Jewish remnants of their existence there except for the greenhouses which were left intact and whole to provide the Abbas Arab body a working economic enterprise. These greenhouses were cannibalized and returned to Israel in the form of rockets made from the piping. Israel left Gaza turning it over to Mahmoud Abbas and the Abbas Arabs who soon lost their control over Gaza to Hamas who then utilized the areas of Gaza to start wars with Israel every eighteen to twenty-four months. Hamas with their ally Islamic Jihad stand today poised and capable of wresting control over Judea and Samaria (West Bank as Jordan renamed the area illegally) and almost initiated a coup which was only averted by deep and excellent intelligence work by the Shin Bet and IDF which uncovered the core Hamas terrorists who had planned to replace Mahmoud Abbas but were arrested by Israeli security troops before they could execute their plan. That event revealed a hidden truth stashed away in plain sight but totally ignored by all, by the European Union, by European national governments, by the United States, and by the United Nations, that Mahmoud Abbas is dependent upon the presence of IDF troops. Israel cannot permit Hamas to have access and ability to compromise the Judean Hills which overlook the central districts of Israel plus Ben Gurion International Airport, permitting added accuracy to their rocket and mortar fire. Should Israel be forced or choose to surrender and withdraw behind the Green Line, as the next government may be established on the false hopes of land for peace reiterated and dressed with new clothes and words, allowing the 1949 and pre-1967 borders to become the border of yet another Arab country, the Israelis would then be subjected to daily barrages on the center of the nation, the heart of the country and the engine of her economy. Such a move would be disastrous setting the field and guaranteeing there will be a greater war which may result in the inclusion of an inevitable escalation dragging the rest of the free world into the quagmire making Jerusalem will become as prophesized in Zechariah 12:3, “And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Is a Bloodbath Rapidly Approaching?

During most attacks and even murders perpetrated by Muslims, the perpetrator often shouts Islamic phrases and insults mixed with Quranic verses while stabbing, shooting or even beheading their victims. There are the same claims from authorities and Islamic leadership with statements released by authorities claiming the act had nothing to do with Islam and that immediate precautions are to be taken to secure Islamic neighborhoods and Mosques due to the fear of revenge attacks against Muslims. The authorities give admonitions that any violence against Muslims will be treated with the utmost seriousness. Then we are reminded that, and I quote, “Islam is the religion of peace.” Then, on the other side of the coin, often when figures are released depicting increased violence against Jews and anti-Semitism the statement is almost always accompanied by claims that there has also been a concurrent increase in violence against Muslims as if one excuses the other. All of this is probably not being done in order to show equality and equal treatment of all segments of society, even those which apparently are in need of special note whenever there might be the possibility that they might feel opposed in the slightest way. These actions treating Muslims with special kid gloves whenever an extremist Islamist acts as extremist Islamist tend to act are not having the intended effects. Actually they are having exactly the opposite effects than what I hope they are intended, namely to diminish any latent and gathering resentments and anger which eventually will cause a backlash that will be beyond any ability of the authorities to prevent or even bring to a stop once it begins.

 

It appears that the undertow builds towards a breaking point; it appears that the Europeans in numerous countries are experiencing it at a much higher level than in the United States or Canada. In England there has been a group of Christian youths who wear the Crusader’s Cross and patrol the bus, tubes (subways for the Americans) and other public transit on the routes which pass through Muslim neighborhoods, especially those which claim they enforce Sharia, and escort single women protecting them from any violence or harm. This is a laudable reaction to what had started to become a real problem but for every one taking the route of making a difference through positive actions, how many are simply not finding a constructive release and a seething is building inside? How long before such people explode in violent acts which will only serve to increase the animosities and friction between the two cultures. Such explosions when they are singular acts eventually fade except that eventually one such act will occur during a period of heightened emotions and sensitivities and lead to a domino effect which eventually explodes into a massive assault and breakdown of civility and law enforcement. The damage and other results of such a riotous explosion of violence pitting two communities against one another will result in heightened animosity and raw nerves which may never heal and simply lead to a constant and building violence erupting between the two communities eventually leading to a total collapse requiring the imposition of martial law before order can be restored. The question comes is what happens if the men and women in the military instead of reestablishing order break their ranks and instead act as individuals each joining their respected community which will add military weaponry to the violence and making it a war for the heart and soul of that nation. And the terrifying possibility is once such open warfare begins in one nation it then poses the possibility of spreading across the entire continent or even be the spark which, like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, will be the spark which ignites the next global war with the division being down religious lines.

 

Such an explosion should be feared by every sane and rational people. How this eventuality can be avoided is something that people should start pondering and take the necessary actions and soon. The cultural differences are producing a growing emotional violence which will not remain suppressed forever and the government officials are in denial and refuse to recognize the stresses and strains which are about to tear the fabric of their societies apart, shattering the calm and pitting one side of the society against the other. For this to be avoided a path must be found to support and invigorate the reputed majority of Muslims who desire for Islam to truly be the religion of peace and desire for Islam to live in balance and peace with the other religions and even the atheists and to live and let live to take charge of their religion. If while on the path to empower the peace loving Muslims who are reputed to desire to coexist, even to the point of putting the on their vehicle without fear of retribution, that their numbers are insignificant and that the Islamists extremists are a sizeable segment of the total and they are supported even if not joined by an even larger and frightfully significant percentage of the body of the Islamic faith, then we will know that there is no possibility for a reformation and transformation to bring Islam into the modern age where religions are no longer universally set on spreading their faith to all nonbelievers, even by the sword. The sooner the truth of the beliefs of the vast majority of the one to one and a half billion Muslims with whom we share the planet, the sooner we can understand what this struggle will require if we wish to retain out pluralistic multicultural world and honestly believe it is worth saving.

 

Beyond the Cusp