By Maurice Ostroff
President Obama''s use of the acronym ISIL rather than the more common term ISIS for the Islamic terror group that’s grabbed world attention, is significant.
ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria whose aim is to build a caliphate consisting mainly of Syria and Iraq whereas ISIL correctly defines the terror group''s wider aims that extend to the Levant. Hence ISIL represents the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Obama said:
"Let’s be clear about ISIL. They have rampaged across cities and villages killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence..They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can, for no other reason than they practice a different religion....There has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so it does not spread. One thing we can all agree on is groups like ISIL have no place in the 21st century".
In fact Islamic extremist have declared war on the entire free world. The video clip below shows only one small example of what is happening in front of our eyes
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The situation is serious. We are not facing a rag tag terrorist group. According to the Telegraph of August 23, ISIL is the richest terrorist organization in history. Experts estimate that its leaders have gained access to £1.2 billion in cash. It is estimated that when they captured Mosul in June and looted the city''s banks they may have made off with £240 million. Captured oilfields provide up to £1.8 million per day in revenue and they are thought to earn up to £5 million a month through extortion of local businesses. In the past year they are estimated to have made £40 million from taking hostages, with each foreign hostage thought to be worth £3m although they demanded £80 million for American journalist James Foley.
Connecting the dots
Awareness of the ISIL threat did not start with the gruesome killing of Jim Foley. In an interview with CBS''s "Face the nation" last June Obama said that ISIL poses a medium and long-term threat to the American people. He added"
"There are a lot of groups out there that probably have more advanced immediate plans directed against the United States that we have to be on constant guard for."
Who are these groups? Connecting the dots it is crystal clear that there is a great deal in common between ISIL, the Moslem Brotherhood, Hezbollah and Hamas. What they all have in common is imposing sharia law, banning music, kidnapping hostages, forcing women to wear the niqab, persecuting Christians and other infidels and carrying out summary extra judicial executions.
To their peril, Western democracies appear to close their eyes not only to the still distant threat of ISIL but to the immediate threat from look-alikes close to home such as Hezbolla and Hamas. Both are linked to the Moslem Brotherhood with the same ultimate objectives as ISIL so graphically and openly stated in the video clip above.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Moslem Brotherhood which is linked to al-Qaeda and the Somali terrorist group Al Shabab. A BBC profile of the Moslem Brotherhood states that Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda were inspired by one of its prominent members Sayyid Qutbad.
As Western journalists who don''t speak Arabic cannot possibly gain an in-depth understanding of these Islamic organizations it is important to turn to people who have studied the Koran and understand their culture. Dr. Tawfik Hamid, is an Islamic thinker, reformer and one time member of the terrorist Islamic organization JI with Dr. Ayman Al-Zawaherri who later became second in command of Al-Qaeda. He has written that one of the basic tenets of radical Islam is to offer Non Muslims three options: subjugate to Islam, pay Jizia (a humiliating tax), or be killed and these tenets are common to all the above mentioned Islamic groups.
Dr Hamid''s analysis proved to be uncannily accurate when in September 2013 the Nairobi mall attackers announced that only non-Muslims were their targets. Shoppers who tried to leave were asked by the terrorists to name the Prophet Mohammed’s mother. If they failed to give her correct name, Amina, they were shot dead. After Muslim shoppers had left the mall, the terrorists reportedly threw grenades and fired AK-47s.
Moreover, on August 22, 2013 during the reign of Mohamed Morsi, the Moslem Brotherhood engaged in a full-scale terror campaign against Egypt''s Christian minority. They incited attacks on Christian homes, shops, schools and churches throughout the country in what was reported to be the worst violence against the Coptic Church since the 14th century.
And in Gaza Archbishop Alexios, spiritual leader of Gaza’s reduced Christian population of 1,500 described to CBS the Taliban-like shariah rule imposed by Hamas since it took over the Gaza Strip in 2007. He said
“Islam is the rule of this place and whatever Hamas says we must obey or face consequences,”
He also told CBS how Hamas used residential neighborhoods and sensitive sites like mosques, hospitals and schools from which to fire their rockets in the area.
Mosab Hassan Yousef is another authority who has studied the Koran. And as the son of one of the founders of Hamas and as a former member he speaks from personal experience. He rejected Hamas and converted to Christianity after being raised to become a Hamas militant. He is the author of the book Son of Hamas.
On July 30 he told CNN that Hamas is a dangerous organization because it doesn’t care about the lives of their own or of others.
He told The Right Scoop
"Israel is fighting on behalf of the free world”
“Hamas is not seeking coexistence and compromise. Hamas is seeking conquest and taking over. And by the way, the destruction of the State of Israel is not Hamas’s final destination..Hamas final destination is building the Islamic caliphate, which means an Islamic state on rubble of every other civilisation..Their goal is to conquer the globe and build an Islamic state on every inch and is willing to sacrifice as many Palestinian lives as it takes.
Mr Yousef said he had been brainwashed as a child to sacrifice everything for the cause. In the mosques Hamas taught that without shedding innocent blood for the sake of the ideology we wouldn’t be able to build an Islamic state. They were preparing them from the age as young as five years old.
And Italian journalist, Giulio Meotti, wrote
The people of Israel are valiant, going about their daily lives knowing that Muslim killers might explode a bomb or rocket in any public place at any time. These stubborn Israeli Jews are alone - alone in resisting in a battle for all of us. It has been calculated that since the year of the founding of the state, more than 60,000 rockets have fallen on Israel. The Israelis are victimized and they are alone, abandoned by the world — now, just as then.
A peaceful and unique nation like Israel and its people have to resort to violent means to survive. My heart breaks for them.
It is evident that Israel''s current struggle against Hamas is the free world''s first line of defense against terrible looming threats posed by the extremist Islamic organizations described by President Obama. And it is surprising that so few opinion makers realize that by supporting Hamas, as they do, and by unjustly vilifying Israel in its struggle to counter deadly attacks by this Iranian backed terrorist organization, they are in effect supporting ISIL.