Taqiyya: When Lying Is Ordained from Above

The West is blissfully ignorant of a concept, taqiyya, prevalent in the Muslim Middle East, which permits lying to non-believers in order to defeat them in battle. I observed in a January blog entry how the Egyptian governor of south Sinai alleged that a series of shark attacks against tourists visiting the Red Sea were the result of a plot by the Israeli Mossad (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/search/label/shark%20attacks). Inane? Just a one-time contrivance? Consider more recent instances of prevarication from the Palestinian territories:

Last week, Italian national and pro-Palestinian activist, Vittorio Arrigoni, was abducted and strangled to death in Gaza. Tawhid wal-Jihad, an al-Qaeda-linked group, acknowledged that it was holding Arrigoni, whom they said would only be released if their own leader was freed by Hamas, but this did not prevent Hamas from subsequently accusing Israel of the murder (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/04/italian-national-vittorio-arrigoni.html).

On April 7, Hamas terrorists fired an advanced laser-guided anti-tank missile from Gaza at a yellow school bus in southern Israel. Hamas had already learned in early March that Israel's Trophy anti-tank missile defense system, now protecting Israel's frontline Merkava tanks, is effective, so instead, they took aim at defenseless children. An Israeli 16-year-old boy died yesterday as the result of wounds sustained in the attack. Hamas claimed it didn't know the yellow bus was transporting school children (http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-says-didn-t-mean-to-target-israeli-school-bus-1.354967).

In March, five members of an Israeli family were stabbed to death in their sleep by two Palestinians in the Israeli settlement of Itamar. Yesterday Israeli announced that they had apprehended the murderers, who had confessed to their crime. The Palestinian Authority had sought to blame a disgruntled Thai worker for the grisly killings (see: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=212177).

Although much of the West still does not grasp taqiyya,
there should be no excusing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent declaration (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/27/ftn/main20047627.shtml):

"There is a different leader in Syria now, many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer."

John Kerry, principally responsible for convincing Hillary of Assad's moderation, wants to be the next Secretary of State. Kerry has repeatedly visited Damascus on behalf of Obama and favored sending a U.S. ambassador to Damascus for the first time in five years following the murder by Assad of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. I suggest that Kerry find something else to do in life that is more in keeping with his limited ken.

[Assad's security forces shot to death 12 more protesters in Homs last night. It is only a matter of time before the Syrian Ba'athist regime collapses.]

Having a Bad Day in Egypt? Blame the Jews!

In early December sharks attacked visitors swimming in the sea along the Egypt's Sinai coast, leaving one woman dead and several other persons seriously injured. Of course, someone needed to be blamed for the incidents, which were apt to dampen tourism, and who was chosen for the role of scapegoat? You guessed right! As reported by BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11937285):

"Israel has dismissed Egyptian claims that a series of shark attacks in the Red Sea could have been the result of a plot carried out by its foreign intelligence agency, Mossad.

The reports - apparently quoting the South Sinai governor - have been picked up by the Israeli media.

An elderly woman was killed by a shark in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday.

Several other swimmers have been mauled in the past week.

. . . .

Rumours had circulated in Egypt that there could be an Israeli connection to this unusual spate of Red Sea shark attacks.

However, it was comments attributed to the South Sinai governor, Mohamed Abdul Fadil Shousha, carried on an official Egyptian news site that drew attention.

'What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark [in the sea] to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm,' he is reported to have said."

But if the link between the Mossad and the shark attacks suggested by South Sinai's governor was not sufficiently inane, we were treated to more poppycock from a group of Egyptian lawyers claiming that last week's attack on Egypt's Copts (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/12/ongoing-war-against-middle-easts.html) was also fomented by the Mossad. As reported by The Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=202002):

"A coalition of Egyptian lawyers accused Israel of being behind an terror attack in Alexandria that killed 22 members of the Christian Copt sect, Army Radio reported Monday.

'The Mossad carried out the the operation in a natural reaction to the latest uncovering of an Israeli espionage network,' the lawyers accused at a rally in memory of the victims, organized by the Egyptian Bar Association, according to the report.

At the gathering, aid to former Egyptian foreign minister Abdallah al-Ashal called for Cairo to reconsider its relations with Jerusalem, according to Army Radio."

Unfortunately, there is an immense market for this nonsense, intended to enflame the masses in Cairo. Although a peace treaty was signed in 1979 between Egypt and Israel by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, it is little wonder, as revealed by WikiLeaks, that the Egyptian armed forces continue to view Israel as its primary adversary (see: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=201674&R=R3).

Which leaves one to wonder what will happen when Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, soon to be 83-years-old, leaves the scene.