Islam
The Battle Over Free Speech
I thought longingly about free speech last week when I found myself in a remote area of California but couldn’t get a signal to send out a blog.
No Internet meant the inability to speak freely.
The Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris two weeks ago ignited a global discussion about free speech. Millions marching in the streets with pens raised in protest gave the impression that free speech will triumph over the murderous ways of the jihadists.
But what is free speech? Is it okay to bash the prophet and other religious leaders? Should it be legal to yell “FIRE” in a crowded movie theater? What about four letter profanities on the evening news?
There are three ways to look at freedom of speech, and only one of them produces true liberty.
A good resolution for most of us to make this year would be to learn to think more in terms of worldview.
I had never heard of this word until Francis Schaeffer introduced it to me via his writings in the mid seventies. Dr. Schaeffer taught that all human beings have certain presuppositions about life–things we assume or believe to be true, that is, a grid through which we view reality.
That’s our worldview. Every human being has one (whether we realize it or not).
My latest book which will be out in 2015 is a thorough discussion of the battling worldviews we face in the 21st century. The thesis is that there are only five concepts about reality–in other words, five views of God and their ramifications. And though there are five, I believe only three will battle for supremacy in the coming years.
Understanding these competing worldviews and their differences is crucial. Worldview affects everything you do, how you live and where you end up in eternity.
And worldviews have much to say about free speech. In fact, the three primary worldviews of the 21st century espouse very different views of freedom.
Let’s look at them one by one.
The Islamic View of Free Speech
Islam is unique to the three worldviews because it is both a comprehensive religious system containing concepts of God and how we get right with him, and a political structure that governs society.
As a religious ideology, Islam does not permit unkind words about its Deity or the Prophet Mohammed (this sin is called blasphemy). Politically, it forces submissive of all people and subjugation of women under the harsh dictates of sharia law.
Free speech in Islamic societies boils down to this: Submit, shut up, or die. You are not free to speak your own mind on many subjects and if you cross the line, the heavy hand of the law will come down upon your behavior and lop off your head or bring you forty lashes.
Freedom in Islam is forced submission of all words and behavior to the tenets of the Koran. You’re only free when you submit.
And the Koran is a book written during the Dark Ages, thirteen centuries ago, whose tenets were formed during a primitive and lawless time. Its teachings of sharia law have not been progressively updated or refined. Pre-medieval morality and austere views of human freedom still remain in place like moral dinosaurs.
Thus we understand why the Islamic terrorists in Paris savagely killed many people and did it in the name of Allah and Islam. Their worldview or religion tolerates little freedom of expression.
Over fifty nations on earth subscribe to the primitive and brutal nature of Islamic freedom.
The Secular View of Free Speech
The second worldview we saw in response to the Paris massacre was that of atheism or secularism. President Hollande of France who is a socialist, and most that marched with him, declared to the world that free speech is a glorious right and there are no exceptions to its rule.
The Charlie Hebdo people who lost their lives at the hands of the jihadists represent this side of the debate. I don’t know of their personal faith or worldview, but their cartoons and commentary mocking all things religious or political appears to state loudly that they believe in absolute freedom of expression.
The secular view of free speech is that anything goes.
In secularism, because there is no God, men become self-deities and this elevated status gives them the freedom to do whatever they desire. They can say what they want, do anything sexually that they want, and generally live hedonistic or narcissistic lives as long as they “do no harm.”
Of course, they are the ones that define “harm,” and the secularists have twisted that freedom to include aborting inside the womb at least one billion babies in the past century. Secular tyrants such at Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong killed hundreds of millions more outside the womb.
Secularism’s view of freedom is constantly evolving to include persecuting people of religious faith such as a Christian florist refusing to do flowers for a homosexual wedding. Admittedly, run-of-the-mill secularists don’t butcher people like Muslim terrorists do, but they like to restrict the freedoms of religious people.
But in sex and other areas there are no restrictions because there is no God (they think) to whom we are accountable.
Secular freedom declares that anything goes. Remember the waving pens in Paris.
The Biblical View of Free Speech
The two worldviews we’ve already mentioned, the Islamic and secular worldviews, are essentially opposites on the spectrum. On the one side, Islam believes in domination and control. Don’t mock the prophet or we will cut off your head. On the other extreme, the secularist worldview believes in unrestrained license. Do or say whatever you want.
The biblical worldview takes the wise middle ground–the balance between truth and grace. The Bible teaches us that freedom or liberty comes from doing what’s right through the power of God’s Spirit in the individual (Romans 8). Liberty is the fruit of righteousness. And when nations conform to God’s wise principles of behavior and justice, liberty is experienced in society as a whole.
But that liberty, or in this case, free speech, is not without limits.
Last week a Catholic leader appearing on a major news program said rightly that Bible-based free speech has many limits or allowances. They include:
- Protecting people’s lives–We are not “free” to yell FIRE in a crowded movie theater.
- Protecting the innocence of children–media outlets are not “free” to use four letter words or erotic sexual scenes in certain time frames or settings where they can hurt or influence children.
- Freedom to discuss or mock any idea or religion (concepts are fair game).
- Even a freedom to blaspheme God (use his Name in vain) because He is big enough to take care of His own reputation.
In ancient or primitive times, blasphemy was not permitted in Jewish culture because at the time God was concretely teaching His people basic concepts of right and wrong in the midst of dark and profuse idolatry. This was done through commandments that were necessary for the Old Testament era.
But we live in the period of the New Testament where old forms of learning have been replaced by the abstract motives of love and grace. There is greater freedom now because of increased understanding.
Thus the development of biblical virtue is the true religion of progress. The Old Covenant of law has been replaced with the truth, grace, and supernatural power of the New Covenant. Both Islam and secularism are not progressive in the true sense of the word.
Biblical faith is. The biblical worldview of free speech is this:
Liberty with loving self-restraint.
So don’t get carried away with either of the excesses of Muslim or secular concepts of free speech. One is ruthlessly controlling and the other is wildly unrestrained.
Build your life and nation on the time-tested revelation of freedom of speech that tolerates all opinions, lets God be the Judge, but wisely restrains itself because it loves Him and people.
Liberty is a beautifully balanced thing.
Two Gods Condone This Terror – Part 1
On September 24, 2014, President Barack Obama said these words before the United Nations 67th General Assembly:
“[ISIL] has terrorized all who they come across in Iraq and Syria. Mothers, sisters and daughters have been subjected to rape as a weapon of war. Innocent children have been gunned down. Bodies have been dumped in mass graves. Religious minorities have been starved to death. In the most horrific crimes imaginable, innocent human beings have been beheaded, with videos of the atrocity distributed to shock the conscience of the world.”
“No God condones this terror. No grievance justifies these actions.”
Really?
Yes, two gods do–and always have. What are they?
It’s stunning to me how some of today’s leaders are either completely ignorant of history or believe they can get away with stating bald-faced lies.
There are five major religions or views of “God:” polytheism, pantheism, atheism, Islam, and biblical faith (Judeo-Christian). While most of the adherents of these worldviews are peaceful people–because most people don’t have the propensity for violence–that doesn’t mean that the gods of these religions don’t encourage or condone it.
In fact, for hundreds of years, two “gods” in particular have revealed themselves to be blood-thirsty. Over the next two weeks I want to talk about them to set the record straight.
I will let former Muslim Raymond Ibrahim tell the truth about Islam far better than I can in his recent article.
Islam and the Islamic State
By Raymond Ibrahim
What relationship does the Islamic State have to Islam?
“Absolutely nothing” is the answer almost every Western politician gives. For example, U.S. President Obama adamantly stated in a televised speech that the Islamic State “is not Islamic.”
This begs the question: How does one determine what is—and is not—Islamic? The traditional answer, the Islamic answer, has been as follows:
What do the core texts and scriptures of Islam say about the thing in question, call it “X”? Does the Koran, believed by Muslims to contain the literal commands of Allah, call for or justify X? Do the hadith and sira texts—which purport to record the sayings and deeds of Allah’s prophet, whom the Koran (e.g., 33:21) exhorts Muslims to emulate in all ways—call for or justify X?
If any ambiguity still remains concerning X, the next question becomes: what is the consensus (ijma‘) of the Islamic world’s leading authorities concerning X? Here one must often turn to the tafsirs, or exegeses of Islam’s most learned men—the ulema—and consider their conclusions. Muhammad himself reportedly said that “My umma [Islamic nation] will never be in agreement over an error.”
For example, the Koran commands believers to uphold prayers; accordingly, all are agreed that Muslims need to pray. Yet the Koran does not specify how many times. In the hadith and sira, however, Muhammad makes clear believers should pray five times. And the ulema, having considered all these texts, are agreed that Muslims are to pray five times a day.
Thus, it is most certainly Islamic for Muslims to pray five times a day.
But while both Western politicians and Islamic apologists readily accept such methodology to determining what is Islamic—prayer is in the Koran–Muhammad clarified its implementation in the hadith, and the ulema are agreed to it—whenever the thing in question deals with anything that makes Islam ‘look bad,’ then the aforementioned standard approach to ascertaining what is Islamic is wholly ignored.
Let us consider some of the most extreme acts committed by the Islamic State—beheadings, crucifixions, enslavements, sexual predations, massacres, and the persecution of religious minorities—and put them to the test, see if they fill the same criteria, see if they are Islamic or not, especially in the context of jihad, which has its own set of rules.
Beheadings
The Islamic State beheads “infidels,” including women and children. Is it Islamic?
The Koran calls for the beheading of Islam’s enemies, especially in the context of war, or jihad: “When you encounter infidels on the battlefield, strike off their heads until you have crushed them completely” (47:4). Another verse states: “I will cast terror into the hearts of infidels—so strike off their heads and strike off all of their fingertips [i.e., mutilate them]’ (8:12).”
As for the other criteria—the example or Sunna of the prophet and the consensus of the umma—Timothy Furnish, author of the 2005 essay,”‘Beheading in the Name of Islam,” writes:
“The practice of beheading non-Muslim captives extends back to the Prophet himself. Ibn Ishaq (d. 768 C.E.), the earliest biographer of Muhammad, is recorded as saying that the Prophet ordered the execution by decapitation of 700 men of the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe in Medina for allegedly plotting against him.”
“Islamic leaders from Muhammad’s time until today have followed his model. Examples of decapitation, of both the living and the dead, in Islamic history are myriad…. For centuries, leading Islamic scholars have interpreted this verse [decapitation verse, 47:4] literally…. Many recent interpretations remain consistent with those of a millennium ago.”
Crucifixions
As for crucifying people, which the Islamic State has been doing regularly, Koran 5:33 asserts that “the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land.’
Accordingly, crucifixions are common throughout Islamic history. After Islam’s prophet died in 632, many Arabs were accused of apostasy. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, launched a jihad campaign on them, and many “apostates” were crucified as an example to the rest. In the book Witnesses For Christ: Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437-1860, crucifixion is listed as one of the many forms thousands of Christians were executed by the Muslim Turks.
More dramatically, in her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described how in the early twentieth century she saw 16 girls crucified, vultures eating their corpses: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands,” wrote the Armenian survivor. “Only their hair blown by the wind covered their bodies.”
More recently, people (including children) have been crucified by self-proclaimed jihadis in the name of Islam in countries as diverse as the Ivory Coast and Yemen.
Slavery and Rape
What of slavery—especially the enslavement of non-Muslim women for sexual purposes—which the Islamic State has been engaged in?
Again, from the highest scriptural authority in Islam—the Koran—to the greatest role model for Muslims—Muhammad; from Islamic history to current events, the sexual enslavement of ‘infidel’ women is a canonical aspect of Islamic civilization.
Koran 4:3 permits men to have sex with “what your right hands possess,” a term categorically defined by the ulema as “infidel” women captured during the jihad. The prophet of Islam himself kept and copulated with concubines conquered during the jihad. One captured Jewish woman, Safiya bint Huyay, was “married” to Muhammad right after the prophet had tortured her husband to death to reveal hidden treasure.”
And before this, Muhammad’s jihadis had slaughtered Safiya’s father and brothers.
Unsurprisingly, she later confessed that “f all men, I hated the prophet the most—for he killed my husband, my brother, and my father,” right before marrying (or, less euphemistically, raping) her.
Khalid bin Walid—the “Sword of Allah” and hero for aspiring jihadis around the world—raped another woman renowned for her beauty, Layla, on the battlefield—right after he severed her “apostate” husband’s head, lit it on fire, and cooked his dinner on it.
Massacres
What of wide-scale massacres? In some recent videos, the Islamic State appears herding, humiliating, and marching off hundreds of male hostages (the number often given is 1,400) to their trenches, where Islamic State members proceed to shoot them in the head—all while the black flag of Islam waves.
In fact, the prophet himself ordered merciless massacres of “infidels.” After the battle of Badr, where Muhammad and the first Muslims prevailed over their enemies, Muhammad ordered the execution of a number of hostages. When one of the hostages, ‘Uqba, implored the prophet to spare him, saying, “But who would do such a thing,” Mohammed ordered him killed.
More famously, Muhammad ordered the execution of approximately 700 Jewish men from the Banu Qurayza tribe. According to the sira account, after the Jewish tribe surrendered to his siege, Muhammad had all the men marched off to where ditches were dug and promptly executed by beheading—just like the Islamic State marched off and executed its victims near trenches in various videos.
Dhimmitude
The Islamic State is even responsible for resurrecting a distinctly Islamic institution that was banned in the 19th century thanks to the intervention of colonial powers: “dhimmitude,” that is, exacting tribute (jizya) from conquered Christians and Jews and subjecting them to live as third-class citizens who must embrace a host of debilitating and humiliating measures, including not to build or repair churches, not to ring church bells or worship loudly, not to display crosses, not to bury their dead near Muslims, etc.
These measures are also derived from the core texts of Islam. Koran 9:29 calls on Muslims to fight the “People of the Book” (interpreted as Christians and Jews) “until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” And the Conditions of Omar—named after one of the “righteous caliphs”—explains how they are to “feel themselves subdued,” that is, the exact way the Islamic State decreed.
Past and present ulema are confirmed that Koran 9:29 and the Conditions of Omar mean what they plainly say. Thus, according to Saudi Sheikh Marzouk Salem al-Ghamdi speaking during a Friday mosque sermon:
‘If the infidels live among the Muslims, in accordance with the conditions set out by the Prophet—there is nothing wrong with it provided they pay Jizya to the Islamic treasury. Other conditions [reference to Conditions of Omar] are … that they do not renovate a church or a monastery, do not rebuild ones that were destroyed … that they rise when a Muslim wishes to sit… do not show the cross, do not ring church bells, do not raise their voices during prayer …. If they violate these conditions, they have no protection.'”
Based on the above exposition, it is false to say, as President Obama does, that the Islamic State “is not Islamic.'” Indeed, even in the most savage of details—including triumphing over the mutilated corpses of ‘infidels’ and laughing while posing with their decapitated heads—the Islamic State finds support in the Koran and stories of the prophet.
It is dishonest to accept the methodology of Islamic jurisprudence—is X part of the Koran, hadith, sira, and does it have consensus among the ulema?—but then to reject this same methodology whenever X is something that makes Islam look “bad.”
In the context of jihad, all that the Islamic State is doing—beheadings, crucifixions, massacres, sexual enslavements, and the subjugation of religious minorities—is Islamic.
Sadly true.
Allah is one of the gods who condones terror.
Next week we will look at the second terrorist god.
The New Nazis and a Lone Prophetic Voice
On September 29, 2014, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the the United Nations General Assembly. His remarks reminded me of Winston Churchill in 1939–a lone prophetic voice of moral clarity in a sea of drivel.
He warned that a new group of “Nazis” threaten the entire world. He deplored the UN’s duplicity of speaking against ISIS while supporting Hamas and caving in to nuclear-bound Iran. His words were sobering yet carried a ring of truth.
I wish he’d gone further. We need to dismantle the corrupt and inept United Nations and call for a new global alignment to take its place.
Let’s call it Free Nations--whose members must be committed to truth, justice, and liberty.
That, and the return of Jesus Christ, are our only hopes of winning World War III.
Listen to the prophet’s words.
This speech is worth reading in its entirety. I have edited it slightly, and have placed some captions and highlights to clarify his main points.
If the reality of Israeli nationhood, the inspiration of its leader, and the truths he shares don’t convince you of God’s reality, then nothing ever will.
May we hear the voice of the prophet and rise to defeat evil in our day.
Benjamin Netanyahu
Ladies and Gentleman,
The people of Israel pray for peace. But our hopes and the world’s hope for peace are in danger. Because everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march.
Militant Islam
It’s not militants. It’s not Islam. It’s militant Islam. Typically, its first victims are other Muslims, but it spares no one. Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Kurds – no creed, no faith, no ethnic group is beyond its sights. And it’s rapidly spreading in every part of the world. You know the famous American saying: “All politics is local”? For the militant Islamists, “All politics is global.” Because their ultimate goal is to dominate the world.
Now, that threat might seem exaggerated to some, since it starts out small, like a cancer that attacks a particular part of the body. But left unchecked, the cancer grows, metastasizing over wider and wider areas. To protect the peace and security of the world, we must remove this cancer before it’s too late.
Last week, many of the countries represented here rightly applauded President Obama for leading the effort to confront ISIS. And yet weeks before, some of these same countries, the same countries that now support confronting ISIS, opposed Israel for confronting Hamas. They evidently don’t understand that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree.
ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control.
Listen to ISIS’s self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. This is what he said two months ago: “A day will soon come when the Muslim will walk everywhere as a master… The Muslims will cause the world to hear and understand the meaning of terrorism… and destroy the idol of democracy.” Now listen to Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas. He proclaims a similar vision of the future: “We say this to the West… By Allah you will be defeated. Tomorrow our nation will sit on the throne of the world.”
As Hamas’s charter makes clear, Hamas’s immediate goal is to destroy Israel. But Hamas has a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists. That’s why its supporters wildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murdered on 9/11. And that’s why its leaders condemned the United States for killing Osama Bin Laden, whom they praised as a holy warrior.
ISIS and Hamas the Same
So when it comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas.
And what they share in common, all militant Islamists share in common: • Boko Haram in Nigeria; • Ash-Shabab in Somalia; • Hezbollah in Lebanon; • An-Nusrah in Syria; • The Mahdi Army in Iraq; • And the Al-Qaeda branches in Yemen, Libya, the Philippines, India and elsewhere.
Some are radical Sunnis, some are radical Shi’ites. Some want to restore a pre-medieval caliphate from the 7th century. Others want to trigger the apocalyptic return of an imam from the 9th century. They operate in different lands, they target different victims and they even kill each other in their quest for supremacy. But they all share a fanatic ideology. They all seek to create ever expanding enclaves of militant Islam where there is no freedom and no tolerance – Where women are treated as chattel, Christians are decimated, and minorities are subjugated, sometimes given the stark choice: convert or die. For them, anyone can be an infidel, including fellow Muslims.
Militant Islam’s ambition to dominate the world seems mad. But so too did the global ambitions of another fanatic ideology that swept to power eight decades ago.
The New Nazis
The Nazis believed in a master race. The militant Islamists believe in a master faith. They just disagree about who among them will be the master… of the master faith. That’s what they truly disagree about. Therefore, the question before us is whether militant Islam will have the power to realize its unbridled ambitions.
There is one place where that could soon happen: The Islamic State of Iran. For 35 years, Iran has relentlessly pursued the global mission which was set forth by its founding ruler, Ayatollah Khomeini, in these words: “We will export our revolution to the entire world.”
Listen to its current commander, General Muhammad Ali Ja’afari. And he clearly stated this goal. He said: “Our Imam did not limit the Islamic Revolution to this country… Our duty is to prepare the way for an Islamic world government…” Iran’s President Rouhani stood here last week, and shed crocodile tears over what he called “the globalization of terrorism.”
Maybe he should spare us those phony tears and have a word instead with the commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He could ask them to call off Iran’s global terror campaign, which has included attacks in two dozen countries on five continents since 2011 alone. To say that Iran doesn’t practice terrorism is like saying Derek Jeter never played shortstop for the New York Yankees.
This bemoaning of the Iranian president of the spread of terrorism has got to be one of history’s greatest displays of double-talk.
Now, Some still argue that Iran’s global terror campaign, its subversion of countries throughout the Middle East and well beyond the Middle East, some argue that this is the work of the extremists. They say things are changing. They point to last year’s elections in Iran. They claim that Iran’s smooth talking President and Foreign Minister, they’ve changed not only the tone of Iran’s foreign policy but also its substance. They believe Rouhani and Zarif genuinely want to reconcile with the West, that they’ve abandoned the global mission of the Islamic Revolution.
Really? So let’s look at what Foreign Minister Zarif wrote in his book just a few years ago: “We have a fundamental problem with the West, and especially with America. This is because we are heirs to a global mission, which is tied to our raison d’etre… A global mission which is tied to our very reason of being.”
Nuclear Iran
So don’t be fooled by Iran’s manipulative charm offensive. It’s designed for one purpose, and for one purpose only: To lift the sanctions and remove the obstacles to Iran’s path to the bomb. The Islamic Republic is now trying to bamboozle its way to an agreement that will remove the sanctions it still faces, and leave it with the capacity of thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium. This would effectively cement Iran’s place as a threshold military nuclear power. In the future, at a time of its choosing, Iran, the world’s most dangerous state in the world’s most dangerous region, would obtain the world’s most dangerous weapons.
Allowing that to happen would pose the gravest threat to us all. It’s one thing to confront militant Islamists on pick-up trucks, armed with Kalashnikov rifles. It’s another thing to confront militant Islamists armed with weapons of mass destruction. Imagine how much more dangerous the Islamic State, ISIS, would be if it possessed chemical weapons. Now imagine how much more dangerous the Islamic state of Iran would be if it possessed nuclear weapons. Would you let ISIS enrich uranium? Would you let ISIS build a heavy water reactor? Would you let ISIS develop intercontinental ballistic missiles? Of course you wouldn’t.
Then you mustn’t let the Islamic State of Iran do those things either.
Because here’s what will happen: Once Iran produces atomic bombs, all the charm and all the smiles will suddenly disappear. They’ll just vanish. It’s then that the ayatollahs will show their true face and unleash their aggressive fanaticism on the entire world. There is only one responsible course of action to address this threat: Iran’s nuclear military capabilities must be fully dismantled. Make no mistake – ISIS must be defeated. But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.
To defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.
The fight against militant Islam is indivisible. When militant Islam succeeds anywhere, it’s emboldened everywhere. When it suffers a blow in one place, it’s set back in every place. That’s why Israel’s fight against Hamas is not just our fight. It’s your fight. Israel is fighting a fanaticism today that your countries may be forced to fight tomorrow.
The Truth About the Recent Israeli-Palestinian War
For 50 days this past summer, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel, many of them supplied by Iran. I want you to think about what your countries would do if thousands of rockets were fired at your cities. Imagine millions of your citizens having seconds at most to scramble to bomb shelters, day after day. You wouldn’t let terrorists fire rockets at your cities with impunity.
Nor would you let terrorists dig dozens of terror tunnels under your borders to infiltrate your towns in order to murder and kidnap your citizens. Israel justly defended itself against both rocket attacks and terror tunnels. Yet Israel also faced another challenge. We faced a propaganda war. Because, in an attempt to win the world’s sympathy, Hamas cynically used Palestinian civilians as human shields. It used schools, not just schools – UN schools, private homes, mosques, even hospitals to store and fire rockets at Israel.
As Israel surgically struck at the rocket launchers and at the tunnels, Palestinian civilians were tragically but unintentionally killed. There are heartrending images that resulted, and these fueled libelous charges that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians.
We were not. We deeply regret every single civilian casualty. And the truth is this: Israel was doing everything to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Hamas was doing everything to maximize Israeli civilian casualties and Palestinian civilian casualties. Israel dropped flyers, made phone calls, sent text messages, broadcast warnings in Arabic on Palestinian television, always to enable Palestinian civilians to evacuate targeted areas.
No other country and no other army in history have gone to greater lengths to avoid casualties among the civilian population of their enemies. This concern for Palestinian life was all the more remarkable, given that Israeli civilians were being bombarded by rockets day after day, night after night. As their families were being rocketed by Hamas, Israel’s citizen army – the brave soldiers of the IDF, our young boys and girls – they upheld the highest moral values of any army in the world. Israel’s soldiers deserve not condemnation, but admiration. Admiration from decent people everywhere.
Now here’s what Hamas did: Hamas embedded its missile batteries in residential areas and told Palestinians to ignore Israel’s warnings to leave. And just in case people didn’t get the message, they executed Palestinian civilians in Gaza who dared to protest.
No less reprehensible, Hamas deliberately placed its rockets where Palestinian children live and play.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a war crime. As Israeli children huddled in bomb shelters and Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system knocked Hamas rockets out of the sky, the profound moral difference between Israel and Hamas couldn’t have been clearer: Israel was using its missiles to protect its children. Hamas was using its children to protect its missiles.
By investigating Israel rather than Hamas for war crimes, the UN Human Rights Council has betrayed its noble mission to protect the innocent. In fact, what it’s doing is to turn the laws of war upside-down. Israel, which took unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties, Israel is condemned. Hamas, which both targeted and hid behind civilians – that a double war crime – Hamas is given a pass.
The Human Rights Council is thus sending a clear message to terrorists everywhere: Use civilians as human shields. Use them again and again and again. You know why? Because sadly, it works.
By granting international legitimacy to the use of human shields, the UN’s Human Rights Council has thus become a Terrorist Rights Council, and it will have repercussions. It probably already has, about the use of civilians as human shields.
It’s not just our interest. It’s not just our values that are under attack. It’s your interests and your values.
The New Tyrannies
We live in a world steeped in tyranny and terror, where gays are hanged from cranes in Tehran, political prisoners are executed in Gaza, young girls are abducted en masse in Nigeria and hundreds of thousands are butchered in Syria, Libya and Iraq. Yet nearly half, nearly half of the UN Human Rights Council’s resolutions focusing on a single country have been directed against Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East – Israel. where issues are openly debated in a boisterous parliament, where human rights are protected by independent courts and where women, gays and minorities live in a genuinely free society.
The Human Rights… (that’s an oxymoron, the UN Human Rights Council, but I’ll use it just the same), the Council’s biased treatment of Israel is only one manifestation of the return of the world’s oldest prejudices. We hear mobs today in Europe call for the gassing of Jews. We hear some national leaders compare Israel to the Nazis. This is not a function of Israel’s policies. It’s a function of diseased minds. And that disease has a name. It’s called anti-Semitism.
It is now spreading in polite society, where it masquerades as legitimate criticism of Israel. For centuries the Jewish people have been demonized with blood libels and charges of deicide. Today, the Jewish state is demonized with the apartheid libel and charges of genocide. Genocide? In what moral universe does genocide include warning the enemy’s civilian population to get out of harm’s way? Or ensuring that they receive tons, tons of humanitarian aid each day, even as thousands of rockets are being fired at us?
In the past, outrageous lies against the Jews were the precursors to the wholesale slaughter of our people.
But no more.
Today we, the Jewish people, have the power to defend ourselves. We will defend ourselves against our enemies on the battlefield. We will expose their lies against us in the court of public opinion. Israel will continue to stand proud and unbowed.
Despite the enormous challenges facing Israel, I believe we have an historic opportunity.
An Opportunity to Unite Against Evil
After decades of seeing Israel as their enemy, leading states in the Arab world increasingly recognize that together we and they face many of the same dangers: principally this means a nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movements gaining ground in the Sunni world.
Our challenge is to transform these common interests to create a productive partnership. One that would build a more secure, peaceful and prosperous Middle East.
Together we can strengthen regional security. We can advance projects in water, agriculture, in transportation, in health, in energy, in so many fields.
I believe the partnership between us can also help facilitate peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Many have long assumed that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can help facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab World. But these days I think it may work the other way around: Namely that a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
And therefore, to achieve that peace, we must look not only to Jerusalem and Ramallah, but also to Cairo, to Amman, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and elsewhere. I believe peace can be realized with the active involvement of Arab countries, those that are willing to provide political, material and other indispensable support. I’m ready to make a historic compromise, not because Israel is occupying a foreign land. The people of Israel are not occupiers in the Land of Israel. History, archeology and common sense all make clear that we have had a singular attachment to this land for over 3,000 years.
The Middle East is in chaos. States are disintegrating. Militant Islamists are filling the void.
Israel cannot have territories from which it withdraws taken over by Islamic militants yet again, as happened in Gaza and Lebanon. That would place the likes of ISIS within mortar range – a few miles – of 80% of our population.
Land for Peace, or Suicide?
Think about that. The distance between the 1967 lines and the suburbs of Tel Aviv is like the distance between the UN building here and Times Square. Israel’s a tiny country. That’s why in any peace agreement, which will obviously necessitate a territorial compromise, I will always insist that Israel be able to defend itself by itself against any threat. Yet despite all that has happened, some still don’t take Israel’s security concerns seriously. But I do, and I always will. Because, as Prime Minister of Israel, I am entrusted with the awesome responsibility of ensuring the future of the Jewish people and the future of the Jewish state.
And no matter what pressure is brought to bear, I will never waver in fulfilling that responsibility.
I believe that with a fresh approach from our neighbors, we can advance peace despite the difficulties we face.
In Israel, we have a record of making the impossible possible. We’ve made a desolate land flourish. And with very few natural resources, we have used the fertile minds of our people to turn Israel into a global center of technology and innovation.
Peace, of course, would enable Israel to realize its full potential and to bring a promising future not only for our people, not only for the Palestinian people, but for many, many others in our region.
But the old template for peace must be updated. It must take into account new realities and new roles and responsibilities for our Arab neighbors. There is a new Middle East. It presents new dangers, but also new opportunities. Israel is prepared to work with Arab partners and the international community to confront those dangers and to seize those opportunities. Together we must recognize the global threat of militant Islam, the primacy of dismantling Iran’s nuclear weapons capability and the indispensable role of Arab states in advancing peace with the Palestinians.
All this may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but it’s the truth. And the truth must always be spoken, especially here, in the United Nations.
The Biblical Prophetic Word
Isaiah, our great prophet of peace, taught us nearly 3,000 years ago in Jerusalem to speak truth to power.
“For the sake of Zion, I will not be silent. For the sake of Jerusalem, I will not be still. Until her justice shines bright, And her salvation glows like a flaming torch.”
Let’s light a torch of truth and justice to safeguard our common future.”