You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Arabia
Official Saudi cleric preaches Terrorism "a ruse" at hajj
2006-01-10
LINK HERE A TOP Saudi cleric has told Muslim pilgrims marking the climax of hajj that the west was using the global phenomenon of terrorism to scare people away from Islam and discredit legitimate Muslim causes. Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Sudeis, the state-appointed preacher at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, also called today for stability in Iraq and said Islam was innocent of the charge of terrorism. "The campaign against Islam has become fierce and Muslims are being described in insulting terms to distort the image of Islam and scare people away from it," he told the 2.5 million pilgrims in a sermon to mark the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha.

He accused western countries of hypocrisy in promoting freedom and democracy, citing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "When the oppressor Zionist enemy uses its war of smart bombs and tanks against our brothers in Palestine, violating our holy sites, that's not terrorism to their mind - but defending land, religion and honour is," Sudeis said.
Here comes the biased rewriting of history
Israel has largely crushed a Palestinian uprising launched in 2000 and Al-Haram al-Sharif, the site of Islam's holy Al-Aqsa mosque,
Isn't this the temple mount, holy to Jews and Christians too? is in Arab East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel
in a war started by the arabs
after its capture in the 1967 Middle East war in a move that has not been recognised internationally.
Rantburg help, I thought it HAD been recognised internationally. Is this just plain wrong?
Israel says military measures taken in Palestinian areas are self-defence against suicide bombings and other attacks. The Palestinian issue is often cited by Islamic militants, including those fighting the US-backed government in Iraq.
Palestinians could have had a state but Arafat chose the intifada of 2000 instead. This isn't mentioned though. And islamic militants do not cite Palestinians when they attack Hindus in India/Kashmir, women not wearing the veil in Bangladesh, Christians and Animists in the Sudan and Nigeria, Buddhists in Thailand or Russians in Beslan.
Posted by:Thiling Phairt7838

#11  There's gotta be a rantburger out there who can set the story straight on Temple Mount. Anybody got a short history on that, beginning with earliest claims to the site, the sequence of buildings that have been there, and how many times, by which tribes, its "ownership" has changed hands? LH are you out there?

Also, just curious-about how many "Muslim holy sites" are there in Israel?
Posted by: jules 2   2006-01-10 22:35  

#10  Brit Hume: he's on Fox, yes? (I only ever get my news from Rantburg anymore. We's the fustest with the mostest!) I'm really surprised they let that report through, now that one of the Saudi princelings owns a sizable piece of the company, and has boasted how he's influencing their reporting.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-01-10 21:41  

#9  What's your take on doughnuts, Sheik Lard Ass?
I'm thinking..."good"?
Posted by: tu3031   2006-01-10 16:21  

#8  How DARE you infidels disturb our peace by discrediting our peaceful Religion of Peace™

We will KILL you for that!!!! We will cut off your heads and shred you to peace-es!!!
Posted by: PlanetDan   2006-01-10 16:09  

#7  Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh is the Grand Mufti. He's the guy from yesterday with the bad teeth. Dental Guy is admitting that the War on Terror boils down to a war on Salafism (and to a much lesser extent its Deobandi clone), which is a point I've been trying to make for quite awhile.
Posted by: Fred   2006-01-10 15:05  

#6  Here is what was on Brit Hume's grapvine last night. It is on the website today under his show, Special Report.

View from Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia's top cleric has called the War on Terror, "a war against our creed." Delivering a prayer at Mount Arafat, Isam's most sacred site, grand mufti Sheik Abdul-aziz al-Sheik declared, "Oh, Muslim nation, there is a war against our creed, against our culture under the pretext of fighting terrorism. We should stand firm and united in protecting our religion." The Sheik added, "Islam's enemies want to empty our religion from its contents and its meaning. But the soldiers of God will be victorious."

Note that this quote lists a seperate guy (who is probably fat like the guy in the picture), so it seems there are several religous heavyweights (pun intended) spitting out a common thread of bile.

These "holy men" spread a message of hatred. The tone of their message is one of conflict and finger-pointing. This is all old news to RB'ers, but I was actually shocked to see such blatant comments reported in the western media. Unfortunately, Brit didn't have a spokesman from the US State Dept. saying such comments were despicable or anything. No, that would require sack on the part of the State Dept and admin.
Posted by: remoteman   2006-01-10 14:54  

#5  More importantly, why is it so difficult for our State department to sprout a set and send the Saudis a note that their government sponsorship of bile-spewing Islamist drones like Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Sudeis will result in NO MORE VISAS BEING ISSUED TO ANY SAUDIS, EVER? Enough of this sh!t. Spout all you want, but know that it comes with a price tag. Our government needs to adopt a cross-departmental approach to fighting this horsesh!t. He||, we can barely get the NSA, CIA and FBI to cooperate. Some heads dearly need knocking together.
Posted by: Zenster   2006-01-10 12:50  

#4  A lot of the "Mullahs that be" are scared witless by the declining numbers of Moslems, who are converting to Christianity in droves. It is noteworthy that many are not content to become "secular Moslems", but become Christians so they are "not Moslems"; not just ignoring Islam, but rejecting it outright.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-01-10 12:45  

#3  Nope. The war was started by the Arabs: blockade of international waters has ever been counted as an act of war just like attacking enemy soil. And that was what Egypt did with the Akaba Gulf.
Posted by: JFM   2006-01-10 12:36  

#2  The Six Day (1967) War was technically started by Israel. Egypt and Syria were building up for an attack but the Israelis jumped first. Israeli occupation is recognized internationally as a fait accompli, but annexation has not been.
Posted by: Shamp Croper9234   2006-01-10 11:08  

#1  When was the Mosque built ontop of the Temple Mount? If it was pre-1967 the Israeli's should have leveled it in the aftermath of the war, especially seeing as the Muslims had desicrated so many Jewish holy areas in Jerusalem.

Actually they should have removed the moslims from the West Bank and Gaza in the immediate aftermath of the war but that's another issue.

Israel was overly kind to those that nearly slaughtered them and that kindness was quickly forgotten. Israel has been dealing with that misplaced kindness since.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2006-01-10 11:06  

00:00