Ramadan begins this year on Sunday, March 10. It’s the most important month in the Islamic lunar calendar, the month when the first verses of the Qur’an were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel on behalf of the Muslim god, Allah.During Ramadan, Muslims around the world fast from sunrise to sunset. Believers are also prohibited from drinking any liquids, smoking cigarettes or engaging in any sexual activity from dawn to dusk.Though all this is business as usual, a new Canadian twist has been added. Its stimulus is yet another war between Israel and the Palestinians, this time an unprovoked attack by Hamas, the Islamic terrorist organization that’s been running Gaza since 2007, a self-proclaimed jihadist body determined to drive the Jews of Israel into the Mediterranean Sea to liberate it for exclusive occupation of the Ummah (the collective Muslim world). This addition, rooted in Qur’anic teachings, was announced by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and more than 250 Canadian mosques and other associations in an open warning letter addressed last week to elected members of Canada’s Parliament that makes no mention of Hamas or its initiation of this offensive war for Jewish extermination.The letter called on MPs to accept the following one-sided demands “before coming to our community gatherings” during Ramadan:1. Condemning the war crimes being committed by Israeli forces;2. Supporting an immediate ceasefire urgently needed to protect civilians sheltering in Rafah and beyond;3. Demanding the immediate resumption of funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) a lifeline for millions of refugees which was suspended without reasonable basis;4. Opposing the flow of arms and military equipment to the Netanyahu (Israeli) government, which, as confirmed by the ICJ (International Court of Justice), is engaged in plausible genocide.“If you cannot publicly commit to all of the above, respectfully, we cannot provide you with a platform to address our congregations. Ramadan is about humanity. This Ramadan, more than ever, only those MPs who share in our commitment to humanity will be welcome to address us in our sacred spaces,” the letter proclaimed.The letter also argued, “The Muslim community (read: Ummah) throughout our country is deeply affected by the loss of all innocent life, including the tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters in Gaza who have fallen victim to the collective punishment imposed upon them by the Netanyahu (Israeli) government." "Millions more are at risk of death due to indiscriminate bombardment, the targeting of hospitals, systematic starvation and the proposed military operation in Rafah.”Not a word in this letter referred to the “humanity” of the non-Ummah Israeli people, including the 1,200 people who were murdered in the unprovoked October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel during which this jihadist group kidnapped 253 hostages. (If they're still alive, 130 remain prisoners in Gaza.) And, all of the letter’s demands are false or distorted.To wit: There have been carefully targeted bombardments only supported by advance notices to civilians. No hospitals have been singled out as such. There has been no deliberate effort to starve Palestinians to death. On the contrary, the aim of the war has always been to destroy Hamas, a genocidal organization that indiscriminately uses its people as human shields in hospitals, schools and on the streets and whose founding documents call for the extermination of Israel’s Jews.The commission of “war crimes,” as defined by the 2010 United Nations Rome Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are unsubstantiated incendiary charges at most because they have not been proven.In late January, the ICJ issued an interim emergency ruling on South Africa's claim that the war in Gaza amounts to an act of genocide. The court ordered Israel to take measures to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide in its war in Gaza but did not order a ceasefire or call Israel’s actions in Gaza “war crimes.” Nor did it “confirm” that Israel was “engaged in plausible genocide.” It merely found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide. A final decision on this charge is years away.Impatient for a ruling, South Africa argued in a February 12 submission to the ICJ that Israel’s potential operations in southern Gaza constitute a “significant development” that would warrant the court ordering provisional measures in addition to those that the ICJ ordered on January 26. On February 15, Israel called for the ICJ to dismiss South Africa’s new request. The next day, the ICJ did exactly that.Many other experts and organizations have done so as well, pointing out that, “South Africa has had many opportunities to hold actual war criminals accountable for their atrocities. Instead of doing so, it sought to shield Sudan’s Omar Bashir, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar Assad from accountability. There is reason to believe that with its case before the ICJ, South Africa is carrying water for the Islamic Republic of Iran. While it may take time to find the smoking gun — which may ultimately be found in a tangled web of front companies — the smoke can’t conceal the two governments’ mutual interest in distracting their populations from their domestic problems and, in doing so, emboldening Iranian proxies like Hamas. The Biden administration should push back hard in these cases and encourage our allies to do likewise.”Indeed, the United States has done so by dismissing as “meritless” South Africa’s genocide claim.Conversely, even the chronically anti-Israel UN has said that Hamas’ indiscriminate killing on October 7 of hundreds of non-combatants, including children and the abduction of about 200 others as hostages and human shields in Gaza, is a crime under international humanitarian law: “Reports that armed groups from Gaza have gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians are abhorrent and cannot be tolerated. Taking civilian hostages and using civilians as human shields are war crimes,” it said.Legal experts have also opined that Hamas and other groups, such as Islamic Jihad, may also be guilty of war crimes for firing thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israel.Moreover, “supporting an immediate ceasefire” in Rafah is an unacceptable demand absent the surrender of all the hostages and a guarantee that Hamas will cease its chronic missile attacks on Israel. The unconditional ceasefire demanded by those who signed the NCCM letter would also allow Hamas to regroup and resume its promise of committing October 7 atrocities over and over, as would the demand to halt “the flow of arms and military equipment to” the Israelis but not to Hamas.“Demanding the immediate resumption of funding for UNRWA,” because it was not “suspended without reasonable basis,” is also grounded in bad faith and a denial of facts.Funding was temporarily halted by Canada, the US, Australia, Italy, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Scotland for good cause: 12 of its employees have been accused plausibly of actively participating in the October 7 pogrom; allegations that around 10% of its 13,000 employees in the Gaza Strip have connections to Islamist militant groups, primarily Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad; and accusations that 190 UNRWA employees are militants.It has also been shown that UNRWA facilities such as hospitals and schools have been used as Hamas storage, planning and operational facilities.The worst feature of UNRWA may well be its perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee problem, originally a temporary displacement phenomenon now in its fourth generation, a condition unprecedented in human history.Given all these flaws, the National Council of Canadian Muslims letter should be ignored by the members of Parliament. But will this happen?Abd Alfatah Twakkal, director of the Canadian Council of Imams (CCI), one of the hundreds of organizations that signed the warning letter, said the document is about sending a “message” to politicians, namely MPs who refuse to sign on to these pledges risk losing “political capital within our communities.”If acted upon, this extortion threat would be a real blow to both the Liberal and NDP parties, given the overwhelming support they have among Muslim voters.The fact that so many diverse organizations signed the letter confirms what many observers have been shouting for decades: the conflict between Israel and its Muslim neighbours has nothing to do with land and everything to do with religion, the drive for an undivided Islamic Ummah across the globe, as demanded in extremist interpretations of the Qur’an and allied religious documents by Hamas and other terrorist groups, supported by the many military exploits of Mohammed.There are 62 instances in which the term Ummah is mentioned in the Qur’an, and they almost always refer to groups of people subject to the same divine plan of salvation.The 2017 Hamas Charter states that “Hamas believes in the unity of the Ummah with all its diverse constituents and is aware of the need to avoid anything that could fragment the Ummah and undermine its unity…. Hamas also condemns all forms of colonialism, occupation, discrimination, oppression and aggression in the world.”The biased NCCM Ummah unity letter reads like an addendum to this charter.Hymie Rubenstein, a retired professor of anthropology, the University of Manitoba, is editor of REAL Israel & Palestine Report and REAL Indigenous Report .
Ramadan begins this year on Sunday, March 10. It’s the most important month in the Islamic lunar calendar, the month when the first verses of the Qur’an were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel on behalf of the Muslim god, Allah.During Ramadan, Muslims around the world fast from sunrise to sunset. Believers are also prohibited from drinking any liquids, smoking cigarettes or engaging in any sexual activity from dawn to dusk.Though all this is business as usual, a new Canadian twist has been added. Its stimulus is yet another war between Israel and the Palestinians, this time an unprovoked attack by Hamas, the Islamic terrorist organization that’s been running Gaza since 2007, a self-proclaimed jihadist body determined to drive the Jews of Israel into the Mediterranean Sea to liberate it for exclusive occupation of the Ummah (the collective Muslim world). This addition, rooted in Qur’anic teachings, was announced by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and more than 250 Canadian mosques and other associations in an open warning letter addressed last week to elected members of Canada’s Parliament that makes no mention of Hamas or its initiation of this offensive war for Jewish extermination.The letter called on MPs to accept the following one-sided demands “before coming to our community gatherings” during Ramadan:1. Condemning the war crimes being committed by Israeli forces;2. Supporting an immediate ceasefire urgently needed to protect civilians sheltering in Rafah and beyond;3. Demanding the immediate resumption of funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) a lifeline for millions of refugees which was suspended without reasonable basis;4. Opposing the flow of arms and military equipment to the Netanyahu (Israeli) government, which, as confirmed by the ICJ (International Court of Justice), is engaged in plausible genocide.“If you cannot publicly commit to all of the above, respectfully, we cannot provide you with a platform to address our congregations. Ramadan is about humanity. This Ramadan, more than ever, only those MPs who share in our commitment to humanity will be welcome to address us in our sacred spaces,” the letter proclaimed.The letter also argued, “The Muslim community (read: Ummah) throughout our country is deeply affected by the loss of all innocent life, including the tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters in Gaza who have fallen victim to the collective punishment imposed upon them by the Netanyahu (Israeli) government." "Millions more are at risk of death due to indiscriminate bombardment, the targeting of hospitals, systematic starvation and the proposed military operation in Rafah.”Not a word in this letter referred to the “humanity” of the non-Ummah Israeli people, including the 1,200 people who were murdered in the unprovoked October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel during which this jihadist group kidnapped 253 hostages. (If they're still alive, 130 remain prisoners in Gaza.) And, all of the letter’s demands are false or distorted.To wit: There have been carefully targeted bombardments only supported by advance notices to civilians. No hospitals have been singled out as such. There has been no deliberate effort to starve Palestinians to death. On the contrary, the aim of the war has always been to destroy Hamas, a genocidal organization that indiscriminately uses its people as human shields in hospitals, schools and on the streets and whose founding documents call for the extermination of Israel’s Jews.The commission of “war crimes,” as defined by the 2010 United Nations Rome Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are unsubstantiated incendiary charges at most because they have not been proven.In late January, the ICJ issued an interim emergency ruling on South Africa's claim that the war in Gaza amounts to an act of genocide. The court ordered Israel to take measures to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide in its war in Gaza but did not order a ceasefire or call Israel’s actions in Gaza “war crimes.” Nor did it “confirm” that Israel was “engaged in plausible genocide.” It merely found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide. A final decision on this charge is years away.Impatient for a ruling, South Africa argued in a February 12 submission to the ICJ that Israel’s potential operations in southern Gaza constitute a “significant development” that would warrant the court ordering provisional measures in addition to those that the ICJ ordered on January 26. On February 15, Israel called for the ICJ to dismiss South Africa’s new request. The next day, the ICJ did exactly that.Many other experts and organizations have done so as well, pointing out that, “South Africa has had many opportunities to hold actual war criminals accountable for their atrocities. Instead of doing so, it sought to shield Sudan’s Omar Bashir, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar Assad from accountability. There is reason to believe that with its case before the ICJ, South Africa is carrying water for the Islamic Republic of Iran. While it may take time to find the smoking gun — which may ultimately be found in a tangled web of front companies — the smoke can’t conceal the two governments’ mutual interest in distracting their populations from their domestic problems and, in doing so, emboldening Iranian proxies like Hamas. The Biden administration should push back hard in these cases and encourage our allies to do likewise.”Indeed, the United States has done so by dismissing as “meritless” South Africa’s genocide claim.Conversely, even the chronically anti-Israel UN has said that Hamas’ indiscriminate killing on October 7 of hundreds of non-combatants, including children and the abduction of about 200 others as hostages and human shields in Gaza, is a crime under international humanitarian law: “Reports that armed groups from Gaza have gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians are abhorrent and cannot be tolerated. Taking civilian hostages and using civilians as human shields are war crimes,” it said.Legal experts have also opined that Hamas and other groups, such as Islamic Jihad, may also be guilty of war crimes for firing thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israel.Moreover, “supporting an immediate ceasefire” in Rafah is an unacceptable demand absent the surrender of all the hostages and a guarantee that Hamas will cease its chronic missile attacks on Israel. The unconditional ceasefire demanded by those who signed the NCCM letter would also allow Hamas to regroup and resume its promise of committing October 7 atrocities over and over, as would the demand to halt “the flow of arms and military equipment to” the Israelis but not to Hamas.“Demanding the immediate resumption of funding for UNRWA,” because it was not “suspended without reasonable basis,” is also grounded in bad faith and a denial of facts.Funding was temporarily halted by Canada, the US, Australia, Italy, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Scotland for good cause: 12 of its employees have been accused plausibly of actively participating in the October 7 pogrom; allegations that around 10% of its 13,000 employees in the Gaza Strip have connections to Islamist militant groups, primarily Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad; and accusations that 190 UNRWA employees are militants.It has also been shown that UNRWA facilities such as hospitals and schools have been used as Hamas storage, planning and operational facilities.The worst feature of UNRWA may well be its perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee problem, originally a temporary displacement phenomenon now in its fourth generation, a condition unprecedented in human history.Given all these flaws, the National Council of Canadian Muslims letter should be ignored by the members of Parliament. But will this happen?Abd Alfatah Twakkal, director of the Canadian Council of Imams (CCI), one of the hundreds of organizations that signed the warning letter, said the document is about sending a “message” to politicians, namely MPs who refuse to sign on to these pledges risk losing “political capital within our communities.”If acted upon, this extortion threat would be a real blow to both the Liberal and NDP parties, given the overwhelming support they have among Muslim voters.The fact that so many diverse organizations signed the letter confirms what many observers have been shouting for decades: the conflict between Israel and its Muslim neighbours has nothing to do with land and everything to do with religion, the drive for an undivided Islamic Ummah across the globe, as demanded in extremist interpretations of the Qur’an and allied religious documents by Hamas and other terrorist groups, supported by the many military exploits of Mohammed.There are 62 instances in which the term Ummah is mentioned in the Qur’an, and they almost always refer to groups of people subject to the same divine plan of salvation.The 2017 Hamas Charter states that “Hamas believes in the unity of the Ummah with all its diverse constituents and is aware of the need to avoid anything that could fragment the Ummah and undermine its unity…. Hamas also condemns all forms of colonialism, occupation, discrimination, oppression and aggression in the world.”The biased NCCM Ummah unity letter reads like an addendum to this charter.Hymie Rubenstein, a retired professor of anthropology, the University of Manitoba, is editor of REAL Israel & Palestine Report and REAL Indigenous Report .
