The Islamization of History

In this mailing: - Uzay Bulut: The Islamization of History - Malcolm Lowe: What Is the World Council of Churches? - Amir Taheri: Russia Woos the World with New Plan on Syria [] [The Islamization of History]( by Uzay Bulut • July 30, 2017 at 5:00 am - Not only does no other religion in Turkey, other than Islam, have the power, influence or financing of the Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) -- whose budget even surpasses that of most ministries; other religions are either not officially recognized (as in the cases of Alevism and Yazidism), or are on the verge of complete governmental elimination -- as in the cases of Judaism, Greek Orthodoxy, Assyrian (Syriac) and Armenian Christianity. - "...[S]ince the creation of the world there is only one religion and it is the religion of Islam.... therefore, when Islam was not in that area before Mohammed came to it, it should have been there....So any place like this had to be freed, not to be conquered...And therefore, there is no Islamic occupation. If somebody occupies anything, it will always be somebody else, not the Muslims. So, there is no Islamic occupation. There is only Islamic liberation." -- Moshe Sharon, Professor Emeritus of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem - To be effective, however, policies safeguarding religious liberty must include conducting an honest and open discussion of the history and doctrine of Islam, as well as its contemporary iteration, not as a "religion of peace" -- which, in Islam, is to occur only after the entire world has accepted Allah, as well as Islamic law, Sharia -- but as one of war and terror. Mehmet Görmez, President of Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet), announced in June that Islam was brought to the world by Allah to correct the "distortions" of Judaism and Christianity. (Image source: Tezkiretul/Wikimedia Commons) The debate over whether Islam has been hijacked by fundamentalists -- or whether the religion itself preaches the kind of hatred that leads to terrorism -- has been raging since the 9/11/2001 attacks on the United States. Although this issue has not been resolved, one thing is clear: in the Muslim world, the demonization of Jews and Christians is commonplace. Take Turkey, for example, where anti-Semitism has been exhibited publicly for decades by prominent members of government, the religious establishment and the media. In June this year, the head of the government's Religious Affairs Directorate -- the "Diyanet" -- joined the chorus. [Continue Reading Article]( [] [What Is the World Council of Churches?]( by Malcolm Lowe • July 30, 2017 at 4:30 am - A new period began with the appointment of Emilio Castro as the Fourth General Secretary of the WCC during 1985-1992. Social and political issues had always been a subsidiary concern of the WCC; their role had grown under Castro's immediate predecessor, Philip Potter (1972-1984). From now on, however, those issues became its most prominent focus. Increasingly, advocacy on behalf of the Palestinians and denunciations of Israel came to top the agenda. - If the WCC ceased to exist, few would miss it today. The WCC has become one more NGO that survives largely on magnifying the Arab-Israel conflict at the expense of other conflicts in the world. In contrast to the resources lavished on "Palestine," the WCC has devoted only occasional words -- and not a single "Ecumenical Accompanier" -- to the millions of Christians recently displaced from or killed in other Middle East countries. - Thus there is a vast gap between the appearance and the reality of the WCC. The appearance is the claim that the WCC consists of hundreds of churches in over a hundred countries working for Christian unity. The reality is a small Secretariat in Geneva financed chiefly by some handfuls of European Protestant bureaucrats. World Council of Churches General Secretary Olav Fykse Tveit made false accusations against Israel in a 2016 sermon. Pictured above: Tveit in Switzerland, on July 1, 2011. (Image source: ©SEK/Flügge) The World Council of Churches was founded with a noble aim: to overcome the divisions of Christianity and restore the unity of purpose of Christ's original followers. After the retirement of its founding spirit, Willem Visser 't Hooft, it drifted away from its original concerns, a development that accelerated after his death in 1985. Today it has shrunk in effect to a small secretariat in Geneva that draws inspiration from its obsession with the Palestinian problem and has little else currently to its credit or discredit. [Continue Reading Article]( [] [Russia Woos the World with New Plan on Syria]( by Amir Taheri • July 30, 2017 at 4:00 am Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Moscow, on October 20, 2015. (Image source: kremlin.ru) Caught between the hope of securing a lasting foothold in the Middle East and the fear of inheriting an impossible situation, Russia is trying to re-gauge its Syrian policy with possible support from the Trump administration in Washington. The key feature of Russia's evolving new strategy is an attempt at changing the narrative on Syria from one depicting a civil war to one presented as a humanitarian emergency that deserves massive international aid. Western analysts say the new narrative has the merit of pushing aside thorny issues such as the future of President Bashar al-Assad and power-sharing in a future government. Russia's other aim is to divert international attention from the investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity that might concern not only Assad but also Moscow's own military in Syria. [Continue Reading Article]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [RSS]( [Donate]( Copyright © Gatestone Institute, All rights reserved. You are subscribed to this list as {EMAIL} You can change how you receive these emails: [Update your subscription preferences]( or [Unsubscribe from this list]( [Gatestone Institute]() 14 East 60 St., Suite 705, New York, NY 10022