Our Journey to Israel and Palestine

Authored by: Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

ABOUT THIS BOOK:

 We tackle our brief journey to Israel and Palestine that took place in the last week of March, 2018. We cover the journey events, our intellectual encounters with Israeli professors, pieces of advice addressed to Israel and the Palestinians, comments of readers, and two articles of two Quranists. These reactions reflect the current Arab mentality with its positive and negative points. This is the testimony of a 69-year-old witness and a peaceful Muslim thinker; the journey events are recorded before they slip from our memory. We offer solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, hoping to see them realized. Arab propaganda contains the stereotype of Israelis as 'pure evil', and some Israelis have a negative image of all Arabs, and this is partly because of what Arabs do to themselves now. We offer a different viewpoint to end generalized stereotypes and distorted images and to break the ice; this is the basis of establishing peaceful coexistence between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

PART I of the BOOK: The Journey

CHAPTER I

Introduction:

 We have been absent for a week from our Quranism website; we have notified beforehand our fellow Quranists of this absence within a comment under the last one of our articles, telling everyone to continue publishing their comments and articles during our temporary absence. We did not tell them about the reason for our absence; we went on a journey to Palestine, passing through Tel Aviv and then we reached the city of Nablus. We write this article about this journey, its reason and its events, in order to record part of our personal history as a witness, as this has been our first journey to Israel and Palestine; in fact, this is our second journey outside the USA after obtaining the American nationality. 

Firstly: the reason of our absence has been to attend the wedding party of our son, Amir Mansour:

 Amir is our third son, and he is a genius in his work, as a computer engineer specializing in creating and maintaining internet websites; he holds a prestigious post at the University of Maryland. The physical and facial features of Amir, more than the rest of our sons, resemble very much our late honored father, sheikh Mansour M. Ali Ibrahim. In fact, Amir, more than the rest of our sons, is the one who, more often than not, helps everyone else around him as best as he can; he voluntarily offers technical support to our Quranism website and he is its webmaster. Our problem with Amir has been his hesitancy; previously, he hesitated for a long time to get married as he did not find his soul-mate and chosen partner in life. At last, Amir has met an American Muslim young woman, Bisan, who works in an international civil organization that cares for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; the bride's parents are Americans of Palestinian origin; her father is a retired professor of mathematics and her mother has obtained the MA degree. Amir and Bisan have decided to get married and we felt overjoyed because our son has found his dream girl. The bride's parents decided to return to their native village which is located near Nablus in the Palestinian territories; they desired that after the wedding party in the USA, there should be another wedding party in Nablus, as the father of Bisan is building a house in a piece of land he owns there. Of course, getting into the West Bank entails that we enter into Israel first. In fact, we tried to avoid this journey, because of our old age and poor state of health, by attending the wedding party in the USA and the ceremony of drawing the marriage contract celebrated at our home in VA; we are the one who has written and registered the marriage contract by the power authorized to us as a marriage registrar in VA. We have also arranged another party (which we have not attended, of course) at our native village, Abou Herez, in Al-Sharqiyah Governorate, Egypt, in honor of Amir and Bisan so that we could offer an excuse to avoid traveling to attend the wedding party in Nablus; this long journey would be very tiring to our person because of our poor health. Yet, Amir has his charming nature; he (like our person) does not like to insist on anyone to do anything; when he heard our begging to be excused from traveling to Nablus, Amir seemed apparently agreeing with us, but his facial features showed otherwise; he felt very sad; hence, we have changed our mind so as not to let him down; we assured him we will attend the wedding party in Nablus, since we will not be able to attend the wedding party in Cairo.                 

Secondly: the journey to Tel Aviv:

1- We have our share of very painful memories about security measures, because of our suffering from them for 25 years in Egypt, where we have been persecuted by the security men. This is why we felt extremely worried as we have heard about the very strict security measures at the airport in Tel Aviv; people there check everything thoroughly and interrogate everyone meticulously, especially those of Arab origin, like our person, even if they have obtained the American nationality. We have heard that the same very strict measures are taken when one leaves Israel; some people have missed their plane because of the long duration of such interrogations. We have also heard about the security checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank and inside the West Bank and how people there are suffering harsh treatment and strict measures and how they stand in long queues while waiting interminably. One of the Quranists, a Palestinian man, has written an article on our website about such security checkpoints and we believed him initially; we have written an article about this topic to attack these strict measures and to urge the Israeli authorities to alleviate them and to treat peaceful Palestinians kindly in general and at these checkpoints in particular (this is the link of our article in English: http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=17605).     

2- Fearing to suffer any strict or humiliating security measures at the airport in Tel Aviv and at the checkpoints in the Palestinian territories when we arrive and when we leave, we have contacted our Jewish friend Dr. Charles Jacobs; both he and our person share a common history as we have participated in establishing the Boston-based non-profit organization Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) (http://www.peaceandtolerance.org/about/directors/sheikh-dr-ahmed-mansour/). Besides, our noble friend, Charles Jacobs, has supported and helped our person many times before on several occasions; we have told him about our journey and our fears, and he felt very glad to help; he told us to send him photocopies of the tickets and the passports of all those who will go on this journey to Israel, and he promised to send these photocopies to some of his friends in Israel to facilitate matters to us. Besides, Charles Jacobs promised to contact some of his Israeli acquaintances in the academic circles among professors and those who are interested in our reformist intellectual project so that we could meet them and get acquainted with them.    

3- Thus, we embarked on our journey while feeling relieved. Amir went there first on Monday, 19^th of March, and arrived to the Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning, whereas our person, our wife, and my eldest son, Mohamed Mansour, arrived at night on the same Tuesday. It was arranged that in the very next day, our fourth son, Hossam Mansour, will catch up with us, as he will arrive from LA, and our second son, Sherif Mansour, will arrive in the following day. Once we landed in the Ben-Gurion Airport, unlike what we expected, our person and our wife got the entry visa so easily in little time; in contrast, our son Mohamed was interrogated for about two hours at the airport. Amir called our person and told us how he was interrogated for more than five hours and a half upon his arrival; Amir has provided all the details about his wedding party, his bride and her parents, and the guests who will attend the wedding party; Amir has provided photocopies of the passports while hoping that this will facilitate matters for his parents and brothers. There was no need for them at the airport to interrogate our son Mohamed; maybe he was interrogated for two hours merely because of his first name!     

4- Our noble friend, Charles Jacobs, has made us get acquainted, via email, with his friend professor Max Singer, a retired university professor who used to work before as a Fellow at Hudson Institute; this is also where we worked as a Fellow in 2005 and delivered a lecture there about Quranism and Quranists. Professor Singer, who is over 80 years old, is a very great and noble man; he has prepared for our person a program to meet those people who are interested in our reformist trend among professors and academicians and those who are interested in restoring peace in the Middle East. Professor Singer has arranged that professor Hillel Frisch, the professor of political sciences at Bar-Ilan University, will receive us at the airport to drive us from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; he was waiting for us and contacted us; since we were waiting for the interrogation of our eldest son to end, we sincerely thanked professor Frisch and begged him to go back, as we did not know when the interrogation of Mohamed would end.      

Thirdly: the suffering because of carrying too many luggage:

1- The second reason of our suffering later on during this journey was carrying too many luggage; our wife insisted, as typical of her, to bring so many clothes and gifts to our relatives in Egypt, as she does every time she visits Egypt. Each time before she would visit our relatives and family members in Egypt, she typically goes shopping for clothes and gifts in VA and ask our sons to pay for them; our sons never refuse to gratify their mother. Within an earlier journey of our wife and some of our sons to Egypt to attend the wedding party of our fifth son, Sameh Mansour, held in our native village, Abou Herez, our wife and sons carried fourteen bags and one of the bags was lost at Cairo Airport. Within this journey, our wife had twelve bags; all these bags are supposed to be carried from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Nablus, from Nablus to the King Hussein bridge, and then to Jordanian capital, Amman, and finally to Cairo, Egypt! Eventually, our eldest son's interrogation ended and he got his entry visa, and we got out of the Ben-Gurion Airport with the luggage to look for a microbus to carry us along with the luggage to Jerusalem.   

2- Before our journey, Mohamed suggested that we travel directly from Tel Aviv to Nablus with the luggage and then our person would travel to Jerusalem to meet with those whom professor Singer has arranged for us to meet. This has been the best suggestion, but we refused to listen to our son because of our fear that we might suffer strict security measures at the security checkpoints between Nablus and Jerusalem inside the West Bank and between the West Bank and Israel; in fact, we insisted on spending the two days of encounters in Jerusalem first before all of us would go to Nablus. This was a wrong decision of ours based on false information about possible suffering and humiliation that might be experienced at security checkpoints.

3- The second wrong decision has caused more fatigue and physical pain to our person; Hossam has reserved rooms to all of us inside a hotel inside the Old City in East Jerusalem, because Mohamed loved very much to visit the Old City. 

4- The microbus we had taken reached the Al-Khalil Gate (a.k.a. Jaffa Gate) near the Old City; the driver helped us put the luggage on the pavement. To our surprise, we learned that cars cannot enter into the Old City and through its gates since its serpentine streets are too narrow and paved with basalt; these intersecting streets have their ups and downs and fit only for walking on foot; bazaars fill both sides of all streets there; this is a paradise for tourists just like Khan Al-Khalili District in Cairo and with similar crowdedness. This is ideal for young people; yet, what about an old man like our person who use a walking stick and suffers pains in the knees, in the back, and in the joints? What about the twelve bags thrown on the pavement at midnight with our person, our wife, and Mohamed standing helplessly beside them? We were in a muddle and could not know what to do; many of the passers-by gave us a look of astonishment!          

5- An Israeli police patrol stopped by us as we stood on the pavement; the patrol consisted of Arab Israelis and their leader was very polite; he talked to us using the Palestinian dialect and understood our suffering; he phoned the hotel and arranged for someone there to come and carry our luggage; we waited within a state of fatigue, gloom, and vexation for an hour, until a man came from the hotel with a bell-boy, and both felt terrified when they saw our luggage; a debate ensued that led to nowhere, and finally, a man volunteered to bring a wheelbarrow to carry the bags to the hotel; we gave him 100 shekels. Thus, the problem was solved after too much fatigue (unimagined by us, as we never saw this coming) which we would never wish to occur even to our worst foes. At the age of 69, we walk heavily and laboriously within a slow pace; we have not walked on foot since many years now; walking few steps (and ascending/descending stairs) is very painful to an old man like ourselves with weak bones; we have walked through our own Via Dolorosa through the serpentine streets of the Old City for an hour until we reached the hotel; they deceived us by saying that it would be a ten-minute walk! We were afraid lest we might take a fall and break our bones; more pains were caused to our already suffering body as we ascended the stairs inside the hotel. Most of the bags were entrusted to the hotel manager. Thus, the first night of our journey ended with unimagined physical and psychological pain.       

6- It was arranged that in the next day, Hossam will catch up with us, and he was interrogated for about an hour at Ben-Gurion Airport, despite the fact that he was told there about Amir and people there told Hossam that they wished the bridegroom a very happy marriage; Sherif arrived a day later, and he was also interrogated for about an hour at Ben-Gurion Airport. Soon enough, the American friends of Amir and Bisan arrived, as they were the guests invited to attend the wedding party that will be held in Nablus.

Fourthly: the journey will not include Egypt:

1- After attending thewedding party in Nablus, we and our son, Sherif, will return home to the USA, while the rest of our family will continue their journey, with their luggage, to Jordan so that they travel to Egypt to attend the wedding party that will be held in Cairo. We cannot attend this wedding party in Cairo, since we are prevented by the Egyptian authorities from entering Egypt. Our extended family members in Egypt will come from the rural village in Al-Sharqiyah Governorate to attend this wedding party; we have not seen them since 1998; it seems that we will die without seeing them in person!

2- We cannot attend the wedding party that will be in April in Cairo, Egypt, and the same applies to our second son Sherif. The military regime in Egypt in 2011 has sentenced him in absentia to a two-year term of imprisonment. This is a great honor to Sherif Mansour. The Egyptian authorities have accused him of providing foreign fund to help in the outbreak of the 25^th January 2011 revolt, deemed by the authorities as a foreign conspiracy against Egypt. Sherif was working at the time at Freedom House, in the USA, an organization that aims to spread democracy and freedoms, and he headed the department of the Middle-East and North Africa. Until now, he, like our person, cannot come to Egypt. This is our inescapable fate!

3- We continue in the next article.

COMMENTS:

(1) Hisham Al-Saeedi: I feel glad you have returned home safely, dear Dr. Mansour. That your good wife lost one bag at Cairo Airport at one time reminded me with the good joke about a man who performed prayers inside a mosque that contains a mausoleum dedicated to a female saint in Cairo, and when he found out that his pair of shoes were stolen, he rebuked himself for performing prayers at a woman's place!    

(2) Saeed Ali: Congratulations to Amir and the blessed Mansour family members! I felt your absence keenly and acutely; the website was like a house with dimmed lights! I sincerely wish that when Amir returns from his honeymoon, he'd introduce a chat-feature on the website and an icon-feature to know who is online and so on. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series of these articles about your great and important journey to Israel and Palestine and what you have experienced there. May God bless and protect you, my dear Dr. Mansour.    

(3) Abdelghani Bouchouar: I thank the Lord God for your safe return home to VA. Indeed, mothers and fathers do anything in the world to please their dear children who carry on their name and take their resemblance. Congratulations to the happy couple, and we implore the Lord God to grant you, my brother Dr. Mansour, good health and a long life to continue wowing readers with your writings and reformist ideas that fight ignorance, obscurantism, and tyranny. 

(4) Adel Bin Ahmad: Congratulations to Mr. Amir Mansour; may God grant him good progeny!

(5) Rabeei Bouaqal: Welcome back to the website, Dr. Mansour, and congratulations to the happy couple! I'd have liked to offer a bouquet of red roses to Amir and his bride; let me instead offer them this funny anecdote, while wishing them love and every happiness in the world: at one time, I was the elected mayor of my native village in Algeria; a long queue of peasants was formed before my eyes and before the scribe who helped me write their names so as to distribute to them the fodder for their animals later on; a man of my tribe disregarded the long queue and demanded to have his name written before everyone else because he was in a hurry; I told the scribe to write his name on top of the list; when others felt angry and expressed their being displeased and annoyed by what I have said, I told him that all of them came to get fodder for their animals, while this man was an animal who walked on four legs to get the fodder, and animals pass through crowds of human beings without thinking! All of them burst out laughing! Even the man whom I described as an animal kissed my head and laughed!       

(6) Reda Amer: Congratulations, dear brother! May God bless the newly married couple and grant them matrimonial bliss! May God grant you and your noble family members all the happiness and joy!

(7) Mustafa Ismail Hammad: Congratulations to the bride and the bridegroom; if I knew about the party in Abou Herez, I'd have been honored to attend the joyful celebration; my village is very near to your native village, Dr. Mansour, as you know.

(8) Dr. A. S. Mansour: We thank all of you, our beloved Quranists. We implore the Almighty Lord God to aid our person to continue our intellectual jihad on our website; we cannot find words enough to express our gratitude to all of you, except to implore the Lord God to allow all Quranists to meet in the Hereafter in Paradise after bestowing His mercy on them. 

CHAPTER II

Fifthly: intellectual encounters in Jerusalem:

1- As per the schedule planned by professor Singer, the time for the speech we would deliver at a higher-studies institute in Jerusalem was on Wednesday, 21^st of March. Our son Mohamed accompanied us; we saw professor Singer for the first time waiting for us at the gate along with the director of the institute (we are sorry as we forgot his name). We entered into the hall which was filled mostly with Israeli students and some professors; the director of the institute asked us to speak in formal, classical Arabic; he began by informing the attendees of our CV and career in a way that flattered us and appealed very much to our person; he talked about the Quranists who adhere to the Quran as the only source of Islamic legislations and refuse fiqh, traditions, interpretations, and hadiths, and he said they resemble the Karaite Jews in their school of thought who adhere to the Tanakh as the only source of religious laws and refuse the Midrash, the Talmud, and oral traditions and interpretations. And then came our turn to deliver our speech; at first, we have said that Quranists believe in peace, religious and political freedoms, justice, and human rights. We have asserted the fact that Islam means the adherence to peaceful behavior with all people regardless of their religious denominations and faiths. We have said that we care very much about restoring peace in the Middle East so that the Israeli children and the Palestinian children would live and thrive within a safe and secure environment as this is their basic right. We have talked about our methodology of pondering the Quranic verses and researching heritage books of traditions and the fact that we reject hadiths written and ascribed to Prophet Muhammad two centuries after his death to justify the caliphs' violation of Islam (i.e., the Quranic teachings). Having delivered our speech, it was time to hold an open discussion. Strangely, this 'eternal' question typical of Salafists was repeated: if we reject Sunna and hadiths, how come we would learn how to perform prayers?! This time, Israeli researchers posed this question to our person. As we leave the place, a male youth wearing a very long beard caught up with us along with a female colleague (and he talked in formal, classical Arabic adopting the dialect typical of Salafists/Wahabis) and he asked us very politely about prayers; he was not convinced that prayers are inherited from the monotheistic religion of Abraham; he insisted that the so-called Sunna hadiths are the only source to get to know how to pray. Our son, Mohamed, asked him if he performs prayers, and the bearded youth answered in the affirmative; this means he was a Sunnite Salafist Israeli Arab. Our son asked him about the one who taught him how to pray; the youth said that his father taught him about prayers. Mohamed told him that surely his father did not learn how to pray by reading Al-Bokhary-book hadiths. The bearded youth fell silent. Mohamed told him that people performed prayers before Al-Bokhary was born and even before other hadiths-fabricators like him were born. Again, the bearded youth remained silent. Mohamed told him further that Al-Bokhary book distorts prayers; the bearded youth looked terrified but remained silent. After we have explain this further to him, he showed a mixture of being convinced and being terribly annoyed; he excused himself very politely and moved away. An Israeli professor remained looking at our person while smiling as we delivered our speech; when his turn came to pose a question to us, after other professors and students posed their questions, he narrated this laughter-inducing story: he once invited a 'moderate' Pakistani sheikh to his house in Jerusalem, but before entering the house, he heard the barking of the dog of the professor; this Pakistani sheikh refused to enter into the house, as dogs are abomination to God as per hadiths and angels never enter into locations that contain pictures and dogs. The Israeli professor was smiling as he narrated this story and asked for our view; we have told him that this silly hadith of Abou Hurayrah aimed at expressing his hatred towards dogs as he loved and preferred cats; it is against the Quran to deem any creatures or animals as abomination or as impure. We have told him further that God says in the Quran that there are two angels for each of the human beings to record deeds and words; if the silly hadith about angels never entering into locations with pictures and dogs were true, sinners may fornicate or commit other sins while having pictures and dogs in their houses to avoid such sins being recorded by the angels who would be terrified of pictures and dogs. The Israeli professor smiled and his eyes gleamed with joy as he was convinced by what we have said to him; all hadiths are mere lies and falsehoods.                               

2- Afterwards, professor Singer accompanied our person and our son to the house of Dr. Efraim Inbar, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies (JISS) who took us in his car in a tour to visit the highest site in Jerusalem where one can see all monuments and also the diggings at Roman monuments; he talked to us about the ancient monuments of Jerusalem. Later on, professor Singer took us to his house and we have been happy to meet his very polite and hospitable wife who engaged in a long talk with Mohamed, while we were busy talking with professor Singer.     

3- Soon enough, we had another encounter with several professors, including professor Frisch, in a restaurant and all of us had enjoyable conversations while having dinner. We and our son eventually returned to the hotel in the Old City.  

4- In the next day, Thursday 22^nd of March, we had an appointment with the professors of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). We have been accompanied with our sons Mohamed and Hossam. We were asked to deliver our speech only in English. Among the attendees were professor Singer and our friend, Dr. Harold Rhode whom we know in Washington, and Dr. Dan Diker. We began our speech by mentioning the fact when we talk about real Islam (i.e., Quranism), we never preach or proselytize it among non-Muslims; rather, we aim to reform Muslims themselves by Quranism. We have asserted how the Quranist reform is very beneficial to face and combat Sunnite Wahabi terrorism that massacre the innocent people and kill civilians indiscriminately; we have explained to the attendees our Quranist methodology of pondering and reflecting on the Quranic verses, while providing an overview about our Quranism website and about our fellow Quranists. Then came the time for questions posed by the attendees. Most of the questions have been logical, simple, and common, but a retired general who worked as an analyst in the central intelligence hurled many questions to our person; chief among them was about the Quranic verses that curse Jews. We have explained to him that the term "Jews" in the Quran is used in a different way from the modern usage of the term today; the Quranic term "Jews" denotes only the sinful, polytheistic, and disbelieving ones among the Israelites and not all Israelites in general. We have explained to him that the Middle-Ages authors of the heritage books of traditions of the Muhammadans deliberately misinterpreted the term to make it refer to all Jewish people in all eras. We have asserted to him that as per the Quran, all human beings will be divided as per their deeds and belief, at the moment of death and on the Last Day, into three categories: the better ones and the good ones in Paradise (i.e., as per the Quranic Chapter 56, the Forerunners and those on the Right, respectively), and the evil, disbelieving ones in Hell. We have mentioned the Quranic fact that the same division applies to the People of the Book, the Quran-believing people, and also to Muhammad's contemporaries (i.e., the so-called companions). This retired general asked our person about certain verses inside the Quranic Chapter Nine; we have asserted to him that some Quranic legislations are confined to the lifetime of Muhammad, as part of his story in the Quran, and some others continue to be applicable when the occasions arise for this. The ones confined to the time/place when the Quranic verses were being revealed gradually are exemplified by the legislations linked to Muhammad and his wives and Muhammad and his relations with the polytheistic aggressors who violated peace treaties/pledges and disturbed the peace in Arabia, as per some of the verses mentioned in the Quranic Chapter Nine. This retired general asked us about what Mahmoud Abbas has mentioned about fighting for God's cause and for His sake as per the Quranic verses 22:39-41; we referred him to our writings in English about the Quranic legislations regarding self-defense fighting and military endeavors to stop aggressors and to end religious persecution, as this is topic will consume the limited time in this meeting. This retired general told us that our words resemble those of the extremist Sunnite Wahabi sheikh Al-Qaradawy. We told him that Al-Qaradawy is a hypocrite who deceive the West-countries people by his empty words about the so-called 'moderate' Islam, which is a myth about the Sunnite Wahabism and its nonexistent tolerance, while he talks to his followers among the terrorist MB group members using the extremist, fanatical Wahabi ideology of violence, hatred, and intolerance, because he obsequiously serves Arab tyrants. In contrast, as a thinker, we adopt the same Islamic discourse with everyone else (Muslims and non-Muslims) despite our suffering persecution by the Arab tyrannical rulers and the death threats we receive from Wahabi terrorists via email; we go on within our path despite all hardships we face. Mohamed and Hossam had their chance to talk; Hossam talked about the Salafist/Wahabi method of picking and choosing decontextualized Quranic verses and phrases while deliberately misinterpreting them and twisting, warping, and distorting their meanings. Mohamed talked about the best way to combat Wahabi terrorism by the Quranist peaceful intellectual war of ideas. The retired general said that combating terrorists is possible only by killing them off before they kill the innocent people, as terrorists are suicidal and know they will not get away alive in most cases of terrorist operations; they decide in advance to die anyway. Mohamed told him that killing terrorists off will never solve the problem of Wahabi terrorism; thousands of terrorists will emerge with the ardent desire to exact revenge and draw the attention of the media worldwide, and they will not be defeated if those are killed off; more Wahabi terrorists will emerge again within an endless vicious circle. The retired general fell silent; we told him that clergymen and sheikhs of Wahabi terrorism typically launch an intellectual war as they brainwash and convince deluded youths to transform them into suicide bombers and terrorists who would aim at entering into Paradise after they die and have endless sex with houris. No power can defeat someone who has decided to die by committing suicide within a terrorist operation. The only possible and effective solution is to launch the counterterrorist, peaceful, intellectual war of ideas using Quranism; in fact, Quranism will address the minds of potential terrorists to convince them using the Quran (i.e., from within Islam) in which they are supposed to believe that the terrorist crimes they desire to commit contradict Islam and will make them among the losers in this world and in the Hereafter, as they will lose their lives and enter into Hell on the Last Day. This way, Quranism will save the lives of potential terrorists (who will adhere to peace when they embrace Quranism as the only true Islam) and the lives of potential victims. Eventually, this retired general said he believes indeed that our person and Quranists differ a great deal from sheikh Al-Qaradawy.                  

5- Another scheduled appointment was at 4:30PM in the house of the Israeli orientalist professor Yohanan Friedmann, an appointment that he has requested; he is a professor specializing in Islamic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Shalem College. The seminal book of professor Friedmann is titled "Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition", and it has been published by Cambridge University. He has received many prizes that included being accorded a prestigious prize by the Israeli government for his intellectual achievements. But because Mohamed has reminded us of the fact that the in-laws of Amir were waiting for us in Nablus and Amir has been impatiently waiting for us, we begged professor Singer to postpone our appointment with professor Friedmann to 4:30PM on the next Sunday; professor Singer phoned professor Friedmann who agreed to postpone the appointment. We and our son went to Nablus to attend the (henna-night) of the bride and the bridegroom and our son, Sherif, caught up with us after he was interrogated at the Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.      

6- Next Sunday, we traveled from Nablus to Jerusalem; we met with professor Singer who accompanied us to the house of professor Friedmann, who received us with cordiality; he is an octogenarian like professor Singer, but he is more lively and leaner than we are. He insisted on talking to us all the time in classical, formal Arabic; he told us he had a gift for us; he gave us a copy of his book titled "Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition", and he wrote us a very touching dedication inside it. Our friendly conversation went on as we cared to listen to him more than we would talk; he spoke while quoting classical Arabic poetry, hadiths, and Quranic verses; he told us he learned the Arabic language from one of his teachers who was passionate about the Arabic tongue and heritage. Professor Friedmann told us he disapproves of the current Israeli government and saw no hope in it. He told us that a veiled female Israeli Arab student told him at one time that his writings are blasphemous, and he simply told her in Arabic that those who quote blasphemies of others are not blasphemers themselves and that she can disown his writings on the Last Day. Professor Friedmann told us that the number of veiled female Arab Israeli students has increased recently and this indicates that Salafism/Wahabism is dominant among the Arab Israelis. He told us about his Pakistani friend who lives in Acre who is the head-sheikh of Al-Ahmadiyya sect in Israel; he desired to proselytize his faith in the West Bank among the Palestinians as he does inside Israel with Israeli Jews, but this has proved to be too risky as he might get killed. Professor Friedmann told us he has written about the persecution and the case of apostasy against the Egyptian thinker Dr. Nasr Hamid Abou Zeid; when we returned home to VA, we found that he sent us via email what he has written about this topic.                 

7- After we said goodbye to professor Singer and his friend professor Friedmann, our encounters with Israeli professors ended and we returned to Nablus.   

8- What about Nablus and the security checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank? We tackle this topic in the next article.

COMMENTS:

(1) Saeed Ali: Quranists are to a certain degree similar to the Karaite Jews; Quranism has a shared element with Karaism; both faiths rely on One Book as the only source of religious legislations, and both reject other writings that have nothing to do with the Celestial Scripture; e.g., Talmudic traditions and hadiths/narratives traditions. This is an intellectual, peaceful conflict; the main idea of vital importance here is adherence to peace and non-violence despite differences in faiths. It is no surprise that Rabbinical Jews are similar to the Arab Wahabis/Salafists in their extremism and their dependence on so many texts authored by some 'revered' men. I feel glad that such intellectual encounters might break the ice and lead peaceful people of different religious denominations to get to know one another away from the labyrinths of politics. Real Islam is monotheism preached by all prophets and messengers from Adam to Muhammad. Quranists believe that the Quran is God's Word preserved by Him so that people resort to it when they seek religious guidance; all human beings are to adhere to peace and leave their religious disputes and differences to be settled by the Almighty Lord God on the Day of Resurrection. May God bless and protect you, Dr. Mansour.       

(2) Rabeei Bouaqal: It is silly to assume that angels never enter into a house with dogs in it; dogs and any other animals are never impure or an abomination at all, unlike what is assumed by the clergymen of the strange Wahabi, Sunnite, Salafist religion; they assume wrongly that the Quran insults some animals like dogs, monkeys, donkeys, and pigs. The Sunnites grossly misunderstand the Quranic verses that mention these animals and they stick to silly hadiths and narratives fabricated by the polytheists of the Middle-Ages. This is the source of their obscurantism and backwardness.      

(3) Adel Bin Ahmad: The Israeli persons here have logic; I like very much your wise words and responses, dear Dr. Mansour, when good, logical questions are addressed to you. It is impossible that Al-Bokhary who died 256 A.H. had taught people how to pray! What about generations before him?! I like the fact that the Israeli persons accepted your words calmly without arguing uselessly against them or getting angry at all; Israelis are civilized people. It makes me sad that discussions in the Arab world typically take the form of battles where those endowed with higher voices are 'winners' even if they utter nonsense and illogical words.        

(4) Lotfiya Saeed: What the female Muslim student has uttered and the Israeli professor's response reflect the culture of both of them. The Israeli professor has a high moralistic level and is very polite; he did not feel angry when she told him his writings are blasphemous; she is an extremist person, whereas he loves the Arabic culture and literature. Extremists within the clergymen of the Muhammadans teach extremism, fanaticism, and lack of patience to their followers. Israelis apply human rights; the head of Al-Ahmadiyya sect can proselytize his faith and call others to join it inside Israel and never inside the Palestinian territories, lest he might get killed by extremists among the Muhammadans!      

(5) Dr. A. S. Mansour: We thank our dear fellow Quranists, and we assert here that most Arabs and Egyptians are taught that all Israelis are purely evil people; this is not true. We infer from the Quran that all groups of human beings are divided into three types: the forerunners, the repentant ones, and sinners. Our first shock inside the USA once we arrived there was when I knew that all noble people who helped our person and those whom we dealt with were American Jews; they are helpful, polite, and friendly with all people in general and not with our person in particular. Some of these noble, generous American Jews have the Israeli nationality and live and work while moving between the USA and Israel. Of course, we are not saying that all Israelis are angels; of course, not all of them are extremists or fanatics, and not all of them are moderates. Like any society, they are a mix of all types of people. We have only met with noble, generous  Jews inside Israel and the USA. We feel sad to say that the Israelis have a higher moralistic level than Arabs and Egyptians; this is expected inside the Israeli society that adheres to democracy, human rights, religious freedom, and freedom of speech. Some readers might be infuriated by our views here, but we must bear witness of what we have seen and experienced; we are responsible for our testimony here before the Lord God; we never care if others might get mad at our person because of our views.   

CHAPTER III

Sixthly: about security checkpoints:

1- The security checkpoints represented the extreme worry to us all the time before we commenced this journey, as we heard a lot about the strict measures and humiliation suffered by some people there. We remember that within the era of the Mubarak regime, the police security checkpoints for cars in many streets of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, were very difficult and strict, and many citizens were humiliated as we have seen when we experienced these checkpoints in the 1990s when we lived there.

2- Our first experience with Israeli security checkpoints took place on Sunday when we journeyed from Nablus to Jerusalem to meet professor Friedmann; we were accompanied by Mohamed and Hossam in a car rented for us by Amir. A young woman in her twenties examined our papers as we stopped at a passage leading to Jerusalem; she let us pass, while we expected a thorough examination of the car and of ourselves; this did not occur; we could hardly believe that we passed an Israeli checkpoint peacefully without any sort of annoyance or inconvenience at all as we moved from the West Bank to Israel.    

3- In the next day, which was Monday, we decided to rest all day long at the house rented to us by Amir; the wedding party took place and the bridegroom was busy with his bride, our encounters with the professors in Jerusalem ended, and we bid farewell to professor Singer and thanked him; we were to return home to VA, the USA, on Tuesday. Our plan to rest was interrupted by our wife and three sons, Mohamed, Sherif, and Hossam, who desired to have an outing today to enjoy themselves; it is a rare opportunity that we gather together outside the USA; I could not let them down by refusing their request, especially that strict measures and humiliation at security checkpoints turned out to be mere rumors and we suffered none of them at all. Our sons desired to visit Acre and Jaffa and enjoy swimming in the Mediterranean Sea; yet, as fate would have it, this will never happen. Hossam was driving the car; he made a mistake by entering into the wrong road; we found ourselves before an Israeli settlement. The security checkpoint there was led by an Israeli soldier who was a male youth with European features, probably an Ashkenazi Jew who does not speak Arabic. Hossam talked to him in English to ask about the right road; the male youth smiled and replied politely to the question, showing to us the right road to take. Hossam drove the car until we reached the borders with Israel at Qalqilya; the Israeli soldier this time was a male youth with Arab features who stopped our car and talked to us using the Palestinian dialect of Arabic; he asked for the passport of Hossam, who did not bring it as he had his American driving license with him. The Arab Israeli soldier told Hossam firmly to return to Nablus to bring passports of all of those in the car! None of us brought our passports with us, in fact. Moreover, he searched the insides of the car thoroughly before letting us go. This have been very strict measures taken for no reason at all, in our view. Thus, the course of the journey has changed; instead of returning to Nablus, we went to Jericho and then to the Dead Sea, where our sons enjoyed swimming while we and our wife enjoyed resting at the beach.        

4- We have been told that searching people and their cars would be meticulous and the measures would be very strict at security checkpoints only in cases when a terrorist crime takes place against Israelis (e.g., stabbings or driving cars into passers-by). We have been told that Israeli settlements rely on Palestinian workers; they are searched thoroughly before being allowed to enter into any Israeli settlement. This is approved and deemed as OK by our person; within borders between friendly countries (e.g., the USA and Mexico and the USA and Canada), there are security checkpoints where people are searched along with their cars and luggage and their passports are checked; let alone the case of Israel and its hostile neighbors in the West Bank? The Palestinians will suffer more if they face the ordeal of the Egyptian police checkpoints in the streets of Cairo as poor citizens were humiliated as we have witnessed during the era of Mubarak in the 1990s.    

Seventhly: about Nablus:

1- We have noticed that the roads in Israel are as wide and beautiful as those in the USA; signs, signposts, and traffic lights are written in Hebrew and Arabic, and sometimes in English; drivers will not get lost and will know their way, especially with GPS. 

2- Highways and other roads in the West Bank and inside Nablus are better than those in Egypt; we have been told that the EU and the UN undertook the mission of making such roads; yet, there are not sufficient traffic lights and the GPS of Israel never works inside the Palestinian cities. The area of the city of Nablus stretches now to include the mountainous area, and this should have entailed making excellent asphalt roads; the roads there are serpentine ones with ups and downs and are poorly made, and cars in them go both ways; most of the roads are without names and traffic lights; to make things worse, many mountainous roads are without iron fences to protect cars from falling down! The two new cities on the mountains are New Nablus and Sama Nablus; many very beautiful and luxurious villas and palaces are found everywhere, and in the middle of the mountains, one sees olive trees, orange trees, and the rest of the woods and green areas, like the rest of the cities of the West Bank. There is a strange contrast between such villas and palaces and the poor roads leading to them up the mountains; cars are likely to fall since there are no iron fences, and it was very frightening to our person to see rooftops of the palaces under us when we were inside the car, especially when the car would swerve to avoid a car coming in front of us; we felt afraid lest we might fall into an abyss!        

3- In spite of the above, the two new cities on the mountains are like Cairo in its crowdedness and busy streets filled with cars, but, of course, the number of residents differ a great deal when we compare between Nablus and Cairo; both simple and expensive restaurants (even fast-food ones) are crowded with customers even within late hours. There are countless types of salads served with meals; prices are less than those in Cairo, Egypt, and in the USA. The currency used is the Israeli shekel, of course. We saw ordinary workers and craftsmen filling these restaurants and confectionary stores, eating the famous kanafeh of Nablus. There is no doubt that the residents of Nablus enjoy a high standard of living; we lament the fact that the opposite is true about the residents of Cairo, Egypt!    

4- New Nablus and Sama Nablus contain many luxurious palaces and houses built using white stones cut from the mountains; many palaces are literally cut into the mountains, with various, fascinating designs and colors, complete with Western roofs; the mountains contain many trees and we felt happy as we saw nature and architecture in perfect harmony. Amir rented for us the ground floor of one spacious palace, with luxurious furniture and ceramics and a big, lush garden. This seems ordinary when compared to other bigger and more spacious palaces in this mountainous area. It was obvious that some owners of the palaces work abroad; a relative of the in-laws of Amir held a party in honor of the bride and the bridegroom inside his palace in Nablus; when we passed through the gate of the high stone wall, we saw four palaces; each of them carry the name of one of the sons of the host, and all of them are surrounded with lush, verdant gardens; the food was superb and expensive and fancy cars were parking outside. The host was very modest, generous, and polite; he has a high-rank post in a factory; we could not prevent ourselves from asking so villainously about the type of palaces owned by Mahmoud Abbas and his men. We have been told that their houses are ordinary ones because they smuggle their money abroad. Thus, the Palestinians who live abroad transfer their money into the Palestinian territories to enrich the economy, whereas the 'pious' and 'innocent' men of the Palestinian authority smuggle their ill-gotten money abroad and never spend any money to make iron fences within mountain roads to protect cars or to give names to the streets.       

Eighthly: about the wedding party:

1- The Palestinian nation preserves its inherited customs and its Palestinian dialect of Arabic; this is exemplified in marriages and wedding parties; the father-in-law of Amir has told us about some of these customs, which include the 'right' of the bride's paternal uncle's son to permit the young woman to marry someone else and not him, as he has the priority to ask for her hand to himself and he has the 'power' to prevent the marriage even during the wedding party when the bride is wearing the wedding dress on horseback, heading towards her bridegroom! We told him that this weird, humiliating custom is against the freedom, dignity, and rights of women. Another custom is that the folks of the bride would receive the folks of the bridegroom in a spacious hall, right before the wedding party, and hear one of them demand the hand of the bride in a very loud voice! This is the way in which the Palestinian wedding parties should commence. Luckily, such customs were tactfully avoided in the wedding party of Amir and Bisan; the ceremony was confined to the henna-night followed by the wedding party celebrations in the very next night.     

2- The henna-night celebrations are attended only by women who gather around the bride; the bridegroom attends the henna-night for a short while and then gets out of the hall. Without the presence of men, women and girls spend the henna-night dancing and singing as much as they please, while wearing the intricately designed, colorful, richly embroidered, expensive Palestinian traditional clothes, as per what our wife has narrated to us; some of the hand-made garments cost one thousand US$. Women at the henna-night compete with one another in wearing unique, very elegant, hand-made garments.

3- The wedding party was held in the Citadel of Al-Qaid (i.e., literally in Arabic: the leader), built in a village named Sebastia, inside Nablus, which was built by a Roman military leader named Spatius. This citadel is a very important monument that remains of the history of a revolting leader who revolted against the Ottoman authority but his revolt failed; the descendant of this leader is the guardian/curator of this citadel, and he is a hospitable, generous, cultured man; we were engaged into an enjoyable conversation with him about the history of his great-grandfather the revolting leader who rebelled against the Ottomans.     

4- The customary celebrations within the wedding party began with a Palestinian folkloric band whose members sing and dance and precede the bride and the bridegroom into the gate of the citadel before entering into a spacious hall filled with chairs, and when the attendees sat down and the happy couple sat on the ornamented wedding couch, the band performed the Palestinian Dabkeh dance; this Dabkeh dance involves stamping on the floor with their feet and lifting their legs into the air (and into our faces, sometimes!) while smiling and singing traditional, folkloric Palestinian songs that express taking pride in the Palestinian identity; the songs are often mixed with a sense of melancholy. Within our own mind, we compared the Palestinian Dabkeh dance with the Egyptian provocative belly-dancing that involves women shaking their bottoms and bellies in an obscene, lewd manner, but the Egyptians are used to watching it shamelessly.     

Ninthly: returning home (God bless the USA):

1- Our flight to return home was before 10:00AM next day, we and our son, Sherif, left Nablus at 3:00AM to reach Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Because of the long interrogations we have been told about in Israeli airports regarding even those who leave Israel, we were advised to reach the airport four hours before the time of our flight, especially that we have to return the rented car first; Sherif drove the car from the highest point in the mountain to Nablus and to the highway and we were searched quickly at the Qalqilya checkpoint, and then we reached Tel Aviv. This time, the security officer at the Ben-Gurion Airport asked us about the reason for our visit to Israel, and when we told him about our attending the wedding party of our son in Nablus; he congratulated us and let us enter into the airport. We were surprised as we found out that we had arrived two hours before the time of our flight. We waited for two hours. The airport routine was easy and everything went smoothly, and the last measure was the feared interrogation; yet, it took only one minute; our names in our passports were checked and then we received the exit visa. This easy, quick interrogation was unexpected, of course, and we felt very much relieved.          

2- Inside the plane heading to Washington, we suffered as we sat in a narrow chair for 12 hours nonstop and our feet were swollen; this occurred also in the flight from Washington to Tel Aviv; we bore patiently with the swollen feet in both flights; we felt happy to return to our homeland: the USA. Inside the Dallas International Airport, the officer asked us and our son about where we are going; we answered him in unison: home! Our son Sameh was waiting for us outside the airport to drive us home to VA; we smelled the breeze of Washington with joy; we have been away from homeland for more than a week; we have returned home with a happy heart and swollen feet!

Lastly:

 We offer our cordial greetings to all the great people whom we have met in Israel and in Palestine; we implore Almighty God to grant peace and safety to the land of peace.

COMMENTS:

(1) Saeed Ali: Welcome home, my dear Dr. Mansour; I have enjoyed your narration of your great journey and reflected for hours on end on the lessons I've drawn from your narration. Please visit a doctor to make sure you are OK; you might have high blood pressure; I advise you to walk daily for an hour to restore your health. I hope that reasonable people in Israel would read your wise words: it serves the interests of Israel to provide security, employment, social justice, and a decent standard of living to the Palestinians; I tend to think that there should be one homeland to both the Israelis and the Palestinians within peaceful coexistence while religion is only for God to judge on the Last Day. Palestinians and Israelis who are born inside the same land have the right to live in it; the whole earth is God's land; youths of both sides must forget about the ideologies of theocracy and religious fanaticism and extremism. Suicide bombers and crimes of Arab extremists are a natural result of Israeli oppressive measures; I hope peace would one day reign supreme in the Holy Land.

(2) Dr. Othman M. Ali: Congratulations, Dr. Mansour! I'm so happy you're back home. Congratulations to Amir and his pretty bride. I've  particularly enjoyed the account of your journey, but I felt extremely worried about you as you might be fatigued; may God protect you and grant you good health. I wish that the forum was videoed so that the rest of the Israelis (in world academia and all thinkers) would get to know about the peaceful Quranist trend of reform. I hope your single sons, Hossam and Mounir, get married very soon; I smile now as I wish they'd marry young women from other Arab nationalities so that your family members would form a miniature Arab League!  

(3) Adel Bin Ahmad: In media worldwide, there are endless scandals about the criminal gang that rule the West Bank and Gaza Strip; instead of using the financial aid of millions of US$ granted by many countries (e.g., from Algeria in 2008 to help the people of Gaza) to ease the suffering of Palestinians and ameliorate their conditions, people like Mahmoud Abbas and the terrorist Hamas group confiscate such money to themselves. The costs of the three-day wedding party of one of the sons of Dahlan in 2015exceeded two million US$ in Fairmont Nile Tower Hotel in Cairo, and there were 400 guests who attended the wedding party, including a male famous Egyptian singer and a female famous belly-dancer. Money was spent extravagantly within all details of this wedding party; the wedding party took place after a scandal of leaked photos of the bridegroom who was drunk and accompanied by female sex workers and belly-dancers in Dubai; Dahlan had to force his son to get married to avoid the scandal. Scandals of corruption of the Hamas government and ministers make headlines in the Arab press; the minister of health brought illegal drugs and Viagra pills to be sold in the Gaza Strip; many officials and ministers are corrupt ones who stole and confiscated money and took bribes. Some Hamas members have invested 500 million US$ in Syria within many projects; these money is stolen from the financial aid granted by Qatar and Iran. Khaled Mashaal has brought assets in Qatar that worth about 200 million US$. This is not to mention illegal tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, where almost everything is being smuggled by Palestinian  criminals; this is not to mention Palestinians inside Gaza and the West Bank who work as spies/agents serving Zionists. Hamas leaders invest millions of US$ in many projects outside Palestine, while the ordinary people of Gaza suffer hunger and impecuniousness.             

(4) Ben Levante: Congratulations to you, Dr. Mansour, and to your son and his bride and all the family; may God grant them matrimonial bliss. I have some comments about your journey to Palestine that I'd like to share; so as not to be misunderstood, e assure you that I'm not chauvinistic at all; all human beings are brethren regardless of their colors, races, faiths, and nationalities. Of course, languages plat a pivotal role in mutual understanding among people who live in the same geographical area. I' one of those who believe in the solution of one State for both the Israelis and the Palestinians, where all people are first class citizens regardless of religious affiliations and who enjoy the same rights and abide by the same laws within equality. As I live in Germany, as you know Dr. Mansour, I'm not a naïve person to believe any piece of news within Arab channels and website without verifying it by other non-Arab sources. Besides, I've never been to Palestine. Yet, hundreds of pieces of news (even from Jewish sources) narrate tales of misery of painful reality suffered by those Arabs who live inside the West Bank in general and not just at the security checkpoints. In Germany, criticizing Israel or Jews would make people accuse you of being anti-Semitic. By the way, the Jewish Israelis are not gullible people; they know what they want and seek it; their only problem is Arabs/Palestinians in the West Bank. You, Dr. Mansour, have entered Israel through the airport in Tel Aviv and rented an Israeli car; you and your family were tourists; you will not suffer anything like what is being inflicted on the Palestinians on a daily basis. You had to make you Jewish friend take photocopies of your passports to facilitate matters. In the West Bank, there is about 380000 Jews and 210000 Jews who live in Jerusalem who live in many settlements unacknowledged by the international community. Thus, Israelis steal and nibble more pieces of land from the Palestinian people who live in 22% of Palestine; Israel is established on 78% of Palestine. No thieves are kind-hearted, you know. I do not believe that Palestinians are treated kindly inside Israel, even if they have obtained the Israeli nationality; the Palestinians are persecuted inside Israel and inside the Arab countries as well; they have no homeland until now. Israel is a country where there is Law; yet, extremists there demand what is known as Der Judenstaat or the Jewish/Hebrew State. It is wrong to make a race or a faith as synonymous with nationalism; this means that non-Jews will never be citizens, even if they have obtained the Israeli nationality. This is racism leading to discrimination and mistreatment. Of course, Arab countries have their own problems; yet, Israel that falsely claims to apply human rights and democracy (while persecuting the Palestinians) must be measured by the yardstick of other West democracies and not by conditions in the Arab countries.       

(5) Lotfiya Saeed: Dear Dr. Mansour, I write this comment about the last items of your great article: I wish your good health would be restored after having some rest; it is more important that your heart is happy. One's heart is the basis of everything; Abraham knew this fact as I discern from these verses: "And do not disgrace me on the Day they are resurrected. The Day when neither wealth nor children will help. Except for him who comes to God with a sound heart."" (26:87-89). I join you in greeting the good, great, reasonable persons inside Israel and inside Palestine; I hope one day that peace would dominate the Holy Land; this is the sincere wish of all sincere reformists. God bless you.     

CHAPTER IV

Pieces of advice addressed to Israel

Introduction:

1- The car which our son rented from the Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv had GPS that worked properly inside Israel; yet, once we entered into the road leading to Nablus, the GPS stopped working after warning us that we are heading towards zones that endanger the lives of Israelis; i.e., Nablus and the West Bank in general; we saw a signpost on the road mentioning the same warning. Later on, with sorrow in his voice, a Palestinian man told us the sad story of an unfortunate male Israeli youth who lost his way and entered into the Palestinian territories unintentionally; no one found him; he was killed by unknown Palestinians. Within Islam (i.e., the Quranic sharia laws), this male youth was a wayfarer/traveler who should be helped, fed, protected and treated peacefully; the opposite occurred as he was killed and his corpse was hidden as per the teachings of the Sunnite Wahabi religion and its sharia of Satan; this crime was committed as a direct result of the propaganda and intellectual war spread by Wahabis like the terrorist Hamas group and its likes.   

2- When our own late mother (may God rest her soul) visited us in our house in VA, the USA, she met with our dearest, nearest friend, the noble Jewish lawyer Mr. Irving Spitzberg and his wife, who helped our person a lot on several occasions once we arrived to the USA as a political asylee and until now; both he and his wife are among the noblest persons we know; in fact, Mr. Spitzberg is the Chair of the board of our VA-based IQC, and we have appointed him in this position to express our infinite gratitude to him. Our mother returned to Egypt, feeling impressed and dazzled with what she saw inside the USA; when she talked about her experience there with an Egyptian female friend in our native village and mentioned the fact that Mr. Spitzberg is a Jew, the Egyptian female friend panicked; this sudden panic reflects the anti-Israel intellectual war and propaganda of the military regime of Egypt that has commenced since the 1950s, as Egyptians are fed with many similar falsehoods; such lies influenced our person temporarily until we have liberated our mind from many false political and religious notions that are still being glorified and idealized by the masses in Egypt.    

3- On the other hand, the Israelis in their deep psyche have roots of unreasonable fear and exaggerated focus on security, because the Israeli and Jewish collective mind still remembers the ancient eras of being persecuted by the Egyptians, Babylonians, the Romans, the Europeans, and the Muhammadans during their eras of caliphates. Thus, since 1948, the Israeli Jews still currently have this unreasonable fear and distrust of all Palestinians indiscriminately. 

4- We will not argue here about who has the right to own the land of Palestine; it is useless to tackle this issue; the state of Israel has been established as per the International Law and the resolutions of the UN. Israel now is the strongest, most powerful state in the Middle East; Arab leaders and rulers now seek to gratify and please Israel all the time. In politics, it is futile to talk about morality, as politics is the art of dealing with realities to gain the maximum benefit and serve one's interests. Bearing this in mind, we offer these pieces of advice to Israel; the Israeli interests entail that Israel should make peace with its Palestinian neighbors based on mutual interests; in other words, Israel should care about the interests of the Palestinians and this will serve Israeli interests in the long run. Of course, we do not mean corrupt Wahabi rulers/leaders in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; rather, we mean the ordinary Palestinian individuals (or the Palestinian nation) who, of course, have inalienable human rights as well as political rights to be enjoyed in the same way as Israeli citizens/individuals, regardless of the type of state they live in; i.e., when Israel and the Palestinian territories will be combined in one federal or confederal State or if the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be two independent states which will be established by the help of Israel; the Israelis should realize that in both cases, this will serve their interests before anyone else's. 

5- Our words here will not be admired or liked by the Palestinian leaders inside Hamas and the likes of Dahlan and Abbas; their ill-gotten money has exponentially increased by trading with the Palestinian blood and the Palestinian suffering in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. The Wahabi Sunnite MB-affiliated leaders of the terrorist Hamas group still trade with the Palestinian blood and they manipulate and control ordinary Palestinians in the Gaza Strip using the intellectual war; hence, Hamas leaders throw deluded, brainwashed Palestinian youths into the Israeli borders so that they force Israel to defend its borders, and the ensuing bloodshed results in nothing at all, as usual. The blood of the Palestinians is shed for no reason except serving the evil interests of Hamas. Hence, the interests of Hamas and the likes of M. Dahlan and Abbas will never be the same as the interests of ordinary Palestinians or the Palestinian nation in general. If the corrupt leaders of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were honest and nationalistic (as they claim about themselves) and better than the Israeli leadership, Arab Israelis should have left Israel in order to settle and relocate in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Of course, Arab Israelis since 1948 enjoy better life conditions when compared to millions of Arabs ruled by tyrants in all Arab countries. The leaders of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are never less corrupt, unjust, or tyrannical than leaders and rulers of all Arab countries.      

6- Our words here will not be admired or liked by the Israeli hawks or extremists and fanatics who are blinded by the current Israeli military power and they cannot see the future that lies ahead for their children and grandchildren.  

7- We are keen on offering these pieces of advice to Israel (and to the Palestinians in the next article) for the sake of allowing the Israeli children and the Palestinian ones to live in a peaceful, safe, and secure environment that they deserve. 

Firstly: Israel is the strongest now in terms of military power, but it is the worst in the intellectual war:

 Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East now, with its army, weaponry, and central intelligence. Despite the fact that Israel is in a state of war since 1948, this never affected its adherence to democracy; it never resorted to exceptional measures or emergency laws; Israeli ongoing wars never hindered its economic, scientific, and technological progress. Yet, the ongoing wars have negatively influenced Israel in the way it treats its Palestinian neighbors, who are deemed as 'eternal' enemies never to be dealt with except through logistic war; Israel disregards until now the vital need to address the Palestinians by launching an intellectual war serving Israeli interests, despite the following facts.    

1- Worldwide, the Jews are unparalleled experts in the field of launching intellectual wars; they are the masters of media, show-business, and entertainment industry (movies, TV series, etc.).

2- The intellectual war certainly has long-lasting effect and it is less costly than any other types of war. Logistical wars involve military confrontation between two armies/enemies and each of them desire to vanquish and annihilate the other. In contrast, the intellectual war focuses on influencing the minds of individuals who might be either neutral people turned into friends or enemies turned into neutral people by this intellectual war. Hence, the intellectual war addressing minds of people to convince and influence them and control their thinking. Bullets and ammunitions within the logistical wars are used up eventually, whereas the power of words in the intellectual war never ends at all and its influence remains for longer duration; i.e., as long as there are people who read, watch, see, and hear.  

3- Because of cyberspace culture and the advancement in telecommunications, the intellectual wars are more common now and they easily reach the minds of the targeted individuals. 

4- Arabs, despite their military failures, excel in using the anti-Israel intellectual war, and the worst type of intellectual war is the one using the evil Wahabi Salafist Sunnite religion to brainwash Muslim nations. This wicked Sunnite Wahabi religion is the one behind suicide bombings and suicide terrorist operations as well as the evil tenet/notion of Wahabis/jihadists who assume they must massacre all Israelis or kill them off. Hence, instead of using the intellectual war for its real, sublime purposes (i.e., stopping bloodshed and restoring peace as well as winning foes/people to one's side or neutralizing them), it is misused by Wahabis who commit heinous crimes of terrorism that cause more bloodshed, and the deluded youths assume they will die and enter into Paradise to enjoy endless sex with houris!      

5- With this intellectual war launched by Wahabi terrorists, the brainwashed youths are turned into time-bombs that will explode anytime and anywhere; thus, ordinary Muslim youths might be soon very 'religious' (by being deluded into adhering to the Wahabi ideology), and soon enough, they might turn into suicide attackers seeking Paradise now – as per Wahabi myths – by committing indiscriminate killings within streets, means of transportation, houses of worship, movie-theaters, discothèques, and nightclubs. Such transformation of deluded youths by Wahabism cannot be detected by any central intelligence of any country. Since worldwide media networks are filled with headlines and news of Wahabi terrorists, this is an undeniable proof of the success of the Wahabi intellectual war launched against the West countries and against Israel. Any military power or arsenal of arms and weapons will never be able to defeat those who decide to die as terrorist suicide attackers or suicide bombers. Yet, it is easy to save the lives of such brainwashed youths and to save the lives of their potential victims by psychological war and intellectual war; i.e., by convincing the deluded youths through Quranism (i.e., from within the religious culture of the Quran, the Book in which all Muslims believe) that the heinous crimes of terrorism they plan or are about to commit will make them disbelievers/polytheists before the sight of the Lord God and enemies of the Lord God and Muhammad on the Day of Resurrection.         

Secondly: what about the future if the Israeli policies remain the same?:

1- If Israel would depend all the time solely on its military power and disregard the intellectual war of ideas, it will inadvertently prepare a holocaust for the next generations of Israeli citizens, and this holocaust will be indeed ten times worse than the one committed by the cursed, crazy leader named Hitler. In fact, Hitler the cursed, crazy leader had no justification to commit the crime of the holocaust against millions of innocent Jews (men, women and children); in contrast, the coming holocaust – and we implore the Almighty Lord God that it will never take place – would be justified by the Israeli insistence to go on with its hostile policies against the Palestinians without even a single try to get nearer to them and to win them to the side of Israel by serving mutual interests.

2- The future will bring very bad news for Israel if it continues its hostile policies against the Palestinians. 

2/1: Israel now is the strongest country in the Middle East in terms of military power and technological progress; there is a huge gap between Israel and all Arabs in terms of military power. Yet, this gap is expected to be bridged anytime in our modern era of swift exchange of information, science, and technology and the swifter development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD); moreover, it is very easy now to acquire simple types of nuclear weapons. Within the dangerous, hostile climate and mutual hatred between Israel and Arabs/Palestinians, what would ensure the security of Israel in the near future against any military operation/attack that would aim to massacre millions of Israelis?    

2/2: The Israelis now are less than 9 million citizens facing hundreds of millions of Arabs. The population growth rate inside Israel is very low, unlike the ever-increasing population growth rates in the Arab world. This means that in the future, the population growth rates of Arabs (and Palestinians) will engulf the Israeli citizens. Within the hostile climate and mutual hatred between Israelis and Arabs/Palestinians, we shudder at the prospect of such Arab population acquiring immense military power one day.      

2/3: The Holy Land had its many conquerors and invaders before and after the Arab conquest of the Levant. Each of the invaders/conquerors remained there for a while before leaving, and as they were conquering, settling, and leaving the Levantine region, bloodbaths occurred. This applies to all invaders of the Levant in the past: the Babylonians, the Persians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Seljuks, the Ayyubids, the Mamelukes, the Crusaders, the Ottomans, and the British. The common element was the simple, unsophisticated weapons used during these eras which made soldiers kill others within face-to-face combats; in today's world, there are modern WMD, which are not owned by the Palestinians – until now; yet, what about the very near future? Within the hostile climate and mutual hatred between Israelis and Arabs/Palestinians, what will be the situation of the Israeli citizens, especially as the Wahabi intellectual war incites suicide terrorist operations? What will occur to the Israeli citizens, especially within the Wahabi culture of Hamas (and other similar terrorist groups) that never care to preserve the lives of Palestinians and Arabs (let alone the lives of Israelis) and they still trade with ordinary people's lives in order to serve political and economic interests?      

Thirdly: the Israeli policies must change by working hard to win the Palestinians to the side of Israel:

1- The confrontations between Israel and the Wahabi terrorist Hamas group prove the fact that Israel is more keen on preserving the lives of Palestinians more than Hamas; in fact, Hamas members never care about the lives of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip; when Hamas members launch their rockets against Israel, they typically hide in the densely populated city of Gaza (within its buildings, mosques, and hospitals) and take its people as human shields as per Salafist/Wahabi evil notions in times of fighting. In contrast, Israel does its best using technology to hunt down criminals and offenders only; we have mentioned this in our previous political articles. Thus, Israel, like the West democracies, respect human rights that include the right to live and protecting/preserving human life (by the way, Israel does not apply the capital punishment despite the fact that the Torah or the Old Testament entails putting murders to death), and this is in contrast to the evil Salafist Wahabi tenet of massacring others and depriving them of their lives. In fact, there are many positive points in how Israel deals with Arab Israelis; the conditions of Arab Israelis are great and better when compared to (1) all Arab nations that suffer from the oppression of Arab tyrants and to (2) the despicable conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Yet, the Arab Israelis are less fortunate when their status is compared to the one of Israeli Jews inside Israel and the human rights of citizens inside the West countries. Therefore, the Israeli policies of how to deal with Palestinians must change as per the following two interrelated ways.         

1/1: Stopping the ongoing process of building Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, not only to conform to the UN resolutions, but also to get nearer to the Palestinians to win them to the side of Israel. Laws must be issued along with administrative decisions to allow the Palestinians the right to visit their land and build houses in the pieces of land they own without restrictions, which are the same rights enjoyed by Israeli citizens. Israel should make sure that the Palestinians would enjoy all the human rights enjoyed by Israeli citizens; hence, the Palestinians will see their security and rights protected and ensured by the Israeli authorities and not by the corrupt, tyrannical Palestinian authority men.    

1/2: Launching the intellectual war of ideas addressing the minds of the Palestinians within all media to win them to the side of Israel as friends and to remove all the negative influence, remnants, and results of the Salafist brainwash and Wahabi intellectual war that transform some deluded Palestinian youths into time-bombs that will explode anytime and anywhere.  

2- This peaceful, intellectual war of ideas will take time to bear fruit; it should have started decades ago; it is of vital importance that it will begin right now to preserve the right to live for the Israeli children and the Palestinian ones on equal footing.

Lastly:

 We never care at all to please both sides (i.e., the Israelis and the Palestinians); we care only about human rights: peace, justice, freedom, human dignity, and the right to live. These are the Quranic values of Islam; as per the Quran, God has sent Muhammad with the Quranic message as a mercy to the humankind (see 21:107), and not to massacre and terrorize the humankind.  

COMMENTS:

(1) Saeed Ali: This great article must be translated into English and into Hebrew and other languages; in fact, the Israelis who brag of their military power and the U.S. support forget about the Palestinian minds which are shackled with Salafism/Wahabism and suffer Zionist oppression. I sincerely hope these series of articles would reach the Israeli/Jewish minds.

(2) Hisham Saeedi: I do not think that the Israelis would take heed of the words of Dr. Mansour at all. I feel destruction is bound to occur to the whole of Palestine sooner or later. Israel does not understand anything but the language of might; peace for it means total submission of Arabs to its dictates; yet, since Palestinians have been evicted from their homes and land by force and by aggression, revenge against the aggressors is bound to occur one day as per the celestial law. 

(3) Adel Bin Ahmad: This is really a great article; I always admire the political analyses of you, dear Dr. Mansour; they are always correct; your predictions before 2010 about the Arab world came true later on. May God allow your words to reach all decision-makers in Israel and in the bleak Middle East.

(4) Lotfiya Saeed: The pieces of advice provided by Dr. Mansour are great; Arabs/Muslims must stop fearing and hating Jews/Israelis; Jews/Israelis must stop fearing and hating Arabs/Muslims. There is no time for extremism, empty slogans and speeches, or mutual distrust; both Arabs and the Israelis must adhere to patience while reforming mutual misconceptions spread through the past decades. Israel should prove its good intentions by stopping the process of building settlements. Arabs/Palestinians should trust Israel if peace is the desired aim of all Palestinian and Israeli citizens. God says in the Quran: "Good and evil are not equal. Repel evil with good, and the person who was your enemy becomes like an intimate friend. But none will attain it except those who persevere, and none will attain it except the very fortunate." (41:34-35).        

(5) Ben Levante: In order to be just and fair, one must analyze the roots of the conflict regarding the historical land called Palestine. Not all Jews support Zionism; Zionists aimed to establish the Hebrew State or Der Judenstaat; they used in their propaganda the false motto of providing a homeland without a nation to a nation without a homeland. They expelled and transferred so many Palestinians (about 750000 persons) out of their land before 1948 and many of them fled in fear. Palestine had its people/nation for thousands of years; it was not a homeland without a nation. Another falsehood is the term "Promised Land"; this divine promise in the Old Testament was accomplished and has ended (after the era of David and Solomon); other human races settled in Palestine or Canaan and it was conquered many times by the Israelites, the Arabs, the Romans, the Pharaohs, the Babylonians, and the Persians. Thus, those expelled Palestinians who have no right to return were unjustly evicted from their homes. The same policy of evicting more Palestinians is adopted by Israel in the West Bank by expropriating more stretches of land to build settlements; the crisis of settlements is not ending any time soon. The Israelis must stop annexing bits and pieces of land from the West Bank; Israel never responds to any peace initiative coming from the leaders of the PLO, Egypt, or even the USA. Israel expects to be an all-powerful party who dictates to the weak party (i.e., Palestinians) what to do. I do believe that Israel will never pay attention to this series of articles by Dr. Mansour.

(6) Hisham Saeedi: I urge all Quranists to read articles and news about the Land Day events of 30^th of March, 2018.

(7) Mustafa Ismail Hammad: I thank Mr. Ben Levante for his comment which has made me sober up from my stupor and trust again my mental faculties that have been temporarily shaken and numbed by this series of articles written by Dr. Mansour; we must not forget the many Jews have black history of treachery and moneylending; some Egyptian Jews who used to live in my native village had immense wealth because of usury that caused the bankruptcy of many peasants; Dr. Mansour knows about them because both he and I belong to the same rural area. To me, there is no difference at all between Judaism and Zionism; the Jews hate all the non-Jews or the gentiles/goyim and the book of Ezekiel shows hatred and racism thousand years before the rise and emergence of European Zionism. I urge Dr. Mansour to return to history references, since he is a historian. In fact, the Jews are partially or wholly behind many calamities, catastrophes, and crises in the world, past and present. This verse may apply to Jews who hate all gentiles: "There you are, you love them, but they do not love you, and you believe in the entire scripture. And when they meet you, they say, "We believe;" but when they are alone, they bite their fingers in rage at you. Say, "Die in your rage; God knows what is within the hearts."" (3:119). As always, God says nothing but the Absolute Truth.

(8) Dr. A. S. Mansour: Dear fellow Quranists, we beg of you to allow our person to assert the following: in the early 1990s in Cairo, Egypt, we have been delivering eloquent speeches in many forums against normalization with Israel; we adhered to this stance in conferences outside Egypt as well. Yet, we realized suddenly that this stance disregards reality and insists on imaginary steps that should be taken but will never be taken at all. As we constantly review our political, intellectual, and religious views/stances, we have realized that politics has nothing to do with what should be done; those entities and countries who paid money to hold conferences against Egyptian normalization with Israel hold close ties with Israel in secret. We have realized that nothing great or good might be done within a country owned by its tyrannical ruler (i.e., Mubarak at the time). The Arab tyrants in the Middle East are the real plague and source of all evil. When we were a student at an Azharite secondary school, we remember at one time that cars owned by the regime of Gamal Abdel-Nasser carried some students (including our person) after convincing them to join a march to protest against Saudi Arabia, and after chanting slogans against it and other slogans to support Nasser, we were surprised to see that the regime men who carried the students in cars to bring them at this location are the same men who dispersed the march by force and they had beaten the students! The State media brought the news of 'troublemakers' among students who chanted slogans against Saudi Arabia and how the police anti-riot forces controlled the situation! Thus, the Nasser regime men have manipulated the gullible students to serve a certain bad scheme. Thus, tyrannical rulers brainwash their nations with propaganda and make them hate an eternal enemy (e.g., Israel and the USA) to channel their frustration and fury away from tyrants. In politics, one must deal with realities and the fait accompli. The era of meaningless slogans has ended when Nasser died in 1970; his wrong policies has resulted in making Israel the greater force in the Middle East. Let us assure all Quranists that we respect the right of everyone to hold different views from our own; one day, you will realize where the truth is. When we have realized that our former stance against Israel is wrong, we have changed our stance soon enough in the mid-1990s; this series of articles atone for our past mistake and misunderstanding. Let us narrate another story from our personal history: we were among the candidates to lead the anti-normalization trend in Egypt after writing an article attacking Yasser Arafat, after his signing the Oslo Accords and thus letting down Arabs regarding the Palestinian land, in Al-Ahaly independent newspaper owned by the Marxist party in Cairo, Egypt. Arafat complained to the head of the party at the time, Khaled Mohei-Eddine, who reproached our person for our harsh style of writing. When we realize at any time that we have been in the wrong, we are never shy to admit our mistake and make amends after changing our view. We thank all commentators for expressing their views here.            

(9) Ben Levante: I assert to Mr. Mustafa Ismail Hammad that there is a huge difference between Judaism and Zionism; the former is a religion/faith and the latter is a nationalistic ideology. Nationalistic ideologies might be secular (as in Europe) or depending on a certain religion (as in Iran). It is wrong to generalize about a certain nation or race; people differ in many things and not everyone is the same. We have to bear in mind that there are many Jews who defend rights of the Palestinians more than some Arabs who use their political life to earn some money. Jews are not the same as individuals; e.g., secular, communist Jews (who might or might not deny God's existence) differ from religious Jews and also from fanatic/extremist Jews. There are Arab/Palestinian Jews who refuse to obtain the Israeli nationality. The Quran mentions that some of the People of the Book (i.e., Jews + Christians) were good, monotheistic believers; not all of them were polytheists. Dr. Mansour deals with the issues within a Quranist vision and the perspective of human rights; we, as Arabs, must deal with realities around us in a reasonable manner and never be blinded by hatred and empty slogans. Thank you.   

(10) Dr. A. S. Mansour: We beg Mr. Mustafa Ismail Hammad who lives in a village near our native village to tell us the information he remembers about the Egyptian Jewish doctor who used to live in our village; his name was Youssef Menasha; he had a very good reputation since the 1940s and he cured and healed poor villagers and peasants for free and for very little money; this noble Jew refused to live in Cairo or any other city. This noble Jew had performed a surgery to our late honored father and to one of our elderly relatives as well. This noble Jew refused to leave his homeland, Egypt, despite the persecution of the Nasser regime against him and his family members who immigrated to France or Israel. Could Mr. Hammad tell us more about this noble Jew and what happened to him and if he died in Egypt or not? God says in the Quran: "Is the reward of goodness anything but goodness?" (55:60).

(11) Mustafa Ismail Hammad: Dear Dr. Mansour, the elderly family members in my village and other elderly people outside my family still fondly remember Dr. Youssef Menasha and how he examined poor peasants and cured them without taking money from them; this noble Jew had excellent expertise and he sometimes used herbs to help cure his patients. In fact, he performed many surgeries to the people in my village in return for very little money. Everyone loved him; he remained in Egypt until 1957 when the tyrant Nasser confiscated the assets of his family members; my grandfather and the elderly people in my village say that news came to them that Dr. Menasha died out of grief one year later when he left Egypt for good. Of course, I never generalize and I never say that all Jews are bad; people in Egypt used to listen to male and female Jewish Egyptian singers. The evil Jews are the Zionists who hate Arabs and consider them as insects to be killed and who hold close ties with tyrants like Mubarak.   

(12) Dr. A. S. Mansour: We thank Mustafa Ismail Hammad for the pieces of information he wrote above about the great, noble Egyptian Jew who was loved by the Egyptian peasants. Mustafa Ismail Hammad is indeed a great friend of ours; may God gather all of us in Paradise with His mercy.

(13) Adel Bin Ahmad: The same story is repeated in my village in Algeria; decades ago, an Arab Jewish doctor used to even buy medicine to impecunious patients and orphans; when he died, all Muslims and Christians of the village attended his funeral and mourned his death; the only Jew left in our village now is a lawyer whose good reputation precedes him and he is loved by everyone.

(14) Dr. A. S. Mansour: We thank Mr. Adel Bin Ahmad and we would like to rebuke him for never writing comments and articles except on rare occasions; at one point in time, years ago, we needed to contact him but we do not have his cellular number. We urge him and all Quranists to keep in touch with our person via Facebook and WhatsApp; our cellular number is as follows: 7039620874. We typically publish links of our writings and their translations on our Facebook account. We hope our beloved Quranists would keep in touch with our person. Thank you all.     

CHAPTER V

Pieces of advice addressed to the Palestinians

Firstly: away from the brainwash, these painful facts must be remembered by all Palestinians:

1- Despite the fact that Israel is in a state of war since 1948, it never resorted to exceptional measures, martial laws, or emergency laws that cripple the freedoms of Israeli citizens; in contrast, Arab tyrants introduce exceptional measures, martial laws, and emergency laws all the time for no reason (or for trivial reasons) and thus oppress Arab citizens.

2- Despite the fact that there are hundreds of millions of Arabs inside the Arab countries, each Arab country is, in fact, one person; i.e., the enthroned tyrant, who owns people and the land and everything else. Egypt's 100 million citizens do not count, as President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi (who is 64 years old now) assumes to embody Egypt and the Egyptian nation. Saudi Arabia's 32.5 million citizens do not count, as the crown-prince M. Ibn Salman (who is 33 years old now) assumes to embody Saudi Arabia and its citizens. This is why all Arab countries are a minority since they are represented only by their ruling tyrants. They are an insignificant minority when compared to Israeli citizens who do count, as each one of them equally own their Israeli State. This is why this active Israeli majority defeats and achieves victory over the Arab minority from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. Our readers must realize that we are in the era of quality and not quantity. The same applies to the Palestinians; how many are they when compared to Israeli citizens? Abbas and the leaders of Hamas who speak all the time in the name of the Palestinian nation represent only themselves, as they never speak or act on behalf of the ordinary Palestinians who are merely being used by the corrupt leaders in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to amass more ill-gotten money; this is like the Middle-Ages Sunnite notion of tyrants as shepherds making use of their subjects who were like herds of cattle.   

3- Since thousands of years, Palestine has not witnessed the rise of an independent state; it was invaded by many conquerors and empires; eventually, the Oslo Accords allowed autonomy to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and the leader Yasser Arafat at last acknowledged the presence of Israel; thus, after tens of centuries, the Palestinians has a project of a State; they might create a State (or two states) for the very first time. Who is to be thanked for providing this opportunity? No Palestinian leaders ever get united to exert the required efforts to create a State; they are corrupt men who dispute over authority and wealth; they vie to amass as much ill-gotten money as possible by exploiting the poor, oppressed ordinary Palestinians.  

4- Let us suppose that Israel does not exist and that Britain left Palestine for good to the Palestinians and the likes of Abbas and Hamas; in that case, the Palestinians would have lived in misery and despicable conditions like other Arab nations ruled by Arab tyrants in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, and Libya. Thus, after European colonial powers would leave the Levant, the local occupation inside Palestine introduced by the likes of Hamas and Abbas would have been more savage, backward, and tyrannical; this would have allowed the emergence of tyrants in Palestine; we would have seen the emergence of a Palestinian Al-Sisi, a Palestinian Al-Assad, a Palestinian Al-Bashir, a Palestinian Saddam, or a Palestinian Kaddafi. The Palestinians would have tasted the brutal and savage oppression, enslavement, and torture of such tyrants.

5- We feel sorry to say that the establishment of Israel in 1948 has prevented the Palestinians from suffering the same oppression suffered by the Arab nations of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Jordan, Yemen, and Lebanon. We feel sorry to say that Arab tyrants still embrace the backward, obscurantist Middle-Ages culture and its ways of rule; they are shepherds and their (subjects), as they are not deemed as "citizens", are herds of cattle. The West countries got rid of such evil culture centuries ago; Israel belongs to the West culture of democracy and human rights, and this is why its ongoing wars against the Palestinians are more lenient and merciful when compared to the oppression inflicted on the Palestinians by Abbas and Hamas.

6- During their conflict and struggle for authority and wealth, the corrupt Palestinian leaders killed more Palestinians than the ones killed by Israel. Many of our Palestinian friends in the USA (and in Egypt during the late 1970s, as we met some of them who got married and settled in our native village) have told us that Israeli prisons are like five-star hotels when compared to Palestinian prisons, where some of the Palestinian victims were tortured by the PLO men by inserting broken shards of glass into their anuses! Of course, the suffering of the Palestinians is not confined to the one inflicted on them by tyrants in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; they suffer grave injustices in the Arab countries where they reside and work; the only happy Palestinians inside and outside Israel are those who have obtained the Israeli nationality or the European/American one.

7- The Oslo Accords have allowed the project of a State in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; yet, the internecine Palestinian struggle and inter-Palestinian fighting resulted in separating the Gaza Strip from the West Bank; the steps of the project of a Palestinian State have not been taken until now; what would have been the case if the British were gone without helping in the establishment of Israel? The Palestinian real, democratic election was a one-time affair, and then democracy was discarded forever; Abbas and Hamas monopolize power and authority now; this is the same backward Arab culture of rule; i.e., the tyrants are shepherds and the subjects are herds of cattle. 

8- Arab tyrants fall into two types as follows.

8/1: Theocratic tyrants who rule using the Sunnite religion, like the Saudi royal family members, or using the Shiite religion, like the clergymen who rule Iran. Of course, theocracy is the worst type of tyranny ever.

8/2: Secular tyrants who ride and control Sunnite clergymen who, in their turn, ride and control the Arab nations; this is how Arab countries are ruled; i.e., this has been the case within the military regime of Egypt, the sectarian rule in Syria, and the autocratic rule of Saddam in Iraq and Kaddafi in Libya, and the corrupt, tyrannical rule of the Palestinian leaders in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, despite the fact that there is not a Palestinian State until now; there is only a project of a State. The Wahabi terrorist MB-affiliated Hamas group members are trying to establish a theocracy in the Gaza Strip, and they control and oppress the poor, ordinary Palestinians, sacrifice their lives and blood, and compromise their security and rights in order to hoard more ill-gotten money within the several bank accounts of the Hamas leaders. The PLO men in the West Bank are corrupt tyrants who ride and control clergymen who, in their turn, ride and control the poor, ordinary Palestinians or the Palestinian nation in general.

Secondly: it is not forbidden to imagine within daydreaming that the oppressed Palestinian nation would understand one day that the real enemy is not Israel but Hamas, Dahlan, and Abbas:

1- An Israeli policeman has entered the house of Netanyahu several times to interrogate him as a suspect linked to a case of corruption; no Palestinian policeman would dare interrogate Abbas about his wealth or the son of Abbas about his wealth; this son of Abbas is a famous businessman whose passport contain the fact that his job is merely being the son of the president of the Palestinian authority! Would the Palestinian nation dare to ask Khaled Mashaal, M. Dahlan, and Ismail Haniyeh (and other leaders) about the source of their wealth?

2- It is not forbidden to imagine within daydreaming that the absolute religious freedom would dominate over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as is the case inside Israel with its diverse sects, religious groups, and doctrines of Jews, Muslims, Christians, Ahmadiyya, Baha'is, Druze, and atheists. Many people of different sects (Shiites, Ahmadiyya, Baha'is, and Quranists) cannot announce their faiths in public or proselytize and preach their religions inside the Gaza Strip and the West Bank so that they avoid being killed or persecuted. The Israeli State protects the right of proselytization and all religious freedoms and rights; Netanyahu congratulates Muslims during their feasts; the Israeli embassy in Washington holds an annual Iftar banquet every Ramadan for Muslims; it is not forbidden to wish that this would take place also by Israel inside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

3- The Hamas group members acquire their ill-gotten money by launching unsophisticated rockets against Israel, while knowing that Israel is protected by the Iron Dome; thus, launching such rockets is of no military use if the Hamas members desire to terrorize Israel; yet, this is of political and financial use to the Hamas members who never care about the lives of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip or 'their' Palestinian nation! After attacking Israel with such rockets, the Hamas members would hide within the densely populated Gaza Strip (it has the highest population density in the Middle East), while eagerly hoping that Israel would bombard the innocent Palestinians there, but Israel does its best to avoid harming civilians in Gaza. After Israel has destroyed some targeted locations, Hamas members/leaders get the desired results as planned earlier; they demand money from many West countries under the pretext of the endeavors to 're-build' Gaza, and they confiscate such millions of US$ to themselves! It is not forbidden to imagine within daydreaming that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip would rebel against Hamas and stand up for their rights by refusing the crime of trading with their blood committed by Hamas leaders!

4- It is not forbidden to imagine within daydreaming that the Gaza Strip would become an independent State enjoying peace with its neighbors (Israel and Egypt) and that this civil State is based on human rights and democracy (without the Hamas terrorists) as well as economic boom which depends on its unique geographical location and free-market policies. In fact, the Gaza Strip before 1967 has been ruled by Egypt and it had free markets and free economy as an ideal location enjoyed by Egyptians who suffered from the socialist economic closure of the late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser inside Egypt; at the time, the people of Gaza enjoyed prosperity and welfare; this is in contrast to the misery, terror, and tyranny inflicted on them now by the Hamas members.   

5- It is not forbidden to imagine within daydreaming that the West Bank would become an independent State enjoying peace with its neighbors (Israel and Jordan) and that this civil State is based on human rights and democracy as well as transparency, without Dahlan and Abbas. This State will open its doors to the Palestinians of the diaspora to return and help with their savings to develop this State for the welfare and prosperity of the Palestinian nation.

6- It is not forbidden to imagine within daydreaming that the Palestinians would liberate themselves from pagan idols still worshiped by most Arabs and Egyptians: the homeland and the stretches of land.

6/1: The homeland is not a piece of land where people live merely to satisfy their biological needs like animals; rather, the homeland is where people live while enjoying all human rights and political rights within dignity, equality, justice, religious freedom, and civil liberties. Thus, the homeland is owned by all citizens on equal footing, without difference between males and females and between the poor and the rich. For instance, Egypt as a homeland should be divided equally among its 100 million citizens. Citizens themselves are the homeland, and they own it in the West democracies as per the West culture. In contrast, Arab tyrants own their respective homelands and embody them; they also embody the nation and the State; they are like shepherds controlling, killing, enslaving, and exploiting their herds of cattle or subjects. We refer readers to our article in English titled "Cursed Is a Homeland Owned by a Tyrant!", found on this link: (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=15284). We sincerely hope that Arabs and Palestinians would liberate themselves from this holy cow named as (the homeland owned by tyrants). God in the Quran has imposed immigration as a religious duty for those who are persecuted because of their religion inside their homelands; if they afford to immigrate and would not immigrate (though they can do it) to avoid religious persecution, they will enter into Hell; see 4:97-100. This means that the real homeland is the one where people enjoy, and never lose, their freedom and human rights.   

6/2: The stretches of land are not owned by human beings forever; human beings are not immortal on this earth; they live on it only once and then they die; their bodies turn into dust inside the earth from which they have been created, as per the Quran. God is the Sole Owner and Inheritor of earth and everything and everyone on it; see 19:40. Those who struggle for power and scramble for loot and possessions must realize that they are heading towards death with the speed of 60 seconds per minute; within their endless struggles, they forget about death and the Last Day until they die suddenly and are forced to leave the earth or stretches of lands over which they have struggled to own and control. The reasonable persons must realize that millions of human beings struggled and fought in the ancient eras on earth over the stretches of lands and that they died and left this world forever; hence, it is better to live our lifetimes while enjoying all human rights and freedoms and seeking to be among the winners in the Hereafter. The reasonable ones among Arabs and Palestinians are those who realize the fact that tyrants brainwash them with mottos about the homeland, stretches of land, and nationalism to sacrifice them easily (as subjects or herds of cattle) in order to increase the authority and wealth of the tyrants who always dream of annexing more stretches of lands. This applies to the Wahabi tyrannical Hamas terrorists and the Arab tyrants elsewhere.  

7- It is high time that such madness would come to an end.

COMMENTS:

(1) Ben Levante: I assert here that not all Jews inside or outside Israel are bad or evil; the same applies to Arabs and Palestinians; generalizations are wrong, of course. Within one given race/nation, people differ a great deal. We are to respect the right of one another of holding different political views; discussions within comments in the Quranism website should always be civilized.

(2) Lotfiya Saeed: I hope very much that the vision of Dr. Mansour about the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would be realized one day soon enough; it is legal to have a dream and try to make it true; we thank God for the fact that dreams are available and not censored or confiscated yet.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

He said to me: This series of articles about your journey to Israel and Palestine will get you more foes and enemies.

We said to him: With or without this series of articles, we get more foes and enemies every day and also more friends; of course, the number of foes and enemies clearly exceeds the number of friends. What matters most to our person, as a reformist thinker, is to provide an online archive of writings that will benefit readers and offer enlightenment to them.

He said: The people who are infuriated by your series of articles about your journey to Israel and Palestine will accuse you of being an agent who receive money from Israel.

We said: This false accusation has been leveled at our person since the days when we worked as an assistant professor at Al-Azhar University in the 1980s, though at the time, we never had any acquaintances outside our native village and outside the Azharite circles. Today, Arab tyrants are so happy when Israel is pleased with any of them.  

He said: Your foes and enemies will attack you more harshly than ever!

We said: Within their attacking, criticizing, and verbally abusing our person, they have used all pejorative terms, slander, insults, name-calling, and coarse language that you can imagine to be found in all dictionaries; even if they would use new terms of verbal abuse, they are specialized in them, whereas we specialize in (1) reformist endeavors, (2) defending the Quran, and (3) the peaceful, intellectual war of ideas. What will remain in life is what will benefit all human beings; i.e., our archive of writings, whereas any verbal abuse and insults will bring disgrace to the ones who say/write them, in this world and in the next one.

He said: Another point is the bad timing to this series of articles; you know that the Palestinians who have participated in the Land Day demonstrations in the Gaza Strip have drawn nearer the borders with Israel; many were killed and injured and this has shocked the whole world.

We said: The timing is not intentional; we have written about our journey to Israel and Palestine once we returned home to VA, the USA. In fact, the timing is perfect; we aim to expose the terrorist Hamas group members who deceive the ordinary Palestinians whose blood are shed within a planned scenario to increase the ill-gotten money/wealth of the Hamas members. No State on earth would accept intruders infiltrating into its borders; Israel is no exception to this rule. At one time, Sadat warned Kaddafi that he would use military weapons against him if Libyan demonstrators (gathered upon orders of Kaddafi at the Egyptian western borders to embarrass Sadat and force a unity between Libya and Egypt) would cross the borders and threaten the security of Egyptian borders. Thus, each State on earth (Israel, Egypt, etc.) must impose its sovereignty over its borders, and this is a basic political right.   

He said: Erdoğan has attacked Netanyahu for killing some Palestinians, whereas your articles praise some Israelis! 

We said: Erdoğan has attacked Netanyahu and accused him of being a terrorist for killing those who tried to infiltrate and attack Israeli borders; yet, Erdoğan has attacked Syrian borders and invaded a Syrian region, while massacring thousands of Syrians. Israel heals and treats some injured Syrians inside Israeli hospitals. Erdoğan dreams of restoring the Ottoman caliphate and manipulates religion to achieve his political ambitions, especially by issuing statements that appeal to the naïve, gullible masses of Wahabis; Erdoğan is a member of the terrorist MB group, and he exploits any events, incidents, anything, and anyone. We must not forget that Erdoğan has very good relations and diplomatic ties with Israel; the Turkish airlines constitute the most important passage to Tel Aviv now.     

He said: You are deliberately shocking and disturbing the minds of readers by your writings!

We said: Some cures and medicines have a bitter taste; they are better and less painful than ailments, sickness, and illnesses. Even if the words of reform are cruel and harsh, they are nothing when compared to bullets that kill the innocent ones. Countless bullets, bombs, and rockets were used to massacre many Arabs when Arabs have launched wars against one another; Arabs are very sick and in bad need of treatment by the Quranist reform and political reform that we suggest in our writings. It is normal to expect that sick people who are in pain would curse and verbally abuse their doctor!  

He said: You have to realize that Israel is a sensitive topic to most Arabs!

We said: You are perfectly right; therefore, it must be tackled more often and very frankly; we specialize in the peaceful, intellectual war of ideas; our words should help stop bloodshed and restore peace. In fact, peace is Islam in terms of behavior and demeanor. Peace is one of the Holy Names of the Lord God in the Quran. With our Quranist Islam, we undermine and smash all the religious, political, and intellectual holy cows of all Arabs. Chief among such holy cows is the intellectual war and propaganda launched by Arab tyrants to urge citizens to channel their fury and frustration against Israel and the USA instead of the real enemy; i.e., the tyrannical Arab regimes that fail in all fields except in oppressing and enslaving Arab citizens. We tackle these topics as per our firm belief that reformist endeavors entail defining the real enemies who hinder religious and political reform; i.e., Arab tyrants and their regimes as well as clergymen who support those tyrants. Arabs will never be reformed unless peace is restored with Israel and enmity towards Israel would come to an end after decades of propagating hatred towards Israel by the tyrannical regimes in the Arab world. Arab tyrants create imaginary external and internal enemies to justify their tyranny and their being enthroned under the pretext of protecting the citizens; tyrants are the worst arch-enemies of Arab citizens; the Arabs must be undeceived in this respect as soon as possible. 

He said: This is a complicated topic; enmity and hatred towards Israel have accumulated since 1948 in the Arab world within many generations.

We said: This is true; this is proved by this example: the Yemenis now face a war launched against them from their Arab brethren who are allied with one another against Yemen; tens of thousands of Yemeni children and women have been killed; the infrastructure in Yemen has been destroyed; Yemen is being ruined now; many Yemenis suffer from the cholera epidemic; yet, facing such ongoing aggression, the Yemenis chant slogans like (Down with the USA and Israel!) or (Death to the USA and Israel!). This is sheer madness; such madness is unparalleled, and we must face it with the power of our words in our Quranism website.    

He said: Many people have visited Israel upon receiving certain invitations and never spoke or wrote about their visit; why have you written about your journey to Israel and the Palestinian territories?!

We said: Our reformist intellectual endeavors are based on transparency; we have nothing to hide or to conceal; of course, we wished before (but we did not seek) to receive an invitation from any of the Israeli universities, research/academic centers, or peace groups to visit Israel and talk about how to restore peace and the role of Quranism in restoring peace and stopping bloodshed; in fact, we have never received any invitations of this kind, though we waited for them; yet, this never occurred. Later on, our son's wedding party in Palestine entailed our visiting Israel; we feel glad to have met Israeli professors and academicians and those who work for the sake of restoring peace; this experience was wonderful; we feel happy for getting acquainted with them. We have written about this journey to prove to the sick ones among the Arabs that Israelis are not pure evil; rather, they are like all human beings: they include extremists, moderates, and noble, pure persons. In fact, all Israelis we have encountered so far are noble people; they are among the noblest people we have ever met in the whole course of our life. We feel sorry to repeat here that Israelis in general are more elevated and refined in their behavior than Arabs, because Israelis live within a democratic, civilized society, in contrast to Arabs who live within the climate of oppression, terrorism, and corruption imposed by Arab tyrants who force citizens to spy on one another, fear one another, and lie to one another to get saved only temporarily.       

He said: Do you feel any sense of hope regarding Israeli extremists?

We said: Yes; they work for restoring peace and they desire security and safety to their progeny. Do not forget that peace movements in Israel are strong and they are heard attentively by everyone; this applies also to the Israeli Leftist trends. In fact, peace movements and trends have emerged in earlier decades in Israel, since the 1960s, whereas Arab countries since the era of Nasser until now have no similar peace trends.

He said: Who is more fanatic: the Hamas members or the Israeli extremists?

We said: In fact, Israeli extremists are less fanatic than the Hamas members; they are keener on preserving the lives of Palestinians more than the Hamas members; Israelis never kill people indiscriminately, in contrast to the terrorist Wahabi Hamas members and all Wahabis in general. Israeli extremists enjoy political flexibility shown in their current policies as they assume power now in Israel.

He said: Why do you feel a sense of hope regarding Israeli extremists?

We said: Without hope, one is miserable, pained, and depressed. Any reformist thinkers, like ourselves, should adhere to hope so that they go on within their intellectual endeavors; without hope, they will no longer write anything as they sink into despair. As for Israeli extremists, we address the good aspect inside them as we are keen on achieving peace for the sake of the future of both Arabs and Israelis.

He said: Does your stance agree with your Quranist vision as a reformist thinker?

We said: Of course; as per the Quranic teachings, we are not to hate the human beings who commit the evil deeds; rather, we should hate the evil deeds themselves; we preach evildoers so that they repent and atone for their sins. Repentance means that sinful human beings can be good; if they repent and make amends, this is good for them and for others around them. Thus, we do not hate evil persons; we only hate evil deeds.

He said: Does your stance here include Wahabis? You are attacking them harshly all the time, you know.

We said: Of course; our stance includes them; in the conferences and forums we have attended and in our writings, we have repeated that we are not against the MB members' involvement in political life and their trying to reach power through elections; we are not against any persons; we are against their manipulation of the name of Islam to reach power, authority, and wealth; we are against their wicked Sunnite Wahabi religion; we urge them to stop mixing politics and religion. We advise you to read our book published on our website titled "Warning Muslims against Mixing Politics and Religion".  

He said: Does your stance here include tyrannical rulers? You are attacking them harshly all the time, you know.

We said: Of course; our stance includes them, and we never despair of urging them to introduce reform, to make amends, and to reform themselves; for instance, within our recent interview with the London-based Al-Arab newspaper (found in English on this link: http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=18174), we have urged Arab tyrants to introduce partial reform by removing restrictions that cripple freedom of thought, free speech, and the absolute religious freedom; this will be the cornerstone for establishing the culture of democracy; this is the basis of democratic transition that will take a long time to influence the next generations. We have mentioned that such partial reform will make history books mention the name of any Arab tyrants favorably, and at the same time, this partial reform will not undermine their current tyrannical authority; people will be too busy by intellectual debates to focus on criticizing tyrants. This is why we have encouraged Al-Sisi when he has talked in 2014 about reforming the religious discourse in Egypt and we have offered many suggestions to him in this respect. When it turned out that he does not intend to introduce any religious reform, we have criticized and attacked him in our book titled "A Witness of the Earliest Months of The Presidential Term of The Egyptian President Al-Sisi" (found in English on this link: http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=77). Thus, we are not against any persons; rather, we stand against evil, harming, corrupt deeds and thought; this is the core of our peaceful reformist intellectual war of ideas within Quranism; we preach and warn those who commit evil deeds because we care about them, fear for them, and love them; we would like to save them and save others from any potential harm, and we bear patiently with our being persecuted, slandered, and verbally abused.    

He said: Do you feel any sense of hope regarding Abbas and Hamas?

We said: Undoubtedly; we address the good aspect inside them, because we are keen on restoring peace and we care very much about the future of the Palestinian nation; our greatest hopes lie on raising the awareness of the Palestinian nation; in fact, they learn more effectively and quickly when compared to other Arab nations; the Palestinians deserve a wiser leadership that serves them instead of corrupt leaders who serve only their own financial interests.

He said: Many persons accuse you of making the Israeli aggressors equal to the Palestinian victims; how would you deny this?

We said: This accusation has been refuted in our previous writings; let us focus now on peaceful political solution that will stop bloodshed and apply Islam in terms of behavior; i.e., peaceful demeanor. This is a historical fact: the Palestinians were the ones who first attacked the early Jewish/Israelite immigrants in Palestine in the 1920s and the 1930s before 1948; we will never defend such attacks against those who came to settle in Palestine; let us not focus on the past now; let bygones be bygones. Let us focus instead on the present and the future and on finding possible solutions; this is the useful talk that all sides need.   

He said: Have your articles about your journey to Israel and Palestine pleased all Quranists of your Quranism website?

We said: No; not all of them are pleased. Anyway, not all writers and commentators on our website are Quranists; some non-Quranists are more active in writing comments and articles; we are very pleased by their active presence on our Quranism website. Our articles in politics and other articles about other topics are being criticized by them. The principle that we follow on our website is that our views are never above correction and criticism. All of us are disciples whose only master is the Quranic text itself. All of us draw benefits from writings (i.e., comments and articles) of one another. Our website is an intellectual school of thought and reform; we are the generation of dialogue; we hope that the next generation will be the one of making choices (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=16851).

He said: What about the trend of Quranists in general?

We said: The Quranists now form an undercurrent or a subculture; they hide themselves under the surface of the mainstream culture and media of their respective countries, out of fear of being persecuted and incarcerated; one day, God willing, our Quranist trend will proclaim itself and be known to the whole world.

COMMENTS:

(1) Adel Bin Ahmad: Thank you Dr. Mansour, and may God bless you and grant you the best of health. One day, things will change for the better and the Muhammadans will wake up and return to the Quran and the Arabs will wake up and make good use of your archive of great writings (in politics and in religion). Your reformist ideas will never be expressed in vain. God says in the Quran: "He sends down water from the sky, and riverbeds flow according to their capacity. The current carries swelling froth. And from what they heat in fire of ornaments or utensils comes a similar froth. Thus God exemplifies truth and falsehood. As for the froth, it is swept away, but what benefits the people remains in the ground. Thus God presents the analogies." (13:17). As always, God says nothing but the Absolute Truth.

(2) Ben Levante: I'd like to assert here that despite the fact of backwardness of Arabs and their stupid mistakes regarding the Palestinian cause, this does not mean that the modern state of Israel, with its advancement and power, includes nothing but angelic citizens with high moralistic levels. Let us be reminded that aggressive Jewish gangs evicted Palestinians from their land in the 1920s and the 1930s; let us be reminded that Israel does not hesitate to massacre civilians in Gaza and the West Bank if this means to kill off the enemy. Of course, I am against the terrorist Hamas group; if Hamas had the similar weapons as Israel, it will not hesitate to commit the same massacres. I cast doubt on the surmise that Israelis desire peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. The Israelis are worried about the demographics; i.e., the number of Palestinians increase as childbirth rates are very high; birth control might be successful if one State is established to include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and all Arabs inside both areas would obtain the Israeli nationality and have better or decent standard of living. Yet, this is not happening anytime soon, if ever. Israel desires total submission of Palestinians to its dictates. Thank you Dr. Mansour. 

(3) Mustafa Ismail Hammad: I still insist that Dr. Mansour should revise his bias for Israel; his favorable views about Israel hurts many Arab Quranists and non-Quranists, especially his reader among our brethren the Palestinians. By the way, Israel never ceded anything before to achieve peace; the Palestinians have ceded almost everything and they continue to suffer. Why would not Israel go back to the pre-1967 borders?! Not all Israelis are angels or demons; the same applies to the Palestinians. Israel must stop its expansionist ambition and cease to commit military aggressions if its citizens desire peace. We implore Almighty God to help the weak, poor Palestinians.     

(4) Osama Qafeesha: I am a Palestinian Quranist; I assert here that I disagree with Dr. Mansour's siding with Israel. Cursed be Arab tyrants and cursed be Israel for its oppression, crimes, injustices, and tyranny committed against the poor, helpless Palestinians.  

(5) Saeed Ali: Dear Mr. Qafeesha, I remind you that Dr. Mansour is siding with human rights within a Quranist vision; he is not against Palestinians at all, and if you read and reflect deeply on this series of articles, without being blinded by fury, you will see what I assert to you. May God protect you from any oppression and injustices, but you have to keep on writing on the Quranism website and respect the fact that people have the inalienable right to hold different political and religious views; Arabs must stop their old ways, their obscurantism, their backwardness, their empty words, and their ignorance, especially in the manner of discussion of different political views; the Quranism website is a school of thought where we express ourselves freely and within mutual respect and we learn from one another. Please keep on writing comments and articles so that we see your side of the story. Thank you.  

(6) Dr. Othman M. Ali: Of course, the Palestinians suffer restrictions at security checkpoints and oppression of the ruling leaders or the gang of thieves like Hamas and Abbas. I myself support the views of Dr. Mansour and I support the solution of one State (i.e., Israel) for all Jews and Palestinians to live in peace and equality as Israeli citizens. I never trust those Arabs who trade with and make money by exploiting the rights, the blood, and the hopes of the Palestinian people. Even if some words of Dr. Mansour have infuriated some of his readers among the Quranists or non-Quranists, we are to bear in mind that he offers a realizable vision of peace for all in order to put an end to the daily suffering of the Palestinians. To maintain peace is more difficult than ongoing wars; there are many challenges to face and much reform to be done. It is very mean to cast doubt on the sincerity of the stance of the peacemaker and the great reformist thinker, Dr. Mansour, by accusing him of disregarding the Palestinian people and their rights. May God bless all preachers of peace and reform worldwide.   

(7) Dr. A. S. Mansour: Regarding the views that differ from ours, we assert here that we are not a Palestinian man; we desire peace and security in the region and we offer pieces of advice to both the Israelis and the Palestinians based on our short journey there. We aim to end the daily suffering of the Palestinians. We remind everyone that within political negotiations, no one takes everything; compromises are bound to occur by getting something and ceding something else. Arabs failed by their former strategy of insisting to take either everything or nothing; they took nothing so far; this strategy of Arabs has helped Israel to succeed on all levels since 1948 until now. We have done our duty by writing the above views of ours in this series of articles. Typically, we never impose ourselves and our views or stances on anyone, and we never ask for praise or rewards from anyone; we never assume to own the absolute truth, and we pardon those who verbally abuse our person. After expressing our views and stances, we typically move on to write about other new topics. Peace be with all of you. 

PART II of the BOOK: Reactions Reflecting the Arab Mentality

Firstly: Two Articles by Our Fellow Quranists

Article One

An Analysis of the Jewish Mentality within the Words of the Jews of Arabia

Written by: Saeed Ali, translated by: Ahmed Fathy

 Though Dr. Mansour has not finished yet his series of articles about his journey to Israel and Palestine as I write this article of mine, and though he fascinates me with his enlightened mind and analysis of what he has seen there during this journey, I am acutely conscious of the fact that this series of articles may infuriate some of our Palestinian brethren and hurt their feelings; they and other Arabs like myself see on TV the savage practices of the Israeli state, which claim falsely to be a democratic state, against the Palestinians. I assert here that the Israeli state is one thing, whereas the Israelites or the Israeli nation is something else which is totally different. It is a common mistake to generalize; we, as Arabs, must stop judging the majority of a group of people or any given nation by the bad deeds/stances of few persons or a minority inside this nation or group. I remember this situation when I journeyed at one time to Australia and I was a guest at the house of a retired Egyptian-Australian friend there; I and he were in his car; he was driving and he stopped by the red traffic lights to let pedestrians cross the street; he and I saw among the pedestrians an Israelite man wearing Jewish traditional clothes; this Egyptian-Australian friend told me jokingly that he wished to run over him with his car, but he would not because he does not want to go to jail because of killing this monkey! I reproached this friend for having such hostile sentiments against a peaceful human being for his merely being a Jew.

 Dr. Mansour, through his meticulous Quranist research and deep ponderings on the Quranic verses, has reached the discovery that the Quranic term "Jews" differs from the modern usage of the term; in the Quran, it refers only to the misguided, aggressive, polytheistic  Israelites, and not all Israelites in general. In this article of mine, I trace the words/stances of Arabian Jews mentioned in the Quranic text to analyze briefly the Jewish mentality as per my own understanding and pondering; of course, my views are liable to be corrected and criticized; I never claim to own the absolute truth about anything.

 The Arabian Jews mentioned in the Quran were prejudiced against Arabian Christians; they said about them the following: "The Jews say, "The Christians are not based on anything;"..." (2:113). Hence, these Jews of Arabia were ignorant ones who had airs of superiority and a sense of tribalism; they felt as if they owned the absolute truth and others do not have it, though scriptures have been given to both the Israelites and Christians via their prophets: "...Yet they both read the Scripture. Similarly, the ignorant said the same thing. God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection regarding their differences." (2:113). Thus, God will be the Judge on the Last Day about these beliefs and stances; the words of the Arabian Jews in 2:113 express merely a form of an intellectual war, propaganda, and verbal self-praise by insulting Christians of Arabia, who replied with a similar insult: "...and the Christians say, "The Jews are not based on anything."..." (2:113). Thus, I do believe that 2:113 predicts that this debate and mutual hatred will go on between Christians and Jews in later eras until the end of days. Yet, the Quran tells us also that the Jews and Christians of Arabia had one common element; i.e., the grave sin/crime of polytheism by claiming they are the children of God (this is refuted in the Quranic Chapter 112, of course); both types of the People of the Book said the following to Muhammad when they debated with him: "The Jews and the Christians say, "We are the children of God, and His beloved."..." (5:18); God has commanded Muhammad to refute them by saying the following elevated, rational response in the Quran: "...Say, "Why then does He punish you for your sins?" In fact, you are humans from among those He created..." (5:18). God will accept the repentance of those who repent sincerely before they die and perform good deeds and will torment those who die as disobedient sinners, as we infer from the rest of the verse: "...He forgives whom He wills, and He torments whom He wills. To God belongs the sovereignty over the heavens and the earth and what lies between them, and to Him is the return." (5:18). The same mentality of polytheism has driven Jews of Arabia to assume that a man named Osir is a son of the Lord God; Christians of Arabia committed the same sin by assuming that Christ is a son of the Lord God! May the Lord God be glorified high above such blasphemous claims! Such false claims hark back to the ancient nations before them whose people had deified mortals as sons of the Lord God the Creator, as we infer from this verse: "The Jews said, "Osir is the son of God," and the Christians said, "The Messiah is the son of God." These are their statements, out of their mouths. They imitate the statements of those who disbelieved before. May God punish them! How deceived they are!" (9:30). Within the blasphemies of the materialistic mentality of Jews at the time in Arabia, they had insulted God by views never expressed by Christians of Arabia; this indicates their exceeding all limits of polytheism and blasphemy, though they forgot that they were created out of dust and they will return to it when they die; may God be exalted and glorified above their blasphemous words: "The Jews say, "God's hand is tied." It is their hands that are tied, and they are cursed for what they say. In fact, His hands are outstretched; He gives as He wills..." (5:64). The rest of this verse sheds light on the Jewish mentality (but this does not apply to good, monotheistic, peaceful Israelites, of course) that spreads corruption, aggression and hatred on earth within disbelief and defiance: "...Certainly, what was revealed to your from your Lord will increase many of them in defiance and disbelief. And We placed between them enmity and hatred, until the Day of Resurrection. Whenever they kindle the fire of war, God extinguishes it. And they strive to spread corruption on earth. God does not love the corrupters." (5:64). I notice here in this phrase in the verse 5:64 perfectly summarizes the Jewish mentality (I mean the mentality of the majority of Jews who are disbelievers and corrupt, and not all Israelites), as the Jews never believe in the Quran, and its facts increase their defiance and disbelief; their spreading corruption and aggression on earth is expressed using the present tense in the verse 5:64, and this indicates that this verse applies to all eras until the end of days. Thus, the disbelieving, misguided Jews (who are most of the Israelites and not all of them, as some of them are and have been good, peaceful monotheists) in all eras who die as sinners will be punished in the Hereafter in Hell because of their sins of spreading corruption, injustices, and aggression on earth.

 We are to remember that not all Israelites are Jews in the Quranic sense of the term; not all Jews of today (in the modern sense of the term) have this criminal mentality; likewise, Jews of Arabia (and not Christians of Arabia) and Arab polytheists during Muhammad's lifetime hated Quran-believing people: "You will find that the people most hostile towards the believers are the Jews and the polytheists. And you will find that the nearest in affection towards the believers are those who say, "We are Christians." That is because among them are priests and monks, and they are not arrogant." (5:82). God has commanded Muhammad never to follow the distorted religions and ways of the People of the Book in Arabia (Jews + Christians) who desired that Muhammad would please them by adopting their notions, as he (and all Quran-believing people in all eras) must follow the monotheistic religion of Abraham: "Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was a monotheist, a Muslim. And he was not of the polytheists." (3:67); "The Jews and the Christians will not approve of you, unless you follow their creed. Say, "God's guidance is the guidance." Should you follow their desires, after the knowledge that has come to you, you will have in God neither guardian nor helper." (2:120). Thus, when I ponder deeply on the verse 2:120, I discern that the Jewish mentality aims at making others follow their errant ways of life and within religion; the only solution or way out for Muhammad and also for real, monotheistic believers is to follow the Quran as the only source of religious legislations; the Quran is the only celestial source of guidance from God; Muhammad adhered to it to avoid the Salafist (i.e., ancestral) Talmudic ways of the Jews of Arabia at the time, with their wrong notions and distorted tenets and beliefs as well as distorted scriptures they ascribed to the Lord God.               

COMMENTS:

(1) Dr. A. S. Mansour: Thank you very much our dear son Mr. Saeed Ali. We remind you briefly here that the term "Jews" in the Quran refers only to the misguided ones among the Israelites in Arabia during the era within which the Quran was revealed – these Arabian Jews had their own unique features which do not exist in Israelites/Jews of today in the modern sense of the term (Jews). Of course, Jews and Christians of Arabia at the time differed at certain aspects and notions and agreed on others; they were allies to one another in their aggression against the early believers in the Yathreb city-state; this is why God has commanded the believers among the Yathreb dwellers not to ally themselves to aggressive Arab Jewish and Christian attackers; see 5:51. Thus, believers are never to ally themselves to unjust aggressors in times of war while believers (i.e., peaceful, innocent ones) are attacked. The main feature which was common among Jews and Christians of Arabia has been to ascribe sons to God – glorified and exalted be His Holy Name above such blasphemy. As for Israelites of today, or Jews in the modern sense of the term, they are very sensitive regarding adhering to monotheism and avoiding polytheism; this is what we have sensed within all of the noble Jews we have encountered inside Israel and those whom we have befriended inside the USA. Therefore, the misguided group/sect of Jews of Arabia who said that Osir is a son of the Lord God no longer exists now. In our previous writings, we have proven that this man named Osir is merely the Pharaonic deity Osiris, the god of death and the afterlife in Pharaonic mythology, as Jews who settled in Egypt were negatively influenced by the Pharaonic polytheistic religion. This is the historical indication miraculously found in the Quran: "The Jews said, "Osir is the son of God,"...These are their statements, out of their mouths. They imitate the statements of those who disbelieved before..." (9:30). Thus, these polytheistic Jews of Arabia imitated the worship of Osir/Osiris that began within the Pharaonic Era as the polytheistic Egyptians worshiped a pantheon of imaginary deities that include Osiris; this Pharaonic Egyptian religion of polytheism is called (Gypt) in the Quran, and this polytheism was followed by the misguided ones among the People of the Book in Arabia: "Have you not considered those who were given a share of the Book? They believe in Gypt and Taghut..." (4:51). See the section "Fourthly" in our article in English here: (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=17984); for more details about (Gypt), see also our book titled "The Character of Egypt after the Arab Conquest"(found on this link: http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=96). This term (Gypt) that refers to the ancient Pharaonic religion is the root of the name of (Egypt) in English and other European languages (e.g., Ägypten in German & L'Égypte in French), and it is the root for the term (Copts) used by Arabs (and other non-Arabs) to denote all Egyptians in general for many centuries, before the term has become confined now to describe Orthodox Christians of Egypt. Because polytheistic notions persist until today, it is a laughter-inducing fact that Osir or Osiris is still feared and mentioned by the Muhammadans in Egypt and in the Arab world as the angel of death who supposedly take the souls of dying people, and the Muhammadans have named this imaginary angel as (Azrael), a name derived from the name Osiris, the god of death in the Pharaonic religion. We thank you again, our dear son, Mr. Saeed Ali, for your article.        

Article Two

About The Tourist Journey of Dr. Mansour

Written by: Osama Qafeesha, translated by: Ahmed Fathy

 First of all, I congratulate the happy couple who have celebrated their wedding party in Nablus; I wish them a happy marriage; may God grant them matrimonial bliss. But as a Quranist Palestinian man, I write this article as a critical and analytical response to the series of articles of Dr. Mansour about his journey to the Palestinian territories and to the state of Israel. Before I write anything further, I reproach Dr. Mansour for not notifying me (and Quranist Palestinians) of his visiting the West Bank; we should have been glad to invite him and his family members to our houses very hospitably and to provide him generously with all means of comfort; he would have been more than welcome; yet, I am sorry to say that Dr. Mansour has clearly preferred to coordinate with some Israelis instead.

 As I write this article, the Palestinians now are forbidden to pass through security checkpoints inside the occupied territories (the ones invaded since 1948 from my homeland, Palestine) and they cannot visit their relatives because all security checkpoints and passages/routes are closed because of the Jewish feasts; even Palestinian workers and merchants are prevented from entering there; this means that the daily life and work of the Palestinians are suspended for a while until Israel permits them later on to enter through this security belt; I should mention here the fact that not all Palestinians are allowed to enter into Israel; only those few ones who have permits issued only by Israel. I write this article to explain to all readers of this great website the reality of the status quo as experienced by the Palestinians in the West Bank; the picture must be clarified and explained by those who have first-hand experience of harsh realities there; the truth will not be suppressed and it cannot ignored, even by a series of articles about a brief, tourist journey by Dr. Mansour who never saw or witnessed the daily suffering (or indeed, the daily Calvary) of ordinary Palestinians. I am sure that Dr. Mansour is a democratic man who will willingly and wholeheartedly accept my criticism and analysis of his series of articles about this brief, tourist journey. I assume that Dr. Mansour is never fully aware of the realities on the ground inside Palestine; he wrote his series of article without doing a thorough research and without witnessing the lives of Palestinians there or talking to ordinary oppressed ones among them during his tourist journey. for many reasons, I refuse to accept his views expressed in this series of articles that offends the Palestinians in general and that lacks in-depth testimonies: the views of Dr. Mansour in this series of articles are not verifiable and will not be deemed acceptable by any neutral party; he witnessed only few hours with few (apparently rich) Palestinians within a very short journey; he did not make a tour around the West Bank cities to get to know the minutest details about the miserable life and the despicable conditions of the Palestinians there. To explain this point, I say that if I were to visit Japan one day to make a tour around its great cities, I will be surprised very much and I may say that I do not believe that two Japanese cities were destroyed in the past by nuclear bombs of the USA. Thus, people will say that I deny a historical fact and my testimony as a witness will be doubted, since I deny the suffering and pain of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thus, the testimony of Dr. Mansour as a visitor to one city of Palestine, Nablus, and only the Old City quarter in Jerusalem, will not refute the international reports, findings of investigation committees, and human-rights documents about the plight of the Palestinians; Dr. Mansour saw only the touristic side of the rich classes; he did not saw middle-class and poor Palestinians and how they live in misery. A veritable eye-witness who should write a comprehensive series of articles about Palestine should have delved deeper into the West Bank, with its cities and people of all social classes to focus on their suffering and the hardships they face on a daily basis; Dr. Mansour should have contacted me or any other Palestinian Quranists; I would have readily guided him to the right locations to see for himself how the poor Palestinians suffer oppression and misery. If I and he were to meet, I would have shown to him truly how the Palestinians are being humiliated at security checkpoints. Yet, it is never too late; he can see this for himself in hundreds of videos and photos and pieces of news, apart from reports documented by Arabs and non-Arabs of different nationalities as well as those by Israeli Jews who support the rights of Palestinians, as these noble Jews side with the truth and with human rights for all people. I never lied to my readers in my article titled "Checkpoints of Oppression", to which Dr. Mansour has referred in his series of articles and in one of his previous political articles (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=17605). Dr. Mansour says in his series of articles that he regrets believing my article, as if I have exaggerated and told him lies! In his series of articles about a brief, tourist journey to a limited number of areas (and for the first time), he tries to refute the facts mentioned in my article; is it logical to depend only on what he saw? He did not see everything, and certainly he did not visit all cities of the West Bank and he never saw all security checkpoints and how the Palestinians are mistreated and being humiliated there. What are these lies that I supposedly mentioned in my article titled "Checkpoints of Oppression"?! Is Dr. Mansour trying to accuse me of writing exaggerations that have nothing to do with reality?! By the way, Dr. Mansour came to Palestine as an American tourist and got the help of some Israeli friends; he never saw or experienced the humiliation suffered by the interminable queues of Palestinians at the security checkpoints at Jewish settlements that separate many Palestinian cities from one another and change the geography of Palestine forever as a type of irreversible and irrevocable fait accompli. By the way, the journey of Dr. Mansour was not one of research and fact-finding tours of investigation; he never covered all the angles of any issues at hand in the limited locations he visited; again, he did not make a tour in all of the cities of the West Bank. Thus, his testimony is lacking and is deemed unreliable.                     

 About the first article (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=18212): I am sure, Dr. Mansour, that your friend Mr. Charles Jacobs (apart from his being Jewish or not) is a Zionist American because he felt happy to hear about your intended visit to Israel and he took photocopies of the passports and tickets of you and your family members to facilitate matters for you; such measures are taken only to help VIP visitors of the West nationalities and senior Palestinian politicians, officials, and leaders when they enter Israel. I thank Mr. Jacobs for his helping you; may God come to the aid and help of the poor, oppressed Palestinians. The facts that I have mentioned in my article titled "Checkpoints of Oppression" about the humiliation suffered by the Palestinians there are NOT false, even if Dr. Mansour tries to cast doubt on their veracity; the misery and oppression inflicted on the Palestinians there (who carry Palestinian IDs and passports and have no other nationality) will never be felt by tourists like Dr. Mansour, who are treated in a an excellent way especially if they arrive from a West country.     

 About the second article (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=18213): I like very much this exchange of ideas and discussing them and talking to the other; yet, why did Dr. Mansour insist on talking to Israelis while never talking to the other side: the Palestinians? Why did he not deliver any speech in Palestinian universities, institutes, or researcher centers?! I will not talk here about Al-Ahmadiyya sect, but I assert here that the head of Al-Ahmadiyya sect never received death threats from any Palestinians; if the opposite were true, he would have been murdered years ago if he was a target by any terrorist, as he lives inside the Palestinian territories; besides followers of this Al-Ahmadiyya sect are very few people who live in peace, and no one has committed any aggression against them; their number is not too big to form a sect, when compared to Druze, Baha'is, and Christian sects, for instance. I refuse to believe that the head of Al-Ahmadiyya sect might have said that his life was threatened inside the Palestinian territories. This cannot be true.    

 About the third article (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=18214): I assert here again that the humiliation at the security checkpoints is a veritable danger and suffering inflicted only on the Palestinians who carry Palestinian IDs and passports; as for tourists like Dr. Mansour (especially those who come from the West countries) and those Israeli Arabs, they never suffer even the slightest problems at the Israeli security checkpoints; they pass through them easily like Jewish Israelis. Besides, Dr. Mansour passed from Nablus to Jerusalem inside an Israeli car that has Israeli plates and belongs to an Israeli company; this will make passengers/tourists inside such a vehicle have an easy passage without obstacles, interrogations, or humiliation (by searching one's car, luggage, and one's clothes and body!). A Palestinian man like myself must leave his car to be searched thoroughly and the Israeli soldiers will search my body and the clothes I'm wearing in a humiliating manner; if I had no Israeli permit to enter into Jerusalem, I will be told at once to go back! In this case, I will be prevented from entering into Jerusalem from the security checkpoint that Dr. Mansour has mentioned. Other security checkpoints in certain regions never allow Palestinians through them at all; this is the case all the time, with or without permits! Thus, Dr. Mansour has no sufficient proofs within his journey to assume that I told lies in my Arabic article titled "Checkpoints of Oppression". When Dr. Mansour saw the Israeli settlement when his car took the wrong way, what saved him an interrogation was the Israeli car he rented; if the same situation would occur to a Palestinian man like me in his car, the Israeli soldiers would point their guns at me, or might even shoot me if I resist being searched, and they would make me kneel to the floor while they examine my ID and papers to make sure I am not a terrorist. Even after they would leave me to go in peace, this humiliation and terror would will ruin my day and the sense of humiliation will sink deep into my psyche to torture me for weeks, and I will not talk here about the waste of valuable time. I agree with the words of Dr. Mansour about Nablus and its routes and roads; the infrastructure is not very good. It has the least prices for goods in its markets when compared to other cities of the West Bank; but prices of goods in Gaza are the cheapest. The highest prices of goods are found in Jerusalem and Ramallah; they are as expensive as those in the cities of the USA, I think. Dr. Mansour did not visit Jewish Arab Palestinians in Nablus at Mount Gerizim; they have their own religious traditions, heritage, tenets, and notions; they are the progeny of the Samaritans, they assume to own the original Torah, and they refuse to support the state of Israel and the lies/myths that led to its emergence in 1948; they oppose the establishment of the Hebrew State, which is for them an insult to (or a manipulation of) the Jewish faith. It is OK if Dr. Mansour lived in a palace in Nablus, but he should have visited the Palestinian refugees in their camps and tents; more than 41000 Palestinian live near Nablus since more than 68 years ago, as they were forced to relocate when driven out of their land by force by the Israeli aggression, and they suffer despicable conditions and untold misery in their daily lives there. As for your leaving the Ben-Gurion Airport easily as an American tourist, the poor Palestinians are never allowed to use the same airport at all; they are forced to head for Jordan first and use its airports to travel anywhere.    

 About the fourth and the fifth articles (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=18215) & (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=18216): Israeli Arabs are not willing to move into the West Bank because they feel the importance of their presence inside Israel in terms of demography; they cannot get the Palestinian nationality because of this. Of course, they have stretches of lands, houses, and jobs in the areas occupied by Israel in 1967; they also have houses in the regions occupied in 1948; Israelis try hard to drive them out of Israel to seize the chance to deprive them of the Israeli nationality; they are unwanted citizens; they are never treated within fairness and equality or even within rights given to Jewish Israelis. They are second-class citizens who suffer inequality, as Israeli Jews hate them and are prejudiced against them. I agree with your pieces of advice addressed to Israel; yet, the government of extremists in power now will never heed your advice; they are eager to complicate matters and to make crises exacerbate and explode so that they seize the chance to massacre more Palestinians. The Palestinians (of all denominations) are the original owners of Palestine and they have the right to return to their homeland and their houses and stretches of lands; Israelis of West origins and from Russia and Africa (i.e., who came from overseas) are Zionist occupiers who have no right to occupy Palestine; they have no right to impose their control and hegemony over all the original dwellers of Palestine. Israel is ruled by Zionists and the American extremists of the far-right. Palestinian Jews of Palestine have the right to remain inside Palestine, but Jews of other origins (from Europe, Egypt, Russia, etc.) should go to their original homelands and stop siding with the evil occupiers; thus, there is nothing called a Jewish 'nation'; a nation is not based on the religious affiliation; the Palestinian nation, for instance, include many denominations: Muslims, Christians, Jews, Druze, Arminian, etc., and each of these sects will never form a separate nation at all. Thus, all of us must stop believing in the USA-propagated lie of considering Jews as a nation; this is an outright falsehood and a flagrant lie in terms of history. Israel is nothing but an American Zionist colony; it is no wonder that its roads and routes are similar to the ones inside the USA. There is nothing called Jewish nationalism; this is another lie/myth that has been propagated to help establish the state of Israel in 1948. Shiites are a sect and not a nation; the same applies to Sunnites, Christians, etc. The lie about the Jewish 'nation' is spread by ignoramuses who disregard the demographic facts of Palestine in order to undermine the rights of the Palestinians and to serve the purposes and interests of the Zionist Americans. Palestine and its Arab people will remain, with all their denominations, and Israel and Zionism will vanish one day in the future, sooner or later; every long, dark night is followed by the crack of dawn. The victory at the end will be for the Palestinians after decades of oppression and grave injustices. I'd like to remind Dr. Mansour that the hope/dream of an independent Palestinian State was aborted when Israeli extremists assassinated Yitzhak Rabin who was about to help in the emergence of an independent Palestinian State; extremists of the far-right control Israeli government ever since. I assert here that I disagree with Dr. Mansour's siding with Israel and that his favorable stance regarding Israel is particularly painful to me. Cursed be Arab tyrants and cursed be Israel for its oppression, crimes, injustices, and tyranny committed against the poor, helpless Palestinians. As I write this, I do still believe that the Quranism website is a platform for free expression of all different political views; I adhere to the motto that all views expressed in writing on this website by everyone are liable to be corrected and criticized. May God bear witness to what I write here; I have written the truth as I see it. I will never applaud the unjust Israelis or unjust Arabs anywhere, even if the corrupt, unjust ones are always those who seek and obtain superiority on earth and spread their injustice and corruption. As a Quranist person, I will always side with the oppressed, weak parties worldwide, even if they are non-Quranists or even if they have no religion at all.     

COMMENTS:

(1) Dr. A. S. Mansour: We thank Mr. Osama Qafeesha for presenting  his views that differ from ours, we assert here that views differ regarding any topic or issue as per the chosen angle. Of course, we are not a Palestinian man; we desire peace and security in the region and we have offered pieces of advice to both the Israelis and the Palestinians based on our short journey there. We aim to end the daily suffering of the Palestinians that Mr. Qafeesha talks about I his article. Of course, within political negotiations, no one takes everything; compromises are bound to occur by getting something and ceding something else. Arabs has always failed by their former strategy of insisting either to take everything or nothing; this strategy of Arabs has helped Israel to succeed on all levels since 1948 until now. We have done our duty by writing our series of articles. Typically, we never impose ourselves and our views or stances on anyone, and we never ask for praise or rewards from anyone; we never assume to own the absolute truth, and we pardon those who verbally abuse our person. After expressing our views and stances, we typically move on to write about other new topics. Peace be with all of you.  

(2) Mustafa Ismail Hammad: After reading this article, which is a real eye-opener to me, I do advise Dr. Mansour to reconsider his favorable views of Israel and the Israelis; in fact, he has offended many readers (Palestinians and others, Quranists and non-Quranists) by this series of articles, though he is a role-model to all Quranists. The Arabs of Palestine have ceded many things and never took anything in return before and after the Oslo Accords. Palestinians have lost hope of having their own independent state in the West Bank: they have neither a military army nor any form of sovereignty, and their leaders are corrupt traitors. They have to agree to the dictates of Israelis all the time, especially about arresting any persons and handing them to Israel upon demand from the Israeli authorities; their lands are confiscated so that Israel would build new Jewish settlements. Israelis are not angels on earth; they insist on annexing more stretches of lands inside the West Bank and they never desire to work for peace or to cede anything to achieve peace. All of us are to remember the Quranic fact that the Lord God has promised to exact punishment on evildoers and aggressors in this world before the next one. 

(3) Saeed Ali: Dear Mr. Qafeesha, I remind you that Dr. Mansour is siding with human rights within a Quranist vision; he is not against the Palestinians at all, and if you read and reflect deeply on this series of articles, without being blinded by fury, you will see what I assert to you. May God protect you from any oppression and injustices, but you have to keep on writing on the Quranism website and respect the fact that people have the inalienable right to hold different political and religious views. As for your phrase (cursed be Arab tyrants and cursed be Israel for its oppression, crimes, injustices, and tyranny committed against the poor, helpless Palestinians), it does not contradict the series of articles by Dr. Mansour; he has written frankly about his impressions of what he saw during his journey, which was not a long one. Dr. Mansour is not required to assess all the political and social aspects of the status quo in Palestine; he could not possibly wait, see, and check the bitterness of daily suffering inflicted on you and on the Palestinians of the West Bank. Dr. Mansour offers a Quranist vision of peace; his views will be appreciated and applied later on by all peace-lovers. I do believe that Arabs must stop their old ways, their obscurantism, their backwardness, their empty words, and their ignorance, especially in the manner of discussion of different political views; the Quranism website is a school of thought where we express ourselves freely and within mutual respect and we learn from one another. It is OK to hold different views in politics; this enriches our minds, and our intellectual experience is thus elevated. I welcome different, opposing political views expressed in the Quranism website. Please keep on writing comments and articles so that we see your side of the story as a Palestinian in the West Bank. You complete the picture to us as readers and Quranists. Thank you. 

(4) Dr. Othman M. Ali: Of course, the Palestinians suffer restrictions at the Israeli security checkpoints for security reasons, and they also suffer oppression inflicted by the ruling leaders or the gang of thieves like Hamas and Abbas who trade with the Palestinian blood and the dream of establishing one or two Palestinian independent states, within the pre-1967 borders. I myself support the views of Dr. Mansour and I support the solution of one State (i.e., Israel) for all Jews and Palestinians to live in peace and equality as Israeli citizens. I never trust those Arabs who trade with and make money by exploiting the rights, the blood, and the hopes of the Palestinian people. Even if some words of Dr. Mansour have infuriated some of his readers among the Quranists or non-Quranists, we are to bear in mind that he offers a realizable vision of peace for all in order to put an end to the daily suffering of the Palestinians and to stop bloodshed of the innocent ones among Jews and Arabs so that efforts and time are saved for peacemaking and economic growth. To maintain peace is more difficult than ongoing wars; there are many challenges to face and much reform to be done if the Jews and the Palestinians will live in one state as Israeli citizens enjoying absolute religious freedom. It is very mean to cast doubt on the sincerity of the great reformist thinker, Dr. Mansour, by accusing him of disregarding the Palestinian people and their rights. May God bless all preachers of peace and reform in the East and in the West.  

(5) Hisham Al-Saeedi: Israel has a different meaning for peace; Israel does not understand anything except the language of might. The Israelis want peace based on making all Palestinians submit totally to the will of Israel and all conditions dictated by Israelis only. Yet, God's promise to punish aggressors in this world, before the next one, will be fulfilled one day; no criminals will be able to avoid the retribution of the Lord God; many Palestinians in 1948 and afterwards were forced to relocate and leave their land unjustly within acts of aggression; God will lend them victory in the future.

Secondly: More Articles of Dr. A. S. Mansour with Pieces of Advice Addressed to the Palestinians

Pieces of Advice Addressed to the Palestinians for the Second Time As They Must Wake Up

Introduction:

1- We have received some comments about our previous articles that entail that we provide more explanation; some comments assert the deep-rooted brainwash suffered by certain generations of Arabs who lack sufficient information about history and mix politics with morality though both are totally different spheres. Besides, what drives our person to offer more pieces of advice to the Palestinians (in this article and the following ones) is the fact that currently, the laughter-inducing 'resistance' prepared by Hamas by mobilizing demonstrators and burning tires of cars at the Gaza Strip is something silly and it will provoke the Israelis who are bent on avoiding tensions at their borders; thus, the ordinary Palestinians will pay the heavy price of this grave error of Hamas if Israel would bombard the Gaza Strip. In fact, the corrupt Palestinian leaders are traitors who betrayed the Palestinian nation and are to blame for the spilled blood of the Palestinians and for the plight and suffering of the Palestinians now and in the past – more than the Israelis are to blame. Despite such suffering, the poor Palestinians have never achieved any political gains until now – the few gains they had were not realized by launching 'wars' against Israel but by political peace negotiations.     

2- We provide some more details in the points below.

Firstly: refuting wrong views about the attackers and the attacked ones:

1- This is a historical fact: it was the Palestinians who first attacked the early Jewish immigrants in Palestine; the Jews had to form armed Jewish organizations to defend themselves. It is not true at all that the early Jewish immigrants have occupied territories owned previously by some Palestinians; in fact, the whole of Palestine, for thousands of years, was owned by many conquerors before and after the Arab conquest of the Levant that occurred during the reign of the four pre-Umayyad caliphs. The occupiers, in all cases without exceptions, such as the Sunnite Arab caliphs, the Fatimids, the Seljuks, the Ayyubids, the Mamelukes, and the Ottomans, owned the land and controlled its dwellers and inhabitants, and they typically granted stretches of lands to settlers and original dwellers. The influx of Jewish immigrants to Palestine occurred after the Balfour Declaration at the time when Palestine was owned by the Ottoman sultan/caliph; Jewish immigrants continued to settle there during the era of the Party of Union and Progress in Turkey and when Palestine was under the British Mandate.   

2- It is noteworthy that the foreign authority of occupiers in Egypt and Palestine (i.e., the British Mandate) directly controlled governmental stretches of land and Waqfs (i.e., religious endowments that include mosques, stretches of land, and small businesses) as well as stretches of land that had no inheritors; thus, the occupiers in authority in many cases grant stretches of land to some individuals. There was nothing called "the Palestinian state" at the time; the land of Palestine was owned by Great Britain. The presence of the British occupiers did not prevent the influx of Jewish immigrants coming to settle in Palestine within stretches of land that were not owned by Palestinians. Besides, those Jews had bought so many stretches of land from the Palestinians who owned them previously. After some armed Palestinians attacked the Jewish settlers, Jewish militias were formed to defend these settlers; some massacres occurred, but the number of Palestinian victims of such massacres by Jewish militias is nothing when compared to the number of Palestinians victims within the inter-Palestinian civil strife, the Palestinian-Jordanian strife, or the Arab-Palestinian strife. Later on, many Palestinians left and deserted their stretches of land, and Israel was established in 1948 and confiscated such stretches of land, exactly like what Arab and non-Arab caliphs (i.e., the four pre-Umayyad ones and also those who came after them) had done. These are the undeniable historical facts – without interpretation or justification.  

Secondly: refuting wrong views about Palestinians ceding anything to Israel:

1- The Arab and the Palestinian leaders and their many faults and mistakes within managing the struggle within Palestine were the direct cause of making Israel reach its might and power and making the Palestinians reach their misery and despicable conditions. Yet, the Palestinian leaders have never drawn any useful lessons from the past events and failures. 

2- Despite of the above, no one would demand from the Palestinians today to cede anything at all; what is really required from them is to liberate themselves from the Wahabi backward, corrupt leaders in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; they must revolt against such leaders and demand real, democratic regimes that will rule within observing human rights and dignity for the Palestinians – in the same way the Israelis now enjoy democracy and human rights. When this democratic Palestinian government comes into being one day, it will adopt the same language like the Israeli government; hence, peaceful relations and economic cooperation will take place for the welfare of both the Israeli nation and the Palestinian nation, while forgetting the past and turning a new leaf. Within such an atmosphere of trust between both parties, agreements about mutual interests could be reached. Even without this atmosphere of trust, we see the Palestinian workers working inside Israel and inside the Jewish settlements; they even participated in building the wall established by Israel; the contractors of this project were some leaders of the Palestinian authority. Hence, when peace is restored and the atmosphere of trust dominates, things will be easier and life will be better for both parties.            

Thirdly: civilized nations forget the past and turn a new leaf if they really care about the future of the next generations:

1- The struggle went on between Germany (Prussia) and France for a long time; in the 19^th century, the Franco-Prussian War (a.k.a. the Franco-German War) broke out. France was against Germany in WWI and it humiliated Germany after defeating it. Such humiliation suffered by Germany made the Germans keen on exacting revenge on the French; the Nazi Germany occupied and humiliated France in WWII. After the defeat of Germany, the victorious countries of the Allies helped Germany and opened a new leaf with it; the atrocities of Nazism were forgotten for the sake of better future for the next generations in Europe; eventually, France and Germany have become allies of each other.      

2- The Hundred Years' War was a long-running struggle between England and France that lasted 116 years (from 1337 to 1453); despite of this struggle, both countries made agreements in 1904 and have become allies of each other, while forgetting the past for the sake of better future for the next generations.  

3- The same applies to Japan and the USA after WWII and to England and the USA after the American War of Independence (1775 - 1783).

4- After the end of WWII, no democratic countries ever launched war against one another; this is due to two facts: (1) the decision to launch wars does not lie in the hand of one person, and (2) wars never solve any problems; they create more problems. Hence, the West countries dedicate their efforts to build their own economy and to raise the standard of living to their respective nations; in contrast, the backwardness of the Arab countries still makes them sink lower into hell. This leads us to the following undeniable fact about peace. 

Fourthly: peace is the best solution in our modern era:

1- India was viewed as the jewel in the British crown; India did not gain its independence through wars and violence; rather, this was done when Gandhi addressed the humanistic aspect of the British people. Within peaceful struggle, India gained its independence without bloodshed, despite the spilled blood of Gandhi himself who was assassinated by an extremist right-wing advocate of Hindu nationalism.    

2- Within the same peaceful struggle, the American Baptist minister and activist Martin Luther King Jr. demanded the civil rights for African-Americans; he was also assassinated by an extremist American man.

3- The white minority which controlled South Africa imposed apartheid (racial segregation), racial discrimination, and the worst treatment on the black majority; this white minority monopolized authority, power, and wealth and practiced atrocious torture crimes to maintain the status quo. This white minority was defeated by the peaceful struggle of Nelson Mandala in his prison; when he became the president of South Africa, he issued a general pardon for those who committed the torture crimes in order to forget the past and to initiate a historic peace and reconciliation between the black majority and the white minority.   

Fifthly: peace is the divine legislations of the Dominant Lord God in the Quran, God's Book in which the Muhammadans disbelieve:

1- We have written a lot about the Quranic/Islamic legislations of self-defense fighting and military endeavors; we have asserted that its higher aim is to restore peace, as Islam is the religion of peace (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=6674). The man-made Sunnite Wahabi religion in particular glorifies incessant war and hates peace; Sunnite Wahabis have hijacked the name of Islam and they have distorted its Quranic values of peace and tolerance; the Sunnite Wahabis now spread terrorism worldwide and even among peaceful Muslims; this is the culture that negatively influences all Palestinian leaders: secular ones, those of the PLO, and those Wahabi terrorists of Hamas who assume that their crimes of terrorism qualify Hamas to be an 'Islamic' resistance movement; in fact, Hamas is a terrorist movement of Satan.  

2- We remind readers of the following facts tackled in our previous writings: as per the Quran, the Qorayish tribe drove the early believers out of Mecca by force and continued launching its military attacks against them after they settled in Yathreb, and because they were weak (see 6:26), God has commanded them not to fight the aggressors (see 4:77); they have been given permission by God to engage into self-defense fighting after they had enough military preparations (see 22:39-41). This self-defense fighting and military preparations are not for the sake of aggression but for the sake of deterrence; hence, self-defense endeavors aim at stopping bloodshed, restoring peace, and adhering to the call for peace of aggressors who stop their aggression (see 8:60-62). In any case, self-defense fighting involves retaliation in the exact measure as the aggression committed, and it ends when the aggression of the attackers stops (see 2:190-194). Within the battlefield, when the soldiers of the aggressive enemy utter the word of peace and surrender, they must be helped to reach safety and they are never to be fought or killed; killing peaceful ones is a grave sin and crime punishable in Hell (see 9:6 and 4:93-94).    

3- Hence, in light of the above point, weak parties must never fight back aggressors, and the aggressive enemies, in their turn, must remember the humanistic aspect and stop their violence against weak, helpless, peaceful persons; if those soldiers of the army of the aggressors resorted to peaceful people (i.e., Muslims in terms of peaceful demeanor) for help and uttered the word of peace, they will not be killed/fought and they will be saved. 

4- In contrast, some of the weak, helpless party (i.e., the Palestinians) resort to massacring peaceful Israeli civilians because they cannot face the military army of Israel; this is the summary of the so-called 'armed resistance' of the Palestinian leaders; thus, instead of stopping all forms of aggression and initiating peaceful struggle and peace negotiations for the rights of the Palestinian nation, the Palestinian leaders incite and organize aggression against peaceful Israeli civilians and other innocent civilians of different nationalities; this wretched state of affairs results in nothing but the contempt of the international community towards the Palestinian leaders and their followers.      

Sixthly: the mean, vile Palestinian 'resistance' and its results:

1- The PLO and its so-called National Front have invented the meanest, vilest way of the so-called 'resistance'; i.e., to hijack planes that carry innocent passengers; moreover, the terrorist, MB-affiliated, Hamas members have invented another mean, vile way of the so-called 'resistance' by committing indiscriminate killings of civilians. 

2- The leaders and members of the PLO controlled certain regions in the West Bank in the 1960s and they attempted to establish a state-within-a-state inside Jordan, while establishing bases to launch attacks against Israel; they declared their intention to depose King Hussein of Jordan in 1970, and they attempted to assassinate him twice. In Sept. 10^th, 1970, they hijacked three civil planes and reached Al-Zarqa, a city in Jordan, and they caused the planes to explode before the cameras of the international press. King Hussein exacted his revenge against those Palestinians within the event of Black September (1970 - 1971). When Yasser Arafat and his organization moved to Lebanon, they attempted to establish a state-within-a-state inside Lebanon; this resulted in the Sabra and Shatila massacre; this is the 'greatest' achievement of the Palestinian 'resistance'! 

Seventhly: the relation between the plight of the Palestinians and the dead horse!:

 Because of the chronic Arab backwardness, Arabs and Palestinians have lost and missed many great opportunities and they regretted each of these losses after it was too late; they weep and demand similar opportunities now!

1- The UN General Assembly issued Resolution No. 181 in Nov. 29^th, 1947, to divide Palestine between the Palestinians and Israel; the Arab state of the Palestinians constituted about 42% of Palestine and the Jewish state of Israel constituted about 57% of Palestine, and this UN resolution included making Jerusalem and Bethlehem as the UN trust territories; i.e., under the administration of the UN. Israel agreed to Resolution No. 181, but Arabs had refused it; Israel announced the establishment of its State in May 14^th, 1948, and Arabs mobilized their military forced and were defeated also in 1948; this allowed Israel to expand and annex more stretches of land till it controlled about 75% of Palestine. The Resolution No. 181 died and was buried.   

2- This political reality of Israel having about 75% of Palestine was supported by the Israeli military might. The Tunisian president Bourguiba realized the fact that Arabs have missed the great opportunity offered by the UN Resolution No. 181; in March 3^rd, 1965, he delivered his speech in Jericho, urging Arabs and Palestinians to acknowledge this UN Resolution No. 181; yet, most Arabs accused Bourguiba of high treason and of betraying the Arab cause!   

3- After the Arabs were defeated during the Six-Day War of June 1967, Israel annexed the West Bank, Jerusalem, Sinai, and the Golan Heights. The Arab response was very backward in the Arab summit in Khartoum, held in Aug. 29^th, 1967, as they adamantly refused three things: negotiations with Israel, making peace with Israel, and acknowledging the existence of Israel.

4- After the October 1973 war, Sadat had to take part in the Camp David Accords and he made a place in it for the Palestinians; yet, most of the Arab leaders accused Sadat of high treason and of betraying the Arab cause! Years later, Yasser Arafat agreed with something less within the Oslo Accords and he acknowledged the existence of Israel for the first time. 

5- The Abbasid poet Saleh Ibn Abdul-Quddos once wrote/uttered these lines of poetry:

The arch-enemies could never bring harm to the ignoramuses

More than the harm inflicted by ignoramuses upon themselves!

Lastly: readers should smile when they read the following points:

1- Within a conference for the masses with leaders of political parties in Cairo, Egypt, in 1948, to discuss the plight of Palestine when Israel has been established, many speeches were delivered with enthusiasm and empty words and slogans; some of the masses repeated the slogans with loud voices; the 'best' and most influential speech of them all was the one by a leader of the Waft Party; when he stood at the pulpit, he simply took out his revolver out of his pocket and fired a bullet into the air, declaring that this is the only way to 'liberate' Palestine! Some of the masses wept for joy and others applauded the man with standing ovation! And then, every man returned safe and sound to his house to have some good and wholesome sleep!      

2- At one time, within a general assembly of those Arab rulers/leaders who gathered in the Arab League in order to discuss the Palestinian cause, the imam/ruler of Yemen was given the chance to talk through the microphone; he took out a very long piece of paper from his pocket that contained a poem written in classical Arabic, and he recited it with too much enthusiasm in a loud voice! This imam thought himself in the Okaz Market in Arabia in the pre-Islamic era!     

3- Welcome everyone to sheer madness and utter backwardness!

COMMENTS:

(1) Adel Bin Ahmad: Your wise words, Dr. Mansour, fascinate me very much; you continue surprising me with your great articles that contain innovative, unprecedented ideas; may God grant you longer life and better health. My opinion is that resistance by force or using armed violence is of no use at all to the Palestinians; even if they manage to have their own independent state, they will be ruled by the likes of Abbas and Hamas; i.e., the corrupt people and terrorists, after rigged elections that will never result in anything good at all; later on, this will result in an influx of Palestinians who will try to immigrate legally or otherwise to the EU, the USA, or Israel, as they will be risking their lives this way instead of risking their lives by submitting totally to the likes of Hamas and Abbas. The best solution, in my view, is that Israel should annex the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and grant the poor Palestinians the Israeli nationality and all human rights enjoyed by Arab Israelis now; this will make both Israelis and Palestinians enjoy peaceful coexistence.      

(2) Ben Levante: I disagree with the views expressed above by Dr. Mansour; peace will not be achieved between an oppressed party (i.e., the Palestinians) and the party of the oppressors (i.e., the Israelis) as they still hate, disrespect, and despise each other; peace is supposed to be based on mutual respect and mutual interests. The backwardness of Arabs and their wrong choices have caused their losses; yet, this does not mean that the Israelis are so 'angelic', guiltless, or blameless. The ignorant Arab masses never know about freedom and democracy because of the Arab tyrants; yet those tyrants are backed by the West countries, especially the USA, which focus only on their interests and not on spreading democratic values and culture; thus, the governments of the world are not as noble or humane as one might think. Not all Arabs are against peace; the Gulf monarchs in 2002 made a peace initiative to help the Palestinians; yet, Israel refused it; not all Israelis want peace and not all of them are moralistic or even democratic. Likewise, not all Palestinians are violent ones or terrorists like the MB-affiliated Hamas; the Palestinians in the diaspora have the right to return to the West Bank and to form their own independent state. Why do the Jews have the right to return after being removed in 70 A.D. from Jerusalem (the Romans did not evict Jews from Palestine, only from Jerusalem). Besides, it is hardly logical that Dr. Mansour would expect Arabs to accept the UN Resolution No. 181 of 1947; weakness does not entail that people cede their legitimate rights. The Palestinian leaders are corrupt, but this does not mean that the Palestinians would cede their rights, though they are to be reasonable enough while defending these rights. By the way, historically, all past conquerors of Palestine never drove its inhabitants out of it by force; Britain is to blame (because of the Balfour Declaration) as it helped create Israel and gave the Jews stretches of land that were not lawfully their own, while disregarding the Palestinians who are the original dwellers of Palestine. We must not forget that Zionist gangs committed the King David Hotel bombing which was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine. Had this been the way in which Zionist Jews have repaid Britain that helped them create a homeland in Palestine?! Aggressors will remain the same in all eras; this applies to Zionists.           

(3) Mustafa Ismail Hammad: I thank Mr. Ben Levante; he is right when he says that most conquerors of Palestine in the past did not relocate its inhabitants by force; Mr. Ben Levante wrote exactly what I have thought to write; I intended to write a severe rebuke addressed to Dr. Mansour, but the more-than-enough comment of Mr. Ben Levante has spared my time and effort. 

(4) Dr. Othman M. Ali: Some people assume that both sides (i.e., the Israelis and the Palestinians) never desire peace; I cast doubt on this view; Israel made peace agreements with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. If the Palestinians really want war, let them fight their own battle using their own money and arms/weapons and NEVER to rely on Egypt to fight their battle on their behalf; no Egyptian blood will be spilled for the sake of any other nation; it is enough that the mad leader and president, Nasser, had caused the bloodshed of Egyptian soldiers in Sinai in 1967 because of his arrogance when he said that he (and Arabs) will throw Israel into the Mediterranean Sea. If the Palestinians choose war, they will mostly be annihilated and the remaining few ones will be Israeli citizens and peace thus will reign supreme in the Holy Land and in the Middle East once and for all. If the Palestinians choose peace, let them either integrate into Israel as citizens or establish their independent state in the West Bank (and maybe another one in the Gaza Strip) and allow the Palestinians in the diaspora to return within a limited period of time; those who will not return can choose to remain in their respective countries to which they have immigrated.    

(5) Hisham Al-Saeedi: Peace will be attained when Israel and the West countries, especially the USA, acknowledge the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

Pieces of Advice Addressed to the Palestinians for the Third Time: Who Are the Ones Specializing in the Crime of Forced Displacement: the Israelis or the Muhammadans?

Introduction:

1- We have received this message via email; we quote it here without commenting on it; we thank its sender and urge readers to reflect on it: (... I admire your analyses and views about Israel and Palestine very much; I am addicted to your great Quranism website and I take pride in being a Quranist Muslim; although I am a Palestinian woman, I do believe that Palestine belongs to the Jews and not to the Arabs; as per what I understand from the Quran, Abraham left his first-born son, Ishmael (the father of Arabs) and his mother in Mecca, in the Hejaz region. Hence, I assume that Isaac (the father of Jews) and his mother (and therefore this applies to Jacob/Israel and his twelve sons: the patriarchs of the Israelites) remained in Palestine. Thus, Muslims and Jews are brethren who share paternal uncles; i.e., Ishmael and Isaac, and God has given the Holy Land to the Jews, as per the words of Moses in the Quran: "O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned for you..." (5:21). Of course, believers obeyed Moses and settled in the Holy Land, while the disbelievers who refused to enter wandered for 40 years in the desert before being allowed to enter into the Holy Land. Hence, we must not deprive the Jews of their right to settle in Palestine. Not all Palestinians are original natives or inhabitants of Palestine; some historians assert that most of them came originally from Yemen and southern regions of Saudi Arabia, among other regions. In fact, my paternal uncle used to tell me that our grandfather was a merchant who came from Morocco and settled in Palestine. Golda Meir once said that she had a Palestinian passport. This means that the Palestinians came and settled in Canaan at several points in time. Thus, historically, these stretches of lands are taken by those who are stronger and mightier than the rest. I wholeheartedly agree with your views about the terrorist Hamas movement; their atrocities are too many to be mentioned in one lengthy article of yours. I sincerely hope to join your great website as a commentator and a writer of articles; I sent many emails to request an account but I received no responses at all. May God bless and reward you, Dr. Mansour. You are the only source of enlightenment within the field of the much-needed religious reform; the Muhammadans of today are ignoramuses who live within backwardness and obscurantism typical of the pre-Islamic era; they should read and study your archive of writings ...).

2- We thank one of the commentators who wrote the following  phrase within his comment while protesting against our views expressed in the previous article: (...historically, all past conquerors of Palestine never drove its inhabitants out of it by force...), because he has driven our person to write this article which you are reading now. This article poses these very important questions: Have the Israelis driven the Palestinians by force out of their country? Who are the ones specializing in the crime of forced displacement: the Israelis or the Muhammadans?

3- We provide our reply to these very important questions in the points below.

Firstly: the Israelites are the nation that suffered persecution, massacres, and forced displacement more than any other nations on earth:

1- We know the following facts from the Quran:

1/1: The tyrannical, self-deified Moses' Pharaoh forced the Israelites to worship him as a god (see 23:47); he slaughtered their sons and spared their daughters to enslave them (see 28:4); he enslaved all the Israelites (see 26:22).

1/2: God has delivered the Israelites during exodus as Pharaoh and his people drowned in the Red Sea; when the time came for the Israelites to enter into the Holy Land promised by God to them, which is known today as Palestine, many of them refused because they were so peaceful that they felt weakness, cowardice, and helpless dominate over them; because of their disobeying God's command to enter into the Promised Land, they were punished by wandering for 40 years (see 5:20-26). 

1/3: After the death of Moses, the Israelites suffered aggression and forced displacement within the story of Talut, Jalut (a.k.a. Goliath), and David (see 2:246). Thus, they were evicted by force from their homes.

1/4: God says the following about the Israelite nation: "And We scattered them into communities on earth. Some of them righteous, and some of them short of that. And We tested them with fortunes and misfortunes, so that they may return." (7:168). This is explained by the historical fact of the first and second Israelite/Jewish diaspora.

2- Within the diaspora, the Israelites suffered many incidents of persecution during the Middle Ages inflicted on them by Arab and non-Arab caliphs/sultans and by kings/rulers of Europe, until they suffered the Holocaust in the 1940s.  

3- We do not think that the Israelite nation which keeps within its collective mind the memories suffering and persecution of more than 30 centuries might inflict the same suffering and persecution on other nations.

Secondly: the term "Palestine" has been merely a geographical term and not a word to refer to a state:

1- The term "Palestine" has been merely a geographical term used within the eras of the caliphates; there was no states, governorates, or districts named as "Palestine"; until the last decades of the Ottoman Era, the Arab regions under the Ottoman rule consisted of governorates that were in their turn subdivided into districts; none of them were named as "Palestine". The full list of such governorates and their districts is as follows.  

1/1: The governorate of Syria had four districts: Damascus, Hama, Hauran, and Al-Karak (i.e., today's Jordan).  

1/2: The governorate of Beirut had five districts: Latikia, Tripoli, Beirut, Lebanon, Acre, and Nablus. 

1/3: The governorate of Aleppo had five districts: Aleppo, Antep (a.k.a. Gaziantep), Mount Simon, Marash, and Urfa (formerly known as Edessa).   

1/4: The governorate of Al-Quds/Jerusalem had no districts.

1/5: The governorate of Deir Al-Zor had no districts.

1/6: The governorate of Al-Basra had four districts: Al-Basra, Al-Amara, Al-Muntafiq, and Al-Ahsa. By the way, the oil-rich Al-Ahsa was conquered by Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud, who renamed it as the Eastern Province. 

1/7: The governorate of Baghdad had four districts: Baghdad, Al-Diwaniyya, Karbala, and Najd. By the way, Najd is the region where Wahabism has emerged and so have the Saudi family members and kingdoms.

1/8: The governorate of Al-Mosul had three districts: Al-Mosul, Kirkuk, and Al-Sulaymaniyya. 

1/9: The governorate of Al-Hejaz had three districts: Mecca, Yathreb (or Medina), and Jeddah.

1/10: The governorate of Yemen had four districts: Sana'a, Taiz, Al-Hodeida, and Asir. By the way, Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud annexed Asir to his Saudi kingdom.

1/11: The governorate of Tripoli had six districts (in today's Libya): Tripoli, Barqa (a.k.a. Cyrenaica), Fezzan, Al-Hams, the Western Mountain, and Benghazi. 

1/12: The Khedivate of Egypt had its special status; it could not be divided, and the royal family members who are the descendants of the king Muhammad Ali Pacha ruled it independently while being nominally loyal to the Ottomans by merely paying the large annual tax to Istanbul.

2- The borders of the Arab countries known today were drawn by two diplomats: the British Mark Sykes and the French François Georges-Picot, who both negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement, within which the borders of the geographic region known as the Levant and Iraq were drawn; Britain helped establish the Emirate of Transjordan in 1923 as a gift to the Prince Abdullah Ibn Al-Sharif Hussein who became the first king of what has come to be known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. After the emergence of Israel in 1948, the West Bank was annexed to the Emirate of Transjordan in 1949.

Thirdly: why are Palestinians the ones who began attacking Israelite/Jewish settlers:

1- The Palestinians were influenced by Wahabi fanaticism and extremism during the first half of the 20^th century; this was in contrast to the Egyptians in the same era when Egypt was independent from the Ottomans, apart from the nominal loyalty and the large annual tax to Istanbul; Cairo competed with European cities in terms of civilization; many Europeans immigrated to Egypt from Greece, Italy, and the Balkans; they enjoyed many privileges as they settled in Egypt to become prosperous and wealthy. The Egyptians at the time never attacked those foreign settlers; in some cases, the Egyptian authorities would stop ships of European refugees coming to Egypt. The millennia-old history of Egypt witnessed the influx of many foreigners to settle in Egypt, coming from the four corners of the world. This caused no worries or disturbances at all; Egypt welcomed all those newcomers and they were treated like Egyptians (sometimes they even received better treatment); the Egyptians at the time were known for their tolerance. This was not the case of Arabs in Palestine; this is not the case of Egyptians now since the 1970s when Wahabism has dominated Egypt!     

2- Within the second half of the 19^th century, the Western European pressure increased regarding the Ottomans (especially from Britain and France) and Russian pressure increased  regarding them from the East; this drove the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid II to encourage Sunnite religious fanaticism against Christian minorities within the Ottoman caliphate; he even held close relations with the Muslims of India to spite Britain and the Muslims of Algeria and Tunisia to spite France. This sultan established the so-called Islamic University, and he brought to it Gamal-Eddine Al-Afghani, Abou Al-Huda Al-Sayadi, and Abdullah Al-Nadeem (the Egyptian leader who supported the revolt of Ourabi against the British in Egypt). The Ottoman Sunnite fanaticism coincided with the spread of Wahabism in the Levantine region; the Sunnite/Wahabi Muhammadans of the Levant persecuted the Shiites and the People of the Book (Jews + Christians) in the Levant, where there were many diverse sects and denominations. Hence, some Christians were massacred in the Levant; millions of them fled the Levant and settled in Egypt and the two Americas; they established the movement of Arab literature of the exiled poets; those who settled in Egypt participated in the renaissance of the press and the arts.      

3- The Arabs of the region of Palestine were influenced by Wahabi fanaticism and extremism; when the influx of Israelites or Jewish immigrants settled in Palestine after gaining the approval of the local authority of the British Mandate, they built settlements in stretches of land owned by this local authority and not owned by Arabs. After the withdrawal of Britain and the UN resolution to divide Palestine in 1947, Muslim Arab Palestinians formed an army in the spring of 1948 that attacked Israeli/Jewish settlements and destroyed the roads that link these settlements, with the intention to annihilate the Jews there. The gangs of Stern and Irgun attacked the Deir Yassin village in April 9^th, 1948, where the known massacre occurred; about 250 to 309 persons died as per Arab sources; Israeli sources mention that the number of those who died there is 109. This number is not as big as the media attention given to this massacre, which is nothing when compared to inter-Arab massacres (e.g., the military Mubarak regime massacring Egyptians in 2011 during the peaceful revolt, massacres committed by Al-Saud family members and their Wahabi soldiers while establishing their first and third, current Saudi kingdom, massacres committed by Saddam Hussein, massacres committed by ISIS, and massacres committed within the Algerian civil war). As battles ensued in Palestine, many Palestinians fled to become refugees/immigrants in many Arab countries and West countries.    

4- Civil strife drives people to flee and they turn into refugees; there are millions of refugees in the West countries from Sudan and Somalia; because of the civil war between Bashar Al-Assad and the rebels in Syria, 500000 Syrians died and millions of Syrians are now refugees in Egypt and the West countries; many Iraqis left Iraq for good because of ISIS. These are merely few examples; the full list is too long to be mentioned in this article of ours. 

5- We emphasize here that Israelis have preserved the presence of Arabs inside Israel; Israel never committed the crime of forced displacement against such Arabs (this crime is committed by the Muhammadans with one another). Israel has allowed Palestinians inside it to stay and become Arab Israeli citizens (known as Arabs of 1948). After the Arab defeat in 1967 war (a.k.a. the Six-Day War), Israel has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights; this region has been officially annexed to Israel, by the Knesset, in 1981. Israel has offered Israeli citizenship/nationality to Arabs of the Golan Heights; some of them accepted and some did not, but all Arabs there have Israeli IDs. When Israel annexed Jerusalem, it has given its Arab dwellers Israeli IDs and the right to vote; those who received the Israeli nationality have the right to nominate themselves as candidates. Israel never committed the crime of forced displacement within the West Bank and the occupied Sinai. In Sinai, Israel paved many roads, introduced facilities, established cities, and made development. Israel treated the people of Sinai in the best manner; when we made two separate journeys to Sinai after it was fully restored to Egypt, the Bedouins there told us frankly that they felt sad when Israelis moved away and the Egyptian military regime regained Sinai. Sinai and its people now suffer very much because of the infiltrated ISIS terrorists and the war of the Egyptian military army against ISIS, as severe measures are taken against the people of North Sinai; some of them were forced to relocate. Sinai suffers negligence as the ruling military regime has not yet introduced any real development there. When Israel withdrew from the densely-populated Gaza Strip in 2005, no one there was forced to relocate before and after 2005; this means that Israel never committed the crime of forced displacement against any Arabs.   

6- Moreover, Israel has demographic diversity; though it is a national homeland for Jews, it accepts the presence non-Jews, the Jewish population is not 100% of Israelis; the percentage of Jews in Israel is about 75%, and that of Arabs is about 20%, and the percentage of Arab Muslims is 73%, or 83% if we would add Muslim Bedouins. The Shiite Druze Israelis constitute 8% of Arab Israelis and 1.8% of the Israeli population.    

Fourthly: the Muhammadans are the ones who specialize in the crime of forced displacement:

1- There is an unspoken-of history of forced displacement inflicted on Jews in most Arab countries after the establishment of Israel in 1948. The typical folly of Arabs led them to expel all Jews inside Egypt and the Arab countries, and many Jews immigrated to Israel and increased its power and might. About one million Jewish immigrants fled Arab and Muslim countries to settle in Israel within the period from 1949 to the late 1960s, in addition to about 250000 Jewish immigrants who survived the Nazi persecution and the Holocaust. 

1/1: In Egypt, the Nubians of Nubia, south of Aswan, and the people of Rafah, in Sinai, suffered forced displacement imposed by the Egyptian government. An unknown journalist in a state-owned newspaper was catapulted into fame merely for leading a campaign of forced displacement of Egyptian Baha'is who were forced to leave the Al-Minya governorate, in Upper Egypt.

1/2: In Iraq, Saddam Hussein imposed forced displacement on Kurds and on those Kurds who survived (1) the massacre of Halabja during violent suppression of Kurdish revolts during the Iran–Iraq war, and (2) the Anfal genocide of Kurds during the final stages of the Iran-Iraq war. 

1/3: In Sudan, Al-Bashir has committed massacres and the crime of forced displacement against non-Arab African Muslims of Darfur. 

1/4: The Ottomans had committed massacres and the crime of forced displacement against the Armenians.

 The list of the crimes of forced displacement committed by the Muhammadans is too long to be quoted here in our article. We refer readers to a previous detailed article of ours, in English, about forced displacement (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=16336).

Lastly: about the Israeli Arab Shiite Druze:

1- We have mentioned before that the spread of Wahabism inside the Levant was the reason behind persecution, massacres, and forced displacement suffered by the Levantine Shiites and Christians. As opposed to the banners of the pan-Islamic ideology raised by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, the Levantine Christians raised the banners of pan-Arab nationalism, and this resulted in establishing a political party named as Al-Baath Party (a.k.a. Baathism or Baathist Party), presided by Michel Aflaq. The Syrian Baathist Party was controlled by Syrian Shiite Alawite Nusayriyya sect and this brought Hafiz Al-Assad to power and then his son, Bashar Al-Assad; they prevented Syrian Kurds from obtaining the Syrian nationality. The Shiite Druze in Lebanon embraced pan-Arab nationalism led by Kamal Jumblatt; in contrast, the Arab Shiite Druze in the Levantine south; i.e., inside Palestine, escaped persecution and forced displacement by joining Israel and becoming Israeli citizens who fully enjoy the rights of citizenship; they serve in the Israeli military army and security forces; they are very loyal to Israel and very tough with their Palestinian brethren.           

2- We still pose this question to the conscience of the readers of this article: who are the ones specializing in the crime of forced displacement: the Israelis or the Muhammadans?!

COMMENTS:

(1)  Adel Bin Ahmad: Your articles, dear Dr. Mansour, are like breaths of fresh air amidst of hot, humid weather, like beacons amidst tumultuous seas, or like oases amidst of vast desert areas; may God grant you a long lifetime and a better health. Of course, the Muhammadans are the ones who specialize in the crime of forced displacement committed against non-Muhammadans. Let me tell you this story: in the city where I live in Algeria, I remember when during the national day celebrations at school when I was in the secondary stage that the teacher in my class narrated to the students stories about martyrs of Algeria and about colonization and the brutality of the French; yet, he bragged that once Algeria gained its independence from France, Arab-Jewish Algerians suffered insults, verbal abuse, and incidents of aggression and beatings by some Algerian Arabs; the windows of their houses were shattered by the masses and children who threw bricks at them during daytime in Ramadan! The Algerian Jews were told many times that they were not welcome anymore and that they must leave Algeria as soon as possible! I was horrified by the fact that the teacher narrated such evil deeds while taking pride in them! By the way, the Muhammadans are specialized in the crime of forced displacement committed against Arab Muslims as well: the Mubarak regime in Egypt terrorized Dr. Mansour and forced him to leave Egypt for good; other Quranists were forced to leave their Arab countries of origin, and many reformist thinkers, political opposition figures, journalists, and geniuses in many fields were persecuted and driven out of the Arab world and they settled in the West countries. Needless to say, many North-African youths try to immigrate illegally within boats in the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, as they are forced to flee abject poverty and despicable conditions in their villages and cities. No one among Israeli Jews or Israeli Arabs would wish to leave Israel within legal or illegal immigration to settle in Europe.               

(2)  Ben Levante: If speech is made of silver, silence is made of gold; it is no use arguing against the views expressed in this article about the Palestinian cause; I will never be convinced by the vies of Dr. Mansour and he will never be convinced by mine; I hate endless, useless Byzantine discussions; it is wiser for me to stop commenting on the political articles of Dr. Mansour who sides with the Israelis all the time. Peace be with all of you.           

(3)  Osama Qafeesha: I dedicate these lines of poetry to Mr. Ben Levante; they are composed by Dr. Nasser Al-Lahham; I quote lines from his poem titled "Attaining Immortality Is Impossible".

The Jews were lost and wandered aimlessly in the Sinai desert for forty years

And they seem to be still wandering aimlessly until now in Palestine

The Jews never lived their golden eras except as part of the Arab Empire of Islam

Whenever Arab sultans lost a territory, its Jews were beaten severely and forced to leave

Nebuchadnezzar enslaved them in Babylon; the Crusaders humiliated them; the Byzantines banished and cursed them

The Jews wept until Saladin restored peace and security to them

They suffered the Holocaust in Europe; and before that, they never dared to mention the name of their religion inside the two Americas

In Russia, they were made to personify pure evil in Slavic poems and the books of Nikolai Gogol

The Europeans put them in ghettoes for 150 years;

When they fled to Palestine like locusts, in ships that carried them from Europe to Jaffa, Arabs allowed them to establish companies and Kibbutz

They lived in peace, protected by Sultan Abdul-Hamid and Hajj Amin Al-Husseiny

They were given water to drink and oranges and olives to eat

They were healed from all ailments, they became no longer hungry or afraid

But they have bitten the hands that fed them; they massacred their Arab hosts

...

Human beings forget they are created out of clay; they assume that they are immortal

The Jews desire to demolish our Al-Aqsa to build their so-called Temple; they have prepared nine red cows, four calves, grey sheep, a Rabbi, and stolen gold

They said they will look for the donkey that carried Christ

They turned our stable of horses into a wailing wall

...

This is another lost generation of Jews in search of identity

Looking for a savior

Searching our homes for the remnants of a broken menorah

They burned the olive trees, massacred children, and smashed icons of the church

The Jews will no longer find peace and security within Arab lands

They tried to establish a Hebrew state, while hiding behind a wall, but oh.....

(4) Forat Al-Forat: Thank you Dr. Mansour; I'd like to add this comment; I live in EU now, as you know, but in my native country, Iraq, many incidents of the crime of forced displacement occurred to some Iraqi Kurds and Shiites, and some were forced to relocate and settle the Iraqi-Iranian borders; some others were forced to relocate from certain regions to other regions while being stripped of their Iraqi citizenship. Besides, many mass graves have been discovered that contained countless corpses of Iraqis murdered by the Saddam Hussein regime. Even during the royal epoch of Iraq, the Iraqi Jews were persecuted, killed, terrorized, and forced to move out of Iraq. Your words in this article, Dr. Mansour, have touched my heart; I hope that your words would reach all reasonable people who adhere to the humanistic values and a high moralistic level. Nations of the Middle East are entrapped within the culture of bloodshed, brutal force, and enslavement; i.e., the crimes committed by the high and mighty ones against the weak, oppressed people. This is hardly the mentality required to solve any problems.

(5) Dr. Othman M. Ali: Those who desire to have an account on ahl-alquran.com should send their data (pre-name, name, surname, nationality, age, city/country of birth, city/country of residence, education, and background) via my email (othman.aboharez@gmail.com) and I will send him/her his username and password. Newcomers will be able to write comments only; later on, they may be promoted to become writers of articles; they are to adhere to conditions and terms of use within our website. Thank you.      

Pieces of Advice Addressed to the Palestinians for the Fourth Time: The Victims of the Vociferous Devils

Introduction:

  The Palestinians are not the only victims of the vociferous devils (i.e., the appellation we use to describe those who deliver false speeches and discourses enthusiastically, usually in loud voices, to brainwash the masses); we were one of their victims at one point in time, but we have been cured now, and we thank the Lord God for being cured. 

Firstly:

1- During our early months in VA, we have received an invitation to attend a meeting at the Scholars at Risk organization (www.scholarsatrisk.org) to deliver a speech about our experience of being persecuted inside Egypt. As we delivered our speech, we received looks of sympathy and surprise; the reason was obvious and we have heard it a lot later on: is it possible that this persecution would be inflicted on a peaceful thinker who calls for peaceful reform?   

2- The same organization invited us to attend a party in its NY-based headquarters; in NYC, we met with the director of the organization with whom we exchanged several emails; we have been friends with him even before we met with him in person; he cordially welcomed our person and told us we cannot attend the party in our casual, simple clothes (the same clothes we wore in the train from Washington to NYC), especially that we will meet in this party some of the wealthiest persons on earth. We felt very much surprised; we are not that important a person to meet such wealthy people; what are we supposed to wear? This friend, the director, told us he would manage everything; his assistant accompanied our person to a room within a luxurious hotel. We met there with two persecuted scholars (one from Ethiopia and one from Indonesia) who were political asylees in the USA. Soon enough, the assistant took us to a shop to hire a tuxedo suit and a pair of shoes fit for it, and the man in the shop took our measurements meticulously before giving us the tuxedo suit and the pair of shoes. When we got dressed in the hotel room and looked in the mirror, we could hardly believe our eyes; we were like movie stars! Shortly before getting into the hall of the party, the assistant explained to us the etiquette and some details about the party: it was a fundraising event for the organization; the wealthiest American people typically donate large sums in such parties to help persecuted scholars. Each scholar and each guest had his/her name on one chair at the table. The man beside us at the table was Ahmed Shalaby, the Iraqi politician, and his daughter, and an American female blonde presenter who works at the Fox Channel and who graduated from the American University in Cairo, and other personalities whose names we have forgotten. We talked a lot to this TV presenter and we have become friends; she has edited some of our articles and research papers in English later on; Ahmed Shalaby kept smiling but he talked in a reserved manner. Our turn came to talk for five minutes before the gathering of these billionaires. The party ended in a sumptuous dinner-banquet. We took the train back to where we used to live at the time; namely, in the guestroom in a very modest, small apartment rented by an Egyptian worker who immigrated to the USA; we felt the huge difference and contrast between where we would sleep and where we had dinner after an enjoyable party.                

3- Later on, we got to know that this charity organization specializes in helping persecuted scholars whose lives were in danger in their native countries; this organization helps them settle in the West and find jobs in their new homeland; if such scholars were imprisoned, this organization would raise awareness of their cases in the media and help them. To our surprise at the time, this organization is run by American Jews; it began by helping Jewish scholars coming from Nazi Germany, and it goes on to help scholars from all over the world; now, it helps mostly scholars from Arab and Islamic countries.   

4- This noble organization helped us remove the falsehoods and myths from our mind regarding Jews; we are still fascinated by the noble, generous nature of the American Jewish lawyer Irving Spitzberg and his wife Virginia (may the Lord God grant them better health); he helped our person to get political asylum in the USA. The vociferous devils inside our mind at the time told us that both Spitzberg and his wife might be exceptions to the 'rule' we have been taught in Egypt that all Jews are 'naturally' bad and evil. We thank the Lord God for getting rid of the negative influence of vociferous devils forever.

Secondly:

1- After gaining political asylum, Spitzberg helped us to bring our wife and our sons who are less than 21 years old. We were permitted at first to bring our wife and the youngest of our six sons: Mounir. Both came in May 21^st, 2003, which was also the 25^th anniversary of our marriage. At the same time, we were offered a job for one year as a Fellow at Harvard.

2- We, our wife, and our son traveled to Boston and we rented a floor in a certain house; we did not know anything about Boston at the time; we received our job at Harvard; our young colleague who has middle-Eastern features was an Israeli citizen whose father is originally from Damascus; we dealt with each other in a normal manner; there were no sensitivities or worries at all; we asked him if he knew a shop to buy two beds, for we had none where we lived and we (along with our wife and son) slept on the floor; he promised to get us two beds and asked for our address.

3- When we told our wife about the Israeli colleague who will bring us two beds, she panicked and rebuked us for giving him our address; she felt that he is an Israeli 'enemy' who will murder us for sure! We failed to pacify her and she refused to listen to our words as we refuted the reason behind her fears; she shivered in fright at the thought of having to receive an Israeli at the house. Exactly at the appointed time, he knocked at our door; he had a friend with him who was a Jew (as we have discerned from the name of this friend). Both men left the two beds at the door, and they asked politely to be permitted to carry them into the house, but we refused at first because we felt embarrassed by their generosity. Our wife locked the door of her room in fear; she did not want to see them because they were Jewish. Both men carried the parts of the two beds and other pieces of furniture; the staircase was narrow and this tired them very much as they carried every piece in turn; they insisted on refusing our giving them a helping hand; they put together the parts of the beds and arranged the pieces of furniture; they politely refused to stay and have a cup of tea. They left the place at once; we have been fascinated with their noble, generous nature. Our wife did not get out of her room until we told her that both men had left. She saw the two beds and the pieces of furniture; she fell silent as she was embarrassed because of her earlier stance and reaction. The noble, generous nature of both Jewish gentlemen surprised her very much. 

4- We implored the Lord God to bless and reward both men for their helping us.

Thirdly:

1- Our year of being a Fellow at Harvard came to an end; we looked for another position at Harvard in the field of our specialization, but the only scholarships and money available for appointing professors in Islamic studies come from the Wahabi Gulf monarchies; this means there was no room for our person, or so we have been told. We felt despaired, and we returned to VA along with our family members.  

2- Later on, we got acquainted with our dear friend, Dr. Charles Jacobs, a Jewish activist in the field of human rights; we, Jacobs, and a Christian friend who is a professor at Boston University established the Boston-based non-profit organization known as Citizens for Peace and Tolerance (APT) (www.peaceandtolerance.org).

3- Jacobs has always fascinated our person with his politeness and generosity; he has invited us many times to deliver speeches about Islam (i.e., Quranism); we would seize every chance to assert that Wahabism has hijacked the name of Islam; talking about this topic more often has always been of vital importance to us. Our presence in the USA as a Muslim thinker and as a political asylee who has been persecuted in his homeland because of his calling for religious and political reform was a more-than-enough proof that Wahabis and extremists/fanatics in general do not represent Islam.   

4- With the help of Jacobs, we have been a guest in some TV channels in the Boston media; besides, we have been interviewed by some newspapers in Boston; we have grown more famous in comparison to the case of gaining little fame when we worked as a Fellow at Harvard. At one time, we delivered a speech inside a Jewish temple in Boston; we have been heard by more than 1000 attendees; we have never witnessed such heart-melting welcome and appreciation before in our life; they gave our person a standing ovation and tears dropped from our eyes. This is in utter contrast to the humiliation and persecution we have suffered in Egypt. Before we left the temple, many of the attendees gathered around our person and desired to donate money to us; we felt embarrassed by their generosity and refused politely to take any money while thanking them. We had no experience in such matters, and at that point in time, we have not yet established our VA-based IQC. We implored the Lord God to reward them for their giving me such welcome and appreciation.  

5- Jacobs invited us at one time to deliver some lectures to the Jewish young people in Boston; we made our wife accompany us and we lived in the house of Jacobs; our wife got acquainted with his wife, whose mother was a victim within one of the Nazi concentration camps. Our person and our wife were touched by the generosity and warmth of Jacobs and his wife. Thus, our wife finally got rid of the influence of the vociferous devils, especially after she got acquainted with Spitzberg and his wife.    

6- Jacobs at one time visited us in the flat we used to live in after the rest of our sons came to the USA; he reserved a room for himself at the Hilton Hotel which is near this flat; he has become a friend of our family. Talking and writing about Jacobs is very enjoyable to our person; he has helped us on several occasions and we feel infinitely grateful to him; we are not among those who feel ungrateful to those who offered them help.  

Fourthly:

1- Within our political activism in Washington – during the Bush administration – we have encountered and got acquainted with many influential politicians, and one of them is a friend (may the Lord God bless and reward him) who occupies a high-rank position and he has helped our person a lot. We got to know how important his position is when we visited him in his office and saw many security guards who searched everyone before allowing them to enter into his office. We loved talking to him and we typically meet him within encounters with another group of friends. We once invited him to dinner at our house to make him try Egyptian food; he loved the dish of stuffed vegetables; he kept praising our wife for her generosity afterwards and he felt grateful to her; he usually would tell our friends that she cooked him the Egyptian-food dinner herself.   

2- Oh, we forgot to mention that he is a Jew as well; he is, in fact, one among the noblest Jews who we have the honor to know.

3- The list of the noble Jews we have met is a very long one; the common feature among all of them is that they act in a noble manner spontaneously and they never expect a thank-you or a reward in return from those who are helped by them.

4- All of these noble Jews are like our friend Spitzberg – may the Lord God grant him a better health – who considers those whom he helped to gain political asylum as his family members and he invites them to his home especially in parties held by him and his wife; those who have received his help, apart from our person, include Arab Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and Africans. 

Lastly:

1- The American noble Jews we have met have the same religion in which we believe: the religion of peace, freedom, justice, and human dignity.

2- The American noble Jews we have met have helped remove the negative influence of the vociferous devils from our person and our wife.

3- Why do not the moderate Palestinian voices reach those noble American Jews? The Palestinians should first get rid of the vociferous devils.

4- Could readers guess who the vociferous devils are?

COMMENTS:

(1) Adel Bin Ahmad: May God bless and reward you, Dr. Mansour. I think that the vociferous devils are those clergymen and politicians in the countries of the Muhammadans who brainwash the masses in mosques and through mainstream media; they spread many myths such as (Israelis and the Jews and Christians of the West are pure evil). The gullible, naïve masses typically believe such myths; only those people who are lucky enough to visit any of the West countries discover how much they have been deceived by such brainwash. 

(2) Saeed Ali: I'd like to write this comment about the Jewish mentality and the Arab mentality; the Jewish mentality is a racist one, because most Jews assume themselves to be superior to all gentiles. Jews and Christians adhere to the myth that they are the children of God: "The Jews and the Christians say, "We are the children of God, and His beloved."..." (5:18). The Jewish airs of superiority lead them to assume they will get out of Hell if they are made to enter it on the Last Day: "...The Fire will not touch us except for a number of days..." (2:80); thus, with their hardened hearts, they ascribe lie and falsehoods to God: "Then after that your hearts hardened. They were as rocks, or even harder..." (2:74). By the way, Jews are the sinners among the Israelites; they are not all Israelites; besides, not all Jews are the descendants of the Israelites. The monotheistic Jews who performed good deeds will have no fear/sorrow and will enter into Paradise: "Those who believe, and those who are Jewish, and the Christians, and the Sabians - any who believe in God and the Last Day, and act righteously - will have their reward with their Lord; they have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve." (2:62). God's religion is peaceful behavior and non-violence within piety and monotheism, and it addresses the mercy inside hearts of those human beings who believe in God. God is the Omniscient Lord Who knows who the real, peaceful, monotheistic Muslims are. The Arab mentality shows the indications of Arabs being brainwashed to hate Jews/Israelis/Israelites for no reason; this increased after 1948, of course; the Arabs cannot forget the savage crimes committed in Palestine; besides, Arab heritage, literature, and folklore are filled with Jewish personalities that embody stinginess, treachery, greed, and meanness. The same applies to the European heritage literature, and folklore; the most famous example is Shylock the usurer in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". Many Jews now control economy and finance in Germany. Of course, it is very wrong to generalize; we cannot possibly hate all Jews and Israelis because of the crimes and offenses of few persons among them. The media machine brainwashes the masses and injects them with hatred towards certain nation(s), race(s), or group(s); e.g., Shiite clergymen in their TV channels incite hatred against Sunnites; Sunnite clergymen in their TV channels incite hatred against Shiites; Arabs are depicted as lustful, stupid, extravagant, and gullible in American movies and TV series produced by Jewish producers. Russians, Chinese/Asians, and Eastern Europeans are depicted in a silly manner in movies produced in the West countries. Likewise, Americans (and the West citizens at large) are depicted in an erroneous manner in Arab and Egyptian movies and TV series. The depiction of Israelis and Jews is negative in Egyptian movies and TV series. I should like to see noble, kind-hearted, generous Jews in Egyptian movies and TV series; by the way, it is OK to show some evil Palestinians in Arab and Egyptian movies and TV series. Of course, geniuses among the Palestinians in many fields have immigrated to the West. Those corrupt leaders of the Palestinians who seek superiority on earth and those extremists in the Israeli right-wing who seek superiority in a similar manner are in the wrong; injustices will be the same despite differences of culture, religious denominations, and nationalities. Only those who adhere to peace and human rights are the true Muslims/monotheists who embrace God's religion; i.e., peace.               

(3) Dr. Othman M. Ali: I offer my apologies for Arabs/Muslims like me for what I will say here: in Canada, where I live since 2005, I see that the behaviors and conscience of Jews, Christians, and those of other denominations and atheists here in the West (of all nationalities) are better and more elevated; they have a higher moralistic level than most Arabs I've met in my life. A person is judged as corrupt or good as per the ways of dealing with others (are they fair and polite or not). I do believe that Israelis and Jews are good people inside Israel and inside the West countries, despite the special case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and therefore, I think that peace should be restored so that bloodshed would stop and everyone must adhere to a higher moralistic level.

(4) Hisham Al-Saeedi: I still urge readers to surf the internet to read online the news about the Land Day demonstrations, commemorations, and protests and to focus on how the savage Israelis killed the Palestinians at the borders and how the world remains silent regarding such a heinous crime. The Palestinians will emerge victorious in the future, sooner or later, because their cause is just.

Pieces of Advice Addressed to the Palestinians for the Fifth Time: Say (No) to the Vociferous Devils

Firstly: who are the vociferous devils?:

1- The vociferous devils those who deliver false speeches and discourses enthusiastically, usually in loud voices, to brainwash the masses, through the media and microphones, in pulpits of the houses of worship and those pulpits within the political arena. The vociferous devils caused the late thinker Abdullah Al-Qassimi to declare that Arabs are nothing but a sonorous phenomenon. Hence, Arabs typically voice their daydreams loudly, and then, they have some rest from shouting; as if talking endlessly and aimlessly fulfills one's dreams and completes one's mission in life. For instance, Arabs failed to defeat/face Israel; they make up for such failure by launching an anti-Israel rhetoric and an intellectual war of brainwash within loud voices of speeches delivered to appeal to the hearts of the Arab nations who are duped into believing what they hear as more-than-enough information, as most of them do not read anything.

2- This sonorous struggle of the vociferous devils aims at making the gullible masses vent their fury and frustration, because of many failures, by channeling such sentiment towards Israel and the USA as 'enemies' instead of the real enemies: the Arab tyrannical rulers and their regimes; Arab tyrants prostrate before Israel and the USA all the time and therefore oppress the Arab nations simultaneously.

3- The features of the empty rhetoric within the speeches delivered by the vociferous devils in the Arab world include using the following phrases.

3/1: (... This is a decisive phase within the history of our nation ...); this hackneyed phrase is used all the time since the 1960s; we never know when each phase begins and when it ends; in fact, it is one, long phase of failures and defeats that has begun in 1948 until the present time.

3/2: (... The international community must bear its responsibilities ...); would the international community 'fight' or 'face' Israel on behalf of Arabs? Why would not Arab leaders who deliver sonorous, empty rhetoric assume this mission? Besides, Arab tyrants do not realize the fact that the West nations elect presidents who serve the interests of citizens and not the interests of any tyrants who are among the vociferous devils and who serve their own interests and never care about the interests of their Arab nations.

3/3: (... The rights of the Palestinian nation ...); instead of tyrants talking about the rights of the oppressed citizens inside their countries, they talk all the time about the rights of the Palestinian nation; why would not such vociferous devils talk about the rights of Israeli Arabs which are never dreamt of by the oppressed Arab nations?!

3/4: Hence, we conclude that the empty rhetoric of tyrants, or the vociferous devils, is based on mixing the policies of accepting and succumbing to the fait accompli and the dreams that are impossible to realize. Israel is a victorious, deep-rooted state and it cannot be faced or defeated by millions of speeches of empty rhetoric delivered by the vociferous devils. The Arab tyrants who do nothing but delivering speeches suffer many successive defeats; Arab tyrants now fight and curse one another and their fate is in Hell; they will have no supporters to avoid such fate in the Afterlife.     

4- The corrupt Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip constitute a miniature of the Arab tyrants who are the vociferous devils; they are not less efficient in delivering speeches of empty words to brainwash the masses; they are failures like all Arab tyrants, especially regarding taking any military action. This is why the Hamas terrorists resort to committing the heinous terrorist crimes and indiscriminate killings of the innocent civilians. The Hamas terrorists gain lots of money by mobilizing the gullible masses to demonstrate while carrying arms, burning tires, and launching rockets at Israel; the media coverage of empty speeches and silly rhetoric would serve the purposes of Hamas, as money donations will be received by its leaders/thieves under the pretext of 're-building' Gaza; they grow wealthier by allowing the masses to get killed, as Israel has the right to defend its borders. 

5- The pivotal question now is as follows: until when would this madness go on?!

Secondly: who are the leaders/imams of the vociferous devils?:

1- The no. 1 leader/imam of the vociferous devils is the late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt; in our view, he is the worst ruler of Egypt and his failures are too many to enumerate here. In fact, he failed in all fields and all endeavors, except in the sonorous struggle of empty speeches and silly rhetoric to dupe the masses in the 1950s and the 1960s. Because of his being a vociferous devil par excellence, this deity/idol, Nasser, is still being worshiped by some Egyptians and some Arabs until now; he is indeed a deity that symbolizes utter failure and total loss. In Egypt, the late thinker Dr. Taha Hussein was optimistic about the establishment of Israel, as it will serve as an example so that Arabs would learn what democracy is. The very first Israeli measure taken was to hold free elections. Nasser dashed the hopes of Dr. Hussein by imposing the military-regime tyranny under the pretext of fighting Israel; the military rule in Egypt until now has made Egypt sink into lower depths of failure on all levels. As a vociferous devil, Nasser developed his speeches of empty rhetoric from enmity towards Israel to enmity towards what he deemed as the 'oppressive colonization' powers, and this was linked to his deeds or rather his mistakes; e.g., the ownership of the Suez Canal would have returned to Egypt in Nov. 1968, as per prior agreements; 12 years before this date, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, and thus, he violated the International Law and the prior agreements; he was never ready for the war known as the Suez Crisis in Oct. 1956, as Britain, France, and Israel attacked and invaded the city of Port-Said, and Israel invaded Sinai after it destroyed the Egyptian air forces which were on the land of Sinai and had no chance to take off. Nasser suffered a humiliating defeat; yet, the USSR and the American president Eisenhower pressurized Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw in Dec. 1956. Israel forced Nasser to let its ships have the right to pass through the waters of the Egyptian Island Tiran in the Red Sea. The vociferous devil, Nasser, turned this defeat into 'victory' celebrated annually, as if the Egyptian armies were the factor behind this 'victory'. Nasser made Egyptians suffer the worst military defeat ever in the 1967 war, a.k.a. the Six-Day War. Israel invaded Sinai and Moshe Dayan defeated Nasser by the same way; the Egyptian air forces on the land of Sinai were destroyed before they would have the chance to take off. The Egyptian troops withdrew within disgrace before Israeli bombardments. Because of the brainwash of the Egyptians at the time, instead of exacting revenge on Nasser as many Egyptian soldiers died, millions of the masses took to the streets to demand from him to withdraw his resignation announced in a public speech aired on Egyptian TV at the time. In fact, we were one of those who participated in these demonstrations, when we were duped as a young man at the time, before we got cured of the culture of enslavement and before our political awareness is raised.        

2- Many Arab leaders and tyrants followed the footsteps of the vociferous devil Nasser; they offered nothing but empty rhetoric in silly speeches to dupe the masses and they had national songs composed upon their commands; they continued issuing empty anti-Israel statements that brainwashed the masses, without ever daring to launch a military attack against Israel. For instance, the vociferous devil Saddam Hussein, who punished Egypt by imposing a political siege on it because of the Camp David Accords signed by Sadat, had the largest Arab military army and he never fought against Israel with it; he fought against Iran twice and failed, and he committed the heinous crime of invading Kuwait; his recklessness and folly caused the collapse and downfall of Iraq now. Kaddafi was another vociferous devil who moved from pan-Arab nationalism to African nationalism, while keeping two things: announcing hatred and animosity towards Israel while never launching military attacks (or engaging in any conspiracies) against it. We are sure that he, and other Arab tyrants, learned the lesson as they saw what happened to Nasser, the imam of all of the vociferous devils who are failures, when he defied and threatened Israel.  

3- Even the devilish Sunnite Wahabi terrorist groups (e.g., ISIS and Al-Qaeda) never attacked Israel at all.

4- Yet, the devilish Shiite terrorist Hezbollah group in Lebanon attacked Israel many times; Iran is using this group to terrorize Israel to a certain extend and so that Iranian tyrants would prove to themselves that they are better than the Sunnite Arab tyrants and vociferous devils; yet, Lebanon paid the heavy price eventually. 

5- It is quite impossible that the vociferous devils in the Arab world today would achieve their daydreams of defeating or vanquishing Israel and removing it from the map. The Arab media have troops of the vociferous devils who launch a very successful anti-Israel campaigns to make Arabs hate Israelis and Jews within an intellectual war so as not to let them vent their frustration and fury against Arab tyrants; yet, those tyrants like Al-Sisi and Ibn Salman remain in their positions only by gratifying Israel and the USA; how come that any Arabs would imagine those tyrant launching military attacks against Israel one day?!        

Thirdly: the occasions when the vociferous devils shut up:

 The untold, heinous crimes of the Arab tyrants and of the Wahabi opposition movements against them stir the condemnation and disgust of the whole world; yet, the vociferous devils in the Arab media and Arab politics remain silent about such heinous crimes or tackle them by falsifying history and offering illogical, unconvincing justifications. Despite the competition among them, Arab tyrants/rulers condone one another's heinous crimes. We provide some examples in the points below.

1- The Syrian Hafiz Al-Assad (and his son and successor, Bashar Al-Assad) of the Syrian Baathist Party are among the prominent vociferous devils; yet, their armies never tried to retrieve the Golan Heights from Israel; their armies massacred many people of the Syrian nation; Bashar Al-Assad is accused now of using WMDs against his people; he has caused the total ruin and destruction of Syria and he has turned it into a battlefield that involves regional and international powers; he would have imposed media blackout on all this, if it had not been for the international media attention that Syria receives today. Yet, media blackout was imposed on the unspoken-of crimes of Hafiz Al-Assad that include the following ones.  

1/1: The massacre of Tel Al-Zaatar in June 1976 was perpetrated by the forces of Hafiz Al-Assad and the Maronite militias of Pierre Gemayel; the victims were about 3000 Palestinians in their camps who were slaughtered by knives.     

1/2: The Jisr Al-Shughour massacre of March, 1980, against rebels, and the Syrian forces massacred more than 100 men, women, and children and mutilated their corpses.  

1/3: The massacre of Tadmor military prison, where about 1200 prisoners were killed after one day of an assassination attempt against Hafiz Al-Assad. 

1/4: The massacre of Aleppo in 1980, when 100 persons were killed in one district, and this is not to mention the number of victims in four other districts of the city.

1/5: The massacre of Hama, when the Syrian army attacked the city and massacred between 12 to 60 thousand people during the whole month of Feb. 1982.

2- The massacres perpetrated by Saddam Hussein were suffered by Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnites as well; he was accused of using WMDs against his people; his record of heinous crimes would take sheets and sheets to be enumerated; since this is beyond the scope in this article, we mention only two examples below.

2/1: The massacre of Halabja in March 16^th – 17^th, 1988, when Saddam Hussein attacked this region with cyanide and 5 thousand civilians died and other 10 thousand were injured.

2/2: The Anfal genocide in March-August, 1988, was perpetrated by Saddam Hussein against the Iraqi Kurds; about 2000 villages were sabotaged and more than 500 thousand Kurds were killed in Kurdistan. About 500 thousand Kurds were forced to relocate and live in the plains to be controlled easily; more than 1000 Kurdish man were arrested and massacres and then buried in a mass grave.

3- The massacres of Omar Al-Bashir in Sudan:

3/1: The Wahabi MB-affiliated Al-Bashir caused the separation of South Sudan after a terrible civil war; his racist bias for Arab Sudanese people and against the Sudanese people of African origin in Darfur led the dwellers of this region to demand reform; the armies of Al-Bashir and the Janjaweed militias committed a genocide in Darfur that began in 2003; hundreds of thousands of civilians were massacred and others suffered forced displacement, looting, sabotage, rape, etc. The American Secretary of State at the time condemned this genocide, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has accused Al-Bashir of committing the crime of genocide; he is now a wanted war criminal. In Sept. 2007, about 2.2 million homeless people lived in camps in Darfur and more than 200000 fled to Chad to live also in camps; the UN mentions another 2 million people in Darfur who suffered the aftermath of the genocide and they are in need of medical help, food, etc., as the economy and trade collapsed in this region. Our Jewish American friend, Charles Jacobs, has helped many Muslim Sudanese persons from Darfur and so have many American activists.    

3/2: The worst unspoken-of genocide was at the Nuba Mountains (or the Nuba Hills) inside Cordovan, in Sudan, as the Sudanese government has bombarded villages, schools, and hospitals there and prevented any form of aid (i.e., food and medical help) from reaching this area. These events did not get enough media coverage maybe because it is too difficult to reach this area in Sudan.

4- As for the vociferous devil Kaddafi, he imitated Saddam Hussein and Nasser in using the microphones and the media to deliver long speeches of empty rhetoric and statements that duped the masses; his statements included anti-Israel ones to prove to Arab tyrants that he was better than they are and also better than the Palestinian leaders who are vociferous devils as well. Because Kaddafi was against the Oslo Accords, he drove the Palestinians who worked in his country out of Libya and forced them to stay at the Egyptian-Libyan borders to let the Mubarak regime solve this problem instead of him; he also confiscated their possessions and money; many of them were without luggage and had only the sleeping clothes on! In 1993, Kaddafi sent some Libyan Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem and they went there by passing through Israel first. At the time when the Palestinians were being driven out of Libya, we were attending a conference there (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=15906). One of the attendees was a Palestinian man who was about to weep as he was telling us that we were lucky because we have a homeland to return to it (i.e., Egypt), whereas he was told to leave as soon as possible, but he and his wife and children had no homeland to return to it, and he never knew where to go.   

5- The Algerian civil war broke out because of the conflict between the military regime and the Wahabi terrorist groups who won the majority of seats in the parliamentary elections held in 1991 whose results were annulled by the military regime. Many heinous crimes and savage massacres were perpetrated during the Algerian civil war; many peasants were slaughtered indiscriminately (men, women, children, babies, and elderly people), and more than 500000 people were killed, injured, and deemed as missing; many women and girls were raped, and whole villages were ruined and wiped out; hundreds of innocent people were incarcerated. 

6- What about the war launched against Yemen now and the current crisis there as many Yemenis suffer cholera, impecuniousness, and hunger?!

Lastly:

 These vociferous devils among Arab tyrants have oppressed and massacred their nations in a worse manner when compared to what Israel has done to its Palestinian enemies. Until when would the Palestinians follow blindly the vociferous devils among the Arab tyrants and among the Palestinian corrupt leaders in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank?!

COMMENTS:

(1) Forat Al-Forat: As an Iraqi woman who lives in the West, I'd like to assert that the support of the ordinary Palestinians and their corrupt leaders to Arab tyrants and their criminal regimes has resulted in more ordeals and plight and in making the international community disregard the Palestinian cause. For instance, many Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait; after the liberation of Kuwait, Kuwaitis expelled the Palestinians from Kuwait where they worked; after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Palestinians in Iraq were humiliated and lived in camps/tents before many of them were expelled; the same occurred to most of them in Libya after the fall and murder of Kaddafi. Yet, when Saddam Hussein and his sons were killed, some Palestinians mourned their death and give some streets in the Palestinian territories their names; this has been utter disregard for the feelings of hundreds of thousands of victims of the Saddam Hussein regime. Besides, when more than 1200 Palestinian suicide bombers committed their heinous crimes in Iraq in the period 2007 -2013, and they killed themselves and many innocent people there, the Palestinians in Gaza considered such criminals as 'martyrs' in Heaven, though such heinous crimes (killing oneself and killing innocent people) are against Islam (i.e., the Quran). Hence, I advise the Palestinians to reconsider their stances and choices and to decide to avoid the vociferous devils.      

(2) Saeed Ali: I'd like to say that the ideas of the francophone thinker and author Dr. Taha Hussein in Egypt and the leader Bourguiba in Tunisia are good seeds that never grow within the soil of the Arab world because of the vociferous devils; in fact, the hopes of Dr. Hussein about changing the conditions of Arabs to the better precedes all his contemporaries (thinkers + politicians); when he quoted the example of Israel about democracy, he suffered character assassination by Azharite Wahabis because of his liberal views, and they accused him of being a traitor and an agent of France to destroy Islam! Bourguiba had hopes, in vain, that the Palestinians would accept the UN resolution of 1947, and he was accused of being a traitor. The Arab world has many true thinkers who are pioneers of enlightenment and their reformist views fit to be applied today: Mohamed Abdou, Abdel-Rahman Al-Kawakibi, Ibn Khaldoun, Ibn Rushd, and Dr. A. S. Mansour. The question still persists in my mind: why do all Arab countries suffer backwardness, injustice, tyranny, oppression, poverty, ignorance, and obscurantism? Arab regimes are collapsing and no one accepts them in our modern era of the internet and telecommunications. The era of the vociferous devils and orators ended in the First-World countries; yet, the vociferous devils and orators who brainwash/mobilize the masses are alive and kicking in the Arab world until now. The Arabs will not live long to regret their non-application of the direct democracy of the Quranic Shura consultation and the Quranic human rights we see in the writings of Dr. Mansour; the Arabs might suffer extinction very soon! Even Friday sermons in most mosques in the Arab world contain nothing but empty rhetoric of Sunnite/Wahabi ignorance; they are supposed to remind people of the Quranic message and help them repent; this is not the case now. The only light and glimmer of hope in such darkness is the Quranism website; other websites of Salafists (thousands of thousands of Wahabi websites) offer nothing but the empty words of the deified (dead and alive) vociferous devils.                

(3) Lotfiya Saeed: Within the world-history, Hitler comes as the number one vociferous devil; he was an unparalleled charismatic orator who knew how to influence and brainwash the masses and win them to his side within nationalistic sentiments and inciting their enmity towards communists, Jews, etc. The policies of Hitler cause the death of millions of civilians and military men within WWII; this is why Hitler is on top of the list of historical figure that caused bloodshed within an unprecedented scale in modern history. As for Arab rulers whose empty rhetoric makes them among the vociferous devils, their speeches delivered to the masses lead to nowhere; such speeches have become the end, and not the means, in themselves; this is why Arab nations and their rulers hate those who provide them with pieces of advice about religious and political reform and they accuse reformists of being traitors and of being agents of the West. God says in the Quran: "...and I have advised you, but you do not like those who give advice." (7:79). Thank you.  

Pieces of Advice Addressed to the Palestinians for the Last Time Regarding What Should Be Done

Firstly: until when the state of no-war/no-peace would continue along with the plight and suffering of the Palestinians?:

1- Sometimes, we imagine the peace, prosperity, and security the Palestinians and the Arabs would have enjoyed if they had accepted the UN Resolution No. 181 of 1947 and peace was realized between the Arabs and the Israelis. This peace would have spared thousands of victims the suffering, the plight, the forced displacement, and many massacres; peace would have spared the loss of thousands of people who died in the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, and the wars in Lebanon and the attrition warfare launched by Egypt against the Israeli occupiers of Sinai before the 1973 war, as well as other types of Arab-Israeli strife in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s. All such wars and strife ended in heavy losses for the Arabs and the Palestinians; the only victorious ones were the Arab tyrants and the vociferous devils within their regimes. The Arabs have suffered – until now –oppression, tyranny, corruption, massacres, and the terrible harm caused by inter-Arab strife and wars. If Arabs had made peace  with Israel in 1948, they would have entered into natural, gradual phases of democratic transition instead of the tyrannical military regimes (like the one in Egypt) and the tyrannical royal ones (like the one in the KSA) that have caused bloodshed, oppression, corruption, and tons of painful memories.       

2- From 1947 until the present moment, many generations of Arabs have suffered the plight and the bitter taste of successive failures on all levels. This is about the present moment; but what about tomorrow and the near future? What about the children of today who will grow up tomorrow? Will they find more suffering and lose all hopes in a better life? Will they die of sorrow and/or oppression?!

3- The Arab backwardness (since 1947) has caused many generations until now to suffer a lot and to pay a heavy price; will the Palestinians allow such Arab backwardness to confiscate the life and the future of their children? Until when would bloodshed continue? What if the Palestinians can save, the sooner the better, what could be saved now?!  

4- Civilized people learn from their past mistakes and they correct their ideas and stances after drawing valuable lessons; in contrast, animals of the forest never think or change their habits. The Palestinians and Arabs must never allow Arab backwardness to hinder their progress anymore; the current and the next generations must be saved and must not be among the losers as was the case of the previous ones. The policies of the vociferous devils have led the Arabs and the Palestinians to the lower depths of loss and failure; hence, it is high time to be decisive by rejecting such policies and adopting a different, new policy that will provide the Palestinian individuals with human rights and dignity.       

5- What are the features of this new policy that will differ from the policies of the vociferous devils and Arab tyrants?

Secondly: to choose the better choice instead of the worse and the worst choices:

The better choice:

1- The better choice is how Israel deals peacefully with Arab Israelis; for instance, within an Israeli research center we have visited in Jerusalem, a professor there allowed us to see the writings of Palestinians professors who have rejected the vociferous devils and their policies; they saw that their interests are served well and their rights are protected within peaceful coexistence with Israel.  

2- This better choice is witnessed by our person in the two journeys when we visited Sinai in the 1980s, and we mention this a lot in our political articles because such journeys and talking with the Sinai Bedouins helped us correct our views and to remove the negative influence of the brainwash we suffered in the 1960s and the 1970s when we lived in Cairo, Egypt. The Bedouins we have met told us that they feel sad because Sinai is restored to the Egyptian authorities; they told us that Israelis treated them respectfully and in the best manner and as long as they never raise arms against them. They told us that Israelis issued for them Israeli IDs instantly on the spot and provided them with infrastructure and paved roads; they provided water pipelines to several cities; e.g., Sharm Al-Sheikh, and this made the people of Sinai feel prosperous. This is in contrast to the military regime in Egypt that has recently made some of the people of Sinai suffer forced displacement, indiscriminate killings, destruction of buildings, incarceration, and torture, within the endeavors to fight the ISIS elements in Sinai.        

The worse choice:

1- The worse choice is what Israel does when it deals with Palestinian activists who are the victims of the vociferous devils; e.g., Ahed Al-Tamimi, the young woman who slapped two Israeli soldiers in Dec. 17^th, 2017, and she was arrested at dawn of the same day. The Arab and Palestinian vociferous devils in their media have made her an icon of resistance. If an Egyptian young woman did the same to two Egyptian soldiers, she and her family would be raped, tortured, and/or will be among the missing ones within 'mysterious' conditions.

2- What is rarely tackled in the story of Al-Tamimi is that her boldness within the Palestinian struggle cannot be repeated in Egypt or other Arab countries, where people submit totally to the authorities; no Egyptian woman would do what Al-Tamimi did. The Palestinian boldness is seen when the Palestinians are facing Israeli soldiers of occupation; this is in contrast to the total submission of most Arabs to the security apparatuses of the Arab tyrants in all Arab countries.   

3- This Palestinian boldness is partly due to the relative atmosphere of freedom within which the Palestinians live under the Israeli rule; this is shown in several times within the intifadas and within incidents of violent demonstrations; such boldness is rarely found within the other Arab nations that are oppressed by the Arab tyrannical rulers.

4- Yet, how Israel dealt with Al-Tamimi is the worse choice; it is not a good thing; this young woman lives under pressures imposed by the Israeli occupation forces; occupation is a bad thing, and we cannot describe it otherwise. Al-Tamimi has witnessed the suffering and plight of her family; her father was tortured and her mother was beaten and was incarcerated five times.  

5- Hence, Al-Tamimi has grown up between the plight of her parents (within their incarceration and torture) and the empty rhetoric of the Palestinian vociferous devils; this is why she is involved within the political struggle since her childhood; she epitomizes a generation of rebellious young Palestinians; this generation will explode and revolt against the corrupt Palestinian leaders if the status quo would remain unchanged. 

6- There is no doubt that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is a bad thing; yet, of course, the local occupation by the Arab tyrants is worse.

The worst choice:

 In contrast to Al-Tamimi, we see the worst choice within the suffering inflicted on the Egyptian peaceful rebellious young women within the Egyptian revolt. We provide two examples below.

1- Shaymaa Al-Sabbagh (1984 - 2015) was a political activist from the city of Alexandria who left her 6-year-old boy to participate in a peaceful demonstration in Cairo in Jan. 2015 while carrying flowers; within this peaceful demonstration, a policeman shot her in the face on purpose and she died.

2- The arrested young women during the revolt of Jan. 25^th, 2011, were humiliated by the so-called virginity test; the case drew media attention worldwide despite the media blackout imposed by the Egyptian authorities at the time. This crime of virginity test was committed by some members of the military army who belong to the military central intelligence, a department headed at the time by Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. Amnesty International has documented this crime within a lengthy report; the ruling military regime in Egypt has protested against such a report and justified what happened by saying that this measure was taken to clear the name of the army soldiers from the accusations leveled at them of raping female protesters at the time; this implies that some women might have been raped.  

3- The military army has a certain role: to defend the homeland, the borders, and citizens and not to rule; when the military regimes assume power and rule (e.g., in Egypt), they use weapons against the armless citizens; it is as if citizens were the enemy that must be humiliated and oppressed. This is what is going on, in our own view, in Egypt until now. 

4- Hence, this was the context of humiliating female protestors in 2011 by the so-called virginity test; cameras also caught the young woman whose outer clothes were removed in public by some army soldiers; this incident was videoed on purpose, as some Egyptian activists have asserted, in order to terrorize women and prevent them joining any peaceful demonstrations that took place after the ouster of Mubarak.

5- Such terrible incidents prove that men of the military regime assume they are masters within 'superior bodies' (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=15449) and that citizens are slaves that can be raped and killed anytime as was the case of the subjects/cattle of kings/caliphs of the Middle Ages.

6- These questions still persist: who is the real enemy: Israel or the Arab tyrants? Which is worst: the Israeli occupation or the local occupation by the Arab tyrants?

Thirdly: features of having the better choice:

1- To choose the better means to support and to side with the rights of the Palestinian individuals; they must enjoy human rights and political rights within a democratic state that protect such rights and protect their security and welfare. It is not important who would be the ruler/president as long as there is a democratic rule that observes and applies human rights.

2- This is why we do not talk here about the emergence of a Palestinian state, or two states, ruled by thieves/criminals like Arafat, Abbas, and Hamas members with their dominant Arab culture of the vociferous devils; such a state would be owned by tyrants who will monopolize all rights and consume ill-gotten money, oppress and ride/control the Palestinians, and claim they represent (or talk in the name of) the Palestinians; this is the case in all Arab countries ruled by tyrants; this is the worst choice that must be avoided.

Lastly: how to activate and realize the better choice:

1- The Palestinian nation must revolt against Abbas and Hamas within peaceful sits-in and demonstrations that will demand the emergence of a peaceful, democratic State and an end to the authoritarianism and tyranny of Abbas and Hamas; the demonstrators must demand from the UN and the international community to oversee the establishment of this Palestinian democratic state (or two separate states in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank). 

2- This peaceful revolt must announce the fact that the Palestinians seek to consolidate peace with Israel within mutual trust and security.

3- The Palestinians have followed the vociferous devils for several decades, and this has made them reach the lower depths of utter ruin and devastation; they have nothing more to lose now; they would better try peaceful coexistence and democracy instead of living in the same veritable hell of daily plight, suffering, and bloodshed.

The Best Discourse:

 God says in the Quran: "You will remember what I am telling you, so I commit my case to God. God is Observant of the servants." (40:44). As always God says nothing but the Absolute Truth.

COMMENTS:

(1) Lotfiya Saeed: I've posed to myself these questions many times: why are there long queues of people who hope to get entry visas formed at the doors of foreign embassies in Cairo, Egypt? How have the products of China and Japan invaded the markets worldwide? How has Japan survived the WWII and managed to initiate a renaissance on all levels? The answers are found in the above article. The Chinese and the Japanese, unlike Arabs and Egyptians, stopped looking at the past and they focus on the future. Why Arabs are doomed to stick to weeping over the ruins of the past?! Is it the destiny of the Arab mentality to weep over the past forever without ever thinking of the present and the future?! Thank you, Dr. Mansour.      

(2) Noor Mustafa Ali: Thank you, Dr. Mansour, for this great article; I sincerely hope that the Palestinians would read and understand your articles. By the way, the lustful Arab men followed the case of Ahed Al-Tamimi only because she was a blonde woman with blue eyes! The same Arab men eyed with lust the women who fled genocide in Bosnia. In fact, the thieves/terrorists of the MB-affiliated Hamas have committed many heinous crimes against the innocent people of the Gaza Strip, more than the atrocities committed by the Mongols and the Tartars when they conquered the Levantine region. In fact, the Palestinian leaders have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric and emotional speeches in Arab satellite TV channels to beg for donation money and the endless calls (since 2006) to help in the so-called endeavors to 're-build' Gaza. In fact, many Palestinian friends told me that the people of Gaza wished (only in whispers, out of fear of being imprisoned by the Hamas terrorists) that Israel would re-annex the Gaza Strip to end their suffering. Israeli prisons are five-star hotels when compared to the despicable conditions of the Palestinian ones of Hamas that never fit for dogs, let alone human beings. I am never convinced that the people in Gaza desire that the Gaza Strip would be made into an independent state; they are forced to burn tires and threaten the Israeli borders; if there would be a state there, this means more tyranny, theft, bullying, terror, violence, etc. There are many factions in the Gaza Strip now, and they hate one another and compete with one another for power and money. These are not the deeds and stances of people who wish to live in peace within an independent state. Thank you, Dr. Mansour.                   

(3) Dr. A. S. Mansour: We thank Ms. Lotfiya Saeed and Ms. Noor Mustafa Ali for their comments; let us assert the following points. It is known by everyone now that the Hamas terrorists manage a small, personal war to sacrifice Palestinian blood every now and then in order to get money. The Hamas terrorists and the ordinary Palestinians have no right to attack and threaten Israeli borders since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip peacefully and left it to its dwellers. Instead of developing the economy of the Gaza Strip, the Hamas terrorists have controlled everything and severed all relations with the West Bank; they use the people of Gaza to make money by launching rockets at Israel to threaten the Israelis (and they know quite well that such rockets will never hurt Israel) so that Gaza is destroyed and bombarded, and then, they would ask for money donations from many countries; such sums of money are stolen by the Hamas members and they never reach ordinary Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who need help. Abbas is slyer, shrewder, and more cunning than the Hamas members; he monopolizes power in the West Bank and allows no elections to be held; his war against Israel is only using empty rhetoric and hate speeches, because he is a vociferous devil like the rest of the Palestinian leaders. Abbas has chosen deliberately not to stop anti-Israel hate campaigns in the media and never to initiate serious peace negotiations with the Israelis. Abbas will not be able to increase the millions of US$ of his wealth (and his son's wealth!) if peace is restored along with the Palestinians' rights (i.e., security, prosperity, and human dignity) and if the pains and suffering of the Palestinians in the West Bank would come to an end. Thus, Abbas has chosen to be a vociferous devil like his predecessors who emerged since the UN resolution of 1947. Abbas is over 80 years old now; yet, he cannot stop stealing and amassing more ill-gotten money; he never cares about the plight of the Palestinians since their plight allows him and his son to gain more millions of US$. May God curse Hamas and Abbas and their likes in this world and the next one.          

(4) Jawad Mustafa: Dear Dr. Mansour, please accept my greetings and full respect to you. I live in Amman, Jordan. Having read your series of articles about your journey to Israel and the Palestinian territories and your pieces of advice to both sides, I'd like to be permitted to criticize some of your views in this comment; I sincerely hope that you will accept my criticism without getting offended. Firstly, your way of demonstrating and explaining the brief details of the Arab-Israeli conflict is not accurate because you assume that European Jews were original dwellers or natives in Palestine; this is not true; in 1914, Arab Jews never exceeded 8% of the whole original dwellers of Palestine (as per the estimates of the Ottoman caliphate), and there were no European immigrant Jews who came from overseas at the time. Hence, most Jewish Israelis of today are the descendants of Jewish conquerors and settlers, not natives, of Palestine; they came and settled under the pretext of fulfilling the myths of the Old Testament. Besides, historically, the presence of the Israelite tribes inside Palestine or Canaan was temporary like other conquerors before and after them; there have been original Palestinians in Palestine or Canaan even before Abraham and Isaac were born. Secondly, I do believe that Israelis are aggressors and they stole the Arab land of Palestine (which was under the British Mandate), and as per the Quran, God does not love the aggressors and transgressors and He will never side with them: "...do not commit aggression; God does not love the aggressors." (2:190). Thus, the Jewish settlers in Palestine in the 1920s and the 1930s were aggressors who stole stretches of land that were never legally their own, and the Jewish armed gangs (who were even stronger than the military troops of Egypt at the time) terrorized and expelled many Palestinians and drove them away from their villages (this is forced displacement, by the way), whereas the British occupiers hanged or imprisoned any Palestinians who carried arms at the time. When Britain withdrew suddenly from Palestine in the 1940s, the British made the balance of power tilt to the side of these European Jewish conquerors/settlers who immigrated to Palestine. Later on, the rulers of Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan exerted their efforts so as to stop the emergence of a Palestinian independent state; this topic is too lengthy to be included in my comment. Thirdly, the main problem is that the Zionist Jews is that they made use of the weakness of the Ottomans to create an influx of Jewish immigrants into Palestine, since the Balfour Declaration in 1917 or the statement of Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild to make the British government support the establishment of a national homeland for the European Jews in Palestine; this means they had to terrorize the Arab native or original dwellers of Palestine who included Muslims, Christians, and Jews to allow European Jewish settlers to remain there. Zionists at one time asked one of the Ottoman sultans to allow them to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine, but their request was refused. Fourthly and lastly, since you are a historian endowed with a vision and an excellent analytical skill, I must be allowed to draw your attention, Dr. Mansour, to the following two facts that will allow you to ponder on how Zionism poses a veritable threat to the whole world. [1] If it had not been for launching WWI, removing the Ottoman caliphate from the world map, and dividing the Arab countries with strange borders, Israel as a state would not have emerged on the world map. [2] If it had not been for launching WWII and the Nazi Holocaust, Israel as a state would not have emerged on the world map; this is because of the fact that European Jews were not particularly interested in moving from Europe in the 1920s and the 1930s; they loved living in their native European countries before WWI and WWII. Hence, it is worth pondering how evil forces of darkness have created certain factors to force the hapless European Jews into relocating themselves as settlers in Palestine. I'd like to assure you that my holding political opinions that differ from yours will not lessen my admiration of your intellectual endeavors of religious and political reform; you must know that I'm a big fan of your Quranism website which is filled with great ideas that are worth pondering for a long time. Thank you very much.                    

(5) Dr. A. S. Mansour: Thank you, Mr. Jawad Mustafa, and we assure you here that you are very welcome to our website. Please allow us to assert the following points to you. [1] We respect your different views about interoperating and analyzing the past; this past is controversial by its very nature; we have mentioned our own views while never claiming to own the absolute truth; we never impose our views on anyone, as you know. [2] What matters most now is the present and the future; there is no such a thing now called Arab-Israeli conflict; Arabs are too busy now launching wars against one another; you should call it the Palestinian-Israeli conflict instead. What must be important to all of us now is to end this Palestinian-Israeli conflict peacefully and as soon as possible. [3] Within this Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Palestinians have adopted one policy/method that made them fail to achieve anything; we propose a different policy/method which we see as the best one: to focus on the human rights of the Palestinian individuals that include freedom, justice, and human dignity. It is the basic right of the Palestinian nation to have leaders serving its interests instead of the current corrupt gangs of thieves like Abbas and Hamas who serve their own personal, financial interests. The human rights of the Palestinian individuals will be provided for them only when they seek to establish peaceful coexistence with Israel; this will spare the lives of thousands of Palestinians at present and in the future. Hence, it is high time for the Palestinian nation to adopt a different policy/method and a new mentality, especially that the status quo (i.e., the presence of Israel and Israeli settlements) will never change; peace talks and negotiations would preferably not include the other Arab countries (it should include the Israelis and the Palestinians only within supervision of the UN or the USA), as the current state of affairs in Egypt, the KSA, the Gulf monarchies, and the North African countries will not allow any good influence to result from their interference within such peace talks. The plight and suffering of the Palestinian nation (which enrich Abbas and Hamas) must come to an end the sooner the better. If our views in the above article are deemed as wrong by anyone, we welcome everyone who desires to write on our website about other suggestions and solutions that will provide human rights to the Palestinian nation and end their suffering and plight. Please accept our respect and affection; you are very welcome to our website, Mr. Jawad Mustafa.

Signature: Dr. A. S. Mansour

Springfield, VA, the USA