Some of our readers know Maria Khoury. This will take prayer.
The Guardian Chris McGreal in Jerusalem Monday September 5, 2005
The only brewery in the Palestinian territories escaped an attack yesterday by a mob that razed a dozen homes over an alleged affair between a Christian man whose family owns the beer factory and a Muslim woman from a neighbouring village who was then murdered by her own family.
The attack on Taybeh, a wholly Christian village which gives its name to a popular Palestinian beer, came despite appeals from residents to their neighbours in Deir Jarir to refrain from violence while the body of the murdered 25-year-old woman, identified only as Haim, was disinterred for DNA tests to try to ascertain if she had sex with the accused man, Mahdi Abu Houria.
“Because we were afraid of what would happen, we got permission from Abu Mazen [the Palestinian president] to dig her up from her grave and have DNA testing,” said Maria Khoury, the wife of Taybeh’s mayor who co-owns the brewery. “You can’t just accuse someone without evidence. They buried without testing. We are very suspicious that this family raped their daughter and buried her and they want to find an excuse to destroy our village.”
The accused woman was murdered by her family last week in an “honour killing” after the alleged affair was made public. Palestinian women’s groups say that women are sometimes killed after being raped by relatives who then attempt to shift responsibility for pregnancy to an innocent man.
Abu Houria was arrested by the Palestinian police after he was accused of the affair and is being held in “protective custody” in prison where his family says he is routinely beaten.
Despite the pleas to wait for the results of the DNA test, Taybeh’s residents say hundreds of men descended on the village in the middle of the night. “They came from Deir Jarir, the Muslim village, armed, and they threw petrol and they lit up one home right after another,” said Mrs Khoury.
“They burned 12 homes down which are those of the accused man and every member of his family, third cousins, fourth cousins, anyone related. We have 12 homeless families without clothes, without anything.
“These are fanatics who take the law into their own hands. If one person is guilty that person deserves punishment, not the whole village.”
The brewery was founded by Nadim Khoury a decade ago when he returned to the Palestinian territories after living for nearly 20 years in Boston. He and about 25 other residents of the village are naturalised American citizens. The family says it attempted to enlist the help of the US consulate in Jerusalem during the attack but it said that the only action it could take was to inform the Israeli army.
“The Israeli army came in, looked around, smiled and left,” said Mrs Khoury. “The whole village is a peaceful village.”
“We don’t participate in resistance [against the Israeli occupation] and we really don’t want to be burned down. We are very afraid. These people will come back.”
The Israeli army said that when it arrived at the scene it concluded there was no imminent danger to life and, in accordance with agreements, waited for Palestinian forces to arrive and quell the disturbance.
Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance. These must be the minority of course.
Is Sharia “Extreme”
There has been some discussion on this board whether the United States would be justified in simply terminating immigration by Muslims, [granted this may not be an easy policy to enforce]. The position I have proffered for discussion is that American should bar further Muslim immigration as the essence of Islam is Sharia Law and Sharia Law is incompatible with our constitutional democracy and guarantees of religious and intellectual freedom.
Please note that Australian Muslims, like Canadian Muslims, are NOW WORKING FOR the IMPOSITION OF ISLAMIC LAW.
Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au
Muslim party seeks Islamic law for Australians
Patricia Karvelas
September 06, 2005
THE leader of the nation’s first Muslim political party says all Australians should be living under Islamic law dictated by the Koran.
The Best Party of Allah in Australia applied for registration in the ACT yesterday, claiming to provide a political voice for Muslims.
Founder Kurt Kennedy, a Vietnamese-born Muslim convert and candidate in the ACT assembly elections last year, said the party wanted to “implement the laws as stated in the Koran”.
“The positive part of sharia law is (about) treating everybody fairly,” he said. “I don’t think anybody should have any worries about it. “If they read through the Koran, there’s nothing there that will threaten them or threaten their personal life or property.”
The new party had almost 200 members but needed 500 to register federally, which was the goal, he said.
“The thing is to have a profile and to defend those who believe in Allah.”
People were “living in the dark” and experiencing an unnecessary level of fear of Islam.
The emergence of the Family First Party had showed him that there was a role for religious-based parties. “It’s obvious what they do,” he said.
“We don’t want to hide behind things. We want to go out and say we are believers of Allah, we believe in his religion, we obey his laws as stated in the Koran — there’s nothing to worry about.”
Australians who were not Muslims were welcome to join the party, Mr Kennedy said.
“Whether they become Muslims or not become Muslims, because they will see a sensible view not corrupted by lobby groups, a view not corrupted by hypocrisy — like sending food-aid to Iraq but, at the same time, sending our soldiers there and bombing and killing their children as well.”
Mr Kennedy could not guarantee extremists would not join his party but said he thought it unlikely that people with extremist views would want to participate in the peaceful, democratic political system. “We have a constitution and a process where people fill in an application form and the secretary can decide whether to enlist them or reject them, like any other political party,” he said. The party would promote “moderate politics” and would be neither right-wing nor left-wing.
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Let’s remember that the Kokan provides the following:
a) a woman’s testimony in court is worth half that of a man
b) men are favored by Allah over women and men are entitled to beat their wives
c) men may “marry” up to four wives and may have sexual relations with female slaves in their household
d) the inheritance of male children should be twice that or female children
There are many other disturbing aspects of Sharia Law contained in the Hadith and the officially accepted religious biography of Mohammed which I will not detail in this post. My message to my friends on this board is this. Every observant Muslims is serious about Sharia law, they have no intention to relegate it to the Middle Ages as a historial curiosity.
Taslima Nasrin the brillian Bangladeshi female physician is trying to tell the West that that Muslims who wish for reform are the minority, they only are free in the West, they are subject to violence in the Islamic world. Most of the 1.2 billion Muslims want Sharia Law and are working for its imposition on everyone in their countries. Some may advocate force, some may not, but they all want Sharia.
Is there any way we can directly support this village, by messages of support, or contributions? Are there ways to contact the residents, or their parishes, or their dioceses? or some other local intermediary there?
Yes. Go to this website: http://www.saintgeorgetaybeh.org/.
I was being sarcastic when I said Islam is a religion of peace. This is the most violent criminal religion the world has ever seen. It is sad to read that the few Arab Christians left in the holy land have no protection from anyone.
Missourian wrote, “Muslims have been telling us that they want Sharia law everywhere. Why do we not believe them at their word?”
Yes – I do believe them!!!! Americans have a very, very atypical view of freedom. For example, when the Scots went to war against England to ‘free’ themselves, it had nothing to do with setting up a ‘Bill of Rights.’ It had to do with having a government that was controlled by Scots, and that would run the country in accordance with Scottish law and custom. The same holds true around the world. Most cultures have no concept of ‘rights’ as we know them. Their version of ‘freedom’ is the same as that in the pre-political West – a government of their own that rules in accordance with their laws and custom. Just as no one in Scotland fighting English rule gave much thought to freedom of religion or freedom of speech, so no one fighting us in Iraq does either.
For Muslims, a government that rules according their laws and traditions means one that enforces Sharia. Look at this – when Muslims get political clout in the West they demand the Sharia. Why, on God’s blessed Earth, would anyone believe that if Muslims acheive political power in Iraq or Egypt or elsewhere that they would suddenly set up Jeffersonian Republics?
Of course they won’t. We’re already seeing this in Iraq where the new Constitution is highly Islamic. It will get worse, not better.
Some of the same people who complain about Muslims also support spreading Democratic regimes throughout the Middle East so that the ‘man on the street’ can give power to Mullahs. Many of these same people want Turkey in the EU, and want to give unlimited support to an Iraqi government dominated by Iranian allies.
This is senselessness on the ‘right.’ On the ‘left’ is equal senselessness as they deny that Islam is a threat, and call it racist to point out the shortcomings of Muslim thought. Both the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ act more like Dhimmis than free people, always soft shoeing around hoping not to offend the local mosque.
Forget all that. We have to say no to Sharia, not just here but in the Muslim world as well. The most extensive bulwark against Sharia is provided by secular despots who are threatened by the Mullahs. These despots often wish to modernize their economies in order to increase their own clout and power. The by-product is a more progressive society that embraces Western ideals at some level among the elites. Vote pandering politicians, however, think only about the next election cycle and will rapidly descend into ‘mullahocracy.’
There, I said. I support a ban on Muslim immigration at home, and heavy-handed secular rule abroad. The alternative is chaos at home, and dozens of little ‘Irans’ abroad.
I agree with your comments Glen. I think it may go deeper than that though. We in the west and specifically Orthodox need to come to the realization that all cultures are not the same.
Our government feels we can graft democracy/freedom onto Islamic culture and it will fit. It won’t and never will. There can be no so called reformation in Islam like many in the west call for. Islam is a repressive religion that you don’t need to look hard in it to find justification for honor killings and murder of non-Muslims. Yes it happens in Christianity and in Orthodoxy but you really have to twist the words of the Lord to get justification for it. No such twisting of words is need for the criminal Muslims to murder their own daughter and burn down a town. Thats what people don’t understand this is not the exception to the rule but the rule.
I pray that the people of Taybeh find some peace and protection from the hordes that are around them. I admire and respect these people for staying in such a hostile land. They are true hero’s in every sense of the word. God Bless Them!