Israel at 60: To Stay Independent and Free, Understand and Fight The Jihad

I proudly celebrate the 60-year miracle of Israel. The continued survival of this still vibrant, Western-oriented Jewish homeland hinges upon understanding and combating the genocidal Islamic institution of jihad.

At the height of so-called “secular nationalism” in Nasser’s Egypt, this timeless formulation for the jihad (against, in this case, the then briefly autonomous Jews of Israel) was re-stated in unequivocal terms, which also repeated Islam’s doctrinal Antisemitism.

Fatwa written by the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Hasan Ma’moun, January 5, 1956, signed by the leading members of the Fatwa Committee of Al Azhar, i.e., its Chairman and ex-Mufti of Egypt, and major representatives of all four Islamic schools of jurisprudence, the ex-Sheikh of the Shari’a College (Shafi’i sect),  Mahmoud Shaltout (Hanafi sect), the Director of Religious Guidance (Maliki Sect), and the Director of the Azhar Inspectorate (Hanbali sect), and published the following day in Al Ahram. (The English translation, below is from a recently declassified   US (Cairo) Embassy telegram [D441214], dated March 5, 1956.)

The question put to us reveals that the land of Palestine has been conquered by the Muslims [note: by Jihad] who have lived there for a long time, and has become part of the Muslim territory where minorities of other religions dwell. Accordingly, Palestine has become a territory under the jurisdiction of Islam and governed by Islamic laws. The question further reveals that Jews have taken a part of Palestine and there established their non-Islamic government and have also evacuated from that part most of its Muslim inhabitants…

Any attack by the enemy on any Muslim country is not allowed by Islamic law, no matter what the motives or causes of such an attack may be. Muslim territory should remain in the hands of its owners…

The Jihad is an absolute necessity when Muslim territories are attacked…the action taken by the Jews in Palestine is an attack on an Islamic country. It is the duty of the Muslims therein to repulse the attack by force until the country has been liberated and restored to the Muslim owners. In this case the Jihad is the duty of all Muslims, not just those who can undertake it. And since all Islamic countries constitute the abode of every Muslim, the Jihad is imperative for both the Muslims inhabiting the territory attacked, and Muslims everywhere else because even though some sections have not been attacked directly, the attack nevertheless took place on a part of the Muslim territory which is a legitimate residence for any Muslim.

…Muslims cannot conclude peace with those Jews who have usurped the territory of Palestine and attacked its people and their property in any manner which allows the Jews to continue as a state in that sacred Muslim territory. Muslims should cooperate regardless of differences in language, color, or race to restore the country to its people and to secure the Aqsa Mosque which is the place where revelations were made, where prophets prayed, and which God blessed. They should protect Islamic relics and monuments against those usurpers and help the warriors with arms and other means to fight for this cause and, in furtherance of this, exert every effort until the country is purified from the vestiges of those aggressors and despots.

Those who fail to do so, refuse to help the Muslims, advocate what leads to division, thus enabling the imperialist states and Zionists to execute their plans against the Arabs and Islam and against the Arab and Islamic country, are heretics in terms of the teachings of Islam, and by this they commit the worst possible crime.

Everyone knows that from the early days of Islam to the present day the Jews have been plotting against Islam and Muslims and the Islamic homeland. They do not propose to be content with the attack they made on Palestine and Al Aqsa Mosque, but they plan for the possession of all Islamic territories from the Nile to the Euphrates.