When Muhammad Al-Fatih conquered Constantinople, he ensured that his troops were spiritually primed and he as the Sultan was foremost in ensuring that they were of righteous conduct and his own character and spirituality were unsurpassed to lead them into battle.
He mirrored the likes of his prestigious predecessors, Umar Al-Khattab and Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi who both conquered Jerusalem during their time.
How many of the so-called Muslim leaders today, who cry so much about defending the legitimate rights of the Palestinians to their own free homeland and East Jerusalem as its capital, are clean of corruptions, not oppressors themselves, utterly silent towards other wrongs being committed before them and worst, even colludes with evil, to qualify as worthy of championing such a noble cause, let alone send their troops to fight?
(1) “So sekarang Jerusalem/Baitulmqadis tu Israel punya kah?”
TIDAK. Bila Trump kata Jerusalem itu ibu negara Israel, bukan bermaksud secara automatik Jerusalem terus jadi hak milik Israel. Trump bukan hakim dunia. Dia hanya Presiden US. Di dunia kita sekarang, hanya Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (United Nations – UN) saja yang boleh beri kata putus bahawa wilayah ini milik siapa, wilayah itu milik siapa. US hanya salah satu daripada 5 kuasa besar dunia (selainnya ialah Rusia, China, UK dan Perancis) yang boleh membuat keputusan di UN melalui kuasa veto mereka di Majlis Keselamatan. Sehingga sekarang, UN masih menganggap pendudukan Israel ke atas Jerusalem Timur tidak sah dan Israel perlu berundur ke sempadan asalnya sebelum tahun 1967. Kalau guna bahasa undang-undang antarabangsa, Israel hanya ada kawalan “DE FACTO” ke atas Jerusalem Timur. Pendudukan Israel ke atas Jerusalem Timur tidak diberi pengiktirafan “DE JURE” oleh komuniti antarabangsa.
(2) “Ya Allah! Kiamat makin dekat! ”
Baitulmaqdis tidak jatuh ke tangan Israel bermula semalam. Al-Aqsa (di Jerusalem Timur) telah pun jatuh ke tangan Israel 50 tahun yang lalu lagi, selepas kekalahan Jordan (penguasa asal Jerusalem Timur) dalam Perang Enam Hari 1967. Tanda kiamat dah mula pun sejak 50 tahun yang lepas. Apa yang korang buat selama 50 tahun lepas lah wey.
(3) “Ibu negara Israel kat mana sebenarnya?”
Sejak 1950, ibu negara Israel ialah Jerusalem Barat iaitu tempat terletaknya Parlimen, Mahkamah Agung dan Pejabat PM Israel. Selepas Israel menawan Jerusalem Timur pada 1967, Israel meluluskan Jerusalem Law pada tahun 1980 yang menyatakan “the complete and united Jerusalem is the capital of Israel”. Maksudnya Israel nak menyatukan Jerusalem Barat dan Jerusalem Timur sebagai ibu negaranya. Perjanjian Oslo 1993 yang dipersetujui oleh Yitzhak Rabin (Israel) dan Yasser Arafat (Palestin) mengatakan status Jerusalem Timur harus ditentukan melalui perundingan bersama Israel-Palestin. Ini menyebabkan Rabin dibunuh oleh ekstremis Zionis kerana ia bakal menggadaikan pemilikan penuh Israel ke atas Jerusalem Timur. Perundingan damai Israel-Palestin asyik gagal disebabkan politikus right-wing di Israel seperti Netanyahu tidak mahu berkompromi dalam isu Jerusalem. Jadi, NO, Israel tidak perlu memindahkan ibu negaranya susulan kenyataan Trump.
(4) “Kenapa Trump nak mengiktiraf Jerusalem sebagai ibu negara Israel?”
Gimik politik. Mid-Term Election dah nak dekat. Trump pernah berjanji semasa kempen tahun 2016 bahawa dia akan mengiktiraf Jerusalem sebagai ibu negara Israel, satu strategi untuk mengambil hati Yahudi Zionis dan Kristian Evangelis (tak semua Yahudi pro Israel, jangan pukul rata). Sama seperti Obama yang pernah berucap semasa kempen tahun 2008 bahawa “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided”. Apa yang Trump buat adalah lebih kepada prosedur standard Presiden. Pada tahun 1995, Kongres US telah meluluskan Jerusalem Embassy Act yang mengiktiraf “undivided Jerusalem” (merangkumi Jerusalem Barat dan Jerusalem Timur) sebagai ibu negara Israel dan mengarahkan Department of State (Kementerian Luar) untuk memindahkan kedutaan US ke Jerusalem.
Tapi akta tersebut turut memberi peruntukan “waiver” di mana Presiden boleh menangguhkan perpindahan tersebut. Sejak 1995, Clinton, Bush dan Obama telah pun menandatangani waiver tersebut walaupun ada di kalangan mereka yang pro-Israel. Waiver itu perlu renew setiap 6 bulan. Kali terakhir Trump menandatangani waiver adalah pada 1 Jun 2017, jadi waiver itu dah expired pada Disember 2017 dan Trump mengambil kesempatan ini untuk membuat kenyataan. Tak pasti Trump sudah atau belum menandatangani waiver tu. Kalau ikut sumber ini, Trump sebenarnya dah menandatangani waiver. Jadi kali ini Trump sekadar sembang, sebab election dah dekat.
Pada 23 Disember 2016, Majlis Keselamatan UN 2015-2016 telah meluluskan Resolusi 2334 yang mengatakan pendudukan Israel ke atas Jerusalem Timur tidak sah. Resolusi tersebut dapat diluluskan kerana US tidak menggunakan kuasa vetonya. Obama saja nak kenakan Netanyahu sebelum habis tempoh jawatannya sebagai Presiden. Kalau sekarang Israel dan US nak mengusulkan sebarang resolusi untuk menjadikan Jerusalem sebagai ibu negara Israel pun, ia tetap akan diveto oleh Rusia dan China yang telah lama menyokong Palestin dalam hal ini. Jadi kenyataan Trump kali ini tidak akan mengubah keputusan tersebut. Ia cuma dapat menyelamatkan sedikit air muka Netanyahu.
(5) “So kalau tak ada apa-apa effect, buat apa nak bantah?”
Sebab US sebagai penimbangtara proses perdamaian Israel-Palestin, ia harus menghormati Perjanjian Oslo 1993 dan menjaga perasaan Palestin. Kenyataan Trump seolah-olah memberi sokongan moral kepada Israel dan membelakangi resolusi-resolusi UN yang jelas mengecam klaim Israel ke atas Jerusalem Timur.
Kadang kala kita perlu menguasai pengetahuan asas hubungan antarabangsa sebelum meninggalkan komen-komen yang tidak matang di merata media sosial. Trump tengok komen korang pun rasa WTF. Kurangkan karut, satukan hati. Insya Allah, Palestine will be free.
(p/s: my brothers and sisters, the Jerusalem issue is not a religious issue. It is an universal humanitarian concern over Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem and its continued defiance of international law. Don’t let the extremists from both sides lure you into choosing side based on your faith).
MALAYSIA will make an official statement on the United States’ decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a move that is certain to have repercussions in the Middle East.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the Prime Minister would be making an announcement on the matter.
He told reporters this after a 30-minute meeting with Hamas Political Bureau member Dr Maher Salah on the sidelines of the Umno general assembly here yesterday.
Dr Maher said such a move would cause more concern among the Arabs and asked the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to intervene.
“This move is in contravention with international laws and the rights of the Palestinians. Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine and belongs to Islam.
“I laud the Deputy Prime Minister’s stand on this issue,” he added.
It was reported that US President Donald Trump would be declaring a formal recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy from Tel Aviv.
Later yesterday, Dr Ahmad Zahid launched the Home Ministry’s booth at the Putra World Trade Centre for the assembly.
The booth will offer services from all agencies under the ministry, including the police, Prisons Department, Immigration Department and National Registration Department.
He also unveiled a 238-page book on the ministry’s achievements and performance since he became Home Minister.
Dr Ahmad Zahid, who is also Umno vice-president, took time off to sit in debates at the Umno Youth, Wanita Umno and Puteri wings.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday symbolically tossed into a bin a Hamas policy paper published last week that set out an apparent softening of the Palestinian Islamist group’s stance toward Israel.
In a document issued last Monday, Hamas said it was dropping its longstanding call for Israel’s destruction, but said it still rejected the Jewish state’s right to exist and continued to back “armed struggle” against it.
The Israeli government has said the document aimed to deceive the world that Hamas was becoming more moderate.
Netanyahu, in a 97-second video clip aired on social media on Sunday, said that news outlets had been taken in by “fake news”. Sitting behind his desk with tense music playing in the background, he said that in its “hateful document”, Hamas “lies to the world”. He then pulled up a waste paper bin, crumpled the document into a ball and tossed it away.
“The new Hamas document says that Israel has no right to exist, it says every inch of our land belongs to the Palestinians, it says there is no acceptable solution other than to remove Israel… they want to use their state to destroy our state,” Netanyahu said.
Founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned Egyptian Islamist movement, Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2007 and has carried out hundreds of armed attacks in Israel and in Israeli-occupied territories.
Many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.
Outgoing Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said Hamas’s fight was not against Judaism as a religion but against what he called “aggressor Zionists”. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, was named on Saturday to succeed Meshaal.
Netanyahu concluded his clip by saying that “Hamas murders women and children, it’s launched tens of thousands of missiles at our homes, it brainwashes Palestinian kids in suicide kindergarten camps,” before binning the document.
A motion on the achievements of Singapore women took a drastic turn when Minister Masagos had an intense exchange with WP MP Faisal Manap in Parliament over the tudung issue yesterday.
The exchange took place in a middle of a debate on supporting the aspirations of women in Singapore, after Faisal Manap had raised the tudung issue in an earlier speech.
In a nut shell, Masagos was taking Faisal Manap to task for constantly raising “divisive” issues such as the tudung issue, role of Malays in the SAF, and Palestine etc. You get the drift. Difficult issues that tend to put the government in a spot. That might drive a wedge by making these issues into what Masagos called a “state vs religion” matter.
Why keep focusing on such issues, Masagos asked, instead of focusing on issues that matter most to the Malay-Muslim community – education, housing, jobs. Why not focus on issues that are more important and constructive?
Now, Faisal Manap is a politician at the end of the day. While I’m sure that issues such as tudung, role of Malays in the SAF and Palestine do matter to many Malay-Muslims, I am also sure that Faisal Manap specifically raised these issues precisely because these were tough issues that would put the government in a spot. And to gain some political mileage out of it too by playing to the gallery. i.e. Faisal Manap is just being a politician.
E.g. remember the photo of him praying before a GE rally in 2015, which appeared on social media?
Like what many other politicians do actually. Including PAP ones. Just that sometimes they are lousier at it – e.g remember. Koh Poh Koon helping an old auntie to carrying 32kg of old newspapers.
Yet, three points in defense of Faisal Manap:
1) Sole Malay Opposition MP
Now, the PAP is accusing Faisal Manap of raising “divisive” issues on a regular basis. The thing is, if not him, then who? There aren’t any other Malay-Muslim opposition MPs, so the onus is on him to raise certain issues that members of the Malay-Muslims want answers to.
Perhaps Faisal Manap wouldn’t need to raise such issues if Malay-Muslim PAP MPs have the guts to raise them in Parliament in the first place.
2) If not in Parliament, then where?
Masagos said that the government does not discuss such issues in public forums, such as Parliament, as they are sensitive and potentially divisive, and can be easily misunderstood because they are complex and difficult to resolve. Instead, Masagos said, the government addresses these issues behind closed doors with community leaders.
Not that we can’t discuss behind closed doors at times, but honestly, what’s so wrong about an elected representative raising issues that matter to his constituents in Parliament? And if we can’t have an open debate in Parliament, then where is a right platform for law makers to debate sensitive, but important stuff?
At least Parliament is a public forum where everything that’s said is recorded into the Hansard – so we know what exactly is said. As opposed to doing things behind closed doors all the time, where the public wouldn’t know what’s going on.
When can this society have an honest conversation about things, rather than sweep them under the rug?
3) Point about Zulfikar was a red herring
In his speech, Masagos raised the point about Zulfikar (remember the dude who was detained under the ISA last year for promoting violence and ISIS?) and Faisal Manap being at an event at the same time.
That was a classic red herring that is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand:
Somewhat insinuating something else also. Which is an ad hominem:
