MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, INN – “The world must not let Iran take control of the Middle East, President Shimon Peres told U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta at the Pentagon Monday.

‘I respect the diplomatic process, but the clock is ticking and Iran continues to race towards manufacturing a nuclear weapon while it also continues to lie and deceive,’ the president warned. He was quoted by Israel’s Channel 2 television.

‘It is a country of ayatollahs, and Iran is the only country in the Middle East that has imperialistic desires in the name of religion. No responsible country in the world can accept a situation in which the Middle East will be sacrificed for Iranian hegemony.’

While rejecting the ability of the ‘diplomatic process’ to stop Iran, President Peres reiterated his belief in talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He told the Secretary of defense that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s new national unity coalition ‘definitely will help improve the chances for peace.’ He again said that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is ‘a serious partner for negotiations.’

PA officials said this week that it is open for ‘talks’ but not for negotiations because Israel must accept its conditions for the creation of the Palestinian Authority as a new Arab country that it wants established within Israel’s borders.

Panetta did not publicly respond to President Peres’ comments on Iran and limited his response to reminding him of the ‘strong relationship’ between the United States and Israel and that the U.S. Army’s objective is ‘to ensure a better future for our children.’

He also congratulated Peres on his receiving the Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, who is scheduled to present the award on Wednesday.” Source – INN.

To the Islamist mind, a woman’s uncovered head is sinful. But killing a non-Muslim for Allah? Splendid. As Turkey’s government pushes Islam down the collective throats of each and every citizen, expect more public displays of disgorge in the future …

“The worst sin and distraction from virtue that I have left for man is woman” – Prophet of Islam, Mohammed, Sahih AlBukhari, 5096

Hurriyet Daily News – “A Turkish woman claimed she was prevented from boarding a public bus by a group of Islamists because her outfit would ’cause them to sin,’ according to a report by daily Evrensel.

Yağmur Yılmaz, 21, said she left home on June 3 to go to work, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.

Yılmaz said she walked to a stop in Istanbul’s Edirnekapı district to get on a bus going to Fatih district, where she worked. A group of around 15 men and women clad in burqas, cloaks and turbans who were on the bus blocked Yılmaz’s path, saying she could not get on the vehicle. Yılmaz said she told the group it was everybody’s right to board the bus, to which the women from the group replied, ‘We would sin if you get on this bus, you are causing us to sin.’

The men in the group also harassed Yılmaz, she claimed, saying: ‘Look at her. Her head is not covered, shame!’

‘Nobody in the bus did anything about it, not even the driver,’ Yılmaz said. ‘There were other ‘uncovered’ women waiting at the stop, but they just stood by idly.’

Yılmaz told Evrensel that she had been using the same bus route for a long time and that it was the first time that she encountered such an incident. ‘I was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt because it was a Sunday [when many workers can wear more casual clothes], but no one would have the right to do such a thing even if I were wearing a skirt or a dress.’

Yılmaz said she was startled by the incident, meaning that she was unable to take the bus’ license plate number to file a complaint. ‘I wanted the public to learn about it,’ she said. ‘It was a shameful act and should not have happened in the first place.'” Source – Hurriyet Daily News.

By Mehdi Hasan, “Which country in the world currently imprisons more journalists than any other? The People’s Republic of China? Nope. Iran? Wrong again. The rather depressing answer is the Republic of Turkey, where nearly 100 journalists are behind bars, according to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Yes, that’s right: modern, secular, western-oriented Turkey, with its democratically elected government, has locked away more members of the press than China and Iran combined.

But this isn’t just about the press – students, academics, artists and opposition MPs have all recently been targeted for daring to speak out against the government of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his mildly Islamist Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

There is a new climate of fear in Istanbul. When I visited the city last week to host a discussion show for al-Jazeera English, I found journalists speaking in hushed tones about the clampdown on free speech. Within 24 hours of our arrival, one of my al-Jazeera colleagues was detained by police officers, who went through his bag and rifled through one of my scripts. They loudly objected to a line referring to the country’s ‘increasingly authoritarian government’. Who says that Turks don’t do irony?

The stock response from members of the AKP government is to blame the imprisonment and intimidation on Turkey’s supposedly ‘independent’ judiciary. But this will not do. For a start, ministers haven’t been afraid of interfering in high-profile prosecutions. In a speech at – of all places – the Council of Europe in April 2011, a defiant Erdogan, commenting on the controversial detention of the investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, compared Sik’s then unpublished book to a bomb: ‘It is a crime to use a bomb, but it is also a crime to use materials from which a bomb is made.’

Then there is the behind-the-scenes pressure that is exerted by the government on media organisations. ‘People are afraid of criticising Erdogan openly,’ says Mehmet Karli, a lecturer at Galatasaray University in Istanbul and a campaigner for Kurdish rights. ‘They might not be arrested, but they will lose their jobs.'” Read more.

Tip of the hat to Kurt J. for the link above …

Flashback: Obama’s Favorite Foreign Leader – “… the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not quite the equivalent of Hamas or Hezbollah, but as Michael Rubin noted last week, it has became a major sponsor and enabler of terrorism… its leader has become one of the few foreign leaders with whom Barack Obama has a strong relationship. Obama has, according to the Post, spent more time speaking on the phone with Erdogan than any other ally. Indeed, in a cover story interview with Time Magazine, Obama told a fawning Fareed Zakaria that Erdoğan was someone with whom he had become friends and forged ‘bonds of trust.’ It speaks volumes about the deplorable state of American foreign policy that Erdogan is someone with whom Obama is most comfortable.” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey: Erdogan’s Reforms Mean Less Schooling, More Qur’an – “The goals of an education reform bill introduced by the Islamic party of Turkey’s Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been characterised by opposition parties as aiming to halve the length of compulsory schooling to promote more Koranic schools and veil wearing… Following its third electoral victory in succession, with nearly 50% of votes cast, Erdogan’s single-party pro-Islamic government has already abolished the minimum age requirement for attendance at such schools and this reform would encourage children to give up attending their secular secondary schools in favour of religious institutions…” Read more.

That useful model for new Arab regimes is at it again. At this rate, they’ll begin demanding Islamic prayer rooms for the few Churches remaining in Turkey …

By Robert Spencer – “And the self-described ‘liberal Muslim’ Mustafa Akyol is just fine with these new developments, which once again manifest Turkey’s discarding of secularism and gallop toward Sharia. Akyol praises ‘the rightful focus of Erdoğan and other conservatives on matters of religious freedom.’ (Apparently Akyol, like the mainstream media, would term pro-Sharia forces to be ‘conservative,’ while simultaneously labeling those who oppose Sharia as also ‘conservative.’)

Akyol has revealed his true colors before, notably when he declared his support for the jihad flotilla that Turkey sent against Israel. The Turkish columnist Burak Bekdil has characterized the ‘liberal’ Akyol as a pro-Sharia, pro-Erdogan Islamic supremacist. But undoubtedly a sly one. Bekdil says that Akyol is working to further ‘Islamists’ global ambition to play the modern day, Muslim Trojan Horse at the gates of western civilization.’

Consistent with that, Akyol here says that an Islamic Turkey is coming and that Turkish secularism cannot be salvaged, but that Israelis shouldn’t be concerned: as long as they stop defending themselves against the Gaza jihadists and jihad flotillas, all will be well.

It would be refreshing if the many, many Americans who were taken in a few years back by Akyol’s ‘moderate’ act would reconsider now. But I am not holding my breath.” Source – Jihad Watch.

Flashback: Turkey: From Churches to Mosques, See What Happens When a Secular State is Taken Over by Islamists – “A story in today’s International Herald Tribune (read here on the New York Times website) provides an interesting insight into exactly what happens when a secular state is taken over by Islamists. The piece concerned the Hagia Sophia of Iznik, an ancient church that brought 40,000 tourists to the town south of Istanbul much to the delight of the locals. Iznik was once known as Nicaea, and it was there the first Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church met at the Hagia Sophia in the year 325. But the Islamist government of Turkey has put a damper on the prosperity of those who profited from the museum by formally converting the building into a mosque.” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey, Key US Ally, Added to List of Worst Religious Freedom Offenders – “Yes, you’ve read that right. The country that has become ‘a useful model for new Arab regimes’ has now been added to the list of worst religious freedom offenders in the world. Alongside Egypt who now vows to one day kill all Jews, this is a nation that the Obama Administration is now actively arming, a nation that now makes verbal attacks against Israel ‘a central feature’ of its political discourse. Welcome to the ‘new’ face of ‘moderate Islam’ …” Read more.

A “religion of peace” mosque teaching religion, but not peace? What a shocker. We’re over a month away now from the summer olympics, and given the history of this mosque I’m surprised that it is still permitted to remain a place of “worship.” But then again, we’re talking about a country so entrenched in multiculturalism and neutered by political correctness that radical Muslim clerics and blood-drunk Islamists calling for the genocide of Jews are free to roam the streets of London. If any terror attacks are perpetrated in Britain during the 2012 Olympics, it won’t be just the Islamists who are to blame …

By Tom Harper – “A London mosque is under investigation over alleged links to terrorism.

The Charity Commission has launched a probe into Masjid-al-Tawhid — next to the Olympics site — amid concerns that it may be promoting extremist Islamist ideologies.

The investigation is understood to centre on sermons delivered at the mosque between 2004 and 2010 by Haitham al-Haddad, a preacher by whom notorious ‘underpants bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab claims he was influenced.

The Leyton mosque, which propagates the extremist Salafi strand of Islam widely practised in Saudi Arabia, has also hosted several leading al Qaeda clerics in the past, including Abu Qatada and Anwar al-Awlaki.

In a letter leaked to the Standard and the BBC, the Charity Commission last week announced a ‘statutory inquiry’ into Masjid-al-Tawhid. ‘The investigation will look at whether the trustees have allowed individuals with potential links to terrorist organisations to use the charity to promote and/or express extremist views and ideologies and/or controversial points of view,’ it wrote.

Nigerian-born Abdulmutallab, 25, a London student who tried to detonate explosives hidden his underwear on a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009, was jailed for life by a US court in February. He has cited Haitham al-Haddad as an influence on his beliefs.

In 1998, radical cleric Abu Qatada, described as Osama Bin Laden’s ‘right-hand man in Europe’, held a study session at the mosque. He is now in custody in the UK fighting extradition to Jordan to face terrorism charges. Anwar al-Awlaki, an al Qaeda leader killed in Yemen last year, spoke several times at Masjid-al-Tawhid in 2003.

Former imam Dr Usama Hasan resigned from the mosque after 25 years last year after receiving death threats for teaching his congregation about evolution and women’s rights.

He said today: ‘These are very serious allegations and it is concerning that alleged links to terrorism have emerged so close to the Olympic site. The Charity Commission should pursue a full investigation to help the mosque congregation and its trustees deal with extremism and promote a moderate and inclusive Muslim community.’

Masjid-al-Tawhid did not respond to calls.” Source – London Weekly Standard.