Headlines:
- America outmanoeuvred over North Korea
- Turkey Pledges Obedience under Humiliation by America
- Public Protests continue in Gaza against Occupation
America outmanoeuvred over North Korea
Yesterday, the Presidents of North and South Korea held a breakthrough summit meeting at the border between their two countries, ending with a significant joint declaration. US President Donald Trump is trying his best to portray his role as instrumental in working towards rapprochement on the Korean peninsula but the reality is that the American administration lost control of the issue, as highlighted for example by the Guardian:
The joint declaration by Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, the fruit of Friday’s unexpectedly warm, fraternal summit, represents a big political and diplomatic triumph for both Korean leaders. It will gratify China’s government too, and relieve people around the world worried about nuclear war. But it could be a big problem for Donald Trump.
The measures announced at the end of a day of talks will be enthusiastically welcomed by Koreans on both sides of the border. They included denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, a possible peace treaty, military confidence-building measures, regular bilateral summits and increased people-to-people contacts…
An immediate difficulty for Trump as he plans his own summit with Kim in the next few weeks is that his South Korean allies have, in effect, pulled the carpet from under him.
Moon and Kim’s evident mutual goodwill, the raft of new measures intended to build detente and co-prosperity, and their dangling of the tantalising prospect of eventual Korean unification contrast sharply with Trump’s aggressive and occasionally bellicose stance.
If Trump tries to play hardball with Kim, he risks looking like a warmonger and a bully whose policies are inimical to Korean interests, north and south. Intentionally of otherwise, Moon, a lifelong advocate of detente with personal connections to North Korea, has spiked Trump’s guns.
This sudden outbreak of bonhomie may now place Trump under growing pressure from US allies to tone down his rhetoric, pull back his military forces in the region and make concessions of his own. Many have tried and failed to make Trump act nice. Kim may have found a way.
Quite contrary to its public rhetoric, successive American administrations have been working hard to exacerbate the Korean conflict, thereby justifying militarisation by American and its allies on China’s Pacific border. America considers the Pacific Ocean to be its private waters and sees any projection of power into the Pacific by China as a direct threat to American strategic interests. Nevertheless, the extreme disorder during the first year of the Trump administration resulted in America losing the initiative over Korea, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson clashed with Trump over his warmongering. But with the subsequent dismissal of Tillerson and his replacement by CIA Director Pompeo, it is expected that America will rapidly be able to regain leadership over the Korean file, though perhaps with some concessions.
Like the British Empire, its true predecessor, America jealously guards its superpower status by creating war and conflict throughout the world. This is in complete contrast to the Khilafah (Caliphate) State whose millennium of global dominance led to the cooling of conflicts and enabled socioeconomic development throughout the world, not least for China and the West. In the two centuries of Western dominance, humanity has been plagued with war and conflict in almost every region of the world. It is time that Islam returns to the guardianship of not only the Muslim Ummah but of all mankind.
Turkey Pledges Obedience under Humiliation by America
On his first day of work, America’s new Secretary of State has attacked Turkey for acquiring the Russian S-400 missile system. According to Reuters:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday told his Turkish counterpart that the United States was seriously concerned over Ankara’s decision to buy Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries, which are not compatible with NATO’s defenses.
And only a day earlier, American senators introduced a bill to block the transfer of F-35 fighter aircraft to Turkey, according to the Hill:
Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) introduced a bill to prevent the transfer of the Lockheed Martin–made F-35 to Turkey and to block Ankara’s role as a maintenance depot for the aircraft.
Under the U.S.-led, multinational Joint Strike Fighter program, Turkey has committed to buy 116 of the F-35A variant.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “has continued down a path of reckless governance and disregard for the rule of law,” making the transfer of sensitive F-35 technology to his government “increasingly risky,” Lankford said in a statement.
Meanwhile as is typical of much of the present class of rulers in the Muslim world, Turkey is responding with obedience, as reported by Reuters:
Turkey will take steps together with the United States in Syria’s Manbij region, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, following his meeting with new U.S. Secretary State Mike Pompeo in Brussels.
Cavusoglu made the comment to Turkish broadcasters after meeting with Pompeo, who went straight to NATO headquarters on Friday, barely 12 hours after being sworn into his job.
Cavusoglu also said there was no French presence in Manbij and added Turkey could evaluate “good offers” for Patriot missiles or other air defense systems from allies.
Turkey is a powerful country with a leading military, whose participation in the Syrian conflict was achieved after much hard work by the Americans, and whose help and support America is desperate to secure even now. But Turkey’s rulers have no understanding of this power dynamic and have been led to believe that their country is weak and America is powerful. So their only response to humiliation by the Americans is to submissively pledge continued obedience to the foreign disbeliever.
Public Protests continue in Gaza against Occupation
Thousands of Gazans are continuing to participate in mass protests against the illegal and tyrannical Jewish entity. According to the Wall Street Journal:
Hundreds of Palestinians attempted to breach the fence separating the Gaza Strip and Israel on Friday, according to the Israeli military, and Palestinian authorities reported that three people were killed in the latest weekly clashes at the border.
Protesters attempted to tear down the fence near the Karni Crossing in northern Gaza and set it on fire by rolling burning tires into it, according to the military, which said it repelled the protesters.
Two of Friday’s three deaths were a result of the incident, “according to Palestinian reports and our current assessments,” said Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the military, who called it a “serious assault” on the fence and said it was “clearly orchestrated by Hamas leaders on the ground.” Hamas rules Gaza.
Hazem Qasem, a Hamas spokesman, denied the allegation. “Ordinary Gazans made it, not members of any movement,” he said.
Palestinian health authorities said 883 Palestinians were injured in clashes with the military—including 174 by live fire. At least four of the injured were journalists, said the head of Gaza’s Government Media Office Salama Maroof.
Protesters have attempted to breach the fence in earlier protests as well, but this was the first time that such large numbers were involved. At other locations along the fence, protesters threw firebombs and rocks and flew kites with “flaming objects” attached to them, the military said.
Between 12,000 and 14,000 Palestinians participated in the protests, Mr. Conricus said.
Gazans are calling for the right to return to their ancestors’ villages and towns, a demand Israeli officials reject because they say it would risk the country’s Jewish majority.
The people of Gaza have been suffering an effective imprisonment by siege for decades at the hands of not only the Jewish entity but also its collaborators in Egypt backed by the direction of Western powers. The West views the continued existence of the Jewish entity as necessary for its strategic objectives, to maintain a significant Western presence in the heart of the Muslim Ummah. It is therefore necessary that the Muslim Ummah view the issue of the Jewish entity not as a problem of the Palestinian people but as a challenge to the entire Ummah, whose Deen has elevated al-Quds (Jerusalem) to the third of the holiest places after Makkah and Medina.
Due to the deviation of the Jews from their religion, it was superseded by the religion of Islam, which then ruled over Palestine for more than a thousand years. The truth of Islam is reflected in the just and peaceful rule established by the Khilafah (Caliphate) State throughout that period, while the deviation of the Jewish people is evident in the crimes and oppression that has characterised their rule now, just as was evident in the Christian crusaders before them.
With Allah’s permission, the Muslim Ummah will soon pledge themselves to sincere, indigenous, ideological leadership that will re-establish the righteous Islamic Khilafah State (Caliphate) on the method of the Prophet ﷺ, implementing the truth, returning the Ummah to peace, justice and dignity, and carrying the light of Islam to the entire world.