Headlines:
- OIC Produces Predictable Reaction on America’s Recognition of Jerusalem
- Tillerson guides Saudi regime to be more ‘Measured’ in its Actions
- Pakistan Air Force Chief says he’s instructed Firing of Intruding US Drones
- Government Borrowing Threatens the UK Economy and Leaves it Open to a Venezuela-Style Crash, Bank of England Official Warns
- Trump Ticks the Box on Another Campaign Promise at the Expense of Inflaming the Muslim World
- Pakistan Air Force Chief Orders U.S. Drones to be Shot Down if They Enter the Country’s Airspace
OIC Produces Predictable Reaction on America’s Recognition of Jerusalem
In the aftermath of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state, the rulers of the Muslim world have produced routine statements and made their standard move of calling a conference of the OIC. According to Arab News:
“The Israeli occupation of Palestinian and the Arab territories is a core issue for the whole world including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); therefore, the general secretariat expressed its anger regarding Donald Trump’s announcement recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The organization expressed its rejection of the decision, which undermines the political, legal and historical status of Jerusalem, a clear violation of international laws and resolutions, and a departure from the international consensus on the status of Jerusalem, and the requirements of peace in general, thus undermining the American role as a sponsor of the peace process.
The organization stressed it will convene an extraordinary summit for leaders of OIC member states in Istanbul on December 12 and 13 to discuss the repercussions of the American decision, and to formulate a unified Islamic position on this dangerous escalation”.
The responses of Muslim rulers to Western hostility do not go beyond dull expressions and trite actions because these rulers are themselves political and intellectual agents to the West, unable to think or act outside of the framework and order that the West has established for the world.
America does not fear the rulers of Muslims but fears the Muslims themselves who are rejecting these agents that the West has forced upon them. It is this fear that has forced America to take this step of recognising Jerusalem as the Jewish capital in order to support the Jewish state in its aggression against the people of Palestine. Peace and justice will not return to these people until the Jewish state is completely eliminated from Muslim land through jihad undertaken by a state that is truly loyal to Muslims and their Deen.
Tillerson guides Saudi regime to be more ‘measured’ Measured’ in its Actions
Due to the weakness of many Muslim regimes after the events of the Arab Spring, America is increasingly being forced to depend on the Saudi regime to carry out its strategic objectives for the region. This dependence has increased with the internal moves in Saudi to consolidate the power of King Salman and his immediate family. However, America remains wary of the amateur inexperience of the Saudi rulers. According to The Middle East Monitor:
“US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson today urged Saudi Arabia to be more “measured” in its actions. “With respect to Saudi Arabia’s engagement with Qatar, how they’re handling the Yemen war that they’re engaged in, the Lebanon situation, we would encourage them to be a bit more measured and a bit more thoughtful in those actions to, I think, fully consider the consequences,” he said.
Speaking in Paris, Tillerson demanded a “complete end” to the Saudi-led blockade of Yemen so that humanitarian aid and commercial supplies could be delivered.
This repeated demand comes weeks after the Kingdom closed all air, sea and land access to war torn level exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
In addition to this, since the weekend Saudi Arabia has increased its air raids campaign across Sana’a with officials in Yemen announcing that at least 23 civilians have been killed in the north of the country.”
It is America that has pushed the Saudi regime to commit war on Yemen, to break relations with Qatar and put to pressure on Lebanon. And US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, in his remarks has not called on the Saudi regime to stop any of these actions but instead to be more ‘thoughtful’ and ‘measured’ in how it undertakes these actions because these actions are all undertaken in America’s interest and not in the Saudi interest. The time is soon, with the permission of Allah, that the evil Saudi regime will collapse along with other agent regimes in the Muslim world, and will be replaced by a single unified indigenous ideological leadership for all Muslims, sincere to the Muslim Ummah and committed to its Deen.
Pakistan Air Force Chief says he’s instructed Firing of Intruding US Drones
It has long been tacit that the Pakistani policy allows US drones to fly over Pakistani territory not only for surveillance but also for the assassination of Mujahideen and the spreading of terror amongst the civilian population in areas bordering Afghanistan. Successive Pakistan Air Force Chiefs have been continuously embarrassed by their inability to prevent low speed and low technology drones from entering Pakistani airspace. Pakistan’s latest chief has also spoken about this, while addressing Air Force cadets, insisting that he has instructed his pilots to shoot down all such drones. According to RT:
“We will not allow anyone to violate our airspace,” Aman said as cited by The Times of India, adding, that he has ordered the PAF “to shoot down drones, including those of the US, if they enter our airspace, violating the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The US flies drone missions over Pakistan and conducts airstrikes on suspected militants in the turbulent tribal area on the border with Afghanistan. The practice has prompted outrage amongst Pakistanis because of the high death toll it effects on civilians.
“In the past, the drones have been attacking targets in Pakistan. Earlier it was perhaps with the detested approval of the government of Pakistan. But in the last couple of years, the government of Pakistan has not provided any such approval,” Talat Masood, a retired three-star general in the Pakistani army told RT.
Masood explained that Pakistan is forced to protect its sovereignty in order to avert an Arab Spring scenario witnessed throughout the years across the wider Middle East.
America has in fact reduced its drone warfare in this year because the Pakistan army has itself been undertaking America’s work in oppressing Muslims in the border areas. Furthermore, the Air Force Chief knows that he is not a key decision-maker, even in Pakistan’s military hierarchy, and that Pakistan will be ever ready to open itself again to American intervention if Washington decides that this is required.
Pakistan is not a weak country but its rulers are personally weak and unable to stand firmly against American pressure. Western imperialism will not be eliminated from Muslim lands until we re-establish the righteous Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophet ﷺ which will implement the Deen and carry its light to the entire world.
Government Borrowing Threatens the UK Economy and Leaves it Open to a Venezuela-Style Crash, Bank of England Official Warns
Soaring Government borrowing poses a serious threat to the British economy, putting it at risk of a Venezuela style crash, a Bank of England official has warned. Richard Sharp, a member of the Bank’s Financial Stability Committee, told an audience at University College London last night the UK is ‘heavily indebted’ and ‘suffering from anaemic growth’. He said that since he entered finance, Venezuela has changed from being a robust, stable economy similar to Britain to economic ruin. Bank officials rarely intervene on the political ramifications of economic decisions and Mr Sharp speaking out is likely to provoke irritation. Bank Governor Mark Carney has repeatedly infuriated Brexiteers with pessimistic forecasts of the economy. Pointing to the fact that Britain has racked up an additional £1 trillion of debt since 2008, he added: ‘What does seem to me to be apparent is that we have a debt level which gives us limited capacity for national manoeuvre. ‘It is important to remain aware of the fact that if we lose our fiscal space, financial stability is jeopardised.’Mr Sharp suggested that the level of borrowing the Government has subjected the country to means Britain could be at risk of a Venezuela style collapse. ‘When I started in finance Venezuela was a AAA credit … Venezuela is now in default. ‘It is important to me that we recognise that the UK’s debt levels may be stretched given the risk that unexpected shocks may materialise,’ he added. His comments come a week after Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget, in which he pledged to splurge an extra £25 billion, despite Brexit contributing to a rapidly deteriorating economic outlook. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has also promised to borrow an extra £250 billion to implement policies such as re-nationalisation and pay rises for public sector workers. [Source: The Daily Mail]
Brexit has immensely damaged Britain’s chances of correcting its debt burdens. With the EU talks stalled and very little headway made in trade agreements with the US, India and China, the UK will not only be forced to borrow more, but will not be able to service its debts.
Trump Ticks the Box on Another Campaign Promise at the Expense of Inflaming the Muslim World
President Donald Trump on Wednesday stirred the pot across the Muslim world by announcing that the US would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. Some regional leaders didn’t even wait for the announcement to become official before predicting a violent response. “He is declaring war in the Middle East, he is declaring war against 1.5 billion Muslims (and) hundreds of millions of Christians that are not going to accept the holy shrines to be totally under the hegemony of the Jewish state,” Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian general delegate to the UK, told the BBC on Wednesday. Turkey’s deputy prime minister said the move “will be a major catastrophe.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the move a “red line” for Muslims. The militant Palestinian Sunni Muslim group Hamas used the occasion to call for another intifada, or uprising, against the Jewish state. An Iranian-backed militia operating in Iraq said the move would give some “legitimate reason to target American forces.” In response, US embassies across the Middle East braced for violence. Despite the fury it provoked, “the Trump announcement will change nothing on the ground itself,” Michael Koplow, the policy director at the Israel Policy Forum, an advocacy group supporting a two-state solution, wrote at the Jewish Telegraph Agency. The Jewish state considers Jerusalem its capital. The policy platforms of successive Democratic candidates have considered Jerusalem to be the Jewish state’s capital, and the US Congress passed legislation recognizing Jerusalem as the Jewish state ‘s capital back in 1995 (the legislation allowed the president to postpone the official recognition, something all subsequent presidents had done until this week). Yet Hamas frequently calls for intifadas. Iranian-backed forces have several times attacked or imperiled US forces operating in the Middle East. Turkey and the Jewish state last year normalized relations after six years of difficult silence. Absent from Trump’s speech was a timetable for moving the US Embassy. “As a practical matter, no embassy is constructed today anywhere in the world in shorter than three or four years — no embassy,” a Trump administration official told the Washington Examiner. The US will probably first study sites and evaluate security concerns before then beginning a lengthy construction process that is likely to stretch past Trump’s current term in office. As far as endangering the already dubious peace process, Trump on Wednesday sought to convey that the US took no position on how Jerusalem should ultimately be divided in a two-state solution. Besides inflaming an already inflamed Middle East, Trump’s announcement makes a few material changes. As Koplow points out, it will irk the US’s Sunni Arab allies who support the Palestinians and don’t want to be seen as siding with the US and the Jewish state. Domestically, the move allows Trump to tick the box on another campaign promise unilaterally. “Some say [past presidents] lacked courage, but they made their best judgments based on facts as they understood them at the time,” Trump said during the announcement. The Jewish state is pleased by the decision. The Palestinian Authority protests it. Fundamentalist groups have called for violence against the Jewish state and the US. Trump’s secretaries of state and of defense cautioned against the move out of security concerns, but Trump is the executive. Politically at home, Trump has executed on a promise and again demonstrated that for his administration, antagonizing the Muslim world is an acceptable price to pay. [Source: Business Insider]
The time for pathetic speeches by the coward leaders of the Muslim world is at an end. Only the re-establishment of Khilafah Rashidah (Righteous Caliphate) upon the method of the Prophethood can liberate occupied Palestine as well as all the occupied territories of the Muslim world.
Pakistan Air Force Chief Orders U.S. Drones to be Shot Down if They Enter the Country’s Airspace
The head of the Pakistan Air Force has has ordered his force to shoot down drones that enter the country’s airspace including ones belonging to the U.S. The orders from Chief Sohail Aman are a complete turnaround from the air force’s previous position in which it condemned drone strikes on its soil but had never threatened to shoot the unmanned aerial vehicles down. The announcement was made public about two weeks after a US drone strike targeted a militant compound in Pakistan’s tribal region near the Afghan border, killing three militants, ‘We will not allow anyone to violate our airspace. ‘I have ordered PAF to shoot down drones, including those of the US, if they enter our airspace, violating the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,’ Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman told an audience in Islamabad. The comment was all the more surprising given that the U.S. is supposedly a close ally of Pakistan with it’s own military often complicit in allowing American led missile strikes on militant positions which have been occurring since 2004. Yet, after each drone strike, the Pakistan foreign office has issued statements condemning the actions stating they will not tolerate strikes on its territory. This time the Pakistan administration appears to be talking tough by taking a firm line over future drone strikes in its country .It’s believed that senior members of terrorist groups have been killed in such attacks but that hundreds of civilians, including women and children and also been killed as well. There has been no response so far from the White House. [Source: The Daily Mail]
Empty words and rhetoric mean very little from the Air Chief. If Pakistan sincerely wants to end American hegemony then it should start by seizing the American embassy—the center of all plots against Pakistan—and expelling all US personnel. Surely this is the very least that can be done.