Here is part 2 of my interview with Islam expert Harold Rhode.
I asked him something I had always wondered: Does Jerusalem have any sanctity to Shiites?
He answered that it doesn't; Shiites consider Jerusalem to be a Sunni innovation to Islam and therefore forbidden.
However, Ayatollah Khomeini, a smart politician, chose to use Jerusalem as a rallying cry to attract Sunnis to Shiism. Hence, the annual Al Quds Day.
Rhode goes on to describe the incredible animosity between Arab Shiites, Persian Shiites and Sunnis.
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I spoke recently with Middle East scholar and expert on Islam, Harold Rhode. The entire interview is fascinating but this section particularly so.
Rhode describes how Jerusalem was not important in early Islam, and relates a story of Ka'ab al Ahbar, an early Jewish convert to Islam, and Caliph Umar who conquered Jerusalem.
Ka'ab al Ahbar accompanied Umar to the Temple Mount, which was a trash heap, and the question came up of where would be the best place to pray from. Al Ahbar suggested the north side of the Mount, because that way they could be praying in the directions of both the Jewish temple and Mecca.
Umar bristled at this suggestion, saying that Ahbar is still acting like a Jew and accusing him of trying to Judaize Islam. Instead, Umar said, the proper place for prayer would be the southern end, where when they bow down they would deliberately show their backsides to Judaism's holiest spot.
Rhode goes on to say that one of the most important early Islamic scholars (who is particularly important to Wahhabi Islam today) Ibn Taymiyyah, who lived in the 12th century, considered Jerusalem to be Jewish and not Muslim at all, and hated Jerusalem for what it represented, saying that Muslims who venerated Jerusalem were following a corrupt, Judaized version of Islam.
So why do the Saudis, who are Wahhabis, consider Jerusalem important today? Because, as a Saudi diplomat told a friend of Rhode, they are frightened of Palestinian terrorism themselves.
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EoZ and BDY discuss how out of proportion the criticism of Israel is compared to what Western democracies practice, Amnesty's lies and the definition of "children" killed in war.
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In this part, Not Anti-Semitic presents the award for Best Satire to our own PreOccupied Territory.
PreOccupied Territory's David did not get a chance to say everything he wanted to, so he sent me the speech he wanted to give:
Thank you. Wow. Thank you, Elder.
(Pause, turn)
If that is your real name.
(Look around).
Nice echo chamber you've got here. Is that Ben Rhodes there in the back?
No, PreOccupied Territory is not my real name. My name is David.
There is a whole list of people to thank for making this award possible, but we'll get to them by and by. We run the risk of running overtime on the acceptance speech and having the network pan the cameras away and turn the microphones off, but that's acceptable collateral damage. First I want to share with you a few of my favorite moments from the last couple of years doing this.
The first one is about two years ago, when a prominent Swedish politician tweeted an article of mine thinking it was serious, and then deleted the tweet. I have to give a shoutout to an Israellycool contributor named Judge Dan for that one, since he suggested the premise of the article: that Israel had issued a travel advisory for Sweden and other countries that had seen some terrorism. Former Prime Minister, and until a few months prior, Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt took it at face value, calling the advisory "a bit of an overreaction." But not as much of an overreaction as hastily deleting an embarrassing tweet that was screen-captured by a bunch of people and soon turned into a Times of Israel news story. That was fun.
Then there's the similar phenomenon of Palestinians and their supporters not getting the irony. I watch the number of Likes the page attracts on Facebook after a particularly successful post, such as the one about UNESCO declaring the World Trade Center an Islamic Heritage Site because thirteen Muslims were martyred on the planes that crashed there on 9/11. I could almost hear the cries of, "Yeah!" "That's right!" "Finally they get it!" as the number of shares spiked and I got a few more followers. They never last, but it's fun to watch how long it takes for the penny to drop, those folks to realize they're being mocked, and the count to go down again.
The last couple of moments happened right here. One was when I introduced myself to someone as the clown behind PreOccupied Territory, and he soon told me his favorite article - which also happens to be a favorite of mine: Two-State Solution Coffin Now Made Entirely Of Nails. I wrote that more than two years ago, and it was so gratifying to have someone else remember it.
The other was not a single moment, but the collective reactions from so many of you here, offering praise, acknowledgement, and various forms of encouragement. It can be a slog. I enjoy the creative process most of the time, and I push myself to come up with ten or eleven separate stories every week. But while I remember every single one of my successes, the duds far outnumber the hits - and it's especially frustrating to have something I pour my heart and soul into be relegated to obscurity. Two retweets. A couple of Facebook Likes. Then oblivion. So to come here and have my work be acknowledged, and appreciated by people who do seem to make a difference does wonders for my morale.
Of course I do what I consider my best work when awful thing are happening, so is that a good development?
But on to the thank-yous. There's a short list of people who deserve mention here, and it's not only them, but they also serve as stand-ins for all the people associated with them, who are also part of the story. I'll cite three of them by name and thus conclude.
Max Blumenthal, Ali Abunimah, and Richard Silverstein, thank you. Without you, what I do would not be nearly as necessary, possible, or as much fun.
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As we resume our posting of each of the speeches given at the Hasby Awards on July 3....
Radio host Yishai Fleisher speaks about UNESCO as the "legitimate arm of jihad" and introduces NGO Monitor as the winner of Best Watchdog. Shaun Sacks of NGO Monitor speaks about his journey from the IDF to help fight the haters of Israel and he mentions how effective his organization has been recently.
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My discussion with the famous Israeli writer continues with discussions about Mahmoud Abbas' potential successors, Peter Beinart and others actively hurting the chances for peace by encouraging PA intransigence, and how holding Israel to "higher standards" is really racist against Arabs.
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World renowned legal expert Eugene Kontorovich starts with a comedy routine about the Hasbys and the Elders' superhero identities, but then talks about how the anti-Israel narrative is meant not to be descriptive but self-fulfilling and how people like Evelyn Gordon effectively fight the propaganda.
Evelyn talks about the importance of restating the obvious, over and over again, and how hasbara also helps even pro-Israel activists.
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As we continue on with showing the short talks given by the presenters and awardees of the Hasby Awards last Sunday....
In this award, Brian of London from Israellycool discusses the relevance of Israeli whiskey to public relations and Varda describes how she became such a wonderful commentator.
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Last week I had a wide-ranging conversation with famous Israeli columnist, author and lecturer Ben Dror Yemini at a Tel Aviv cafe.
He wrote a book called The Industry of Lies about anti-Israeli incitement by radical left, human right groups, pro-Palestinian organizations and radical Islam. He just finished the English translation and it should be released before the end of the year.
In part 1, he shows how Mahmoud Abbas isn't interested in peace.
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As we continue to show the great talks that the presenters and awardees gave at the Hasby Awards, here is Hen Mazzig of StandWithUs talking about his experiences speaking to college campuses. He presents the Best Activist Organization Hasby award to Elan Miller of MyTruth, which counters the lies of Breaking the Silence.
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Here is Part 1 of last night's Hasby Awards ceremony in Jerusalem at Honest Reporting's rooftop venue. I welcome the crowd and introduce Yisrael Medad, who then hands the Best Article award to Kay Wilson.
Medad speaks about the importance of unifying disparate pro-Israel voices and then comments on Kay's award-winning article, saying that it is appropriate to be enraged at the outrageous and that lesson seems to be lost.
Kay refers to her harrowing experience of almost being killed by terrorists, but ultimately gives an uplifting message to the community.
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Ever since Yisrael (Robert) Aumann won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering work in game theory, I've wanted to ask him whether game theory can accommodate irrational actors such as Israel's enemies.
I got my chance as I met him in his office at Hebrew University on Tuesday.
His answer to me was that the question itself was wrong - Israel's enemies, and even suicide bombers, are rational, and the goals that they are pursuing are important to understand if we are going to come up with a good strategy against them.
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