Israel honors 9 Egyptian spies

After 50 years, President Katsav presents three surviving members with certificates of appreciation at Jerusalem ceremony
By Reuters


JERUSALEM
After half a century of reticence and recrimination, Israel on Wednesday
honored nine Egyptian Jews recruited as agents-provocateur in what
became one of the worst intelligence bungles in the country’s history.


 


Israel was at war with Egypt when it hatched a plan in
1954 to ruin its rapprochement with the United States and Britain by
firebombing sites frequented by foreigners in Cairo and Alexandria.


 


But Israeli hopes the attacks, which caused no casualties, would be
blamed on local insurgents collapsed when the young Zionist bombers were
caught and confessed at public trials. Two were hanged. The rest served
jail terms and emigrated to Israel.


 


Embarrassed before the West, Israel long denied involvement. It kept mum even after its 1979 peace deal


with Egypt, fearing memories of the debacle could sour ties.


 


“Although it is still a sensitive situation, we decided now to
express our respect for these heroes,” President Moshe Katsav said after
presenting the three surviving members of the bomber ring with
certificates of appreciation at a Jerusalem ceremony.


 


What went wrong in the “Lavon Affair” – after Pinhas Lavon, Israel’s
defence minister when the plot came to light – remains a matter of
debate in a country more used to tales of espionage coups.


 


The Egyptian agents were ignored


 


The Egyptian Jews were recruited by a fringe unit of Military Intelligence rather than the premier Israeli spy agency Mossad.


 


The situation recurred in 1985, when U.S. Navy analyst Jonathan
Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States for
passing military secrets to Israel’s scientific liaison office.


 


“As with Pollard, this (Lavon Affair) was a rogue operation,” David
Kimche, a former Mossad deputy chief, said. “We knew never to go down
that road again.”


 


There is a twist to the Egyptian case – the now widespread belief
that the bombers were betrayed to the authorities by their Israeli
handler, who turned double-agent.


 


“The general feeling is that he was the one who caused it all,” Kimche said.


 


Under a veil of secrecy, the handler was tried for contacts with
Egyptian intelligence and jailed for 10 years. Meanwhile, the agents
locked up in Egypt were ignored, excluded from several prisoner
exchanges with Israel after the wars of 1956 and 1967.


 


Now that they have been officially recognised in Israel, the former
agents are campaigning for a full account of their operation to be
included in the high-school syllabus.


 


“This is a great day for all of us, those who were hanged and those
who died,” Marcelle Ninio, the only female member of the cell, said. “We
are happy we’ve got our honor back.”

Source

Eine Beziehung im multikulturellen Ausnahmezustand

Von Christian Weber

Seit
drei Jahren führen Christian und die Muslima Amal eine heimliche
Beziehung. Eine Liebe, die nicht nur verboten, sondern obendrein
gefährlich ist. Und zwar für beide.

Es ist eine fragwürdige Erfahrung, mit
einem geliebten Menschen eine Beziehung zu unterhalten, ohne die
banalsten Dinge des Alltags teilen zu können.

Seit bald drei Jahren führe ich eine verbotene Beziehung mit Amal*. Sie
war drei Jahre alt, als ihre kurdischen Eltern nach Deutschland
flüchteten. Heute ist sie Mitte 20 und hat neben drei Schwestern
dummerweise vier Brüder. Daher verabreden wir uns manchmal in einer
dunklen Tiefgaragenecke. Bevor wir losfahren, verkleidet sie sich.
Niemand darf sie mit mir sehen, und sie ist immer angespannt. Brüder
oder Vater rufen ständig an. Das dient der Kontrolle. Trotzdem hat sie
es irgendwie geschafft, sich den Weg an eine Fachhochschule
freizukämpfen. Auch da greift die Entmündigung. Die Ansage der Brüder
ist unmissverständlich. Am späten Nachmittag endet Amals überschaubarer
Rest freier Selbstbestimmung.

Sie muss dann zu Hause sein. Falls nicht, drohen Schläge. Und das sind keine leeren Ankündigungen.
Amal
ist Muslimin und durfte nie an einer Klassenfahrt teilnehmen. Dafür
haben ihre Brüder gesorgt. Sie sagt, das sei, soweit sie das in ihrem
ziemlich großen Milieu überschauen kann, normal. In Deutschland ist das
bekannt, und es betrifft zigtausende muslimische Schülerinnen. Trotzdem
wird dagegen eigentlich nichts unternommen. Obwohl es sich um ein quasi
öffentliches Massenspektakel handelt, welches Mitschüler, Lehrer,
Schuldirektoren und viele andere direkt beobachten.
Ein
eingeschränkt normales Leben kennen junge muslimische Frauen wie Amal –
wenn überhaupt – nur von Montag bis Freitag zwischen 8 bis vielleicht 17
Uhr. In den anderen Zeiten sind sie Leibeigene ihrer patriarchalischen Familienstrukturen. Bei
Amal ist es so: Mit Freundinnen abends ins Kino oder Theater gehen?
Verboten. Disco? Verboten. Nach der Vorlesung mit Kommilitonen ins Café
gehen? Verboten, wenn 17 Uhr naht. Freundschaft mit einem Mann? Nicht
nur verboten, sondern obendrein gefährlich. Und zwar für beide.

Wenn Amal muslimische Studentinnen trifft, rückt sofort ein Thema ins
Zentrum: Wer darf was? Volljährige junge Frauen gleichen also das
jeweils eigene Maß aktuell erlebter Entrechtung ab. Wenn jetzt jemand
glaubt, Bildung sei ein Schlüssel zur Integration, der könnte sich
täuschen. Ich höre beispielsweise Geschichten wie die von einer in
Deutschland aufgewachsenen Kommilitonin gleichen Glaubens. Ihre Brüder
haben das Studium bereits abgeschlossen. Sie verbieten ihrer Schwester
Männerbekanntschaften und sperren sie ab dem späten Nachmittag zu Hause
weg. So können sie aussehen, die Integrationsübungen, mit denen sich
formal hochgebildete Zuwanderer an ihren volljährigen Schwestern
abreagieren. Die geringsten Repressalien haben offenbar die muslimischen
Frauen zu erwarten, deren Mütter keine Jungen zur Welt gebracht haben.

Wenn Amal tatsächlich mal zu mir kommt, dann rattert in ihrem Hirn ständig die Prüfschleife.

Amal
und ich führen eine absurde Beziehung im multikulturellen
Ausnahmezustand. Ich bin noch nie neben ihr aufgewacht. Sie ist noch nie
neben mir eingeschlafen. Manchmal sehe ich sie zwei Wochen nicht. Der
einzige direkte Kontakt besteht dann aus abgehackten Telefonaten.
Abgehackt, weil sie sich zum Telefonieren versteckt und die Gespräche
urplötzlich unterbricht, wenn sich ein Bruder zu nähern droht. Völlig
normale Dinge, wie zum Beispiel Hand in Hand durch die Stadt zu gehen,
sind uns unbekannt. In der einen Straße hat einer der unzähligen Onkel
ein Geschäft und in der anderen wohnt vielleicht einer der noch
unzähligeren Cousins. Somit sind irgendwie alle Straßen tabu. Auch
allein muss sie aufpassen. Wird sie gesehen, steckt das jemand durch.
Schließlich könnte sie ja auf dem Weg zu einem verbotenen Freund sein
und ihre „Ehre“ verlieren. Wenn Amal tatsächlich mal zu mir kommt, dann
rattert in ihrem Hirn ständig die Prüfschleife: Wer geht da? Wer steht
dort? Welches Auto hält an der Ampel? Wohnt hier jemand, der meine
Brüder kennt?
In Amals Milieu – inmitten
unserer multikulturellen Gesellschaft im Geltungsbereich des
Grundgesetzes – werden Frauen wie Vieh auf dem Basar verkauft.
Gute
Preise erzielen junge „Unberührte“, also die mit „Ehre“. Die
verschacherten Frauen ziehen bei der Familie des Ehemannes ein, haben
Kinder zu gebären und dienen als Putzhilfen, Köchinnen sowie dem Mann
als gefügiges Sexualobjekt. Die Ehen werden oft nur vor einem Imam
geschlossen. Innerhalb des Milieus haben sie Geltung. Nicht aber nach
deutschem Recht. Melden sich diese Frauen auf deutschen Ämtern, dann als
unverheiratete Alleinerziehende. Mitunter legen sie Mietverträge vor,
die mit der Familie des „Ehe“-Mannes geschlossen wurden. Dafür gibt es
eigentlich nur einen Grund: die Absicht zum Sozialbetrug.

Zurzeit
sinkt Amals Preis, weil sie studiert. Gebildete Frauen sind weniger
wert, weil sie Dinge eher infrage stellen und für die auferlegten
Frondienste ungeeignet scheinen. Im Alter von 16, 17 oder 18 Jahren
hätte Amal rund 20 000 Euro abwerfen können. Heute würde sie nur noch
einen guten Preis erzielen, wenn ihre Familie sie an einen Mann aus der
alten Heimat verkaufen könnte. Es werden also auch Ehemänner importiert.
Deren Familien zahlen gerne für den Zugang zum deutschen Sozialsystem.
Oft in Gold, das dafür gesammelt wird. Verkauft und vor dem Imam
verheiratet wird fast nur innerhalb der weit verzweigten, wirklich
großen Großfamilie. Zur Erinnerung: Wir schreiben das Jahr 2013 und
befinden uns in Deutschland.

In Amals Milieu werden Mädchen und Jungen für ihre Rollen von klein auf
konditioniert. Träger und Bewahrer dieser multikulturellen Realität sind
nicht nur die Männer, sondern ebenfalls die Mütter. Selbst sie sorgen
dafür, dass alles so bleibt, wie es ist, schon, um die eigene Rolle und
damit das große Ganze nicht infrage zu stellen. Jeder Zweig der
Sippschaft achtet akribisch auf die Einhaltung der Regeln und übt bei
Verstößen Druck aus. Schließlich sind junge muslimische Frauen, die von
den Rollenmustern abweichen, schlechte Vorbilder für die Töchter anderer
Mütter und damit eine Bedrohung für das System. Das würde nämlich von
heute auf morgen zusammenbrechen, verweigerten sie sich massenhaft. Nach
allem, was ich so höre, sollte mit der gewaltfreien Lösung solcher und
anderer Milieukonflikte nicht immer gerechnet werden. Einige Frauen
würden ihre Verweigerungshaltung nicht überleben. Sie werden ja schon
heute mit Kopfschüssen hingerichtet. Am helllichten Tag. Mitten in
Deutschland.
Seit Monaten wird in den Medien intensiv über die Morde des „Nationalsozialistischen Untergrunds“
berichtet. „Ehrenmorde“ finden weniger Beachtung. In Amals Milieu
werden sie trotzdem wahrgenommen. Reaktionen der Männer und Mütter
können dann so lauten: „Aber wenn das Mädchen doch ohne Ehre war …“ Das
sind schonungslose Ansagen an Schwestern und Töchter, aufzupassen, sich zu unterwerfen und die Regeln einzuhalten.

Manchmal entscheiden sich junge Frauen wie Amal für den radikalen Ausbruch. In Deutschland gibt es dafür Anlaufstellen.
Wie Kronzeugen in einem Mafia-Prozess erhalten sie von staatlichen
Stellen eine andere Identität und fangen an einem fremden Ort ein völlig
neues Leben an. Danach darf es keinen Kontakt mehr mit der Familie
geben. Oft sehen die jungen Frauen darin schon deswegen keinen Ausweg,
weil sie in ihren Großfamilien von frühauf die Last der
Hauptverantwortung für jüngere Geschwister tragen müssen. Sie glauben
sich in der Pflicht und hängen an diesen Geschwistern. Dieses
Pflichtgefühl übersteigt den inneren Drang nach Freiheit und lässt sie
jede Schikane ertragen. Einen Ausbruch empfänden sie als Verrat an der
Familie. Was sie nicht sehen, sind die Schäden, welche die familiären
Repressionsstrukturen an ihren Seelen hinterlassen.
Was an Amals
Berichten überrascht, ist Fremdenfeindlichkeit gegenüber Deutschen.
Jemanden als „deutsch“ zu bezeichnen, gilt als Beschimpfung. Viele
Migranten kamen über das Asylrecht zu uns. Sie suchten Schutz und
Sicherheit vor Verfolgung und erhielten es. Warum lehnen manche von
ihnen uns Deutsche, unser Land, unsere Freiheit, unsere Demokratie und
unsere Kultur dann ab? Und warum bleiben sie? Einmal sagte Amal,
Christen zu heiraten ist bei ihr verboten. Sie müssen vorher
konvertieren. Alles andere würde mindestens den Verstoß aus der Familie
nach sich ziehen. Ihre Betonung lag auf „mindestens“.
Es ist eine
fragwürdige Erfahrung, mit einem geliebten Menschen eine Beziehung zu
unterhalten, ohne die banalsten Dinge des Alltags teilen zu können. Und
all das nur, weil bestimmte Gruppen hartnäckig an frauenfeindlichen und
unzivilisierten Vorstellungen festhalten. Für mich stellt sich daher
immer die Frage nach der Zukunft. Einmal sprach ich mit einem
katholischen Geistlichen darüber. Er bestärkte mich und sagte, die junge
Frau sei mir „von Gott anvertraut“. „Achte und unterstütze sie auf
ihrem Weg. Alles andere wird sich fügen.“ Ich hoffe, er hat recht. Ich
kann aber niemandem empfehlen, es mir gleichzutun. Denn dafür ist das
Leben eigentlich zu kurz.

Andererseits habe ich eine Muslimin kennen- und lieben gelernt, die sich
durch den Zwang zur viel zu frühen Übernahme von Verantwortung
wertvolle charakterprägende Eigenschaften und Fähigkeiten angeeignet
hat, die einem so nur selten begegnen. Amal ist in ihrem zerrissenen
Innersten mit Haut und Haaren Deutsche. In ihrer Familie, die tagtäglich
darum kämpft, über die Runden zu kommen, steht sie damit noch relativ
allein. Vielleicht auch deshalb, weil ein völlig wehrloses
Familienmitglied vor einigen Jahren Opfer rechtsextremer Gewalt wurde.
Der hinterhältige Übergriff war außerordentlich brutal. Mit den
körperlichen Schäden wird das Opfer für immer leben müssen. Die
volljährigen Täter wurden nach Jugendstrafrecht verurteilt und saßen nur
kurz ein. Zivilrechtlich wurden sie für ihre Tat nie belangt.

* Sowohl “Amal” als auch “Christian Weber” sind Pseudonyme. Mehr über die Hintergründe ihrer Beziehung lesen Sie hier.

Quelle: Tagesspiegel


Mehr zum Thema

Arab/Muslim anti-Semites worse than Nazis?

by Dennis Prager, Jewish World Review Oct. 30, 2001 


WITH all the attention paid to how Muslims and Arabs in America feel about the Islamic terrorists’ attacks on America, it may come as somewhat of surprise to learn about another anxious group of Americans – Jews.

All Americans are worried about the America hatred among groups who do not value human life. But Jews who know their history have additional fears. We Jews have reasons to worry because a significant part of humanity has a hatred of us indistinguishable in kind and intensity from that of the Nazis.

The most cursory acquaintance with the Arab press and fundamentalist mosque discourse around the world makes it clear that millions of Arabs and Muslims loathe Jews and many want Jews dead. Not to mention the hundreds of millions of Muslims and Arabs who want the one tiny country Jews have ever called their own eliminated from the map. Protests that the Arab/Muslim hostility is directed only at Israeli occupation of that even tinier area known as the West Bank have no basis in reality. The Arab/Muslim world sought Israel’s destruction before Israel occupied an inch of the West Bank.

We Jews have reasons to worry because the last time a civilization declared such hatred against Jews, what ensued was the most organized and monumental evil in history, the Holocaust. We hoped that Nazi-type hatred would never reappear. But it has. In fact, in two ways, Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism is more frightening.

First, while both Nazi and the Arab/Muslim anti-Semites have used closed societies with their controlled press to promote horrific lies about Jews, the Nazis hid their murder of Jews from the German public. They did not have confidence that enough Germans would support the murder of Jewish men, women and children. The Arab/Muslim anti-Semites, however, have no such problem. Those who kill Jews in Israel are public celebrities.

On the West Bank, a Palestinian university in Nablus has been putting on an exhibition celebrating the Palestinian suicide bombing of a family pizza restaurant in Israel. The exhibition consisted of a replica of the Sbarro’s restaurant complete with Hebrew inscriptions. Inside the exhibit, replicas of human body parts and pizza slices were strewn. Pictures published on the Internet showed Palestinians waiting in line to see the exhibit. In Nazi Germany, there were no public exhibits of Einsatzgruppen (Nazi mobile Jew-killing units) or gas chambers.

The second more frightening aspect of Arab/Muslim Jew-hatred is that many of these haters do not value their own lives. Nazis did.

We Jews have reasons to worry because no libels against Jews are too awful or too incredible in much of the Arab/Muslim world. That is why the father of Mohammed Atta, suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11th attacks, could tell Newsweek that his son was kidnapped by Israelis and that it was Israelis posing as Arab Muslims who actually attacked America. He could say this because he and millions of other Muslims (not only in the Arab world) believe it, as well as the notion that no Jews died in the World Trade Center because they were alerted in advance.

Americans may recall the flap over then-First Lady Hillary Clinton listening to the wife of Yasir Arafat state that Israel was poisoning Palestinian water supplies. Like the Nazis, many Arab/Muslim societies attribute to Jews virtually all evils, including, for example, deliberately spreading AIDS in the Arab world.

We Jews have reasons to worry because the West ignores this Jew-hatred. One reason is that Third World evil is rarely taken seriously among Western elites. A second reason is the psychological and political need of Westerners to believe that Islamic societies are, with the exception of “a few extremists,” tolerant societies. And the third reason is that Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism is dismissed as a temporary phenomenon that will disappear when Israelis and Palestinians make peace. But this belief inverts reality. The lack of peace between the Jewish state and its neighbors is not the cause of Arab anti-Semitism, it is the result of that anti-Semitism. Since 1948, there has been one reason for the Arab-Israeli conflict – the Arab/Muslim world rejects the concept of a Jewish (or any non-Muslim) state in its midst.

We Jews have reasons to worry because while much of the Muslim world – a billion strong stretching from the Atlantic through Asia to the Pacific – hates us, Europe and Japan do not defend us. Instead they defend their business deals with Saddam Hussein and with Iran’s medieval theocracy.

We Jews have reasons to worry because the Islamic terrorists who blow up Jews are not on the list of terrorist organizations our government is fighting. There are political reasons that account for omitting terror groups that target Jews, but whatever those reasons, how can a Jew not worry about this omission? If America, the most philo-Semitic country in the world, will not regard terrorists who murder Jews as worthy of fighting – even though these terrorists share sponsors and philosophy with anti-American terror groups – no nation will.

As I write this article, my 8-year-old son is playing next to me with his Nintendo. While he is painfully aware of the attacks on America, he remains blissfu
lly unaware that a substantial percentage of humanity would like to see him dead. One day, unfortunately, he will know this. Unless the good people of the world finally learn the great lesson of anti-Semitism – that Jew-haters hate all that is good, that they target Jews first but never Jews alone, and that Jew-haters must therefore be fought – one day he may in fact be hurt. That is why at least one Jewish father worries today. 

Source

The eternal flame of Muslim outrage

by Michelle Malkin, September 10, 2010


Every blogger worth his salt knows “Islamic Rage Boy.” He represents the professional Muslim grievance-monger, always at the ready to protest whatever manufactured insult could be exploited to curse the West. Christopher Hitchens wrote on the futility of appeasing the worldwide Rage Boy mob — a theme I’ve struck here for years, which bears repeating as we prepare to mark the 9th anniversary of 9/11, and which I reiterate in my syndicated column today. We didn’t start the fire.


Shhhhhhh, we’re told. Don’t protest the Ground Zero mosque. Don’t burn a Koran. It’ll imperil the troops. It’ll inflame tensions. The “Muslim world” will “explode” if it does not get its way, warns sharia-peddling imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Pardon my national security-threatening impudence, but when is the “Muslim world” not ready to “explode”?

At the risk of provoking the ever-volatile Religion of Perpetual Outrage, let us count the little-noticed and forgotten ways.

Just a few months ago in Kashmir, faithful Muslims rioted over what they thought was a mosque depicted on underwear sold by street vendors. The mob shut down businesses and clashed with police over the blasphemous skivvies. But it turned out there was no need for Allah’s avengers to get their holy knickers in a bunch. The alleged mosque was actually a building resembling London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. A Kashmiri law enforcement official later concluded the protests were “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”

Indeed, art and graphics have an uncanny way of vitiating the Muslim world’s atmosphere. In 1994, Muslims threatened German supermodel Claudia Schiffer with death after she wore a Karl Lagerfeld-designed dress printed with a saying from the Koran. In 1997, outraged Muslims forced Nike to recall 800,000 shoes because they claimed the company’s “Air” logo looked like the Arabic script for “Allah.” In 1998, another conflagration spread over Unilever’s ice cream logo — which Muslims claimed looked like “Allah” if read upside-down and backward (can’t recall what they said it resembled if you viewed it with 3D glasses).

Even more explosively, in 2002, an al-Qaida-linked jihadist cell plotted to blow up Bologna, Italy’s Church of San Petronio because it displayed a 15th century fresco depicting Mohammed being tormented in th
e ninth circle of Hell
. For years, Muslims had demanded that the art come down. Counterterrorism officials in Europe caught the would-be bombers on tape scouting out the church and exclaiming, “May Allah bring it all down. It will all come down.”

That same year, Nigerian Muslims stabbed, bludgeoned or burned to death 200 people in protest of the Miss World beauty pageant — which they considered an affront to Allah. They shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” And “Down with beauty!” And “Miss World is sin!” Contest organizers fled out of fear of inflaming further destruction. When Nigerian journalistIsioma Daniel joked that Mohammed would have approved of the pageant and that “in all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them,” her newspaper rushed to print three retractions and apologies in a row. It didn’t stop Muslim vigilantes from torching the newspaper’s offices. A fatwa was issued on Daniel’s life by a Nigerian official in the sharia-ruled state of Zamfara, who declared that “the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed. It is abiding on all Muslims wherever they are to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty.” Daniel fled to Norway.

In 2005, British Muslims got all hot and bothered over a Burger King ice cream cone container whose swirly-texted label resembled, you guessed it, the Arabic script for “Allah.” The restaurant chain yanked the product in a panic and prostrated itself before the Muslim world. But the fast-food dessert had already become a handy radical Islamic recruiting tool. Rashad Akhtar, a young British Muslim, told Harper’s Magazine how the ice cream caper had inspired him: “Even though it means nothing to some people and may mean nothing to some Muslims in this country, this is my jihad. I’m not going to rest until I find the person who is responsible. I’m going to bring this country down.”

In 2007, Muslims combusted again in Sudan after an infidel elementary school teacher innocently named a classroom teddy bear “Mohammed.” Protesters chanted, “Kill her, kill her by firing squad!” and “No tolerance — execution!” She was arrested, jailed and faced 40 lashes for blasphemy before being freed after eight days. Not wanting to cause further inflammation, the teacher rushed to apologize: “I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone, and I am sorry if I caused any distress.”

And who could forget the global Danish cartoon riots of 2006(instigated by imams who toured Egypt stoking hysteria with faked anti-Islam comic strips)? From Afghanistan to Egypt to Lebanon to Libya, Pakistan, Turkey and in between, hundreds died under the pretext of protecting Mohammed from Western slight, and brave journalists who stood up to the madness were threatened with beheading. It wasn’t really about the cartoons at all, of course. Little-remembered is the fact that Muslim bullies were attempting to pressure Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council forcontinuing with its nuclear research program. The chairmanship of the council was passing to Denmark at the time. Yes, it was just another in a long line of manufactured Muslim explosions that were, to borr
ow a useful phrase, “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”

When everything from sneakers to stuffed animals to comics to frescos to beauty queens to fast-food packaging to undies serves as dry tinder for Allah’s avengers, it’s a grand farce to feign concern about the recruitment effect of a few burnt Korans in the hands of a two-bit attention-seeker in Florida. The eternal flame of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago.

Source

The Battle of Tours

Nineteenth-century illustration of Battle of Tours by A. de Neuville.

Precisely 100 years after the death of Islam’s prophet Muhammad in 632, his Arab followers, after having conquered thousands of miles of lands from Arabia to Spain, found themselves in Gaul, modern day France, facing a hitherto little known people, the Christian Franks.

There, around October 10-11, in the year 732, one of history’s most decisive battles took place, demarcating the extent of Islam’s western conquests and ensuring the survival of the West.

Prior to this, the Islamic conquerors had for one century been subjugating all peoples and territories standing in their western march—including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. In 711, the Muslims made their fateful crossing of the straits of Gibraltar, landing on European soil. Upon disembarkation, the leader of the Muslims, Tariq bin Zayid, ordered the Islamic fleet burned, explaining that “We have not come here to return. Either we conquer and establish ourselves here, or we perish.”

This famous Tariq anecdote—often reminisced by modern day jihadis—highlights the jihadi nature of the Umayyad caliphate (661-750), the superpower of its day. Indeed, as most historians have acknowledged, the Umayyad caliphate was the “Jihadi-State” par excellence. Its very existence was coterminous with its conquests.  Its legitimacy as “viceroy” of Allah was based on subjugating lands in the name of Allah.

Once on European ground, the depredations continued unabated. Writes one Arab chronicler regarding the Muslim northern advance past the Pyrenees: “Full of wrath and pride” the Muslims “went through all places like a desolating storm. Prosperity made those warriors insatiable… everything gave way to their scimitars, the robbers of lives.” Even far off English anchorite, the contemporary, the venerable, Bede, wrote, “A plague of Saracens wrought wretched devastation and slaughter upon Gaul.”

Strange anecdotes also find their way in the chroniclers’ accounts during this time. Muslim historian Abd al-Hakem reports that, after landing on an island off Iberia, one of Tariq’s squadrons discovered that the only inhabitants were vinedressers. “They made them prisoners. After that, they took one of the vinedressers, slaughtered him, cut him into pieces, and boiled him, while the rest of the companions looked on.”  This incident resulted in a rumor that Muslims feast on human flesh.  (Nearly 1300 years later, in the year 2013, a Muslim jihadi ate the organs of his slain enemyto surrounding cries of “Allahu Akbar”.)

At any rate, this must have been the picture the men to the north had of the invaders from the south—wild and insatiable madmen, possibly cannibals, mounted on swift steeds, not unlike, in this manner, the Huns of old, who, under the “anti-Christ” figure of Attila, came ravaging through Europe, only to be defeated, in part by the Franks, in the year 451 at the Battle of Chalons, also in modern day France, 150 miles east of Tours.

“Alas,” exclaimed the Franks, “what a misfortune! What an indignity! We have long heard of the name and conquests of the Arabs; we were apprehensive of their attack from the East [see Siege of Byzantium, 717-718]: they have now conquered Spain, and invade our country on the side of the West.”

Conversely, the Muslims, flushed with a century’s worth of victories, seem to have had an ambivalent view, at best, regarding Frankish mettle. When asked about the Franks, some years before the Battle of Tours, the then emir of Spain, Musa, replied: “They are a folk right numerous, and full of might: brave and impetuous in the attack, but cowardly and craven in the event of defeat. Never has a company from my army been beaten.”

If this view betrayed overconfidence, Musa’s successor, Abd al-Rahman (“Slave to the Merciful”) exhibited even greater haughtiness regarding those whom he was about to give battle. At the head of some 80,000 Muslims, primarily mounted moors, Rahman’s destructive north
ward march into the heart of France was greatly motivated by rumors of more riches for the taking, particularly at the Basilica of St. Martin of Tours. Rahman initially separated his army into several divisions to better ensure the plunder of Gaul. Writes Isidore, author of the Chronicle of 754: “[Rahman] destroyed palaces, burned churches, and imagined he could pillage the basilica of St. Martin of Tours. It is then that he found himself face to face with the lord of Austrasia, Charles, a mighty warrior from his youth, and trained in all the occasions of arms.”

Indeed, unbeknownst to the Muslims, the battle-hardened Frankish ruler Charles, aware of their purport, had begun rallying his liegemen to his standard in an effort to ward off the Islamic drive. Having risen to power in France in 717—the same year a mammoth Muslim army was laying siege to Byzantium—Charles appreciated the significance of the Islamic threat. Accordingly, he intercepted the invaders somewhere between Poitiers and Tours, the latter being the immediate aim of the Muslims. The chroniclers give amazing numbers concerning the Muslims, as many as 300,000. Suffice to say, the Franks were greatly outnumbered, and most historians are content with the figures of 80,000 Muslims against 30,000 Franks.

The Muslim force consisted mainly of cavalry, and was geared for offensive warfare. The vast majority being of Berber extraction, they wore little armor, though their elitist Arab overlords were at least chain-mailed. For arms, they relied on the sword and lance; arrows were little used.

Conversely, the Franks were primarily an infantry force (except for mounted nobles such as Charles). Relying on deep phalanx-formations and heavy armor—reportedly 70 pounds for each man—the Franks were as immovable as the Muslims were mobile. They also appear to have had a greater variety of weaponry: the shield was ubiquitous, and arms consisted of swords, daggers, javelins, and two kinds of axes, one for wielding and the other for throwing—the francisca. This notorious latter weapon was so symbolic of the Franks that either it was named after them or, quite possibly, they were named after it.

The chroniclers state that the two contending armies faced each other for 6-7 days, neither wanting to make the first move. The Franks made much use of the familiar terrain: they appear to have held the high ground; and the dense European woods served not only to provide better shelter but to impede the anticipated Muslim cavalry charge.

Winter approaching, supplies and foraging areas dwindling, and an Islamic sense of superiority all compelled Rahman to commence battle, which “consisted entirely of wild headlong charges, wasteful of men.”

Writes an anonymous Arab chronicler: “Near the river Owar [Loire], the two great hosts of the two languages and the two creeds [Islam and Christianity] were set in array against each other. The hearts of Abd al-Rahman, his captains and his men were filled with wrath and pride, and they were the first to begin to fight. The Muslim horsemen dashed fierce and frequent forward against the battalions of the Franks, who resisted manfully, and many fell dead on either side, until the going down of the sun.”

According to the Chronicle of 754, much of which was composed from eye-witness accounts, “The men of the north stood as motionless as a wall, they were like a belt of ice frozen together, and not to be dissolved, as they slew the Arab with the sword. The Austrasians [Franks], vast of limb, and iron of hand, hewed on bravely in the thick of the fight; it was they who found and cut down the Saracen’s king [Rahman].”

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson writes: “When the sources speak of ‘a wall,’ ‘a mass of ice,’ and ‘immovable lines’ of infantrymen, we should imagine a literal human rampart, nearly invulnerable, with locked shields in front of armored bodies, weapons extended to catch the underbellies of any Islamic horsemen foolish enough to hit the Franks at a gallop.”

As night fell, the Muslims and Christians disengaged and withdrew to their tents. With the coming of dawn, the Franks discovered that the Muslims, perhaps seized with panic that their emir was dead, had fled south during the night—still looting, burning, and plundering all and sundry as they went. Hanson offers a realistic picture of the aftermath: “Poitiers [or Tours] was, as all cavalry battles, a gory mess, strewn with thousands of wounded or dying horses, abandoned plunder, and dead and wounded Arabs. Few of the wounded were taken prisoner—given their previous record of murder and pillage at Poitiers.”

In the coming years, Charles, henceforth known as Martel—the “Hammer,” due to his decisive stroke—would continue waging war on the Muslim remnants north of the Pyrenees till they retreated south. Frankish sovereignty and consolidation were naturally established in Gaul, leading to the creation of the Holy Roman Empire—beginning with Charles’ own grandson, Charlemagne, often described by historians as the “Father of Europe.” As historian Henri Pirenne put it: “Without Islam the Frankish Empire would probably never have existed and Charlemagne, without Mahomet, would be
inconceivable.”

Aside from the fact that this battle ushered in an end to the first massive wave of Islamic conquests, there are some indications that it also precipitated the fall of the Umayyad caliphate, which, as mentioned earlier, owed its very existence to jihad, victory, plunder and slavery (ghanima). In 718, the Umayyads, after investing a considerable amount of manpower and resources trying to conquer Byzantium, the eastern doorway to Europe, lost horribly. Less than fifteen years later, their western attempt was, as seen, also rebuffed at Tours. In the context of these two pivotal defeats, a mere 18 years after Tours, the Umayyad caliphate was overthrown by the Abbasids, and the age of Islam’s great conquests came to an end (until the rise of the Ottoman empire which, like the Umayyads, was also a jihadi state built on territorial conquests, and which did finally conquer Constantinople).

Thus any number of historians, such as Godefroid Kurth, would go on to say that the Battle of Tours “must ever remain one of the great events in the history of the world, as upon its issue depended whether Christian Civilization should continue or Islam prevail throughout Europe.”

Despite the obvious significance of this battle, cynical modern day historians often point to Edward Gibbon and others as embellishing and aggrandizing this battle. In fact, from the very start, the earliest writers contemporaneous to the battle portrayed it as a war between Islam and Christendom. Gibbon further, and famously, argued that, had the Muslims won, “Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mohammed.” (Writing in the 18th century, clearly Gibbon was unaware that his predictions would still come true, though not by way of active conquest but passive resignation, as the Koran is now taught in Oxford, accorded the same worth of the Bible—equal literature or equal revelation—and Islamic Sharia law is functioning in Britain.)

Still, some modern armchair historians insist that the Battle of Tours was naught but a “minor skirmish” dedicated to plunder, not conquest. As evidence, they point to the fact that, while early Christian chroniclers highlighted this battle, their Muslim counterparts, (except for the very earliest writers, who did acknowledge it as a disastrous defeat) tended to overlook or minimize its significance—as if that is not to be expected from the defeated, especially their posterity.

Other historians insist that plunder was the only objective of the Muslims—a wholly materialistic thesis to be expected from modern-day historians incapable of transcending their own 21st century epistemology. Thus they anachronize, particularly since the texts make clear that conquest and consolidation were always on the mind of the invading Muslims, Rahman’s army no exception: Reinaud tells us that in the emir’s head lurked the possibility of “uniting Italy, Germany, and the empire of the Greeks to the already vast domains of the champions of the Koran.”

In fact, when placed in context, the Muslims’ lust for booty only further validates the expansionist jihad thesis (see Majid Khadurri’s Law of War and Peace in Islam which contains an entire chapter on spoils, ghanima, and their central role in the jihad). From the start, the jihadi was guaranteed one of two rewards for his war-efforts: martyrdom if he dies, plunder if he lives. The one an eternal, the other temporal, reward—a win-win situation that, at least according to early Christian and Muslim chroniclers, played a major role in the success of the Muslim conquests. In other words, that the sources indicate the Muslims were booty-hungry, does not in the least negate the fact that, as with all of the initial Muslim conquests, starting with Prophet Muhammad at the Battle of Badr, territorial conquests and the acquisition of booty went hand-in-hand and were the natural culmination of the jihad.

As for general destruction, Michael Bonner author of Jihad in Islamic History, writes, “The raids are a constant element [of the jihad], always considered praiseworthy and even necessary. This is a feature of pre-modern Islamic states that we cannot ignore. In addition to conquest, we have depredation; in addition to political projects and state-building, we have destruction and waste.”

At any rate, the facts speak for themselves: after the Battle of Tours, no other massive Muslim invasion would be attempted north of the Pyrenees—until very recently and through very different means.

But that is another story.

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