Dr. Timothy Furnish: 'Hamas, Iran’s Bloodthirsty Sock Puppet'

Here is an excellent primer on Hamas' bloody, barbaric Islamic Jihad terrorist attack against Israel, from noted Islam scholar and author Timothy Furnish:


Hamas, Iran’s Bloodthirsty Sock Puppet

By TIMOTHY FURNISH | The Stream | October 9, 2023

Hamas has murdered, so far, over 600 Israeli civilians in its new war. Only the War of Independence (1948-49) and the Second Intifada (2000-05) killed more non-combatants. In addition, over 400 Palestinians have died. Both sides are sure to lose more. Especially the Gaza Palestinians. Because Israel’s wrath is kindled. And with good reason.

Hamas: Elected Terrorists

What is Hamas? It’s the Palestinian branch of the global Muslim Brotherhood. The name is actually an acronym from Arabic. Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyah, “Movement of the Islamic Resistance.” Founded in 1987, Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006. But it lost control of the West Bank to the non-jihadist Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Relegated to the tiny Gaza Strip, Hamas has spent the past 17 years periodically attacking Israel. It’s one of the 55 Islamic terrorist groups in the world (81% of the total). The vast majority of which are Sunni.

Iran: the Puppeteer

However, Hamas and some Sunni groups, like the related Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are supported by staunchly Twelver Shi`i Iran. Since the 1979 “Islamic Revolution” the ayatollahs fancy themselves leading a global Islamic insurgency. Not merely sponsoring terrorism. But insurgency against what, exactly? Against the West in general. And the United States in particular. Why? Because European-American civilization has dominated the globe for 500 years. In the past, Muslims saw the West as pushing Christianity on others. Now, it’s seen as imposing godless secularism and the LGBTQIA+ agenda. (Orthodox Christian Russia and officially Communist China also see the post-modern West as overbearing. Which is why the three civilizational blocs often cooperate against the U.S.)

The Little Satan is Closer

So what’s that have to do with Israel? Fundamentalist Sunnis and Shi`is agree on one thing, at least. That the Jewish state is the tip of the Western spear, embedded in the Muslim Middle East. A “foreign body” that must be expelled. Sunni Usama bin Ladin often referred to the “Crusader-Zionist” alliance. The Shi`i ayatollahs now say the same. But unlike UBL, they’re loathe to directly attack the Great Satan. Besides, it’s the Far (Away) Enemy. So they provide funding and weapons — especially rockets—to attack the Little Satan. Which is a convenient Near Enemy.

How Hamas’ War Benefits Iran

What do Iranian zealots get out of goading, if not directing, such horrible Hamas attacks at this juncture? Five benefits, in ascending order of importance.

First, a thumb in the eye of the Biden Administration, which recently “released” $6 billion to the Islamic Republic, to ransom hostages. Earmarked, say Bidenistas, only for “humanitarian purposes.” The ayatollahs are laughing all the way to the weapons market.

Second, sparking a major conflict in the Middle East gets Ukraine off the front page. This helps Russia, one of Iran’s patrons.

Third, the war makes the planned Turkish-Israeli rapproachment untenable.

Fourth, it scuttles the possible Saudi-Israeli normalization. Neither Turkish President Erdoğan nor Saudi ruler Muhammad bin Salman can meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Not when the IDF is leveling Palestinian buildings. With people inside.

Finally, there are some in Tehran obsessed with eschatology. These want to hotwire the apocalypse. Which means what? Destroying Israel in order to spark the return of the Twelfth Imam, the messianic Mahdi. In this view “the annihilation of the Zionist regime is one of the preconditions for the arrival of the Mahdi.” Iran’s President, and probable next Supreme Leader, is almost certainly of this mindset, too.

Hamas: Jihadist or Joker?

What does Hamas get out of this bloodletting? Many of its members will get a one-way ticket to the afterlife. Unfortunately, many of them have been convinced that they will be rewarded by Allah there with sensual delights. Instead, they will be punished by the true God for their evil deeds. Hamas’ jihadists truly exemplify that “some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Much more in the full article at The Stream...

Raymond Ibrahim: "The genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level"

Several genocide watchdog organizations are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Read the below article on the horrific and multilayered background story of this genocide, and contact your congressman and senator to express support for the Armenians.

Starvation: ‘The Invisible Genocide Weapon’

by Raymond Ibrahim, originally published at the Gatestone Institute

The thousand-year-old genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level.

Several watchdog organizations—including the Association of Genocide Scholars,  Genocide Watch, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention—are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.  Historically known as Artsakh, this ancient Armenian region was annexed by and brought under Azerbaijani rule in 2020.

Modern day hostilities between Armenia, an ancient nation and the first to adopt Christianity, and Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that was created in 1918, began in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a war to claim Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).  Although it had been Armenian for over two thousand years, and still remains 90% Armenian, after the dissolution of the USSR, the “border makers” granted it to Azerbaijan, hence the constant warring over this region. (See “15 Artsakh War Myths Perpetuated By Mainstream Media.”)

Once the September 2020 war began, Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists against Armenia, though the dispute clearly did not concern it.  It dispatched  sharia-enforcing “jihadist groups” from Syria and Libya—including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division, which once kept naked women chained and imprisoned—to terrorize and slaughter the Armenians.

One of these captured mercenaries later confessed that he was “promised a monthly $2,000 payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar[s] for each beheaded kafir.” (Kafir, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for any non-Muslim who fails to submit to Islam, which makes them de facto enemies.)

All these Muslim groups committed massive atrocities (see here and here), including by raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and mockingly sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.

The war ended in November 2020, with Azerbaijan claiming a significant portion of Artsakh.

Then, on December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan sealed off the humanitarian Lachin Corridor—the only route between Artsakh and the outside world.  A recent report by Dutch journalist, Sonja Dahlmans, summarizes the situation since:

America's judgment looms ever nearer: FGM, mutilation of children normalized and protected

"A federal judge has dismissed six charges of female genital mutilation against a doctor, declaring the nation’s female genital mutilation law as unconstitutional."

The unthinkable has happened: a brutal and dangerous practice performed on infant girls, originating from a deviant desert pagan religion, has now been given protected legal status in the United States.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), the cutting of the clitoris of defenseless infant girls, has, through the fiat of a single federal judge in an historic, landmark case, become protected by the US Constitution, barring some overturning of this heinous and ignorant decision.

See my article:  FGM and Islam’s Mutilation of… Everything

Spiritually, this dark sign of our times converges with another rapidly spreading movement affirming a secular right to mutilate children.

America is swiftly enshrining the right of children to undergo hormonal therapy and sexual mutilation surgery to "reassign" their gender. Rod Dreher has been tracking the gender reassignment movement for the last few years now. The below exchange helps introduce one of his more comprehensive posts on this sign of the moral and spiritual collapse of America:

The woman told me that at her kids’ high school, a shocking number of students are going to their parents asking to be put on hormones and asking for surgery, because they are transgender. This is the cool thing, and the school is falling all over itself to be supportive, and to encourage an “ally” culture. 

“What about the parents?” I said. 

“They’re going along with it,” she replied. 

“Why on earth?!” I said. 

“Because they don’t want to lose their kids. Because everything in the culture tells them they should. Because they think that’s how they love their child. And these parents usually become the fiercest LGBT advocates.”

Welcome to post-Christian America, where mutilation of children joins pre-birth infanticide as the law of the land. Our judgment will be swift and harsh when it comes.

But, back to the protection of FGM and the advance of Sharia in America...

New Book from Timothy R. Furnish: 'Sects, Lies, and the Caliphate'

I am very pleased to report that the newest book by Islam and Mahdi scholar Timothy R. Furnish, Sects, Lies, and the Caliphate: 10 Years of Observations on Islam is now available from Amazon in paperback (as well as in Kindle format).

Dr. Furnish describes his new title as follows:

Unlike the predecessor and complementary Ten Years' Captivation with the Mahdi's Camps which deals exclusively with Islamic apocalyptic thought and movements, Sects treats more mundane but nonetheless crucial topics, such as: ISIS's historical context; the Islamic doctrines behind Islamic terrorism; Islam vis-a-vis Christianity; Iranian geopolitics, and, in the longest section of the book, US policies (or lack thereof) toward Islam, both domestically and in foreign policy.

Furnish's writings are designed to provide a depth of understanding on Islamic motivations — so urgently needed in our darkening times — for both ordinary readers and policy makers in the West. 

Christians would do well to read both of these titles for the insights they offer into the alien religion of Islam, which claims to worship the Same God as we, yet whose "God" has such a radically different ontology, theology, and ultimate purpose for mankind than does the divine love of the Holy Trinity, revealed to us by Jesus Christ, His sacrifice on the Cross and His Resurrection.

From the publisher's sobering description:

Sectsploitation: How to Win Hearts and Minds in the Islamic World

This 2009 article, though dated in terms of current events, is very helpful in setting forth the variegated landscape of Islam, and what that might portend for the Western response to the global jihad. Christians will acquire a more well-rounded understanding of the various sects of Islam by familiarizing themselves with this article.

by Timothy R. Furnish, PhD, History News Network, May 31, 2009

Mr. Furnish’s doctorate is in Islamic history, he works as an author and consultant, and his website is www.mahdiwatch.org

A rational discussion of Islam’s causal role in American “overseas contingency operations”—the erstwhile “global war on terror”--or the multitude of “man-made disasters” besetting the modern world has become almost impossible in the current hyper-partisan American political climate. 

Many on the Left, who can’t be bothered to actually read a Qur’an, remain blindly convinced that there is nothing intrinsically violent in literalist Islam;[1] that all religions are equally peaceful (except perhaps for Christianity); and that the violent legions around the world engaged in decapitation, assassination and detonation in emulation of Muhammad are actually, unbeknownst even to themselves, motivated rather by something, anything, else: alienation, victimization, anti-Americanism, lack of education, etc. Some on the Left—such as candidate, if not President, Barack Obama—even continue clinging to the myth that “poverty causes Islamic terrorism,”[2] empirical data be damned. 

Too many on the Right, on the other hand, assume that the history of Islam is coterminous with a history of violence; that the only Muslims that matter are fundamentalist Sunnis motivated by death, domination and the pursuit of houris; and that while there may be a demographic sliver of moderate Muslims, there is no such thing as moderate Islam.[3]

Both are wrong.

President Obama, two months ago, told the New York Times that “the American military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban.”[4] In the same interview, the President explained further that “If you talk to General Petraeus…part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists.” Leaving aside some rather crucial issues (whether the successful “surge” strategy can be translated directly to Afghanistan;[5] the questionable reduction of Sunni shaykhs in Iraq to mere Islamic fundamentalists; and the misconception that such a thing as a “moderate Taliban” actually exists), the Obama administration is nonetheless on the right track (as was that of Bush, albeit more publicly vocal) in its search for non-jihadist Muslims. In this vein, next month the President will deliver a major speech in Egypt, “seeking to strengthen U.S. relations with the Islamic world and fight extremism.”[6] One key to doing the former is to acknowledge that the Islamic world does have a long theological and historical strain of the latter--based largely on a literal reading of the Qur’an and the Hadiths (alleged practices and sayings of Muhammad)—as well as to identify, contact and support moderate branches of Islam.

Islam is not necessarily literally violent, but much if not most of the time literal Islam IS violent. How could it not be? Sura al-Nisa’[4]:34ff says “those wives from whom you fear rebellion….beat them.” Sura Muhammad [47]:3ff and Sura al-Anfal [8]:12ff say “when you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads.” Sura al-`Imran[3]:157ff says “If you should die or be slain in the cause of God…before Him you shall be gathered.” Five different sections of the Qur’an promise “dark-eyed” huris, “bashful virgins whom neither man nor jinn will have touched,”[7] to those who die fighting on Allah’s behalf.

Of course, taken literally the Bible—at least the Old Testament—could promote violence: for example Deuteronomy 7:1ff tells the Hebrews not only to avoid intermarrying with the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, etc., but to “tear down their altars” and “utterly destroy them.” But modern Jewish rabbis and Israeli politicians do not cite such passages to justify violence, not just because these ancient peoples no longer exist but because a literal reading of such verses is no longer accepted, either in scholarship or in the popular mind.

As for the New Testament, it’s impossible to read it literally and condone violence. Matthew 26:52 says Jesus told Peter “put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.” Furthermore, Jesus told his followers to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”[8] The Crusades and the Inquisition were rejections of Jesus’ teachings, not fulfillment of them—which is exactly the opposite of the case with Muhammad and jihad. However, there are New Testament passages that, taken literally, are problematic: for example, in Luke 10:19 Jesus told the 70 that “I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions…and nothing will injure you.” There are some tiny Christian denominations that encourage taking these passages literally, even going so far as to handle poisonous snakes during services.[9] But the vast majority of Christians—courtesy of several centuries of Biblical criticism, not to mention application of simple common sense—can put those passages in exegetical and historical context, realizing that what was true for the 12 Apostles and the 70 Disciples two millennia ago, not to mention Jesus Himself, is NOT necessarily binding on us today. Christianity, like Judaism, long ago developed a non-literalist exegetical paradigm, which is adhered to by a majority within each religion.[10]

The same is not true of mainstream Sunni Islam, which makes up some 87% of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslim population. In that majority Muslim community, “the doctrine of taqlid, of adherence to a given legal madhhab,[11] was elaborated into the doctrine that the ‘gates of ijtihad’[12]…had closed in the ninth century” [C.E.].[13] This meant that"the right of ijtihad" -- independent religion-legal reasoning -- was replaced by the duty of taqlid or ‘imitation.’ Henceforth every jurist was an ‘imitator’ (muqallid) bound to accept and follow the doctrine established by his predecessors.”[14] Original ideas about interpretation of the Qur’an were forbidden; only slavish imitation of early Muslim commentators, literalists all, was—and still is, technically—allowed. Thus, a Sunni Muslim confronted with the clear Qur’anic mandate of beheading for infidels on the battlefield cannot advance exegetical arguments that the passage 1) applied only in Muhammad’s time or 2) today is to be read metaphorically as “apologetic decapitation” or the like. The Qur’an reports, you do not get to decide. The ancient school of Mu`tazilism, which did briefly allow for non-literalism regarding the Qur’an, was stamped out in Sunnism.