By Mordechai Ben-Menachem
My eye was caught yesterday by two powerful headlines; the first:
“Islamic State said to bury women and children alive” – subtitled, “Yazidi people reported killed and 300 women kidnapped and forced into slavery by jihadists”.
This is the Islamic State, that group that used to be called ISIS (or ISIL) doing what they do. By the way, I have seen some media reports that claimed ISIS and ISIL were separate groups; this is not true. Both are weak translations of their real name which is, of course, in Arabic. In any case, their name now is “Islamic State” since they declared a Caliphate. So, they took hundreds of women captive to use as sex slaves, as Islamic armies have done for 1,400 years.
To quote from this article: “Some of the victims, including women and children, were buried alive in scattered mass graves in and around Sinjar,” Sudani said. “In some of the images we have obtained, there are lines of dead Yazidis who have been shot in the head while the Islamic State fighters cheer and wave their weapons over the corpses.”
The second headline was:
“Hamas said to have executed dozens of tunnel diggers” – subtitled, “Any excavator who was suspected of collaborating with Israel was killed, Israeli website reports.” This reason sounds plausible but of course, there was nothing resembling a trial and the alleged collaboration did not occur. This is a great way for the jihadists hidden in those underground bunker-tunnel warrens to retain secrets. This is, of course, after nearly 200 children were also killed while digging and untold numbers were killed simply as tunneling witnesses.
They were forced to dig for some 12 hours a day on wages of about $150 per month.
“Sources in Gaza told … that Hamas took a series of precautions to prevent information from reaching Israel. The terror organization would reportedly blindfold the excavators en route to the sites and back, to prevent them from recognizing the locations. The tunnels were strictly supervised by Hamas members, and civilians were kept far from the sites. … Hamas would strip search the workers to ensure they had no recording devices or cameras hidden on them.” With such “precautions” how could the slaves possibly “collaborate” with Israel?
Slavery, sex-slaves or worker drones, and mass executions are common to both these groups.
There is a more poignant question. Are these “Terror Groups” or “Terror Organisations?” It seems they are not. They are regimented armies, organised as companies, brigades and battalions, with intelligence, propaganda and other units. They are well-trained and superbly motivated.
So, where are the terrorists? Everywhere, and in their ranks include those supporting them; the brigands conducting demonstrations in Paris, London, Lisbon and New York.
During the time of Saddam Hussein there were about a million Christians in Iraq. Now, there is no functioning government of Iraq and there are no Christians – none.
The Islamic State, Hamas and Hezbollah are not terrorists. They are a Jihad army – notice use of the singular. They are one, not many. They have one goal and that goal is to convert or kill those in their way in the quest for a Caliphate.
Mordechai Ben-Menachem is a former researcher/lecturer at Ben-Gurion University and an author of over 30 book ranging from engineering to poetry. He is also an ordained clergyman and a former soldier. He lives in Jerusalem.