Today is Quds Day – a day of Muslim led international resistance to Zionist occupation of the Holy Land. Below is my interview with the Tasnim News Agency.
Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American Muslim and PhD Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror. He appears frequently on Press TV and Russia Today. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for Congress in 2008. He hosts two radio shows and is an editor at VeteransToday.com.
Tasnim: What is the relationship between the Palestinian struggle and the popular uprisings, wars, and coups in the Middle East today?
Dr. Kevin Barrett: The turmoil in the Middle East is the product of a titanic conflict between two historical forces: The Islamic Awakening and the Zionist-led war on Islam. And the central issue, battlefield, and prize of that conflict is Palestine. So beneath the surface of the struggles in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Iraq, and the rest of the Arab world – and even as far away as Turkey, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia – the question of Palestine operates like a hidden magnet that determines the configuration of forces and the way the battles shape up.
Tasnim: What is the Islamic Awakening, and what is its importance for Palestine?
Dr. Kevin Barrett: All over the world, Muslims are reclaiming their civilizational heritage as the era of Western global domination winds down. As a potentially unified bloc of almost two billion people whose lands hold the lion’s share of remaining fossil fuel reserves, Muslims are in a position to return Islam to its former position as the central global civilization. And please note that Islamic civilization, while grounded in the religion of Islam, does include non-Muslims, primarily Christians and Jews, as well. Additionally, as the only global civilization today that remains grounded in moral principles and religiosity, Islamic civilization offers an essential source of guidance for humanity in an age in which amorality threatens the whole world with civilizational collapse. Perhaps most importantly, Islam rejects riba, meaning any form of lending at interest – and thereby opposes the current global financial system led by the Rothschild Zionists, who are driving the world toward destruction. This is the strategic backdrop that has set the stage for the current Zionist-led war on Islam, which aims to “strangle the Islamic awakening in its cradle” in order to preserve the global hegemony of Rothschild Zionism – and eventually build an Orwellian “New World Order” with its capital in Occupied Palestine. For that reason, the liberation of humanity depends on the liberation of Palestine.
Tasnim: What is the “Zionist-led war on Islam”? Do you mean the so-called “war on terror” ?
Dr. Kevin Barrett: Yes, the Zionists have launched an all-out counter-attack against the Islamic Awakening. They recognize that the re-unification of the House of Islam would put an end to their occupation of Palestine, and to their power base in usurious fiat currency issued by central banks. Also, ideologically, the top Zionists follow a satanic doctrine that opposes any moral or religious restrictions on the self-appointed elite. This ideology mixes the radical, satanic “illuminist” strain of freemasonry with a kind of neo-sabbateanism. The bottom line is that they want to free themselves from all moral and legal restrictions and rule the world as they see fit, using other humans as disposable cattle. They pushed their war on humanity, and war on Islam, into high gear with the false-flag operation of September 11th, 2001. 9/11 was an illuminist, neo-sabbatean black mass. Its purpose was to demonize the religion of Islam – the biggest obstacle to their satanic agenda – and trigger an all-out war against the Islamic Awakening. Since 2001, these New World Order Zionists have been conducting an all-out psychological war against Islam. They use the Western media, which they completely dominate, to pump out non-stop anti-Islam propaganda. And they have invaded, occupied, and destabilized a long list of key Muslim countries, and done their best to incite sectarian and ethnic divisions in the Islamic world. All of this is designed to cripple the Islamic awakening and prevent it from coming to full fruition.
Tasnim: How does the issue of human rights fit into this struggle between Islam and New World Order Zionism?
Dr. Kevin Barrett: The Zionist invaders have completely crushed the human rights of their Palestinian victims. The erasure of human rights for Palestinians has, in the wake of the 9/11 inside job, become the model for the New World Order’s erasure of all human rights, everywhere – especially in America. In his article “How We Became Israel,” professor Andrew Bacevich discusses how the US has followed the Israeli example in legalizing torture, assassination, and other human rights abuses. It is the neocons – Israeli agents dedicated to subverting and enslaving America – who have pushed through all of these measures. Additionally, the Israelis have forced their sadistic, mentally ill psychology on America. The Israelis have always used sexual torture and humiliation as one of their prime weapons. When they take over a Palestinian area, the first thing they do is seize the TV stations and start broadcasting pornography. And after the Israeli neocons blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, they imposed this sick outlook on America. It was Israelis who designed the sex tortures employed at Abu Ghraib and other US military locations. All of this is part of the Rothschild Zionist war on civilization – their attempt to destroy all forms of traditional morality and restraint, including human rights norms, in service to their incipient Orwellian global dictatorship.
Tasnim: Can you discuss some specifics about Israeli human rights abuses?
Dr. Kevin Barrett: To me, the worst abuses are those targeting Palestinian children. The Zionists absolutely hate Palestinian children, and would kill them all immediately if they thought they could get away with it. The inhumanity of this outlook is just staggering. A good example of this Israeli loathing of children is the T shirt worn by IDF soldiers that shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a target on her belly. The T-shirt reads: “One shot two kills.” Unfortunately the IDF really does have an unofficial policy of targeting little children for assassination by snipers. Chris Hedges wrote, in his article “Gaza Diary, ” of witnessing IDF soldiers luring children within range of their guns and shooting them for sport. A study by British Medical Journal confirmed that this is a common practice, and never punished: “Two thirds of the 621 children (two thirds under 15 years) killed at checkpoints, in the street, on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half of cases to the head, neck and chest – the sniper’s wound…Clearly, soldiers are routinely authorised to shoot to kill children in situations of minimal or no threat.” (British Medical Journal 10/16/04)
Over the past thirteen years, Israeli soldiers have murdered more than 1,500 Palestinian children – about one murder every three days.
The Israelis also arrest and torture very large numbers of Palestinian children on a regular basis. They arrest more than 700 children each year, and torture, sexual assault, and death threats are commonplace. In recent years, the number of children arrested has soared to over 200 per month, or close to 2,500 per year.
Tasnim: Why do they hate children?
Dr. Kevin Barrett: Children represent the future. The Zionists hate and fear the future. They know that their days of occupying Palestine are numbered, and that the future belongs to those Palestinian children. So they take revenge on the future by killing and torturing the children.
Tasnim: What is the role of al-Quds Day in the struggle for Palestine?
Dr. Kevin Barrett: Al-Quds is the symbolic capital of Islamic civilization. While the Haramayn (Mecca and Medina) are the first cities of the religion of Islam, we must remember that Islamic civilization includes Christians and Jews as well as Muslims. Al-Quds, and Palestine in general, have symbolized this inclusive aspect of Islamic civilization since they came under the protective wing of Islam in 637 CE. At that time, the people of Palestine actively and passively supported the Muslim armies, because they were tired of the onerous taxation and religious oppression of the Byzantine rulers. After the Muslims took over Palestine, they lived in tents rather than palaces, lowered taxes, and respected the religious freedom of their new subjects. They also built Masjid al-Aqsa with its magnificent dome, which has been recognized as the Islamic world’s greatest architectural monument ever since.
So virtually throughout the entire history of Islam, Palestine in general, and the Masjid al-Aqsa in al-Quds in particular, has been the central symbol of Islam’s status as a universal religion that reaches beyond its nominal religious boundaries to found an inclusive, multi-confessional civilization.
For that reason, the struggle for Palestine is the struggle of every Muslim…and everyone who cares about truth, justice, and humanity’s civilizational heritage.
Imam Khomeini, the most important figure of the Islamic Awakening, recognized this when he established the last Friday of Ramadan as al-Quds Day. He said: “It is a day for the oppressed to rise and stand up against the arrogant. Quds Day is a day in which Islam is to be revived.”
Imam Khomeini recognized that true Islam is about justice – it is about siding with the oppressed against the arrogant. And he recognized that the Zionist occupation of the Holy Land is a universal issue of justice, not just a Palestinian issue or even a Muslim issue. Yet paradoxically, it is this universal issue that holds the key to the prospects of the Islamic revival, which must overcome all forms of nationalism, tribalism, and sectarianism and dedicate itself purely to establishing justice under God.
Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror.
He is the host of TRUTH JIHAD RADIO; a hard driving weekly radio show funded by listener donations at Patreon.com and FALSE FLAG WEEKLY NEWS (FFWN); an audio-video show produced by Tony Hall, Allan Reese, and Kevin himself. FFWN is funded through FundRazr.
He also has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS, and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications.
Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin; where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host.
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