BLOG 492
NOVEMBER 2, 2020
WISE ON THE MIDDLE EAST
Each week Robert L. Wise, Ph.D., explores the Middle Eastern situation, ranging from Egypt through Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the surrounding area. Wise first traveled to Israel and the neighboring countries in 1968. Two of his sons taught in Jordan and Lebanon universities. Wise presents an objective view of the behind the scenes situation in these countries.
THE POT BOILS OVER!
We do live in an inter-connected world! Hundreds protested on the Temple Mount against French President Emmanuel Macron and the French nation because caricature pictures of the Prophet Mohammad were displayed in France. On the other side of the world, another explosion erupted. The protestors chanted, “With our souls and with our blood, we sacrifice for our prophet, Muhammad,” with what Israel Police described as “nationalist slogans.” Hundreds of Palestinians also reportedly participated in a march condemning Macron’s remarks in Jerusalem. Demonstrators wore headbands declaring insulting Muhammad to be a red line and waved flags emblazened with the Islamic declaration of faith. Protesters also called Macron “the enemy of God.” Hundreds of Palestinians also reportedly participated in a march condemning Macron’s remarks. In Jerusalem’s Kafr Aqab neighborhood and in the neighboring Qalandiya refugee camp another protest erupted.
In Afghanistan, members of the Islamist party Hezb-i-Islami set the French flag ablaze. Its leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, warned Macron that if he doesn’t “control the situation, we are going to a third world war and Europe will be responsible.”The protests come amid rising tensions between France and Muslim-majority nations, which flared up earlier this month when a young Muslim man beheaded a French schoolteacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class. Those images, republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to mark the opening of the trial for the deadly 2015 attack against the publication, have stirred the ire of Muslims across the world who consider depictions of the prophet blasphemous.
On Thursday, a knife-wielding Tunisian man carrying a copy of the Quran killed three people at a church in the Mediterranean city of Nice. That same day, a Saudi man stabbed and lightly wounded a security guard at the French consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, prompting France to urge its citizens there to be on “high alert.” An estimated 2,000 worshippers celebrating the Mawlid, the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, took to the streets in the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore. Crowds led by Islamic parties chanted anti-France slogans, raised banners and clogged major roads en route to a Sufi shrine. Dozens of people furiously stomped on French flags and cried for the boycott of French products. In Multan, a city in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, thousands burned an effigy of Macron and demanded that Pakistan sever ties with France.
In a time of political division around the world, no rift runs deeper.
My latest books:
I Marched with Patton: A Firsthand Account of World War II Alongside One of the U.S. Army’s Greatest Generals!
by Frank Sisson (Author), Robert L. Wise (Author)
You can find I MARCHED WITH PATTON on Amazon.
82 Days on Okinawa: One American’s Unforgettable Firsthand Account of the Pacific War’s Greatest Battle!
You can find 82 DAYS ON OKINAWA on Amazon.
by Art Shaw (Author), Robert L. Wise (Author)
Dr. Robert L. Wise 