Daphne Anson: Wakey, Wakey to the Islamic Constitutions, Mr Wakeling!

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Tuesday, 14 June 2016

Wakey, Wakey to the Islamic Constitutions, Mr Wakeling!

I've just spotted this post (at left) by a friend on Facebook of a contemptible as-a-Jew Israel demoniser in the UK.

And what a silly (to put it no more strongly) premise it's built upon.

Assuredly, the misconception that Mr Wakeling displays here is certainly not confined to him. If it was, there would be no need to draw attention to the post.

It really should be pointed out, every time somebody makes the kind of assertion that he has here, that there are numerous countries in this world that avow and privilege Islam.

As I wrote, inter alia, some time ago on one of my Tuesday guest posts on Elder of Ziyon:

' [T]here is just one Jewish State on planet Earth and a very significant number of Arab ones, indeed a large number of states that are constitutionally, to a greater or lesser degree, self-defined as Islamic states in which, to some extent at least, disabling legislation against non-Muslims and the operation of sharia law applies.

There is, of course, Saudi Arabia, that most extreme of fundamentalist Arab states, in which no Jews may officially set foot and no churches are allowed, towards which a discrete silence reigns in view of the West’s reliance on the desert kingdom for oil and, Saudi Arabia’s export of Wahhabism notwithstanding, its tacit alliance with the West and Israel:

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic State with Islam as its religion. God’s Book and the Sunna of His Prophet … are its Constitution ... Government in Saudi Arabia derives from the Holy Quran and the Prophet’s traditions ... the State protects Islam, it implements its Sharia...”

And then there’s post-Taliban Afghanistan, whose Constitution proclaims:

“the religion of the State of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam ... The state shall devise and implement a unified educational curriculum based on the provisions of the sacred religion of Islam ... Presidential candidates ... should be ... Muslim.”

Post-Saddam Iraq:

“Islam is the official religion of the state and it is a fundamental source of legislation. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.”

And take Mauretania: its Constitution (1991) declares that country

“an indivisible, democratic, and social Islamic republic … Islam shall be the religion of the people and of the state … the President of the Republic shall be a Muslim”.

Or Pakistan, proclaimed as an “Islamic Republic” in 1956, which oversaw a radical islamification of its Constitution in 1985, and the following year foreshadowed the persecution of Christians with the making of blasphemy against Islam a capital offence, and where since 1993 basic constitutional rights are based upon the Quran and Sunna.

Or Egypt (“the Egyptian people form part of both the Arab and Islamic community … Islam is the state religion .... The principles of Islamic law form the main source of legislation’), Iran, and Malaysia, where conversion to a religion other than Islam is regarded as apostasy and in Iran liable to capital punishment.

With the exception of Turkey, officially still secular as Ataturk intended yet showing increasing signs of re-islamification under Erdogan, Islam is, I believe I’m correct in saying, entrenched in the constitutions of the remaining Muslim states.'

8 comments:

Ian15 June 2016 at 00:24
Or take the UK which has a government system that is is closer to an Iranian style theocracy than a secular representative democracy like Israel. In the UK the head of state is the head of a religion (CoE), there's a religious test for who can be head of state (no Catholic parent), there are reserved seats in both the House of Lords and the Privy Council for religious figures. Israel has none of these characteristics, Iran has single everyone. And yet ignorant bigots claim Israel is a religious state.
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Joe in Australia15 June 2016 at 10:56
This is a small point, compared to the greater point you made, but Israel isn't anything like "half the size of Italy". Italy is around 300,000 km^2; Israel is around 20,000 km^2. So about one-fifteenth.
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geoffff15 June 2016 at 11:11
Ireland, Sweden, Norway, perhaps a dozen other countries have constitutional recognition for a particular religious denomination usually in the preamble to the Constitutions.

Britain too of course.

Naturally this is largely symbolic these days but symbols have power. That is why they survive.

There is nothing like this in the Israeli Basic Law.
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