Tiada pegawai tinggi TUDM terbabit kes enjin jet hilang

KUALA LUMPUR: Polis mengesahkan tiada pegawai tinggi Tentera Udara Diraja Malaysia (TUDM) terbabit dalam kehilangan dua enjin pesawat tempur F-5E dua tahun lalu. 

Ketua Polis Negara, Tan Sri Musa Hassan, berkata siasatan tidak menemui pembabitan pegawai dalam kes berkenaan, kecuali tiga anggota bawahan dan seorang awam yang menjadi ejen menjual enjin itu. 

“Tiada pegawai tinggi tentera terbabit seperti yang dilaporkan sebelum ini. Justeru, polis berharap tidak timbul apa-apa lagi selepas ini. Buat masa ini, hanya empat suspek dikenal pasti, masing-masing tiga anggota tentera dan seorang ejen. 

“Kita sudah menahan mereka tetapi dibebaskan dengan jaminan sehingga pendakwaan,” katanya dalam temuramah khas bersama beberapa pertubuhan media, di pejabatnya di sini semalam. 

Ia sebagai mengulas laporan Berita Harian sebelum ini terhadap misteri kehilangan dua enjin jenis GE J85 21-A bernilai RM100 juta ketika diselenggarakan, masing-masing di Skuadron ke-12 Scorpion Butterworth dan Pangkalan Udara Kuala Lumpur…

Ulasan: Betul ke? Nampaknya selamatlah jerung-jerung TUDM di bawah siasatan PDRM. Siapakah Menteri Pertahanan sewaktu kecurian itu berlaku? Bilakah menteri di Malaysia akan letak jawatan seperti apa yang berlaku di negara maju? Kena tunggu sampai BN kalah barulah budaya berubah.

Sudut pidato diwujudkan semula

KUALA LUMPUR 30 Dis. – Institusi pengajian tinggi awam (IPTA) dan swasta (IPTS) dibenarkan mewujudkan semula sudut pidato khas bagi meningkatkan kemahiran pengucapan awam di kalangan mahasiswa.

Timbalan Menteri Pengajian Tinggi, Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah berkata, langkah itu bagi melahirkan lebih ramai mahasiswa yang berkebolehan berhujah serta meningkatkan bakat pengucapan awam.

Katanya, kemahiran berucap perlu dikuasai oleh mahasiswa dan tidak terhad kepada kumpulan pelajar tertentu sahaja seperti pemidato universiti.

“Kebenaran itu akan menghidupkan budaya keilmuan dan intelektual di universiti selain melahirkan mahasiswa cemerlang bukan sahaja dari segi akademik semata-mata.
n perlu dilakukan secara beretika, berhemah dengan persetujuan daripada Jabatan Hal Ehwal Pelajar (HEP) universiti masing-masing, kita yakin ia tidak akan menim
“Bagaimanapun, sudut pidato berkenaa bulkan implikasi negatif,” katanya.

Ulasan: Beri kebebasan seluasnya untuk untuk siswa bercakap mengenai masalah dalam negara. Tapi yang lebih utama ialah menghapuskan Akta Universiti dan Kolej Universiti (AUKU) yang telah melahirkan pemimpin negara yang takut bersuara menentang kezaliman.

Tragedi Memali:Muzium PDRM Berbohong,Tak Hormati Mahkamah

Baru sahaja 19 November lalu kita sama sama mengingati ulang tahun ke 24 peristiwa zalim yang dilakukan pihak berkuasa ke atas umat Islam di kampung Memali,Baling Kedah.Tragedi meragut 14 nyawa orang awam termasuk pendakwah terkenal di utara tanah air iaitu Almarhum Ustaz Ibrahim Libya bersama 13 muridnya dan empat anggota polis adalah satu titik hitam dalam sejarah politik Malaysia.

Selama hampir 20 tahun balu balu yang kehilangan suami mereka dalam tragedi menyayat hati itu berjuang di mahkamah untuk mendapat pembelaan,akhirnya Mahkamah Tinggi Alor Setar telah memihak kepada mereka walaupun pampasan yang mereka terima begitu kecil sekali.

Apapun sekurang kurangnya terbukti suami mereka yang terkorban bukan lah penjenayah seperti yang dihebahkan media massa milik pemerintah beberapa tahun yang lampau.Kalau lah suami mereka itu penjenayah maka mustahillah mereka dibayar pampasan oleh pihak kerajaan.

Sebenarnya sejak dari awal lagi DYMM Tuanku Sultan Kedah telah memberi isyarat bahawa 14 rakyatnya yang terkorban itu bukanlah penjenayah apabila baginda sendiri mencemar duli menziarahi makam mereka di Parit Panjang dan menjiruskan air mawar di kuburan mereka.

Mustahil sekali seorang Sultan sudi mencemar duli untuk menziarah dan menjiruskan air mawar ke kubur seorang Ketua Penjenayah.

Tetapi malangnya sesudah 24 tahun lalu,dan sesudah Mahkamah membuat keputusan yang membuktikan mereka itu bukan penjenayah,pihak polis masih juga belum insaf dan belum lagi mahu menghormati keputusan mahkamah itu.

Sebenarnya pagi tadi saya baru sahaja melawat Muzium PDRM di Jalan Perdana Kuala Lumpur yang terletak tidak jauh dari Muzium Kesenian Islam,Masjid Negara dan Pusat Islam.Saya pernah pergi ke sana beberapa kali sebelum ini.

Ada sesuatu yang memaksa saya untuk memberi ceramah pendek kepada beberapa orang pegawai polis yang bertugas di muzium tersebut.

Ketika saya berada di ruang 'C' bilik pameran terakhir yang saya lawati di muzium PDRM itu,saya sempat mengutip beberapa kisah tragedi keganasan yang pernah berlaku di negara ini yang turut mengorbankan pihak keselamatan melalui skrin touch yang disediakan pihak muzium.

Antara tragedi yang dipaparkan ialah Tragedi 13 Mei,Bukit Kepung dan lain lain yang tak sempat saya ingat.Tetapi yang pastinya saya tak pernah lupa ialah 'Tragedi Memali'.Bila jari saya menyentuh saja skrin tersebut terpaparlah catatan seperti di dalam gambar.

"Pada 19 November 1985 satu pertempuran telah tercetus dalam misi khas menangkap ketua penjenayah iaitu Ibrahim Mahmud atau lebih dikenali dengan nama Ibrahim Libya....". (Lihat gambar di atas, lihat di tempat lain, maaf.)

Menyirap darah saya.Tak reti bahasa ke?Saya terus mengakhiri lawatan saya dan bergegas ke kaunter penerangan.Tiga pegawai polis bertugas tersenyum."Kalau ada apa apa komen Encik boleh tulis",kata salah seorang dari mereka.Saya tak buang masa lagi,"Ya semua Ok! tapi satu yang saya tak puas hati.Nampaknya polis masih nak menipu dengan Tragedi Memali",saya terus lepaskan peluru pertama tepat di batang hidung pegawai tersebut.

Mereka terpinga pinga."Kenapa Encik, kamipun nak tau apa komen Encik, boleh tulis dalam buku ini". Saya pun meneruskan ceramah pendek tentang tragedi Memali kepada pegawai polis berkenaan.

Nampaknya mereka seakan akan buta maklumat atau saja saja buat buta. Siapa kata Ibrahim Libya Ketua Penjenayah? Apa jenayah dia buat. Dia ialah bekas Pegawai Pusat Islam.Sultan Kedah pun ziarah kubur dia. Kalau mereka penjenayah kenapa kerajaan bayar pampasan pada balu balu mereka?

Pegawai-pegawai polis itu tidak membantah apa yang saya cakap dan berjanji memaklumkan kepada pihak atasan. Saya tak pedulipun dengan janji mereka.saya terus mencatatkan komen saya di dalam buku catatan pelawat, menulis nama dan telefon, kalau kalau mereka teringin nak menelefon.

Apa yang saya nak pinta di sini kepada pihak pihak yang berautoriti di dalam PAS ,tolonglah lakukan sesuatu terutama PAS Kedah. Sebenarnya saya sudah pernah mendengar komen ini dikemukakan setahun dua yang lalu. Saya tidak tahu apa tindakan yang telah diambil. Jangan kita biarkan Muzium PDRM terus terusan menghina mereka yang terkorban dalam Tragedi Memali dan menyambung tugas Umno/BN untuk menipu rakyat jelata. Kita juga mahu mereka menghormati keputusan mahkamah yang memihak kepada penduduk Memali.

Dari: http://tukulbesi.blogspot.com/

Sah, Datuk Arshad Dihukum Najib Kerana Enggan Jilat Zionis

Akhirnya Kerajaan Malaysia yang pro-Amerika ini menemui jalan terbaik bagaimana hendak menghukum pegawai Kementerian Luar yang enggan menyokong penjajah Amerika. Hari ini, Menteri Luar, Datuk Seri Anifah Aman mengesahkan bahawa Duta Malaysia ke Austria, Datuk Arshad Hussain tidak akan menyambung tugasnya sebagai wakil tetap ke Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) di Vienna.

Kesilapan besar Datuk Arshad ialah kegagalan duta tersebut mematuhi arahan Kerajaan Malaysia supaya menyokong usul yang dibawa ke Lembaga Governor Agensi Tenaga Atom Antarabangsa (IAEA) pada 27hb November 2009 bagi mengutuk program tenaga nuklear Iran. Sebaliknya Datuk Arshad bersama perwakilan Venuezela dan Cuba menentang usul yang dibawa Amerika itu. 

Kepada Datuk Arshad, tahniah kerana keberanian anda menolak keangkuhan Amerika serta regim zionis Israel dan enggan tunduk kepada dasar pengecut negara yang dipimpin Najib. Kepada Datuk Anifah dan Datuk Seri Najib, cubalah belajar-belajar dari Datuk Arshad bagaimana untuk jadi jantan dan bukan pak turut kepada regim imperialis Amerika dan zionis Israel!

~ pendikar gunung kriang

Ulasan: Merdekakah tanah air kita?

Cadangan Suruhanjaya Diraja siasat Dr. M ditolak

KOTA KINABALU 29 Dis. - Kerajaan tidak akan menubuhkan suruhanjaya diraja bagi menyiasat dakwaan seorang penulis Barat kononnya bekas Perdana Menteri, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad telah membazirkan RM100 bilion.

Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak berkata, penubuhan suruhanjaya bebas berkenaan tidak sesuai kerana tuduhan tersebut merupakan kandungan sebuah buku.

"Ada saja saranan ditubuhkan suruhanjaya diraja, tetapi dalam hal ini, tidak wajar dicadangkan suruhanjaya diraja ditubuhkan semata-mata kerana ada orang menulis sebuah buku.

"Apa yang penting adalah kita melihat masa depan. Semua Perdana Menteri telah memberi sumbangan yang besar sehingga membolehkan masyarakat kini menikmati pelbagai kemajuan. 

"Jika tidak, Malaysia tidak akan menjadi maju seperti sekarang sehingga dianggap sebagai satu contoh," katanya…

Ulasan: Siasat kenapa tak siasat? Polis ada. Pencegah Rasuah pun ada. Tapi semua pula di bawah PM. Prinsip yang perlu rakyat pegang: Semua Perdana Menteri boleh memberi sumbangan yang besar tanpa membazirkan wang negara. 

MP pertikai peruntukan rumah bekas PM RM12 juta

KUALA LUMPUR, 16 Dis: Ahli Parlimen Pokok Sena, Datuk Mahfuz Omar mendakwa projek pembinaan rumah Bekas Perdana Menteri, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi bernilai hampir RM12 juta sebagai satu penyelewengan kewangan negara.

Mahfuz yang juga Naib Presiden PAS mendakwa, projek itu merupakan satu projek yang disembunyikan daripada pengetahuan umum kerana ianya tidak terdapat dan dalam Rancangan Malaysia ke-9 dan bajet 2010.

"Saya anggap projek ini sebagai sulit kerana ianya tidak terdapat dalam semakan Rancangan Malaysia ke-9, dalam bajet 2010 pun tidak ada peruntukan untuk projek itu," kata Mahfuz ketika ditemui di lobi parlimen pagi tadi.

Beliau turut mempersoal berhubung undang-undang atau peruntukan yang didakwa tidak pernah ada itu.

"Memang ada satu peruntukankah yang membolehkan kerajaan menghadiahkan sebuah rumah kepada seseorang Perdana Menteri selepas beliau bersara? Setakat yang saya tahu tidak ada peruntukan itu" katanya.

Turut dipersoal motif kerajaan memberikan peruntukan tersebut kepada bekas perdana menteri itu.

"Apakah tujuan Kerajaan beri sebuah rumah kepada bekas Perdana Menteri yang sudah pun mempunyai rumah.

"Kalau rumah itu diberikan atas sebab beliau telah banyak berjasa kepada negara, saya percaya ramai lagi orang yang berjasa kepada negara," tegasnya.

Mahfuz turut mempersoal kaedah projek berkenaan dibuat iaitu secara runding terus, dalam nilai yang tinggi.

"Kenapa projek itu dibuat secara runding terus dengan harga hampir RM12 juta. Ianya diberikan kepada TRC Corporation iaitu kontraktor yang membuat pengkalan kapal selam di Sabah yang bernilai RM400 juta lebih," ujarnya.

Beliau tidak menolak kemungkinan ada sesuatu yang disembunyikan kerajaan.

"Saya rasa ada sesuatu yang tidak kena dalam pengurusan kewangan negara kita sekarang ini. Kewangan disalahgunakan untuk kepentingan pihak tertentu sahaja.

"Kerajaan tidak harus sembunyikan perkara ini daripada pengetahuan rakyat dan wakil-wakil rakyat kerana ianya melibatkan cukai yang dibayar rakyat," tegasnya.

Sewaktu perbahasan belanjawan 2010 di Dewan Rakyat petang semalam, Mahfuz mengutarakan perkara tersebut dan meminta Menteri Kewangan memberikan penjelasan.

Bagaimanapun, Timbalan Menteri, Datuk Chor Chee Heung (BN-Alor Setar) berkata, Kementerian tidak mengetahui mengenai kewujudan projek tersebut dan akan memberikan jawapan bertulis.

Rumah berkenan dakwa Mahfuz terletak di Lot 65 seksyen 60, Persiaran Mahameru, dekat sini.

Projek berkenaan sedang dalam pembinaan dan telah siap 20 hingga ke 30 peratus.

Ulasan: Dungukan Rakyat, Projek Kroni di Utamakan?

Selamat Maal Hijrah 1431

dari email kawan

Smg semuanya sihat sjhtr.

Mau tak mau kita terpaksa menerima: Masa silih berganti...detik menjadi jam, hari, minggu, bulan, tahun, dekad, abad dsbnya...yg bererti kita semakin lama menggunakan nikmat kurniaan Allah.

Eloklah kita selalu mencari jalan2 untuk tingkatkan iman & amal kita selaras dengan usia yg semakin bertambah (atau semakin mengurang...berantung macam mana kita melihat).

Bersama2 lah kita berhijrah
…jadi insan yg lebih baik or terbaik daripada sudut agama kita...
...dan jadi insan yg sentiasa menolong orang lain...

Bersama2 kita dapat menjadi lebih hebat...
Together we can 'make' wonders. 

Bantulah apa yg boleh supaya agama kita dan umat menjadi maju & hebat.

Berhijrahlah sebelum anda dihijrahkan ke alam barzakh.

Salam kpd semua. Ws.

Hukum rejam kepada penzina..kejamkah?

Hukum rejam sampai mati kepada penzina..kejamkah?

Sekumpulan 'militan Islam' memaksa penduduk melihat mereka merejam seorang lelaki sehingga mati kerana berzina di Somalia, lapor sebuah akhbar semalam. 

Kenapa perkataan militan digunakan bila ada kumpulan yang menghukum pesalah dengan hukum Allah..mengikut syariat Islam..bukankah hukuman yang telah ditetapkan oleh Allah adalah wajib hambanya patuhi..

Pagi tadi TV1 dalam rancangan SPM..bahagian segmen tajuk2 akhbar pengulasnya menyatakan hukuman rejam sampai mati yang dibuat di Somalia itu adalah kejam...bila orang pertikaikan hukum yang Allah buat samalah dia pertikaikan Allah..siapa kamu untuk pertikaikan Pencipta kamu..cakap ikut sedap mulut tak guna ilmu..tak guna akal..ummi rasa ramai yang boleh tentukan apakah hukumnya kepada hamba yang pertikaikan perintah2 Allah..tu pasallah umat Islam sekarang ini terima macam2 bala...buat perkara yang Allah larang...tolak yang mana Allah suruh.. 

Di Somalia hukum Allah dilaksanakan walaupun belum menyeluruh.. Di Malaysia yang mengaku sebagai negara Islam apa cerita...?

“Perempuan yang berzina dan lelaki yang berzina hendaklah kamu dera masing-masing dengan 100 rotan dan janganlah kamu berasa kasihan belas terhadap keduanya dalam melaksanakan perintah Allah jika kamu beriman kepada Allah dan pada hari kemudian.Hendaklah hadir ketika dijatuhkan hukumun terhadap mereka sekumpulan dikalangan orang-orang yang beriman” (An-Nur:2, al Quranul Karim)

Pada zahir ayat ini menerangkan akan ketetapan hukuman keatas penzina–penzina iaitu 100 sebatan rotan tetapi telah ditetapkan di dalam Sunnah yang Qat’ie dan penzina yang belum berkahwin dan yang telah berkahwin. Adapun hukuman bagi penzina yang telah berkahwin ialah direjam dengan batu sehingga mati mengikut Sunnah secara lisan dan perbuatan. 

Telah diriwayatkan oleh Bukhari dan Muslim daripada Ibnu Mas’ud Bahawasanya Nabi Muhammad salallahualaihi wasalam telah bersabda:

“Tidak halal darah orang-orang Islam kecuali belarkunya salah satu daripada tiga perkara iaitu orang yang telah berkahwin berzina, orang yang membunuh dengan sengaja dan keluar daripada agamanya juga berpecah daripada jamaah orang-orang Islam”

Allah S.W.T telah memerintahkan sekumpulan daripada oraang-orang yang beriman untuk melakukan penyaksian ketika hukuman itu dijalankan adalah kerana untuk memberi peringatan, nasihat dan pengajaran. 

http://haninasution.blogspot.com/2009/12/hukum-rejam-sampai-mati-kepada.html

Hamas says it will join Iran if Israel attacks

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said on Tuesday that Islamist groups would back Iran if the country was attacked by Israel as the United Nations said 44 percent of the West Bank was occupied by the Israeli military and Jewish settlers. 

"All Islamist militant groups will form a united front with Iran against Israel if it attacks Iran," Meshaal told a news conference.

"We are all parts of the same body ... We all should fight against the mutual enemy. But how, the leaders will decide based on our capacities."

Israel has said it was readying all options to try to force Iran to halt its atomic programme, which the West fears is a cover to build nuclear bombs. Iran denies the charge.

Meshaal said Israel was a danger for the Middle East region.

"God willing a regional resistance has the capacity to confront this danger," Meshaal said in the televised news conference…

Comment: Together we will crush our common enemy.

Hijrah Rasullullah : Berhijrahlah sebelum dihijrahkan

Hijrah Rasullullah

Kita sememangnya wajib bersyukur kepada Allah SWT Yang telah memberikan banyak keni'matan kepada kita. Yang seandainya kita diminta menghitungnya, pastinya kita tak akan mampu melakukannya. Dan, keni'matan yang terbesar yang diberikan kepada kita, iaitu Islam. Dan kewujudan kita sebagai orang yang beragama Islam. Sebab, ramai orang yang diberi keni'matan hidup, tetapi tidak semuanya mahu memeluk Islam. Tetapi, keni'matan yang lebih besar lagi, yang diberikan kepada kita ialah wujudnya dakwah Islam dan orang-orang yang memikulnya, sehinggalah Islam ini sampai kepada kita. Dua perkara inilah yang tidak semestinya kita lupakan. Iaitu, dakwah Islam dan orang-orang yang memikulnya, sehinggalah Islam itu sampai kepada kita.

Oleh itu, sangat munasabah apabila Hijrah baginda Rasulullah SAW diperingati sebagai suatu peristiwa sejarah yang paling penting dalam kehidupan dakwah rasulullah SAW. Yang di sini, kita peringati setiap tahunnya dengan nama "Maal Hijrah". Mengapa peristiwa Hijrah baginda Rasulullah SAW ini merupakan peristiwa yang sangat penting?

Pertama, dakwah Rasulullah SAW apabila masih berada di Makkah, telah melalui masa-masa yang sangat sulit. Terutama setelah RAsulullah SAW diperintahkan Allah untuk menyampaikan Islam secara terbuka kepada masyarakat Makkah, dan menunjukkan bahawa baginda tidak bersendirian, melainkan ada jamaah yang menyertainya, setelah Allah menurunkan surah al-Hijr:94:

"Maka sampaikanlah secara terbuka apa yang diperintahkan kepada kamu, dan tentanglah orang-orang musyrik itu."

Setelah ayat ini turun, tepatnya setelah Umar bin Khattab dan Hamzah bin Abdul Muthallib memeluk Islam, maka Rasulullah SAW memulakan dakwah secara terbuka. Baginda, kemudian melakukan tawaf mengelilingi Ka'bah, yang diikuti oleh para sahabat. Sejak itu, para sahabat dan pengikut baginda, termasuklah baginda sendiri, setiap hari menerima penyiksaan daripada penguasa Makkah, dan orang-orang kafir Quraisy.

Pernah baginda sedang shalat berhampiran Ka'bah, leher baginda diikat oleh Uqbah bin Abi Mu'ait, sehingga baginda tidak dapat bernafas, sampai akhirnya baginda ditolong oleh Abu Bakar. Pada masa yang lain, apabila baginda sedang shalat, tengkuk leher baginda dipukul oleh Uqbah bin Mu'ait, sehingga baginda pengsan, dan akhirnya ditolong oleh Fatimah. Puteri baginda itu menangis, sedih, melihat nasib ayahanda tercintanya dianiaya oleh orang-orang kafir. Bukan baginda sahaja yang mengalami nasib buruk seperti itu, malahan keluarga Yasir telah disiksa, sehinggalah Sumayyah meninggal dunia sebagai syahidah pertama.

Setelah penganiayaan secara fizikal tidak mampu menggoyahkan keteguhan para pemikul da'wah ini, maka orang-orang kafir itu telah merancang untuk mengasingkan baginda SAW dan para pengikutnya. Maka, terjadilah rancangan jahat itu selama lebih kurang 3 tahun. Baginda dan para sahabat hidup di sebuah lembah dalam keadaan kekurangan makanan, pakaian, pekerjaan, rumah dan diusir dari Makkah. Dan setelah itulah, baginda meminta para sahabat untuk meninggalkan Makkah menuju ke Habbasyah (Ethiopia-Afrika) untuk mencari perlindungan kepada Raja Najasyi, dengan maksud untuk mempertahankan agama mereka dari serangan secara berterusan yang dilakukan oleh orang-orang kafir.

Maka, orang-orang kafir juga tidak mahu tinggal diam, sehinggalah mereka menyampaikan maklumat-maklumat yang mengelirukan di luar negeri, untuk mengusir kembali kaum muslimin yang berhijrah ke sana. Orang-orang kafir tersebut berusaha untuk mengadu domba Raja Najasyi dengan kaum muslimin, yang akhirnya tidak berjaya.

Sedangkan baginda Rasulullah SAW dan beberapa sahabat masih duduk di Makkah. Justeru menjadikan tindakan orang-orang kafir semakin biadab kepada baginda SAW. Sehingga baginda berfikir untuk mencari perlindungan, kerana dakwah Islam tidak mungkin lagi disebarkan kepada orang-orang Makkah. baginda pada masa itu cuba berhijrah ke Taif, untuk mencari perlindungan kepada Bani Tsaqif, yang akhirnya malah baginda diusir dengan cara tidak sopan. Baginda dilempari dengan batu dan kotoran, sehingga tubuh baginda berlumuran darah dan kotor. Sehinggakan Zaed bin Haritsah menangis, melihatkan keadaan baginda yang sangat menyedihkan itu.

Baginda, mencuba untuk masuk kembali ke Makkah, meskipun baginda tahu bahawa baginda akan dibunuh, apabila berada disana. Maka, baginda berusaha mencari perlindungan kepada Mut'im bin Adi, salah seorang tokoh pemuda Makkah. Dan beliau sanggup melindungi keselamatan baginda SAW dan dakwah baginda. Sejak itulah, baginda berada dalam perlindungan Mut'im bin Adi.

Sejak itu, baginda selalu mendatangi kabilah-kabilah yang datang ke Makkah untuk menyampaikan dakwah Islam yang baginda bawa. Meskipun risikonya sudah jelas sekali bagi baginda, sebagaimana sumpah baginda: "Demi Allah, seandainya mereka boleh meletakkan matahari di tangan kananku, dan bulan di tangan kiriku, aku tetap tidak akan meninggalkan urusan dakwah ini, sehingga ia dimenangkan Allah, atau aku dibinasakan dalam usaha untuk menuntutnya."

Maka, baginda SAW, tetap tidak takut, dan terus-menerus berdakwah, meskipun pada masa itu tidak satu kabilah pun yang menerima. Pernah baginda menyampaikan dakwah ini kepada kabilah Amru bin Sa'sa'ah, yang pada awalnya bersedia menerima seruan dakwah Rasulullah SAW, namun dengan syarat bahawa kepemimpinan setelah baginda mestilah diserahkan kepada kabilah Amru bin Sa'sa'ah, namun hal ini dijawab dengan tegas oleh baginda: "Sesungguhnya perkara (kekuasaan kepemimpinan) ini merupakan hak Allah, yang akan Dia serahkan kepada sesiapa sahaja yang Dia kehendaki."

Setelah jawapan itu disampaikan oleh Rasulullah, baginda langsung diusir dari khemah kabilah Amru bin Sa'sa'ah. Inilah keadaan dakwah dan keteguhan baginda dan para sahabat dalam menyampaikan dakwah Islam. Setelah semuanya itu, Allah memberikan pertolongan dengan dipertemukannya baginda saw. dengan orang-orang Aus dan Hazraj yang datang untuk berhaji ke Makkah. Maka, apabila mereka mendengarkan seruan Rasul untuk mengimaninya, mereka langsung menerimanya, dan setelah itulah terjadi Bai'at Aqabah I, yang dilakukan di bukit Aqabah. Dan ini merupakan titik awal perkembangan dakwah Rasulullah saw. yang pertama, sehinggalah dakwah Islam ini sampai ke Yasrib,
(nama Madinah sebelum dirubah oleh baginda saw).

Setelah rombongan Aus dan Hazraj kembali ke Madinah, mereka meminta Nabi saw. untuk mengirimkan orang agar mengajarkan Islam kepada mereka di sana. Ketika itulah, baginda mengirim Mus'ab bin Umair. Salah seorang sahabat Rasulullah, yang sebelumnya merupakan pemuda yang kaya raya, tetapi lebih memilih hidup sederhana bersama Rasulullah. Mus'ab lah yang menyampaikan pelajaran Al-Qu'an kepada penduduk Madinah, sehingga beliau mendapat gelaran sebagai Muqriul Madinah.

Dan ternyatalah dakwah Islam yang disampaikan oleh Mus'ab dan orang-orang Aus dan Hazraj yang telah memeluk Islam itu berjaya merubah public opinion penduduk Madinah, sehinggalah semua orang memperkatakan tentang Islam. Akhirnya, bilangan orang yang menyertai Islam menjadi semakin ramai, sehingga mereka mula melaksanakan solat Jumaah yang pertama kalinya di sana.

Berita ramainya penduduk Madinah yang menyertai Islam ini telah menyenangkan hati Rasulullah saw. dan para sahabat yang masih menyertai baginda di Makkah. Dan untuk membuktikan kesiapan Madinah sebagai pusat tegaknya dan pengembangan Islam, maka baginda meminta Mus'ab untuk mengirimkan mereka ke Makkah. Maka, berangkatlah pada musim haji berikutnya, seramai 75 orang. 73 orang terdiri daripada lelaki, dan 3 orang lainnya adalah perempuan. Mereka kemudian sampai di Makkah dan bertemu langsung dengan Nabi, menyatakan sumpah setia yang dikenal dengan Bai'at Aqabah II. Bai'at ini juga dikenal sebagai sumpah setia untuk hidup dan mati demi Islam. Yang juga merupakan penyerahan kekuasaan orang-orang Madinah kepada Nabi untuk menjadi Ketua Negara Islam. Dan inilah yang mendorong baginda untuk berhijrah ke Madinah.

Kedua, hijrah Rasulullah saw. ke Madinah bukan untuk melarikan diri, atau menyelamatkan diri dari ancaman orang-orang kafir. Tetapi untuk menegakkan Islam, sehingga Islam ini menjadi agama dan ideologi yang boleh disebarkan ke seluruh dunia, untuk menyelamatkan dunia daripada kehancuran. Sebagaimana yang dinyatakan oleh Allah SWT. dalam surat At-Taubah: 33 /Al-Fath: 28 /As-Shaf: 9.

"Dialah Yang mengutus Rasul-Nya dengan (membawa) petunjuk dan agama yang haq, agar Dia memenangkan agamanya, keatas agama-agama yang lainnya."

Maka, tanpa hijrahnya Rasulullah ke Madinah, Islam tidak akan pernah sampai kepada kita di Malaysia. Sebab, tidak pernah wujud negara Islam yang menyebarkan dakwah ke seluruh dunia. Tetapi dengan hijrahnya baginda saw. ke Madinah, maka sejak masa itulah negara Islam berdiri untuk yang pertama kalinya di Madinah, dan sejak itulah Islam disebarkan dengan dakwah dan jihad ke seluruh dunia. Sehinggalah Islam berkembang dengan cepatnya ke seluruh dunia, yang dimulakan dengan penaklukan wilayah Hejaz (622-632 M.) semasa baginda saw. kemudian secara berterusan, wilayah Syam di taklukkan semasa Umar bin Khattab. Sehinggalah Islam masuk Eropah, setelah beberapa wilayahnya ditaklukkan pada tahun 696-705 M. pada masa Khilafah Ummayah. Pada masa yang sama, Islam juga telah sampai di Russia. Dan pada tahun 712, Islam telah sampai di Asia Tenggara.

Tetapi memandangkan pentingnya peristiwa Hijrah Rasulullah saw. ini, maka sememangnya peristiwa ini bukan sekadar menjadi peringatan, melainkan lebih daripada itu. Peristiwa Hijrah tersebut, justeru wajib dijadikan pelajaran, bahawa Islam menjadi agama kita, dan sampai kepada kita bukan merupakan peristiwa kecil, tetapi merupakan peristiwa besar. Kalau bukan kerana pengorbanan Rasul dan para sahabat yang tidak kecil itu, pastilah Islam ini tidak akan sampai ke hari ini. Dan kalau bukan kerana wujudnya orang-orang yang sanggup hidup dan mati demi Islam ini, tentulah Islam ini tidak sampai ke hari ini. Dan kalau bukan kerana wujudnya orang-orang yang rela mengorbankan harta, keluarga dan nyawa mereka, pastinya Islam tidak akan wujud hingga ke hari ini.

Dan oleh itu, kita semua berhutang kepada mereka. Dan kita tidak dapat membayarnya, sebab mereka bukan meminta ganjaran daripada kita. Tetapi, mereka menegakkan Islam dengan seluruh pengorbanan mereka, kerana mereka telah menjual diri mereka kepada Allah, yang jiwa, harta dan semua yang mereka korbankan itu telah dibeli oleh Allah dengan syurga-Nya.

"Sesungguhnya Allah telah membeli daripada orang-orang yang beriman itu, diri dan harta mereka, bahawa mereka akan diberi (imbalan) syurga." (Q.s. At-Taubah: 111).

Saat ini , ketika ini Islam telah kehilangan generasi terbaiknya yang sanggup menjual diri, harta dan nyawanya kepada Allah untuk mendapatkan syurga-Nya, dengan menegakkan Islam. Dan inilah yang menyebabkan hilangnya cahaya petunjuk Islam, setelah runtuhya Khilafah Islamiyah, Turki Othmaniyah, pada 3 Mac 1924. Setelah itu, negeri kaum muslimin berterusan mengalami musibah. 

Islam ketika ini memerlukan generasi yang sanggup mengorbankan diri, harta serta nyawa mereka untuk menegakkannya. Kerana sekiranya tanpa itu, Islam mustahil kembali berjaya diperingkat antara bangsa, seperti pada masa baginda dan para sahabat hingga 13 abad kemudian. Maka, semuanya terpulang kepada keimanan dan ketaqwaan kita semua. Tetapi yang wajib diyakini, bahawa syurga dan neraka itu adalah abadi. Syurga merupakan puncak keni'matan yang tidak diberikan secara percuma oleh Allah kepada manusia. Kerana itu, semakin tinggi pengorbanan kita, maka semakin besar keni'matan kita di akhirat kelak. Dan sebaliknya. Akhir kata semoga kita termasuk diantara orang-orang yang sanggup memberikan pengorbanan yang tertinggi demi Islam, semata untuk mencari ridha Allah dan syurga-Nya.

Wallahu a'lam.
http://lenggangkangkung-my.blogspot.com/2009/12/hijrah-rasullullah.html

Caj Kereta Keluar Masuk (VEP): Singapura vs Kereta Malaysia

Caj Masuk Kereta (VEP) Singapura Keluar Masuk vs Kereta Malaysia

Kadang-kadang saya terfikir juga. Bukan niat saya untuk mendatangkan kesusahan kepada orang Singapura ye. Kalau di Johor Bahru, kereta Singapore semata sehingga berlakunya kesesakan disebabkan kehadiran dan pertambahan bilangan kereta Singapura dari hari ke sehari. Kalau hujung minggu lagi teruk.  

Bab cara memandu anda boleh lihat sendiri, bagaimana. Bukan semua, tetapi sebilangan besar menunjukkan jaguh di jalan raya.Apa yang berlaku sebaliknya kepada rakyat Malaysia yang masuk ke Singapura untuk tempoh yang terlalu sekejap? Mereka boleh mengenakan pelbagai cukai dan peraturan kepada kita. Sampaikan jikalau pada weekdays, kena bayar SGD 20.00 per car.

Apa salahnya kalau tak banyak pun, kita impose Vehicle Entry Permit(VEP) kepada kereta Singapura. Tentang nilainya biar kerajaan yang tentukan. Bukannya apa, hasilnya itu sebenarnya boleh digunakan untuk menjana pendapatan tambahan negara terutamanya untuk tujuan pembangunan dan prasarana. Yang mendapat faedah orang Malaysia dan orang Singapura yang datang ke Malaysia mendapat tempiasnya juga. Kalau dikenakan contohnya RM200-RM300 setahun tak jejas pun kehadiran pelancong Singapura. Di mana lagi untuk mereka keluar daripada kepompong negara Singapura tu, kalau tidaknya Malaysia. Sudah berapa la kita berikan kebebasan kepada orang-orang Singapura, jadi tiada salahnya peraturan ini diperkenalkan untuk kebaikan bersama dan manfaat kepada rakyat Malaysia sendiri. Mungkin sudah tibanya Malaysia perkenalkan peraturan ini.

Adakah kedatangan pelancong Singapore untuk bercuti akan terjejas? Saya tidak merasakan caj yang bakal dikenakan akan membebankan mereka. Kat mana lagi boleh test drive kereta-kereta mewah mereka itu? Selain di Malaysia. Apala sangat orang Singapore dengan caj VEP, kalau ia jadi dilaksanakan nanti.

Mari kita lihat apa caj-caj yang dikenakan oleh Singapura jika orang Malaysia jejak kaki di sana. Antaranya :

Mengenakan yuran S$150 (RM351) sebulan terhadap setiap pekerja asing dalam erti kata lain orang Malaysia yang memegang permit kerja.
Setiap kenderaan Malaysia yang ingin memasuki Singapura mesti didaftarkan dan dikenakan bayaran Permit Kenderaan Masuk (VEP) S$4 (RM9.40) sehari untuk motosikal; S$20 (RM44.80) sehari untuk kereta dan van. Bayaran untuk bas dan lori saya tidak pasti.(Yang mana tahu, tolong mention di ruangan komen). Walaupun bayaran itu tinggi, ramai rakyat Malaysia memandu kereta untuk ke Singapura.
Memastikan setiap kereta Singapura yang ingin meninggalkan republik itu, menunjukkan bacaan meter minyak sekurang-kurangnya tiga perempat daripada bacaan penuh. Jika kurang, saman S$500 (RM1,170) akan dikenakan.
Mengenakan cukai (GST) sebanyak tujuh peratus terhadap setiap barang yang dibeli sama ada rakyat Singapura sendiri atau rakyat asing.
Mengenakan bayaran tempat letak kenderaan termasuk motosikal. 
Memastikan rakyat Malaysia yang disaman kerana kesalahan lalu lintas membayar saman pada hari sama saman dikeluarkan sebelum meninggalkan Singapura. Singapura mengamalkan sistem saman elektronik yang boleh mengesan kenderaan disaman pada setiap pintu keluar Kastam Imigresen dan Kuarantin (KIK)
Mengenakan tol terhadap pengguna lebuh raya. Yang tak tahan motosikal pun termasuk sekali.
Melarang rakyat Singapura atau penduduk tetap memiliki kenderaan asing.
Mengenakan saman yang tinggi iaitu S$70 (RM163.80) terhadap kenderaan Malaysia yang tidak mempunyai mesin IU (digunakan untuk membayar VEP dan tol secara automatik) ketika melalui lebuh raya bertol. Kos pemasangan mesin IU, sebanyak S$155 (RM362.70) seunit.

Dulu Malaysia hampir-hampir mengenakan levi RM20 ke atas setiap kenderaan asing, kemudian buat palang dan semua lorong kereta/bas/lori di semua Pusat Pemeriksaan Imigresen, habis duit berjuta-juta memasang terminal tol. Akhirnya, akur dengan permintaan/bantahan negara-negara jiran, maka projek itu terbatal selepas diumumkan oleh Menteri Kebudayaan dan Pelancongan Malaysia pada 31-8-2007. 

Larangan membeli minyak petrol/diesel bersubsidi di dalam lingkungan 50 km sempadan negara, dibatalkan sekelip mata ketika harga minyak Malaysia naik mendadak (RM2.70) menghampiri harga pasaran dunia (RM3.00). Pada masa itu, kenderaan asing masih boleh menikmati 30 sen subsidi pada masa itu bersama dengan rakyat Malaysia. Begitu juga dengan larangan membeli minyak masak dan barangan keperluan bersubsidi seperti gula, penguatkuasaan dibuat secara “sementara”, rakyat asing kini menikmati barangan subsidi bersama. Katanya tahun depan bakal dilaksanakan penguatkuasaan dalam membanteras penikmatan subsidi dikalangan warga asing. Kita lihat bagaimana mekanismenya yang bakal digunakan kerajaan. Diharap berbaloi-baloi.

Kelemahan ketara apabila rakyat Singapura yang telah dikenakan saman. Mereka tidak akan ditahan apabila keluar dari Malaysia walaupun saman belum dijelaskan. Sebab Malaysia sendiri tiada sistem yang boleh track atau mengesan kesalahan yang ada pada setiap kenderaan yang keluar masuk negara. Hai……..sepatutnya Malaysia sudah ada mekanisme untuk mendaftarkan kehadiran kereta-kereta Singapore di Malaysia ini. Apatah lagi jika hendak menyemak saman.

Tetapi itula….suka atau kita tidak suka sekarang ini hakikatnya……

Malaysia sampai sekarang tak impose VEP kat kereta Singapore, tetapi apabila kereta Malaysia masuk Singapore dikenakan bayar S$20 weekday.

Pekerja Malaysia di Singapore kena bayar levy, tapi sebaliknya tiada caj.

Sebarang isu “bertindih”, Malaysia Singapura masih lagi tidak menampakkan kesudahan dalam isu air

Malaysia walaupun sudah ada CIQ baru, dalam pada masa sama jambatan bengkok pun sudah diberikan kontrak pun akhirnya terbatal dengan mudahnya. Sangat mudah RM700 juta hilang begitu sahaja.

P/S : Sekarang ini Singapura tengah buat promosi, dari pukul 12 tengah malam sampai pukul 2 pagi. Free of caj masuk sana.

PP/S : Kalau nak beri subsidi, biarlah undang-undang serta penguatkuasaan undang-undang itu diadakan secara teratur. Kerajaan asyik-asyik habiskan membuat sesuatu polisi dan menggunakan duit negara/rakyat, bayar duit berjuta-juta membayar duit palang + komputer + Sistem kepada Iris Sdn. Bhd dan syarikat-syarikat tertentu serta beri subsidi kepada rakyat asing. Akhirnya, menemui “jalan mati”

PPP/S : Tindakan ini amat menghampakan rakyat. Buat ubah, buat ubah. Ini semua yang merugikan rakyat bawahan.

Ulasan: Malaysia nampaknya takut-takut melaksanakan polisi luar negara dengan jiran agak jahat dengan kita.  Kenapa takut-takut?

Mana Maruah Melayu Islam?

Banyak berita yang mengemparkan penduduk Malaysia, terutamanya penduduk melayu Islam dengan berbagai kes samun dan pembunuhan. Kes jenayah seperti ini sering dan kerap kita dengar di dada-dada akhbar dan media. Adakah ini semua bala Allah yang diturunkan kepada umat manusia umumnya yang semakin terhakis keimanan mereka. 20 tahun dahulu susah dan jarang kita dengar kes-kes samun atau bunuh seperti sekarang. Kehidupan manusia hari ini musnah disebabkan ketamakkan, kerakusan, kejahatan dan kebodohan manusia itu sendiri.

Kes samun yang terbaru melibatkan pembunuhan warga emas di Kampung Besar, Tasek Gelugor Pulau Pinang. Kesian sungguh dan menyayat hati orang tua dibunuh dengan kejam tanpa belas kasihan. Kenapa semua ini boleh berlaku? Perkara ini berlaku adalah disebabkan manusia sekarang ini jauh dengan agama Islam, Pendidikan Islam atau Pendidikan Moral kurang ditekankan di semua peringkat masyarakat. Malah subjek Pendidikan Islam ini dijadikan mata pelajaran sahaja, bukan sebagai penghayatan.

Kebanyakan keluarga melayu Islam tidak mementingkan pendidikan Islam, mereka hanya menekankan pendidikan sains, matematik, bahasa inggeris dan sebagainya untuk anak-anak mereka lulus dalam peperiksaan untuk masuk ke universiti. Mereka rasa semua ini sudah cukup dan berjaya mendidik anak-anak mereka. Tetapi mereka lupa semua yang mereka tekankan dan pentingkan itu merupakan luaran atau intelektual sahaja, ilmu-ilmu ekademik semua merupakan ilmu keperluan jasmani sahaja untuk mencari kedudukan atau mencari makan dan minum sahaja. Maka dari sinilah masalah-masalah sosial makin meningkat dan makin berleluasa. Timbul berbagai jenayah yang baru seperti mat rempit, black metal, skinhead, dadah dan sebagainya. Semua ini melibatkan muda mudi Islam atau melayu Islam. 

Jarang kita dengar bangsa Cina dan India terlibat dengan jenayah seperti ini. Kebanyakannya semua dari orang melayu Islam. Kes buang anak di dalangi oleh remaja melayu Islam, dadah mejoriti melayu Islam, mat rempit melayu Islam dan semuanya melayu Islam. Apa yang perlu dibangakan kepada melayu Islam. malah melayu Islam telah mencemarkan maruah Islam yang suci.

Jika perkara ini tidak dibendung, kemungkinan 10 atau 20 tahun negara kita tergadai kepada bukan melayu, kerana orang melayu terlibat dengan jenayah dan mempunyai pendidikan tidak tinggi sebab merempit, dadah dan sebagainya. Bagi sesiapa yang berkeluarga dan mempunyai anak, tanamkan roh Islam ke dalam jiwa anak seperti umur 7 tahun ajak sembahyang, menutup aurat, memperkenalkan perkara yang benar dan salah di sisi undang-undang Islam dan negara.

Anak-anak dididik atau diajar dengan penuh suasana Islam, saya yakin jika diizinkan Allah anak-anak tersebut tidak akan melakukan perkara kesesatan atau jenayah, kerana mereka mengetahui batasan Islam. Negara juga akan kembali aman dan tidak lagi kita dengar masalah-masalah sosial dari kalangan melayu Islam. Kesimpulan mudah mari kita berpegang kepada syiar Islam, maka hidup kita dan keluarga kita akan bahagia di dunia dan di akhirat.

http://tranungkite.net/v10/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=1107

Tudung Akhir Zaman..

oleh: senyumsokmo

pakai tudung tutup kepala, 
masih tampak buah di dada, 
lengan dan kaki masih terseksa, 
makin seksi buka selera si teruna. 

baju ketat si anak dara, 
seluar sendat pembungkus peha, 
tudung litup atas kepala, 
apakah maknanya itu semua? 

tudung di atas kepala, 
tapi jalan berkepit dengan pakwe 
silap hari bulan, dah banyak 'tanda-tanda' 
eeiii...buat malu bangsa dan agama!

http://www.tranungkite.net/v10/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3064&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60

Pakai Tudung/Kerudung vs Tutup Aurat

Pakai Tudung vs Tutup Aurat

Di zaman 70-an, cukup sukar untuk melihat wanita Muslim pakai tudung @ kerudung @ hijab. Nisbahnya sekitar 1:50. Satu pakai, 50 tak pakai. Di pertengahan zaman 80-an, sudah ada kelihatan ramai wanita Muslim pakai tudung. Nisbahnya 1:10. Satu pakai, sepuluh tak pakai. Zaman 90-an menyaksikan lebih ramai pakai tudung, dan yang tak pakai tudung sudah berkurangan. Nisbah 10:3. 10 pakai tudung, 3 tak pakai. Di zaman 2000 ke atas, 10 pakai tudung, 1 orang tak pakai tudung.

Tetapi yang pakai tudung ada bermacam ragam dan ada yang pakai tudung kerana pelbagai tujuan.
Ada yang pakai sebab ikut-ikut
Ada yang pakai sebab malu kalau tak pakai
Ada yang pakai sebab trend wanita Muslim pakai tudung
Ada yang pakai sebab ia adalah uniform sekolah atau sebahagian dari pakaian tempat kerja
Ada yang pakaia sebab ada peraturan suruh pakai seperti di dalam masjid atau di pasar Khadijah
Ada yang pakai sebab takut pada emak & ayah
Ada yang pakai kerana iman dan taqwa

Apa pun, menutup kepala adalah sebahagian daripada ajaran Islam dalam menutup aurat bagi wanita. Tetapi tutut rambut sahaja tidak cukup kalau tidak tutup aurat dengan cara yang betul.
Ada yang pakai tudung, tetapi nampak jambul; rambut masih terurai di depan dan di belakang
Ada yang pakai tudung, tetapi tidak tutup dada
Ada yang pakai tudung, tetapi masih nampak bayangan rambutnya kerana kain tudung yang nipis.
Ada yang pakai tudung, tetapi pakai T-shirt hingga nampak bentuk rupa ketulan badan dan kulit tangan
Ada yang pakai tudung, tetapi memakai seluar hingga menampakkan lingkaran tubuh bahagian bawah pusat hingga ke lutut
Ada yang pakai tudung, tetapi memakai skirt hingga menampakkan betis
Ada yang pakai tudung, tetapi masih nampak leher
Ada yang memakai tudung, tetapi masih pakai pakaian yang ketat atau jarang/transparent

Kalau begitulah keadaannya, sebenarnya wanita Muslim itu belum lagi menutup aurat yang sempurna. Seolah-olah seseorang wanita itu baru nak berjinak-jinak dengan agama sepertimana muallaf yang berjinak dengan agama. Setengah orang kata, dia tidak serius, dia tidak ikhlas, dia tidak jujur, atau dia tidak faham cara memakai tudung dan menutup aurat yang betul dalam Islam. Ringkasnya ia masih jahil dalam bab menutup aurat. Bagi yang sudah tahu tetapi masih berkeras tidak mahu memakai tudung dengan cara yang betul, maka ia masih engkar pada Allah.

Hari ini apabila ramai wanita mahu memakai tudung, maka pereka fesyen dan peniaga mengambil kesempatan merekabentuk fesyen supaya pemakainya boleh memilih pelbagai rupa bentuk fesyen tudung. Pereka fesyen dan peniaga mencari keuntungan di atas permintaan dan trend wanita Islam memakai tudung tanpa mengira samada rekaan fesyennya atau jualan tudung itu memenuhi syarat pakaian tudung dalam Islam.

Akhirnya direka dan dijuallah tudung tiga segi yang pendek dan kontot hingga tidak dapat menutup dada dan ketulan daging tubuh wanita. Adakah pereka dan penjual akan terlepas dari hukum Tuhan kerana menyedia dan menjual tudung seperti itu?

Akhirnya direka dan dijuallah tudung yang kain yang mahal dan rupa yang menarik sehingga pemakainya berlumba-lumba menunjuk kemewahan dan menunjuk lagak kain siapa yang lebih mahal dan lebih cantik? Timbullah riak dan iri hati.

Salahkah bermewah? Salahkah beli kain tudung yang mahal kalau kita mampu? Salahkah berfesyen bila memakai tudung? 
Tidak salah, asalkan
       tutup rambut selengkapnya
       melabuh tudung hingga menutup dada
       bahagian lain pada tubuh badan wanita juga ditutup dengan dengan pakaian          longgar, termasuk melabuh kain baju ke paras peha dan pinggul jika memakai        seluar
       memakai tudung dengan iman dan taqwa

Apa pun, manusia ada nafsu. Kadang nafsu mengatasi iman dan akal. Itu urusan dia dengan Allah.

Kalau iman dan taqwa tinggi, ia akan tunduk pada peraturan cara memakai tudung yang betul dan menutup aurat dengan sempurna.

Kalau tepuk dada tanya selera, maka ia akan utamakan nafsu. Kalau tepuk dada tanya iman, dia tidak banyak cakap, tidak banyak berkira, tidak banyak kompromi lagi. Dia tahu dia hanyalah salah satu ciptaan Allah, dan dia akan kembali kepada Allah dan berhadapan dengan Allah serta menjawab pelbagai soalan mengenai auratnya.

http://albangi.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/pakai-tudung-vs-tutup-aurat/

Hamas vows to continue resistance

Ismail Haniya, the de facto Hamas prime minister in Gaza, has vowed to continue his movement's "resistance and struggle" against Israel, as Hamas marked its 22nd anniversary.

Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters at a rally in Gaza City on Monday, Haniya said that Middle East peace talks had "failed".

"Negotiations have failed, and the negotiators said after 18 years that the result is zero," he told the crowd, who were dressed in the party's green and waving flags.

Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip two years ago after forcing out security forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of the rival Fatah faction.

Organisers said the celebrations revelead growing popularity for the political movement.

"The Palestinian people's trust in the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, increases day by day," Abu Talha, head of popular activities in Hamas, told the Reuters news agency…. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/12/20091214152114620921.html

Comment: Truth will one day crush the might supported by lies. Palestine will be free nation again.

PKFZ: Bekas pengurus operasi KDSB didakwa

KLANG 14 Dis. - Selepas tiga didakwa, bekas pengurus projek syarikat kontraktor pembangunan Zon Bebas Pelabuhan Klang (PKFZ) pula dihadapkan ke Mahkamah Sesyen di sini hari ini atas 24 tuduhan menipu membabitkan tuntutan lebih RM116 juta.

Law Jenn Dong, 51, yang sebelum ini berkhidmat dengan Kuala Dimensi Sdn. Bhd. (KDSB) mengaku tidak bersalah terhadap setiap pertuduhan yang dibacakan di hadapan Hakim Yong Zarida Sazali.

Jenn Dong bersama seorang arkitek yang telah dituduh pada Khamis lalu, Bernard Tan Seng Swee didakwa menipu Lembaga Pelabuhan Klang (LPK) dengan menyatakan bahawa dua projek besar telah dilaksanakan sedangkan ia tidak dilakukan.

Sebanyak 15 pertuduhan melibatkan tuntutan terhadap kerja-kerja infrastruktur elektrik sistem 33kV manakala sembilan pertuduhan lagi membabitkan sistem 33kV ke Precint 2 dan Precint 8 di PKFZ, Pulau Indah di sini.

Tuntutan yang dibuat melalui notis pembayaran itu telah mendorong LPK mengesahkan pembayaran antara RM1.5 juta hingga RM16 juta sebanyak 24 kali yang melibatkan jumlah keseluruhan RM116.85 juta kepada KDSB antara 30 Jun 2006 dan 30 Mei 2008.

Bagi setiap pertuduhan, dia didakwa mengikut Seksyen 420 Kanun Keseksaan yang memperuntukkan hukuman penjara maksimum 10 tahun dan sebatan serta denda jika disabitkan kesalahan….

Ulasan: Menyeleweng adalah mencuri. 

Seorang maut pusat beli-belah meletup

MELAKA 14 Dis. - Seorang mati manakala 20 lagi cedera termasuk enam parah dan enam separa kritikal apabila bahagian medan selera di tingkat bawah sebuah pusat beli-belah di Jalan Panglima Awang, di sini tiba-tiba meletup, dipercayai akibat kebocoran gas.

Ketika kejadian kira-kira pukul 1 petang, kesemua mangsa dikatakan sedang melakukan persiapan terakhir di premis tersebut sebelum pusat beli-belah terbesar di Malaysia itu, dibuka Khamis ini.

Mangsa yang maut ialah penyelia sebuah restoran, Tiau See Peing, 25.

Tiga lagi yang separa kritikal antaranya adalah Mohd. Tarmizi Jaafar, 23, Lai Soon Wee, 32 dan Ooi Kok On, 33.

Mangsa yang lain antaranya adalah lima lelaki dan seorang wanita warga Indonesia, seorang wanita Myanmar dan sembilan warga tempatan dikejarkan ke Hospital Melaka untuk rawatan.

Timbalan Pengarah Jabatan Bomba dan Penyelamat negeri, R. Ezhumalai berkata, siasatan awal mendapati letupan dipercayai berpunca daripada kebocoran gas petroleum cecair (LPG) di salah sebuah restoran di medan selera tersebut….

Ulasan: Kata orang kemalangan ialah kita berada di tempat yang salah pada waktu yang salah (happens to be at a wrong place at a wrong time). Kemalangan boleh berlaku kepada semua orang. Yang penting ialah kita beriman dan taat kepada Allah mengikuti semua perintah Allah ikut cara Rasulullah s.a.w. pada setiap masa dan keadaan. 

Jus soli bukti kemurahan Melayu

KUALA LUMPUR 14 Dis. - DAP serta kaum minoriti di negara ini sepatutnya berterima kasih kerana mereka diberi status kerakyatan secara jus soli iaitu kerakyatan sama rata iaitu taraf kerakyatan yang diberi berdasarkan tempat kelahiran tanpa mengira bangsa dan keturunan dan bukannya mempersoal ketuanan Melayu.

Penganalisis politik yang juga tokoh akademik, Prof. Dr. Mohamed Mustafa Ishak berkata, perbuatan yang berterusan mempersoalkan ketuanan Melayu adalah perbuatan biadap dan tidak menghormati kaum Melayu sebagai teras bangsa Malaysia.

"DAP sepatutnya bersyukur kerana diterima sebagai rakyat Malaysia melalui kaedah jus soli. Di China, kerakyatan ditentukan berdasarkan darah keturunan dan jika negara mengamalkan dasar yang sama, DAP dan kaum minoriti di negara ini adalah sekadar pendatang," katanya ketika dihubungi Utusan Malaysia di sini hari ini…

Ulasan: Selalunya pihak minoriti yang kerap menyoal pihak majoriti kenapa tak di berikan lagi haknya. Tetapi pihak majoriti di Malaysia adalah terlalu baik padahal kalau ini di suarakan di China atau di India cukup untuk memakan korban puluhan atau ratusan rakyat. Orang Cina dan India wajar SEDAR DIRI bahawa orang Melayu sebenarnya baik hati untuk berkongsi negara Melayu dengan pendatang lain dan memberikan warganegara.
Untuk mendapatkan kemerdekaan negara dari penjajah Inggeris orang Melayu telah banyak berkorban rasa dan zahir.

Now teenagers can get the contraceptive without a prescription

By Jenny Hope, 12th December 2009

Critics have said the advert for the Pill without prescription 'looks like an advertisement for washing powder'

Teenage girls are being given the contraceptive pill without a doctor's prescription for the first time. 

Girls of 16 and over in areas with the highest teen pregnancy rates can receive it from pharmacists in a project that could be rolled out nationwide. 

The move is being promoted with eye-catching adverts in a style more akin to selling washing powder. 

Some experts claim it will help the Government make up lost ground in its faltering bid to halve teenage pregnancies. 

But critics say there is no evidence that providing the Pill over the counter will make any difference and it could encourage girls to have sex. 

One group warned it 'may be pouring petrol on the flames' of teenage pregnancy - Britain has the highest rates in Europe…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235186/Girls-Pill-demand-Now-teenagers-contraceptive-prescription.html

Comment: Freemixing has led to free sex. This has failed the Western sex education. Now girls and women are are at stake. Save them because women's bodies are NOT for sale. Together we can stop this sexist cattle market. 

On Free Mixing Between the Sexes, herewith from http://www.islaam.net/main/display_article_printview.php?id=1461

1) Mi’qal Bin Yasar (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, 
  “If the head of one of you is pierced with an iron needle, it is better for him than to touch a woman who is not legal for him (to touch).” 

[Narrated by Al-Tabarani in Al-Mu’jam Al-Kabir (20/213), Ibn Abi Shaybah in Al-Musannaf (4/341) and the narrators were declared trustworthy by Al-Haytami and Al-Mundhiri].

2) Abu Umamah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated from the Prophet (peace be upon him) that he said, 
  “It is better for man to press (against himself) a pig smeared with clay and mud, than to press his shoulder against the shoulder of a woman not legal for him (to touch).” [Al-Tabarani 4/326, though Al-Mundhiri said that a narrator in the chain is extremely weak]. 

Hence, the Prophet (peace be upon him) forbade men from touching women (and vice versa), whether with or without a barrier (like a cloth etc) if he is not her Mahram due to its evil consequences. So, free mixing between the sexes too is forbidden for the same reason. 

Conclusion: 
A person who ponders on the evidence presented by us will clearly see that the opinion that free mixing among men and women does not lead to fitnah (trials, temptation) is a figment of imagination of a few people. However, in reality, it does lead to fitnah and that is why Islam forbade from it; in order to nip the evil in the bud. The special circumstances which are due to necessity or extreme need in places of worship, e.g. the mixing of men and women in the Grand Mosque at Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina are exceptions to the rule. We ask Allah to guide the misguided among the Muslims and to increase the guidance of those Muslims who are guided. We ask Allah to make the Muslims rules to do good, leave evil and physically stop the foolish people. Indeed, Allah is All-Hearing, Near (by His Knowledge) and Responsive!
http://www.islaam.net/main/display_article_printview.php?id=1461

Destroy Your Homes: Israel to Palestinians

IOL, December 6, 2009 

WEST BANK – With a desperate look in his eyes, Ghazi Dodeen is gazing at his house in the West Bank village of Hijra.

"I have always dreamed of building this house on this land," Dodeen told IslamOnline.net Sunday, December 6.

"Now, I’m asked to either demolish it by my own hands OR let Israeli bulldozers do it."

The helpless Palestinian man received an order from occupation authorities to demolish the house by himself or get Israeli bulldozers bring it down.

The order, which was sent to four other families, warns that the villager would pay the demolition expenses if the house is razed by Israeli bulldozers.

"I’m torn apart," a heart-broken Dodeen said.

"Demolishing the house by my own hands would haunt me the rest of my life," he said.

"And if I refused, Israeli bulldozers would destroy it and I would be suffering all my life to collect money to pay for the demolition expenses."

For decades, Israel has been adopting a series of oppressive measures against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including systematic demolition of their homes.

Israeli authorities do not issue building permissions for Palestinians who are also banned from renovating their houses unless with an Israeli permit, which they rarely get.

In 1968, Israel enacted a law allowing "illegal" houses to be razed even if permits are pending in the bureaucratic pipeline.

Israel's HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual said last week that Israeli authorities have revoked residency permits of 4,577 Palestinians in 2008, a figure greater than half the total revoked in the past 40 years.

A recent UN report has warned that thousands of Palestinian houses in Al-Quds are facing the risk of mass demolitions by Israel...

http://uruknet.info/index.php?p=m60825&hd=&size=1&l=e

Tehran threatens to target Israel

Nuclear row: Tehran threatens to target Israel
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 December 2009 19.38 GMT 

Three missiles rise into the air as a forth remains in the launcher on the ground during a test-firing in an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert. Photograph: AFP/Getty images

Iran's defence minister has threatened to target Israeli nuclear and other "unconventional" sites if it comes under attack.

Ahmad Vahidi's warning came after Iran accused western-backed Saudi Arabia of handing over a missing Iranian nuclear scientist to the US and claiming that Washington is holding 10 more of its officials.

"Iran's armed forces are fully prepared," Vahidi told reporters on a visit to Syria yesterday. "The Zionists know they are not able to carry out any of their threats against Iran and they are aware of Iran's firm response," he was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency. "They are worried about carrying out a pre-emptive first strike and terrified about the repercussions of their act."...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/09/tehran-threatens-to-target-israel

Comment: Truth vs might.

Israeli Occupation, Colonialism & Apartheid

By Stephen Lendman

 The Cape Town, South Africa-based Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) "conduct(s) large-scale, policy-relevant, social-scientific projects for public-sector users, non-governmental organisations and international development agencies," and disseminates its findings widely. 
  
In May 2009, it issued a damning report titled, "Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid? A re-assessment of Israel's practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law." At the time John Dugard was the UN's Special Human Rights Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine. At his January 2007 suggestion, the study was undertaken "to scrutinise (his) hypothesis from the perspective of international law." It stated: 
  
"Israel is clearly in military occupation of the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories). At the same time, elements of the occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law. What are the legal consequences of a regime of prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and apartheid for the occupied people, the Occupying Power and third States?" 
  
Given South Africa's past, the HSRC had an "obvious interest" in pursuing these issues. After 15 months of research, its report concluded that: 
  
"....Israel, since 1967, has been the belligerent Occupying Power in the OPT, and that its occupation of these territories has become a colonial enterprise, which implements a system of apartheid." 
  
Although occupation is legal after armed conflict, it's intended only to be temporary. International law also prohibits the unilateral annexation or permanent acquisition of territory through force, and Fourth Geneva obligates signatories to protect civilians in time of war and occupation. 
  
Its Article 3 states: 
  
"Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat (out of the fight) by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria." 
  
Its Article 4 defines "protected persons" as follows: 
  
"Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals." 
  
Its Article 49 states: 
  
"Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive." Neither shall "The Occupying Power....deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." 
  
In addition, numerous UN resolutions established "no legal validity" for occupied land acquisitions or settlement building. When violations of international law occur, no nation may recognize or support the unlawful situation or the state responsible. 
  
In addition, colonialism and apartheid are particularly serious international law breaches because they fundamentally violate core legal order standards and values. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) affirmed self-determination as "one of the essential principles of contemporary international law," obligating all states to respect and promote it. Colonialism is in clear violation. 
  
The 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (the Declaration on Colonialism), condems "colonialism in all its forms and manifestations," including settlements deemed to be illegal. 
  
According to the 1973 International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (the Apartheid Convention), this practice is state-sanctioned discriminatory "inhuman" racism "committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them." 
  
Apartheid is an international crime. The above definition builds on the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). In addition, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court calls apartheid a crime under the Court's jurisdiction. Israel is flagrantly guilty but not yet held accountable. 
  
International laws prohibiting colonialism and apartheid are "peremptory," meaning they are "accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as (standards) from which no derogation is permitted." Every country is legally bound to respect and observe them. They're also duty bound to: 
  
-- work cooperatively to end individual state violations; 
  
-- not extend recognition to lawless ones; nor 
  
-- provide them aid in any form. 
  
Legal Framework in the OPT 
  
Applicable international law recognizes: 
  
-- the Palestinians' right to self-determination; 
  
-- the fact that Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegally occupied; 
  
-- that Israel has no sovereignty over these Territories, only an earlier temporary administrative right no longer applicable; 
  
-- that land seizures are illegal; so is the Separation Wall as the ICJ affirmed in 2004; 
  
-- that the 2005 Gaza "disengagement" left Israel in control; and 
  
-- that, as an Occupying Power, international law obligates Israel to "abide by the....rules of armed conflict (and relevant human rights laws) in its administration of the territories." 
  
For over 42 years, Israel willfully violated the law under a dual discriminatory regime. Its occupation and land seizures are illegal. Its settlers are protected under civil laws assuring them free movement and essential services. Palestinians come under military law and its courts with procedures that violate international judiciary standards. Israel's High Court affirmed the bifurcated system that "discriminate(s) between these two groups by according (them) very different rights, protections, and life chances in the same territory." This system violates the laws of armed conflict, and also the international legal colonialism and apartheid prohibitions. 
  
Under the Declaration on Colonialism, this practice exists when states annex or otherwise lawlessly retain territorial control and deny indigenous peoples their right to self-determination. Israel does it six ways by: 
  
-- violating the integrity of the Occupied Territories: 
  
-- prohibiting meaningful self-government; 
  
-- integrating the area's economy into its own; 
  
-- controlling its resources; 
  
-- denying the population economic enfranchisement, free movement, expression, its historical heritage, their right to develop and practice it, and equal justice under the law; and 
  
-- maintaining a 42-year state of war, including killings, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, incarcerations, torture and abuse, and other degrading and humiliating treatment. 
  
Under ICERD's Article 3, apartheid is prohibited as a particularly egregious form of discrimination, without precisely defining the practice. The Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute went further with a better one and by criminalizing certain apartheid-related acts - specifically, "inhuman (ones) committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other and systematically oppressing them." 
  
Both focus on systematic, institutionalized discrimination to achieve racial segregation and unchallenged dominance. Under the Apartheid Convention's Article 2, HSRC determined that: 
  
-- Israeli measures deprive Palestinians of their right to "life and liberty of person;" 
  
-- they include state-sponsored violence; killings; extrajudicial assassinations; arbitrary arrests and incarcerations; torture and abuse; other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; kangaroo court justice in military tribunals; and administrative detentions without charge, adequate access to counsel, trial, or proper judicial review; 
  
-- state-sponsored collective punishment seriously impairing life and health, especially in Gaza under siege; 
  
-- Palestinians have no free and equal participation in their political, social, economic and cultural lives; 
  
-- they're also denied their basic human rights and freedoms with regard to free movement; their right of return; to live anywhere in historic Palestine freely in the land of their birth; and to a nationality through self-determination; 
  
-- they're denied economic self-determination and their right to work anywhere in historic Palestine; 
  
-- their trade unions aren't recognized so they can't represent Palestinians effectively; 
  
-- under military occupation, their right to education, medical care and other essential services is seriously impaired; 
  
-- censorship laws restrict free expression and opinion; 
  
-- military orders deny free assembly and public gatherings of 10 or more persons without express permission; non-violent gatherings are regularly suppressed with live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas, and various other weapons; 
  
-- most Palestinian parties are considered illegal; charities, cultural organizations and other institutions and agencies connected to them are subjected to closure and attack; 
  
-- home and community intrusions, beatings, arrests, and killings occur regularly; and 
  
-- all of these practices occur in extreme form in Gaza under siege, the one difference being Jewish settlers no longer reside there, but, at any time, Israel may decide to return them and displace Palestinians by so doing. 
  
The West Bank, in contrast, is balkanized into cantons and enclaves in which group identity determines residence and free entry. Jews have the choicest parts and keep expanding them, leaving Palestinians shrinking amounts of the rest. 
  
HSRC's report concluded that Israeli occupation, colonialism and apartheid are "systematic and comprehensive, as the exercise of the Palestinian population's right to self-determination has been frustrated in all of its principal modes of expression." 
  
Comparing Israeli and South African Apartheid 
  
Despite differences, Israeli and South African apartheid practices are defined by similar dominant features. Three legislative pillars underpinned South Africa's: 
  
-- the first demarcated people into racial groups through the 1950 Population Registration Act; it institutionalized racial discrimination by affording special rights, privileges and services to whites and denied them to blacks; 
  
-- the second segregated people by geographic areas, allocated by law to different racial groups; it restricted passage from assigned areas to others to insure white supremacy; overall, it constituted "grand apartheid" by establishing "Homelands" or "Bantustans" in which "denationalized" blacks were transferred and forced to reside, while whites got special political rights denied blacks; 
  
-- the third was a matrix of draconian security laws and policies, employed to suppress opposition and reinforce racial domination "by providing for administrative detention, torture, censorship, banning, and assassination." 
  
In the OPT, Israel has the same three pillars: 
  
The first legally establishes Jewish identity and affords preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews alone. Palestinians are discriminated against as inferior by religion, ethnicity, and subsequent social status. 
  
Israel's citizenship laws underpin the system under which Jews anywhere in the world automatically qualify for citizenship in an exclusive Jewish state. The 1950 Law of Return defines Jewishness and begins saying: 
  
"Every Jew has the right to immigrate to this country." 
  
The 1952 Citizenship Law granted automatic citizenship to Jewish immigrants, while denying non-Jews similar rights. The 2003 Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law banned Palestinian family unification, giving Jews alone special rights. 
  
The second pillar reflects Israel's policy to expropriate choice land, segregate and dominate. It plays out through separating East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, seizing increasing amounts of it for settlement development, and separating Palestinians by means of walls, barriers, checkpoints, separate roads, a discriminatory permit and ID system, and a militarized matrix of control. 
  
In contrast, Jews have free movement and freedom. The "geographic fragmentation has the effect of crushing Palestinian socio-economic life, securing Palestinian vulnerability to Israeli economic dominance, and of enforcing a rigid segregation of Palestinian and Jewish populations," similar to South African apartheid. 
  
The third pillar is Israel's "invocation of security" to justify sweeping restrictions on Palestinian free expression, opinion, assembly, association and movement and enforce them through suppression of dissent, conflict, state-sponsored violence, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and incarcerations, torture and abuse, and other kinds of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. 
  
In sum, these policies are "integrated and complementary elements of an institutionalised and oppressive system of Israeli domination and oppression over Palestinians as a group; that is, a system of apartheid," under which Israeli repression is harsh, discriminatory, and illegal under international law. 
  
Although Israel bares primary responsibility, the international community must act cooperatively to remedy the situation as follows: 
  
-- require Israel start dismantling the structures and institutions of occupation, colonialism and apartheid; 
  
-- have it pay reparations for decades of lawlessness; and 
  
-- assure Palestinians can exercise their right of self-determination or have equal rights as citizens in one Israeli/Palestinian state. 
  
"The realisation of self-determination and the prohibition on apartheid are peremptory norms of international law from which no derogation is permitted." These principles obligate the entire world community to cooperate to end all breaches everywhere, including in Occupied Palestine. Failure to do so constitutes "an internationally wrongful act." Further, any state aiding another's lawlessness axiomatically becomes complicit in the commission of crimes, requiring other nations to hold it accountable. 
  
International organizations like the UN bear equal responsibility. As the ICJ stated in its Separation Wall ruling, this body is obligated to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one it helped initiate through its 1947 partition plan under UN General Assembly Resolution 181. At a time Jews comprised one-third of the population, it gave them 56% of the choicest land, the rest to Palestinians with Jerusalem designated an international city. 
  
HSRC and John Dugard urged the ICJ to rule on this matter in accordance with the UN Charter's Article 96 authorizing "The General Assembly or the Security Council (to) request (an ICJ) advisory opinion on any legal question." Under Article 65 of the ICJ's Statute, it "may give an advisory opinion on any legal question at the request of whatever body may be authorized by or in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to make such a request." 
  
According to HSRC, at issue is the following: 
  
"Do the policies and practices of Israel within the (OPT) violate the norms prohibiting apartheid and colonialism; and, if so, what are the legal consequences arising from Israel's policies and practices, considering the rules and principles of international law, including the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, UN General Assembly (1960) Resolution 1514 (on granting independence to colonial countries and peoples), and other relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions?" 
  
After 61 years of displacement and 42 years of occupation, these matter remain unresolved.   

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

http://www.rense.com/general88/israle.htm

Where the Crimes Go Unpunished - Who Cares About Gaza?

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
December 11, 2009

Gaza? Where’s that? Have you heard about it recently? It doesn’t figure on the list of important matters for consideration by the world’s presidents and prime ministers. It has vanished from the media. Most people couldn’t care less about a generation of Palestinians who are subjected to viciously inflicted privation by an imperialist nation that has lost touch with humanity.

Most countries, most human beings, with predictable exceptions, condemned Israel for indulging in frenzied savagery during its blitzkrieg on Gaza last December and January. There is no doubt that many of its actions were criminal. For example, there are well-documented instances of use of white phosphorus artillery shells against civilians. Poison gas, in other words – if a bit more hi-tech than the venomous vapors that exterminated so many millions of innocent Jewish men, women and children in Nazi concentration camps.

But Israel, propped up as a strutting jackbooted puppet on the global stage by the well-muscled fingers of Washington and some other capitals whose endorsement of violence seems boundless, can get away, quite literally, with murder. Innocent men, women and children can be exterminated by armed forces that have no reason to fear justice or even criticism from the world’s juridical system.

A highly respected international jurist, Mr Richard Goldstone (a South African Jew), produced a report for the UN about Israel’s attempted genocide and Hamas atrocities and was impartial and objective about assessing facts and apportioning responsibility, as would be expected of such a distinguished judge.

His terms of reference were "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after."

He investigated thoroughly (although the Israelis refused to cooperate in any way) and reported fairly. His finding was that Palestinian terror groups were culpable of atrocities, as were Israeli armed forces, and for the latter ruling he was promptly attacked by Israel, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and the Financial Times.

And by President Barack Obama.

The Obama administration pronounced the report to be "flawed," without giving any indication of what the flaws might be. Mr Goldstone, courteous and balanced as ever – if a trifle taken aback at such a reaction – observed gently that "I have yet to hear from the Obama administration what the flaws in the report that they have identified are . . . I would be happy to respond to them, if and when I know what they are . . . Of course I’m concerned and would like to engage with the Obama administration, at least informally."

Fat chance of that happening, unless Mr Obama is prepared to risk the wrath of Israel.

But Mr Obama, like his predecessors, isn’t in favor of anything that is critical of Israel. He wants a second presidential term, after all, and must not offend the rich and dominant Israel Lobby. And his country’s legislators, who are equally beholden to that Lobby and have to follow the Tel Aviv line, "overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning a report by a United Nations fact-finding panel that criticized Israel as part of an assessment of the conflict in Gaza in 2008 between Israel and Hamas." They voted against the report by 344 to 36, thereby showing, like the White House, their contempt for impartial analysis, the UN, the eminent Justice Goldstone, international law, and almost everything that remains civilized in this horrible world. (And you wonder how many of them read the report before voting.)

Hundreds of legislators in the US and Britain have sold their souls to Israel and will support Tel Aviv in any circumstances.

Britain’s governing Labor Party is right behind Israel, and it is recorded that "The Labor Friends of Israel (LFI), 'a Westminster based lobby group working within the British Labor Party to promote the State of Israel’ fostered close ties with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who joined the society upon his premiership."

After his catastrophic decade as prime minister, Blair, a squalid, greedy and unprincipled man, and a proven liar, was appointed "Middle East envoy working on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU," as which he achieved precisely nothing. The selection of Blair as a representative to the Middle East was absurd. Nobody could imagine for an instant that his activities would be regarded as impartial – unlike Mr Goldstone – but this didn’t matter, because he had the seal of Israeli approval.

Just as in the US, Israel knows no political borders in Britain, whose present prime minister, an uninspiring and petulant dullard called Brown, declared that : 

"it is one of the great privileges I have to be able to address the Labour Friends of Israel, to be able to thank you for everything that you do to promote the cause of justice . . . I count myself not only a friend of Israel but someone who wants to support the future of Israel."

"The cause of justice"?

As Judge Goldstone recorded, Israel "committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity" by intentionally killing civilians during its Gaza blitzkrieg.

But Britain’s prime minister imagines that Israel’s slaughter of over 300 children will "promote the cause of justice."

And the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party was equally toadying in June when he told the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) fundraising dinner at the Dorchester Hotel that he supported Israel unequivocally, "Not simply because of my party’s unstinting support for Israel through the decades, but also because it's something I feel very deep inside of me."

What drivel. This little man, whose name escapes me, has jumped on the Israeli bandwagon because it means money. 80 per cent of Conservative legislators are members of the CFI, and subsidies for political campaigns from Israel-supporting business organizations are discreetly disguised and happily grasped.

There is hardly a word of criticism of Israel by politicians in the US and the UK, and it’s not at all surprising that this is so, because so many of them couldn’t exist without cash from the Israel Lobby, passed on in one way or another. All the lavish expenses-paid holiday trips to the land of "the cause of justice" are simply confirmation that legislators are out to get whatever they can for free.

And Peace Prize-winning Mr Obama, of whom so many of us had high hopes of even-handedness, has a Secretary of State who told the Israel Lobby "It is wonderful being here with all of you among so many friends and I feel like this is a giant family reunion . . . and I feel like I am among family . . . I have a bedrock commitment to Israel’s security . . . God bless Israel . . ."

With servile, bootlicking friends like these, Israel can continue to defy UN Security Council resolutions, it can build scores of illegal settlements on land stolen from Palestinians, it can condemn the people of Gaza – and especially countless thousands of children – to indefinite and hideous hardship. The state of Israel exists in a wicked and vicious parallel world, bolstered by smug and sleazy western politicians.

Ten years ago Justice Goldstone declared that "bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons of the Holocaust."

Indeed it does.

But when so many politicians and so much of the media in the US and Britain are intent on supporting Zion and ignoring Israel’s repulsive human rights violations, you wonder if the lessons of the Holocaust are perhaps a bit one-sided. The people of Gaza are suffering from the effects of an illegal and malevolent Israeli blockade. Its people are enduring horrible privation. The crimes against them go unpunished.

And nobody cares. For it would be very difficult to admit that war crimes have been committed by people who come to your giant family reunions, promoting "the cause of justice." 

Brian Cloughley's book about the Pakistan army, War, Coups and Terror, is to be published in the US by Skyhorse next month. His website is www.beecluff.com.

http://uruknet.info/index.php?p=m60990&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

Living By The Gate From Hell

By Ellen Cantarow 

Much is heard of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the story of the determined, long-term nonviolent resistance of many Palestinian villagers to the loss of their lands, striking as it may be, is seldom told. Here's my report from just one village on the West Bank. 
  
At no time since its 1967 West Bank occupation have Israel's seizures of Palestinian land and water resources seemed as shocking as the ones attending its construction of "the wall," begun in 2002. Vast, complex, and shifting in form, the wall appears most dramatically as 25-foot-high concrete slabs punctuated by militarized watch towers, supplemented by electronically monitored electrified fences stretching over vast distances. 
  
In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared the wall illegal, but Israel ignored the ruling. Now, it undulates through the West Bank for over 170 miles, clasping Israel's major colonies and some minor ones in its embrace. The completed wall will incorporate more than 85 percent of the West Bank's settler population, a de facto annexation by Israel of significant chunks of the territory it first occupied in 1967. This is the dream of Greater Israel rapidly turned into architecture. For the Palestinians, however, the wall means theft, separating many Palestinian cities and villages from their land and water. 
  
Jayyous, with a population of 3,500, is one of those villages. It lies nestled in a mountainous northern West Bank landscape with the Palestinian city of Qalqilya just to its west. The scenery here remains one of the Mediterranean's loveliest, a cross, let's say, between Tuscany and parts of Yugoslavia. Greek and Roman ruins mark the village's great age. This was one of the West Bank's most fertile areas. Farming involving a lively variety of nut, citrus, and olive trees, as well as vegetables, flourished around Jayyous, drawing life from abundant underground wells. The aquifers beneath Jayyous and Qalqilya, in fact, constitute a West Bank treasure. Lands belonging to both the city and the village abut Israel's pre-1967 border ­the "Green Line." 
  
Before the wall's advent, Qalqilya's merchants and Israelis did regular business on either side of the border, while Jayyous' farmers worked their land all the way up to the Green Line. Now, the monstrous, concrete version of the wall surrounds Qalqilya entirely, bringing to mind high-security prisons or ghettoes from other eras. Jayyous is segregated from most of its former land by the wall in what one could call its "barrier" form a system of steel fences, razor wire, and patrol roads manned by Israeli soldiers. 
  
Four thousand of the village's olive and citrus trees were uprooted to make way for the wall. All the village's wells and over 75 percent of the land are now sequestered behind the wall, isolated on its west that is, "Israeli" side. A small Israeli settler colony called Zufim sits amid Jayyous' former wealth. Israeli plans are on the books to build up to 1,500 new housing units on the bounty confiscated from the village. The new units will destroy the only road over which Jayyous' farmers can now travel to and from their land: there used to be six of these roads. Israel has already blocked five of them. 
  
Sixty-five-year-old Sharif Omar Khalid, known more familiarly as Abu Azzam, has spent half his life struggling to preserve Jayyous' land. In 1980, with other farmers representing villages throughout the West Bank, he founded the Land Defense Committee, one of 18 organizations that now make up the Stop the Wall campaign. Gifted with stubborn optimism, he counts as victory an Israeli Supreme Court decision in April 2006, which pushed the path of the wall back from the south side of the village. The decision returned 11 percent of Jayyous' former land 750 dunams of the 8,600 blocked by the barrier. (A dunam is a little over a quarter of an acre.) 
  
The wall remains, as does one of its most essential parts: the "agricultural gate." There are two of these on Jayyous' land one to the north; another to the south. Almost all of the village's farmers are forced to use the north gate. Opened by Israeli soldiers for two 45-minute intervals at dawn and dusk, the gate blocks a patrol road manned by the Israelis. 
  
But to get beyond the gate, across the patrol road, and from there to their farmland, Jayyous' farmers need "visitors' permits." Since 2003, Israel has decreed that the villagers are only "visitors" on land they have worked for generations. Obtaining the permits is an excruciating obstacle course that only begins with proof of land ownership. Abu Azzam is one of the village's major landowners; his title goes back several generations to the time when Jordan occupied the West Bank. Being a known activist, he was periodically denied his permit until the Israeli Supreme Court finally granted him a permanent permit noting that its bearer is a "security problem." This produces extra problems for him in his daily odyssey to his fields and back. 
  
The Gate From Hell 
  
The first time I saw an "agricultural gate" was in 2004 outside the northern Palestinian village of Mas'ha. It was terrible to behold. Immense steel jaws painted a bright ochre-yellow creaked open, thanks to the Israeli Occupation Forces' finest, for about 30 minutes at dawn and again at dusk. Between those two moments, it remained locked, leaving the local farmers with no possibility of returning home for lunch or emergencies, nor even for crop-irrigation at the appropriate time (after sundown). 
  
Each opening of the Mas'ha gate permitted a lone farmer, Hani Amer his home locked in on three sides by the wall and on the fourth by an Israeli settlement to make sporadic trips to his fields. At both sides of the gate lay coils of razor wire snarled in front of a barrier ditch which stretched into the distance as far as we could see. Beyond this ditch, more razor wire. Then a "military road" meant for Israeli soldiers patrolling the boundaries of an Arab world considered burdensome to the Greater Israel. 
  
Across the military road lay yet more razor wire and another ditch before Hani Amer could finally reach his fields. 
  
To grasp what the gate really means, though, you'd have to stay, as I did, at least a night with a farmer in Jayyous at harvest time. You'd awaken with his wife and him at 5:30 a.m., drink a cup of strong Arabic coffee, eat bread spread with jam made from fruit he grows on the land remaining to him, and then go jolting down the white, rutted, stony road on his tractor. Finally, of course, you would wait with him in a gathering line of farmers at the gate. 
  
Now watch, in the dawn of another day in the forty-second year of occupation, in front of this steel raptor out of some mad filmmaker's imagination, as they all arrive: one on his tractor, another on a donkey laden with sacks and harvest tools, until finally a long line stands waiting. Note those ubiquitous coils of razor wire, and the ditches, and that military road, just one form of the endless wall that imprisons Palestine's people. Watch as the soldiers turn languidly and unlock the gate, swinging its jaws wide to transform it, and the military road it bars, into a checkpoint for the brief morning opening. 
  
As I waited and watched from Abu Azzam's tractor this past October, I imagined the hillside on the other side of the road as it must have been decades ago, when I still reported regularly from the West Bank. The region's steep hills were then punctuated by lines of drywall terracing that enclosed olive trees whose leaves billowed silver in the wind, and the darker greens of fruit trees and grapevines. The Greater Israel's new, California-style urban sprawl, its cities that now ooze through the West Bank, were still part of an expansionist dream, not a burgeoning reality, and of course there was no wall, nor a "military road," nor, of course, an agricultural gate. 
  
Watch now, as each farmer with his donkey, his tractor, his work-tools, approaches the passage between the gaping steel jaws. Watch each as he moves into the military road, brings his donkey to a halt, dismounts, and offers his ID card to a stout, impassive Israeli soldier. Flanked by two other soldiers, he, in turn, calls a control tower rising in the distance and in Hebrew recites each bearer's name and ID numbers. Take in the stoicism, the resignation, the endurance of these farmers as they accept the indignity of all this because there is no other choice. Think that they are trying to do one simple thing: harvest their olives. 
  
But first each must move into the road, stand with head bowed or eyes averted as his fate is determined for this day, and then, if he's approved, move forward. Beyond lie more ditches at the other side of the road, more razor wire, and at last something that masquerades as freedom but isn't. The farmer is now permitted to climb the hill in his vehicle. Beyond its crest he may reach his fields, for whose sake he has endured this daily torment. 
  
And now, consider the Israeli settlers and soldiers, whose absolute rule, running the gamut from control over this gate through vigilantism against villagers like those in Jayyous, make a nightmare of this simple thing, the olive harvest. Settlers from Zufim actually uprooted olive trees in Jayyous in 2004. Some were carted away for sale in Israel; sewage from the colony has destroyed others. 
  
A week after my stay, according to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, Jewish settlers elsewhere in the northern West Bank "clashed with Palestinians picking olives." The settlers called the farmers trying to bring in their crops a "security" threat because they "could gather intelligence and launch attacks from the olive groves." 
  
Elsewhere in the area that same week, Israeli security forces stood by as settlers entered a Palestinian village "to hold a brief rally" against the harvest. (Israel's army is now dominated from top to bottom by ultra-religious-expansionist settlers, which makes a mockery of the "settler-soldier" distinction.) Meanwhile, near an Israeli "outpost" settlement called Adi Ad, settlers "uprooted dozens of olive trees." As I write,similar alarums reach me by e-mail daily. 
  
Several times since October the Israeli army has imposed curfews on Jayyous collective punishment for the weekly anti-wall demonstrations staged by village youth here. Most of the time the curfews have been levied after the farmers were already in their fields and haven't interrupted the harvest. But they have punished the rest of Jayyous. Collective punishment ­reprisals against all for the actions of a few is illegal under the 1949 Fourth Geneva convention. 
  
Keeping Going 
  
"A state gone mad," observed Palestinian lawyer and writer Raja Shehadeh when, a day after visiting Jayyous, I described the scene at the gate. This particular barrier of steel, these particular patient farmers, those particular soldiers enforcing Israel's banality of evil they offer but a taste of the insane ingenuity that is the still-developing Greater Israel. A Dutch filmmaker who had interviewed some West Bank Jewish settlers, related this little exchange to Shehadeh: "What is your dream?" she asked one of the settlers. "My dream," he replied, "is that my grandchildren will say someday, 'Here, they say that once upon a time there were Arabs.'" 
  
The evening before we all arose to go to the gate, Abu Azzam took a German visitor and me to see the local olive press where he and other farmers unload each day's harvest. The sight of Jayyous' olives moving up a conveyor belt and into the press, finally to emerge as a stream of oil bottled in large plastic containers, was joyous. Children ran and slid about on the slick floor, laughing; their parents dipped bread for them in the delicious, freshly pressed oil. What human madness would inflict constant torment on such peaceful labor? 
  
Later, Abu Azzam told me stories about his life as an activist, his marriage, and his children. Jailed by Jordan for belonging to the Communist Party and later by Israel for his attempts to preserve the village land, he says he can't imagine anything but keeping going. "I have no other choice" is the way he puts it, with a shrug and a smile. 
  
He recalled the moment back in October 2003 as the wall was being built, when an Israeli official tried to buy off the Jayyous activists by offering them 650 permits which would have allowed that many farmers to access their land. But the Land Defense Committee made "a team decision" not to use them. Accepting the permits would have meant recognizing the validity of the wall and the whole system of dispossession that went with it. Israeli soldiers closed the gate; it was the height of the olive, guava, and clementine harvests. Abu Azzam and other farmers cut gaps in the barrier and crept through to work their fields "without a tractor, without horses, without carriages, without anything. Only our bodies." 
  
More arrests followed. The farmers made a decision to stay on their land and not return to the village. "My wife was very angry," Abu Azzam recalls. "She called me on Oct. 21 asking me, 'Are we divorced? Are we separated?' I said, 'I'm resisting.' 'Resisting? Can you see one box of guavas, cucumbers, or tomatoes?' 'Enough, to be on the land is resistance,' I said." 
  
Since 2003 Abu Azzam and other Jayyous farmers have continued their obdurate odyssey to their lands. This determination to keep farming on the 3,250 dunams of an original 8,050 that the villagers still have, rather than live elsewhere in the West Bank or abroad is itself resistance. In Palestine, this "just staying" is called samid. It means "the steadfast," "the persevering," and eloquently expresses the oldest form of Palestinian nonviolent resistance. 
  
"You have so many problems," I said to Abu Azzam. "Would you ever leave?" He smiled at me indulgently. "All our life is a problem. I don't want to be a new refugee. I am against the emigration that took place through the Israelis." 
  
Since 2008, Jayyous' young people have staged weekly demonstrations against the wall. One of their leaders Mohammed Othman was arrested by Israeli authorities this past fall when he returned from a speaking tour in Norway. He is still in jail under indefinite administrative detention. 
  
Jayyousi leaders have also written to high officials in Norway and Dubai imploring them to divest from companies owned by the Uzbekistan-born Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev. In doing so, Jayyous joins growing international revulsion at, and refusal to deal with, Leviev's companies. Their reach is vast and diverse, extending to Angola's diamond mines, New York real estate, and Israeli settlements in whose planning and building (including Zufim) they are heavily involved. Last March, Ha'aretz's Barak Ravid reported that the British embassy in Tel Aviv "stopped negotiations to lease a floor in Africa-Israel's Kirya Tower because of the [Leviev-owned] company's involvement in settlement construction." Oxfam has severed ties with him for the same reason. 
  
On Sept. 9, 2009, a month before my arrival, the Israeli Supreme Court handed down a new ruling moving the route of the wall again and returning an additional 2,448dunams to Jayyous. "Because of your efforts?" I asked Azzam. 
  
"It is because of Jayyous," he replied. "It is a group struggle." 

http://www.rense.com/general88/wall.htm

 

The Great Wall Of Israel

By Ellen Cantarow and Tom Engelhardt

Try to imagine this: An American president visits Israel and in a speech given close to the vast "separation wall" Israel continues to build in part through Palestinian territory, says: "Mr. Netanyahu, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for Israel and the region, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Netanyahu, open this gate! Mr. Netanyahu, tear down this wall!" 
  
I'm sure you recognize that set of famous lines. With the name "Gorbachev" in place of "Netanyahu," President Ronald Reagan intoned them on June 12, 1987, in front of theBerlin Wall. Less than two-and-a-half years later, of course, that stain on Europe, that prison wall of Soviet power which, in all the years of the Cold War, was seldom long out of the U.S. news, was gone ­and 20 years later we're still celebrating. The Israeli wall, endlessly under construction, is far longer, approximately twice as high, no less militarized, and no less a dystopian wonder of prison architecture. It is also a thief. As it meanders, it steals land. It is, as the Berlin Wall once was, a stain on the human landscape. But no American president, including Barack Obama, is likely to make a Reaganesque journey to the Middle East, denounce the wall, and call for its dismantlement. It plays little part in the news in this country when the Israeli-Palestinian situation is raised. It's hard to imagine us celebrating its fall. 
  
In the meantime, while that grotesque wall grows, while the talk is of shuttling diplomats and diplomatic cul-de-sacs, of paths to nowhere and missing Plan Bs for the Obama administration, as well as potential Israeli strikes against Iran, those in the shadow of the wall suffer. Ellen Cantarow, who covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the Village Voice back in the 1980s, recently spent time on Palestinian farmland in the shadow of the Great Wall of Israel and offers a portrait, from under the olive branches, not from the heights of diplomatic exchanges, on what it's like, and what it takes, to live near today's version of a mega-Berlin Wall. - Tom 
 
http://www.rense.com/general88/wall.htm