Wednesday, 25 December 2019

Anti-Semitic Somalia suffers from Biblical plagues

And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: Genesis 12:3a

It's worth keeping in mind that Muslims from countries such as Somalia--taking with them views such as those described below--are increasingly being exported to traditionally non-Muslim countries, which may just have something to do with the reported rise of anti-Semitism. As reported by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz in Breaking Israel News, December 23, 2019 (link in original):

Somalia has suffered non-stop disasters for more than two years. An almost exclusively Muslim country, Jew-hatred is the rule and not the exception. Somalian anti-Semitism was transplanted to the U.S. and some Islamic insiders are warning that it may soon become left-wing policy.

In 2017, a drought that was to last two years, began in Somalia, leaving more than 6 million people, or half the country’s population, facing food shortages with several water supplies becoming undrinkable due to the possibility of infection. Authorities reported that 50 people a day were dying of hunger.

Just as the plagues in Egypt were a series of natural disasters that left the land bereft of food, Somalia’s two-year drought was followed by an antithetical flood. In November, the worst flooding in modern history caused by more than three times the average rainfall for the winter months, displaced more than a quarter of a million people, destroying infrastructure. Authorities refused to say how many people were killed in the disaster. Crops growing in the wake of the drought were inundated and destroyed, raising the specter of famine yet again. As many as 6.3 million people were left without sufficient supplies of basic foodstuffs.

In addition to drought and famine, diseases, such as cholera and measles began to spread.

Locusts, the penultimate plague, finished up any shreds of food that remained in Egypt. In a similar manner, a plague of locusts, the worst in at least 25 years, descended on Somalia last week, destroying at least 175,000 acres of farmland.

“As the weather seems favorable for the locust breeding, there is a high probability that the locust will continue to breed until March-April 2020,” the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) regional coordinator David Phiri said.

As if that were not enough, the African nation was hit by an outbreak of Cholera in 2017 that is wreaking havoc unabated. The cumulative total number of suspected cholera cases since the beginning of this outbreak in December 2017 was 9042, including 46 associated deaths. Over 70% of the cases are children below five years of age. This outbreak contrasts the backdrop of a 60% drop in global cases of cholera.

As this series of natural disasters echoes the plagues that struck Egypt as a punishment for their treatment of Jews, it is worthwhile to take a look at Somalia’s treatment of the Chosen People. There is no known Jewish community in Somalia and almost 100% of the nation’s seven million inhabitants are Sunni Muslims. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch-American activist, is an advocate for reform in Islam, most especially regarding women’s issues. Perhaps less well-known is her criticism of the Muslim hatred of Jews present in her native land.

In her autobiography, Infidel, Ali writes about the pervasive anti-Semitism in Somalia and the Muslim world at large.

“[A]s a child growing up in a Muslim family, I constantly heard my mother, other relatives and neighbors wish for the death of Jews, who were considered our darkest enemy. Our religious tutors and the preachers in our mosques set aside extra time to pray for the destruction of Jews.”

“Only if all Jews were destroyed would peace come for the Muslims,” she wrote.

In her speeches, Ali describes how, as a teen, she was indoctrinated to believe that Jews were a sub-human enemy and that Israel occupies Muslim lands and must be destroyed.

“Islamist-driven anti-Semitism is the reigning anti-Semitism of the day,” she said in a speech in Montreal in May. She explained that Islamic anti-Semitism is distinct from the “classic” European variety, or today’s white supremacy movement.

“Little attention is paid (to it) and that is a pity because it is the most zealous, most potent Jew hatred,” she said. “It both condemns Jews wholesale and seeks to destroy the State of Israel.”

She warned that Islamic anti-Semitism was aligned with the social-justice left-wing narrative “woke” concept that’s prevalent on campuses today, which she termed, “The newest insanity … that everyone is oppressed except white men.”...

...Rabbi Yeshayahu Hollander, the Sanhedrin’s Foreign Minister, reacted to the string of natural Somalian catastrophes with a disclaimer.

“Can this be divine retribution, almighty providence?” Rabbi Hollander asked. “It is impossible to know what is in God’s mind but doesn’t it seem that these people who curse the Jews are being cursed? It is certainly a possibility. I certainly can’ know but I can only try to interpret it based on the Torah.”

A study of history shows that countries and nations who were anti-Semitic suffered greatly for it. More Germans were killed in World War Two than Jews. Today, they are much less anti-Semitic and they are fairly successful.”...
In the 1970s, the African countries of Niger, Ethiopia, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Mali, Kenya, Nigeria, Dahomey (now Benin), Senegal, and Chad were all struck by famine and drought after severing diplomatic relations with Israel.

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