Islamic law forbids a one-way trip to Mars, a “fatwa” Muslim religious committee has ruled in the UAE (United Arab Emirates), the Khaleej Times reported Wednesday.

“Such a one-way journey poses a real risk to life, and that can never be justified in Islam,” the committee said. “There is a possibility that an individual who travels to planet Mars may not be able to remain alive there, and is more vulnerable to death.”

The fatwa committee is under the jurisdiction of the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the UAE. Even worse than dying after a move to the red planet, the Muslim would meet his Maker for no “righteous reason” and therefore would be subject to “punishment similar to that of suicide in the Hereafter,” the committee warned.

Committee chairman Professor Dr. Farooq Hamada was quoted by the newspaper as saying, “Protecting life against all possible dangers and keeping it safe is an issue agreed upon by all religions and is clearly stipulated in verse 4/29 of the Holy Quran: Do not kill yourselves or one another. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful.”

Really?

Does that mean that the Quran forbids Muslims to be suicide bombers? After all, the professor did say that the Muslim holy book says one should not kill himself.

I am not an expert in the Quran. In fact, I never have opened the book. But it seems to me that lots of holy Muslims say that suicide missions are not only not forbidden but also are a mitzvah, pardon the expression. There probably is a large footnote somewhere in the Quran that advises that suicide missions are forbidden – unless they blow up Jews.

But let’s get back to an expert such as Prof. Hamada.

His fatwa was in response to a plan by a Dutch company called Mars One to invite volunteers to fly and live on Mars while taking into account it would be a one-way ticket since there is no technology on the market for bringing them back to Earth.

Thousands of volunteers have signed up to pay $38 for the journey, including 500 Saudis and other Arabs, the Khaleej newspaper stated.

The professor declared, “This is an absolutely baseless and unacceptable belief because not even an atom falls outside the purview of Allah, the Creator of everything. This has also been clearly underscored in verse 19&20/93 of the Holy Quran in which Allah says, “There is no one in the heavens and earth but that he comes to the Most Merciful as a servant. (Indeed) He has enumerated them and counted them a (full) counting.”

Islamic researcher Dr. Shaikh Mohammed Al Ashmawy added to the religious discourse on the verse and concluded that “Almighty Allah said in verse 2/195 in the Holy Quran: Do not throw yourselves with your own hands into destruction.”

Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf, Imam of the Amena mosque, said: “Man’s life is not his or her own property; it is God’s creation, and therefore suicide is prohibited in all religions, and of course by law.”

Where were these guys when Palestinian Authority terrorists were blowing up, and still are trying to blow up Jews, and Hezbollah terrorists were blowing up and still are blowing up Sunni Muslims?

Where were these leading religious figures on Sept. 10, 2011, or even the day after 9/11?

And if Mahmoud Abbas really wants to control terror, why doesn’t he ask Prof. Hamada to make an exception and allow suicide bombers to take a one-way trip to Mars.

I am more than willing to put up the 38 bucks.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the United Nations Tuesday afternoon that Israel will never allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons and that it will act alone to prevent a nuclear Iran if sanctions do not work.

He did not mince words in attacking the Iranian regime for being deceitful and anti-democratic, and he provided fact after fact to prove that the regime has been hiding behind “smooth rhetoric” in order to “have its yellow cake and eat it, too.”

The Prime Minister verbally knocked out Iranian President Hassan Rohani, comparing him with his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with one external difference.

“Ahmadinejad was a wolf in wolf’s clothing; Rohani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community, but like everyone else, I wish we could believe Rohani’s words, but we must focus on Iran’s action,” Netanyahu said.

Prime Minister Netanyahu told the United Nations that Rohani is a servant to a “rogue” regime that wants to annihilate Israel and that Rohani simply cannot be believed when he says he wants negotiations over its nuclear program.

He pleaded with the international community not to let up on sanctions in return for “cosmetic concessions” that would allow Iran to race ahead to develop nuclear weapons when it wants.

Iran was quick to respond to what one delegate said was an “extremely inflammatory statement.” The delegate told the General Assembly that the “Prime Minister must not dare think about attacking Iran.”

He countered Netanyahu’s warning that Israel will defend itself by stating, “He should seriously avoid miscalculation against Iran. Iran’s century-long policy of nonaggression should not be interpreted as an unwillingness to defend itself.”

The delegate then tried to turn the tables on Israel, mocking it for demanding that Iran disclose its nuclear program while Israel needs to be “educated” for being the “only non-party” to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Without refuting the Prime Minister’s carefully outlined evidence that Iran is trying to gain capability to manufacture a nuclear warhead, the delegate said with a straight face, “We reject equating the peaceful pursuit of nuclear energy with nuclear weapons.”

The only kind words Netanyahu had for Iran was for the ancient Persian empire.

“Our hope for the future is challenged by a nuclear-armed Iran…but I want you to know that this was not always the case,” he said. “Some 2,500 year ago, the great Persian King Cyrus ended the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people…[and] proclaimed the right of Jews to return to the Land of Israel and to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.”

He said this historic tie lasted for centuries but that in 1979, “a radical regime took over Iran” and “was busy thrashing the Iranian people’s hopes for democracy” while encouraging chants of “death to the Jews.”

The central theme of Netanyahu’s speech was that Rohani is a con artist who has been up to his neck in encouraging the secret development of nuclear weapons and is also an integral part of the Iranian regime’s policies of brutal suppression of domestic opposition and support of terrorist attacks against the West.

“He was on the Supreme Council from 1989 to 2003, during which time Iran gunned down opposition leaders and murdered 85 people in the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires,” Prime Minister Netanyahu asserted. He also fingered Iran for attack that cost the lives of 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut.

As for Rohani’s speech in the United Nations last week when he patted the Islamic Republic on the back for being “democratic,” Prime Minister Netanyahu retaliated,  “The regime he represents executes dissidents by the hundreds, kills them by the thousands,” and participates in Assad’s “massacre of tens of thousands of men, women and children” while propping up the regime that uses chemical weapons against its own citizens.

“I wish I could believe Rohani but I don’t because facts are …that Iran’s savage record contradicts soothing rhetoric,” the Prime Minister added.

He reminded the United Nations that Rohani, as the negotiator for Iran from 2003 to 2005, “masterminded the strategy that allowed Iran to seek nuclear weapons behind very soothing rhetoric.”

USA Today on Tuesday published evidence to back up Netanyahu’s accusations that Rohani and his Muslim superiors are trying to pull the wool over the world’s eyes.

Last Friday, President Barack Obama gushed over Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who the president said “has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons.”

However, the newspaper cited research from MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) that no such fatwa exists.

“An exhaustive search of the various official websites of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei turned up no such fatwa, either on his fatwa website or on his personal website,” according to MEMRI.

The research group “says the fatwa was first mentioned by Sirius Naseri, an Iranian representative to a meeting of the U.N.’s nuclear agency in 2005, but is not listed among the hundreds of fatwas that Khamenei has issued on his official or personal website,” USA Today wrote.

Netanyahu clearly spelled out Iran’s history of being caught “red-handed” at least twice building underground nuclear facilities and pointed out that it is developing Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), which he said are for the “sole purpose of carrying nuclear warheads.”

He reiterated his demands in last year’s speech at the United Nations that Iran must dismantle its nuclear infrastructure, turn over is stockpile of enriched uranium and stop all enrichment before sanctions can be lifted.

He said sanctions are working and that Rohani was elected to remove  the sanctions while continuing to develop nuclear weapons and declared, “Rohani thinks he can get away with it because he has gotten away with it before.”

Most of my friends have already heard this story, but if you are one of them, don’t skip it. There’s an important parallel.

When I served in the IDF reserve, my job was guard duty at Air Force installations. This is (or was) one of the lowest tasks in the army, being reserved for people who hadn’t done regular service, or who had various ‘problems’. And we were a motley bunch. In particular there was one guy who always wore sneakers instead of boots. He explained to his commanders that he had a ptor, a medical release.

One day in 1987 when we guarding Tel Aviv’s Sde Dov airport, we were informed that a helicopter carrying the Chief of the General Staff was arriving and we were to go out and meet it. With feelings of great importance (and relief from the crushing boredom of guard duty), we surrounded the landing area. The helicopter touched down, and out stepped the highest-ranking officer in the IDF, Dan Shomron, along with other generals, bodyguards, etc.

The first thing he noticed was the sneakers. Before he stepped into his car, he nudged a major, who spoke to my associate.

Major: You. What’s on your feet?
Cpl. X: Sneakers.
M: Why?
X: I have a ptor.
M: Show it to me.

Of course he couldn’t, since it existed only in his mind. There were unpleasant consequences for him.

Which brings us to the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani. (h/t: Elder of Ziyon). Rouhani — and his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — have claimed several times that Iran cannot develop nuclear weapons because the Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa [judgment of Islamic law] against it.

In fact, they even succeeded in persuading President Obama, who mentioned it in his speech at the UN last week. But like my unfortunate friend’s ptor, the fatwa seems to be imaginary. Read what MEMRI says about it:

In fact, such a fatwa was never issued by Supreme Leader Khamenei and does not exist; neither the Iranian regime nor anybody else can present it.

The deception regarding “Khamenei’s fatwa” has been promoted by the Iranian regime and its spokesmen for several years. Each time it was mentioned, the “fatwa” was given a different year of issue – for example, 2005, 2007, or 2012 – but the text of the “fatwa” was never presented.

MEMRI has conducted in-depth research with regard to this “fatwa” and has published reports demonstrating that it is a fiction. See MEMRI reports:

Renewed Iran-West Nuclear Talks – Part II: Tehran Attempts to Deceive U.S. President Obama, Sec’y of State Clinton With Nonexistent Anti-Nuclear Weapons Fatwa By Supreme Leader Khamenei

Release Of Compilation Of Newest Fatwas By Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei – Without Alleged Fatwa About Nuclear Bomb

The Iranian regime apparently believes that its frequent repetition of the “fatwa” lie will make it be accepted as truth. To date, the Europeans refuse to accept it. According to unofficial sources, the legal advisors of the EU3 made an official request to the Iranian regime in 2005 to provide a copy of the “fatwa,” but in vain.

The imaginary fatwa is just one of many lies told by the Iranians about their nuclear program. Another is that it is for peaceful purposes, when the overwhelming evidence indicates that it is intended to produce weapons.

Iran has been making great sacrifices for more than a decade to become a nuclear power, something which it correctly believes will change the balance of power in the Middle East, replacing US influence with that of Iran. Now it is on the verge of completing its project — is it likely to give up now just to end the leaky sanctions that it has borne up to this point? Would the US have scrapped the Manhattan Project in January of 1945?

The Iranian lies are transparent, but they are not designed to be convincing. They are designed to provide cover for the Obama Administration, which has already decided that it is more important to achieve a ‘diplomatic solution’ to the Iranian crisis than it is to actually prevent them from assembling nuclear weapons (or coming close enough to do so on very short notice).

Unlike the IDF major I mentioned above, President Obama is not prepared to call an obvious bluff.

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