Last month, Germany’s first “liberal mosque” opened to much media fanfare. The woman behind the project, a lawyer named Seyran Ates, aspires to be Berlin’s first female imam and has proudly proclaimed that “there is no contradiction in being a Muslim and a feminist.” But, Vijeta Uniyal writes, the enthusiasm of the German and American media has not been reciprocated by Muslim groups in Germany or abroad:

German reporters and press photographers, eager to give glowing coverage, thronged to witness the mosque’s opening on June 16 and easily outnumbered the handful of Muslim worshipers. . . .

[What’s more], the media-driven PR campaign backfired, as the news of the opening of the Berlin liberal mosque reached Muslim communities in Germany and abroad. . . . Islamic fanatics from near and far started flooding the Berlin mosque with death threats. . . .

[According to] the British newspaper the Guardian, [Ates] said she had received “300 emails per day encouraging me to carry on,” including from places as far away as Australia and Algeria, but also “3,000 emails a day full of hate,” some of them including death threats. . . .

After countless death threats, the newspapers reached out to Aiman Mazyek, head of [Germany’s] Central Council of Muslims. He shrugged his shoulders and said there were 2,100 mosques in Germany and he “doesn’t need to comment on each and every one of them.” . . . .

This response, writes Uniyal, is typical for Germany’s major Muslim organizations whenever the government and press try to showcase a gentler side to Islam.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.