Message at the Gas Pumps

The following is an article by a Levantine friend of ours which appears on
www.6thcolumnagainstjihad.com.

We Are All Paying the Jizya Tax
By Jacob Thomas

Part of my daily routine is to walk to the business area of town. On my way I pass a gas station that is always busy, even though the price of gasoline goes up daily. This morning, the regular unleaded gas was selling for $2.79 a gallon. Last week, it was 30 cents cheaper!

Naturally, I can’t help thinking of the implications of this escalating price of oil products. I have come to the conclusion that we are all paying an enormous jizya tax to the Muslim world. Someone has figured out that over ten trillion dollars have been transferred from the West to the oil producing countries during the last few years. I am not sure whether this figure is correct, but it is an undeniable fact that an enormous amount is being transferred daily to the household of Islam. This has some serious implications, for the present and the future. I’ll return to this point later.

First let me unburden myself. I am extremely disappointed in the West’s inability to plan for the future. We have been warned several times during the last fifty years about the danger of relying too much on Middle Eastern sources for our energy needs. We didn’t take them seriously, and continued to live in the present, giving a scant attention to the history of that turbulent area. For example, very few people would recall that during the Suez Crisis in 1956, the oil pipelines from the Iraqi oil fields to the Mediterranean ports were blown up, and a mini oil crisis ensued. The real one came during the Yom Kippur War (October 1973) when Saudi Arabia began an oil embargo on the United States. That was to punish us for the massive military help given to Israel as it faced the Egyptian Army that had crossed the Suez Canal, and was advancing in the Sinai.

Not only were we faced with rising prices of gasoline and diesel, but as a result of the embargo, a serious shortage developed of these products. However, the 1973-1974 oil crisis became a blessing in disguise. First, the Federal Government issued directives that would help save the consumption of gasoline and diesel by lowering the speed limit on the highways. Some of us may remember how uniform those signs became: 55 MPH! Then, car companies went into high gear to improve the mileage in their products. Whereas a V-8 engine in a sedan averaged between 16-18 miles per gallon, new V-6 engines replaced them in the late eighties and the early nineties and delivered between 25-30 MPG!

I don’t want to point my finger simply at the American car companies, but equally at their Japanese and German competitors, all of whom seemed to suffer from amnesia. Bigger engines crept back, bigger models, and before too long several gas guzzlers appeared on our highways. On several occasions in my conversations with young people, I would mention the gas shortages of the 1970s, and ask, “Did your parents ever mention the oil crisis of 1973-1974?” Most of the time, I was met with blank expressions. North Americans seem to have such short memories!
Nowadays, we hear discussions about alternative fuels, hybrid engines, and the possible use of hydrogen engines in the future. However such new techniques and the search for new sources of energy do not help in the present crisis. We face a very serious situation that demands urgent solutions. Beyond the steady transfer of wealth to the Islamic world, I fear that the spiraling rise in the price of oil has a direct relation to the growth of Jihadism. Behind every terror act, there is a long period of planning, as well as the necessary finances that are required to carry on the attack. To deprive the Jihadist of financial resources is like cutting off the oxygen supply in an aircraft.

I am not implying that all the monies that have gone into the coffers of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries are ending up in the hands of the Jihadists. But the fact remains that some of that money does go into their hands. Let’s not forget that they are bent on destroying us. Our way of life, everything we have inherited from our forefathers and which we cherish, everything is at stake. Ultimately, the Islamists attack us because of who we are. While these attacks are horrific, they are merely an extreme aspect of Islam’s perennial dream of world domination.
The struggle between Islam and the Rest of the world has been going on for the last 1400 years. It did not start in 1947, when India was partitioned, or in 1948, when Israel was born. It goes back to the dawn of Islam’s history. Muhammad died in 632, ten years after he made Medina the center of his new Islamic realm. Within one hundred years, the Arab-Muslim armies had conquered the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. The Ottoman Turks continued the expansion of Islam in Eastern and Central Europe. In 1453, they had captured Constantinople, and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire. In 1529, they besieged Vienna, but failed to conquer it. They returned to that city in 1683, but this time their defeat was decisive, and marked the beginning of the decline and fall of their Islamic Caliphate. By1918, it was all over. In 1924, a secularist Turkish leader, Kemal Ataturk abolished the Caliphate, thus plunging Islam into a deep spiritual and ideological crisis.

Now unlike the crash of the USSR which unmasked the bankruptcy of the materialistic Marxist worldview, Islam’s powerful dream is nourished by a triumphalist theology that seeks to revive a global Islamic hegemony. This triumphalism is so utterly dangerous! And while the USA and the UK are doing their utmost to ward off further terrorist attacks, neither country seems to educate its citizenry about the true nature of Islam.

So, every time I pass by a gas station and notice the non-stop rise in gasoline prices, a Qur’anic verse comes to my mind. “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya [Poll tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an (9:29) Surat Al-Tawba [Repentance] ‘Descended’ in Medina and has 191 Ayas)

My Levantine forefathers experienced the full brunt of this verse for thirteen hundred long years. After the Islamic conquest of their lands, they became “Dhimmis” and had no choice but pay the Jizya, and do that humbly! Now a new type of “Dhimmitude” is emerging in the West, thanks to political correctness, and the spread of the ideology of multiculturalism. Could it be that once again the Jizya is being imposed on us, and we can’t help but paying it at the gas pump?