With the Jewish holiday of Purim approaching, it is incumbent upon all decent people -- whatever their religious persuasion -- to fully understand that ISIS jihadists are the lineal descendents of the cruel and ancient Amalekites with their bestial destruction of people.

In fact, "[i]n rabbinic literature, the reasons for the unusual eternal remembrance of Amalek are the following: (1) Amalek is the irreconcilable enemy and it is forbidden to show mercy foolishly to one wholly dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Moreover, the attack of the Amalekites upon the Israelites encouraged others. All the tragedies which Israel suffered are considered the direct outcome of Amalek's hostile act."

Though the evil may begin with the Jews, it will always encompass everyone else.

Thus, at Jihad Files, one learns that "ISIS is now apparently instructing its followers on the religious protocols of cannibalism."  This follows the nauseating news that 250 children were murdered through bread kneading machinery and men were baked alive. Moreover, jihadists throughout the world offer money to behead Islamic scholars who disagree with them. Yazidi girls are sold as sex slaves and little girls ages 7-9 bleed to death after being raped by ISIS militia multiple times a day.

And such abhorrent ideas are promoted in the West when Georgetown University, Professor Jonathan Brown emphatically states that "consent isn't necessary for lawful sex." Thus, "marital-rape is an invalid concept in Islam" and "a male owner of a female slave has the right to sexual access to her." Rape of the infidel certainly does not merit any concern because "her 'consent' would be meaningless since she is his slave." In fact, Brown asserts that "it's not immoral for one human to own another human."                                   

Then one learns that "an estimated 49 percent of individuals indicted for carrying out or conspiring to perpetrate a terrorist attack linked to the Islamic State are 'from established Muslim countries.'" Equally disturbing is that "the vast majority (83 percent) of ISIS indictees are naturalized U.S. citizens, and 65 percent are born in this country."

That Trump's newest executive order mandates government reports on honor killings committed by migrants is a solid first step in stopping the madness of "gender-based violence against women." Katie McHugh asserts that "like female genital mutilation, [honor killing] is a practice that would not exist in the U.S. without mass immigration bringing its practitioners into U.S. communities."

On another front, Yaya J. Fanusie and Alexander Joffee published "Monumental Fight: Countering the Islamic State's Antiquities Trafficking" which was published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. This November 2015 report highlights that "although the antiquities trade is considerably smaller than other elements of the IS financial portfolios, it offers the group the prospect of high mark-ups, global demand, a low likelihood for military disruption, and a willing pool of civilians who supply labor for the trade."

Since 2010 there appears to be a 23% uptick in antiques arriving from the area that the Islamic State controls. IS generates "enough revenue within the territory it controls to cover a payroll of hundreds of millions of dollars in its fighters' annual salaries."

Although oil remains the group's most important commodity, "the role of foreign funders directly through cash or indirectly through Islamic charities" aids IS because it avoids a trail of transactions while also exploiting the Qatari and Kuwaiti banking systems."

According to Bill Warner, "sharia finance is considered sacred finance and all religious and moral people should invest in Sharia financial instruments." One critical aspect of sharia finance is to fund those fighting in the cause of Allah. In his "Sharia Law for Non-Muslims," replete with chapter and verse where the information originates, Warner writes that "giving zakat money for jihad is not a theory. We saw the practical effects of the zakat with the Holy Land Foundation and other Islamic charities."

In fact, "the Islamic State is paying the smugglers’ fees of child 'refugees' to attract new recruits. Europol has identified as many as 88,300 unaccompanied minors among the illegal alien population overrunning Europe. Both the ISIS and the Islamic State affiliate in Nigeria -- Boko Haram -- have been recruiting in refugee camps using financial incentives, as well as working with the human smugglers. The Islamic State has reportedly offered as much as $2,000 per head in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. Jordanian special forces discovered an Islamic State 'sleeper cell' inside a refugee camp in northern Jordan. The Islamic State has issued warnings that they are infiltrating the refugee population. Jihadist groups have been extremely active in their efforts to influence and recruit in the refugee population."

According to Fanusie and Joffe, antiquities trafficking is now even more important to the Islamic State particularly as some of its other revenue sources have become more difficult to manage. Looting by the Islamic State is used for both propaganda and marketing purposes. On the one hand, they claim to be defenders of religious purity yet they also market to a "separate audience of antiquities aficionados concerned by the cultural loss from pillaging. The destruction presents an image of imminent scarcity, thereby raising the value of smuggled goods on the black market."

What is less well known is that the videos of IS destroying ninth-century stone reliefs was "aimed at least in part at creating the impression of devastation while concealing the reliefs' removal for subsequent sale." In "2014 IS videotaped members smashing iconic sculptures in Nineveh, [yet] the enormous site contains many items that have yet to be unearthed and eventually find their way to the global antiquities market which is worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars."

Looted antiquities end up in art centers, including London, Geneva, and even the Far East. Turkey and Lebanon as well as Jordan have served as conduits for the items. In fact, Lebanon is a "known transit point for weapons, drugs, migrants, and antiquities" thanks to the presence of Iran's proxy Hizb’allah.

Fanusie and Joffe recommend that (a) there should be sanctions on artifact smugglers and buyers; (b) antiquities looting and intelligence must be made a law-enforcement priority; (c) threat finance courses need to emphasize the "relevance of antiquities to the funding of jihadist groups;" (d) the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) must hold nations accountable for [their] failure to address enforcement inadequacies in dealing with end-buyers, smugglers, and looters; (e) public awareness must be raised through high profile informational campaigns in much the same way that wildlife trafficking and conflict diamonds made the public more cognizant; (f) newer technologies such as Molecular markers need to be used to more readily determine the identity of an item.

In a recent report titled "Islamist Terrorism: Analysis of Offences and Attacks in the UK" one is reminded that " ...organised Islamist attacks in neighbouring countries [involve] ideologically-inspired fanatics [whose aim is] not only to kill, but to strike at the tolerance, pluralism and broad-mindedness on which democracy itself depends. Terrorism uses emotional shock in order to confuse and to divide. An important tool in understanding and defeating it is a reliable and dispassionate account of its perpetrators, their characteristics, their offences and their networks."

Furthermore, "…it comes as no surprise that most Islamist terrorists in the UK are British men aged 18-34." In addition,"16% of offenders were converts, 76% were known to the authorities prior to their terrorist offences and 26% had prior criminal convictions." Moreover, individual offending and online radicalisation have both increased, “[and] this work reveals the extent to which offenders – even if convicted alone – tend still to be in real-world networks with partners, siblings or long-standing friends."

Report author Hannah Stuart, has found that "[a]lthough small in actual numbers, women’s involvement nearly tripled in the five years between 2011 and 2015 from the previous 13 years (between 1998 and 2010).

In addition, "[a]lmost a third of converts (32%) were linked to the proscribed group al-Muhajiroun -- a higher proportion than overall (25%). Converts came from a variety of backgrounds -- in the majority of cases from Christianity -- and the length of time between conversion and arrest, where known, ranged from four to five months to 14 years. More than half (55%) of Islamist-related offences or IROs were committed by those living with their partner and/or children (28%) [.]"

Shockingly, "[t]hree-quarters (75%) of Islamist-related offences were committed by individuals who were previously known to the authorities through one or more of eight identifiable points of contact."

It is a multipronged war that must be fought against Islamic terrorism. There is the virtual caliphate where the Islamic State uses the internet to recruit. This is boosted by the sharia financing that abets their heinous crimes. And, of course, the actual acquisition of land to spread their tentacles needs to be permanently halted. We are only as strong as the weakest link in our arsenal but there are little girls and their families who are depending on our knowledge, persistence, fortitude, and power to finally eradicate this loathsome pestilence.

Hat Tip: HT

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com