Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

MUSLIM WOMEN AND THE FUTURE OF EUROPE

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born former Dutch member of Parliament now living in the United States, urges European governments to deal with their Muslim immigrant problem by promoting the education of Muslim women.  Below are a few excerpts from a recent article:

For a while now I have been asserting that the most effective way for European Union governments to deal with their Muslim minorities is to empower the Muslim women living within their borders. The best tool for empowering these women is education. Yet the education systems of some European Union countries are going through a crisis of neglect, particularly with regard to immigrant children. We are paying the price of mixing education with ideology. However, let me stick to the important subject of freeing women from the shackles of superstitious belief and tribal custom.

The biggest obstacle that hinders Muslim women from leading dignified, free lives is violence--physical, mental, and sexual--committed by their close families.  .  .   . [Hirsi Ali gives examples]

European policy-makers have not yet understood the huge potential of liberating Muslim women. They are squandering the single best opportunity they have to make Muslim integration a success within one generation. Morally, governments need to eradicate violence against women in Europe. This would make clear to fundamentalists that Europeans take their constitutions seriously. Now, most abusers simply think that Western rhetoric about the equality of men and women is cowardly and hypocritical, since Western governments tolerate the abuse of millions of Muslim women when they're told it's in the name of freedom of religion.  .  .  .

Why are European leaders so slow to appreciate the great role Muslim women can play in a successful integration of immigrants in the European Union? Some blame can be attributed to the passivity of universities and non-governmental organisations in addressing immigrant women's rights. The academic community unanimously condemns violence against women, whether it is committed by family or the state, but it has been negligent in investigating and providing the necessary legal framework and data to help policy-makers make women's rights a priority.       

Andrew Strattaford  posted a briefer portion of this article on the Corner blog.  His comment?   

Well said. On the other hand, here's what the government of Tony Blair (fearless freedom fighter, Neocon idol, champion of the West, you know how it goes) is up to (via the Times): "The Government dropped plans to make forced marriage illegal in June, after the Muslim Council of Britain cautioned that it could be "another way to stigmatise our communities"...    Appalling. Cowardly. Typical.

ISLAM AND FORCED CONVERSIONS

What is the position of Islam towards forced (coerced) conversions?  Dr. Andrew G. Bostom provides an overview of Islam's historical and contemporay position here.   His survey was occasioned by the release Sunday, August 27, 2006 of Fox journalist Steve Centanni and his accompanying cameraman Olaf Wiig.  They had been kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists and were released after both men professed conversion to Islam at the close of their two week captivity.  So what is the story about forced conversions?  Bostom writes:

Forced conversions in Islamic history are not exceptional—they have been the norm, across three continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—for over 13 centuries. Orders for conversion were decreed under all the early Islamic dynasties—Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, and Mamluks. Additional extensive examples of forced conversion were recorded under both Seljuk and Ottoman Turkish rule (the latter until its collapse in the 20^th century), the Shi’ite Safavid and Qajar dynasties of Persia/Iran, and during the jihad ravages on the Indian subcontinent, beginning with the early 11^th century campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni, and recurring under the Delhi Sultanate, and Moghul dynasty until the collapse of Muslim suzerainty in the 18^th century following the British conquest of India.

Moreover, during jihad—even the jihad campaigns of the 20^th century [i.e., the jihad genocide of the Armenians during World War I, the Moplah jihad in Southern India [1921], the jihad against the Assyrians of Iraq [early 1930s], the jihads against the Chinese of Indonesia and the Christian Ibo of southern Nigeria in the 1960s, and the jihad against the Christians and Animists of the southern Sudan from 1983 to 2001], the (dubious) concept of “no compulsion” (Koran 2:256; which was cited with tragic irony during the Fox reporters “confessional”!), has always been meaningless. A consistent practice was to enslave populations taken from outside the boundaries of the “Dar al Islam”, where Islamic rule (and Law) prevailed. Inevitably fresh non-Muslim slaves, including children, were Islamized within a generation, their ethnic and linguistic origins erased. Two enduring and important mechanisms for this conversion were concubinage and the slave militias—practices still evident in the contemporary jihad waged by the Arab Muslim Khartoum government against the southern Sudanese Christians and Animists. And Julia Duin reported in early 2002 that murderous jihad terror campaigns—including, prominently, forced conversions to Islam—continued to be waged against the Christians of Indonesia’s Moluccan Islands. 

What will be the response of contemporary Muslim authorities?  That is the question Bostom asks also.

Given this enduring (and ignoble) historical legacy, it remains to be seen whether contemporary Muslim religious authorities—particularly those within Palestinian society, and affiliated with Hamas or Fatah—will condemn publicly the forced conversions of the kidnapped Fox reporters. Moreover, will they be joined by a chorus of authoritative voices representing the entire Muslim clerical hierarchy—Sunni and Shi’ite alike—from Mecca and Cairo, Qom and Najaf, to the Muslim advocacy groups in the West (such as CAIR in the United States, and the Muslim Council of Britain in England)—unanimous in their condemnation of this hideous practice, and formalized by a fatwa stating as much?

On August 29th, Fox television personality Greta van Susteren interviewed both men on her "On the Record" television program.  I saw the program and agree with Cliff May (of the Corner) who assessed the interview as "very much Larry King-style, all about the 'ordeal,' next to nothing about the issues that the abduction and conversion-at-gunpoint raise."   Cliff May asks the same question Bostom asks:

"Has any Palestinian religious or political leader publicly condemned the coerced conversion? Has U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan said a word about it? (Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the U.N. Charter.) How about the leading Muslim organizations in the U.S. and Europe? If

not, why not and what does this tell us?"

It will be interesting to see if this "conversion" is discussed in the media.  I may have missed it, but so far I haven't seen it.

After writing the above, I came across Robert Spencer's commentary on Centanni's and Wiig's forced "conversions".  Spencer wrote:

Islamic law forbids forced conversion, but as Andrew Bostom documented in a FrontPage article yesterday, this is a law that throughout Islamic history has all too often been honored in the breach. Nor is this yet another case of a “twisting” or “hijacking” of Islam; in fact, Islamic law regarding the presentation of Islam to non-Muslims manifests a quite different understanding of what constitutes freedom from coercion and freedom of conscience from that which prevails among non-Muslims.

Muhammad instructed his followers to call people to Islam before waging war against them – the warfare would follow from their refusal to accept Islam or to enter the Islamic social order as inferiors, required to pay a special tax:

Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya [the tax on non-Muslims specified in Qur’an 9:29]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)

There is therefore an inescapable threat in this “invitation” to accept Islam. Would one who converted to Islam under the threat of war be considered to have converted under duress? By non-Muslim standards, yes, but not according to the view of this Islamic tradition. From the standpoint of the traditional schools of Islamic jurisprudence such a conversion would have resulted from “no compulsion.”    

Muhammad reinforced these instructions on many occasions during his prophetic career.  (See here for more of the article and examples of Muhammad's actions.)

HOW SUICIDE BOMBERS VIEW THE WORLD

Cliff May of National Review's The Corner offers this:   

From an interview with Pierre Rehov, a  French documentary maker whose newest film, Suicide Killers, is based on interviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers

Q - What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings?

A - It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience. You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. … I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize.

This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement goal is to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a Shaheed or the family of a shaheed.

They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy.…

Q - Are suicide bombers principally motivated by religious conviction?

A - Yes, it is their only conviction. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do. …

The main difference between moderate Muslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their lifetime, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today. Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists. …

Q - How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general?

A - Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Naziism. ..

More here.

GEORGE SOROS AND THE "SHADOW PARTY"

David Horowitz does yeoman work in tracing the capture of the Democratic party by billionaire George Soros.  This article offers a brief synopsis of some of what is going on which is explained more throughly in Horowitz's book The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party.  In addition to the article and book just mentioned, Jamie Glazovhas has posted an interview with Richard Poe, Horowitz's co-author.  Poe explains:

The Shadow Party is the real power driving the Democrat machine.  It is a network of radicals dedicated to transforming our constitutional republic into a socialist hive.

 
The leader of these radicals is multibillionaire George Soros.  He has essentially privatized the Democratic Party, bringing it under his personal control.  The Shadow Party is the instrument through which he exerts that control. . . .

In 2003, Soros set up a network of privately-owned groups which acts as a shadow or mirror image of the Party. It performs all the functions we would normally expect the real Democratic Party to perform, such as shaping the Party platform, fielding candidates, running campaigns, and so forth.  However, it performs these functions under the private supervision of Mr. Soros and his associates.

The Shadow Party derives its power from its ability to raise huge sums of money.  By controlling the Democrat pursestrings, the Shadow Party can make or break any Democrat candidate by deciding whether or not to fund him.   

During the 2004 election cycle, the Shadow Party raised more than $300 million for Democrat candidates, prompting one of its operatives, MoveOn PAC director Eli Pariser, to declare, “Now it’s our party. We bought it, we own it…”

.  .  .  He [George Soros] uses it to push the Party leftward.  He is systematically purging the Party of moderates and packing it with radicals. For instance, the Shadow Party ousted Senator Joseph Lieberman in favor of Ned Lamont, because Lieberman refused to support a “cut-and-run” policy in Iraq.

. . . In his new book "The Age of Fallibility," Soros writes, “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States."   He announced in 2003 that it is necessary to "puncture the bubble of American supremacy."  Soros is working systematically to achieve that goal.

Read  more here on George Soros and the Shadow Party.  Scary stuff.   The interview contains so much more than what I've reproduced above.  For still more information, see here and here.

HEZBOLLAH'S STATURE IN LEBANON DIMINISHING

Amir Taheri offers a fascinating analysis of Hezbollah's diminished influence and stature after the war with Israel.   Sheik Hassan Nasrallah no longer receives the adulation he enjoyed immediately after the war.   Very interesting developments indeed.

UPDATE 9/1/06:  Charles Krauthammer  adds detail to Amir Taheri's analysis.  Here, however, is an opposing view

AMERICAN MUSLIMS AREN'T AS ASSIMILATED AS YOU THINK

So reads the heading of an article in today's  Washington Post.   Here are a few excerpts from the article:

. . .  The real story of American Muslims is one of accelerating alienation from the mainstream of U.S. life, with Muslims in this country choosing their Islamic identity over their American one.

A new generation of American Muslims -- living in the shadow of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- is becoming more religious. They are more likely to take comfort in their own communities, and less likely to embrace the nation's fabled melting pot of shared values and common culture.

. . . Many of these young American Muslims look to Shakir (and to celebrated Zaytuna founder Hamza Yusuf) for guidance on how to live pious lives in the United States . . . 

Despite contemporary public opinion -- or perhaps because of it -- Muslim Americans consider Islam their defining characteristic, beyond any national identity. In this way, their experience in the United States resembles that of their co-religionists in Europe, where mosques are also growing, Islamic schools are being built, and practicing the faith is the center of life, particularly for the young generation. In Europe and the United States, young Muslims are unifying around popular imams they believe understand the challenges they face in Western societies; these leaders include Yusuf in the United States and Amer Khaled, an Egyptian-born imam who lives in Britain. Thousands of young Muslims attend their lectures.

In my years of interviews, I found few indications of homegrown militancy among American Muslims. Indeed, thus far, they have proved they can compete economically with other Americans. Although the unemployment rate for Muslims in Britain is far higher than for most other groups, the average annual income of a Muslim household surpasses that of average American households. Yet, outside the workplace, Muslims retreat into the comfort zone of their mosques and Islamic schools.

A MUSLIM-RAISED MALAYSIAN WOMAN HAS CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY. WILL THE GOV'T ALLOW IT?

All eyes are on Malaysia.  Michelle Malkin has the story which she relates as follows: 

Apostasy. The last time I visited the subject, an ex-Muslim man's life was at stake in Afghanistan. Remember Abdul Rahman?

Now, meet Lina Joy. Like Rahman, she was born Muslim, converted to Christianity, and is facing death threats for abandoning Islam. She wants to marry a fellow Christian man in her native Malaysia. A Muslim legal advocate for Joy, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, also faces death threats for defending her in a case that has reached the highest court in their country. The Wall Street Journal and NYTimes both spotlight her plight today. WSJ summarizes:

In 1998, Azlina binti Jailani changed her name to Lina Joy and was baptized a Catholic in a church in Kuala Lumpur. Ms. Joy now wants the government to stop classifying her as a Muslim.

But it isn't that simple: While Muslim-majority Malaysia is considered a largely moderate, modern society, renouncing one's Muslim faith still is considered both sinful and illegal by Islamic authorities -- who have gained increasing sway of late. Ms. Joy's apostasy case, now before Malaysia's highest court of appeal, has inflamed public debate, divided the legal community -- a Muslim lawyer supporting Ms. Joy has received death threats -- and threatens to set off political tremors in this Southeast Asian nation of 25 million people.

The landmark legal ruling, expected within a month, will help define Malaysia's character as a nation.

"We are at a crossroad, whether we go down the line of secular constitutionalism or whether that constitution will now be read subject to religious requirements," says Benjamin Dawson, one of Ms. Joy's lawyers.

Malaysia has been governed for more than a half century by a tradition of civil law passed on by former British colonial rulers. A separate shariah, or Islamic, legal system has co-existed with civil law specifically to govern the religious lives of Muslim citizens, who are mostly ethnic Malays. About 40% of the population is ethnic Chinese, Indians and other minorities of other faiths.

But conservative Islam's rise as a political force in the 1980s and 1990s has propelled pro-Western Malaysia -- and its legal system -- on a steady swing to the religious right. The government has ceded some powers once held by the civil-justice system to the shariah courts.

While the Quran states there should be "no compunction" in religion, Islamic authorities world-wide consider apostasy both a sin and a crime. In Malaysia, Islamic courts can sentence apostates to "rehabilitation" in prison-like re-education centers that sometimes use caning as part of their program.

Although Malaysia's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, civil courts now routinely refer any cases involving Islamic matters for adjudication in shariah courts. And the shariah courts almost never grant Muslims the right to leave the religion.

The National Evangelical Christian Fellowship-Malaysia has more legal background. Wikipedia (always taken with a grain of salt) has an extensive entry on the status of religious freedom in Malaysia and Christian persecution including the loss of the right to marry, torture, illegal imprisonment, and loss of the right to work. The Catholic Church that baptized Joy is reportedly being targeted by police. Malaysia's prime minister is calling for expanding bans on proselytizing to Muslims.

An Islamic scholar explains why Muslims must not be allowed to leave:

"If Islam were to grant permission for Muslims to change religion at will, it would imply it has no dignity, no self-esteem," said Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad, senior fellow at Malaysia's Institute of Islamic Understanding.

"And people may then question its completeness, truthfulness and perfection."

Got that? It's a Religion of Peace for those who submit, and a Religion of Pieces for those who even dare think of leaving.

***

Yoo-hoo, American feminists. Have you nothing to say about this case? Perhaps if Lina Joy were clamoring for the right to marry an atheist woman instead of a Christian man, you'd be all over it, huh?

***

Flashback: At Dhimmi Watch, read Ibn Warraq's 2004 paper on Islam, Apostasy, and Human Rights.

BEST SELLING BOOKS

For the list of current bestselling books on Amazon.com click here.

For the New York Times' Best Seller list, click here.   Fast access to Amazon.com descriptions of the books can be found here.

MORE FAKE NEWS FROM HEZBOLLAH - THIS TIME AN AMBULANCE ALLEGEDLY HIT BY ISRAELIS

This is truly disgusting.  Hezbollah fooled the world again with fake reports and charges against Israel.  If it weren't for investigative bloggers doing the analysis (where is the MSM?), these staged events would have gone undetected.  Here's the site with the details of the alleged Israeli attack on a Lebanese ambulance and the investigation that discovered it never happened!!    Fraud!  Phony!  Phony!  Phony! 

Where does that leave us?  Here's the conclusion of the report:

But if the entire incident turns out to have been an elaborate but clumsy hoax, where does that leave the reputation of the media? Not a single reporter or editor doubted the story for a second. Or if they did, they certainly didn't inform readers of their doubts. Why did the media swallow the story hook, line and sinker? In their zeal to bash Israel, did they allow themselves, consciously or unconsciously, to be duped by Hezbollah supporters into broadcasting propaganda as news? Or is the media so eager to jump on any fresh scandal that they simply switch off their critical thinking and become absolutely credulous of any juicy tale thrown their way?

It took the blogs and non-professional independent researchers to shine the harsh light of forensic analysis on this case, in the process debunking just about every aspect of the allegations. And this was done merely with the meager scraps of evidence left over by the "professional" journalists, and by squeezing the maximum amount of information out of the subtlest of clues. But if the journalists who were right there on the scene had even the slightest interest in actually investigating the story, they had access to all sorts of information that could have blown the lid off the case. How hard would it have been to go back to the Red Cross office after a few days to inspect the ambulance carefully in person? To look at the hole in the roof, to photograph the rust up close, to search for burn marks or blood on the gurneys, to notice the driver's healthy chin? Wouldn't that have been a scandal worth reporting?

Is the media that gullible -- or does it have a political bias? Either way, its credibility has now been lost.

WEBSITES THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Here is an article describing the 15 most influential websites to date.  

THE CASE FOR RECITING CREEDS IN WORSHIP

I have long been an advocate of the regular recital of creeds.    Here is an article that offers a discussion of that position.

TIME MAGAZINE ON THE GROWTH OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA

After four failed attempts over a millennium and a half by foreign missionaries to gain a foothold in China, Christianity is finally taking root and evolving into a truly Chinese religion. . . .     Across the country, Christians are worshipping with a fervor once unimaginable in a communist society.

See here for more.

AIRLINE SECURITY AND PROFILING

Daniel Pipes says:

. . . the chances of Muslim-focused profiling being widely implemented remain negligible.  As the same Wall Street Journal editorial notes: "the fact that we may have come within a whisker of losing 3,000 lives over the Atlantic still isn't preventing political correctness from getting in the way of smarter security."

Noting the limited impact of losing 3,000 lives had in 2001 and building on my "education by murder" hypothesis that people wake up to the problem of radical Islam only when blood is flowing in the streets, I predict that effective profiling will only come into effect when a much larger number of Western lives, say 100,000, have been lost.

HOW SERIOUS IS OUR SITUATION?

Thomas Sowell posts a sobering, but undeniably accurate, article  as he asks the ultra serious question, "Point of No Return?"

It is hard to think of a time when a nation -- and a whole civilization -- has drifted more futilely toward a bigger catastrophe than that looming over the United States and western civilization today. . . .

This is not just another in the long history of military threats. The Soviet Union, despite its massive nuclear arsenal, could be deterred by our own nuclear arsenal. But suicide bombers cannot be deterred.

Fanatics filled with hate cannot be either deterred or bought off, whether Hezbollah, Hamas or the government of Iran.

The endlessly futile efforts to bring peace to the Middle East with concessions fundamentally misconceive what forces are at work.

Hate and humiliation are key forces that cannot be bought off by "trading land for peace," by a "Palestinian homeland" or by other such concessions that might have worked in other times and places. . . .

Hitler was able to rouse similar resentments and fanaticism in Germany under conditions not nearly as dire as those in most Middle East countries today. The proof of similar demagogic success in the Middle East is all around.

What kind of people provide a market for videotaped beheadings of innocent hostages? What kind of people would throw an old man in a wheelchair off a cruise liner into the sea, simply because he was Jewish? What kind of people would fly planes into buildings to vent their hate at the cost of their own lives?

These are the kinds of people we are talking about getting nuclear weapons. And what of ourselves? . . .

Once these fanatics have nuclear weapons, those victims can include you, your children and your children's children.

The terrorists need not start out by wiping our cities off the map. Chances are they would first want to force us to humiliate ourselves in whatever ways their sadistic imaginations could conceive, out of fear of their nuclear weapons.

After we, or our children and grandchildren, find ourselves living at the mercy of people with no mercy, what will future generations think of us, that we let this happen because we wanted to placate "world opinion" by not acting "unilaterally"?

We are fast approaching the point of no return.

Read the whole article. 

IS THE U.S. THE WORLD'S ONLY RESPONSIBLE POWER?

Rich Lowry of National Review magazine began an article today with these stunning words:

"The United States is not just the world's sole superpower, it is the world's only responsible power."

In this world of muticulturalism,  of the West's wallowing in its self-doubt and self-hatred, such a sentence comes as a splash of cold water on a half-awake face.  The question is, is Lowry right?

Lowry talks about France's most recent diplomatic double-cross, but then moves on to say:

Civilization simply lacks backbone without the United States in the lead. Everyone agrees that a nuclear North Korea is a danger, but Russia and China play the role of enablers. Everyone thinks the same about Iran, but Europe is willing only to dither. Everyone thinks Iraq descending into chaos would be a disaster, but only the U.S. is pouring major resources into preventing it (granted, it’s our baby). Everyone supports the Afghan war, and NATO is actually pitching in there, but the Taliban is emboldened on the assumption that our European allies won’t have the same commitment to doing the job that we do.

This is not to say that the U.S. is flawless. Our mistakes, however, tend to be the products of an excess of zeal and idealism. We don’t do coldblooded calculation well. Some of this is the product of being a superpower — dishonest diplomatic ploys are beneath us. Some of it is the nature of our democracy, which values openness and honesty.   // [Aside: I think a good bit of it lies also in the Christian conscience that still survives more here than elsewhere]

Paranoid critics charge that we are in Iraq to control its oil. The French could have pulled off such a self-serving maneuver clothed in idealism, but we are in Iraq for exactly the achingly innocent reasons we say. We are spending and bleeding there trying to plant a liberal democracy in the hardscrabble soil of Mesopotamia.

When President Bush is gone, conservative foreign policy will change. But it won’t be a change the foreign-policy establishment likes. It won’t be toward a let’s-talk-even-more-to-the-French multilateralism as represented by Nebraska’s tiresome Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel. It will be something more selfish and hardheaded, something more French in its motivation — Bush without the soft touches. Then, the world will miss the earnest do-gooding United States of old.  [Aside:  I'm not sure what Lowry foresees, but it doesn't sound good!  But maybe our patience and idealism have limits.]

JUAN WILLIAMS: A CULTURE OF FAILURE TAINTS BLACK AMERICA

Here is Juan Williams' celebrated article of August 21st, 2006.  See also my previous post on Wiliams' critique of  contemporary black culture. 

UPDATE 9/1/06:  Juan Williams posts an op ed  piece in today's New York Times.   He writes:

For anyone who wants to get out of poverty, the prescription is clear.   

Finish high school, at least. Wait until your 20’s before marrying, and wait until you’re married before having children. Once you’re in the work force, stay in: take any job, because building on the experience will prepare you for a better job. Any American who follows that prescription will be at almost no risk of falling into extreme poverty. Statistics show it.  . . .

Bill Cosby’s controversial appeal, in 2004, for the poor to see — and seize — the opportunities available to them is in line with the inspiring African-American tradition of self-help and reliance on strong families and neighbors. There were complaints that he was blaming the victim, minimizing the power of racism, and failing to understand that larger social forces keep the poor — especially black poor — at the bottom of the economic ladder. But Mr. Cosby’s critics ignored some sound advice: getting those in need to recognize that there is a way out, and that it’s in their power to find it, is the best anti-poverty program.

WHAT DOES PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD OF IRAN BELIEVE ABOUT THE FUTURE?

Patrick Poole writes here of the exotic (read extreme!) faith of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Anyone who dares to compare President Bush's Christian faith with this man's beliefs doesn't deserve a minute of anyone's time.

TO WHAT EXTENT IS "RADICAL ISLAM" A CORRUPTION OF MAINSTREAM ISLAM?

To what extent is “radical Islam” (or the synonyms “Islamic Fascism” and “Jihadist Islam”) a corruption of Mainstream Islam?   Or isn’t it a corruption at all? These are the questions Andrew Bostrom answers in yet another important article of his.  (See also a previous post citing his article on the Muslim attitude towards Jews from the time of Muhammad to the contemporary Seattle murders of July 28, 2006.) 

CHOICE QUOTE ON DEMOCRATS AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Hugh Hewitt wrote:

Trusting the national security to Democrats is like trusting a moving car to a four year old, or the management of a vast company to the junior high school business club.  Neither the child nor the preteens want to wreck the car or ruin the corporation, but both results are near inevitable.

MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS: A LITTLE HISTORY LESSON

The Archbishop of Denver reminds commentators (and Muslims) of the history of Muslim-Christian relations.  He writes:

Catholics who do know history may remember the following:

Islam has embraced armed military expansion for religious purposes since its earliest decades. In contrast, Christianity struggled in its divided attitudes toward military force and state power for its first 300 years. No “theology of Crusade” existed in Western Christian thought until the 11th century. In fact, the Christian Byzantine Empire had already been resisting Muslim expansion in the East for 400 years before Pope Urban II called the First Crusade — as a defensive response to generations of armed jihad.

Much of the modern Middle East was once heavily Christian. Muslim armies changed that by imposing Islamic rule. Surviving Christian communities have endured centuries of marginalization, discrimination, violence, slavery and outright persecution — not always and not everywhere; but as a constant, recurring and central theme of Muslim domination.

That same Christian suffering continues down to the present. In the early years of the 20th century, the Muslim Ottoman Empire murdered more than 1 million Armenian Christians for ethnic, economic, but also religious reasons. Many Turks and other Muslims continue to deny that massive crime even today. Coptic Christians in Egypt — who, even after 13 centuries of Muslim prejudice and harassment, cling to the faith — continue to experience systematic discrimination and violence at the hands of Islamic militants.

Harassment and violence against Christians continue in many places throughout the Islamic world, from Bangladesh, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan and Iraq, to Nigeria, Indonesia and even Muslim-dominated areas of the heavily Catholic Philippines. In Saudi Arabia, all public expressions of Christian faith are forbidden. The on-going Christian flight from Lebanon has helped to transform it, in just half a century, from a majority Christian Arab nation to a majority Muslim population.

These are facts. The Muslim-Christian conflict is a very long one, rooted in deep religious differences, and Muslims have their own long list of real and perceived grievances. But especially in an era of religiously inspired terrorism and war in the Middle East, peace is not served by ignoring, subverting or rewriting history, but rather by facing it humbly as it really happened and healing its wounds.

That requires honesty and repentance from both Christians and Muslims. . .  (HT: The Corner)

BRITISH JEWS NOW IMMIGRATING TO ISRAEL IN RECORD NUMBERS

A report in the Jerusalem Post opens with this sentence on new arrivals coming to Israel: "Anti-Semitic attitudes in the UK are a leading factor in encouraging aliya for British Jews" 

I believe there is no future for Jews outside Israel," said Yossi Vardakis, 19, while en route from London to Israel, where he plans to study rather than face hostility at a British university. "You don't feel really welcomed being Jewish [in England]. You're attacked for supporting Israel... You see this hatred coming out."

. . . Shachar Navon of the Jewish Agency's London branch said the influx of immigrants would contribute to an expected 550 British olim in 2006, the highest number in the last decade and a continuation of a trend which has seen about a 50 percent rise in British newcomers in the last few years.

She attributed that increase largely to antagonism felt by British Jews: "They say they are not fully secure here in the UK and that there are anti-Semitic acts all the time. They say they want to live in a place that welcomes them instead of looking at them as strangers."

Surely this is fascinating:  Jews leaving Europe for an embattled nation whose existence now has itself become so uncertain and fragile.  What does this say about Europe (and England?!)  What does it say, further, about Israel as a magnet for the regathering of Jewish people from around the world?  Can the United States resist the tide of anti-Semitism sweeping the globe?  I think so, but I predict the Left will more and more agitate against the support of Israel.  Already it is increasingly difficult for Jews on American university campuses.

THE IDEOLOGY OF DEFEAT: HAS LIBERALISM WEAKEND WESTERN RESISTANCE TO BARBARISM?

The liberal vision of a harmonious world dominates the liberal mindset of our day to the utter disregard of facts staring him in the face.    William R. Hawkins wrote an article today noting,

The liberal hope was best described by the title of Tom Englehardt’s 1995 book The End of Victory Culture. In 1999, President Bill Clinton proclaimed: “Perhaps for the first time in history, the world's leading nations are not engaged in a struggle with each other for security or territory. The world clearly is coming together.” It is because the events of the last few years so clearly contradict this liberal vision of a harmonious world, that there is so much hatred of President George W. Bush.

Hawkins, ( his article is titled "The Ideology of Defeat"), asks whether liberal culture with its aversion to  fighting and warfare, can produce the motivation and determination to resist the assaults of suicide bombers and insurgents.  He asks, "Has liberalism already so weakened society's will to fight back that even leaders and soldiers committed to do so cannot succeed?" 

He writes,

It is clear that the objective of liberal policy is not to be more effective, but to uphold liberal values. If this means losing a war, so be it.  It is better to accept defeat than to adapt to the needs of an illiberal world.

. . .  In contrast, Islamic fundamentalists harken back to the glory days when Moslem armies swept across the world from Spain to India, and Mohammed himself approved the razing of villages and the beheading of opponents. They inhabit {and enshrine) the kind of bellicose society that liberalism has done much to bleach out of America. The result is that despite having brave soldiers armed with high-tech weapons who win every pitched battle, American society teeters on the edge of military collapse from a lack of will to do what is needed, on a large enough scale for a long enough period of time, to defeat Islamic militants in any theater of current combat.

. . . Many Moslems have been recruited into extremism while living in the midst of liberal societies (like London), having found their surroundings decadent and corrupt. Thus liberalism’s much vaunted ideals of tolerance and passivity are seen by foes as a lack of honor and strength.

There is something "touchingly naive" about the liberal perspective on human nature and the behavior of nations.  It would be entertaining to watch the drama unfold -- if only this were not a real world where such illusions can result in the slaughter of milions and the collapse of a civilization at the hands of barbarous bellicose enemies.

EUROPE'S INSANITY

Serge Trifkovic describes accurately the insane situation Europe currently finds itself in.  We might well ask "Under what kind of stupor do the elites suffer to produce the mindset that now controls  European thinking?"   Trikovic's article, published today, should be filed away as a myth-shattering expose of elitist folly.  He begins as follows:

The present technological, cultural and financial strength of Europe is a façade that conceals a deep underlying moral and demographic weakness. The symptoms of the malaise are apparent in the unprecedented demographic collapse and in the loss of a sense of place and history that go hand-in-hand with the expansion of the European Union.

The emerging transnational hyper-state is actively indoctrinating its subject-population into believing and accepting that the demographic shift in favor of Muslim aliens is actually a blessing that enriches the Old Continent’s culturally deprived and morally unsustainable societies. Europe is losing the ability to define and defend itself, to the benefit of unassimilable multitudes filled with contempt for the host-society.

Many Muslims in Europe already consider themselves de facto autonomous, a community of believers opposed to the broader society of infidels. Jihadist networks now exist in every country west of the former Iron Curtain save Iceland. They are centered on mosques and Islamic centers often financed by Saudi money. Muslim population of Europe, which stands at some 20 million as of this writing, will double by 2025 and at that time it will account for a third of all live births in the “Old Europe” (the 15-nation core of the European Union).

Most Muslims in Europe live in a parallel universe that has very little to do with the host country. Their mindset has nothing but contempt for the liberal concept of “tolerance” and “diversity,” and they possess a disdainful and hostile attitude to the host-society. Such hostility is clearly manifested in hard-core anti-Semitism – in its raw, unadulterated variety that is repugnant to most Europeans but regarded as normal, legitimate, and divinely ordained by most Muslims. But since the dictum of the multiculturalist ruling elite is that Islam is peaceful, tolerant, and as European as the Sistine Chapel, the truth must not be spoken.

There follows a discussion of endemic anti-Semitism and the strict European strictures against "Islamophobia" that render rational discussion impossible.   Trifkovic concludes his article  saying,

The result is the inherent inability of Brussels to defend Europe from the threat of a resurgent and aggressive Islam, and to prevent the resurgence of anti-Semitism within its boundaries.  Cynically defeatist, self-absorbed and unaccountable to anyone but their own corrupt class, the Eurocrats are just as bad as jihad’s fellow-travelers; they are its active abettors and facilitators.

ISRAEL RUMINATES: WHAT HAPPENED??

Ari Shavit, writing in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, contemplates the recent debacle with Hezbollah and asks, "What happened to us?"    He proceeds to offer a brilliant dissection of the degeneration of Israeli society over the past generation.  Below is only a fraction of his analysis.  It is imperative to read the whole thing.   It's the deepest, most penetrating analysis of Israeli society and its recent disappointing fruit that I've seen.

A simple thing happened: We were drugged by political correctness. The political correctness that has come to dominate Israeli discourse and Israeli awareness in the past generation was totally divorced from the Israeli situation.  It did not have the tools to deal with the reality of an existential conflict. . . .

At the same time, political correctness assumed that Israeli strength is a given. That Israel is insanely strong. Therefore, political correctness disdained any attempt to build and maintain Israeli strength. The defense budget was cut, the values of volunteerism were mocked, the concepts of heroism and fortitude became despicable. Since the Israel Defense Forces was identified as an army of occupation . . .  they had reservations about it, they shook it off and became alienated from it. After all, in the spiritual world of political correctness, power and army have become dirty words.

Any national idea was rejected because of the sanctity of the private sphere. Every cooperative ethos was dismantled in favor of the individual. Power was identified with fascism. Masculinity was publicly condemned. . . .   The capital, the media and the academic world of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, have blinded Israel and deprived it of its spirit. Their repeated illusions regarding the historical reality in which the Jewish state finds itself, caused Israel to make a navigational error and to lose its way. Their unending attacks, both direct and indirect, on nationalism, on militarism and on the Zionist narrative have eaten away from the inside at the tree trunk of Israeli existence, and sucked away its life force.

. . . What is needed is to create immediately a new discourse that will suit the new situation. Without a new spirit and without a new language there will be no victory in the fighting. Therefore, while the war is raging we must find the spirit and we must find the language that we lost in the years preceding the war.

Israel tried with all its soul and all its might to be Athens. However in this place, in this era, there is no future for an Athens without a speck of Sparta. There is no hope for a society-of-life that does not know how to organize itself to deal with death. Therefore, after decades during which the right and the left and the center took Israeli power for granted and wastefully exploited it, now there is no escaping the need to place the renewed building of Israeli power at the top of the agenda. We are returning to the encounter with our fate; returning to what is decreed by the reality of our lives.

ANTI-SEMITISM IN EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

James Glassman wandered around Edinburgh during the world's largest arts festival and was shocked by what he heard.   A quote from his article:

But what is going on in Edinburgh now is no satire.  For me, Hughes represents a growing trend among left-thinking people in this country and around the world to accept as dogma that those on the Left should hate Bush, Blair, American imperialism, Israel and, while we’re at it, the Jews.  It is a cultural trend that I’ve found increasingly evident but never before has the Jew-hating element been so overt.  This week has confirmed that my Jewish paranoia is not entirely unfounded.  As the old saying goes: “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.”

MULTICULTURALISM VS. HISTORIC BRITISH VALUES: A PAKISTANI-BORN ANGLICAN BISHOP OFFERS OBSERVATIONS

Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester (UK) offers excellent observations and advice  in his Telegraph opinion piece, "Multiculturalism is to blame for perverting young Muslims."  Nazir-Ali, an Anglican Bishop from Pakistan, is author of several books, including his widely read Islam: A Christian Perspective and his latest, Conviction and Conflict: Islam, Christianity and World Order.  Here's a sample quote from his article.

It is clear, therefore, that the multiculturalism beloved of our political and civic bureaucracies has not only failed to deliver peace, but is the partial cause of the present alienation of so many Muslim young people from the society in which they were born, where they have been educated and where they have lived most of their lives.

WAS PRESIDENT BUSH CORRECT IN USING THE TERM "ISLAMIC FASCISTS"?

Daniel Pipes, whom I have cited before,  comments on the appropiateness and advisability of using the term "Islamic Fascism" or "Islamofascism."  He says  (and I am excerpting "mid-stream" from his article):

(6) I applaud the increasing willingness to focus on some form of Islam as the enemy but find the word fascist misleading in this context. Few historic or philosophic connections exist between fascism and radical Islam. Fascism glorifies the state, emphasizes racial “purity,” promotes social Darwinism, denigrates reason, exalts the will, and rejects organized religion – all outlooks anathema to Islamists.

In contrast, Radical Islam has many more ties, both historic and philosophic, to Marxism-Leninism. While studying for his doctorate in Paris, Ali Shariati, the key intellectual behind the turn to Islam in Iran in the 1970s, translated Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Jean-Paul Sartre into Persian. More broadly, quoting the Iranian analyst Azar Nafisi, radical Islam “takes its language, goals, and aspirations as much from the crassest forms of Marxism as it does from religion. Its leaders are as influenced by Lenin, Sartre, Stalin, and Fanon as they are by the Prophet.” During the cold war, Islamists preferred the Soviet Union to the United States; today, they have more and deeper connections to the hard left than to the hard right.

(7) Nonetheless, some voices gamely argue for the accuracy of “Islamic fascists.” After himself using the term on television, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff justified it by noting that bin Laden has

talked about restoring the Caliphate, the empire that existed in the southern Mediterranean centuries ago. That is nothing—it‘s deranged, but essentially it is a vision of a totalitarian empire with him leading under some kind of perverted conception of religion. That comes very close to satisfying my definition of fascism. It might not be classic fascism that you had with Mussolini or Hitler, but it is a totalitarian intolerance—imperialism that has a vision that is totally at odds with Western society and our freedoms and rule of law.

The Washington Times also endorsed the term in an editorial titled “It’s Fascism.”

Fascism is a chauvinistic political philosophy that exalts a group over the individual—usually a race or nation, but in this case the adherents of a religion. Fascism also espouses centralized autocratic rule by that group in suppression of others. It usually advocates severe economic and social regimentation and the total or near-total subordination of the individual to the political leadership. This accurately describes the philosophies of Hitler, Mussolini, the leaders of Imperial Japan and other fascistic regimes through history. It also describes Thursday’s terrorists. It very accurately describes the philosophy of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and many other stripes of Islamism around the world.

(8) The use of Islamic fascists should be seen as part of a decades-long search for the right term to name a form of Islam that is recognizably political, extreme, and often violent. I have already confessed in that I am on my fifth term (having previously used neo-orthodox, fundamentalist, and militant, and now using radical and Islamist). While Islamic fascists beats terrorists, let’s hope that a better consensus term soon emerges. My vote is for Islamists.

The general term I have been using is "radical Muslims" but given the way they continually cite the Qur'an for justification for their beliefs and behavior, I am thinking that maybe "Jihadist Muslims" might be a more accurate way to describe them.

UPDATE 8/16/06:  According to report, it appears Bush has dropped the term "Islamic Fascists."

UPDATE 9/25/06 - Victor Davis Hanson argues strongly for the accuracy of the term "Islamic Fascism." 

WHAT MIKE WALLACE SHOULD HAVE ASKED PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD OF IRAN IN HIS 60 MINUTES INTERVIEW

Novelist and commentator Joel C. Rosenberg says Mike Wallace’s interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 60 Minutes was "pathetic, weaselly, and a huge missed opportunity.  Not since Dan Rather’s “fake but accurate” story against President Bush using forged documents has CBS blown it this bad."   

Rosenberg says Wallace employed "useless, 'soft-ball' questions.  Ahmadinejad has some bizarre views. Why didn’t Wallace try to draw these out?  It wouldn’t require being confrontational — just appropriately inquisitive."    The following are the questions Rosenberg says Wallace should have asked:

1. Mr. President, you are telling colleagues in Iran that you believe the end of the world is rapidly approaching. Why do you believe this? How are these views shaping your foreign policy?

2. Could you tell us more in the West about your belief that the “Twelfth Imam” (or “Hidden Imam”) will soon reappear and why you believe that the way to hasten the coming of this Islamic messiah is to launch a global jihad against Israel and the U.S.?

3. Mr. President, in Islam, Jesus Christ is considered a great prophet and teacher. In your lengthy letter to President Bush earlier this year, you talked a lot about Jesus Christ. You criticized the president for, in your view, not following the teachings of Jesus. What are some of your favorite teachings of Jesus? Do you believe Jesus was Jewish? Do you believe that He lived and taught and did His miracles in Israel? Do you believe Jesus wished for Israel to be wiped “off the map?” In the current crisis, what would Jesus do, in your opinion?

4. You have told colleagues that when you were speaking at the United Nations last fall, you were surrounded by a light from heaven and that for about 25 or 26 minutes everyone in the General Assembly was mesmerized by your speech — that not a single person blinked for that entire time. Would you describe that experience for us? Do you believe that God or an angel was with you at that moment? Do you believe Allah has chosen you to be the leader of Iran at this moment in history?

5. You say that the era of bombs is over. Why then did you sign a $1 billion deal with Moscow last December to buy Russian missiles and other arms? Why are you sending missiles, bombs and $100 million a year to Hezbollah? Why are you sending bombs and bombers into Iraq?

Rosenberg summarizes Iran's position in the early 21st century this way:

Iran is the new Germany.   Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the new Adolf Hitler. Radical Shiite Islamic jihadists are the new Nazi storm troopers.   The pursuit of the Twelfth Imam is the pursuit of the new Third Reich.

As for CBS, he says:

CBS News had both the opportunity and responsibility to help the world truly understand this regime and the danger it poses.   It failed miserably, and we are all poorer for it.

THE BIG LIE - "PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION"

Here is a comprehensive article dealing with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  The article describes a new book by former Israeli Supreme Court justice Hadassa Ben-Itto, The Lie that Wouldn't Die--The Protocols of the Elders of Zion  It also details the way Muslims make use of this Big Lie in their fomenting of hatred towards Jews and the State of Israel.

UPDATE 8/28/06:   Jamie Glazov has an interview with Hadassa Ben-Itto here.

BRITAIN CAN'T UNDERSTAND ITS MUSLIM TERRORIST PROBLEM

Londonistan author Melanie Phillips tells Stephen Spruiell of National Review Online (the underlining is my own emphasis):

  "It’s not enough to thwart terror attacks if at the same time you are not only failing to come to grips with the radical ideology behind them, you are busy appeasing it.”

“This is really the core of the problem of what’s happening in Britain,” she said. “Even though Britain had its own atrocity last year, the 7/7 bombings, and it was perpetrated by British-born Muslim youths... there is a settled consensus developed among the political class in Britain that this was kind of one-off, that it wasn’t al Qaeda, that this was a group of guys who put together a plot because of anger over the war in Iraq. Britain does not want to believe what is patently obvious: that it has an enormous fifth column of radical Islamic terrorists who were born and bred in Britain.”

The explanation for Britain’s deep state of denial, Phillips said, is partly psychological: “A holy war is a horrific concept. It is a protracted fight with an uncertain outcome and an enormous cost in terms of casualties. Human nature, when we are faced with a reality that is overwhelmingly awful, is to deny its existence and alight instead on something that is less bad.” She said that is why so many in Britain blame London and Washington for provoking terror attacks. “We can change ourselves. This is within the scope of our potential. Consequently, the British cannot come to grips with the terrible ideology that’s driving the global jihad.”

“It’s not enough to thwart terrorist plots and break up terrorist cells, vital as those things are,” she said. “In addition, what they have to do and have not done is address the ideas that are driving people to these horrible acts.” They are ideas, she said, based on a paranoid view of the world in which that the West is out to destroy the Muslim world and controlled by the Jews. . . .  “Britain will not even acknowledge the role played by religion. This is the way a war is lost, the way a civilization dies.”    (More)   See also my earlier post on England and Its Terrorists

PHONY (AND STAGED) PRO-HEZBOLLAH PROPAGANDA PICTURES USED BY THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA

I have updated my August 2nd post on the phony pro-Hezbollah, anti-Israel propaganda pictures coming out of Lebanon.    Click here and then scroll down to see the incredible videos.   Do we have a bunch of naive dunderheads in MSM?   Or is it a matter of the MSM choosing sides and cooperating in a propaganda effort against Israel and the West?   Either way, skepticism is now the watchword in viewing any photos on TV, in print, or on the internet.

UPDATE 8/11/06:  Still more

Update 8/16/06:  Michelle Malkin provides a helpful summary article for WorldNetDaily.

Update 8/18/06: Joel Mobray updates the situation still further and concludes his article saying,

Yet given that thugs from Hezbollah, Hamas, and Arafat’s Fatah control almost everything in the most “newsworthy” areas of the Arab world, any scene or event encountered by Western media outlets must be viewed with supreme skepticism.

 

But it’s not as if this is news to the Western media. They know it. Yet pretend as if they don’t. That’s the real travesty.

WHY IS CHINA BUILDING MASSIVE NUCLEAR BOMB SHELTERS?

Joseph Farah spotlights a news item that few will ponder, even though its significance is quite enormous.

China's official Xinhua news agency reports Shanghai has built an underground bunker that can accommodate 200,000 people in the event of nuclear war.

The bunker covers a total area of more than 90,000 square meters, with 15 passages nearly 4,000 meters in length each to link the underground space with buildings above ground – including office towers and apartments.

Water, power and ventilation systems in the bunker are capable of supporting people for seven to 15 days amid catastrophe on the surface.

And this is hardly the only bomb shelter like it in China.

Farah goes on to note:

If you haven't considered this already, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings. What China is preparing for is this – the inevitable showdown with the West. Some day, in the not-too-distant future, China believes it will be strong enough to battle it out with the U.S. – either with conventional weaponry or with nuclear.

It is preparing to save a portion of its populace in that conflict so the country can still function afterward. . . . The fact that China is now publicly announcing the construction of these massive bomb shelters is alarming to me.

It's alarming to me also.  Read the whole article.

WILL AUGUST 22nd PROVE TO BE A DAY OF CONFLAGRATION??

Bernard Lewis, the celebrated scholar and expert on Islam, has warned that August 22nd might be a cataclysmic date for the Middle East and the world.   As an article in WND today reports: 

A top expert on the Mideast says it is possible Iran could pick Aug. 22, the anniversary of one of Islam's holiest events, for a cataclysm Shiite Muslims believe will forever resolve the battle between "good" and "evil."

Princeton's Bernard Lewis has written an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal advising that the rest of the world would be wise to bear in mind that for those who believe the end of the world is imminent and good, there is no deterrent even to nuclear warfare.

As WorldNetDaily has reported, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has urged his people to prepare for the coming of an Islamic "messiah," raising concerns a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic could trigger the kind of global conflagration he envisions will set the stage for the end of the world. . . .

In Islam, as in other religious, certain beliefs describe the "cosmic struggle" at the end of time. For Shiite Muslims, Lewis wrote, this will be "the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil."

The significance, he said, is that there's a "radical" difference between Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons.

"This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers," he wrote. Iran's leaders now "clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced."  . . .

Lewis wrote, "This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadanejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind."   More

UPDATE 8/10/06: 

Bernard Lewis's piece appears in the Opinion Journal as well.

Joel Rosenberg weighs in on the subject over at National Review Online.  What's interesting about Rosenberg's article, is that he states he has written two novels on radical Islam.  Radical Islam has  followed the very script he had outlined in his novels!  Prescient?   Up till now, it seems so.  Rosenberg writes:

It is hard for many Americans to imagine an Iranian leader (or any other world leader) actually trying to bring about the end of the world by launching a nuclear attack to destroy millions of Jews and Christians. But it is precisely this type of attack that I wrote about in my recent political thrillers, The Ezekiel Option and The Copper Scroll. One of my goals was to help people understand this brand of radical Islamic thinking and its implications for Western civilization. On page 358 of The Ezekiel Option, a fictional Islamic character insists that Israel is going to be “wiped off the face of the map forever.” Five months after Option was published last June, Ahmadinejad gave a speech vowing to wipe Israel “off the map” forever. In the novel, Iran forms a military alliance with Russia and starts buying state-of-the-art weaponry from Moscow to accomplish its apocalyptic objectives. Last December, fiction again became reality, when Iran signed a $1 billion deal with Russia to buy missiles and others weapons.

Muslims are not the only ones who have apocalyptic end-times views, of course. As an evangelical Christian from an Orthodox Jewish heritage, my novels are based on a number of “end times” prophecies that the Bible says will be fulfilled in “the last days.” For example, the Hebrew Prophet Ezekiel — writing 2,500 years ago — described a future Middle Eastern war to annihilate Israel that is known today by Bible scholars as the “War of Gog and Magog.” Jews and Christians who take Ezekiel’s prophecies seriously believe that at the last minute the God of Israel will supernaturally intervene to defeat Israel’s enemies in this war. By contrast, the Muslim version of the “War of “Gog and Magog“ found in the Koran concludes with Muslims winning. The Ezekiel Option and The Copper Scroll imagine how such prophecies could play themselves out in modern times. But suddenly this is no longer the stuff of fiction. Ahmadinejad actually seems intent on launching the “War of Gog and Magog.”        (More here)

MICHAEL MEDVED - WHY THE WORLD HATES THE JEWS

Michael Medved wrote an important column today, "Why the World Hates the Jews."   He  said,

Whether it’s the angry international reaction to Israel’s efforts to defend itself in Lebanon, or Mel Gibson’s drunken rant in Malibu, the age-old specter of anti-Semitism refuses to disappear.  With only 13 million Jews in the world – less than one fourth of one percent of the earth’s population – why does this tiny group inspire such bitter, widespread and often violent animosity?

He boils down anti-Semitism to three major contentions and in turn supplies excellent analyses of each charge:

1- The emphasis on the “Chosen People” concept in the Bible

2- The prominence and prosperity of Jews in most nations in which they’ve established significant communities, and

3- The startling successes of the State of Israel in the mere 60 years of its existence.

Read his article here.

HOW WELL DOES PRESIDENT BUSH UNDERSTAND THE HUMAN HEART? - NOT VERY WELL IT SEEMS

Rich Lowry makes a good point when he notes that

He [President Bush] often says that freedom is God’s gift to humanity. But it sometimes seems that he neglects what, for a Christian, is a central event in understanding human motivation, the Fall.  Pride and hatred and fear are as likely to drive human behavior as any hunger for freedom.

. . .  Someone living in a tribal or traditional culture will view the world differently, and have different values, than an atomized individual in the West. He might value sexual purity more than freedom, thus insisting on the repression of women.  He might value his religious conviction that all of the Levant should be Muslim-controlled over freedom and life itself.  He might hate the dishonor of foreign occupation more than he loves anything.

. . . the human heart is more complicated — and twisted — than President Bush acknowledges in his rhetoric.

NON-RELIGIOUS REASONS TO SUPPORT ISRAEL

I have often wondered why anyone who supports Israel is automatically thought by many to do so for exclusively religious (Biblical) reasons.   My own primary reasons for supporting Israel rest on a reading of ordinary history and a sense of justice more than any religious or prophetic considerations.  I note that Hugh Hewitt offers a similar approach.   Here he offers his reasons for supporting Israel:

Yesterday I got an angry call from Phoenix demanding to know why I supported Israel.  There are five reasons:

1. It is a fully-functioning democracy with a representative government and a nearly 60 year unbroken commitment to free and fair elections.  When such states come under attack anywhere in the world, the US should support them.

2.  Along with Great Britain and Australia, Israel is the most dependable ally the United States has in the world on a host of issues, but most especially the global war on terror. We need always to vigorously defend our allies and supply aid and arms as needed.

3. Since its origins in the Balfour Declaration and then the League of Nations, followed of course by its establishment via the United Nations, Israel represents the best promise of success for the structure of international laws and institutions that help keep the world civilized.  Supporters of the UN must realize that if Israel is not defended, the UN cannot be defended.  Defenders of the importance of international law and custom must grasp the same point.

4. Israel does deserve the long memory of the world since the world turned its back on the Jews during the early years of the Holocaust. The Jewish people of Europe are not the only people to have suffered genocide, but they are the only people to have suffered genocide in the heart of western civilization.

5. Anti-Semitism is an old and virulent disease.  It is long associated with the worst impulses of civilized society.  The forces that nurture and feed off of hatred of Jews and their state are never defeated, only contained. Their anti-semitic fevers are also always accompanied by other hatreds.  Keeping Israel strong is a sort of booster shot to the world's immunization system.

My caller from Phoenix no doubt expected me to play the "God's chosen people" chords.  A lot of Israel's enemies in the US tell themselves that all center-right support for Israel is a product of Biblical literacy combined with geopolitical illiteracy.  It is easier to win arguments with yourself when you dismiss the positions of the other side via such straw men.

Some Americans do choose to support Israel for faith-based reasons, but not me.  Neither the Harvard faculty, nor Richard Nixon --for whom I worked as an editorial assistant during the writing of his book The Real War-- nor the Reagan Adminsitration in which I spent years anchored their support for Israel in religious doctrine.

Pro-Israel beliefs have many origins, all of them legitimate in a free society.  The most powerful ones when it comes to securing support from Congress are those above.

The hatred against Israel is beyond any rational explanation.   This is not to say that Israel is always right.  But the current contest with Hezbollah (and Hamas) should leave no one in doubt which side to support.

Victor Davis Hanson, with whom readers of my blog are already acquainted, posted an article today that pulls no punches and gets it exactly right.   He says,

Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity. That has never been more evident than in the last three weeks, as the West has proven utterly unable to distinguish between an attacked democracy that seeks to strike back at terrorist combatants, and terrorist aggressors who seek to kill civilians. . . .

Hanson's article moves in several directions and I consider it must reading.  He concludes:

These past few days the inability of millions of Westerners, both here and in Europe, to condemn fascist terrorists who start wars, spread racial hatred, and despise Western democracies is the real story, not the “quarter-ton” Israeli bombs that inadvertently hit civilians in Lebanon who live among rocket launchers that send missiles into Israeli cities and suburbs.

Yes, perhaps Israel should have hit more quickly, harder, and on the ground; yes, it has run an inept public relations campaign; yes, to these criticisms and more. But what is lost sight of is the central moral issue of our times: a humane democracy mired in an asymmetrical war is trying to protect itself against terrorists from the 7^th century, while under the scrutiny of a corrupt world that needs oil, is largely anti-Semitic and deathly afraid of Islamic terrorists, and finds psychic enjoyment in seeing successful Western societies under duress.

In short, if we wish to learn what was going on in Europe in 1938, just look around.

Clifford D. May's analysis is well worth reading too.  He credits Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, and other Islamist fascists due credit for well understanding the psychology of the west and how to manipulate it to their advantage.   An excellent article.

BLACKS WHO CRITIQUE THE BLACK "CULTURE OF FAILURE" GET SHUNNED BY BLACK LEADERS

Once again, a black commentator gets shunned when he talks about the "culture of failure" that dominates black culture today.  Who is it this time?  Juan Williams.  As Michael Reagan points out,

NPR and Fox News commentator Juan Williams is a certified liberal – so liberal some have called him the black Alan Colmes, the liberal half of Fox’s Hannity and Colmes. When he writes a book you’d expect the left-wing media to fall all over each other to be the first to review his book and have him as a guest on network radio and TV.

That hasn’t happened, however, because his book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure that Are Undermining Black America - and What We Can Do About It, has crossed the boundary of what is - and what is not - permitted by the high priests of liberal orthodoxy.

For this grievous offense he has been cast into the outer darkness reserved for conservatives and other patriotic Americans.

Apparently Juan Williams thought he could get a hearing.  Not so.  After writing the book he says,  “People just don’t want to talk about why we are in a grievous situation even now in the 21st century with regard to race and the kind of leadership we have on race.” 

To which Michael Reagan responds,

This is a tragedy. It is important that Juan Williams be heard loud and clear, and that his book should have the largest readership possible. Like Bill Cosby before him, Juan has looked his fellow blacks in the eye and told them the truth – a truth they must face if they are to overcome the obstacles that hold them back.

He deplores the incredible rate of illegitimate births among blacks – a staggering 70 percent of all black children are born out of wedlock. These children are deprived of a normal upbringing, of a family with the father present in the home. . .

So Juan Williams sets out to tell the truth, writes a book about it, and he can’t get on liberal television, he can’t get on ABC, NBC, or CBS because they have sold out to these leaders of the black community picked by guilt-ridden white liberals. White leftists refuse to allow blacks to be individuals. They look at them only as a group. They have put them on their liberal white plantation where their hand-picked black taskmasters such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton rule the roost.

As Juan Williams has learned, anybody who shines the light of truth on this sordid arrangement will be barred from speaking about it. He is learning that you cannot go against the liberal Left's agenda even if you are a member of the liberal left.

THE SAD STATE OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Walter Williams posts an article  today lamenting the sad state of American University education.  Williams, himself a professor of economics at George Mason University, cites a number of whacko courses that illustrate the decay that abounds.  I recall reading some time ago about the historical ignorance that contemporary university graduates display, but for those who missed it, here's a review:

According to a 2000 American Council of Trustees and Alumni study, "Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century," not one of the top 50 colleges and universities today requires American history of its graduates.

A survey conducted by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut gave 81 percent of the seniors a D or F in their knowledge of American history. The students could not identify Valley Forge, or words from the Gettysburg Address, or even the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution. A survey released by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that American adults could more readily identify Simpson cartoon characters than name freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.

The academic dishonesty doesn't end with phony courses and lack of a solid core curriculum; there's grossly fraudulent grading, euphemistically called grade inflation. For example, Harvard's Educational Policy Committee found that some professors award A's for average work. A Boston Globe study found that 91 percent of Harvard seniors graduated with honors, that means all A's and a few B's.

I doubt whether these "honor" students could pass a 1950 high school graduation examination. According to the Department of Education's 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, only 31 percent of college graduates were proficient in prose, only 25 percent proficient in reading documents and 31 percent proficient in math.

Walter Williams suggests that it is beyond time for university trustees to cease being rubber stamps and begin to exert their authority.  A good idea, he says, would be to hire a campus ombudsman and a staff that's accountable only to the trustees.

WESTERNERS ARE SUCKERS - THE ANTI-ISRAEL PRESS FALLS FOR TERRORIST "STAGING" FAR TOO OFTEN!!

Terrorists understand that images are more important than armies.    This article by Jonah Goldberg puts a fair number of Arab/Muslim terrorist accusations and photo manipulations, past and present, on the record.  Goldberg could have put still more.   Helpful in this regard (including background on the many unanswered questions surrounding Qana), would be a perusal of recent posts at Confederate Yankee.

UPDATE:  Robert  Spencer has a terrific article titled, Stage-Managed Massacre (about Qana) complete with many important links. 

UPDATE 8/9/06:   Michelle Malkin on "doctored" anti-Israel photographs  at Reuters and other news organizations.

UPDATE 8/10/06:  A Green Helmet guy directs a pro-Hezballah production. Video footage  of the "staging" taking place.   This is incredible!!    Finally, Michelle Malkin puts lots of this phony reporting and "fauxtography" together in this superb, not-to-be-missed Hot Air Vent.