From Cid Martel at the Dutch Disease Blog comes this primo specimen of Eurabian dhimmitude. (Jihad Watch does not read Dutch and makes no claims as to the veracity of the translation.)
An imam that does not wish to shake hands with women is to be respected. This is what Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Thursday during a debate on values in Parliament. Balkenende does not agree with Minister Verdonk of Integration, she was not amused when an imam refused to shake her hand during a meeting. Balkenende is of the opinion that a peaceful society can only come about if we all respect each other.
Righto, Balkenende. Ms. Verdonk should "respect" acts of disrespect. Now why is that, exactly?
Fact is that our PM is a calvinist who values religion higher the anything else, the same goes for our minister of Justice Donner(the guy is supposed to fight terrorism!). They feel that women and equality are less important then their own ideas, thus they collaborate with and accomodate the Islam. They really think that, by doing so, they make more room for their own ideas and open the possibility to valuate religious opinions higher then other opinions. Thus you can publish hatefull books about homosexuals, women, unbelievers etc.etc. and get away with it, simply because the Quran says so.
The non-religious person is allowed to call these ideas backward, but is emptyhanded when he get's prosecuted, simply because he has no god who he can hold responsible for his ideas.
I just have to shake my head in disbelief at the level of servitude Verdonk is displaying. Incredible!
I suggest that the Dutch ladies revise a fine old Holland custom for men who will not shake their hands.
As anyone familiar with social norms from Rembrandt's time surely knows, it was a tradition for Dutch women, when so rebuffed, to gather up a mouthful of saliva and expell it upon the man in front of her.
So, now, when the imams, etc. refuse to shake their hands, they should return the cultural gesture by simply spitting on the fellow.
As a show of good old-fashioned Dutch respect, of course.
Peace in our time, yea right, since when have you gotten peace by bending to the will of totallitarianism ?
BillR,
Our (liberal) minister of integration Verdonk is the only one with balls and a brain in the Cabinet, en yes, she is a woman, and I do think that she has lots of talents but lacks the one for servitude.
To give you some background information:
There was some commotion some time ago, when a Imam (ofcourse dressed in a way extremely unsuitable for a modern western society and unable to express himself in Dutch) refused to shake the hand of mrs Verdonk. Imagen, a backward men that should not have been introduced to something als "high" as a minister in the first place, shows his contempt for women and our society (do you think he would have dared to act so disrespectfull to a minister of Marocco? Of course not) by refusing to behave in a civilized and respectfull manner. Verdonk answered him back, very politely and civilezed. She said something like: "It shows that I have some work and talking to do here". Naturally, she was scolded by a unlikely group of people, like feminists p.e., for disbehaving so disrespectfully. Yes, you read it correctly, she, the minister, not he, the disrespectfull idiot.
Our PM, Balkenende added insult to injury with his declaration in parlement, thus not only insulting every woman (and every normal thinking man)in the Netherlands, but more and especially mrs Verdonk. Verdonk has one of the most difficult tasks (she has to send illegals out of the country and extremist Imams and so on, and yes, she is scolded about that to and painted as being unhuman) in the cabinet, and Balkenende made it harder for her to perform this task by stabbing her in the back (Islamic style).
I'm a woman and I'm so extremely angry about this that I adressed the liberal fraction in Parlement to inform them that they could count me out as a voter, if they'll not take strong action on this point.
While Verdonk is taking the heat of the PC-people, Balkenende (who is really an idiote) walks around with an orange rubber bracelette showing the words "respect2all", this respect does not seem to include women and his colleague Mrs Verdonk.
Balkenende, he is beyond contempt.
http://fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/04/one-third-of-dutch-people-want-to.html#comments
1/3 of the dutch people want to emigrate. Holland needs more couragious politicians, the problem is however also to get couragious voters, but with so many considering leaving there should be a substance of voters.
That explains a lot. Calvinists are more like Muslims, as regards "traditional family values", than not. (Catholicism as well).
Calvinism is the underpines of American Religion.
Presbyterians are Calvinists, Baptists,especially Southern Baptists are Calvinists, and Christian Reconstruction or Dominion Theology is in reality Orthodox Presbyterianism.
And it is the Presbyterian Church that has boycotted Israel. It is fundamental to their ideology that the Jews are no longer the chosen people, (even Jerry Falwell believes that, his Zionism is not based on love of Israel or Jews, but a belief that the apocalypse will signify the second coming and that righteous Jews will convert (which is actually very Islamic)
The Christian Right has shown impressive resilience and has rebounded dramatically after a series of embarrassing televangelist scandals of the late1980s, the collapse of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, and the failed presidential bid of Pat Robertson. In the 1990s, Christian Right organizing went to the grassroots and exerted wide influence in American politics across the country.
There is no doubt that Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition gets much of the credit for this successful strategic shift to the local level. But another largely overlooked reason for the persistent success of the Christian Right
isa theological shift since the 1960s. The catalyst for the shift is Christian Reconstructionism--arguably the driving ideology of the Christian Right.
The significance of the Reconstructionist movement is not its numbers, but the power of its ideas and their surprisingly rapid acceptance. Many on the Christian Right are unaware that they hold Reconstructionist ideas. Because as a theology it is controversial, even among evangelicals, many who are consciously influenced by it avoid the label. This is what constitutes Bush's electoral base (his financial base is of course corporate America)This furtiveness is not,
however, as significant as the potency of the ideology itself. Generally, Reconstructionism seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of "Biblical Law."Reconstructionism would eliminate not only democracy but many of its
manifestations, such as labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools.
Women would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is
this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment beyond such crimes as kidnapping, rape, and murder to include, among other things, blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality, and incorrigible juvenile delinquency, striking a parent. And stoning is the preferred method, because stones are cheap and stoning is a communal activity (shades of Iran).
The Origin of Reconstructionism>The original and defining text of Reconstructionism is Institutes of Biblical Law, published in 1973 by Rousas John Rushdoony--an 800-page explanation of>the Ten Commandments, the Biblical "case law" that derives from them, andtheir application today. "The only true order," writes Rushdoony, "is
founded in Biblical Law.
All law is religious in nature, and every non-Biblical law-order represents an anti-Christian religion." In brief, he continues, "Every law-order is a state of war against the enemies of that order, and all law is a form of
warfare."
Most conservative Christians and evangelicals are Reconstructionists, if not at the conscious level, at the unconscious level.
'Most conservative Christians and evangelicals are Reconstructionists, if not at the conscious level, at the unconscious level.'
Bull. And not a Papal Bull, either.
I think I made clear that I do not hold our PM or our minister of Justice in high esteem, but even I must give them the credit for not advocating things like stoning and the deathpenalty or replacing the Dutch system by some kind of Biblical rules.
Giaour, this handwringing and hysteria about Christianity is amusing, but actually your tu-quoque act is growing tiresome. I do not share your view that Christianity and Islam pose equal threats to decent people, and while I am all for a hundred flowers blooming in the comments field here, I suggest you take it elsewhere.
You say that in the dream society of "the Christian Right" that "Women would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment beyond such crimes as kidnapping, rape, and murder to include, among other things, blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality, and incorrigible juvenile delinquency, striking a parent. And stoning is the preferred method, because stones are cheap and stoning is a communal activity (shades of Iran)."
And you claim that "most conservative Christians and evangelicals are Reconstructionists, if not at the conscious level, at the unconscious level."
This is beyond ludicrous. If you actually think that most "conservative Christians" want to stone blasphemers to death, you betray your utter ignorance of (and fantastic paranoia about) both conservativism and Christianity.
Now I cannot claim to be well versed in the ideas of this marvelously-named chap "Rousas John Rushdoony." I have never read a page of his writings. I don't think I had ever heard of him before tu-quoque artists started throwing the specter of "Christian Reconstructionism" in front of me when I began speaking about Islamic jihad.
When this Rushdoony fellow starts flying planes into buildings, call me. Until then, run along. Goodbye. You are not banned, but you are tiresome. Go away, please.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
If Balkenende was so christian, he would refuse abotion, euthanasia etc. with this attitudes, there aren´t to change islam because to me, personally, haven´t affected, but not, I´m worried because I think that the common goodness and freedom is necessary, and killings and islam don´t protect freedom.
I pray for the dutch people, they have to return to his christian roots and challenge the islamic yihad and win it.
Many posters named Giaour are unaware that they hold secret ideas about wearing an Easter bunny costume over frilly ladies underthings, dancing with wild abandon in an autumnal field of over-ripe, unharvested tomatoes.
Most posters named Giaour are Easter-bunny costume wearers, if not at the conscious level, at the unconscious level.
Can anyone imagine the uproar (and rightly so!) if a white politician refused to shake the hand of a person of color?? No cultural or religious reasons would be enough to excuse that insult. I believe that I read that the Grand Imman, Al-Sistani, brooding on his rug in southern Iraq, would never even meet with Paul Bremer while he was the head of the US delegation because Mr. Bremer was, of course, unclean and an infidel. I am reading Paul Sperry's new book, "Infiltration." He discusses the issue of Muslim FBI employees who pressed for separate bathroom facilities so that they would not have to share with their fellow unclean infidel FBI agents. I thought it was bad enough when I read of Muslims getting their own prayer rooms in work settings. When will the West learn? No handshakes, private prayer rooms and private bathrooms.....can separate parks, playgrounds and drinking fountains be far behind..and we are back in the good old days of Jim Crow laws..Muslim style.
Hi. This is my first post here, though I've been an avid fan of this site for a very long time. Only TypeKey registration glitches kept me away - until now.
I'm a strictly orthodox Jew, residing in Jerusalem (for decades already), originally from the US.
I agree with 99% of the messages conveyed by JihadWatch/DhimmiWatch. This item here is an example of the 1% I object to.
To understand why, please refer to this article, giving the Jewish law viewpoint:
Shaking Hands With the Opposite Gender.
So, does that make us observant Jews disrespectful? IMO, you're barking up the wrong tree here.
12:35AM here. So apologies in advance if I don't see your responses until tomorrow.
It is a shame that someone as intelligent and knowledgeable about islam as Giaour won't post even one post without attacking Christianity. It looks to me that his primary enemy is Christianity. What a waste.
Thank you Robert Spencer for your words, you said what I have been trying express to Giaour for weeks.
That's what I always say, Maryrose. How would these people feel if someone refused to shake the hand of a black man or a Jew? Something tells me they would have a problem with that. So why is it ok to insult a woman like this? What's next, a Muslim that doesn't want to shake hands with an infidel? And Shy Guy, just because some Jews do it too doesn't make it suddenly ok. It's pretty disrespectful, especially in Holland where we all shake hands.
Shy Guy,
This is a difficult question, but I feel that, if you feel that you are not able to show politesse to a minister just because she is a woman, you should not put yourself in a position in which you show disrespect to her (and us as a nation!)on camera. That is also a question of respect. Note also that the no-touch policy of the Islam is not mend to express the holiness of the bound between men and wife, but to make obvious that women are unclean, untouchable and inferior.
Note further that there are more ways to show respect (a bow) then shaking hands, the imam did not do that either.
I must admit that I would have had less problems if a Ortodox Jew would have refused to shake the hand of the minister (but then, he would not have been introduced to this minister whose task it is to get immigrants to integrate, and Jews are Dutch people, mainly very well educated and a real enrichment of the Dutch culture), maybe because I am quite sure that a Jew would have found other ways to express his respect, something the Imam did not do.
What I did, when I still was making a living out of crime (not as a criminal) and therefore did meet a lot of Islamic people, I showed the ones out of the door that refused to shake my hand. I never bougth the BS that this not offering a hand was out of respect for me. Pe, when you show respect you stand up when someone enters te room, that is polite in any culture, and that didn't happen either. This was office policy, so demands to get a male colleague were denied. In those days I never met a Orthodox Jew in my office, so I do not know how that would have worked out.
Conclusion: if you want to take part in society you have to adhere to its rules. If you feel that your religion (or whatever) asks of you that you behave in a manner that is generally seen as extremely insulting, then the only civilezed option you have is not to take part in things that require behaviour from you that you feel not able to perform. And yes, this goes also for Orthodox Jews.
I have heard of muslims covering their hands with a thin almost transparent cloth so that they could shake hands with women in the west.
Giaour again exhibits his ignorance. The Presbyterian church that wants to boycott Israel abandoned Calvinism in 1906. Ever since the 1930's, it's been trying to purge all traditional Reformed theology from it's ranks; which is why there're denominations such as the Orthodox Presbyterian, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and Presbyterian Chrch in America today. Today, our anti-Israel United Presb. church tolerates "Goddess-worship" and accepts as ministers people who would canonize the Coptic Gospel of Thomas to "accommodate" women, even though said work says Mary had to become male ("Five" Gospels Jesus seminar idiocy--BTW, the Coptic Orthodox church doesn't accept this rightly long-buried apocryphon, either). Most of those who accept traditional Reformed theology (including the congregation electing the leadership and limiting bureaucratic agencies) left it long ago.
A lot of us conservative Presbyterians (outside the mainstream UPCUSA) who don't hold to dispensational fundamentalism (the "Left Behind" and Let's-watch-Mideast-events-to-know-when-the-sky's-gonna-fall theology) nonetheless recognize that Israel is no less "legitimate" than any other country.
It seems to me that Mynheer Ballkende can't win. If he says what the Gereformeerde Confession says about Islam, all liberals in Dutch society will spit on him for being a bigot; and if he accommodates an imam's sensitivities, he's a misogynist. I note that about thirty years ago, Ballkende's Gereformeerde brethren decided that the German Higher Criticism of the Bible, against which Abraham Kuyper and Klaas Schilder argued tooth and nail, was OK after all (and Solomon Schechter, the early 20th century Jewish theologian, described Higher Criticism as "the Higher anti-Semitism"). Yes, it's an ugly little secret about theological "moderation" that it bows to all kinds of ugly secular trends.
Pat Robertson is no Calvinist. He gives no support to either the Westminster Standards or the Three Forms of Unity; and believes God talks directly to him (something that could've gotten him hanged, or at least flogged out of town at the cart's tail, for a Quaker back in 17th century Massachusetts) without book, chapter, or verse.
For a hard-core, conservative American Calvinist assessment of Robertson, read John Robbins' _Pat Robertson: a Warning to America_, published by the Trinity Foundation. Google John Robbins and Trinity Foundation to find it.
You know, seeing people like Giaour, I think they'd like to make us traditional believers dhimmi, too. We're OK if we stay in our closets, and willingly accept the subversion of our children to ideologies that have proven they can't and won't defend what generations that went before slaved and sweated to build. But as soon as we vote or openly say we don't want our sons b-f'd, we become "bigots" and allies of the Wahabbis.
Nor do I support Christian Reconstruction. R. J. RUshdoony, its founder, denied the traditional division of Mosaic law into moral, civil, and ceremonial portions--but, I don't expect people like Giaour or Ernst to educate themselves about such distinctions.
Shy Guy, I'll remember what you said next time I'm in a room and there are orthodox Jewish women. Does a respectful bow do when an introduction is made? Also, ladies, if you meet a Theravada Buddhist monk, you're not allowed to hand things to him directly.
Robert: It's OT, but since you raise Rushdoony, I knew some of his disciples and read his book.
He was of Armenian heritage (original name Rshtunik), but Protestant. He broke with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of which he was a minister over his view that the civil and ceremonial laws of Moses remain binding on Christians as well as the moral. Down to the day of his death, he feuded with his son-in-law Gary North, the guy who brought us Y2K paranoia.
My read on the recons (who busily feud with and excommunicate each other over whether Christians may or may not eat pork) is that they're led by people who got burned by the Left radicalism of the 1960's and '70's and figured they needed some kind of disciplined extremism of their own to counter it. One person I met said Rushdoony himself went through a brief Communist period in his youth, but I don't know if it's true. Significantly, a number of recons over the ast 20-30 years have abandoned Calvinism's traditional Presbyterian and Congregational systems of polity for monarchial episcopacy.
Kepha,
what did I do other then give my views on the topic at hand? Why expect me to be unwilling to educate myself, just because we seem to disagree?
Maybe a discussiontactic? If so, I does not work for me.
I admit that I do not know much about the ins and out of (American) religious life and its various believes. However, I feel free not to educate myself on this subject.
This however, does not prevent me from knowing things about my own society and reacting to what is happening there, such as the actions of our PM.
He can not winn, you say, okay, but he can damned well lose, and that is what he did by making the statement that he made. If you want to be religious, it is okay with me, but making your personal religious ideas a statement of the cabinet, is simply not done in The Netherlands, and is the more comtemptable if you use your dhimmitude to stab the back of one of your colleagues. He is supposed to be the PM for all in The Netherlands, not just for the Islamic and otherwise religious population (meaning the male part of it), and in this he failed misserably by acting as he did with his open declaration that some people (the religious ones) are more equal then others (women and non-believers).
OK, Mynheer Ernst :l: that's an olive branch waved at you. I suppose my point is that Ballkende loses either way. He frankly admits that Islam poses a threat to the Netherlands and gets called a bigot; or he acts civil to the imam and gets called a misogynist. Frankly, the being civil seems to me to be a case of trying to be PM to everyone rather than just his Gereformeerde brethren.
Giaour, while I'm on the left myself, and so trying to get on side with you, if these conservative Christians "don't know themselves that they hold Reconstructionist ideas", how does that make them Reconstructionists?
As for Shy guy, I guess there we diverge - if you refused to shake the hand of a Western woman, I would be offended on her behalf, since in my culture we do this. We have to respect each other's cultures, not merely one or the other.
Geoff
I think all of you didn't catch on. Maybe you didn't thoroughly read the article I linked to.
According to Jewish law, Jewish women should not shake the hand of men just the same as Jewish men should not shake the hand of women.
There is no disrespect meant for either gender. I suggest reading the article. Only the greatest of respect is intended for both men and women involved.
And, Geoff, I have no idea where you get the idea of separating opposite genders that are Western, Eastern, Northern, Southern.
And the Jewish law applies for Jews to both genders, whether Jewish or not.
And while there's lots of talk here of respecting other cultures, I don't see most of you practicing what you preach.
It seems there's a tremendous intollerance of anything religious. Correct me if I'm wrong.
BTW, pragmatically speaking, if I woman would approach me to shake my hand in the presence of others, I would shake hers, so that she would not be embarrassed by a refusal. This is what MY strictly Orthodox Jewish rabbis taught me early on - though this may or may not be the opinion of qualified Jewish legal authorities.
But I personally understand my fellow Jews who don't accept this opinion. And I'll never be ashamed to uphold Jewish laws of modesty, whether I'm in Holland, Honolulu or Haifa.
Geoff: How do you feel about Buddhist monks refusing to take anything directly from a female hand, or Chan temples (the real name of Zen) showing women who aborted their children being led around the 18th Hell in a portable stock with the aborted children tugging at their clothes?
Much as I think it's a pity that they don't recognize M'shiach, the last time I checked, orthodox Jews were pretty "Western" (maybe it's because I'm living on the wrong end of the Eurasian landmass); and they even had the hon. Sen. Lieberman throwing his hat in the ring during the Democratic primaries (maybe it shows how dumb I am, but, based on his reputation in Washington, I might have even broken ranks and voted for him).
As for Giaour, Geoff, don't you know that we Evangelicals are so stupid that we must depend on our enemies to tell us what we really believe, and what our systems of doctrine are really all about? That's how easy it is to lead us by the nose!
You see, feminist theologians have discovered ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament books of Hezekiah and New Testament Gospels of Sosthenus and Bob, which nobody ever before suspected belonged in the Bible (they got suppressed at the Council of Ephesus, or something like that, by bishops in miters). These teach us:
I Hezekiah 6:10: "Moses gottest it all wrong when he said the thief must payethest restitution: thou shalt instead choppeth off his hand."
II Hezekiah 4:32: "Thou shalt be exactly like the Muslims, who will arise a millennium hence, in all that thou sayest and dost."
Gospel of Bob 5:11: "And Jesus saith unto them, thou shalt lettest thyself be leddest by the nose by any that claimeth to speaketh in my name; even if he poppeth out of the ground in a puff of sulfuric smoke sporting horns, cloven hooves, tail, and pitchfork."
Gospel of Sosthenus 12:12. "In latter days there shalt be prophets Rushdoony, North, and RObertson. Heareth thou them. Forgetteth thou what my servant John wroteth at the end of Revelation."
Gospel of Sosthenus 12:16. "If thou succorest the widow and orphan anywhere in the world, thou shalt not be called fundamentalist, even if thou believest in Creation Science and wish the discoverers of this Gospel which I hath commandedeth to be hiddeth to go jumpeth in yon lake of Galilee."
Regarding Rushdoony, please link to:
http://www.chalcedon.edu/credo.php
To read statements of their credo and rebuttals to common distortions.
Kepha and Shy,
If you're saying 'pragmatically' that you'd shake someone's hand, I can respect that - and if a woman didn't try to shake your hand, I can respect that. This shows respect all around, for your culture and theirs. It's when someone can't accept the others' viewpoint at all that I get annoyed.
I mean, seriously, God's going to fry someone for shaking hands?
Geoff
Fry someone for it? No. But observant Jews do not transgress Judaisms laws and customs. Judaism's rules, big and small, weren't made to be broken.
And again, there is no disrespect intended - just the opposite.
And even would I not shake a woman's hand, that doesn't mean that I do not accept others viewpoints. I think handshaking in general is a good idea but I cannot oblige at all times.
Geoff:
Traditional etiquette among Western Christians was that men bowed and women curtsied to each other, and it was up to the woman to extend her hand for a shake (respecting the woman's space?).
Ditto here about whether people fry for shaking hands across a gender gap. There are many worse things for which God forgives people.
Still, my point is that Balkenende (forgive me, Dutch readers, for misspelling earlier) seems to be caught in a losing situation either way: bigot if he stands with the feminists to his left and won't shake the imam's hand; misogynist if he does.
Geoff:
Traditional etiquette among Western Christians was that men bowed and women curtsied to each other, and it was up to the woman to extend her hand for a shake (respecting the woman's space?).
Ditto here about whether people fry for shaking hands across a gender gap. There are many worse things for which God forgives people.
Still, my point is that Balkenende (forgive me, Dutch readers, for misspelling earlier) seems to be caught in a losing situation either way: bigot if he stands with the feminists to his left and won't shake the imam's hand; misogynist if he does.
kick every religious ass, as far as I'm concerned!
Kepha,
it is not that simple: Balkenende is in fact supported by the left and the feminists and the religious folk from the various dominations on his given precedence to religious rights over the other human rights. It is as unholey an alliance as existented between feminists and pro lifers (at least, I think it is somewhat comperable)on the issue of pornografy.
But, Balkenende is smart by using an imam's rights to show disrespect, if he would have centered on the rights of Christians not shaking hands and giving respect to a female minister, or not giving respect to imams or whoever, he would have been laughed out of parlement by the same groups that are now on his side in this.
The only one who he finds against him on this issue are the ones that love the western culture and do not feel that they should adept it to the backwardness of other cultures, i.c. his opponents are the liberal (conservatives).
Multiculturalism (as in dhimmitude) has taken precedence over the assests of the western culture (with all its roots). That is why I not call him a bigot but a traitor, not a mysogynist but a dangerous dhimmi.