| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
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In FrontPage this morning I expand upon my initial observations on my recent trip to Israel:
Israel has become the world’s new South Africa: the villain du jour, the universal oppressor, the whipping-boy of the United Nations. Its foes have even applied the South African concept of apartheid to its policies. The global Left eagerly propagates the view that Israel, which has been repeatedly attacked by its neighbors, is by virtue of its very existence actually an aggressor state. The only free Western-style democracy in the Middle East (with the increasingly shaky exception of Turkey on the northern margins of the area) has received more world opprobrium than the brutal regimes of Assad, Ahmadinejad, and even the lamented (at least by Ramsey Clark) Saddam Hussein.Boosters of the Palestinian cause routinely refer to Israelis and their supporters as Nazis. In January 2005, Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain reached the apex of moral equivalence. He announced that his group would boycott a commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp: “we have now expressed our unwillingness to attend the ceremony because it excludes ongoing genocide and human rights abuses around the world and in the occupied territories of Palestine.”
Yet although Muslim spokesmen such as Sacranie, the international Left, and many others -- including some of the Arabic-speaking Christians with whom I am in daily contact -- believe fervently that Israel is the aggressor against an innocent and aggrieved Palestinian people, and that the conflict is wholly and solely about “stolen land,” the facts are otherwise. In reality, Israel is at the front line of the global jihad movement. Ever since the State of Israel was founded in 1948, and even before, it has faced jihadist opposition from groups adamant in their determination to destroy it utterly. Yet I expect that a poll of Americans would find only a tiny minority would affirm that Israel faces the same foe, with the same ideology, as the one the United States has faced since 9/11.
I was recently offered, and immediately seized, an opportunity to see for myself. Last week, I had the chance to:
• Explore the Muslim Quarter and other sections of Jerusalem’s Old City, the world’s holiest place and largest tourist trap. The ancient streets are barely passable, crowded as they are with tiny shops (all holding pretty much the same inventory, with a few minor variations) in which canny Muslim entrepreneurs sell Christian religious articles to eager Western visitors (“And because I love you like a brother, and see that you appreciate the finer things, I will give you a special price…”). One told me how happy he was to see tourists again, after years of intifada had driven them away.
• Visit and pray at the Western Wall, site of so much human longing.
• Peer into Syria from an Israeli bunker on the Golan Heights. The mountainous Golan is breathtakingly beautiful, although that beauty is broken here and there by the remnants of the 1967 and 1973 wars: bullet-riddled bunkers, rusted hulks of war machines. But most of this has been cleared away, for Israel has no room to spare; virtually every inch of land right up to the present border with Syria is cultivated. In stark contrast sits the Syrian ghost town of Quneitra, which the Syrians have left abandoned as a monument to Israeli atrocities ever since the Israelis withdrew from it in 1974. The international media has swallowed this tall tale as well, despite abundant evidence that Quneitra was in ruins before the Israelis ever got there.
• Travel by bulletproof bus through the West Bank, and inspect the security fence.• Sleep (fitfully) in a Bedouin tent in the desert, and savor the stark magnificence of the rocky, mountainous landscape.
• Walk through the 700-year-old streets of Safed, modern-day home of, among other things, a notable artistic quarter. In this I was not too far from where Hizb’Allah rockets fell – unprovoked, as was noted even by the United Nations -- a few days later near Kiryat Shmona and Metulla.
• Stroll around modern Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
I also had the honor of meeting the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Jerusalem, Shlomo Moshe Amar, and Soviet dissident and heroic human rights activist Natan Sharansky. In the course of Sharansky’s moving address he noted that Israel had again and again aided Christians -- at their own request -- against Islamic violence and injustice, most notably when the Church of the Nativity was occupied by jihadists in 2002. Yet international Christian leaders, he said, have not responded with similar gestures toward Israel. This is unfortunate in the extreme both for Israel and for Palestinian Christians: those Christians are going to be in for a rude surprise when the Islamic state so many of them are abetting actually takes power, and they find life more difficult for them than it was in Israel. Christians in the Middle East are in a virtually impossible position (which is why they are streaming out of the area). If the support the Islamic agenda, they are signing their own return to the second-class status of the dhimma, as mandated by the traditional Islamic law that jihadists are bent on restoring. If they support Israel, they risk being targeted by the jihadists, who surround them on all sides.
I met a couple who had recently been evacuated by the Israeli government from their West Bank “settlement,” where they had lived and worked for twelve years, and endured daily gunfire from Palestinians since the Al-Aqsa intifada began in September 2000. I met an American who now lives and works on a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, cultivating land just across the Syrian border, in defiance of the danger involved. Like so many other Israelis all over the country, he must carry a gun at all times. I photographed a large, confidently imposing, and clearly thriving mosque near my hotel in Tel Aviv, the very existence of which stands as poignant refutation of the charge that Muslims are oppressed in Israel -- especially in light of the glaring non-existence of synagogues in Muslim lands and the precarious existence of churches in them.
Israel is a country at war, a country under siege. Everywhere I went, even into a shopping mall in Tel Aviv, armed guards stood at the entry, searching everyone. Many Israelis with whom I spoke discussed the weariness of the people after decades and decades of war. They said that many, and maybe even a majority, are willing to cut any deal, even one involving giving up half of Jerusalem, in order to buy a peace that they themselves acknowledge will last only a few years.
Yet the game is by no means over. At the same time, there is a tremendous spirit among the people. I saw the greenhouses and agricultural projects making the desert bloom, and the determination of so many not to be intimidated, not to bow in the face of jihad violence. Long may they prosper.
Israel stands virtually alone in the world not only because of lingering antisemitism, but because Palestinian Arabs and their allies have succeeded in convincing opinion-makers that their land was taken illegitimately by Israel, and that they are oppressed there. The facts are otherwise, as I have discussed in a previous article here. The state was established legitimately and with the approval of the United Nations, and even the “occupied territories” were obtained according to what have been universally recognized throughout history as the rules of war. (Or should the United States give up the “occupied territories” of California, Texas, and other Western states? Should Russia withdraw from its “occupied territories” in Königsberg, eastern Finland and eastern Poland? Should Muslims across North Africa, the Middle East, Iran, India and Southeast Asia withdraw from those “occupied territories” back to Arabia?)
While I am sympathetic to genuine Palestinian Arab refugees, and with my friends from Ramallah and Jenin, I can’t help but notice the role of the neighboring Arab states in exacerbating and prolonging the refugee problem for political reasons that are ultimately rooted in the jihad ideology. I can’t help but notice that I was able to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Mount Tabor, and other Christian holy sites in Israel, which mean a great deal to me personally, while Bethlehem, under Palestinian Authority control, has become a dangerous place from which Christians are fleeing as quickly as they can. I can’t help but notice that there was no call to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza between 1948 and 1967, when those territories were under Jordanian and Egyptian control respectively -- despite the alleged difference of nationality between Palestinians and Jordanians and Egyptians.
Ultimately, if the nations of the world are interested in defending universal human rights and the equality of dignity of all people, they need to stand with Israel. Misdiagnosis of the problem -- that is, the unwillingness or inability of Western governments to acknowledge the motives and goals of the jihadists who want above all to destroy them -- has largely prevented this.
Yet as Benjamin Franklin said long ago in a far different context, we must all hang together, or we will most assuredly all hang separately.
Posted by Robert at November 29, 2005 6:21 AM
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I'm curious Robert. Natan Sharansky is a proponent of the willful export of Democracy to the Muslim world. This is something you are on record as believing to be counter-productive.
Did the two of you touch on the subject at all?
Posted by: Cornelius![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 29, 2005 7:07 AM
Hello America.
If Israel goes down to defeat, we in the West can kiss our respective asses goodbye.
As Europe becomes Muslimized, notice the ramping up of the anti Israel rhetoric.
Know thy enemy.
Posted by: dgene at November 29, 2005 8:00 AM
And Israel will continue to defend herself, with or without the love and approval of the rest of the world.
She is, whether or not most Americans believe it, our very best friend in this terrible World War.
There are no guarantees as to what happens in this, as in all wars.
If Israel loses, and we lose, not from lack of military wherewithal but rather from the presence of such a strong and cancerous fifth column in our midst, the world is lost forever to the darkness of Islam.
So, fight on brave Israel.
Posted by: JohnnyDub at November 29, 2005 8:47 AM
Robert and Cornelius:
I too have read Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586482610/103-1693516-5927042?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance
As I recall it, his understanding of Islam was very simplistic. He discounted the role of religion in the creation of a fear society. His experience in the Soviet Union will not allow him to understand fear societies created on a religious basis. Islamic totalitarianisms are completely different from totalitarianisms created on the basis of secular ideologies.
Honestly, I don't know how Sharansky can live in Israel and have such simplistic views about Islam. Sharansky is again, I am afraid, one of those people who believes in the inherent rationality of people. That all people have the capacity for rational thought and will want the same things irregardless of other ideological concerns. Unfortunately, Islam makes people anti-rational.
Of course, Sharanksky's book is G.W. Bush's favorite:
In the past week, Natan Sharansky has become the most famous Israeli minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs in history. The Sharansky boomlet started with a trickle earlier this month when Bush used a Washington Times interview to tell "opinion makers" that he wanted to put a book on their "recommended reading list." "If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy read Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy," Bush said. "It's a great book." Then, two days before his second inaugural address, Bush told CNN that the book "summarizes how I feel. I would urge people to read it." Soon, the former Soviet dissident began getting more credit than Michael Gerson for Bush's rhetoric about the relationship between democracy and peace. Newsweek called The Case for Democracy Bush's "own manifesto in the Middle East—a tome he recommends to all comers in the Oval Office."
http://www.slate.com/id/2112699/
Posted by: Mentat at November 29, 2005 10:05 AM
Israel's disappearance would have several consequences:
1) The Old City, all of Jerusalem, and all of the sites in the Holy Land that matter to the world's Christians (of course all Jewish sites, which should matter to the world's Christians) would be firmly in Muslim control. There might at first be noises about "allowing under the right conditions" some Christians to visit. But the islamization of the city would proceed. All synagogues and many churches would be razed, as they were in Muslim-ruled times past. The Western Wall would no doubt be fully incorporated into some grand new mosque. The remaining Christians and Jews would not at first be massacred -- those who had dared to stay. They might at first be treated simply the way, say, Copts are treated in Egypt. Tolerated, but under constant threat. Or as Maronites have come to be treated in their own country, Lebanon, where for more than a thousand years they withstood, in the mountains, the Muslim invaders. Or like Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, under constant threat, fleeing when they can, enduring when they can.
2) The moral consequences to the Western psyche would be grave. All thinking people would realize, would come to realize, that after the entire history of the persecution and mass-murder of the Jews, that in the full light of history, a horrible injustice had been done. After two thousand years, the Jews who had finally managed, after acts of fabulous, story-book heroism, to recreate their tiny state, their commonwealth, and managed to in-gather so many survivors of both European antisemitism at its murderous worse, and of Muslim anti-Infidel persecution at its cruelest.
Yet, despite this, out of the the criminal negligence which permitted an entirely false narrative of the Arab Muslim Jihad (aided by Arab "islamochrisetians") against the inoffensive Jewish state, filled out with the steady daily drip of falsehoods in the press, the radio, and on television, by Arabs and Muslims, and by those who, out of diseased third-worldism or old-fashioned antisemitism, further aided by the widespread ignorance of the most elementary facts of history, Israel became the permanent whipping-boy, and because the menace of Islam could not be faced, it was so much more comforting to believe that there was only the matter of Israel to set Muslim against Christian, and so Israel was not recognized merely as one part of a Greater Jihad, but instead as the entire cause of whatever hostility Muslims felt toward Christians. And for obvious psychological reasons, for the mental stability of those who were engaged in this cruel abandonment, it made things easier for them if they could first convince themselves that the Israelis were the aggressors, the ones who were in the wrong. And, looking backward, it also allowed a new generation of Europeans to overcome any feelings of guilt that they might have experienced if they looked, steadily and whole, at the entire history of the Jews in Europe. Lacking the mental and emotioinal stamina, eager to flee from the truth, of course they were intent on accepting the Arab and Muslim presentation of events.
And so the fall of Israel will lead, not to that Kantian eternal peace, but to triumphalsim all over the Muslm world - and the Muslim world, now, because of all the dithering especially about such matters as Israel, is now -- all over.
Global warming, and global swarming. Both require, in part, the same remedies -- doing everything possible to limit OPEC revenues, and the use of fossil fuels.
It will be difficult to undo what has been done. More, more, more -- that's the cry from Beijing and Bombay to Baltimore, Birmingham, and Bordeaux. More, more, more of stuff, stuff, stuff. Radix malorum cupiditas est.
Posted by: Hugh at November 29, 2005 10:54 AM
Hugh, you are a national treasure. Your post describes what should be obvious to the average Westerner who isn't an anti-Semite, yet they refuse to see the truth. I know that oil has a lot to do with this and since we probably won't be getting off this "black crack" anytime soon, what can we do to convice the masses that the Arab narrative is constructed out of lies and overexaggerations and that the Jewish narrative is the closest one to the objective truth? Somehow I have the feeling that if the Palestinian Arabs had blonde hair and blue eyes, that we wouldn't have to do so much convincing in the first place.
Posted by: igor at November 29, 2005 12:53 PM
Hello all,
Despite Hugh's picture, personally I don't think that all muslim states want Israel to disappear.
Like it or not, it is a uniting factor for the muslim world. There are particular nations that would like to see it go (like Iran) but increasingly a lot of others (like forward thinking Pakistan that) want to exploit the value that it could leverege in terms of trade, (believe me the mangoes of Pakistan are the sweetest in the world).
I don't have the stats but I wonder how much trade Isreal does with the muslim world.
There is a lot of bluster in the muslim world and that needs to be taken with a pinch of haram salt.
Equally there could be other nations like Egypt , Morocco, Jordon, who probably would compromise in keeping Israel ...for a price...and that would split the muslim world too (like my neighbour's idea of having a muslim force to protect Israel).
Ultimately, if Israel goes, it would be like so many other significant events in history. The disappearance of the British Empire, the Ottoman empire, the Caliphate, the annexing of various countries as time goes by, unfortunately that's life.
In 50 years Eurabia itself could be considered a powerful muslim confederate, who will then remember that there used to be a France, an England. Ayotollahs & mullahs will have shrines in Eurabia, just like there are in Iraq. Allah raj if you will...a reverse to the British/French/Dutch/Portugese/Spanish/German empires. The saving graces will be that the global language will still be English.
During the British Empire when a gentleman soldier fell in a foreign country, a little bit of England was created where he was buried. Flowers, popies and little gardens were there, roses imported from England, even grown & looked after by the locals....But there are no little Englands abroad any more...it's just life ....progression.
I hear that in Europe it is quite cold at the moment....remember a burka is from head to toe ...it will keep you warm.
Posted by: Naseem at November 29, 2005 1:05 PM
"Ultimately, if Israel goes, it would be like so many other significant events in history. The disappearance of the British Empire, the Ottoman empire, the Caliphate, the annexing of various countries as time goes by, unfortunately that's life.
In 50 years Eurabia itself could be considered a powerful muslim confederate, who will then remember that there used to be a France, an England. Ayotollahs & mullahs will have shrines in Eurabia, just like there are in Iraq. Allah raj if you will...a reverse to the British/French/Dutch/Portugese/Spanish/German empires. The saving graces will be that the global language will still be English....
I hear that in Europe it is quite cold at the moment....remember a burka is from head to toe ...it will keep you warm."
-- from a posting above
Print this out. This is the view -- the casual, indifferent, taking-a-secret-pleasure-view, of the disappearance of Israel, and the disappearance, in some -- oh, 50 years -- of Western Europe into Eurabia, a "powerful muslim condederate [sic]" and "who will then remember that there used to be a France, And England. Ayotollahs [sic] & mullahs will have shrines in Eurabia....The saving graces [sic] will be that the global language will still be English...."
That is the view, not of an "extremist" or "radical" Muslim. Not of an Arab Muslim, or an Iranian supporter of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not of a Muslim man grimly determined to see the entire universe through the prism of Islam.
No, the writer, the poster, is one "Naseem." She is no "extremist" or "radical" or "islamofascist." She is a woman, not uneducated, living in Pakistan, and a member of a sect deemed so unorthodox, the Ahmadiyya, not least for their seeming abjuration of the "Jihad" and far greater willingness to tolerate Infidels, to be considered in Pakistan not really to be Muslims at all. They are about the best you can do, from the Infidel point of view, and still be a Muslim. Well, here's her view -- sorry Israel has to go, but some Muslims at least are willing to consider its continued existence if Israel will pay the jizyah to be "protected" -- literally - by a Muslim army that should be stationed witihin the state and will, as long as that jizyah is paid, "protect" the Infidel Jews. She also mentions Israeli buying of Muslim products (mangoes are mentioned) as one of those things that might justify allowing the Jewish state to survive. How nice.
And when it comes to what she no doubt regards as Western Christendom -- that is, Europe -- she is equally horrifying -- quite unintentionally so -- in her placid view, her secretly pleased view, of the future.
Print out this entire posting. Look carefully at the predictions of this "Naseem" -- this "moderate" Muslim.
And start being, everywhere you go, your own Paul Revere, your own William Dawes. Not if by land or by sea -- they are not coming, they are already here and there and everywhere. And meanwhile, all our rulers can think of doing is "bringing them democracy."
Posted by: Hugh at November 29, 2005 1:18 PM
We do know a few things for sure:
1) Moslems cannot and will not be outbred by their infidel counterparts in the EU.
2) Moslems cannot and will not be moderated or otherwise softened into civilized form, not even at the hands of the EU's utopian elite leadership.
3) The syllogistic conclusion, then, is that Moslems must be expulsed en masse in order to relieve the conflict.
Either that, or there will be widespread street fighting that results in the EU's Balkanization.
Posted by: Duke Eudes at November 29, 2005 1:54 PM
Naseem, you really need to leave Islam and quickly. You are already considered an infidel by a majority of Muslims anyways, so what's the hold up? Don't you see what Islam is doing to your brain?
You still see infidels as inferior in the same way that the KKK sees black people.
"Ultimately, if Israel goes, it would be like so many other significant events in history. The disappearance of the British Empire, the Ottoman empire, the Caliphate, the annexing of various countries as time goes by, unfortunately that's life."
THAT is sick. You are basically saying that if Israel goes, then so what? Silly girl, do you even know what Israel "going" entails? It entails the MURDER of MILLIONS OF JEWS. But so what? It happened before with the Holocaust, but "that's life". And you compare the demise of the British Empire to the demise of the Ottoman Empire and Caliphate? Are you on drugs? The British for all their faults, atleast improved the living standards of their former colonies. And that includes your "foward thinking Pakistan". If it wasn't for Britain both Pakistan and India would be in the stone age thanks to the Army of Allah that sought to destroy all of the achievements of Indian civilization. Why should any sane person mourn the death of the Caliphate? If there was no caliphate then 60 MILLION of YOUR BRETHREN in South Asia would not have been murdered by the Muslim hordes and you would have still remained either a Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, or Christian like your ancestors. But no, you decided to trade the blood of your ancestors and your Indian civilization for some schitzophrenic text that was written by a proven pedophile warmongerer.
Face reality Naseem, Islam has made you a racist and it has made you stupid. And to think you follow a "moderate" form of Islam! Dear G-d! I'd hate to see what an "immoderate" Muslim thinks! If you want to save yourself from going insane with rabid hatred for the infidels and you want to stop feeling the shame all Muslims feel because of their lack of achievements in comparison to infidels (yes, even polytheist Hindus), then leave Islam altogether. Islam has made you sick in the head and your illness has manifested itself in your disgusting post. Why follow a religion that has as its greatest commandment to hate the infidel (which is the majority population of the world, btw)? Ask yourself that, Naseem.
Posted by: igor at November 29, 2005 1:55 PM
Israel is the only civilised country in the mid east.
If every supporter of Israel was to set aside just £10.00 of their shopping budget to buy "Made in Israel" products then that would be a tremendous help.
Some time ago I started e mailing specialist wine importers in the UK enquiries about Israeli wine, along with the URL to the Israel export directory.
A few of them now stock the wine on a regular basis.
This is the link:
Israel export directory
http://www.jewishpinellas.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=120518
remember if you are in the UK how many off licences are Indian owned, how many wine wholesalers ....a hell of a lot and our veiws on moslems are well known.
Regards to all
AI
Posted by: apostate_islam at November 29, 2005 2:09 PM
Igor, Hugh,
There are many ways that countries can be annexed, e.g. by the UN. It does not mean that millons of people have to die. PLEASE don't put words in my mouth. I do not ask for the death of a SINGLE human.
I am sorry that you intepetred my comments in that way...and if so..I unreserevedly withdraw them and apologise to all Israelis.
In fact I regard the Israelis as a very industrious and hard working people much to be admired and I mean it.
As Europe increasingly becomes muslim, does that mean that lots of people have to die...no ofcourse not.
Trials & tribulations come to all, including the re-drawing of borders and that is where my comment was to go.
Posted by: Naseem
at November 29, 2005 2:29 PM
For all her posturing as a 'moderate', Naseem's posting above was the equivalent of her letting her hair down in an unguarded moment and exposing to all the Islamo-fascist lice that lurk underneath. Her pleasure at the vision of an Islamic ummah ruling over the ruins of the present European and Israeli civilizations was quite palpable. And her retractions confirm that she salivates at the idea of Islamization of the very land she is currently a guest in.
Posted by: Razdan at November 29, 2005 2:52 PM
Robert--You speak of "lingering anti-Semitism." I wouldn't describe it as "lingering"; I would describe it as eternal. It is evidence of the world's ongoing failure to come to terms with the fact of the Jews.
Posted by: scaramouoche at November 29, 2005 3:06 PM
Naseem,
I don't want Muslims in Europe or Israel. Period. Their very presence, even if they aren't all terrorists, puts both Europeans and Israelis at a great security risk. They never help the authorities catch the terrorists, they usually cry "racism" whenever a Muslim terrorist gets convicted, they inhabit most of the prisons, they soak up all the welfare, and they are CONSTANTLY seeking ways to change our laws in order to accomodate their dawa. With Muslims in Europe and Israel it's always "Gimme Gimme"! Give us money, give us land, give us our own laws, and don't offend us because we can't be held responsible for what the "fundamentalists" will do if we are offended. So although many may not die in Europe as it increasingly becomes Muslim, that's not good enough. We don't have to die? Just as long as we "tolerate" the Muslims and they "tolerate" us (and we all know what tolerance means in Muslim-speak, the dhimma)? Well, sorry but no sale. I don't want Europe or Israel to become more Muslim because then it will look more like Pakistan and less like an advanced civilization.
And you are naive about Israel. It's borders may change but it will ultimately lead to its demise. The annexation you speak of means the cleansing of Jews from the land and absorption of the remainder of the land into the greater Arab world. And last time I checked the PLO and Hamas were not interested in converting the Jews to Islam (even if they were that would still be evil), but they are focused on terrorizing them in order to get them to leave or killing them if they have the "chutzpah" to stay in their ancestral homeland. So yes, the end of Israel does really mean the MURDER of MILLIONS of JEWS. Why? Because it's the Muslims that want to end Israel's life and they have made their intentions clear. Why do you think a Palestinian Arab who gave himself the nickname "Hitler" won a local election in the West Bank? Their intentions are clear because as it says so in the Hadith:
Abu Hurairah, may Allah be pleased with him, reported:
Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: The Last Hour will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews and the Muslims will kill them until the Jews will hide themselves behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say: Muslim, the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the Gharqad tree will not say this, for it is the tree of the Jews.
Hadith number in Sahih Muslim [Arabic only]:5203
Posted by: igor at November 29, 2005 3:06 PM
God Bless you, Robert Spencer.
WE are fighting for our values, our civilization, our lives.
You know, for all the vitriol from the left, WE are winning the war on terror/the war against Islam.
Israel is strong, free and proud. "Palestine" is a memory, a liberal concept. Nothing more. Israel is still qualitatively superior to the combined arab forces. Iraq was invaded in a few days. THe muslims are generally on the bottom, the loosing side of every major inter-religious conflict. They are always the oppressed, the downtrodden (this is because thier ways are inferior).
of course, there are new threats on the horizion - a potentially nuclear Iran, the demographic end of European civilization. Those are big. We must steel ourselves for what lies ahead. But, we have done much good, too.
at November 29, 2005 3:52 PM
Mentat
I too lived under communism, but that doesn't make me obtuse to the danger of Islam/totalitarian religions (or anything else totalitarian for that matter). On the contrary.
I haven't read Sharanski's book but I've seen him on tv and read his interviews. I think you're hit the nail on the head when you say he's the type who believes in man's inherent rationality and therefore perfectibility and therefore default disponibility for democracy. The guy exudes optimism, humor and warmth.
I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out he was a sincere marxist in his youth.
Robert
Loved the "canny Muslim entrepreneurs" part, who are all declare themselves your brothers....It's all the Levant i know in one imagine.
at November 29, 2005 5:00 PM
"Why do all muslims hate Jews?"
mo hated the Jews because they wouldn't accept him as their prophet, their messiah, wouldn't accept his allah as their Jehovah. They made fun of him, turned their backs on him and his corrupted Torah, and fought him and his merry band of thieves, among other things. mo and his hand puppet allah stole Jehovah and lied that Jesus Christ was never crucified.
Posted by: the poetess at November 29, 2005 5:05 PM
You can't fight something with nothing. Another poster, in another thread, quoted Douglas MacArthur, something to the effect that if one cannot define oneself, then one cannot defend oneself. Good words. The Israelis understand this for all of the diversity within their population. And yet for all their energy in defending themselves, their behavior leaves more to be admired than desired. In Israel, religious freedom is a reality for all. Compare the differences in religious tolerance between Israel and its neighbors.
The EU is a developing front in global jihad. The EU has rejected wording in its constitution, recognizing its historical ties and debts to Christianity. This was done for the best of reasons, to maintain a separation of Church and State. But a self-identity is required, otherwise one will be imposed. The separation of Church and State has been interpreted as a moral vacuum by certain types, who would presume to fill the void with the moral code of that paragon of 7th century desert bandit virtue. If practioners of Islam insist upon a political agenda, let them be subject to political repercussions. Meanwhile, let Europeans look to the value of their roots. Tolerance is not the same as acceptance and capitulation. Sharing one's wealth with another is a great virtue. Going halves on one's beliefs is insanity. Europe: Remember yourself!
Posted by: Chatillon at November 29, 2005 5:33 PM
BTW Although a burka is from head to toe, as another poster noted cheerfully and helpfully, so is a funeral shroud, which a burka resembles to an unsettling degree. Central heating also works.
Posted by: Chatillon at November 29, 2005 5:40 PM
Naseem, why dont you wear a burka,, you should be the one covered up!! Europeans are tough, they will soon wake up, and flush your koran down the huge toilet you call the mediateran sea!!
Posted by: Lulu at November 29, 2005 7:57 PM
Go easy on her, Lulu. Pretty sure Naseem is the one Moderate we've found so far.
Posted by: Gary at November 29, 2005 8:14 PM
No use arguing with Naseem directly, folks. But you're right: she's a scary combustible mix, because:
She knows she's a fiction, a lie in every sense of the word, a composite, one part nickname (Naseem), one part Pakistani who understands she wouldn't probably be alive today if she had not benefitted from, say, early childhood vaccinations against infectious diseseas and penicilline and treated drinking water and airplanes and rudiments of ananytical thinking by way of Western education, all benefits of Western civilization, part nationalistic fantasy (that's what "Pakistani mangoes as the sweetest in the world" is all about; Does anybody believe the actual truth of that???, for what else can she say "Pakistan" has contributed to the life of the world and her own?), part world-weary, Western cynicism.
One other part, hatred of all of the above.
at November 29, 2005 9:10 PM
Western indifference (and navel gazing) led to the fall of Constantinople, and wester indifference almost led to the fall of Vienna - a key stepping stone for the Ottomans into Europe.
I only hope western indifference does not weaken Israel’s resolve.
Posted by: raven_ at November 30, 2005 4:12 AM
Those muslims are hippocrites. Both Malaysia and Indonesia Muslim leaders practice aparthead towards non-muslim minorities such as ethnic Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Ibans etc.
Check out http://www.malaysiakini.com
Posted by: GreatCornhorlio at November 30, 2005 5:16 AM
Todd, Lulu, Igor:
As her apology/clarification indicates, you all misinterpret Naseem as I did at the outset. She comes here not to gall us, but because she is as frightened of the jihaddists as we are, if not more so. She plans on reading books that are highly critical of Islam, which may be a very risky thing for her to do. As an Ahmaddeyan living in Pakistan as it has mutated after Zia Al-Haq's and Saudi Arabia's influence, she has written about how difficult life has become.
While it's not always clear where she's coming from, Naseem's posts often provide us with insights we westerners don't have such as noting the public show the Muslim/Arab world puts on vs the practical as she has above. (I understand Qtar has just entered into agreements with an Israeli airline to facilitate international travel, but the Qtari officials are trying to keep that hush-hush.)
Hugh's cynicism notwithstanding, I hope there are a whole lot more Naseems out there, because they are the Muslims who will help to reform Islam and deserve some support and understanding as well as pressure applied on the powers that be to make change.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at November 30, 2005 12:49 PM
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