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The Koran Says What

At The Atlantic, J.J. Goldberg produced one of the more misguided addenda to the New York Times' Bash Pamela Geller week, by manufacturing a thin narrative, and then addressing it rather than Geller's actual arguments. And then forwarding it to Gerecht, who isn't familiar with Geller. This practice of creating "strawmen", of arguing against what critics of Islam are supposedly saying, than what they are actually saying, has become a notoriously common tool for the liberal media, which censors even cartoons that don't feature Mohammed, and is certainly eager to censor arguments that do.

The attack typically rephrases the arguments in a tone somewhere between mocking and ominous, at once undermining the argument by ridiculing it and associating it with Anti-Semitism, particularly ridiculous as Geller is Jewish, and Islam is undeniably Anti-Semitic.

In a recent New York Times interview, the blogger Pamela Geller leveled many serious charges against Islam; she stated that Muslims curse Jews and Christians during their five-times-a-day prayer; that the only good Muslim is a secular Muslim; and most perniciously, she said that the Qur'an has never been properly translated, insinuating that it contains dark secrets about Muslims and their religious responsibilities.

There's a huge reach from, "it was never properly translated" to "it contains dark secrets." I feel the Torah has never been properly translated either. That doesn't mean it contains dark secrets. It means it's never been properly translated. I can say the same thing about many novels in languages which don't share much common linguistic ancestry with English.

Wafa Sultan, who was raised an Arab Muslim, has said the same thing. As Gerecht himself points out, plenty of Koran translations do show that Islam is hostile to non-Muslims. There are some PC Koran translations, but the most popular ones used by Muslims are non-PC. The diversity of translations used by Muslims shows there isn't necessarily an ideal translation. Because in some cases there isn't even full agreement on what the Koran means. Stating that there should be an ideal translation means that Muslims and non-Muslims who don't know Arabic should know what the Koran says and doesn't say.

But J.J. Goldberg makes it his thesis that Geller claimed that the Koran contains "dark secrets." Now I don't claim to read her mind, but this is the quote, Goldberg is working off.

Now I also believe that a true translation, an accurate translation of the Koran, is really not available in English, according to many of the Islamic scholars that I've spoken to. That's deeply troubling. And I don't think that many westernized Muslims know when they pray five times a day that they're cursing Christians and Jews five times a day. I don't think they know that.


I don't claim to be able to read Geller's mind, but her reference was most likely to, the opening of the Koran, "Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favored; not the (path) of those who earn thine anger nor of those who go astray."

This is generally thought to mean Jews as being the ones who earned Allah's anger, and Christians being the ones who have gone astray. Robert Spencer has gone into some detail on the subject here. The question here is less about literal translation and more about commonly understood references. Some translations of the Koran do add these words for clarification. Some maintain the original language.

But this is less about dark secrets, than it is about clarity. No one needs to argue the meaning of this verse in particular, to show that Islam commands Muslims to conquer and rule over non-Muslims. And Muslims who are familiar with the Koran, learn contextual meanings, rather than just the exact meaning of words. They are taught what the phrase means, rather than just being given a dictionary. This is not unusual with most religious works in most of the major religions. Any Westernized Muslims who do not know that the reference is to Jews and Christians, are either the product of a non-mainstream Islamic education, or no Islamic education whatsoever.

While one need not point to this verse to find that the Koran is hostile to Jews and Christians. The centrality of it however is what makes it so vital in Muslim religious life.

Gerecht has the unenviable task of making sense of J.J. Goldberg's speculations about what Geller said (rather than Goldberg emailing and asking her) and I have the unenviable task of making sense of that whole mess. A mess that has less to do with the Koran, than it does with silencing straightforward criticism of Islam, to only allow criticism of Islamic extremism.

Late in the piece, Gerecht makes the arguable claim that Muslims don't think about Jews and Christians when they pray and don't need to hate Jews and Christians to be Muslims.

And about Muslim prayer: I certainly have no perfect way of knowing what Muslims think when they pray, but I really do think they know what they're doing. If westernized Muslims are facing the Almighty, they know what's in their hearts. Devout Muslims need not hate Jews and Christians to worship the Creator.

While Jews and Christians are not the focus of Muslim prayers, neither are they absent from them as bad examples, as has already been shown above. This is another strawman that substitutes one argument for another. Islam is based on Allah's rejection of Jews and Christians, and the Koranic claim that Jews and Christians rejected Mohammed. The separate existence of Jews and Christians is in Muslim eyes a testament to their heresy or unbelief. For if they truly believed, they would be Muslims. 

Can devout Muslims not hate Jews or Christians? Only if we define devout differently than Mohammed, who Gerecht admits hated both.

But from a technical standpoint, devout Muslims need not hate Jews and Christians. They're just commanded not to befriend them, and to subjugate and kill them. But if they can do so with no more emotion than machines, perhaps Mohammed would still approve. This is hardly much of a defense though. It is no comfort that your murderers did not hate you personally, but were only acting on orders from their holy book.

Reuel Gerecht is correct that Muslims are more than just physical embodiments of the Koran, but nor can you casually talk about Muslims, without acknowledging that they strive to live by the Koran as an ideal. Muslims are human beings who feel the same things we do. But so were the followers of National Socialism or the guards in the watchtowers of Soviet Gulags. There were, for example, Nazis who killed Jews, but also saved some of them. That the same man who oversaw mass murder, might save a child, tells us that people are complex. But it is no denial of what Nazism is, or what Nazis did, or even what this man in particular did.

This is what makes the casual and easy liberal reductionism of statements such as "Christians and Jews and atheists are much more than the sum of their parts...So, too, are Muslims" into a license for dismissing facts, in favor of some generic sense of human unity.

Human beings are indeed more than the sum of their parts. But they are still mostly defined by one part or another. By culture, nationality, creed and faith. We cannot ignore those by arguing that we are all the same. We are the same, but that just means that we all have good and evil inside us. That we strive to do what we think is good, by the lights of our ideals. And that to understand who we are, we must look at what those ideals say. A good Muslim is fundamentally different than a good Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu or atheist. Trial after trial of terrorists who quote devoutly from the Koran testify to that.

Being Muslim is a choice. Geller has argued that Muslims in the West should be fully informed of what that choice entails. There is no serious counterargument to be made in that regard. Nor can there be. To ignore that is to perpetuate terror. Because the unexamined Koran is a ticking time bomb. And it's a bomb that we're sitting on.

Comments

  1. Anonymous17/10/10

    I have to admit...though I agree with the cartoons you have posted, they are so similar to the preholocaust satires of the Jews (Ugly men etc.) that I am disgusted at looking at them. I honestly feel you should remove them and put something better up.

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  2. I can see your point, but how does one make cartoons of Islamists that are not of ugly scowling bearded men?

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  3. Sultan, Robert Spencer can hardly be called an authortiy on Islam, would you trust his interpreting of the Chumash or someone sceptic of Judaism? Wafa Sultan is like Walid Shoebat, just because they lived in Arab countries means we can trust Azmi Bishara the Christian Israeli as an authority on Judaism. Wafa Sultan is not a Moslem, she is an Elavi, they're considered apostates.

    Jeffery Goldberg too could have used a better reference.

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  4. Anonymous17/10/10

    You are entirely correct in saying that Pamela Geller is not and cannot be an anti-Semite. However, it is an indicator of her utter brainlessness that she is a strident cheerleader for the English Defence League, an organisation whose key activists include members of Combat 18 and the British neo-nazi/skinhead/football-supporter "firm" underground, who, whatever they might say for the sake of public image, obviously are visceral Jew-haters. Her brash ignorance is breathtaking, and also dangerous. It is embarrassing that you can go out of your way to defend her at all.

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  5. Anonymous, how can you admit and agree with the cartoons, then in the same breath say how they disgust you and suddenly you have a honest feeling and that is one of having them removed? My question really is what would your something better be? This is the dimmieness, PCness and just plain cowardliness that results in bad things happeining when people do nothing but run from the truth. Mike Elmore

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  6. 4infidels17/10/10

    Daniel,

    In his book "Prisoners," Goldberg has regular conversations with a Palestinian prisoner while serving as a prison guard in the IDF. He hopes through that dialogue they will build mutual understanding that can transcend the conflict and ultimately show the way to a greater reconciliation between the two peoples that could lead to peace, yada, yada, yada.

    Anyway, when Goldberg asks his prisoner "friend" if they encountered each other on the outside during a time of conflict, would the Palestinian man kill him? And the answer, to the best of my recollection, was:

    "Well, you have to understand, it wouldn't be personal."

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  7. 4infidels17/10/10

    "Prisoners" was a much more insightful book than I would have expected from reading Goldberg's blog. He showed a solid understanding of Arab-Islamic culture and history (not the apologetics typical from the liberal-left), and knew the right questions/issues to consider. Ultimately though he forced a positive conclusion fitted to his worldview that didn't stand up to what I felt was the evidence from his experiences.

    While Goldberg does a fine job at tearing apart some of the more egregious slanders and anti-Semitic attacks against Israel, his support for Imam Rauf as a genuine moderate "I know the people involved with Cordoba" and his need to bash people like Geller means that he doesn't get it.

    Goldberg is much more pro-Israel in his convictions than the J-Street crowd. But the problem with those on the Zionist liberal-left is that in order to keep their two-state solution dream alive (which allows them to synthesize their liberalism with Zionism as being pro-Israel and "pro-Palestine") they have to invest in, and oversell, the purported Muslim moderate while demonizing the Jewish patriot like Geller who knows that the Raufs and Abu Mazens of the world are two-faced anti-Semites. Because the reality is that there are no moderate Muslims of consequence with whom Israel can make peace (unless Khaled Abu Toameh suddenly becomes chairman of the PLO, Grand Imam at Al-Ahzar, King of Saudi Arabia and Supreme Leader of Iran). It is simply impossible to be pro-Israel and pro-two-state solution if you want Israel to survive and you are honest about the situation Israel faces. The peace process is a farce to bring about the destruction of Israel. To not see that is to more helpful to the enemy than your friends.

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  8. 4infidels,

    people like Goldberg learn part of the way but not all of the way

    anonymous/emuna

    Robert Spencer is certainly an authority on Islam. Arguing otherwise would require proving that he is not. Wafa Sultan grew up as a Muslim, the apostate argument is a Muslim one.

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  9. 4infidels17/10/10

    Emuna,

    Alevis are Muslims. In the 1970s, Ayatollah Khomeini declared that Alevis were Shia Muslims.

    So if Alevis are Muslim enough for Khomeini...

    Wafa Sultan, an Alevi, certainly was a Muslim for much of her life. If you have a disagreement with her analysis of Islam, feel free to share. Taking a cheap shot intended to discredit her can only work if all the infidels are forever in the dark about Islam.

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  10. There are ideals and then there are beliefs. Islam is a series of beliefs, just like any religion is a set of beliefs. The most fundamental part of Muslim belief is the Koran. Not even the Christian bible has the same weight of authority. Jesus did not write the bible. Muhammad did write the Koran.

    It is worthwhile to step back and ponder the nature of beliefs commited to print. It is a dramatic part of Jewish history that so much of Jewish belief is commited to print and has been so for so long. Advancing the cause of humanity, human progress, has largely been based on commiting beliefs to print. But commiting belief to print has its limitations as we see with Islam. If you are to become a Muslim and commit your beliefs to that of Islam, then you must accept the authority of the Koran as a source of your beliefs. Since the Koran is so utterly based on the teachings of one man who dictates so succinctly from the distant past, it leaves you very little room to move in your own mind. It would be hard enough if the man had gotten it right, which is a lot to expect of any one man who thinks he is a prophet, even if he is a prophet. But too many things he simply got wrong. He came from a very narrow and bigoted point of view and simply could not be trusted with the moral authority to command the course of any civilization. The value of experience in tempering belief is simply not a part of the beliefs of Muhammad.

    It is a tragedy of history that the course of so many generations of lives could be so bound up in such passionate falsehoods. Of course Islam is certainly not the only system of beliefs to be the source of suffering for humanity. But we hope that as part of human progress or evolution, experience and the freedom of conscience allow people to slough of unworthy beliefs and the instutions and the authorities that enforce these beliefs fall away, become dust, remembered only as a warning to future generations. Such institutions will struggle for existence, even where their beliefs are an affront to every day experience. They sometime struggle violently, as Muslims certainly do, and those who can see better must defend themselves and hold fast until the momentum of better understanding takes hold and the struggles of false beliefs are stilled in death.

    One of my favorite commandments is the one about lying. The way I was taught this commandment is, "Thou shalt not commit false witness against thy neighbor". But for many, it is simply known as "Thou shalt not lie". But bearing false witness is a much more complicated crime. It means you should not even exist and go about your business as if something were true, when you know it is not. Thou shalt not live a lie. Thou shalt not live a lie about your neighbor. Thou shalt not treat thy fellow human being as if they were something that you know they are not. Translating the ten commandments must have been tough, but I think this one made it.

    It doesn't profit oneself to live a lie about yourself, but there is plenty of profit to be had in living a lie about somebody else and so this is deemed an unworthy crime even from the antiquity of the middle east. It deserved to be written down and according to Jewish belief, G_d himself did it first.

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  11. Islam is a cult and the Koran was written over the course of 25 years by Muhammed.

    Assuming that the Koran can only be interpreted by those who are fluent in Arabic it is not surprising that so many Arabs in Muslim countries are violent or at least support violence against Jews and Christian, even if it's in theory not actions.

    Islam it seems a religion of deed. The deeds of Islam indicate what the creed of Islam is all about. Combine the English translations of Islam with the actions of Muslims and attitudes they have toward the West and Israel and you pretty much know what Islam is all about.

    Did the Arab world harbor violent views against Jews and Christians before Muhammed came along? If the answer is yes, then culture influenced Islam from the get go.

    Which came first--the chicken or the egg?


    *******

    OT: Barack Obama has yet to give his reason for converting from Islam to Christianity. If you convert from one religion to another people are curious and want to know why.

    Yet the liberal media has never once asked him why he converted. Personally I don't feel it was a real conversion but still, why hasn't pro Muslim media asked? If Islam is such a great religion why did the president of the US abandon it?

    Of course Obama will lie, but for reporters keen on Islam you'd think they'd be curious about Obama's conversion story.

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  12. Thomas Ebed17/10/10

    Paul said that Muhammad wrote the Koran. To be more precise, the sole author of the Koran (Muhammad only wrote what was dictated) was an "angel of light" that revealed himself to Muhammad, claiming to be the Archangel Gabriel sent by God. To believe that the Koran is actually the true word of God, you would necessarily have to believe that the angel was in fact sent by God, as he claimed. Otherwise consider that the angel was lying, the Koran a lie and a deception, and the real intent was to create a "new religion" that declared Israel to be the enemy of God, and the Christians idolators. If it was the purpose of this new religion, Islam, to engender a righteous hatred for the Jew and Christian, even to the point of it being a duty to destroy them... then its working.

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  13. Obama has never admitted that he was a Muslim, yet it's obvious that he was raised as one, and that Islamic law would consider him one.

    So either Obama is lying or is in denial. Actually discussing it would ignite a firestorm in the Muslim world, where he is technically a kufar, but at the same time tries to be their friend.

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  14. As Dinesh D'Souza points out , how you are raised has a great deal to do with how you see the world.

    As for the cartoons:
    The last one looks exactly like a neighbor of mine who is not Muslim but a very nice Italian man. The cartoon is like a caricature of him.
    I linked the article to it to his wife, without comment.She is interested in these kinds of posts.
    She wrote back to me, "Thats Richie!"
    So , there ya go.

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  15. You know a tree by its fruit.

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  16. 4infidels17/10/10

    To understand that the Koran is false is to realize that Muhammad was always being ordered to have more sex, take more wives and concubines, kill more people, take more of their money and possessions, etc. There is no reason that the ravings of a lunatic illiterate from the 7th century should be taken by intelligent Westerners, especially those skeptical about other religions, as holy words that we must respect and honor.

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  17. Rachel17/10/10

    I've seen more bizarre carcatures of critics of Islam drawn by those in the media. I remember reading Nicholas Kristoff's review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Nomad, in which he--a man who supposedly wrote the 'Silent Spring' of women's rights--blithely brushed off her analysis of the gross human rights problem that is how women are treated in the Muslim world. He became completely infantile--suggesting at one point that the troubles in her family happened because no one bit their tongues and told each other that they loved them. Of course! Who's grandmother hasn't waited until their parents were on a trip, then arranged to have their genitals cut out in a barbaric ceremony because no one told her that they loved her? I found it completely hypocritical for Kristoff, an Islamophiliac trying to balance that with his reputation as a human rights' activist, to, on one hand argue that Islam was intended to be a 'progressive' religion that has gained a reputation for being 'regressive' because litteralists have kept it in the 7th century, and, on the other hand, launch such a looney attack on a woman who is trying to reform the religion out of the 7th century. Regarding Hirsi Ali--I think it actually upsets her critics that she is an articulate, educated, and strong woman, and not a scenery-chewing lunatic. She's a hard woman to argue with.

    As for Goldberg--I do agree with 'Infidels', he *gets it* more than many in the media, and I can hardly doubt that he has pro-Israel sympathies. I remember shuddering when I saw an Atlantic cover story on Israel & Iran that he had wrote (because, when a magazine writes on Israel, it's going to be bad. When a magazine gets a Jewish staffer to write an article on Israel, it's going to be horrible), but was pleasantly surprised to find some real research and analysis in it, as opposed to the typical circular ranting and empty speculation that usually fills Israel articles. I would still say, though, that he doesn't *get it* all the way--much in the same way that Dershowitz, who is obviously neither stupid nor anti-Israel, was so blinded by partisian politics that he didn't see Obama's obvious issues with Israel until they were plastered all over the papers. I feel that most pro-Israel Jews on the left suffer from similiar partisian blind spots.

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  18. Daniel, well the same can be said about the Talmudic scholar Israel Shamir on Judaism, and I won’t even mention how many anti semite Christians claim to be experts on Judaism, or genocidal Moslems who claim to be experts on both and use skeptics, we know they have no credibility but it comes from someone credible it can damage. Neither Robert or Wafa are peer reviewed professors, but skeptics.

    4infidels, it's not a cheap shot at Wafa Sultan who now calls herself atheist not even alevi, the point is they decide who is Moslem, and alevi's are apostates, Komeini isn't followed by all Moslems, I merely said using a better source than either Robert or Wafa would have been ideal. The point is if you claim something as a majority belief for Moslems it should be brought from their own leaders and Iman's not from skeptics.


    "Wafa Sultan grew up as a Muslim, the apostate argument is a Muslim one."
    Of course it is, just like we as Jews decide who is apostate and who is not. Would either of you take Azmi Bishara who has lived in Israel as an authority on Judaism or Zionism which he claims? He is a traitor and should be hung.


    It's no wonder we're losing the battle, it's not about Robert or Wafa it's about us.

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  19. Daniel, I guess what I meant to say is this, preaching to the converted, when the converted have no chance of doing anything is a waste of time. Reapeating things from people whose words are comforting but who in reality are not regarded as anything but buffoons, won't and doesn't help us. The people who will believe Wafa and Robert are not the type who will be able to defeat the enemy.

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  20. Rachel,

    I would classify Goldberg as a liberal Zionist, a vanishing breed, and you can see why when reading him. His attacks on a lot of pro-Israel and critics of Islam people have been ugly, case in point his recent slam of Glick, over a supposed error that looks underwhelming compared to the Castro debacle.

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  21. Emuna,

    It's easy to argue from extremes, but presuming that every skeptic is automatically discredited is not a strong argument.

    Sunnis also consider Shiites in general to be apostates. Not just Alevis. Writing off that many Muslims as apostates is something that many Sunnis can casually do, but outside observers can't rationally claim that they have nothing worthwhile to say about Islam.

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  22. 4infidels17/10/10

    Emuna,

    You can't compare Azmi Bishara, a Christian traitor to the Jewish state, commenting on Judaism with Wafa Sultan, born and raised Muslim in a Muslim family in a Muslim country, commenting on Islam.

    Why would you call Sultan, who is brilliant and has a tremendously powerful personal story, a buffoon?

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  23. 4infidels17/10/10

    Rachel,

    You are right on the money about Kristoff. He's superficial and not very bright.

    He dismissed the violence in Hirsi Ali's upbringing by comparing it to the corporal punishment that he claimed took place in his rural Oregon school. Unless he had his skull fractured by a teacher, as Hirsi Ali did by her Koran instructor, his comparison is insulting beyond belief.

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  24. 4infidels, because outside of the far right crowd she doesn't have credibility. She is also paid to give speeches. I'm a liberal at heart so I like our cause to be with the "majority".

    Sutlan, that is true, but compare how they do their propoganda, the slick and polished with their upper class accented Al Jizeera, they have better propogandists, we rely too much on those who are paid to say what they say.

    I'm a liberal Sultan, and I want the majority sympathetic to our cause, the intellectual elite. The unpleasant truth is that the right wing gaining momentum (tea partiers) is only making things well, not good, to put it mildly.

    I'm sorry, I know you're a tea party fan/right wing fan, and i'm a liberal but time will prove me right when I say we need better than what we have. :)

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  25. So she has no credibility because she's paid to give speeches? Everyone is paid to give speeches.

    The Jewish cause is never with the "majority". Only the anti-semitic one. Those who persecuted Jews have traditionally been in the majority. That hasn't really changed.

    Pursuing the majority's favor will never really work. Standing up for what's right will.

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  26. Rachel18/10/10

    How does Ayaan Hirsi Ali have no credibility? She has a Masters in Political Science. She was a Dutch MP, with responsibilities to many constitutents. She runs a foundation dedicated to helping women in the Muslim world. She's lived in several Muslim-majority nations, witnessed the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and speaks no less than 6 languages fluently. And--to Infidels--yes, that buffoon Kristoff actually compared her to a 16 year old that never grew up. What are his credentials, again?

    She is only Right, if those on the Left paint her as such because her views of Islam upset them. Anyone who reads any of what she writes would realize quickly that the woman is no pawn of the Right Wing--the ONLY way anyone would come up with such an idea is if they read a carcature of her thoughts and writings, instead of her actual works.

    And, then there is the inevitable question...If Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a liar, why does she need to live with a small army of bodyguards?

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  27. Anonymous18/10/10

    Emuna writes, "i'm a liberal but time will prove me right when I say we need better than what we have. :)"

    Liberals have been so wrong so often I don't know how you can write the above with a straight face. I confess I once had liberal/progressive leanings, but I was smart enough to reconsider after being "mugged by reality". Experience, it's been said, is what you get when you don't get what you expected. Most liberals simply don't learn from experience.

    I studied international and middle east politics years ago. It took the last intifada and 9/11 to get me to consider what I'd missed. And what I'd missed was the role that Islam plays in these conflicts.

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  28. Question "...but how does one make cartoons of Islamists that are not of ugly scowling bearded men?"

    Answer:
    The setting would be a Courtroom.
    Participants would include survivors of a massacre, giving testimony.
    The Islamist perpetrator would be Maj. Nidal Hasan.
    His demeanor WAS "Throughout the dramatic morning, Hasan stared without expression as witnesses described the massacre."
    This, during vivid & emotional accounts of him murdering 13 people and wounding 30 others at Fort Hood, Texas.
    November 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before opening fire. He intended to kill ALL those whom he shot.
    Read survivor accounts.
    He listened, and "stared without expression" through it all.

    The problem with this Caricature:
    Well, (1) It's just too accurate.
    (2) The only people who are laughing are Islamics, and they're laughing at the USA for saving Hasan's life and "giving" him a trial for committing an act of war.
    What's more, 2 military personnel had cell video-recordings of his actions, and were ordered by their CO's to erase it.

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  29. wanumba19/10/10

    Very good points in the article.

    As for some of the discussion here, if it's of any help to bring this out of the rarified world of debating rhetoric and into what happens on the street - we witnessed and provided emergency humanitarian aid to Muslims brutalized by Muslims in Islamic Republic Mauritania. It was Maur/Berber/Arab "whites" who owned Black Harritin slaves against free Black AFricans like the Woloof, Pulaar and Sonike.
    All were Muslim - owners, slaves and freemen.
    The humanitarian aid agencies tasked to providing for the shattered and displaced refugees - NGOS - were ALL Christians - the only neutral party that actually had "love your neighbor" in their religious law, and actually expects it to be acted on.

    It was informative to see Mauritanian Muslims intoning "our Senegalese Muslim brothers" then turning on a dime accusing same 'brothers' with the worst atrocities ... all lies, to agitate violence for ethnic cleansing so that the Maurs could rid themselves of political rivals the free Pulaar and replace them with the controllable Harritin slaves. This was 1989, not 1889.

    The Koran was written to favor Arabs, and of those, Saudi Arabs. Everyone else is lesser, especially Africans. It is fundamentally unfair from the get-go. How many people in the world have the means for the haj to get to Mecca? Only the connected and wealthy get the chance. Saudis have always been able to walk or ride to it.
    Rhetoric can be just terrific, presenting a perfection that doesn't exist in real life. But it's the actions that tell us the truth.
    "Ye shall know them by their fruits."
    What are the FRUITS of Islam?

    Start with which countries in the world still maintain slavery today.
    It was another EYE-opener to discover that many of the supposedly high level blacks in Mauritanian government and parastatals were Harritin. Unsuspecting foreigner developmental aid professionals were negotiating in good faith with slave front men for their anonymous masters. Literally.
    Office politics taken to new universes of duplicitous complexity.
    THAT is part of the reality. Being ignorant of it or naive about it is dangerous.

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  30. " . . she is a strident cheerleader for the English Defence League, an organisation whose key activists include members of Combat 18 and the British neo-nazi/skinhead/football-supporter "firm" underground . . ."

    There is ZERO evidence Pamela Geller is meeting Combat18, or doing anything of the kind.

    The evidence against the English Defense League is pretty thin.

    The United Against Fascism look more like fascists to me. There are allegations that the UAF take money from Labor Party, and they have Ken Livingstone as their chairman.

    UAF is always there when there is trouble. They are the violent ones. They never speak out against Islamic fascism.

    In Europe if you are anti-jihad, and favor some form of immigration reform you are called a fascist. It is the European form of "racist, Islamophobic bigot".

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  31. Anonymous20/10/10

    livingengine - No one has accused Pamela Geller of meeting Combat 18. However, she publicly supports and has met the English Defence League, an organisation whose activists DO include members of Combat 18, the BNP and other neo-nazi and crypto-nazi groups. The reason Geller supports the EDL is obviously sheer stupidity and ignorance, rather than adherence to its crypto-nazi agenda.

    http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2010/10/edls-racism.html

    Leader Tommy Robinson aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, former BNP member.

    EDL website was set-up by BNP activist Chris Renton.

    EDL co-founder Paul Ray described Chris Renton as “de-facto Commander of the EDL.” Paul Ray says he’s been ostracized from the EDL for opposing Chris Renton linking with Combat 18 (C18).

    EDL organizers Steven White and Luke Pippen are Combat 18 activists.

    C18 activist Bryan Powell is an official BNP steward.

    EDL Facebook + You Tube chat shows hundreds of EDL support racists like the BNP, NF, Blood and Honour, BFF, C18 and KKK.

    EDL Wayne Baldwin has been pictured in a Swastika T-shirt.

    EDL supporter Earl Turner has been shown wearing a British Freedom Fighters t-shirt

    The Welsh Defence League is riddled with Nazis.

    Scottish press famously revealed that dual membership of Scottish BNP and Scottish Defence League is almost 100%.

    2nd in command Kevin Carroll nominated a BNP candidate for election, but claims he was tricked into doing this and claims he can’t be racist because he says he has a mixed-race daughter.

    WDL finally ostracised Swansea C18 for refusing to stop making Nazi salutes on demos but Jeff Marsh is still happy to work with the known C18 members with whom he currently runs the WDL.

    Luke Pippen Swansea C18 member runs the Casuals United Blog with EDL Wales / WDL founder Jeff Marsh.

    Steven White, Jeff Marsh’s assistant has a Swastika tattoo on his chest and was pictured holding British Freedom Fighters t-shirt.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Anonymous20/10/10

    And about Muslim prayer: I certainly have no perfect way of knowing what Muslims think when they pray, but I really do think they know what they're doing. If westernized Muslims are facing the Almighty, they know what's in their hearts. Devout Muslims need not hate Jews and Christians to worship the Creator.

    My Answer to her is that i have written an article on my blog. Please read it.

    THIS IS WHAT ALL MUSLIMS RECITE ALL DAY IN THEIR FIVE DAILY SALATS AND FREE TIME

    http://samhindu.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/this-is-what-all-muslims-recite-all-day-in-their-five-daily-salats-and-free-time/

    Sam Hindu

    ReplyDelete
  33. It is quite clear that "Anonymous" is trying to insinuate that Pamela Geller is a fascist collaborator, and that simply is not true.

    The video that he/she linked to is from the UAF.

    To HELL with the UAF.
    They are a state funded paramilitary street army whose purpose is to silence political dissent through the use of violence. Their chairman is Ken Livingstone.

    Look at this list of violence at EDL protests. UAF is ALWAYS there.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Defence_League

    In terms of opposing Islamic fascism, UAF is worthless.

    Nick Lowles the editor of Searchlight, has said not “every leader of the EDL is a fascist or hardcore racist ”.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8250017.stm

    Pamela Geller is not “stupid”. She is VERY bright, and industrious, and is doing more to make the world a better place than “anonymous” with his/her baseless attacks against Ms Geller, is EVER going to be capable of.

    ReplyDelete

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