‘It’s like asking me how often I drink water. Antisemitism was everywhere.’ Apostates, former Islamists, and an almost-terrorist on how they changed their minds.
This article helps explain the hatred felt by many Muslims for Jews. What I still cannot understand is the affinity many Jews feel for progressive ideals that ultimately seek their destruction.
What you don't understand is, Jews stick up for all other minorities because they are terrified to stick up for themselves, and they know no one else will either. The result is obvious: peace marches in Israel, but never in Arab countries; Jews marching for civil rights and blacks in general, but blacks never marching for Jewsi; Jews marching for LGBTQXYX but being expelled form their marches.
I am a Catholic but don't really practice. I support Israel 100% because they are a civilized democratic nation, and deserve a homeland. Most people I know feel the same, and we are not these Maga people you speak of.
- Israel sticks up for itself and has since 1948 (not to mention all the battles throughout millennia).
- The lockstep support for the 'persecuted' is in Jews blood I think because of their history of being persecuted.
- THE problem today is Islam. The personal stories in the article and Muhammad's words re killing Jews is 1300+ years old. How do civilized people address 1300 years of Jew hatred?
"The lockstep support for the 'persecuted' is in Jews blood I think because of their history of being persecuted."
You nailed it, Frank, and it's called empathy. It's what led young Jewish men like Goodman and Schwerner to march in Mississippi in support of civil rights, only to pay with their lives. Many Jews did this, and are now being paid back by such groups as BLM with a stab in the back.
The animalistic attack of 10-7 by Hamas and the horrific response on college campuses has been a wake up call for many Jews whose heart was in the right place, but now realize, like Israelis, that they were played for suckers. They always associated fascism and bigotry with the right. But now, for more and more Jews (and others), those days are over!
I think the "secular liberal enclaves" is as good an argument as any in explaining why so many Jews are reflexively progressive. Echo chambers on the right or left are not conducive to productive thought.
"Liberal Jews definitely seem to have a blind spot when it comes to Evangelicals."
1. Just Liberal Jews? Or Jews in general? I ask only because I am Outside The Jew Club.
2. If I may, its not just Evangelicals, but Christians in general. It must be admitted we Christians have not always treated our Jewish cousins(?) that Jesus would approve of.
BTW rumor has it Jesus was A Jew...Who Knew! :-)
One of the things I've noticed is Jews since (around the world) 10- 7 have come to realize there are people who don't care if you are liberal, conservative, religious, non religious, doesn't matter to them. If you are a Jew You Have To Die.
This has been true for 3500 years. With a Notable Lack Of Success it must be noted. I like to tell those who want to Kill Da Jews to Take The Hint!
Jewish/Christian relations over the last 2000 are (to say the least) Complicated. Mostly bad, BUT not exclusively so.
I'm not Jewish, but as a cradle Southern Baptist (now evangelical Presbyterian), I think we have a tendency to forget the long history of Christian antisemitism. The early Zionists in the 1880s were fleeing pogroms in Eastern Orthodox Russia. Theodor Herzl was radicalized by the Dreyfus affair in Catholic France--he had been a proponent of assimilation and that caused him to believe it would never be possible to assimilate and that Jews would never be safe outside of their own homeland. Early Zionist writings refer to our "Muslim brothers" because it wasn't great to be Jewish under Muslim rule, but it wasn't as bad as living in the Pale of Russia, either.
There were some heroic Christians in WW2--Casper, Betsie, and Corrie ten Boom come to mind--but not enough. Most of them stood by. Bonhoeffer was executed at Dachau, Barth fled to Switzerland after refusing to take a loyalty oath to Hitler.
Even within evangelicals, there are the "Jews are our elder brothers in the faith and the first recipients of the covenant" evangelicals and the "Jews have to be gathered in to Israel so the world can turn against them and hasten the second coming of Christ" evangelicals (the Tim LaHaye/Left Behind/John Hagee type). I wouldn't expect most Jews to be able to parse the differences in eschatological theology when most Christians can't.
I can understand why they'd be suspicious after 2000 years of harassment.
I cannot imagine feeling that way and I am very sorry you do. I wish I could reach out and hug you. But please stop with the no one else will [stick up] for them either. LOTS of people have, are, and will stick up for Jews and Israel. Attending rallies is pointless and accomplishes nothing among sentient beings.
True that. Many people are sticking up for Jews and we appreciate the support. We may be entering an era when more overt antisemitism in the US (the country that has done so much for Jews) will become accepted.
I am surprised and gratified at the amount of support we see for Israel in the present crisis. Though I think the hardline factions of Israeli government have done tremendous damage to the country, and this Gaza invasion may turn out to be a huge strategic error.
I respect your position and you certainly have an understanding that I do not. I have read that there is dissent against the current leadership. I have also read, and believe to a certain degree, that this is an information war and the opposition is certainly spewing information, dishonest information IMO, and seem to be gaining public support. But that just makes many of your Christian supporters more stalwart because we know what happens when Israel stands alone and I plan to be on the right side of that battle. But as far as the real-time Gaza invasion what else could they do? Personally I think they have shown remarkable restraint in not using the ultimate weapon. I also think it is possible that 10/7 was a baited trap to entice Israel to do so.
I don't 100% agree that rallies don't help. Or maybe my issue is that I think NOT attending rallies may hurt? If someone were to call for a pro-jewish rallies and no one came, I feel like that would simply empower the haters and evils as they would be able to point to it and say "See, no one likes the Jews". When these marches end up being packed with supporters, I do think it matters.
That said, I do think it would be better to organize things that actually DO something.
I do not live in an area where rallies are extensive for either Israel or Palestine. There seems to be considerable support for Israel and synagogues. No backlash against mosques or Islam. My was a one horse town in the recent past had a Menorah lighting on the tiny town square. Reportedly 15 sheriff's and constable cars were visible. You know just in case. But my attending rallies is useless position is based on post Floyd rallies. They just get together and act like banshees. I honestly think it is some kind of outlet for pent up personal rage not an expression of outrage about whatever they are protesting about. IOS it is about them, not a cause. Plus I am.very tired of the Palestinian genocide lie.
Well, my view on that is, to adapt a well known phrase, the Torah is not a suicide pact. Unilateral support of others without reciprocity in a moment of extreme need is a type of alliance I can happily jettison.
Mr. Kauffman I'd argue that It's a fine line. I often think to the Armenian genocide committed by the Muslims and the complete disregard of the atrocities by the West. Would the Germans in the 1930s have been so emboldened in their genocide had the West come down on the filthy Turks?
I think the bigger issue is painting with too broad a brush. Helping those in need is one thing. Attaching yourself to a political organization is another. The real issue is that many of these organizations don't actually represent the people they claim to. So, a Jewish person supporting the BLM org, is not necessarily helping black people in need. So maybe they should back off of political parties and support individuals.
That's Israel's terrible historical trap, isn't it? The rather pitiful minority in its midst, the Palestinians, hates the Jews for taking their land, so the Jews have to go against the Torah with regard to them for Jewish self-preservation. The ultimate catch-22 of Israel's terrible fate. When I was a child, I was terrified by the story of how Sinbad the Sailor had an old man on his back he could not get off. That seems to me a good metaphor for Israel's fate forever. There's literally no way to dump the Palestinians, and as long as Israel is tied to them at the hip, Israelis will be forever insecure, no matter how much our tax dollars build up Israel's military might, which was obviously worthless on Oct. 7.
"Over this period the Jewish population of Palestine, composed principally of immigrants, increased from less than 10 per cent in 1917 to over 30 per cent in 1947." These demographic facts are not in dispute. Jews were a tiny 10% of the population of Palestine at the moment of the Balfour Declaration engineered by the Rothschilds to set the stage for Zionist-financed Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine with the ultimate goal of totally controlling the area by Jews in a homeland for the Jewish people, for a "Jewish state" as Israel proudly calls itself today. Given the horrible levels of antisemitism in Herzl and the Rothschilds' Europe, no wonder they wanted a safe place for allJews to finally live in peace. But tragically the land they chose for this project was the opposite of "a land without people"; it was full of that other Semitic tribe called Arabs. Even in 1947, all the best efforts of the Rothschilds and other Zionists had only been able to increase the number of Jews in Palestine to 30%. Then the post-Holocaust "exodus" and the war the Zionist project finally provoked, with the Nakba expelling almost 800,000 Arabs finally gave "the land of Israel" a Jewish majority. A majority which then took control from the remaining Arabs. Most educated Westerners have read Heart of Darkness. Most educated Westerners have a low opinion of the centuries of European colonization in which the natives all over the world, not least right here in America, lost control of their land and their lives. Colleges have been teaching anti-colonialism for decades as a result, much more so since the highly influential writings of the great, independently wealthy Palestinian scholar Edward Said. It was inevitable that anti-colonial American campuses would more and more see the conquest of the area called "Palestine" by the Jews as part of this whole colonial project, which has now collapsed absolutely everywhere on earth. Except in Israel. Obviously, many Jews believe, even religiously, in Israel as their "promised land" from the moment they took it from the Canaanites a millennium before Jesus. But since Jews had only been 10% or so of the population of Palestine from 1000 to 1917, in a land overwhelmingly Arab, this argument naturally cuts no ice with Arabs. Conservative Americans will never be able to put the geniis of slavery and the slaughter of the Indians back in the bottle of history, even in Florida, much less Cambridge, MA. The same is true in Cambridge for the Palestinian genii shadowing the history of Israel. America and Israel are both deeply scarred by what their now dominant, better armed "races" did to the natives whose land they unquestionably took. Unfortunately for Jews, all our best universities are filled with brilliant, often quite rich, Muslim students who are just as critical of Zionism as native Americans are of Europeanized America. Not too many native Americans at these schools, so the Muslims make a much louder noise.
Funny how no one mentions almost all Jews being thrown off Arab and Muslim land, many even before there was an Israel. Why aren't the Jews attacking Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, etc and demanding their property back? What a f-ing double standard!
You are not correct that our "tax dollars build up Israel's might." We made a deal with Sadat -- American aid in exchange for peace. Where is your concern for what our tax dollars do for Egypt? Further, Israel does not "receive tax dollars." It receives credits that it exchanges for American weapons. And Israel also gives the US free access to its brilliant technologies for use in our arms production and development. Also Israel's annual military budget is $26 billion, and our credits are $3 billion. So it seems that Israel is producing a lot with its own shekels, not our dollars.
Why isn't America the greatest place for Jewish flourishing in all of Jewish history? We have roughly the same number of Jews as Israel, and our Jews are much more prosperous than theirs, however beautifully successful Israelis have been with their own capitalism. (By the way, Switzerland has about the same population as Israel and has almost twice the GDP, so we mustn't see Israel as some uniquely amazing capitalist success story, especially since Switzerland had not had the gigantic investments in its economy from both the American government and American Jews, as well as Jews worldwide, Israel has had.) Sure, we have anti-Semites on the right who have always hated Jews, but their numbes have been radically reduced since WWII. Until 1968, the richest neighborhoods in Baltimore forced home buyers to sign a covenant promising not to sell their house to a black or a Jew, since either would ruin home values. Those neighborhoods have now been filled with lots of happy, prosperous Jews living with the WASPs for decades. If there were no Israeli-Palestinians conflict there would be no anti-Semitism from the left in America at all, since Jews would presumably be at the forefront of all PC causes, as they always have been, with nothing to argue with other leftists about. If humans have not been wiped out by climate change or AI hundreds of years from now, and if Israel ends tragically for all concerned, historians will presumably note that it was tragic that the European survivors of the Holocaust who went to Israel for safety and prosperity did not come to America instead. America grew by about 1.5 million in 1945. Surely if there had been no anti-Semitism, it could have taken in a half-million Jews from Europe easily enough. Think of how those educated Jews would have enriched America and succeeded mightily here, with no wars with Muslims of one sort or another every few decades to worry about. Until the founding of Israel, most in the American Jewish community, despite right-wing anti-Semitism, would surely have argued that America had been "the Golden Door" providing the best home for Jews in the modern world. There's a serious argument to be made, isn't there, that America is still the safest, most prosperous place for Jews there is or has ever been. Sam Altman and Zuckerberg are here, not in Tel Aviv. Almost all American Jews vote that they prefer America with their feet, don't they? A trickle may move to Israel every year, but almost all American Jews have rightly loved it here as they have seen Jewish success simply skyrocket across the board in liberal and capitalistic America, the ultimate society open to talents for one of the most talented peoples in human history. I'm not Jeiwish, though my beloved wife is, but all I know is most American Jews would clearly never trade their life in America for a new life in Israel, or they would move tomorrow. So, no, to me America is just as much a land for the Jews as Israel. So Israel is NOT the only land Jews have. Given the massive Jewish donor influence on the right in America with Republicans and the massive donor influence on the left with the Dems, there is zero chance America will ever be anywhere near as unsafe for Jews as Israel has been and is right now. Obviously, religious Jews have a mythic attachment to Israel, but so do Christians and Muslims every bit as much. So the argument that somehow Israel is supposed to be the unique home for Jews seems historically fallacious to me. Hebrews conquered it three thousand or so years ago and ruled it, if later under Roman control, for a thousand years. But that ended two thousand years ago. Then various Muslims ruled the area from the 7thC to the end of the Ottoman Empire, much longer than the Jews ever ruled it. In 1914 there were only about 15,000 Jews in Israel, as had been the case for centuries. So it may be understandably emotionally compelling for Jews to think of that land as somehow uniquely "theirs," but the historical claim for them, if that's what they are resting their "right" to the land is based on, seems rather fanciful and bogus.
Spare us. SOME Jews "stick up for" SOME "other minorities" because they feel a natural affinity toward them as what they perceive to be fellow underdogs oppressed by the majority (be it religious, racial, ethnic, sexual, etc.) and/or because of a shared antipathy toward their perceived oppressors. The motives run the gamut -- from hatred of "the other," to moral preening, to mere self-interest, to altruism. Now that their ox is being gored in the most brutal and horrific ways, liberal Jews are learning what liberal non-Jews are also learning: that the Left always eats its own.
I hope you saw Jesus Is Magic, in which the sublime Sarah Silverman has an hilarious song mocking "Jewish people buying German cars." Silverman says it was kind of dumb of the Germans to slaughter the Jews, since they would ultimately be their best customers for their cars.
I'll gladly listen to Muslims dragging their nails across an old school chalkboard after three days of sleep depravity and two root canals before I'll watch or listen to Silverman.
An elderly friend and neighbor (G_d rest her soul) who grew up in Canada told me her father never bought Fords due to Henry Ford's promotion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
When the Arab boycott of Israel was instituted, many car companies (including GM and Toyota) avoided doing business there to mollify what were much bigger customers. Ford refused to boycott Israel, which at least in my view made up for the founders' sin.
and so what is your point? And how do you know how Jews are raised in the east coast and west? Pretty sweeping assumptions there. Also, "hoisting fears and disillusionment" is what history is. So factual history should be concealed? If anything, Hamas -- and Harvard --proved those "secular liberal Jews" to have been correct.
I wasn't offended at all, that's ok. Comments are not for the fragile:) I'm Jewish from the midwest and was educated at eastern "elite" schools, so I know the turf. And I don't dispute too much the problems of both coasts. My diagnosis is only slightly different than yours: my experiences at very elite schools was that the students enjoyed their sense of moral superiority with their liberalism, and I think that continues.
Also, shocking ignorance of history has a lot to do with it. I think passing along what happened to Jews in WWII is essential to understanding evil and how it works. I've studied that ara in detail and think that if people knew how bad it was they'd understand that, today, Hamas is just the Little League of Nazis, with wishes they can grow up to be even more like them.
A country that demonstrates as "Pro Palestinian" is a country that views wars and complex conflicts as sport events. Who will they root for when China attempts to gobble up Taiwan?
These issues are too complex for a comments section. =But to me your view of the largest threats is sound.
Great questions. As an Israeli-American, I have 2 things to say about it.
1. Jews are highly involved in almost EVERY liberal social movement, whether conservative liberalism (Bari Weiss), progressive (Bernie), and even anti-zionist (Finkelstein and Chomsky). I'm not sure about the historical reasons for this, perhaps the inclination to associate conservatism with antisemitism after WWII. I think that's going to change.
2. Please don't conflate "Wokism" with progressive ideals. There's nothing progressive about wokism. Progressive ideals brought us women and black rights, freedom of religion, etc. Wokism is progressive gone so far that it became its own opposite. I tend to think of progressive and conservative as complementary, where the progressive is like a flying balloon that wants to fly high but is tied to something that keeps it close to the ground (conservative). The problem is when they detach, each go to their extremes. That's why a renewed dialogue and compromise is necessary as opposed to separation and detachment from the other side. That's why I like the "Free Press", it seems to hold the two views together.
Sorry, Gilad. It's you who are mistakenly conflating "progressive ideals" with elemental fairness and basic decency. The word "progressive" is devoid of meaning in and of itself. It invariably invites the question: "progressing" towards WHAT? The answer is almost always leftism, of which wokeness is but the latest iteration.
The hallmark of “progressivism” (formerly known as “liberalism”) is change. Constant change. Change for the sake of change. The rejection of all that has come before as we move ever closer to that elusive “utopia” that we will never find. The utopia at the end of the rainbow -- man’s “perfection” through “education”. Sheesh...good luck.
I appreciate your perspective grateful1. For me, the word "progress" always meant to minimize the gap between the American ideals and the actual living of these ideals. But I agree that some or many progressives interpret it in a very simplistic way. BTW - I don't see myself as a progressive but as a freethinker.
You need to realize that how you define words no longer matters to the people you call woke, who have also colonized the terms "liberal", "left", ad "progressive". One of their main strategy is to redefine words to the point where there's no common understanding of what words mean anymore.
The most blatant example is "woman". But the list goes on.
How you define anything is irrelevant. They already decided.
Jews would fit into the intellectual area of conservative culture quite well, the problem is the media shows them only the MAGA supporters (and the worst of those).
I like your analogy that describes the necessary duality of progressive and conservative. I hate to say lately that when I hear/read the word “progressive” it’s been hard to not cringe because of how I’ve been equating “woke” to it. Your comment is a helpful reminder to actually separate the two.
As a Jew I can’t understand it either. But I think there is a slow change happening. Hopefully. Even mainstream Democrats are finally starting to see a problem.
We’ll ask yourself: do you want to vote for a party that allows Putin to win; that supports such extreme abortion bans as to deny ALL women agency over their own bodies; that wants to emasculate the IRS so wealthy donors can game the system to evade (yes, evade not merely avoid) taxes; that overwhelmingly supports hatred against government workers just doing their jobs (I could go on but you get the idea). THAT party???
Most regularly practicing (usually orthodox or modern orthodox) are not progressives. It is the secular ones who are. However, unlike the orthodox, the secular Jews do not have many children and often intermarry, so over time, the % of Jews who are more politically conservative will increase. My prediction is that by the next generation, the progressive portion of Jews will be the minority.
Statistically - maybe. But can we count only on that portion of the Jewish population? Look at the Jewish students waving Palestinian flags at the Brown University. 20 of the arrested were members of Jews for Ceasefire calling for divestment. Young secular Jews are the same product of our higher education system as everyone else. I am not optimistic.
Your question about Jews and "progressive" ideals is often asked and here is my answer. Throughout most of their history, jews were forced to live under powerful non Jewish rulers. Catholic monarchs; Czars, Muslims etc. Jews were subject to pogroms, restrictions, forced conversion, expulsion and of course mass murder. The more liberal these rulers were, the better for the jews as a whole. The Jews did best under non religious republics such as France and the USA/Canada. Sometimes Jews used "the enemy of my enemy Is my friend". So they Allied with Muslim polities like the Ottomans, since they were enemies of the Christians who treated Jews even worse. This long sad experience makes most (not all) Jews automatically pick the more liberal side of any choice.
Maybe a lot of Jews just feel sorry for the oppressed people liberals have claimed to be trying to help, since Jews vividly recall how oppressed they themselves have been. Maybe it's just admirable fellow-felling, empathy for those suffering injustice.
Isn't there also a certain irony in right-wing Jews making common cause with fundamentalist Christians who eagerly await an Armageddon in which Jews will either choose Jesus over Judaism or be summarily sent to Hell forever, while the righteous Christians have their Rapture on the way to Paradise? Aren't the fundies happy to take right-wing Jewish money for their votes and thus support for Israel, while still totally feeling as if all Jews who have not accepted Jesus as "their Lord" will roast for eternity?
I'll take Christian fundamentalists who believe I'll burn in hell to Muslim fundamentalists who want to see me burn on a street corner. Who cares what they feel? I care about what they actually do.
I agree. They support Israel because they know Jews will take care of the Christian sites as well as all the others. I’m not sure it matters why they care about Israel. Their actions are more important to me than their words. And as you pointed out, the same is true of the Islamists - although their words match their actions rather closely.
Jesus is the Jewish God. The entirety of the Torah and prophets speak of Him. Jeremiah 33:15-16. Isaiah 9:6. Malachi 3:1. Joshua 6. The Rock which Moses struck. Genesis 3. Jesus is on every page of the Bible. Thats why many modern Jews are secular, bc its so obvious Jesus is the Messiah they cant actually read the Tanakh anymore without seeing it. The reason most Jews do not accept Him is that God has purposefully hardened their hearts (Romans 11). But after the full number of Gentiles have been brought into the fold, the Father will soften their hearts and many Jews will turn to Jesus en masse. The Jews are God’s people, but we Gentiles have just been grafted onto the tree.
No where did Jesus claim that Jews would be summarily sent to hell forever. Any Christian who thinks they can determine how God will judge another is wrong. Jesus instructed us how to conduct our own individual lives so that we will not be separated for eternity from God. He was clear that the judging would be done by God.
Biden madly shrieks the same anti-white shibboleths, claiming that America becoming a majority minority nation is a great thing. A toweringly racist statement denigrating white America. The man is insane.
When I was growing up, Italians were the outgroup. They called us WOPs. Now we have integrated into society and thanks to pizza, pasta, and the Godfather we are part of the in crowd! Well, except for the mobsters and Rudy Giuliani but let’s just ignore the minority of that group.
It’s wonderful to have an integrated society. Everybody brings something to the potluck party. We can learn so much from each other’s culture.
I remember a guy in college saying he didn’t like Italians right to my face while he was eating a bowl of spaghetti. The uneducated idiot.
Love the neighbor there’s a lot we can learn from them.
No comparison, but a lot ended up in jail for murder!
Hamas is a small segment of the Palestinians who are barbarians and who were definitely taught to HATE Jews. When will it stop? The five people who shared are a small seed that hopefully may grow.
Recent polling shows more than 70% of Palestinians support Hamas and the massacre of 10-7. That number may be off but it is not a small segment of the population.
Funny, again. Not one of the Italian kids I grew up with ended up in jail, for murder or anything else. Is this a "mafia" joke? Many grew up to be professionals like me. Only difference was that, as good a cook as my mom was she could rival the sauce or "gravy" my Italian buddies moms made.
I would say that Integration is the key word. If Italians had stayed in their own neighborhoods, had their own religion, and then tried to force the cities they were in to abide by the Italian religious views all while opening hating the very place they moved to, I suspect they wouldn't be well integrated today.
Many of the people coming here today don't want to be Americans, culturally. They are leaving a place with no opportunities and try to turn their new home into the same place they came from. And many of the locals are trying to help them for some reason.
I’m not daft. Biden thinks maga is the greatest threat to us. Great then Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, crime, etc. To him it’s white supremacy above all else. Why is that daft.
I did not know bigamy was legal in Canada, even for Muslims.
These short essays are powerful statements about the wickedness of Islamism. Why we have imported it into Western civilization and allow it to poison our children is one of those questions we can’t ask because it means we are Islamophobic but which desperately needs answering of we want to survive as free, humanist societies.
Second and subsequent wives are usually declared as "cousins". Sometimes it's not a lie. Generally, unless there is abuse and the woman seeks help, these families are not prosecuted.
Speaking of cousins, my friend had to marry her cousin in the West Bank when she was 15. No choice in the matter. Came back here to high school a married woman.
Is it a crime or is it just that the marriage and its accompanying legal privileges aren’t recognized? People in Utah with plural marriages aren’t criminalized for it, they’re just not recognized.
The only people with plural marriages in Utah are in extremist sects. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stopped practicing plural marriage over 130 years ago. Anyone who engages in plural marriage *will* be excommunicated.
While it's true that law enforcement doesn't generally go after polygamists who are living quietly (since that would make about as much sense as jailing anyone who cheated on their spouse), if they are breaking the law in other ways (such as trying to be *legally* married to multiple wives), they are not shielded from punishment.
That makes sense. It’s not “being married” in a particular way that is a crime, inherently. There are behaviors that might sometimes accompany those customs (including lying about legal status and receiving related privileges) but it’s not inherently the fact that people practice it. Things like abuse are crimes in their own right that happen in a myriad other arrangements. I’m no defender of plural marriage in any way, just trying to be clear.
It's not a crime because the second marriage is not done under Canadien law. The crime of bigamy happens when one has a second marriage under the secular law.
This is a fact that escapes the Western mind. Islam, Orthodox Judaism, fundamental Mormonism all recognize only a religious union. The civil marriage is just a convenience that protects the couple under state laws. A civil marriage w/o a religious union is not recognized by Islam and Orthodox Jews as a marriage.
One of the hallmarks of free speech is that we allow speech we totally disagree with or that we find abhorrent. That's been bastardize by those in charge, currently Dems and progressives, to only, they get to decide what speech is protected and what is not. Only in America is the law used to destroy what the law was meant to protect. In most other countries, such duplicity is unnecessary because there is no illusion of free speech to begin with. What do all of our military interventions, since Vietnam, have in common? Hyperbole, hysteria and lies, by mainly old white guys with a few blacks thrown in the last few years. The words and conspiracies you now see coming from the current administration and it's non thinking acolytes. Can we predict what it will lead too? No. But we are assured it will not be a good thing. Long live fear and denunciations of MAGA. It gives those who decide elections a rational and immediate reason to not vote for the Dems.
Old White Men have become oppressed and marginalized even though they are not a minority. Older white men comit suicide more that any other group in the USA. You write very well. I agree with most of your comments. Your quotations do no begin with 'Old White Men'. I would ad 'rich' to them. Some wars are righteous.I am now going to watch young Shelton. I wonder what he would say. Good Night.
Dang, I forgot rich. I always include it. Fact is, old rich white men cause the problems and blame it on others. Time for them to step aside before they destroy world. And now they can take the old white women with them. At least Pelosi quit. The old guys should man up and do the same. We are awaiting the new season of young Sheldon . We miss the show.
It's a religious marriage. In Islam, a couple is married only by Islam law; a civil marriage by the state is a formality that affords the couple rights to certain laws for married couples (not much these days anyway). There is no need in Islam for a civil marriage for a couple to be considered married. (This is also how the fundamentalist Mormans also practice polygamy.)
I’ve been reading a book that examines historically the story of Mohammad, the Koran, hadiths, suras. Lots there that is unverifiable. While documentation of Christianity in the early AD centuries was prolific, documentation of Mohammad doesn’t appear until 200 yrs after his death, which makes accuracy an issue. The hadiths--written by others, not Mohammad. No historical documents of their conquests. Why not?
The other interesting lost fact is just how Christian the ME was after about AD 100. Churches and monasteries were all over Syria, Egypt, Sinai, Ethiopia, and what are now Iraq and Iran. Mohammad’s Muslims were the real colonizers.
Muslims need to face the possibility that their whole religious foundation is nothing more than mythology, and that it teaches hate and glorifies death.
Imagine a world where there had never been a Mohammad.
Yes! And I see so many atheist attack the reliability of the Bible (unsuccessfully I might add), and yet I rarely see them (except for maybe Sam Harris) get up in arms about the reliability of the Quran! Even though its much easier to cast doubt on Islam’s claims, and much can be shown to be false, many atheists in the West seem unconcerned to study Islam and try to prove it wrong, but they are fixated on doing so with the Bible. (And now that I think about, Sam Harris gets angry about what Islams believe, but I’m not sure he has actually tried to disprove any of the claims that the Quran makes. But correct me if I am wrong about this.) Why??? The West has attacked Christianity and basically let the Islamists slide right into our society with nary a wary look.
When you question Islam, you put a target on your head. You will be accused of Islamophobia and suffer life-threatening and lifestyle-altering consequences. Not many people are willing to die on that particular hill.
Fair point. And I understand why Islamists would put a target on my head for questioning Islam. But tired of the hypocrisy of Western Leftists who say that questioning Islam is “Islamophobia” but that questioning Christianity is somehow the correct and proper thing to do. Why isn’t it “Christian-phobia” to question Christianity? Hm?
I mean, I get that Christianity doesn’t behead those who disagree or criticize Christianity, so we leave the door open to more criticism I guess. But when did letting criticism happen become a bad thing? It’s fear to criticize a group that doesn’t take kindly to criticism, but it’s expected to criticize a group that actually engages in and debates the criticism it receives? Makes no sense.
Why? Bc atheists and jihadist play for the same team my guy. “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” Matthew 12:30. There are two teams in this universe: Light and Darkness
That’s true, but I know atheists don’t see it that way. If they want to be critical of religion, fine, but do so evenly across the board. IMO, The fact that Christianity seems so unevenly attacked points to its truthfulness. How else to explain the hypocrisy? So yes, it doesn’t surprise me that atheists attack Christianity more than other religions, per your point. But in an effort to be persuasive toward atheists, I try to give them a little bit of the benefit of the doubt and reveal their hypocrisy in hopes that in order to better align with their supposed belief in rational thought, that they would consider the reasons WHY they actually don’t behave this way towards Christianity as much as they claim to. In other words, I hope to expose their hypocrisy so that they are forced to think through their assumptions in the hopes that they can maybe one day see the flaws in their presuppositions and become more open to faith.
I agree with your diplomatic approach, and think its prudent and practical! I usually am a question-asker in real life as well, not a flame-throwing Bible thumper all the time. So hopefully we can have productive conversations. But substack is where I talk axiomatically and not diplomatically haha, excuse my stridency.
I understand. I’m actually trying to practice diplomatic discourse in this space, but it is difficult to resist the temptation to be snarky, especially against trolls. (Not calling your stridency snarky, but just admitting that I can be snarky sometimes and not always diplomatic.) Your stridency is excused and understood. Cheers.
Sam Harris seems to be one of the only public figures questioning Islam via his Podcasts where he interviews some brilliant minds. And don’t forget Ayaan Hirsi Ali who had to go into hiding after she spoke out. These are the few folks who say “the unspeakable” and publish such views.
But on the bright side, the University President’s testimonies, proved to the public the sham of DEI. And this seems to have freed up a some other voices to ask some straightforward questions, not ready for prime time.
Regular people need to “Take Back The Night” re: our country’s values and fairness.
Yes, there are a few willing to speak out, and I appreciate that. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is especially brave for doing so. I do appreciate that Sam Harris doesn’t turn a blind eye to Islam as well, but frankly, I don’t find him all that intelligent. I think he sounds intelligent and fools a lot of people, but many of his argument against religion doesn’t go into investigating what is true and how can we know it’s true, but falls on the side of “God does this and I don’t like it, therefore God doesn’t exist.” He makes emotional arguments against the existence of God, not philosophical ones.
The problems of Islam does need to talked about, and I do appreciate Sam Harris’s perspective and willingness to do so. But here’s the thing, many of these New Atheists are not asking of any ancient religious text, “is it true?”, they are asking “is it good?” But the standard of good they are using is a post-modern 21st century definition of “good.” That’s the wrong question. Because Islam doesn’t seem to be good in our modern sense, but what if Allah as the Quran portrays him is real? What if that is God? What if that’s what God is truly like? Then it doesn’t really matter that we think it’s bad for Allah to entice followers towards terrorist acts with the promise of paradise and 40 virgins, if that is reality and how the universe operates. So the question they need to be asking is: “is it objectively true?” Does this religion describe reality as we can tell the most accurately? I would like to see Harris and others critique Islam from this angle. Can the claims Islam makes be falsified? Do they hold water? Does it describe reality? Are the claims verifiable? Is the history even correct?
Nope. Your starting premise is that religious beliefs - any and all of them - are verifiable as true or false. That is, you start from within a religious perspective. They are not, and accepting that was what the Age of Enlightenment achieved, that what hitherto had been literally the “word of God” was now what you choose to believe, ie, was metaphorical. Muslims, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews do not accept this of course, but Enlightenment allowed the emergence of science; disinterested inquiry; Darwinism; and freedom from superstition and ignorance. Pretty good trade, I’d say.
We cannot verify some claims in absolute terms— but you also cannot prove that God does not exist. But you can verify as true or false based on the preponderance of evidence. It’s like solving a cold-case crime. Not every question can be answered but you can gather enough evidence to make a decision. The Bible has been investigated by many— and many who set out to “disprove” it come to believe it’s true! Because the preponderance of evidence that supports the reliability of the Bible is overwhelming. Certainly more than any other religious text.
In comparison, you say science is “disinterested inquiry,” but this is not entirely true. Keep in mind that (1) the emergence of scientific principles even within the Enlightenment came about from many scholars who believed in God and the Bible and sought to understand God’s creation; (2) atheist scientism (especially Darwinism) presupposes that there is no supernatural forces in the universe. They have no way to prove this, this is an a priori presumption they make and often do not even acknowledge they do so. This is akin to religious belief by your own definition. It is essentially a “faith” for them to believe without evidence that anything supernatural cannot be. It’s like lilting a crime scene to the room the body is found in, even though you have bloody footprints leading to a door.
So if I look at all the evidence, and I don’t try to presuppose too much, and that leads me to a belief in God and the Bible— that’s not superstition, that’s rational thinking. You may not agree the evidence leads there, or is not compelling enough for you, but you cannot accuse me of superstition and ignorance.
I recently found a great podcast called Physics to God. It is two orthodox Jewish rabbis who are mathematicians and physicists. It is very watchable and provocative
Indeed. If you really want to examine the history the real “colonizers” of today’s Israel are the Muslims, not the Jews. Look at the story of Hanukkah that we just celebrated ... The Greeks were there but no Muslims. They hadn’t arrived to the region yet.
Thanks for these facts on Mohammad. The New Testament is all about the spread Christianity by the disciples throughout that region which is how it became so Christian. Was just thinking before reading these how sad it is that this fighting is happening so close to where Jesus was born. It’s really difficult taking in the hatred throughout the world, much of it having to do with Christianity as well as Jews. The FBI goes after “extreme Catholics” while the White House and Dems fight against Islamophobia.
I like the part where various Islamic empires tried to conquer and subjugate Europe several times, successfully in some places (Spain, Portugal, the Balkans)…but Europeans are the so-called colonizers and crusaders.
I am reading the Exodus which is of course fiction written by a Jewish man. This book should be required reading for all high school students. It gives the Israeli perspective on the settlement of Israel. The middle eastern Muslims have tried to expel christians and jews from that region for a very long time. Lets just face it they want Islam to be the religion of the world which means no rights for women gays or anyone who goes against them. Wake up 🇺🇸
Andrea, why do you state that the Book of Exodus (estimated written 1550 BC) is ‘of course’ fiction?
I would encourage you to read the Book of Deuteronomy (estimate written 1445 BC) & Book of Joshua (estimate written 1405 BC). These later Books of Torah gives explanation of Israel’s settlement of Canaan, Exodus does not.
Mohammed fits every Biblical description of a false prophet or antichrist figure (which is a type of guy not just a singular guy). When Mohammed received his first revelations in the cave (Called the Night of Power by muslims) he thought it was a demonic attack, he ran home terrified to commit suicide. His wife convinced him it was actually God speaking to him and not satan. Thus began his message and ministry. Mohammed was in fact being used, tragically, by Satan.
Maureen, try to read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, not the whole thing but the book about Islam and Mohammed. It’s fascinating, not least because Gibbon has such a nice line on irony, especially how Mohammed found God’s word revealed to him successively on sheep’s’ thigh bones. He’s pretty sceptical, not to say scathing, about Christianity too.
“The Iranian people and the Israelis are victims of the same monster—Islamists.”
—————————————————
Yeah but they are also victims of the college-educated accusatory moralizing anti-west scumbags who said the Shah represented colonialist imperialism and we need a two-state solution because of diversity. So that would be Democrats.
Israelis and Iranians are victims of two diabolical groups of perverts: Islamists and Democrats.
Radical Islam = BLM = DEI = 95% of college professors = the Squad and Black Caucus = “progressives” = a growing percentage of Democrats = woke corporations.
The sad thing is, on their own, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with these concepts in and of themselves. The problem is they have been bastardized , weaponized and used like a malignant poison to corrupt our society. And it’s not just in the US either. So when we ask what is America coming to, that is it. A country that’s allowed itself to be taken over by this poison and the bad actors behind it. Not the concepts themselves. Anything taken to an extreme will always be a bad thing, with bad outcomes,no matter what.
I rarely temporize (!) but I'll provide some nuance to Keven's mighty thunder.
Staging a coup to install the shah wasn't Western Imperialism per se, but definitely one of many instances of the CIA and MI-6 plugging friendly dictators into foreign countries to further our business interests.
Turns out Iranians hated the shah and his SAVAK secret police--think Stasi on steroids--so much they welcomed the pus-ridden ayatollahs, who were a thousand times worse for them and the West. Our shit backfired into our own face.
On Israel and Palestinians, a two-state solution IS needed for reasons historic and politically practical, and I say that as a Zionist American Jew. DNA analysis shows that Old Palestine has two indigenous peoples: Jews and Arabs. (Both are descended from the Canaanite tribes of the Levant. Jews remained pure, the other line was conquered by Muslim Arabs in the 600s and became, well, Muslim Arabs.)
So the Mandate for Palestine and UN partition in 1948 was the smart play: two people, two states. Arabs were too arrogant and stupid to say yes and invaded to steal both halves. Jews kicked their ass and took some of their land fair and square. Arabs tried invasion and conquest again in 1967, Israel beat them again, and took the rest of their land fair and square. So, legally and technically and otherly, Old Palestine IS Israel, from river to sea.
Problem is, there are millions of Arabs on that land, whom Israel will either need to annihilate or accommodate to have One Israel. That's why I support a second state: Arab Palestine. Even though Palis have no legal right to that state--wars matter--Israel can't mow the grass that hard. Not morally, and not even legally; if they actually genocided, the West would invade. Israelis wouldn't support a genocide anyway.
So cook up a second state, transfer all non-Israeli Palestinians there as the UN moved millions of Indians and Muslims to form Pakistan--without a peep from "the world community"--and let them live their best lives in their own country. That can be Gaza, Gaza/Sinai, Gaza/West Bank, Jordan, whatever. But a State of Palestine will be a political reality, and for Israel, the best way to rid itself of a population that hates Jews like arsenic.
Personally, I'd remove the minority Hashemite ruling family from Jordan and put them in their own new Kingdom of Jordan: a large piece of land currently called Sinai. (Egypt will sell given the right price.) Make Old Jordan the State of Arab Palestine, which would have happened if Britain had not stolen Eastern Palestine in 1920 and given it to the Hashemites of Arabia as war booty. (Fucking Brits again.) The residents of New Palestine, 80 percent of whom are ethnically Palestinian anyway, can elect their own rulers and run their own affairs in a nation three times the size of anything they have now.
The new Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan builds itself a grand new existence in Sinai, free of the burden of Palis. Israel builds out Western Palestine from river to sea. Palestine renames Amman to Jerusalem, creating the Twin Cities of Jerusalem, with high-speed train service between the capitals for tourism, trade, and religious site visits. Hell, they physically want Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa? They can dismantle, move, and resurrect them in New Jerusulem, fine by me.
And this takes care of the very real problem of two states for two indigenous peoples of Old Palestine.
Sure as hell was, Bill! Nasty people, and I knew a few Iranians tortured to splinters by SAVAK and managed to flee to the U.S. after. Shah was a genuine dictator.
Fifty years ago in college I met some whose families had been imprisoned . The Shah’s police were subhuman. The Shah was a creation of the CIA , supported by Presidents from both parties, defense contractors, Big Oil and the emerging deep state. We planted the seeds birthed the Mullahs and Radical Islam
My understanding is that a two state solution has been offered several times, only to be rejected by the PLO. Your thoughts on how your solution could be enforced?
You're right, a two-state solution has been offered more than once by Israel and others, and Arabs rejected it (as Bill Cribben notes below) every single time. Their view: Palestine is sacred Muslim land; Jews cannot be sovereign over Muslims; so Islam must destroy Israel to replace it with the superiority of Islam.
An attitude which led to the infamous "The Three No's" of Khartoum in 1967: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.
Problem for Arabs is Israel laughs at such hubris militarily, and more important, has been the actual sovereign since 1948. Arabs tried three times to steal it and lost all their land as a result. They don't have the power to do it, not in the nuclear age.
So can a solution be enforced? Yes, but only if and when Arabs agree to a State of Palestine in which they will live peacefully next to Israel and not covet thy neighbor's ass. (So to speak.) Failing that, Israel will just keep eating away at Gaza and West Bank until Jews replace Arabs in toto, and then Arabs are fucked.
Can a two-state solution be imposed against Arabs' will? Sure, if the world sends a million troops in to physically move people around, build towering concrete separation walls, all that. But that's as likely to happen as me winning Powerball. (NOTE: I am not proposing this solution. It is profoundly immoral version of ethnic cleansing that's not acceptable to me. I offer it here only to answer the OP's question: "Can a two-state solution be imposed against Arabs' will?" Well, yes, it can, but the price is too steep. The parties MUST make a voluntary deal to live side by side in peace. That means Israel's ultra-Orthodox "settler" movement in West Bank will need to be quashed, and the Palestinians' insistence that an Islamic caliphate turns Israel into yet another Muslim holding has to disappear. Both people need to rise up against their own wingnuts and make a peace that endures.)
I'm hoping the trauma of the Hamas war--imposed on Gazans not by Israel but by Hamas--and the alarming erosion of a Palestine in the West Bank by the ultra-Orthodox Jewish settler movement will shake Palestinians and Israelis out of their hundred-year war mode in order to cut a peace deal. It's the only way they both survive in the long run.
I want Palestinians to have their own state. But they have to want it, too.
Shane, what you propose is ethnic cleansing. If Israel tries it, it can forget about ever achieving peace, and it will deservedly forfeit support all over the world, not just in the Islamic world. Your dream is a delusion, propagated by the settler movement. “If only we could get rid of all the Palestinians, all would be well.” To where? The Sinai desert? Jordan?
The truism that Israel can have peace or the land but not both is still true. Wishing that it were otherwise will not make it so.
You are usually so rational and sensible - I enjoy reading your posts - but in this case you seem captured by the ultra orthodox settlers, who IMHO are as big an obstacle to ME peace as are the jihadists - maybe they don’t murder quite as many innocents (though they are guilty of plenty of them) but their religious fanaticism is exactly the same.
Thanks for this, Will, particularly "you are usually so rational and sensible." But I'm afraid you misread my post. I'm not proposing the population movement I described here. Just the opposite, in fact: the two parties need to make a *voluntary* deal good for both of them and become friendly neighbors instead of mortal enemies. Together, they can blow the socks off the Middle East with their brains, creativity, economics, tourism opportunities, and a host of other positives. They're wasting that energy bombing each other, and that's the real tragedy of the post-1948 era.
When I said this--"Can a two-state solution be imposed against Arabs' will? Sure, if the world sends a million troops in to physically move people around, build towering concrete separation walls, all that. But that's as likely to happen as me winning Powerball."--it was only in answer to the OP's question, which was, "Can a two-state solution be imposed?" Yes, a two-state solution CAN be imposed, but only in the way I described. Such real ethnic cleansing is not acceptable to me.
To be crystal clear: both Jews and Arabs are indigenous to Palestine. Both need a state in which to take care of their own people. Arabs blew that grand opportunity in 1948 by choosing the war option instead of the UN partition offer, a tragic error in judgement. But nearly a century later, they have the chance to fix that mistake. I hope Israelis and Arabs make that change.
Thanks for the opportunity to clarify my intent, Will. I added a separate note to my post to make it clear I am not proposing an Arab population clearance and transfer.
The Savak were as brutal as any secret police force. The Shah a weak ,vain man created by the CIA, propped up by Presidents from both parties, armed by defense contractors, a tool of Big Oil and favorite dictator of the emerging deep state. We created the Shah by enabling him to torture and kill his people. Khoemeini was an exiled, obscure, aging cleric. We seeded the field that gave him a second life. The one time we could’ve helped the Iranians Barrack Obama sat on his hands and allowed unrest to be squashed.
This article was an excellent read as it gives testimony to true courage and people with whom I have solidarity, not because of their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation but instead of our shared ideals. The main thread flowing through these posts is those who live free to think and act according to their own consciences. I can remember learning about Voltaire's Philosophical Letters and how he spoke of people in London in the 18th century who lived behind closed doors but were united by the market and commerce once in public. That secret sauce created the English economy, then its rebellious offspring, the US, to make this most incredible age we live in.
As I follow the Isreal/Hamas war - I see not a religion but rather people who want to create a world like Voltaire's explanation in England and those who don't. I am for people who wish to trade and live in a modern world, not the Palestinians who teach hate and backwardness. I want a prosperous world where these people can live their best lives, and those Enlightenment values of the West and Isreal are far superior to the backwardness of those who teach this hate and fear. Thanks for sharing these brave and noble voices.
Beautifully written and succinct explanation of the ultimate issue. America and the western world desperately needs to read your words before we lose our civilization and humanity!
As a Jewish woman it is so distressing to hear how much Jews and women are loathed by so many people. These vignettes are so incredibly important and powerful. Keep em coming.
And yet women are among the most venal and vocal hate mongers we see protesting in support of rapists and baby killers in our universities and on our streets.
A feminist once told me that the world would be kinder, more empathetic and just once women were truly liberated and attain participation in the upper realms of leadership throughout all facets of life. Well, 30 years later.....I see outright seething and hate for Jews, eagerness to humiliate men and white women who disagree with them and mobs of supposedly educated American women screaming at the sky. As an American women it’s embarrassing. They are worse than any men they ever loathed.
Part of the reason for that is because feminism went off the rails when it encouraged women to try to BE men: sexual promiscuity, hard-core pursuit of career, rejection of parenthood...all the WORST traits seen in men became the perfect model for "feminist" behavior.
I AGREE COMPLETELY. I've said over and over and over again, to the few people who would listen, that the Women's Movement tried to encourage women to BE MEN instead of seeing themselves as being equal to men. I would also say that many of the early feminists (from my perspective) tried their best to prove that they were not equal to men but were, in fact, better than men and, therefore, wanted men to become as much like women as possible.
Madeleine Albright: "I'm not a person who thinks the world would be entirely different if it was run by women. if you think that, you've forgotten what high school was like."
I work in a field dominated by women and I'm ashamed to say that the lunacy and groupthink bring to mind The Crucible. Constant online pile-ons that are nothing but mean-girl jealousy dressed up as social justice. It's grotesque.
well I mean the WW2 happened before women were truly liberated, and lotsa Jews died then too, as well as millions in battle. Just saying. Not that our world today is great - It's pretty sucky and morally inept.
Females are raised with the same misogynistic brainwashing and male-worship that men are raised under. I'm amazed that there are any females who manage to reject the self-hate, and even more amazed that there are men who believe both men and women are entitled to self-determination. While there appear, in some cases (but not all), to be more women than men at some of the vicious and hateful protests, I'm not sure how one could come to the conclusion that the females are the "most venal." You could check out the vicious ones at the rallies for "Let Women Speak" and "Wolf." There are plenty of women but there are also plenty of men, plus one has to look carefully for the dudes in drag to not miscount. I would also recommend reading "An American Bride in Kabul" written by Dr. Chessler. As a young college student in the USA she fell in love and married a fellow student from Afghanistan in 1961. She was able to get out after 5 months and later became a psychologist, and her observations on how the women were socialized to police each other is eye-opening, similar to the above stories.
That's exactly what the "venal" women are--policing. They truly believe they are doing it righteously in the name of "kindness." But that's what authoritarianism is. And brainwashing...
Brave folks. I encounter this kind of brainwashed individual daily on social media. They repeat the same deeply antisemitic conspiracy theories and blood libels and bigoted tropes with zero self-reflection or shame. When it comes from radicalized Islamist countries, one can understand they don't have the resources or environment to perhaps know better. But when you see Americans, Irish, Australians, Brits, and Canadians spewing antisemitism, one has to wonder if these individuals will ever wake up to the fact that they sound like actual nazis and how is it that education and civility could have bypassed them so completely.
They are “educated beyond their intellectual means”.
Justin Trudeau is a perfect example, lots of things crammed into his head with no way to process or order them into anything resembling coherent thought.
Andrew Coyne called him a ninny with a cluttered mind back in 2015.
Same, same. Indoctrinated at home. When I lived in Australia, 63-68, no one even remarked that I was Jewish. Since then, and the import of Muslims to Australia, that attitude has changed.
Disagree,categorically. The fragile snowflakes will be drawn when away from that icky parental stuff to any reasonably attractive bandwagon that goes by. The categorical hatreds come from home. As noted elsewhere, I saw this as a child. Other kids with a Thing for Others -- they got this at home. I hadn't, and to this day I don't get it.
I agree that some kids are indoctrinated at home and continue the mindset throughout life and it cycles to the following generation. However, so many of my peers who made it through college without hating their parents and country are enduring rejection, being called racists, terfs, phobics etc....by their own children. All of it after they spent the family savings to send their kids off to be educated in western universities. Their kids were indoctrinated and now hold the upper hand in preaching their new found morality to their parents. It is disrespectful and cruel and was taught by their professors. It did not originate in the homes of these very decent parents.
Much chastened to hear that. Was I lucky? Survived the '60s in college loving my country -- took some sh!t for it at the time.... Brainstorming a bit; is "decent" enough anymore? Or is it inadequate to the forces (not just peer pressures but "social" media) arrayed against it? One can only hope that many will be mugged by reality in time. Thanks for taking the time.
Wow. Heartbreaking confirmation of concerns I have had since the 198O’s when Muslim extremism first touched my world. I am impressed by the courage of these young people and the hope that there are many more like them. I grieve though, that each has rejected God as they have turned away from Islam. I pray that the Light of Christ will eventually touch each one so that they might live in perfect freedom. I know this statement will offend many who also reject God or His Son. However, during this season of Advent, I feel it is vital for Christians such as myself to speak up and offer the hope we share. May God bless and protect each one of these courageous people and their families and friends. I do think that we in the West have no real frame of reference for understanding what is happening in the Middle East. We must listen to these testimonies and make a sincere effort to grasp that which each has stated: the extremists do not fear death, they hate Jews and are willing and indeed ready to kill as many as possible. There is no respect for life as witnessed most horribly on Oct. 7 and in the weeks following. They delight in the deaths of innocents in Gaza because they are filled with cruelty and hatred and think it is an honor to die in the cause of Islam. This IS a religious story whether we chose to believe it or not. Politics alone will not resolve any of the problems. In addition, I will simply state here that I pray daily for the hostages taken by Hamas. May God miraculously protect them!
Perhaps Canada’s idiot prime minister, Justin Trudeau, should read these courageous testimonials. Instead, his greatest concern after the slaughter of Jews on 10/7 was “Islamophobia”, as if a fear and hatred of Islam was an irrational phobia, and not a perfectly normal response to decades of Islamic terror in every country that has a significant Muslim population. To paraphrase one of the brave dissidents in this article, liberalism is the manure in which Islamism thrives and grows. Bari Weiss’s former employer, The New York Times, would never have allowed such testimonials even as they published Jew-hating cartoons and editorials that would have been right at home in the NAZI’s Der Sturmer. Thank you Bari!
Yes, I loved that photo of little Justin and indignant Greta, with the caption, “The world’s whiniest little bitch meets Greta Thunberg”. It was perfect!
Google “Surah 2:193” & “Matthew 5:44-45.” Fight your enemies v. Love your enemies. The Quran’s god and Bible’s God are separate, not “the same God of Abraham.” The Quran teaches to only allow peace when non-Muslims submit to Allah: jihad. Only martyrs are guaranteed forever in paradise with women, which is a powerful military recruitment message especially for young unemployed males of which there are many. Unrest isn’t going away and will likely worsen. Christmas is an important time to stop and ponder theology especially knowing this life is fragile and brief. Thanks, Free Press, for your excellence.
These testimonies beg many questions, some sarcastic and some deadly serious. What sayest the UN and the leaders of UNRWA? Or the vocal ceasefire interns and state dept signatories? What are they doing to combat this or are they facilitating the teaching of hate? How about CAIR and Rep. Tlaib( and others)?. How was she brought up and what was she taught? Does she condemn all such teaching and indoctrination? How do you get millions of people to give up the hate that has been ingrained in them? Will the elite colleges who now proclaim their commitment to free speech allow voices like these ( start with Hirsch Ali) to speak on their campuses and make clear they will not act as they have in the past to allow their mobs to shut down dialogue? Or will this be swept under the rug as always once the noise dies down?
You are viewing this through the lens of a Western Classical Liberal. They, and their “degreed” (not “educated”) Woke supporters view it through the lens of Oppression. First, they are defined as People of Color, which prioritizes them. Their culture makes them poor, but because they are PoCs you can’t say that. Only Oppression explains it. Finally, being Oppressed gives you license to shake off your chains “by any means necessary”.
If one persists in viewing it through the Classical Liberal Western lens, you will be forever flummoxed.
The only conclusion is that Woke—and all its permutations— must be ripped out, root and branch. Starting here in the West.
Good luck though. It controls every major Institution.
A friends sister was an undergrad preparing to take her LSAT and go to Law school. It was October 14 and another friend had gotten us on the topic. The men had various opinions and biased but all of us were fairly reasonable, including one guy who himself was Muslim but very American and chill.
However my friends sister said “One thing we arent gonna do is criticize people for standing up to their oppressors”
To which I replied “Therefore justifying any and all acts of violence committed against groups or people you label thus”
The conversation changed and luckily ended shortly after. However it haunts me that this otherwise lovey and intelligent young woman thinks murdering hundreds of civilians is justified so long as somebody has labeled them as “oppressors”. And she’s gonna be a lawyer!!
So if Native Americans radicals ran up in my neighborhood and slaughtered 1000 civilians it would be good and morally justified? Bc the American government has oppressed them before?? What terrible stupid logic. Luckily Natives would never do such a thing bc they dont belong to a murderous death cult. But even if they did then this girl as a lawyer would just say “Im not pressing charges bc this is actually social justice”
What an evil satanic clownworld the Left is creating.
They own a significant percentage of the youth. And another big percent are sympathetic to the "logic". Every half-generation is more radical. We have to eliminate teachers' unions. Seize back control of all institutions. We have to shine a spotlight on all the dark money that funds this propaganda and indoctrination. I'm 65. As older people die off, the math says a bigger and bigger percentage of people will believe this toxic ideology.
For decades I've said (esp to my Democrat Jewish friends), "Americans think irrationality can't happen here because it never really has. But, we're human too, so we're vulnerable to these mass delusions too." And here we are. It truly is a mass delusion, because it doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny. It only survives through indoctrination and intimidation. (The intimidated "justify" it somehow; otherwise the cognitive dissonance is too painful. Thus, they create their own delusion in order to go along w it.). Human history is littered with these episodes and the bodies of their victims.
Pragmatically, and I never see this discussed, is Trump. My best guess is that he keeps a lot of people from switching sides or at least abandoning the Democrat party. Not that I necessarily like either, but I wonder if more people would abandon the Dems if the frontrunner was Romney or Nikki Haley or some perceived moderate. It would be devastatingly ironic if a Trump candidacy kept Woke from being eradicated and took us down an irretrievable path to totalitarian authoritarianism, and the death of Enlightenment Values.
Trump was the very 1st ‘no new war’ Presidency in my lifetime. He was vilified for telling the truth on debate stage in South Carolina that the Iraq war was predicated on a lie, and sank Jeb at same time. The Uniparty Establishment does not like truth tellers, and explains the R PAC $ behind neocon Nikki. Better to keep the masses divided against each other than for that ire to be directed at the Government. Ever notice the high overlap of those charged w/ rape or kiddie porn, are also those spouting truths? (Julian Assange & Russell Brand come to mind)
Of course I am kidding and pointing out the obvious. I like to rub their noses in their hypocrisy whether it is the Harvard board or the little guy or gal who is a lemming and carries their sign or chants their chant. The only hope is that more businesses will tell little Johnny and Mary that they should seek employment w an NGO that shares their anti western values
Your head is spinning with the same questions as mine. You have identified the root of most all of it. I feel as long as money and power drive the left’s evil agenda they will snub their noses at our questions and remind us that they don’t have to answer for any of this.
They don’t need answers - the Democrats are the creators of all the havoc and hate and at the moment they have both the power and the money, we need to change this in 2024, resoundingly.
What an incredible series. Much love and respect to you all for having the courage to do this.
Everytime I read something like this I vacillate between how fortunate we are to have an outlet like the FP, and how tragic it is that our mainstream press would consider this too controversial or "problematic"
I urge everyone to read the James Bennet article in the Economist this week. It is a crucial read to understand the DEI takeover at The New York Times . He was forced to resign as Opinions Editor in 2020 during the BLM riots, for publishing Tom Cotten’s oped arguing to use the military to stop the looting and burning.
“They believe in something so much that they are willing to die as a martyr for it. There’s just no frame of reference for that in the West.”
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The transvestite activists are like that. And also elite Democrats are like that. The climate change people are like that. Abortion enthusiasts are definitely like that. So we have some frame of reference.
Leftists want others to die for their cult. They themselves aren’t risking any life and limb. “Ukraine flags everywhere…but I’m not answering their call for foreign volunteers.”
The violence of our utopians is more disguised because they are covert and feminized sociopathic manipulators, but they will kill more people. Nothing will compare to the death and destruction from the environmentalists destroying energy and agriculture.
like like like. Every time I think you can't top yourself, you do. God, I'm so jaded, this is all just entertainment to me. I think it's because I was raised Catholic, and we were taught to dislike every other religion. That was back in the '40s and '50s, under Pius XII.
I must have been behind the door when that was taught. Sir. But then, somehow, my peers largely had this thing about J-words and, especially, N-words. Ya know what? They got it at home. I didn't.
Are there peaceful Muslims? Only to the extent that they are isolated and have little power. But even then, there is always the lone actor, such as the young man in London, who will attempt to act out the poison that is endemic in Islam. What can we in the west do? Limit the immigration of those who exhibit a tendency to act on this poisonous religion. But in the USA, this is not possible.
Meanwhile, what do we do with western-raised non-Muslims who are ignorant of history and full-throated bigots who also hate Jews? The West used to represent tolerance, and these clods are doing their best to undermine that concept, which shames us.
We are lost for at least one whole generation! Can we recover from this? Only if academia and local schools begin to purge this poison from their tutelage. I am pessimistic.
Academia will not and more importantly cannot purge the poison from within them. We the people must purge the poison from society. There is no solution in which New York Times, for example, ceasing to be evil duplicitous leftist drivel. The only solution for America’s salvation is that New York Times ceases to exist. People are afraid of losing “vaunted institutions”. But if a cancer takes over a whole body you cant save the body. Publications, Hollywood studios, whole Universities, agencies of the Federal Gov, must collapse and go extinct otherwise their reign of terror will continue. We the people can financially starve, ridicule, ostracize, and penally challenge these institutions into the ground. Its our only hope
You can't know who is and who isn't a potential terrorist until they make themselves known through either word or deed. Which leads me to think that it's necessary to keep all Muslims out of the US and everywhere else outside of the ME and countries where they are entrenched. India, Malaysia, Southern Thailand, etc.
I thank the brave young people who came forward to speak out.
I like discussing theology and think it’s important that young people are informed on the origins of different faith traditions. I knew nothing of Islam until I was in my early twenties and worked with a couple guys who were Muslim. I was surprised to hear what they had to say and told my mother about it when I got home. She only said Islam is bad news. I didn’t know what she meant but soon thereafter Iran had a major melt down, theocrats took over and the s**t hit the fan.
Raised Catholic I could not have been any more detached from faith. No offense to Catholics, it just didn’t inspire me much. I had become a wild child hippy. It was the ‘70’s. My parents were always devout yet didn’t pressure us as kids. I’m sure it bothered them. As a parent now and remarkably, a born again Christian, I tried to raise our kids in faith. They have strayed. I hope they find God again someday.
I found Yeshua through a messianic congregation. When Jews preach the gospels it has an authority and unity of both old and new scripture that makes sense.
My parents were great people in that they instilled the idea that all humans are acceptable and created equal.
I am happy for these young people who have freed themselves from the oppressive dogma of hate that is pervasive in Islam. I hope they can ultimately reconnect with God, faith is helpful in life. I don’t have perfect faith, I have my moments but then I am reminded of times when I’ve been certain and that I made the choice to believe.
Anyway, this has been eye opening and I hope that those who might be inclined to refuse what they deeply feel isn’t right have the fortitude to discover more. I know it’s risky to detach from zealot groups.
I don’t hate Muslims but I do hate the hate/violence and think terrorists need stopping period.
Its really OK to hate radical Islamists. Radical Islam is not a religion and anyone who pretends that it is is insane. It is a malign political movement dedicated to the overthrow of all western, free societies.
Ph-leeze. Yes, Mr Miller it IS a religion! Yes! It is! Full Stop! You can say it! And you should!. Yes, it's that other stuff too but it IS a religion!
Sorry. No. Because if you claim it's a religion then it arguably becomes subject to First Amendment protection. You might as well claim that communism is a religion because it is both devoutly atheistic and worshipped by its followers. Even as its objective is the overthrow of the United States government and replacing the republic with a communist dictatorship. Radical Islam has the same aim although it would govern us under the tenets of the Satanic Verses.
An argument that only a lawyer could embrace. Some of Us consider envirowhackoism a religion; it too walks, looks, quacks.... OTOH one then mus address religion vs Religion or something. Aargh.
We in the west are currently facing an a track on two fronts. First, the cult of neo Marxist, with the championing of the “oppressed”, the rewarding of those claiming”victim status”, and all things DEI. They loathe their nations and everything to stands for and ever stood for, and are destroying the western way of life though their activism, one area of which is climate activism which is damaging us economically (and at the same time rewarding and bolstering our enemies, including China). None of their arguments stand up to scrutiny and many directly contradict their other beliefs. But they have succeeded with the slow march through our institutions and educational systems, having failed politically previously.
Then we have the death cult of Islamism (actually Islam as the majority although not Islamist are happy to stand by and let them act and not speak out). They tell us their aims- to destroy Israel and global Jihad against the west in order to put a global caliphate in place. But we don’t listen.
The strange and unholy alliance of this two groups with little in common other than their anti-semitism and loathing of the west are a threat to our societies and way of life. We need to reclaim our educational systems and public institutions, whilst stopping Muslim immigration (recognising this may not be sufficient as the enemy is well and truly in the camp).
All these people are characteristic of one of two classes of people from Islamic countries whom I met in 40+ years of working as a civil engineer in the US and Islamic countries: devoted Muslims and former Muslim atheists. These people belong to the latter class.
Based on my personal experience, ONLY these two classes exist in the Islamic world; there is NO intermediate class. There is no such thing as a "Moderate Muslim", as there is "Cafeteria Catholic".
I worked with people of both classes for 40+ years. All were engineers, many with advanced degrees from the best US and European universities, and excellent engineers. But, culturally, they lived in the 6th century.
They believed that Muslims had a duty to convert, subjugate, or eliminate infidels. They believed that it was legitimate to lie to infidels to advance Islam. They believed in engaging in truces when wesk, until strong enough to resume the jihad. These are DANGEROUS people.
Your Iskamic neighbor in your urban high rise or suburban community supports Jihad and Hamas. Recent polling in the US and Europe confirms this. He or she would be unmoved by the murder, torture or rape of you and the rest of your family. It is Allah's just punishment of the infidel. If you believe otherwise, you are deluding yourself. Their existence in your immediate neighborhood is a threat to your life
I live in a suburb in Ohio that has a large Muslim community. There is a mosque and a private Muslim school. There are Arab barber shops, grocery stores and coffee shops. I am friends with the Muslim family next door. But I am not going to lie that life in this community is getting uncomfortable. My naive side doesn’t want to believe what you are saying but my rational side thinks you are correct. My third grader got off his school bus yesterday and he said every child was chanting “Palestine, Palestine, Palestine”. My child had no idea why. I had to explain. He then told me a Muslim child was suspended off the bus for bullying another boy into chanting “Palestine”.
The most unfortunate act in American history was the passage of the Celler-Kennedy Immigration Act of 1965, which refocused immigration away from Europe. Since that time, some amazing and highly productive people have immigrated from India, East Asia and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Most that I know have assimilated to the basic Anglo-Saxon culture of the US, as did my Irish, German and Italian forebears in the 18th and 19th centuries. Unfortunately, millions of adherents of a brutal 6th century religion also immigrated, and have NO intention of assimilating. Their intention is to convert the infidels, or reduce them to dhimmis, or to eliminate them.
We could have the best and brightest from around the world. We could bring in people with similar morals and civility and not debauched troglodytes. Instead we are actively recruiting and importing the third world. Minnesota could be MinneSouth Korea or MinneSlovenia. Instead its MinneSomalia.
Its not an accident that Minnesota has been taken over by Somalis (who get into fist fights at Democrat primary election debates). Its not an accident that we have 10x more Hondurans than Chileans. Its an agenda.
Now under Biden we are getting 3 million illegal invaders per year compared to 1 million lawful productive immigrants (most of which are not actually productive but instead family-chain migrations such as a retired Filipino grandma taking the spot a young brilliant Filipino couldve otherwise had). No nation has ever in human history been getting invaded as quickly as the United States currently is.
1965 immigration bill was a mixed bag with much good that came out of it but nothing in place to mitigate the bad or to encourage assimilation. Whats currently happening is a strategic agenda to destroy Western Civilization
Very brave testimonies, respect!
“They were all indoctrinated, they say”.
This article helps explain the hatred felt by many Muslims for Jews. What I still cannot understand is the affinity many Jews feel for progressive ideals that ultimately seek their destruction.
What you don't understand is, Jews stick up for all other minorities because they are terrified to stick up for themselves, and they know no one else will either. The result is obvious: peace marches in Israel, but never in Arab countries; Jews marching for civil rights and blacks in general, but blacks never marching for Jewsi; Jews marching for LGBTQXYX but being expelled form their marches.
As they say, when you're that smart, you're dumb.
“they are terrified to stick up for themselves, and they know no one else will either”.
Except for those MAGA type evangelicals and Trump supporters. The very same people most “liberal Jews loathe. Yet another irony.
MAGA neighbor who is not Jewish has an Israeli flag at his house on my street now.
Send over some fresh latkes!
I’m not Jewish either but was inspired to display an Israeli flag also.
I am a Catholic but don't really practice. I support Israel 100% because they are a civilized democratic nation, and deserve a homeland. Most people I know feel the same, and we are not these Maga people you speak of.
i am dutch/ not going into Trump/ Maga discussions/ i don 't know and i don 't care enough
To all from de Groot on:
- Israel sticks up for itself and has since 1948 (not to mention all the battles throughout millennia).
- The lockstep support for the 'persecuted' is in Jews blood I think because of their history of being persecuted.
- THE problem today is Islam. The personal stories in the article and Muhammad's words re killing Jews is 1300+ years old. How do civilized people address 1300 years of Jew hatred?
"The lockstep support for the 'persecuted' is in Jews blood I think because of their history of being persecuted."
You nailed it, Frank, and it's called empathy. It's what led young Jewish men like Goodman and Schwerner to march in Mississippi in support of civil rights, only to pay with their lives. Many Jews did this, and are now being paid back by such groups as BLM with a stab in the back.
The animalistic attack of 10-7 by Hamas and the horrific response on college campuses has been a wake up call for many Jews whose heart was in the right place, but now realize, like Israelis, that they were played for suckers. They always associated fascism and bigotry with the right. But now, for more and more Jews (and others), those days are over!
the problem is islam/ islamism, jihadism, wahhabism, slafism, no doubt about it / Just reading Matthias Küntzel's Jihad and Jew-Hatred, an eye-opener
I think the "secular liberal enclaves" is as good an argument as any in explaining why so many Jews are reflexively progressive. Echo chambers on the right or left are not conducive to productive thought.
You have great courage and insight, B S. I always learn something from your posts and appreciate your taking the time to write them.
Yes. Seconded.
"Liberal Jews definitely seem to have a blind spot when it comes to Evangelicals."
1. Just Liberal Jews? Or Jews in general? I ask only because I am Outside The Jew Club.
2. If I may, its not just Evangelicals, but Christians in general. It must be admitted we Christians have not always treated our Jewish cousins(?) that Jesus would approve of.
BTW rumor has it Jesus was A Jew...Who Knew! :-)
One of the things I've noticed is Jews since (around the world) 10- 7 have come to realize there are people who don't care if you are liberal, conservative, religious, non religious, doesn't matter to them. If you are a Jew You Have To Die.
This has been true for 3500 years. With a Notable Lack Of Success it must be noted. I like to tell those who want to Kill Da Jews to Take The Hint!
Jewish/Christian relations over the last 2000 are (to say the least) Complicated. Mostly bad, BUT not exclusively so.
I'm not Jewish, but as a cradle Southern Baptist (now evangelical Presbyterian), I think we have a tendency to forget the long history of Christian antisemitism. The early Zionists in the 1880s were fleeing pogroms in Eastern Orthodox Russia. Theodor Herzl was radicalized by the Dreyfus affair in Catholic France--he had been a proponent of assimilation and that caused him to believe it would never be possible to assimilate and that Jews would never be safe outside of their own homeland. Early Zionist writings refer to our "Muslim brothers" because it wasn't great to be Jewish under Muslim rule, but it wasn't as bad as living in the Pale of Russia, either.
There were some heroic Christians in WW2--Casper, Betsie, and Corrie ten Boom come to mind--but not enough. Most of them stood by. Bonhoeffer was executed at Dachau, Barth fled to Switzerland after refusing to take a loyalty oath to Hitler.
Even within evangelicals, there are the "Jews are our elder brothers in the faith and the first recipients of the covenant" evangelicals and the "Jews have to be gathered in to Israel so the world can turn against them and hasten the second coming of Christ" evangelicals (the Tim LaHaye/Left Behind/John Hagee type). I wouldn't expect most Jews to be able to parse the differences in eschatological theology when most Christians can't.
I can understand why they'd be suspicious after 2000 years of harassment.
Not being disrespectful to the other contributors, BS, but your telling seems to have alot more authenticity to it.
Most of the others come off like an Alcoholic's Anonymous meeting.
I cannot imagine feeling that way and I am very sorry you do. I wish I could reach out and hug you. But please stop with the no one else will [stick up] for them either. LOTS of people have, are, and will stick up for Jews and Israel. Attending rallies is pointless and accomplishes nothing among sentient beings.
True that. Many people are sticking up for Jews and we appreciate the support. We may be entering an era when more overt antisemitism in the US (the country that has done so much for Jews) will become accepted.
I am surprised and gratified at the amount of support we see for Israel in the present crisis. Though I think the hardline factions of Israeli government have done tremendous damage to the country, and this Gaza invasion may turn out to be a huge strategic error.
I respect your position and you certainly have an understanding that I do not. I have read that there is dissent against the current leadership. I have also read, and believe to a certain degree, that this is an information war and the opposition is certainly spewing information, dishonest information IMO, and seem to be gaining public support. But that just makes many of your Christian supporters more stalwart because we know what happens when Israel stands alone and I plan to be on the right side of that battle. But as far as the real-time Gaza invasion what else could they do? Personally I think they have shown remarkable restraint in not using the ultimate weapon. I also think it is possible that 10/7 was a baited trap to entice Israel to do so.
I don't 100% agree that rallies don't help. Or maybe my issue is that I think NOT attending rallies may hurt? If someone were to call for a pro-jewish rallies and no one came, I feel like that would simply empower the haters and evils as they would be able to point to it and say "See, no one likes the Jews". When these marches end up being packed with supporters, I do think it matters.
That said, I do think it would be better to organize things that actually DO something.
I do not live in an area where rallies are extensive for either Israel or Palestine. There seems to be considerable support for Israel and synagogues. No backlash against mosques or Islam. My was a one horse town in the recent past had a Menorah lighting on the tiny town square. Reportedly 15 sheriff's and constable cars were visible. You know just in case. But my attending rallies is useless position is based on post Floyd rallies. They just get together and act like banshees. I honestly think it is some kind of outlet for pent up personal rage not an expression of outrage about whatever they are protesting about. IOS it is about them, not a cause. Plus I am.very tired of the Palestinian genocide lie.
This makes my heart sing!
Jews “ stick up for other minorities” as you put it, we know it’s the morally right thing to do . Our Torah teaches that, very explicitly.
Well, my view on that is, to adapt a well known phrase, the Torah is not a suicide pact. Unilateral support of others without reciprocity in a moment of extreme need is a type of alliance I can happily jettison.
Mr. Kauffman I'd argue that It's a fine line. I often think to the Armenian genocide committed by the Muslims and the complete disregard of the atrocities by the West. Would the Germans in the 1930s have been so emboldened in their genocide had the West come down on the filthy Turks?
Agreed.
I think the bigger issue is painting with too broad a brush. Helping those in need is one thing. Attaching yourself to a political organization is another. The real issue is that many of these organizations don't actually represent the people they claim to. So, a Jewish person supporting the BLM org, is not necessarily helping black people in need. So maybe they should back off of political parties and support individuals.
That's Israel's terrible historical trap, isn't it? The rather pitiful minority in its midst, the Palestinians, hates the Jews for taking their land, so the Jews have to go against the Torah with regard to them for Jewish self-preservation. The ultimate catch-22 of Israel's terrible fate. When I was a child, I was terrified by the story of how Sinbad the Sailor had an old man on his back he could not get off. That seems to me a good metaphor for Israel's fate forever. There's literally no way to dump the Palestinians, and as long as Israel is tied to them at the hip, Israelis will be forever insecure, no matter how much our tax dollars build up Israel's military might, which was obviously worthless on Oct. 7.
Jews did not take anyone’s land. This is a lie. Jews lived in Palestine before it was called Palestine.
"Over this period the Jewish population of Palestine, composed principally of immigrants, increased from less than 10 per cent in 1917 to over 30 per cent in 1947." These demographic facts are not in dispute. Jews were a tiny 10% of the population of Palestine at the moment of the Balfour Declaration engineered by the Rothschilds to set the stage for Zionist-financed Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine with the ultimate goal of totally controlling the area by Jews in a homeland for the Jewish people, for a "Jewish state" as Israel proudly calls itself today. Given the horrible levels of antisemitism in Herzl and the Rothschilds' Europe, no wonder they wanted a safe place for allJews to finally live in peace. But tragically the land they chose for this project was the opposite of "a land without people"; it was full of that other Semitic tribe called Arabs. Even in 1947, all the best efforts of the Rothschilds and other Zionists had only been able to increase the number of Jews in Palestine to 30%. Then the post-Holocaust "exodus" and the war the Zionist project finally provoked, with the Nakba expelling almost 800,000 Arabs finally gave "the land of Israel" a Jewish majority. A majority which then took control from the remaining Arabs. Most educated Westerners have read Heart of Darkness. Most educated Westerners have a low opinion of the centuries of European colonization in which the natives all over the world, not least right here in America, lost control of their land and their lives. Colleges have been teaching anti-colonialism for decades as a result, much more so since the highly influential writings of the great, independently wealthy Palestinian scholar Edward Said. It was inevitable that anti-colonial American campuses would more and more see the conquest of the area called "Palestine" by the Jews as part of this whole colonial project, which has now collapsed absolutely everywhere on earth. Except in Israel. Obviously, many Jews believe, even religiously, in Israel as their "promised land" from the moment they took it from the Canaanites a millennium before Jesus. But since Jews had only been 10% or so of the population of Palestine from 1000 to 1917, in a land overwhelmingly Arab, this argument naturally cuts no ice with Arabs. Conservative Americans will never be able to put the geniis of slavery and the slaughter of the Indians back in the bottle of history, even in Florida, much less Cambridge, MA. The same is true in Cambridge for the Palestinian genii shadowing the history of Israel. America and Israel are both deeply scarred by what their now dominant, better armed "races" did to the natives whose land they unquestionably took. Unfortunately for Jews, all our best universities are filled with brilliant, often quite rich, Muslim students who are just as critical of Zionism as native Americans are of Europeanized America. Not too many native Americans at these schools, so the Muslims make a much louder noise.
Funny how no one mentions almost all Jews being thrown off Arab and Muslim land, many even before there was an Israel. Why aren't the Jews attacking Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, etc and demanding their property back? What a f-ing double standard!
You are not correct that our "tax dollars build up Israel's might." We made a deal with Sadat -- American aid in exchange for peace. Where is your concern for what our tax dollars do for Egypt? Further, Israel does not "receive tax dollars." It receives credits that it exchanges for American weapons. And Israel also gives the US free access to its brilliant technologies for use in our arms production and development. Also Israel's annual military budget is $26 billion, and our credits are $3 billion. So it seems that Israel is producing a lot with its own shekels, not our dollars.
Mr. Kauffman is correct.
That is the only land Jews have.
Why isn't America the greatest place for Jewish flourishing in all of Jewish history? We have roughly the same number of Jews as Israel, and our Jews are much more prosperous than theirs, however beautifully successful Israelis have been with their own capitalism. (By the way, Switzerland has about the same population as Israel and has almost twice the GDP, so we mustn't see Israel as some uniquely amazing capitalist success story, especially since Switzerland had not had the gigantic investments in its economy from both the American government and American Jews, as well as Jews worldwide, Israel has had.) Sure, we have anti-Semites on the right who have always hated Jews, but their numbes have been radically reduced since WWII. Until 1968, the richest neighborhoods in Baltimore forced home buyers to sign a covenant promising not to sell their house to a black or a Jew, since either would ruin home values. Those neighborhoods have now been filled with lots of happy, prosperous Jews living with the WASPs for decades. If there were no Israeli-Palestinians conflict there would be no anti-Semitism from the left in America at all, since Jews would presumably be at the forefront of all PC causes, as they always have been, with nothing to argue with other leftists about. If humans have not been wiped out by climate change or AI hundreds of years from now, and if Israel ends tragically for all concerned, historians will presumably note that it was tragic that the European survivors of the Holocaust who went to Israel for safety and prosperity did not come to America instead. America grew by about 1.5 million in 1945. Surely if there had been no anti-Semitism, it could have taken in a half-million Jews from Europe easily enough. Think of how those educated Jews would have enriched America and succeeded mightily here, with no wars with Muslims of one sort or another every few decades to worry about. Until the founding of Israel, most in the American Jewish community, despite right-wing anti-Semitism, would surely have argued that America had been "the Golden Door" providing the best home for Jews in the modern world. There's a serious argument to be made, isn't there, that America is still the safest, most prosperous place for Jews there is or has ever been. Sam Altman and Zuckerberg are here, not in Tel Aviv. Almost all American Jews vote that they prefer America with their feet, don't they? A trickle may move to Israel every year, but almost all American Jews have rightly loved it here as they have seen Jewish success simply skyrocket across the board in liberal and capitalistic America, the ultimate society open to talents for one of the most talented peoples in human history. I'm not Jeiwish, though my beloved wife is, but all I know is most American Jews would clearly never trade their life in America for a new life in Israel, or they would move tomorrow. So, no, to me America is just as much a land for the Jews as Israel. So Israel is NOT the only land Jews have. Given the massive Jewish donor influence on the right in America with Republicans and the massive donor influence on the left with the Dems, there is zero chance America will ever be anywhere near as unsafe for Jews as Israel has been and is right now. Obviously, religious Jews have a mythic attachment to Israel, but so do Christians and Muslims every bit as much. So the argument that somehow Israel is supposed to be the unique home for Jews seems historically fallacious to me. Hebrews conquered it three thousand or so years ago and ruled it, if later under Roman control, for a thousand years. But that ended two thousand years ago. Then various Muslims ruled the area from the 7thC to the end of the Ottoman Empire, much longer than the Jews ever ruled it. In 1914 there were only about 15,000 Jews in Israel, as had been the case for centuries. So it may be understandably emotionally compelling for Jews to think of that land as somehow uniquely "theirs," but the historical claim for them, if that's what they are resting their "right" to the land is based on, seems rather fanciful and bogus.
Reform nonsense.
This
Spare us. SOME Jews "stick up for" SOME "other minorities" because they feel a natural affinity toward them as what they perceive to be fellow underdogs oppressed by the majority (be it religious, racial, ethnic, sexual, etc.) and/or because of a shared antipathy toward their perceived oppressors. The motives run the gamut -- from hatred of "the other," to moral preening, to mere self-interest, to altruism. Now that their ox is being gored in the most brutal and horrific ways, liberal Jews are learning what liberal non-Jews are also learning: that the Left always eats its own.
As one of the liberal Jews learning this in real time, WELL PUT.
All people operate from mixed motives. But if it makes you feel better we will avoid sticking up for you.
You never have. But I don't hold that against you.
I don't purchase German products. Why?
I hope you saw Jesus Is Magic, in which the sublime Sarah Silverman has an hilarious song mocking "Jewish people buying German cars." Silverman says it was kind of dumb of the Germans to slaughter the Jews, since they would ultimately be their best customers for their cars.
I'll gladly listen to Muslims dragging their nails across an old school chalkboard after three days of sleep depravity and two root canals before I'll watch or listen to Silverman.
Your Mileage May Vary.
She's an anti-Christian bigot. She should do a routine called Muhammed is Magic and see how that goes.
An elderly friend and neighbor (G_d rest her soul) who grew up in Canada told me her father never bought Fords due to Henry Ford's promotion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
When the Arab boycott of Israel was instituted, many car companies (including GM and Toyota) avoided doing business there to mollify what were much bigger customers. Ford refused to boycott Israel, which at least in my view made up for the founders' sin.
and so what is your point? And how do you know how Jews are raised in the east coast and west? Pretty sweeping assumptions there. Also, "hoisting fears and disillusionment" is what history is. So factual history should be concealed? If anything, Hamas -- and Harvard --proved those "secular liberal Jews" to have been correct.
I wasn't offended at all, that's ok. Comments are not for the fragile:) I'm Jewish from the midwest and was educated at eastern "elite" schools, so I know the turf. And I don't dispute too much the problems of both coasts. My diagnosis is only slightly different than yours: my experiences at very elite schools was that the students enjoyed their sense of moral superiority with their liberalism, and I think that continues.
Also, shocking ignorance of history has a lot to do with it. I think passing along what happened to Jews in WWII is essential to understanding evil and how it works. I've studied that ara in detail and think that if people knew how bad it was they'd understand that, today, Hamas is just the Little League of Nazis, with wishes they can grow up to be even more like them.
A country that demonstrates as "Pro Palestinian" is a country that views wars and complex conflicts as sport events. Who will they root for when China attempts to gobble up Taiwan?
These issues are too complex for a comments section. =But to me your view of the largest threats is sound.
Great questions. As an Israeli-American, I have 2 things to say about it.
1. Jews are highly involved in almost EVERY liberal social movement, whether conservative liberalism (Bari Weiss), progressive (Bernie), and even anti-zionist (Finkelstein and Chomsky). I'm not sure about the historical reasons for this, perhaps the inclination to associate conservatism with antisemitism after WWII. I think that's going to change.
2. Please don't conflate "Wokism" with progressive ideals. There's nothing progressive about wokism. Progressive ideals brought us women and black rights, freedom of religion, etc. Wokism is progressive gone so far that it became its own opposite. I tend to think of progressive and conservative as complementary, where the progressive is like a flying balloon that wants to fly high but is tied to something that keeps it close to the ground (conservative). The problem is when they detach, each go to their extremes. That's why a renewed dialogue and compromise is necessary as opposed to separation and detachment from the other side. That's why I like the "Free Press", it seems to hold the two views together.
Sorry, Gilad. It's you who are mistakenly conflating "progressive ideals" with elemental fairness and basic decency. The word "progressive" is devoid of meaning in and of itself. It invariably invites the question: "progressing" towards WHAT? The answer is almost always leftism, of which wokeness is but the latest iteration.
The hallmark of “progressivism” (formerly known as “liberalism”) is change. Constant change. Change for the sake of change. The rejection of all that has come before as we move ever closer to that elusive “utopia” that we will never find. The utopia at the end of the rainbow -- man’s “perfection” through “education”. Sheesh...good luck.
I appreciate your perspective grateful1. For me, the word "progress" always meant to minimize the gap between the American ideals and the actual living of these ideals. But I agree that some or many progressives interpret it in a very simplistic way. BTW - I don't see myself as a progressive but as a freethinker.
You need to realize that how you define words no longer matters to the people you call woke, who have also colonized the terms "liberal", "left", ad "progressive". One of their main strategy is to redefine words to the point where there's no common understanding of what words mean anymore.
The most blatant example is "woman". But the list goes on.
How you define anything is irrelevant. They already decided.
Thank you. Well said!
Well Mr. Sommers I disagree. We are experiencing the progression.
No problem, it's your right to disagree.
Good points all.
Jews would fit into the intellectual area of conservative culture quite well, the problem is the media shows them only the MAGA supporters (and the worst of those).
I like your analogy that describes the necessary duality of progressive and conservative. I hate to say lately that when I hear/read the word “progressive” it’s been hard to not cringe because of how I’ve been equating “woke” to it. Your comment is a helpful reminder to actually separate the two.
Illiberal progressive principle:
Each person is endowed with unique amount of privilege based on her race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, etc.
To create an equitable society, each person should be granted rights in inverse proportion to her privilege.
Therefore, we must Unequal-before-the-Law to live in a just and moral society that maximizes Equity.
As a Jew I can’t understand it either. But I think there is a slow change happening. Hopefully. Even mainstream Democrats are finally starting to see a problem.
Defecate onto one hand then hope for leftist sanity onto the other. Please report which one fills first.
very funny!
I think you are overly optimistic about that.
IOW, it's still ok to vote democrat? (Asking for a friend, of course.)
NO!!
We’ll ask yourself: do you want to vote for a party that allows Putin to win; that supports such extreme abortion bans as to deny ALL women agency over their own bodies; that wants to emasculate the IRS so wealthy donors can game the system to evade (yes, evade not merely avoid) taxes; that overwhelmingly supports hatred against government workers just doing their jobs (I could go on but you get the idea). THAT party???
Most regularly practicing (usually orthodox or modern orthodox) are not progressives. It is the secular ones who are. However, unlike the orthodox, the secular Jews do not have many children and often intermarry, so over time, the % of Jews who are more politically conservative will increase. My prediction is that by the next generation, the progressive portion of Jews will be the minority.
From your mouth to G-d’s ears!
Statistically - maybe. But can we count only on that portion of the Jewish population? Look at the Jewish students waving Palestinian flags at the Brown University. 20 of the arrested were members of Jews for Ceasefire calling for divestment. Young secular Jews are the same product of our higher education system as everyone else. I am not optimistic.
Your question about Jews and "progressive" ideals is often asked and here is my answer. Throughout most of their history, jews were forced to live under powerful non Jewish rulers. Catholic monarchs; Czars, Muslims etc. Jews were subject to pogroms, restrictions, forced conversion, expulsion and of course mass murder. The more liberal these rulers were, the better for the jews as a whole. The Jews did best under non religious republics such as France and the USA/Canada. Sometimes Jews used "the enemy of my enemy Is my friend". So they Allied with Muslim polities like the Ottomans, since they were enemies of the Christians who treated Jews even worse. This long sad experience makes most (not all) Jews automatically pick the more liberal side of any choice.
Maybe a lot of Jews just feel sorry for the oppressed people liberals have claimed to be trying to help, since Jews vividly recall how oppressed they themselves have been. Maybe it's just admirable fellow-felling, empathy for those suffering injustice.
That's a thoughtful comment I hadn't heard before.
My maternal surname is a physical characteristic. My paternal a trade.
We weren't prrmitted a name.
Isn't there also a certain irony in right-wing Jews making common cause with fundamentalist Christians who eagerly await an Armageddon in which Jews will either choose Jesus over Judaism or be summarily sent to Hell forever, while the righteous Christians have their Rapture on the way to Paradise? Aren't the fundies happy to take right-wing Jewish money for their votes and thus support for Israel, while still totally feeling as if all Jews who have not accepted Jesus as "their Lord" will roast for eternity?
I'll take Christian fundamentalists who believe I'll burn in hell to Muslim fundamentalists who want to see me burn on a street corner. Who cares what they feel? I care about what they actually do.
I agree. They support Israel because they know Jews will take care of the Christian sites as well as all the others. I’m not sure it matters why they care about Israel. Their actions are more important to me than their words. And as you pointed out, the same is true of the Islamists - although their words match their actions rather closely.
Jesus is the Jewish God. The entirety of the Torah and prophets speak of Him. Jeremiah 33:15-16. Isaiah 9:6. Malachi 3:1. Joshua 6. The Rock which Moses struck. Genesis 3. Jesus is on every page of the Bible. Thats why many modern Jews are secular, bc its so obvious Jesus is the Messiah they cant actually read the Tanakh anymore without seeing it. The reason most Jews do not accept Him is that God has purposefully hardened their hearts (Romans 11). But after the full number of Gentiles have been brought into the fold, the Father will soften their hearts and many Jews will turn to Jesus en masse. The Jews are God’s people, but we Gentiles have just been grafted onto the tree.
No where did Jesus claim that Jews would be summarily sent to hell forever. Any Christian who thinks they can determine how God will judge another is wrong. Jesus instructed us how to conduct our own individual lives so that we will not be separated for eternity from God. He was clear that the judging would be done by God.
Is Christianity incompatible with Judaism? Is Christianity not a progression of Judaism?
What does it mean to be a Jew?
me neither, i hope October 7th will be a wake up call for them
Brave indeed. Next week, on The Free Press - "We Were Taught to Hate Whites"
‘It’s like asking me how often I drink water. Anti-whitism was everywhere.’ Apostates, former DEI administrators, and the Harvard Corporation on how they changed their minds: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-get-into-harvard-gay-bobo-corporation
Biden madly shrieks the same anti-white shibboleths, claiming that America becoming a majority minority nation is a great thing. A toweringly racist statement denigrating white America. The man is insane.
The entire Party is insane.
When I was growing up, Italians were the outgroup. They called us WOPs. Now we have integrated into society and thanks to pizza, pasta, and the Godfather we are part of the in crowd! Well, except for the mobsters and Rudy Giuliani but let’s just ignore the minority of that group.
It’s wonderful to have an integrated society. Everybody brings something to the potluck party. We can learn so much from each other’s culture.
I remember a guy in college saying he didn’t like Italians right to my face while he was eating a bowl of spaghetti. The uneducated idiot.
Love the neighbor there’s a lot we can learn from them.
Best I can remember none of my Italian friends were planting bombs or roasting babies alive.
No comparison, but a lot ended up in jail for murder!
Hamas is a small segment of the Palestinians who are barbarians and who were definitely taught to HATE Jews. When will it stop? The five people who shared are a small seed that hopefully may grow.
Recent polling shows more than 70% of Palestinians support Hamas and the massacre of 10-7. That number may be off but it is not a small segment of the population.
Funny, again. Not one of the Italian kids I grew up with ended up in jail, for murder or anything else. Is this a "mafia" joke? Many grew up to be professionals like me. Only difference was that, as good a cook as my mom was she could rival the sauce or "gravy" my Italian buddies moms made.
Yeah, sounds easy, but even antisemites like falafel.
I would say that Integration is the key word. If Italians had stayed in their own neighborhoods, had their own religion, and then tried to force the cities they were in to abide by the Italian religious views all while opening hating the very place they moved to, I suspect they wouldn't be well integrated today.
Many of the people coming here today don't want to be Americans, culturally. They are leaving a place with no opportunities and try to turn their new home into the same place they came from. And many of the locals are trying to help them for some reason.
Replace insane with a leftist. Oh, wait.
The MEGA MAGA threat looms larger than any other for that man, as he works to destroy America fiber by fiber.
Are you really this daft?
I’m not daft. Biden thinks maga is the greatest threat to us. Great then Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, crime, etc. To him it’s white supremacy above all else. Why is that daft.
I was particularly slow (daft) on the uptake. Note the follow up comment and apology.
I’m thinking she means Biden.
You’re probably right. Apologies to Shirley. And thanks . I need to not respond on the phone screen.
Odds of that are low, Yuri. But good call out. Hyper racial anti white stuff is all over, often presented as scholarly work.
Like having a Christmas party for only nonwhite staff?
but being a scholar is racist!
Boom!
Brilliant as always, Yuri.
Wow, read the article. You’re doing the Lord’s work.
My reaction exactly.
I did not know bigamy was legal in Canada, even for Muslims.
These short essays are powerful statements about the wickedness of Islamism. Why we have imported it into Western civilization and allow it to poison our children is one of those questions we can’t ask because it means we are Islamophobic but which desperately needs answering of we want to survive as free, humanist societies.
Trudeau does a pretty good job of ensuring that everything which invites the wrath of God is legal.
The one vignette by the woman in Vancouver showing that Trudeau coddles both Isllamic terrorists and plural marriage is more than telling.
Bigamy is not legal in Canada. It sounds like it was a religious marriage rather than a marriage recognized by the state.
Meaning that it was a crime. But do the leftist governments in Vancouver or Ottawa prosecute Muslims who engage in that crime? You tell me.
Second and subsequent wives are usually declared as "cousins". Sometimes it's not a lie. Generally, unless there is abuse and the woman seeks help, these families are not prosecuted.
Speaking of cousins, my friend had to marry her cousin in the West Bank when she was 15. No choice in the matter. Came back here to high school a married woman.
Is it a crime or is it just that the marriage and its accompanying legal privileges aren’t recognized? People in Utah with plural marriages aren’t criminalized for it, they’re just not recognized.
The only people with plural marriages in Utah are in extremist sects. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stopped practicing plural marriage over 130 years ago. Anyone who engages in plural marriage *will* be excommunicated.
While it's true that law enforcement doesn't generally go after polygamists who are living quietly (since that would make about as much sense as jailing anyone who cheated on their spouse), if they are breaking the law in other ways (such as trying to be *legally* married to multiple wives), they are not shielded from punishment.
That makes sense. It’s not “being married” in a particular way that is a crime, inherently. There are behaviors that might sometimes accompany those customs (including lying about legal status and receiving related privileges) but it’s not inherently the fact that people practice it. Things like abuse are crimes in their own right that happen in a myriad other arrangements. I’m no defender of plural marriage in any way, just trying to be clear.
It's not a crime because the second marriage is not done under Canadien law. The crime of bigamy happens when one has a second marriage under the secular law.
This is a fact that escapes the Western mind. Islam, Orthodox Judaism, fundamental Mormonism all recognize only a religious union. The civil marriage is just a convenience that protects the couple under state laws. A civil marriage w/o a religious union is not recognized by Islam and Orthodox Jews as a marriage.
“Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.” —Oscar Wilde
No. You aren't getting it.
Ever been to Utah, or see a show called Big Love?
Just because something is declared illegal by the State doesn't mean everyone follows the law.
One of the hallmarks of free speech is that we allow speech we totally disagree with or that we find abhorrent. That's been bastardize by those in charge, currently Dems and progressives, to only, they get to decide what speech is protected and what is not. Only in America is the law used to destroy what the law was meant to protect. In most other countries, such duplicity is unnecessary because there is no illusion of free speech to begin with. What do all of our military interventions, since Vietnam, have in common? Hyperbole, hysteria and lies, by mainly old white guys with a few blacks thrown in the last few years. The words and conspiracies you now see coming from the current administration and it's non thinking acolytes. Can we predict what it will lead too? No. But we are assured it will not be a good thing. Long live fear and denunciations of MAGA. It gives those who decide elections a rational and immediate reason to not vote for the Dems.
Using the nomer "old white guys' is a pergoritive that is similiar to using the word 'Jew' as an expression of hatred.
Nearly all of the good in Western culture comes ffrom (deceased) "old white guys." Even the US.
You almost get it. (From a 71 year old white guy.)
The difference being, old white guys are not an oppressed/marginalized minority.
Older men start wars, but younger men fight them.” ~ Albert Einstein
Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” ~ Herbert Hoover
I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” ~ George S. McGovern
Old White Men have become oppressed and marginalized even though they are not a minority. Older white men comit suicide more that any other group in the USA. You write very well. I agree with most of your comments. Your quotations do no begin with 'Old White Men'. I would ad 'rich' to them. Some wars are righteous.I am now going to watch young Shelton. I wonder what he would say. Good Night.
.
Dang, I forgot rich. I always include it. Fact is, old rich white men cause the problems and blame it on others. Time for them to step aside before they destroy world. And now they can take the old white women with them. At least Pelosi quit. The old guys should man up and do the same. We are awaiting the new season of young Sheldon . We miss the show.
Pelosi didn’t quit she’s still very much there, just sidelined for now (and hopefully forever)
It's a religious marriage. In Islam, a couple is married only by Islam law; a civil marriage by the state is a formality that affords the couple rights to certain laws for married couples (not much these days anyway). There is no need in Islam for a civil marriage for a couple to be considered married. (This is also how the fundamentalist Mormans also practice polygamy.)
Bigamy is not legal anywhere in Canadian law. This would have to be a religious marriage only with no legal standing.
Bigamy is not legal in Canada. Neither is marrying off your 12 year old daughter but it still happens.
It's somewhat like a man who has a mistress.
It's interesting how this group has latched onto the idea of polygamy instead of other parts of the stories and pain.
I’ve been reading a book that examines historically the story of Mohammad, the Koran, hadiths, suras. Lots there that is unverifiable. While documentation of Christianity in the early AD centuries was prolific, documentation of Mohammad doesn’t appear until 200 yrs after his death, which makes accuracy an issue. The hadiths--written by others, not Mohammad. No historical documents of their conquests. Why not?
The other interesting lost fact is just how Christian the ME was after about AD 100. Churches and monasteries were all over Syria, Egypt, Sinai, Ethiopia, and what are now Iraq and Iran. Mohammad’s Muslims were the real colonizers.
Muslims need to face the possibility that their whole religious foundation is nothing more than mythology, and that it teaches hate and glorifies death.
Imagine a world where there had never been a Mohammad.
So you’re saying the warlord pedophile guy was maybe lying???
There's definitely no pictoral evidence he was telling the truth.
if there were, you'd have to kill the person who took the picture or painted the scene.
Say it ain't so.
Yes! And I see so many atheist attack the reliability of the Bible (unsuccessfully I might add), and yet I rarely see them (except for maybe Sam Harris) get up in arms about the reliability of the Quran! Even though its much easier to cast doubt on Islam’s claims, and much can be shown to be false, many atheists in the West seem unconcerned to study Islam and try to prove it wrong, but they are fixated on doing so with the Bible. (And now that I think about, Sam Harris gets angry about what Islams believe, but I’m not sure he has actually tried to disprove any of the claims that the Quran makes. But correct me if I am wrong about this.) Why??? The West has attacked Christianity and basically let the Islamists slide right into our society with nary a wary look.
(Ha! Couldn’t help myself.)
When you question Islam, you put a target on your head. You will be accused of Islamophobia and suffer life-threatening and lifestyle-altering consequences. Not many people are willing to die on that particular hill.
Fair point. And I understand why Islamists would put a target on my head for questioning Islam. But tired of the hypocrisy of Western Leftists who say that questioning Islam is “Islamophobia” but that questioning Christianity is somehow the correct and proper thing to do. Why isn’t it “Christian-phobia” to question Christianity? Hm?
I mean, I get that Christianity doesn’t behead those who disagree or criticize Christianity, so we leave the door open to more criticism I guess. But when did letting criticism happen become a bad thing? It’s fear to criticize a group that doesn’t take kindly to criticism, but it’s expected to criticize a group that actually engages in and debates the criticism it receives? Makes no sense.
Doesn't seem to be a problem here.
Why? Bc atheists and jihadist play for the same team my guy. “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” Matthew 12:30. There are two teams in this universe: Light and Darkness
That’s true, but I know atheists don’t see it that way. If they want to be critical of religion, fine, but do so evenly across the board. IMO, The fact that Christianity seems so unevenly attacked points to its truthfulness. How else to explain the hypocrisy? So yes, it doesn’t surprise me that atheists attack Christianity more than other religions, per your point. But in an effort to be persuasive toward atheists, I try to give them a little bit of the benefit of the doubt and reveal their hypocrisy in hopes that in order to better align with their supposed belief in rational thought, that they would consider the reasons WHY they actually don’t behave this way towards Christianity as much as they claim to. In other words, I hope to expose their hypocrisy so that they are forced to think through their assumptions in the hopes that they can maybe one day see the flaws in their presuppositions and become more open to faith.
I agree with your diplomatic approach, and think its prudent and practical! I usually am a question-asker in real life as well, not a flame-throwing Bible thumper all the time. So hopefully we can have productive conversations. But substack is where I talk axiomatically and not diplomatically haha, excuse my stridency.
I understand. I’m actually trying to practice diplomatic discourse in this space, but it is difficult to resist the temptation to be snarky, especially against trolls. (Not calling your stridency snarky, but just admitting that I can be snarky sometimes and not always diplomatic.) Your stridency is excused and understood. Cheers.
Nonsense! Atheists don’t murder people for a nihilist vision. Get real.
It's the Presbyterians you have to watch out for, not the Muslims.
Sam Harris seems to be one of the only public figures questioning Islam via his Podcasts where he interviews some brilliant minds. And don’t forget Ayaan Hirsi Ali who had to go into hiding after she spoke out. These are the few folks who say “the unspeakable” and publish such views.
But on the bright side, the University President’s testimonies, proved to the public the sham of DEI. And this seems to have freed up a some other voices to ask some straightforward questions, not ready for prime time.
Regular people need to “Take Back The Night” re: our country’s values and fairness.
Yes, there are a few willing to speak out, and I appreciate that. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is especially brave for doing so. I do appreciate that Sam Harris doesn’t turn a blind eye to Islam as well, but frankly, I don’t find him all that intelligent. I think he sounds intelligent and fools a lot of people, but many of his argument against religion doesn’t go into investigating what is true and how can we know it’s true, but falls on the side of “God does this and I don’t like it, therefore God doesn’t exist.” He makes emotional arguments against the existence of God, not philosophical ones.
The problems of Islam does need to talked about, and I do appreciate Sam Harris’s perspective and willingness to do so. But here’s the thing, many of these New Atheists are not asking of any ancient religious text, “is it true?”, they are asking “is it good?” But the standard of good they are using is a post-modern 21st century definition of “good.” That’s the wrong question. Because Islam doesn’t seem to be good in our modern sense, but what if Allah as the Quran portrays him is real? What if that is God? What if that’s what God is truly like? Then it doesn’t really matter that we think it’s bad for Allah to entice followers towards terrorist acts with the promise of paradise and 40 virgins, if that is reality and how the universe operates. So the question they need to be asking is: “is it objectively true?” Does this religion describe reality as we can tell the most accurately? I would like to see Harris and others critique Islam from this angle. Can the claims Islam makes be falsified? Do they hold water? Does it describe reality? Are the claims verifiable? Is the history even correct?
Nope. Your starting premise is that religious beliefs - any and all of them - are verifiable as true or false. That is, you start from within a religious perspective. They are not, and accepting that was what the Age of Enlightenment achieved, that what hitherto had been literally the “word of God” was now what you choose to believe, ie, was metaphorical. Muslims, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews do not accept this of course, but Enlightenment allowed the emergence of science; disinterested inquiry; Darwinism; and freedom from superstition and ignorance. Pretty good trade, I’d say.
We cannot verify some claims in absolute terms— but you also cannot prove that God does not exist. But you can verify as true or false based on the preponderance of evidence. It’s like solving a cold-case crime. Not every question can be answered but you can gather enough evidence to make a decision. The Bible has been investigated by many— and many who set out to “disprove” it come to believe it’s true! Because the preponderance of evidence that supports the reliability of the Bible is overwhelming. Certainly more than any other religious text.
In comparison, you say science is “disinterested inquiry,” but this is not entirely true. Keep in mind that (1) the emergence of scientific principles even within the Enlightenment came about from many scholars who believed in God and the Bible and sought to understand God’s creation; (2) atheist scientism (especially Darwinism) presupposes that there is no supernatural forces in the universe. They have no way to prove this, this is an a priori presumption they make and often do not even acknowledge they do so. This is akin to religious belief by your own definition. It is essentially a “faith” for them to believe without evidence that anything supernatural cannot be. It’s like lilting a crime scene to the room the body is found in, even though you have bloody footprints leading to a door.
So if I look at all the evidence, and I don’t try to presuppose too much, and that leads me to a belief in God and the Bible— that’s not superstition, that’s rational thinking. You may not agree the evidence leads there, or is not compelling enough for you, but you cannot accuse me of superstition and ignorance.
I recently found a great podcast called Physics to God. It is two orthodox Jewish rabbis who are mathematicians and physicists. It is very watchable and provocative
The left is literally dying to accomdate Muslims.
Islam has always been a religion of conquest and subjugation. A malign bacillus imposed on conquered people.
Indeed. If you really want to examine the history the real “colonizers” of today’s Israel are the Muslims, not the Jews. Look at the story of Hanukkah that we just celebrated ... The Greeks were there but no Muslims. They hadn’t arrived to the region yet.
The "arrived" to a lot of places. To conquer and subjugate them.
Thanks for these facts on Mohammad. The New Testament is all about the spread Christianity by the disciples throughout that region which is how it became so Christian. Was just thinking before reading these how sad it is that this fighting is happening so close to where Jesus was born. It’s really difficult taking in the hatred throughout the world, much of it having to do with Christianity as well as Jews. The FBI goes after “extreme Catholics” while the White House and Dems fight against Islamophobia.
I like the part where various Islamic empires tried to conquer and subjugate Europe several times, successfully in some places (Spain, Portugal, the Balkans)…but Europeans are the so-called colonizers and crusaders.
The English went on many crusades to free Jerusalem from the Muslims. There were called Crusaders. Europeans were colonizers: India, etc.
Muslims were colonizers in Europe: Spain, Portugal, Balkans, etc
Of course the Muslim faith was spread primarily by the sword so Europe isn’t the only place.
Yes, the Muslim are everywhere and are a growing group. It's beyond my understanding. Aside from goat meat what do they have to offer?
I am reading the Exodus which is of course fiction written by a Jewish man. This book should be required reading for all high school students. It gives the Israeli perspective on the settlement of Israel. The middle eastern Muslims have tried to expel christians and jews from that region for a very long time. Lets just face it they want Islam to be the religion of the world which means no rights for women gays or anyone who goes against them. Wake up 🇺🇸
Andrea, why do you state that the Book of Exodus (estimated written 1550 BC) is ‘of course’ fiction?
I would encourage you to read the Book of Deuteronomy (estimate written 1445 BC) & Book of Joshua (estimate written 1405 BC). These later Books of Torah gives explanation of Israel’s settlement of Canaan, Exodus does not.
She is talking about a book called Exodus. Not the section of the Bible.
It was required reading when I was in high school! Yes, must re-read.... its a long one.
Good point. I read Exodus decades ago - worth a second read now.
or at least watch the movie!!
Hi Maureen--do you mind telling us the name of the book and whether it is worth reading? It sounds interesting. Thanks!
In the Shadow of the Sword. By Tom Holland.
Excellent book, I need to reread
Ah, I recommended that to you!! He’s a great author/historian.
Mohammed fits every Biblical description of a false prophet or antichrist figure (which is a type of guy not just a singular guy). When Mohammed received his first revelations in the cave (Called the Night of Power by muslims) he thought it was a demonic attack, he ran home terrified to commit suicide. His wife convinced him it was actually God speaking to him and not satan. Thus began his message and ministry. Mohammed was in fact being used, tragically, by Satan.
Maureen, try to read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, not the whole thing but the book about Islam and Mohammed. It’s fascinating, not least because Gibbon has such a nice line on irony, especially how Mohammed found God’s word revealed to him successively on sheep’s’ thigh bones. He’s pretty sceptical, not to say scathing, about Christianity too.
Mythology? Are you claiming that Mohammad did not ascend to heaven on a horse from the Al Aqsa dome?
Important post, Maureen. Thank you.
“The Iranian people and the Israelis are victims of the same monster—Islamists.”
—————————————————
Yeah but they are also victims of the college-educated accusatory moralizing anti-west scumbags who said the Shah represented colonialist imperialism and we need a two-state solution because of diversity. So that would be Democrats.
Israelis and Iranians are victims of two diabolical groups of perverts: Islamists and Democrats.
Radical Islam = BLM = DEI = 95% of college professors = the Squad and Black Caucus = “progressives” = a growing percentage of Democrats = woke corporations.
What’s America coming to?
The sad thing is, on their own, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with these concepts in and of themselves. The problem is they have been bastardized , weaponized and used like a malignant poison to corrupt our society. And it’s not just in the US either. So when we ask what is America coming to, that is it. A country that’s allowed itself to be taken over by this poison and the bad actors behind it. Not the concepts themselves. Anything taken to an extreme will always be a bad thing, with bad outcomes,no matter what.
The same Democrat dolts that want a 2 state system in Gaza want a 1 state system here
Thats a genius quote dude
Go get 'em, Kev.
A stark and searing truth. Let's see our temporizing friends address that.
I rarely temporize (!) but I'll provide some nuance to Keven's mighty thunder.
Staging a coup to install the shah wasn't Western Imperialism per se, but definitely one of many instances of the CIA and MI-6 plugging friendly dictators into foreign countries to further our business interests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
Turns out Iranians hated the shah and his SAVAK secret police--think Stasi on steroids--so much they welcomed the pus-ridden ayatollahs, who were a thousand times worse for them and the West. Our shit backfired into our own face.
On Israel and Palestinians, a two-state solution IS needed for reasons historic and politically practical, and I say that as a Zionist American Jew. DNA analysis shows that Old Palestine has two indigenous peoples: Jews and Arabs. (Both are descended from the Canaanite tribes of the Levant. Jews remained pure, the other line was conquered by Muslim Arabs in the 600s and became, well, Muslim Arabs.)
So the Mandate for Palestine and UN partition in 1948 was the smart play: two people, two states. Arabs were too arrogant and stupid to say yes and invaded to steal both halves. Jews kicked their ass and took some of their land fair and square. Arabs tried invasion and conquest again in 1967, Israel beat them again, and took the rest of their land fair and square. So, legally and technically and otherly, Old Palestine IS Israel, from river to sea.
Problem is, there are millions of Arabs on that land, whom Israel will either need to annihilate or accommodate to have One Israel. That's why I support a second state: Arab Palestine. Even though Palis have no legal right to that state--wars matter--Israel can't mow the grass that hard. Not morally, and not even legally; if they actually genocided, the West would invade. Israelis wouldn't support a genocide anyway.
So cook up a second state, transfer all non-Israeli Palestinians there as the UN moved millions of Indians and Muslims to form Pakistan--without a peep from "the world community"--and let them live their best lives in their own country. That can be Gaza, Gaza/Sinai, Gaza/West Bank, Jordan, whatever. But a State of Palestine will be a political reality, and for Israel, the best way to rid itself of a population that hates Jews like arsenic.
Personally, I'd remove the minority Hashemite ruling family from Jordan and put them in their own new Kingdom of Jordan: a large piece of land currently called Sinai. (Egypt will sell given the right price.) Make Old Jordan the State of Arab Palestine, which would have happened if Britain had not stolen Eastern Palestine in 1920 and given it to the Hashemites of Arabia as war booty. (Fucking Brits again.) The residents of New Palestine, 80 percent of whom are ethnically Palestinian anyway, can elect their own rulers and run their own affairs in a nation three times the size of anything they have now.
The new Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan builds itself a grand new existence in Sinai, free of the burden of Palis. Israel builds out Western Palestine from river to sea. Palestine renames Amman to Jerusalem, creating the Twin Cities of Jerusalem, with high-speed train service between the capitals for tourism, trade, and religious site visits. Hell, they physically want Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa? They can dismantle, move, and resurrect them in New Jerusulem, fine by me.
And this takes care of the very real problem of two states for two indigenous peoples of Old Palestine.
Interesting take, as always. Agree with much of it.
Thanks, Bruce, much appreciate, hombre.
Pahlavi family were essentially a criminal organization.
Sure as hell was, Bill! Nasty people, and I knew a few Iranians tortured to splinters by SAVAK and managed to flee to the U.S. after. Shah was a genuine dictator.
Fifty years ago in college I met some whose families had been imprisoned . The Shah’s police were subhuman. The Shah was a creation of the CIA , supported by Presidents from both parties, defense contractors, Big Oil and the emerging deep state. We planted the seeds birthed the Mullahs and Radical Islam
One hundred percent exactamundo, Bill, thanks. The crimes committed by the CIA to make the world safe for Big Corporate boggles.
My understanding is that a two state solution has been offered several times, only to be rejected by the PLO. Your thoughts on how your solution could be enforced?
You're right, a two-state solution has been offered more than once by Israel and others, and Arabs rejected it (as Bill Cribben notes below) every single time. Their view: Palestine is sacred Muslim land; Jews cannot be sovereign over Muslims; so Islam must destroy Israel to replace it with the superiority of Islam.
An attitude which led to the infamous "The Three No's" of Khartoum in 1967: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.
Problem for Arabs is Israel laughs at such hubris militarily, and more important, has been the actual sovereign since 1948. Arabs tried three times to steal it and lost all their land as a result. They don't have the power to do it, not in the nuclear age.
So can a solution be enforced? Yes, but only if and when Arabs agree to a State of Palestine in which they will live peacefully next to Israel and not covet thy neighbor's ass. (So to speak.) Failing that, Israel will just keep eating away at Gaza and West Bank until Jews replace Arabs in toto, and then Arabs are fucked.
Can a two-state solution be imposed against Arabs' will? Sure, if the world sends a million troops in to physically move people around, build towering concrete separation walls, all that. But that's as likely to happen as me winning Powerball. (NOTE: I am not proposing this solution. It is profoundly immoral version of ethnic cleansing that's not acceptable to me. I offer it here only to answer the OP's question: "Can a two-state solution be imposed against Arabs' will?" Well, yes, it can, but the price is too steep. The parties MUST make a voluntary deal to live side by side in peace. That means Israel's ultra-Orthodox "settler" movement in West Bank will need to be quashed, and the Palestinians' insistence that an Islamic caliphate turns Israel into yet another Muslim holding has to disappear. Both people need to rise up against their own wingnuts and make a peace that endures.)
I'm hoping the trauma of the Hamas war--imposed on Gazans not by Israel but by Hamas--and the alarming erosion of a Palestine in the West Bank by the ultra-Orthodox Jewish settler movement will shake Palestinians and Israelis out of their hundred-year war mode in order to cut a peace deal. It's the only way they both survive in the long run.
I want Palestinians to have their own state. But they have to want it, too.
Shane, what you propose is ethnic cleansing. If Israel tries it, it can forget about ever achieving peace, and it will deservedly forfeit support all over the world, not just in the Islamic world. Your dream is a delusion, propagated by the settler movement. “If only we could get rid of all the Palestinians, all would be well.” To where? The Sinai desert? Jordan?
The truism that Israel can have peace or the land but not both is still true. Wishing that it were otherwise will not make it so.
You are usually so rational and sensible - I enjoy reading your posts - but in this case you seem captured by the ultra orthodox settlers, who IMHO are as big an obstacle to ME peace as are the jihadists - maybe they don’t murder quite as many innocents (though they are guilty of plenty of them) but their religious fanaticism is exactly the same.
Thanks for this, Will, particularly "you are usually so rational and sensible." But I'm afraid you misread my post. I'm not proposing the population movement I described here. Just the opposite, in fact: the two parties need to make a *voluntary* deal good for both of them and become friendly neighbors instead of mortal enemies. Together, they can blow the socks off the Middle East with their brains, creativity, economics, tourism opportunities, and a host of other positives. They're wasting that energy bombing each other, and that's the real tragedy of the post-1948 era.
When I said this--"Can a two-state solution be imposed against Arabs' will? Sure, if the world sends a million troops in to physically move people around, build towering concrete separation walls, all that. But that's as likely to happen as me winning Powerball."--it was only in answer to the OP's question, which was, "Can a two-state solution be imposed?" Yes, a two-state solution CAN be imposed, but only in the way I described. Such real ethnic cleansing is not acceptable to me.
To be crystal clear: both Jews and Arabs are indigenous to Palestine. Both need a state in which to take care of their own people. Arabs blew that grand opportunity in 1948 by choosing the war option instead of the UN partition offer, a tragic error in judgement. But nearly a century later, they have the chance to fix that mistake. I hope Israelis and Arabs make that change.
Thanks for the opportunity to clarify my intent, Will. I added a separate note to my post to make it clear I am not proposing an Arab population clearance and transfer.
Or the Arabs collectively as far back as 1923.
Spot on re: 2 states, Shane
Thanks, Richard, much appreciate that! Glad I don't have to mediate that giant mess.
Ding ding ding! The winning comment of the day.
The Shah was a scumbag too a creation of the CIA. Iranians like Russians have been ruled forever by tyrants.
Compare the Shah to the Mullahs. Not close. Avoid utopian logic.
The Savak were as brutal as any secret police force. The Shah a weak ,vain man created by the CIA, propped up by Presidents from both parties, armed by defense contractors, a tool of Big Oil and favorite dictator of the emerging deep state. We created the Shah by enabling him to torture and kill his people. Khoemeini was an exiled, obscure, aging cleric. We seeded the field that gave him a second life. The one time we could’ve helped the Iranians Barrack Obama sat on his hands and allowed unrest to be squashed.
Yeah I’m still not seeing how the Shah is a worse option.
This article was an excellent read as it gives testimony to true courage and people with whom I have solidarity, not because of their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation but instead of our shared ideals. The main thread flowing through these posts is those who live free to think and act according to their own consciences. I can remember learning about Voltaire's Philosophical Letters and how he spoke of people in London in the 18th century who lived behind closed doors but were united by the market and commerce once in public. That secret sauce created the English economy, then its rebellious offspring, the US, to make this most incredible age we live in.
As I follow the Isreal/Hamas war - I see not a religion but rather people who want to create a world like Voltaire's explanation in England and those who don't. I am for people who wish to trade and live in a modern world, not the Palestinians who teach hate and backwardness. I want a prosperous world where these people can live their best lives, and those Enlightenment values of the West and Isreal are far superior to the backwardness of those who teach this hate and fear. Thanks for sharing these brave and noble voices.
Beautifully written and succinct explanation of the ultimate issue. America and the western world desperately needs to read your words before we lose our civilization and humanity!
As a Jewish woman it is so distressing to hear how much Jews and women are loathed by so many people. These vignettes are so incredibly important and powerful. Keep em coming.
Ditto. Misogyny and the hate of Jews are tied together.
“Misogyny and the hate of Jews are tied together”
And yet women are among the most venal and vocal hate mongers we see protesting in support of rapists and baby killers in our universities and on our streets.
Unfortunately true. Most of the people tearing down photos of the Israeli hostages are women. Particularly vile women!
A feminist once told me that the world would be kinder, more empathetic and just once women were truly liberated and attain participation in the upper realms of leadership throughout all facets of life. Well, 30 years later.....I see outright seething and hate for Jews, eagerness to humiliate men and white women who disagree with them and mobs of supposedly educated American women screaming at the sky. As an American women it’s embarrassing. They are worse than any men they ever loathed.
Part of the reason for that is because feminism went off the rails when it encouraged women to try to BE men: sexual promiscuity, hard-core pursuit of career, rejection of parenthood...all the WORST traits seen in men became the perfect model for "feminist" behavior.
I AGREE COMPLETELY. I've said over and over and over again, to the few people who would listen, that the Women's Movement tried to encourage women to BE MEN instead of seeing themselves as being equal to men. I would also say that many of the early feminists (from my perspective) tried their best to prove that they were not equal to men but were, in fact, better than men and, therefore, wanted men to become as much like women as possible.
And they are even worse traits in women since they suffocate women’s nature.
This
Madeleine Albright: "I'm not a person who thinks the world would be entirely different if it was run by women. if you think that, you've forgotten what high school was like."
Yes! The worst part is that they are defending a people who follow a religion that treats women like chattel. It’s just embarrassing to witness.
Chickens for KFC!
I work in a field dominated by women and I'm ashamed to say that the lunacy and groupthink bring to mind The Crucible. Constant online pile-ons that are nothing but mean-girl jealousy dressed up as social justice. It's grotesque.
Feminists don't seem to understand how young girls treat each other.
Sometimes kindness and empathy are genuine and beautiful; other times they are the most vicious of weapons.
I work in a primary school, 7 yr old girls are the most vicious creatures on the planet
well I mean the WW2 happened before women were truly liberated, and lotsa Jews died then too, as well as millions in battle. Just saying. Not that our world today is great - It's pretty sucky and morally inept.
Females are raised with the same misogynistic brainwashing and male-worship that men are raised under. I'm amazed that there are any females who manage to reject the self-hate, and even more amazed that there are men who believe both men and women are entitled to self-determination. While there appear, in some cases (but not all), to be more women than men at some of the vicious and hateful protests, I'm not sure how one could come to the conclusion that the females are the "most venal." You could check out the vicious ones at the rallies for "Let Women Speak" and "Wolf." There are plenty of women but there are also plenty of men, plus one has to look carefully for the dudes in drag to not miscount. I would also recommend reading "An American Bride in Kabul" written by Dr. Chessler. As a young college student in the USA she fell in love and married a fellow student from Afghanistan in 1961. She was able to get out after 5 months and later became a psychologist, and her observations on how the women were socialized to police each other is eye-opening, similar to the above stories.
That's exactly what the "venal" women are--policing. They truly believe they are doing it righteously in the name of "kindness." But that's what authoritarianism is. And brainwashing...
I particularly like the Non-binary Queers in Support of Raping Babies on Behalf of a Free Islamist Palestine, or NBQISORBOBOAFIP.
Hahaha, but their banner is reallllly long
Brave folks. I encounter this kind of brainwashed individual daily on social media. They repeat the same deeply antisemitic conspiracy theories and blood libels and bigoted tropes with zero self-reflection or shame. When it comes from radicalized Islamist countries, one can understand they don't have the resources or environment to perhaps know better. But when you see Americans, Irish, Australians, Brits, and Canadians spewing antisemitism, one has to wonder if these individuals will ever wake up to the fact that they sound like actual nazis and how is it that education and civility could have bypassed them so completely.
I think they were defrauded of “ education and civility” at universities and were intentionally indoctrinated to hate instead.
They are “educated beyond their intellectual means”.
Justin Trudeau is a perfect example, lots of things crammed into his head with no way to process or order them into anything resembling coherent thought.
Andrew Coyne called him a ninny with a cluttered mind back in 2015.
8 years later, still stuck with him.
I have this Benjamin says that he got it at home and thud, it's visceral. Takes more than "processing" to address: Some things are NOT "coherent."
Do you not see that they were thus indoctrinated AT HOME????
I’m talking about the westerners Nuance&context was referring to in the post. I was not referring to Muslims.
Same, same. Indoctrinated at home. When I lived in Australia, 63-68, no one even remarked that I was Jewish. Since then, and the import of Muslims to Australia, that attitude has changed.
Disagree,categorically. The fragile snowflakes will be drawn when away from that icky parental stuff to any reasonably attractive bandwagon that goes by. The categorical hatreds come from home. As noted elsewhere, I saw this as a child. Other kids with a Thing for Others -- they got this at home. I hadn't, and to this day I don't get it.
I agree that some kids are indoctrinated at home and continue the mindset throughout life and it cycles to the following generation. However, so many of my peers who made it through college without hating their parents and country are enduring rejection, being called racists, terfs, phobics etc....by their own children. All of it after they spent the family savings to send their kids off to be educated in western universities. Their kids were indoctrinated and now hold the upper hand in preaching their new found morality to their parents. It is disrespectful and cruel and was taught by their professors. It did not originate in the homes of these very decent parents.
Much chastened to hear that. Was I lucky? Survived the '60s in college loving my country -- took some sh!t for it at the time.... Brainstorming a bit; is "decent" enough anymore? Or is it inadequate to the forces (not just peer pressures but "social" media) arrayed against it? One can only hope that many will be mugged by reality in time. Thanks for taking the time.
The Left could start literally putting Jews in camps and they would still call conservatives “Nazis!!!”
Wow. Heartbreaking confirmation of concerns I have had since the 198O’s when Muslim extremism first touched my world. I am impressed by the courage of these young people and the hope that there are many more like them. I grieve though, that each has rejected God as they have turned away from Islam. I pray that the Light of Christ will eventually touch each one so that they might live in perfect freedom. I know this statement will offend many who also reject God or His Son. However, during this season of Advent, I feel it is vital for Christians such as myself to speak up and offer the hope we share. May God bless and protect each one of these courageous people and their families and friends. I do think that we in the West have no real frame of reference for understanding what is happening in the Middle East. We must listen to these testimonies and make a sincere effort to grasp that which each has stated: the extremists do not fear death, they hate Jews and are willing and indeed ready to kill as many as possible. There is no respect for life as witnessed most horribly on Oct. 7 and in the weeks following. They delight in the deaths of innocents in Gaza because they are filled with cruelty and hatred and think it is an honor to die in the cause of Islam. This IS a religious story whether we chose to believe it or not. Politics alone will not resolve any of the problems. In addition, I will simply state here that I pray daily for the hostages taken by Hamas. May God miraculously protect them!
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has professed being a Christian. From Muslim to Atheist to finally Christian.
Thank you for reminding me!
You might like the book, ‘Son of Hamas, by Mosab Hassan Yousef. He’s the oldest son of one of original founders of Hamas, and he became a Christian.
Well said, I agree. Praying that these brave souls might meet Jesus one day. ❤️
One of the authors said that they were a secular theist. God and religion can be 2 different things. You don't need a religion to follow God.
Perhaps Canada’s idiot prime minister, Justin Trudeau, should read these courageous testimonials. Instead, his greatest concern after the slaughter of Jews on 10/7 was “Islamophobia”, as if a fear and hatred of Islam was an irrational phobia, and not a perfectly normal response to decades of Islamic terror in every country that has a significant Muslim population. To paraphrase one of the brave dissidents in this article, liberalism is the manure in which Islamism thrives and grows. Bari Weiss’s former employer, The New York Times, would never have allowed such testimonials even as they published Jew-hating cartoons and editorials that would have been right at home in the NAZI’s Der Sturmer. Thank you Bari!
There is a great meme. It’s a photo of Trudeau with Greta.
Here’s a picture of a whiny little bitch sitting with Greta Thunberg.
Yes, I loved that photo of little Justin and indignant Greta, with the caption, “The world’s whiniest little bitch meets Greta Thunberg”. It was perfect!
Google “Surah 2:193” & “Matthew 5:44-45.” Fight your enemies v. Love your enemies. The Quran’s god and Bible’s God are separate, not “the same God of Abraham.” The Quran teaches to only allow peace when non-Muslims submit to Allah: jihad. Only martyrs are guaranteed forever in paradise with women, which is a powerful military recruitment message especially for young unemployed males of which there are many. Unrest isn’t going away and will likely worsen. Christmas is an important time to stop and ponder theology especially knowing this life is fragile and brief. Thanks, Free Press, for your excellence.
These testimonies beg many questions, some sarcastic and some deadly serious. What sayest the UN and the leaders of UNRWA? Or the vocal ceasefire interns and state dept signatories? What are they doing to combat this or are they facilitating the teaching of hate? How about CAIR and Rep. Tlaib( and others)?. How was she brought up and what was she taught? Does she condemn all such teaching and indoctrination? How do you get millions of people to give up the hate that has been ingrained in them? Will the elite colleges who now proclaim their commitment to free speech allow voices like these ( start with Hirsch Ali) to speak on their campuses and make clear they will not act as they have in the past to allow their mobs to shut down dialogue? Or will this be swept under the rug as always once the noise dies down?
Michael,
You are viewing this through the lens of a Western Classical Liberal. They, and their “degreed” (not “educated”) Woke supporters view it through the lens of Oppression. First, they are defined as People of Color, which prioritizes them. Their culture makes them poor, but because they are PoCs you can’t say that. Only Oppression explains it. Finally, being Oppressed gives you license to shake off your chains “by any means necessary”.
If one persists in viewing it through the Classical Liberal Western lens, you will be forever flummoxed.
The only conclusion is that Woke—and all its permutations— must be ripped out, root and branch. Starting here in the West.
Good luck though. It controls every major Institution.
A friends sister was an undergrad preparing to take her LSAT and go to Law school. It was October 14 and another friend had gotten us on the topic. The men had various opinions and biased but all of us were fairly reasonable, including one guy who himself was Muslim but very American and chill.
However my friends sister said “One thing we arent gonna do is criticize people for standing up to their oppressors”
To which I replied “Therefore justifying any and all acts of violence committed against groups or people you label thus”
The conversation changed and luckily ended shortly after. However it haunts me that this otherwise lovey and intelligent young woman thinks murdering hundreds of civilians is justified so long as somebody has labeled them as “oppressors”. And she’s gonna be a lawyer!!
So if Native Americans radicals ran up in my neighborhood and slaughtered 1000 civilians it would be good and morally justified? Bc the American government has oppressed them before?? What terrible stupid logic. Luckily Natives would never do such a thing bc they dont belong to a murderous death cult. But even if they did then this girl as a lawyer would just say “Im not pressing charges bc this is actually social justice”
What an evil satanic clownworld the Left is creating.
They own a significant percentage of the youth. And another big percent are sympathetic to the "logic". Every half-generation is more radical. We have to eliminate teachers' unions. Seize back control of all institutions. We have to shine a spotlight on all the dark money that funds this propaganda and indoctrination. I'm 65. As older people die off, the math says a bigger and bigger percentage of people will believe this toxic ideology.
For decades I've said (esp to my Democrat Jewish friends), "Americans think irrationality can't happen here because it never really has. But, we're human too, so we're vulnerable to these mass delusions too." And here we are. It truly is a mass delusion, because it doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny. It only survives through indoctrination and intimidation. (The intimidated "justify" it somehow; otherwise the cognitive dissonance is too painful. Thus, they create their own delusion in order to go along w it.). Human history is littered with these episodes and the bodies of their victims.
Yes indeed I do with eyes wide open. The contrast in values is onfull display for those to see assuming they do not close their eyes and their minds
Excellent.
Pragmatically, and I never see this discussed, is Trump. My best guess is that he keeps a lot of people from switching sides or at least abandoning the Democrat party. Not that I necessarily like either, but I wonder if more people would abandon the Dems if the frontrunner was Romney or Nikki Haley or some perceived moderate. It would be devastatingly ironic if a Trump candidacy kept Woke from being eradicated and took us down an irretrievable path to totalitarian authoritarianism, and the death of Enlightenment Values.
Trump was the very 1st ‘no new war’ Presidency in my lifetime. He was vilified for telling the truth on debate stage in South Carolina that the Iraq war was predicated on a lie, and sank Jeb at same time. The Uniparty Establishment does not like truth tellers, and explains the R PAC $ behind neocon Nikki. Better to keep the masses divided against each other than for that ire to be directed at the Government. Ever notice the high overlap of those charged w/ rape or kiddie porn, are also those spouting truths? (Julian Assange & Russell Brand come to mind)
You have perfectly expressed my Chief concern with his candidacy.
Are you kidding? Harvard university won’t even get rid of Claudine Gay.
Of course I am kidding and pointing out the obvious. I like to rub their noses in their hypocrisy whether it is the Harvard board or the little guy or gal who is a lemming and carries their sign or chants their chant. The only hope is that more businesses will tell little Johnny and Mary that they should seek employment w an NGO that shares their anti western values
Your head is spinning with the same questions as mine. You have identified the root of most all of it. I feel as long as money and power drive the left’s evil agenda they will snub their noses at our questions and remind us that they don’t have to answer for any of this.
They don’t need answers - the Democrats are the creators of all the havoc and hate and at the moment they have both the power and the money, we need to change this in 2024, resoundingly.
What an incredible series. Much love and respect to you all for having the courage to do this.
Everytime I read something like this I vacillate between how fortunate we are to have an outlet like the FP, and how tragic it is that our mainstream press would consider this too controversial or "problematic"
I urge everyone to read the James Bennet article in the Economist this week. It is a crucial read to understand the DEI takeover at The New York Times . He was forced to resign as Opinions Editor in 2020 during the BLM riots, for publishing Tom Cotten’s oped arguing to use the military to stop the looting and burning.
“They believe in something so much that they are willing to die as a martyr for it. There’s just no frame of reference for that in the West.”
——————————————————-
The transvestite activists are like that. And also elite Democrats are like that. The climate change people are like that. Abortion enthusiasts are definitely like that. So we have some frame of reference.
Leftists want others to die for their cult. They themselves aren’t risking any life and limb. “Ukraine flags everywhere…but I’m not answering their call for foreign volunteers.”
Disagree
There is nothing those you mentioned would die for.....they scream yell throw paint but puck up an m-1 put a bayonet and stab an enemy
Their grandfather's yes
Them sorry but all nothing but pussies
The violence of our utopians is more disguised because they are covert and feminized sociopathic manipulators, but they will kill more people. Nothing will compare to the death and destruction from the environmentalists destroying energy and agriculture.
Agree, and manifest in the cowardly interns who sent an anonymous letter saying
"We the undersigned..."
All of them eventually kill themselves with drugs or other unintentional suicide mechanism.
like like like. Every time I think you can't top yourself, you do. God, I'm so jaded, this is all just entertainment to me. I think it's because I was raised Catholic, and we were taught to dislike every other religion. That was back in the '40s and '50s, under Pius XII.
I must have been behind the door when that was taught. Sir. But then, somehow, my peers largely had this thing about J-words and, especially, N-words. Ya know what? They got it at home. I didn't.
Are there peaceful Muslims? Only to the extent that they are isolated and have little power. But even then, there is always the lone actor, such as the young man in London, who will attempt to act out the poison that is endemic in Islam. What can we in the west do? Limit the immigration of those who exhibit a tendency to act on this poisonous religion. But in the USA, this is not possible.
Meanwhile, what do we do with western-raised non-Muslims who are ignorant of history and full-throated bigots who also hate Jews? The West used to represent tolerance, and these clods are doing their best to undermine that concept, which shames us.
We are lost for at least one whole generation! Can we recover from this? Only if academia and local schools begin to purge this poison from their tutelage. I am pessimistic.
Academia will not and more importantly cannot purge the poison from within them. We the people must purge the poison from society. There is no solution in which New York Times, for example, ceasing to be evil duplicitous leftist drivel. The only solution for America’s salvation is that New York Times ceases to exist. People are afraid of losing “vaunted institutions”. But if a cancer takes over a whole body you cant save the body. Publications, Hollywood studios, whole Universities, agencies of the Federal Gov, must collapse and go extinct otherwise their reign of terror will continue. We the people can financially starve, ridicule, ostracize, and penally challenge these institutions into the ground. Its our only hope
It is possible. We just have to wake up and remove the traitors in our midst.
You can't know who is and who isn't a potential terrorist until they make themselves known through either word or deed. Which leads me to think that it's necessary to keep all Muslims out of the US and everywhere else outside of the ME and countries where they are entrenched. India, Malaysia, Southern Thailand, etc.
I thank the brave young people who came forward to speak out.
I like discussing theology and think it’s important that young people are informed on the origins of different faith traditions. I knew nothing of Islam until I was in my early twenties and worked with a couple guys who were Muslim. I was surprised to hear what they had to say and told my mother about it when I got home. She only said Islam is bad news. I didn’t know what she meant but soon thereafter Iran had a major melt down, theocrats took over and the s**t hit the fan.
Raised Catholic I could not have been any more detached from faith. No offense to Catholics, it just didn’t inspire me much. I had become a wild child hippy. It was the ‘70’s. My parents were always devout yet didn’t pressure us as kids. I’m sure it bothered them. As a parent now and remarkably, a born again Christian, I tried to raise our kids in faith. They have strayed. I hope they find God again someday.
I found Yeshua through a messianic congregation. When Jews preach the gospels it has an authority and unity of both old and new scripture that makes sense.
My parents were great people in that they instilled the idea that all humans are acceptable and created equal.
I am happy for these young people who have freed themselves from the oppressive dogma of hate that is pervasive in Islam. I hope they can ultimately reconnect with God, faith is helpful in life. I don’t have perfect faith, I have my moments but then I am reminded of times when I’ve been certain and that I made the choice to believe.
Anyway, this has been eye opening and I hope that those who might be inclined to refuse what they deeply feel isn’t right have the fortitude to discover more. I know it’s risky to detach from zealot groups.
I don’t hate Muslims but I do hate the hate/violence and think terrorists need stopping period.
Its really OK to hate radical Islamists. Radical Islam is not a religion and anyone who pretends that it is is insane. It is a malign political movement dedicated to the overthrow of all western, free societies.
Ph-leeze. Yes, Mr Miller it IS a religion! Yes! It is! Full Stop! You can say it! And you should!. Yes, it's that other stuff too but it IS a religion!
Sorry. No. Because if you claim it's a religion then it arguably becomes subject to First Amendment protection. You might as well claim that communism is a religion because it is both devoutly atheistic and worshipped by its followers. Even as its objective is the overthrow of the United States government and replacing the republic with a communist dictatorship. Radical Islam has the same aim although it would govern us under the tenets of the Satanic Verses.
An argument that only a lawyer could embrace. Some of Us consider envirowhackoism a religion; it too walks, looks, quacks.... OTOH one then mus address religion vs Religion or something. Aargh.
We in the west are currently facing an a track on two fronts. First, the cult of neo Marxist, with the championing of the “oppressed”, the rewarding of those claiming”victim status”, and all things DEI. They loathe their nations and everything to stands for and ever stood for, and are destroying the western way of life though their activism, one area of which is climate activism which is damaging us economically (and at the same time rewarding and bolstering our enemies, including China). None of their arguments stand up to scrutiny and many directly contradict their other beliefs. But they have succeeded with the slow march through our institutions and educational systems, having failed politically previously.
Then we have the death cult of Islamism (actually Islam as the majority although not Islamist are happy to stand by and let them act and not speak out). They tell us their aims- to destroy Israel and global Jihad against the west in order to put a global caliphate in place. But we don’t listen.
The strange and unholy alliance of this two groups with little in common other than their anti-semitism and loathing of the west are a threat to our societies and way of life. We need to reclaim our educational systems and public institutions, whilst stopping Muslim immigration (recognising this may not be sufficient as the enemy is well and truly in the camp).
All these people are characteristic of one of two classes of people from Islamic countries whom I met in 40+ years of working as a civil engineer in the US and Islamic countries: devoted Muslims and former Muslim atheists. These people belong to the latter class.
Based on my personal experience, ONLY these two classes exist in the Islamic world; there is NO intermediate class. There is no such thing as a "Moderate Muslim", as there is "Cafeteria Catholic".
I worked with people of both classes for 40+ years. All were engineers, many with advanced degrees from the best US and European universities, and excellent engineers. But, culturally, they lived in the 6th century.
They believed that Muslims had a duty to convert, subjugate, or eliminate infidels. They believed that it was legitimate to lie to infidels to advance Islam. They believed in engaging in truces when wesk, until strong enough to resume the jihad. These are DANGEROUS people.
Your Iskamic neighbor in your urban high rise or suburban community supports Jihad and Hamas. Recent polling in the US and Europe confirms this. He or she would be unmoved by the murder, torture or rape of you and the rest of your family. It is Allah's just punishment of the infidel. If you believe otherwise, you are deluding yourself. Their existence in your immediate neighborhood is a threat to your life
Yes, the moderate Muslim won’t kill you, he/she doesn’t care if an extreme Muslim does.
I live in a suburb in Ohio that has a large Muslim community. There is a mosque and a private Muslim school. There are Arab barber shops, grocery stores and coffee shops. I am friends with the Muslim family next door. But I am not going to lie that life in this community is getting uncomfortable. My naive side doesn’t want to believe what you are saying but my rational side thinks you are correct. My third grader got off his school bus yesterday and he said every child was chanting “Palestine, Palestine, Palestine”. My child had no idea why. I had to explain. He then told me a Muslim child was suspended off the bus for bullying another boy into chanting “Palestine”.
God, that is disturbing. That has to be TikTok.
The most unfortunate act in American history was the passage of the Celler-Kennedy Immigration Act of 1965, which refocused immigration away from Europe. Since that time, some amazing and highly productive people have immigrated from India, East Asia and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Most that I know have assimilated to the basic Anglo-Saxon culture of the US, as did my Irish, German and Italian forebears in the 18th and 19th centuries. Unfortunately, millions of adherents of a brutal 6th century religion also immigrated, and have NO intention of assimilating. Their intention is to convert the infidels, or reduce them to dhimmis, or to eliminate them.
We could have the best and brightest from around the world. We could bring in people with similar morals and civility and not debauched troglodytes. Instead we are actively recruiting and importing the third world. Minnesota could be MinneSouth Korea or MinneSlovenia. Instead its MinneSomalia.
Its not an accident that Minnesota has been taken over by Somalis (who get into fist fights at Democrat primary election debates). Its not an accident that we have 10x more Hondurans than Chileans. Its an agenda.
Now under Biden we are getting 3 million illegal invaders per year compared to 1 million lawful productive immigrants (most of which are not actually productive but instead family-chain migrations such as a retired Filipino grandma taking the spot a young brilliant Filipino couldve otherwise had). No nation has ever in human history been getting invaded as quickly as the United States currently is.
1965 immigration bill was a mixed bag with much good that came out of it but nothing in place to mitigate the bad or to encourage assimilation. Whats currently happening is a strategic agenda to destroy Western Civilization