Showing posts with label Koran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Koran. Show all posts

Sunday, September 14, 2014

FLASHBACK: Australian Muslim Cleric Calls For Beheading--Who Cares? - By Larry Elder

September 14, 2014 Articles by Larry Elder , Ayaan Hirsi Ali 0 Comments
Pastor Terry Jones
By Larry Elder, Sep. 23, 2010

 What happens when an Australian Muslim cleric calls for the beheading of a Dutch politician?

Not much.

What happens when an American pastor no one ever heard of threatens to burn a Koran?

It ignites an international outcry.

Terry Jones, pastor of a 50-member church in Gainsville, Fla., threatened to burn the Koran as a protest against the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center. Democrats and Republicans denounced Jones. Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, warned that Jones' action would put American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at risk, and he personally telephoned the pastor to dissuade him.

Those who would desecrate the Koran or who would draw a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad or who would otherwise "disrespect" Islam run the risk of being murdered. This is quite a response from followers of what President George W. Bush called a "religion of peace," the "hijacking" of which motivated the 9/11 hijackers. Bush repeatedly distinguished between a war against Islamofascism and a war on Islam. But the distinction apparently collapses if one pastor doesn't get the memo.

How dare this pastor of some church-nobody-heard-of show insufficient respect for Islam, many of whose followers support a global jihad that demands replacement of all non-Islamic governments, as well as the conversion of all to Islam, by force if necessary?

Where is the international outcry from this recent story from Reuters?

"A well-known Australian Muslim cleric has called for the beheading of Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders. …

"The Sydney-born (Feiz) Muhammad has gained notoriety for, among other things, calling on young children to be radicalized and blaming rape victims for their own attacks.

"(De Telegraaf, the Netherlands' largest newspaper) posted an English-language audio clip in which he refers to Wilders as 'this Satan, this devil, this politician in Holland' and explains that anyone who talks about Islam like Wilders does should be executed by beheading. …

"Wilders is currently on trial in the Netherlands for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims.

"The Freedom Party leader made a film in 2008 which accused the Koran of inciting violence and mixed images of terrorist attacks with quotations from the Islamic holy book.
"Wilders was also charged because of outspoken remarks in the media, such as an opinion piece in a Dutch daily in which he compared Islam to fascism and the Koran to Adolf Hitler's book 'Mein Kampf.'"

Civil libertarian groups vigorously defend vile but protected speech. Where are the free-speech groups denouncing Wilders' prosecution for making abrasive comments? Or does the right to free speech only apply to the nasty comments routinely made on cable shows by Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck/tea party-hating lefties?

If a proposed Koran burning generates international news and condemnation, isn't the call by an Australian Muslim cleric for the beheading of a democratically elected European politician worthy of a few moments on the network nightly news?

Offensive acts by non-Muslims provoke calls for sensitivity and understanding. Offensive acts by Muslims generate indifference rather than denunciations of the barbarous statements and acts that Muslim clerics and others call for in the name of Islam.

 Why the double standard?

Dr. Fred Gottheil is an economics professor at the University of Illinois. He calls himself a "Keynesian-type economist" who is "not afraid of deficit spending" -- not exactly Reaganesque.

In January 2009, some 900 academics signed a four-page petition calling for a U.S. abandonment of the support of Israel. Gottheil learned that many of the petition signatories belonged to faculty from women's and gender studies departments. He decided to conduct an experiment.

Would the same professors sign a "Statement of Concern" over the anti-human rights, anti-gay, anti-woman practices in the Muslim Middle East? Gottheil composed a four-page document citing evidence of atrocities, along with the names of Muslim clerics and scholars defending these violations of human decency. He e-mailed his statement to 675 signers of the anti-Israel petition.

What happened? "The results were surprising," Gottheil said, "even though I thought the responses would be few. They were almost nonexistent."

Bottom line: Barbarity in the name of Islam is not even remotely condemned to the degree that the West condemns insensitivity by cartoonists, politicians and anti-Islam clerics. Why? A denunciation of Muslim practices suggests a superiority of American values and culture. The left finds the very notion objectionable.

Gottheil put it this way: "If leftist 'progressives' really cared about women, gays and lesbians, then they would be fighting for their rights in places where such rights are really violated -- like under Hamas in Gaza and under the mullahs in Iran. But doing so would legitimize their own society and its values and therefore completely cripple their entire identity and life purpose, and so their purported concern for women, gays and lesbians has to go out the window."

It is a bizarre and dangerous double standard that allows a Pastor Jones to become more notorious than a Feiz Muhammad.

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Saturday, April 26, 2014

FLASHBACK: What YOU Need To Know About The 'Religion Of Peace,' Part II By Larry Elder

April 26, 2014 Articles by Larry Elder , Islam 0 Comments
By Larry Elder, Dec. 1, 2003

Last week's column contained excerpts from my interview with Robert Spencer, author of "Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West." (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR. ) He makes the case that violent Islam stems from a straight reading of Islamic religious texts, and that moderate Muslims need to face up to and repudiate this so that true reform can take place.

This is Part II of the interview:

Larry Elder: You cite Koran passages that state Jews, Christians and nonbelievers have three choices: conversion, second-class citizenship or death. When people say these kinds of things are "taken out of context," you say this simply isn't true?

Robert Spencer: Yes. They're dealing from a broad tradition within Islam that mandates violence against nonbelievers. It's an unpleasant fact . . . but . . . I give abundant testimony from Islamic sources to this effect, and it's no use denying it.

Elder: These madrasas where they are teaching the Koran, teaching hatred of Jews, Christianity and the West — your argument is that they are not corrupting Islamic text, they are teaching actual text.

Spencer: They're working from very clear Islamic text. Radical Muslims around the world call Jews "monkeys" and "pigs." This comes from several very clear passages in the Koran that say Jews and Christians are under the curse of Allah, because of their disobedience and refusal to accept that Muhammad is a prophet . . . G-d turned them into monkeys and pigs. The fact that this kind of hatred is so deeply rooted in core Islamic text makes it all the more difficult to eradicate.

Spencer: When people say that jihad is a peaceful struggle — it means "struggle," literally — it means to bring the soul into line with the teachings of the Koran and the will of the law, that's true. But it's not the only meaning of jihad, or even the principal meaning. Throughout Islamic history, and Islamic theology and law, you have violent jihad being the primary understanding of what it means — this collective responsibility of the Islamic community to wage war against non-Muslims until they either convert or submit as second-class citizens under Islamic rule.

Elder: There are about 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide. What percentage subscribes to this violent jihad ideology?

Spencer: It's difficult to tell. Some people have estimated 10 percent, which sounds comforting until you realize it's 100 million people. There are also more disturbing indications. A recent poll in the Palestinian Authority indicated that 71 percent approved of suicide attacks against civilians in Israel. Noncombatants are not to be targeted . . . but if they are considered to be aiding in the war effort, then they can legitimately be fought. This is the justification that Osama bin Laden used for 9/11, and the Palestinians use for suicide bombing attacks in Israel.

Elder: If the West hadn't interfered in the Middle East, if the U.S. hadn't propped up the Shah of Iran, if we didn't have troops in Saudi Arabia, if we weren't supporting Israel, then would this part of the Arab world have it in for us?

Spencer: They might not be as stirred up as they are, but there's no doubt that they would have it in for us, nonetheless. You're talking about a group of people that gets their intellectual justification from passages such as . . . the prophet Muhammad saying, "I have been commanded to fight against people until they confess that there is no God but Allah and that I am His Messenger." The Muslim world took that seriously and acted it out for centuries. Before there was any Crusade, they overran Egypt, Syria, North Africa and the rest of the Middle East, which were all Christian lands before the Muslim conquest. For centuries, they continued to press into Europe from the west and the east, into Spain and France until they were stopped, and on the Eastern side up to Vienna, where they were ultimately turned back. . . .

No Islamic sect has ever repudiated the doctrines of violent jihad that the radicals are using today. The radicals see themselves as continuing a conflict that's gone on for 14 centuries, that doesn't ultimately have anything to do with the causes that you named. It started long before (these causes) ever existed and will continue long after they are solved.
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FLASHBACK: What YOU Need To Know About The 'Religion Of Peace,' Part I By Larry Elder

April 26, 2014 Articles by Larry Elder , George W. Bush 0 Comments
By Larry Elder, Nov. 20, 2003

 A "religion of peace," says President Bush about Islam. But investigative journalist Robert Spencer, in his new book "Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West," argues that what we call "Islamic extremism" stems from a straightforward reading of the Koran and interpretative Islamic texts. (ClickHERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR. )

 On Nov. 10, 2003, I interviewed Spencer.

 Larry Elder: Is Islam a religion of peace that's been hijacked by Islamic extremists, as George W. Bush says?

 Robert Spencer: There are millions of peaceful Muslims . . . but the fact is that radical Muslims are using core texts of Islam that are deeply rooted in Islamic theology, tradition, history and law to justify their actions, and those radical Muslims are able to recruit and motivate terrorists around the world by appealing to these core Islamic texts. . . . As far as the radical, violent elements of the religion go, they are very deeply rooted, and we are naive in the extreme if we don't recognize that and try to get moderate Muslims to acknowledge it so that real reform can take place.

 Elder: Have some translations of the Koran taken out the more extreme statements?

 Spencer: The only Koran that really matters is what's in Arabic, because as far as traditional Islamic theology goes, Allah . . . was speaking to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, and the language is intrinsic, can't be separated from the message. The fact is that what's in Arabic is very clear . . . but in two opposite directions. What you have are very many verses of peace and tolerance, and also very many verses sanctioning and mandating violence against non-believers. . . .

 You find many moderate Muslim spokesmen and American-Muslim advocates in this country, who quote you the peaceful and tolerant verses, and no reference to the violent verses. . . . When you read Islamic theologians themselves . . . you find they actually confront this problem directly. . . . Some of the most respected thinkers in Islamic history say that when you come upon these kinds of disagreements — where you see peace in one place and violence in the other — you have to go with what was revealed last, that cancels out what was revealed before. Unfortunately, for the moderates, the violent verses were revealed later and they cancel out the peaceful ones — but you won't hear this from the American Muslim advocacy groups. . . .

 What we need to see is a forthright acknowledgement of it and reform from moderate Muslims themselves, the same way that the Pope has apologized for the Crusades and Christianity at large . . . has repudiated the theology that gave rise to them. So we need to see . . . moderates on a large scale repudiating the theology that has led to violent jihad, which the radicals are using to justify their actions.

 Elder: You write, "Muslims must present non-Muslims with the three choices of Sura 9:29 of the (Koran): conversion, submission with second-class status under Islamic rule, or death."

 Spencer: Correct. This is a deeply rooted tradition in Islam. Islam is unique among religions in having a developed doctrine theology in law that mandates violence against non-believers. Not all Muslims take it seriously, but the radicals do, and they are working to recruit and motivate terrorists. So . . . whenever anybody says we want to institute Sharia Islamic law in a country, they mean these laws. They do not provide for the equality of rights and dignity of non-Muslims in a Muslim society . . . (but) mandate just the opposite — that non-Muslims are not to be given equality of rights, but denied various jobs because they're not allowed to hold authority over Muslims.

 They must pay a special tax called the jizya, which is referred to in the verse you mentioned. . . . Their humiliation and inferior status is enforced with numerous other regulations, still part of Islamic law, and liable to be enforced by radical Muslims and who want to gain power and institute Islamic law. . . . Anybody who is concerned about human rights would be resisting and be happy to join in the War on Terror.

 Elder: So, when the president says that Islam is a religion of peace, is he saying that because it's a politically correct way of phrasing it so that people don't get the impression that we are at war against a religion?

 Spencer: Your guess is as good as mine in terms of what the president is thinking. . . . He's aware that radical Muslims are trying to make this into that kind of a war . . . and he's trying . . . to keep that from happening. . . . The problem with what he's saying is that it's misleading. If it's followed through, it might hinder law enforcement efforts against radical Muslims who are operating in the United States . . . and it could have very serious consequences.

 Elder: What should he say?

 Spencer: I think he should say nothing. As Pat Robertson said, he wasn't appointed the Chief Theologian of the United States . . . he doesn't have to tell Americans what Islam is all about. All he has to do is fight against the enemies that are threatening . . . our freedom and our continued life in the United States.

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