 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Dec. 1, 2003
/ 6 Kislev, 5764
What you need to know about the 'religion of peace', Part II
By
Larry Elder
More facts the "spinners" and do-gooders have conveniently decided to ignore
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
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.
Elder: What does "jihad" — an essential duty of every Muslim — mean?
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.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading."
Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Larry Elder is the author of, most recently, "Showdown: Confronting Bias, Lies and the Special Interests That Divide America."
(Proceeds from sales help fund JWR) Let him know what you think of his column by clicking here.
Larry Elder Archives
© 2003, Creators Syndicate
|
