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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 26, 2007 / 6 Nissan 5767

Finally an ally in the struggle against establishment Islam

By Jeff Jacoby

Jeff Jacoby
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Intimidating critics through trumped-up litigation and claims of "discrimination" is something of the house specialty at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. No surprise, then, that CAIR is involved in the lawsuit filed against US Airways by six imams who were kicked off a Minneapolis-Phoenix flight after their disruptive behavior alarmed other passengers. CAIR cranked out a press release on March 13 noting that the imams had "filed a lawsuit against the airline and Minnesota's Metropolitan Airports Commission alleging that their civil rights were violated."


What the release didn't mention, but the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Katherine Kersten discovered in the complaint, is that CAIR and the imams are also targeting as-yet unnamed "John Does" — the "passengers . . . who contacted US Airways to report the alleged 'suspicious' behavior of Plaintiffs." That behavior reportedly included praying ostentatiously near the gate, refusing to take their assigned seats after boarding, and asking for unnecessary seat-belt extenders that could be used as weapons.


"The imams' attempt to bully ordinary passengers marks an alarming new front in the war on airline security," Kersten writes in her column. "Average folks, 'John Does' like you and me . . . are our 'first responders' against terrorism. But the imams' suit may frighten such individuals into silence, as they seek to avoid the nightmare of being labeled bigots and named as defendants."


Over the years, CAIR and other Islamist groups have gotten much mileage out of such strong-arm tactics — typically while posing as moderate defenders of civil rights. But there is good news: Some Americans are pushing back. And even better news: Some of the push-back is coming from Muslims who forcefully reject the Islamist project.


One of the most impressive of these anti-Islamist moderates is Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, an Arizona physician, US Navy veteran, and devout Sunni Muslim. In 2003 he founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to "stand against the religious fanatics who exploit the religion of Islam for a nihilistic, anti-American, anti-Western war." On the day that CAIR and the imams trumpeted their lawsuit, Jasser and AIFD issued a statement supporting US Airways and denouncing the litigation as "wrong for American Muslims, wrong for American security, and wrong for American freedoms." Last week Jasser went further: He offered to raise money for the legal defense of any passengers sued by the imams.


It is hard to overstate how important the Zuhdi Jassers are in the free world's struggle against radical Islam. We call it the "war on terrorism," but terrorism is only a means to an end, namely, bringing the entire world under sharia — Islamic law. Not all Islamists are jihadi terrorists, but all Islamists *do* want sharia to reign supreme. When the chairman of CAIR, Omar Ahmad, addressed an audience of California Muslims in 1998, he asserted that Islam is in America not to be equal to other faiths but to become dominant, and that the Koran should be the highest authority in America, according to a paper that covered his speech. "Everything we need to know is in the Koran," he told his audience. "We don't need to look somewhere else." (Ahmad now denies having said this, but the paper stands by its story.)


By contrast, Muslim reformers like Jasser explicitly reject political supremacy for Islam and the Koran. "As a devout Muslim," he told me last week, "I can testify that a Muslim can truly love the faith of Islam, yet believe deeply not only in the separation of mosque and state but in the pre eminence of Americanism over Islamism." When he was commissioned as an officer in the US Navy, Jasser took an oath to defend the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic," and he sees no enemy more hostile to the Constitution today than the ideology of radical Islam. CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda and Al Azhar, Shi'ite ayatollahs and Wahhabist sheiks — whatever their differences in tactics and style, they are as one in seeking universal compliance with sharia.


"Here in America," says Jasser, "Muslims, Christians, and Jews can practice their faith freely and without fear. Precisely because the Constitution forbids any state religion, all religions live together in harmony. I wish the Muslim world would show such tolerance! As an American, I cherish that liberty. The Islamists would take it away." In the global conflict between Muslim theocracy and secular democracy, Jasser has no trouble choosing sides. "I venerate the Koran, but I want to live under the Constitution," he says. "Under Islamism, the Koran would be the Constitution."


On 9/11, many Americans woke up to the fact that a deadly enemy is arrayed against us and that effective counterterrorism is critical to our national security. But even more critical is the need to delegitimize the Islamist message that resonates with so many Muslims. To permanently end the "war on terrorism," we must defeat the ideology that motivates the terrorists. We have no allies more valuable in that cause than Muslim reformers like Zuhdi Jasser, in whose passion for pluralism and liberty lies the hope of an Islamic Enlightenment.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.

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