Thursday, November 05, 2015



The ‘Refugee Crisis’: Muslim History vs. Western Fantasy

Those who forget or ignore history are destined to be conquered by those who remember and praise it.

One of the primary reasons Islamic and Western nations are “worlds apart” is because the way they understand the world is worlds apart.  Whereas Muslims see the world through the lens of history, the West has jettisoned or rewritten history to suit its ideologies. 

This dichotomy of Muslim and Western thinking is evident everywhere.  When the Islamic State declared that it will “conquer Rome” and “break its crosses,” few in the West realized that those are the verbatim words and goals of Islam’s founder and his companions as recorded in Muslim sources—words and goals that prompted over a thousand years of jihad on Europe.

Most recently, the Islamic State released a map of the areas it plans on expanding into over the next five years.  The map includes European nations such as Portugal, Spain, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Greece, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, Armenia, Georgia, Crete, Cyprus, and parts of Russia.

The reason these European nations are included in the Islamic State’s map is simple.  According to Islamic law, once a country has been conquered (or “opened,” as it’s called in the euphemistic Arabic), it becomes Islamic in perpetuity.

This, incidentally, is the real reason Muslims despise Israel.  It’s not due to sympathy for the Palestinians—if so, neighboring Arab nations would’ve absorbed them long ago (just as they would be absorbing all of today’s Muslim refugees). 

No, Israel is hated because the descendants of “apes and pigs”—to use the Koran’s terminology—dare to rule land that was once “opened” by jihad and therefore must be returned to Islam.  (Read more about Islam’s “How Dare You?!” phenomenon to understand the source of Islamic rage, especially toward Israel.)

All the aforementioned European nations are also seen as being currently “occupied” by Christian “infidels” and in need of “liberation.”  This is why jihadi organizations refer to terrorist attacks on such countries as “defensive jihads.”

One rarely heard about Islamic designs on European nations because they are large and blocked together, altogether distant from the Muslim world.  Conversely, tiny Israel is right in the heart of the Islamic world—hence why most jihadi aspirations were traditionally geared toward the Jewish state: it was more of a realistic conquest. 

Now, however, that the “caliphate” has been reborn and is expanding before a paralytic West, dreams of reconquering portions of Europe—if not through jihad, then through migration—are becoming more plausible, perhaps even more so than conquering Israel.

Because of their historical experiences with Islam, some central and east European nations are aware of Muslim aspirations.  Hungary’s prime minister even cited his nation’s unpleasant past under Islamic rule (in the guise of the Ottoman Empire) as reason to disallow Muslim refugees from entering. 

But for more “enlightened” Western nations—that is, for idealistic nations that reject or rewrite history according to their subjective fantasies—Hungary’s reasoning is unjust, unhumanitarian, and racist.  

To be sure, most of Europe has experience with Islamic depredations.  As late as the seventeenth century, even distant Iceland was being invaded by Muslim slave traders. Roughly 800 years earlier, in 846, Rome was sacked and the Vatican defiled by Muslim raiders.

Some of the Muslims migrating to Italy vow to do the same today, and Pope Francis acknowledges it.  Yet, all the same, he suggests that “you can take precautions, and put these people to work.”  (We’ve seen this sort of thinking before: the U.S. State Department cites a lack of “job opportunities” as reason for the existence of the Islamic State).

Perhaps because the U.K., Scandinavia, and North America were never conquered and occupied by the sword of Islam—unlike those southeast European nations that are resisting Muslim refugees—they feel free to rewrite history according to their subjective ideals, specifically, that historic Christianity is bad and all other religions and people are good (the darker and/or more foreign the better).

Indeed, countless are the books and courses on the “sins” of Christian Europe, from the Crusades to colonialism.  (Most recently, a book traces the rise of Islamic supremacism in Egypt to the disciplining of a rude Muslim girl by a European nun.)

This “new history”—particularly that Muslims are the historic “victims” of “intolerant” Western Christians—has metastasized everywhere, from high school to college and from Hollywood to the news media (which are becoming increasingly harder to distinguish from one another). 

When U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama condemned medieval Christians as a way to relativize Islamic State atrocities—or at best to claim that religion, any religion, is never the driving force of violence—he was merely being representative of the mainstream way history is taught in the West.

Even otherwise sound books of history contribute to this distorted thinking.  While such works may mention “Ottoman expansion” into Europe, the Islamic element is omitted.  Thus Turks are portrayed as just another competitive people, out to carve a niche for themselves in Europe, no differently than rival Christian empires.   That the “Ottomans” (or “Saracens,” or “Arabs,” or “Moors,” or “Tatars”) were operating under the distinctly Islamic banner of jihad—just like the Islamic State is today—that connection is never made. 

Generations of pseudo history have led the West to think that, far from being suspicious or judgmental of them, Muslims must be accommodated—say, by allowing them to migrate into the West in mass.  Perhaps then they’ll “like us”? 

Such is progressive wisdom.

Meanwhile, back in the school rooms of much of the Muslim world, children continue to be indoctrinated in glorifying and reminiscing over the jihadi conquests of yore—conquests by the sword and in the name of Allah.  While the progressive West demonizes European/Christian history—when I was in elementary school, Christopher Columbus was a hero, when I got into college, he became a villain—Mehmet the Conqueror, whose atrocities against Christian Europeans make the Islamic State look like a bunch of boy scouts, is praised every year in “secular” Turkey on the anniversary of the savage sack Constantinople. 

The result of Western fantasies and Islamic history is that Muslims are now entering the West, unfettered, in the guise of refugees who refuse to assimilate with the “infidels” and who form enclaves, or in Islamic terminology, ribats—frontier posts where the jihad is waged on the infidel, one way or the other.

Nor is this mere conjecture.  The Islamic State is intentionally driving the refugee phenomenon and has promised to send half a million people—mostly Muslim—into Europe.  It claims that 4,000 of these refugees are its own operatives: “Just wait….  It’s our dream that there should be a caliphate not only in Syria but in all the world, and we will have it soon, inshallah [Allah willing].”

It is often said that those who ignore history are destined to repeat it.  What does one say of those who rewrite history in a way that demonizes their ancestors while whitewashing the crimes of their forebears’ enemies?

The result is before us.  History is not repeating itself; sword waving Muslims are not militarily conquering Europe.  Rather, they are being allowed to walk right in.

Perhaps a new aphorism needs to be coined for our times: Those who forget or ignore history are destined to be conquered by those who remember and praise it.

SOURCE






German official says Merkel’s open door migrant policy will lead to ‘civil war’ after thousands march through one city holding crucifixes during anti-Islam protest

A German official has said that Angela Merkel's open door migrant policy will lead to 'civil war' after thousands marched through one city's streets holding crucifixes during an anti-Islam protest.

Hansjoerg Mueller, of the Alternative for Germany party, said the country was 'sliding towards anarchy' and risks becoming a 'banana republic without any government'.

He made the claims after about 8,000 people joined the anti-Islam Pegida movement for a rally in Dresden over Angela Merkel's decision to allow up to one million migrants into the country this year.

Some demonstrators held crucifixes and upside-down German flags while others shouted 'Merkel out!' alongside doctored images of the German Chancellor in a burqa and a Nazi outfit.

The group's leaders, who have been described by German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere as 'hard right-wing extremists', are demanding an immediate end to the policy.

Mr Mueller was later asked for his views on remarks made by Bavarian official Peter Dreier. Mr Dreier had reportedly told Merkel that his town of Landshut would only take 1,800 refugees if a million were welcomed to the country - insisting that the rest would be put on buses to Berlin.

Mr Mueller told RT: 'Usually he does not have the power, but we are not living in usual times. He added: 'Germany now is somewhere at the edge of anarchy and sliding towards civil war, or to become a banana republic without any government.'

Video of today's protest emerged on YouTube as prosecutors have opened an investigation into the group's founder for slander after he compared the justice minister to Hitler's head of propaganda Joseph Goebbels.

Lutz Bachmann said Social Democrat (SPD) minister Heiko Maas was the 'worst spiritual fire raiser' since Goebbels and Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler.

Von Schnitzler was a television commentator in Communist East Germany who strongly criticised Western governments and media.

The comment is the latest in a series of provocative remarks made at the regular rallies of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA).

Only two weeks ago, a speaker said that concentration camps were 'unfortunately out of action'.

The refugee crisis in Europe has boosted the popularity of Pegida's rallies in the eastern city of Dresden and raised fears about right-wing radicalism.

Many voters are worried about how Germany will cope with an influx of about one million migrants this year, many fleeing wars in the Middle East and Africa.

Social Democrats, who share power with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, expressed outrage at Bachmann's comment. SPD General Secretary Yasmin Fahimi said it was deceitful and disgusting.

A spokeswoman for Dresden prosecutors said they had started an investigation into slander.

But Bachmann said on his Facebook page that he would not be silenced.

'If the Sharia Party of Germany (SPD) and the whole press... demand hundreds of thousands of investigations, YOU WILL NOT GAG ME! I will still say openly say what I think.'

Bachmann has already been charged by Dresden prosecutors with incitement because of a post on social media last year in which he described refugees and asylum seekers as 'animals' and 'scumbags'.

No trial date has yet been set.

He quit as leader of PEGIDA earlier this year after a photo was published of him posing as Hitler which led to internal squabbles and the grassroots movement all but fizzled out until the migrants crisis swept Europe.

Support for Merkel's conservatives has dropped over her handling of the refugee crisis while the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) is up in opinion polls.

SOURCE







The story of my stabbing

by Ari Abramowitz

I, too, was stabbed for being a Jew.

My cowardly attacker came from behind, thrusting a knife deep into my back, just to the left of my right shoulder blade, mere centimeters away from penetrating lung. The second stab, into the muscle of my right tricep, was comparatively benign compared to the first and most devastating wound. I shouted in shock and spun around to see my attacker fleeing down the street.

At first the pain was no greater than a hard punch and, initially, I thought the attack was exactly that, a random punch. Confused as to what had just happened, I threw my left arm over my right shoulder to feel the wound, and was shocked to discover that my finger easily entered the flesh of my back. Upon seeing my hand drenched in blood, I realized what had just happened.

As I learned during my IDF service in the Golani infantry unit, when one is wounded in “merkaz massa,” anywhere in the torso, coughing blood is a sign that the lungs have been punctured and it is only a matter of time until the victim drowns in his own blood.

As I felt around my mouth for any signs of blood I began banging on the window of the closest building yelling for someone to call an ambulance.

What makes my story so noteworthy is not the miraculous nature in which I evaded death or serious injury. What makes my story worth telling is that it happened neither during my IDF service in Lebanon, Gaza, or Hebron nor during the 15-plus years of my life residing in Jerusalem. I was stabbed in New York City. Stabbed by a man, the police would later tell me, who needed to stab a Jew to be accepted into a gang.

As I sit here in my Jerusalem apartment hearing the sirens which have become devastatingly commonplace, I write this article in response to the Facebook posts I am reading from olim who are questioning the wisdom of their decision to move their wives and children to the middle of an intifada in which many fear leaving the confines of their homes.

We must open our eyes. It can happen anywhere. France, London, Seattle, New York, Australia...

Jews are being attacked everywhere with increasing frequency and ferocity every day. All one must do is scan the news to see the alarmingly dramatic upswing in anti-Semitism around the world.

When a Jew is murdered in the Diaspora, they join the millions senselessly murdered and martyred for their Judaism. But there is something fundamentally different when it happens here in Israel. When we are attacked here it is not merely because of our identity, it is because of our mission. Here we are not tragic victims, but pioneers, working to bring to fruition a 2,000 year old dream of establishing the first Jewish commonwealth in our beloved homeland.

The belief that we can flee and find refuge elsewhere is an illusion.

Man has always resisted coming to terms with the fact that our health, our lives and fate are not in our hands. All that is in our hands is whether the decisions we make are rooted in fear or desire; whether we decide to live ordinary lives or make them extraordinary.

A story told to me by Rabbi Stewart Weiss of Ra’anana, the father of slain soldier Ari Weiss, best illustrates this critical point.

He shared that after his son was killed, a woman knocked on his door, crying. She told Rabbi Weiss: “I was born and raised in Israel, but when my son turned 16, my husband and I decided to leave.

We feared for our boy’s safety.

We knew he would soon have to go into the Israeli army – he was already telling us of his insistence on joining a combat unit – and we could not bear the thought of him standing in harm’s way. So we packed up and we dragged him away to California, far from the Middle East war zone.”

The woman lowered her head and sobbed for a few minutes more until she mustered up the strength to speak again.

“When he was 18, still pining away to serve in the IDF with his high-school friends, we bought our son a car. We hoped that this would lift his spirits and make him happy. Three months ago, just after his 21st birthday – the same age as your son – he was killed in a car accident, and I came here to tell you what a fool I was for taking my child away from Israel.

“If he was destined to die young, he should have died in an IDF uniform, not in a car in California.

He should have been a hero, like your boy, and not just another statistic.”

The truth is that even with this recent wave of terrorism, we are strong and resolute. For each message of fear and doubt, there are many more expressing strengthened commitment and determination.

We must not allow these vicious attacks to weaken our resolve, not only because that would be granting the terrorists the victory they crave, but because giving into our fears would be to betray the ultimate sacrifice already paid by those who have brought us to this paramount moment in Jewish history; a moment in which each and every one of us merits to be a player on the center stage of Jewish history, advancing the Jewish mission just by waking up in the morning.

Let us heed the words of the biblical Joshua who faced the same insurmountable odds that we do today and exclaimed to the young nation of Israel: “Be strong and courageous, be not afraid or dismayed, for God is with you.”

SOURCE






Liberal tolerance is a one way street

The war by big government against people who don’t conform to their ever-evolving worldview continues. Take two cases in two different blue states: the Oregon bakers and the Minnesota truckers. Both objected to performing a service on the basis of religious conscience, but who was right in the eyes of the law?

The Oregon bakers, Aaron and Melissa Klein, refused to bake a cake. Period. For the “crime” of refusing service to a lesbian couple’s wedding cake, Oregon’s political correctness enforcement agency, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ruled they owe the aggrieved couple $135,000. The judgement could result in the dissolution of the Klein’s property, which is outright confiscation. The couple who brought the complaint were not even seeking damages.

If you would, juxtapose that with a federal court ruling in favor of truck drivers who were terminated from employment for refusing to transport alcohol, namely beer. Keep in mind, the equipment used to transport the alcohol was owned by the now defunct Star Transport, not the drivers. They chose to apply to a company that delivered these products, and expected their employer’s acquiescence. With the help of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), an Obama appointed judge awarded the aggrieved truckers $240,000.

On the surface, it might lead one to conclude that the disparity is simply that the former are Christians, while the latter are Muslims; maybe that’s all there is to it.

However, assuming which religions are invoked in each case do not actually matter, what we have is a legal standard where a company cannot refuse to perform a service out of religious objections, but an employee can.

Either way, the difference is somewhat political; to put it in the literary terms of Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The government has successfully created a protection racket, under which protected classes are endowed with specialized rights, usually at the expense of groups they find distasteful.

In these cases, there are separate rights for businesses and employees.

The Kleins are an example of this, who, because they were a company, found themselves on the wrong side the Left’s newfound orthodoxy on what constitutes discrimination. And the truckers are also an example where, because they were employees, benefited from the current body of law when it comes to religious conscience exceptions.

Religious freedom under the First Amendment is not just for the benefit for the majority, but the minority as well. In that sense, a Muslim baker should have as much a right to deny services to a gay couple out of religious objections as a Christian one.

Unfortunately for the Kleins and people like them, that is not the standard. As they have learned the hard way, as a business, the government refuses to tolerate anyone who does not share their views.

Ironically, the implication is that the Christian employee of a baker in Oregon could refuse, under federal law, to bake the cake for a gay couple getting married for religious reasons, and sue their employer for firing them, but then that company will still be compelled to bake the cake under state law, all the while paying damages to the former employee.

Remember that one way street from earlier? It travels from big government, away from the freedom of expression, and for the sake of the nation, we’d better find a way to turn back. Because the unintended consequence may be that some classes end up being more equal than others.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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