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July 18, 2008

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: The Sanctification and Importance of Time

Caroline B. Glick: US wants it absolutely clear it has no intention of attacking Iran's nuclear installations

Mona Charen: What can you say about a people who welcome a child murderer as a hero?

JWisdom:: Living a dog's life, dawg? by Rabbi Dovid Gross

July 17, 2008

Steven Emerson: Deals with devils

Libby Lazewnik: One Step at a Time

JWisdom:: Leader the follower? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 16, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Poaching humans

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Meaty pasta salad with summer berries perfect for warm evenings

JWisdom:: Keeping A Secret by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

July 15, 2008

Dennis Prager: False Equation: Opposing Same-Sex Marriage and Opposing Interracial Marriage

Joel Greenberg: Researchers look to Israeli circumcision program to help combat AIDS 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part V: Why Judaism ISN'T Spiritual by Rabbi David Aaron

July 14, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A warning from Canada to those who value life

Jonathan Tobin: 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism, Part II

July 11, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: It's hard to be humble when you're great

Caroline B. Glick: A tale of two hostages

JWisdom:: Profane for Prophet by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Duty to save gullible from themselves?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Islamists have the West just where they want us

JWisdom:: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 3: The Fully Loaded Human Being by Rabbi Dovid Gross

July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

JWisdom:: The Moses Method by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

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

Jewish World Review Feb. 28, 2006 / 30 Shevat, 5766

‘Blame the victim’ acceptable when perpetuated by Islamics

By Dennis Prager


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There's a certain consistent pattern regarding the worldwide Left's assessment of culpability for Muslim terror. It is the fault of the murdered.


The most recent example is the blaming of Denmark, or at least the Danish newspaper, for publishing cartoons of Muhammad. From Kofi Annan to The New York Times — and the other American newspapers that declared respect for religious symbols a new journalistic virtue — liberal and leftist opinion always condemns violent Muslim demonstrations, but always with a "but." The "but" is that in the final analysis, it was the Danish and other European papers' faults for insulting the Muslim prophet.


This is only the latest example of finding the victims of Islamic violence responsible for that violence.


For a decade or more, it has been a given on the Left that Israel is to blame for terror committed against Israelis by Palestinian Muslims (Palestinian Christians don't engage in suicide terror). What else are the Palestinians supposed to do? If they had Apache helicopters, the argument goes, they would use them. But they don't, so they use the poor man's nuclear weapon — suicide terror.


The same argument is given to explain 9-11. Three thousand innocent Americans were incinerated by Islamic terrorists because America has been meddling in the Middle East so long. This was bound to happen. And, anyway, don't we support Israel?


And when Muslim terrorists blew up Madrid trains, killing 191 people and injuring 1,500 others, the Left in Spain and elsewhere blamed Spanish foreign policy. After all, the Spanish government had sent troops into Iraq.


When largely Muslim rioters burned and looted for a month in France, who was blamed? France, of course — France doesn't know how to assimilate immigrants, and, as the BBC reported on Nov. 5, 2005, "[Interior Minister Nicolas] Sarkozy's much-quoted description of urban vandals as 'rabble' a few days before the riots began is said by many to have already created tension." Calling rabble "rabble" causes them to act like to rabble.


If you wish to test the thesis that the Left blames those blown up for being blown up by Muslim terrorists, have your son or daughter at college ask some liberal arts professors who is to blame for 9-11 or Muslim suicide bombers in Israel, etc.


In fact, one way to describe the moral divide between conservatives and liberals is whom they blame for acts of evil committed against innocent people, especially when committed by non-whites and non-Westerners. Conservatives blame the perpetrators, and liberals blame either the victims' group or the circumstances.


We Americans are used to this. For decades, liberals have blamed violent crime in America on racism and poverty, i.e., on American society far more than on the murderers, rapists, arsonists and muggers themselves. Conservatives blame the criminals.


During the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, black mobs murdered innocent Korean shopkeepers and burned sections of the city. The liberal response in America was virtually universal: We must understand the anger of these people at American racism. The daily special section on the riots in the major local newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, was titled, "Understanding the Rage."


Though Thomas Friedman, the New York Times foreign affairs correspondent, has been among the few prominent liberals to support the Iraq War, he regularly blames Islamic terror on unemployment in the Arab world.


Since examples of liberals refusing to blame criminals and terrorists for their behavior are legion, let's try to figure out why this moral inversion is so common.


Here are three hypotheses:


One is that liberals tend to blame outside forces for evil. This emanates from the secular humanistic view of people as basically good — and therefore human evil must come not from the bad choices and bad values of the evildoer, but from the unfortunate socioeconomic and other circumstances of the person's life.


The second explanation is that as you go further left on the political spectrum, it becomes increasingly difficult to blame the "weak" for any atrocities they commit. The Left does not divide the world between good and evil nearly as much as it does between rich and poor, and between strong and weak. Israel is stronger and richer, so Palestinian terror is excused. White America is stronger and richer than black America, so black violence is excused. The West is stronger and richer than the Muslim world, so Muslim violence is explained accordingly.


And third, liberals tend to be afraid of the truly evil. That's why the liberal newspapers of America refused to publish the Danish cartoons, probably the most newsworthy cartoons ever drawn, but have never had any hesitance about showing cartoons and photos that mock Jewish and Christian symbols. Christians and Jews don't kill editors.


We don't know who will be the next target of Islamic or other murderers from poor or non-Western or non-white groups. All we can know is that liberal and leftist thought will find reasons to hold the targeted group largely responsible.

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.

JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. He the author of, most recently, "Happiness is a Serious Problem". Click here to comment on this column.


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