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Oct. 10, 2008
Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The limitations of scientific miracles
Caroline B. Glick:
Lebanon on the brink --- and why it matters
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Rabbi Berel Wein: The day when the sane talk to themselves
Ana Veciana-Suarez: Many nonobservant Jews are finding religion
Oct. 7, 2008
Gary Rosenblatt: Of politics and prayer
Caroline B. Glick: The ironies of the West's collusion with the Arabs and Iran
Oct. 6, 2008
Rabbi Yitzchok R. Rubin: Mamma to the masses
Jonathan Tobin: Ahmadinejad Isn't Too Impressed
Oct. 3, 2008
Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The 'living dead' are all around us
Caroline B. Glick:
Olmert's parting blows
Oct. 2, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?
Jonathan Tobin: Jewish pundit quiz on next year's news
Sept. 29, 2008
Rabbi Eli Gewirtz: Lehman Brothers and the Day of Judgment
Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Apples, Honey and You
Sept. 26, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The shofar and the Echo of Sinai
Caroline B. Glick: A road paved on reality
Sept. 24, 2008
Greg Crosby: Home for the Holy Days
Ethel G. Hofman: Rosh Hashanah Favorites: Old-fashioned taste, reduced calories
Sept. 23, 2008
Caroline Glick: Liberalism or lives!?
Michael Ledeen: Dear President Ahmadinejad
Sept. 22, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I gave a check to a local merchant, but it hasn't been cashed in months. Probably they lost it. Do I have to tell them?
Diana West: We are losing Europe to Islam
Sept. 19, 2008
Rabbi Berel Wein: On harvesting success
Caroline B. Glick: It is time to act
Sept. 18, 2008
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Is camping the panacea to save Jewry from self-destruction?
Craig Gordon: Was SNL hilarity too much for Hillary?
Sept. 17, 2008
Jonathan Tobin: The Whole World Is Watching
The Kosher Gourmet
By Linda Gassenheimer: East meets Southwest in this quick meal: MEXICAN-ASIAN TOSTADOS
Sept. 16, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. : Into the fire
Everything's Relative : Your Official Jewish Guide to the 2008 USA Presidential Election
Sept. 15, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Enabling risky behavior
Diana West:
A day that will live in ... accommodating Islam
Sept. 11, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The skeleton in my closet
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein: Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped
Sept. 10, 2008
Jonathan Tobin: There's Something About Sarah
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Who needs Chili's when you have these? Recipes for Mexican that taste great and are dietetic!
Our commitment to freedom
Sept. 9, 2008
Daniel Pipes: Must counterinsurgency wars fail?
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.:
Sept. 8, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?
Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something
Sept. 8, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?
Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something
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!)
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Jewish World Review
Feb. 7, 2006
/ 9 Shevat, 5766
Western wimps missing chance to teach important lesson
By
Wesley Pruden
This could have been an occasion for instruction and tutelage, for assisting the followers of the religion of peace out of the 8th century and into the relative light of the 12th or 13th, en route on some distant day to the 21st.
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The prophet Muhammad, who lived in the 8th century, never met Boss Tweed, who presided over New York in the 19th. But if the prophet runs into Mr. Tweed at the mall in a modest suburb somewhere in the afterlife, they can compare afflictions.
Mr. Tweed suffered boils and warts at the hand of the great newspaper cartoonist, Thomas Nast. "Stop them damn pictures," the old Tammany tiger told his hit men. "I don't care what the papers write about me. My constituents can't read. But they can see the pictures."
If we are to believe the millions of Muslims who are racing into the streets from Damascus to Jakarta looking for Jews to torment, Christian churches to torch and European embassies to plunder, the prophet who invented Islam is suffering a similar migraine this morning, the gift of a Dane reckless with pen and ink. The prophet's constituents can't read, either. They're not even supposed to look at the pictures. The imams fomenting hysteria are apparently afraid they might peek.
Hollywood couldn't contrive this latest Islamic comic opera, which has been tough on government property but has afforded the bored Muslim masses an opportunity to entertain themselves, and a lot of pols and government bureaucrats the stage for a remarkable performance of pandering, hot-dogging and grandstanding.
Several European heads of state have done what Europeans do best, the full grovel, and yesterday Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations, did his usual shuck and jive on the high road. "I understand and share their anguish," he said of the plunderers and looters in the capitals of Arabia. "But it cannot justify violence, least of all attacks on innocent people. I appeal to Muslims to accept the apology that has been offered and to act as I am sure Almighty G-d, who is compassionate and merciful, would wish them to do. That is, to act with calm and dignity, to forgive the wrong they have suffered and to seek peace rather than conflict."
But Muslims have suffered no wrong; Muslims have inflicted the wrong. It's reassuring to learn that the theologian-general of the U.N. is on such intimate terms with G-d, and endorses the almighty mind. Expecting "calm and dignity" in the Muslim street is expecting a lot, and only a man of Mr. Annan's deep faith in the whatever would attempt such a stretch.
Representatives of nearly every European country, and sad to say the United States, hurried out to the nearest camera with apology and penitence, where apology is not called for and penitence is not appropriate. The bureaucrats, like the State Department officer who called the cartoons "unacceptable," are addicted to the grovel, too. What does "unacceptable" mean in the mouth of a government officer? Is an arrest imminent?
This could have been an occasion for instruction and tutelage, for assisting the followers of the religion of peace out of the 8th century and into the relative light of the 12th or 13th, en route on some distant day to the 21st. Scott McClellan, the spokesman for President Bush, attempted a lecture yesterday but delivered the wrong rebuke. "We support and respect the freedom of the press," he said, "but there are also important responsibilities that come with that freedom."
This is wrong, and dangerously wrong. The guarantees of free expression (such as the First Amendment in our own country) include no "if," no "also," no "but." The guarantees do not ordain a "responsible" press, but a free press. This is what the Muslims, who often show no respect for the beliefs of others, must learn even if they learn it the hard way. Followers of the prophet are entitled to believe that a caricature of the man they revere is wrong. If they believe that, they should neither draw such a caricature nor look upon one drawn by someone else. They have no right to impose that belief on anyone else, Hindu, Christian or Hottentot. This is what Kofi Annan and the bowed heads of Europe and spokesmen for the State Department and the White House, and George W. Bush for all that, should be telling the Muslims. And not forget to duck.
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JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
Wesley Pruden Archives
© 2006, Wesley Pruden
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