
 |
|
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
June 17, 2005
/ 10 Sivan, 5765
Welcome to the war on image
By
Diana West
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Finally, our guards at Guantanamo Bay are getting the hang of
showing "reverence and respect" toward that "fragile piece of
delicate art" (military-speak for the Quran), and, wouldn't you know
it, our politicians and pundits, from House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to Tom Friedman and Bill
Kristol, are angling to put a lock on Gitmo.
Why? It's an "international embarrassment," says Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D-Vt.), who should know. His colleague, Sen. Richard Durbin,
(D-Ill.), is himself so internationally embarrassed that he compared
the terrorist detainee facility to Nazi deaths camps, Communist
gulags and Khmer Rouge killing fields.
And so what if closing Gitmo lets hundreds of jihadists out of their
prison cages and into their terror cells? "Sure, a few may come back
to haunt us," writes Friedman. But being haunted which presumably
requires some additional number of American dead to do the haunting
is apparently a risk worth taking in order to win the war.
I'm not talking about the so-called "war on terror." It seem there's
been a change in focus. Islamic jihad is out. The war on "image" is
in. And, according to the anti-Gitmo-nists, we're getting creamed.
Go figure: "They" kill people over a soggy Quran, and "we" lose the
image war and all over the world, according to Sen. Hagel. He
thinks closing Guantanamo is the only way to win World Image War I.
That's because closing the detention center would "give us a clean
slate in the Muslim world," as Nancy Pelosi said, revealing an
ignorance of history so vast and untamed that facts alone would
perish there. Clean slate like on Sept. 10.
Projecting power is not the same thing as winning a popularity
contest. Nor is winning a popularity contest the same thing as
winning hearts and minds at home where it really counts, or
abroad which seems to be another point of desperate confusion.
But in our poll-driven age of celebrity worship, the popularity
contest is becoming the preferred forum for geopolitics, a kind of
"Survivor"-slash-"Who Wants to Be a Superpower?" reality show for
world leaders. If this is the case, by all means go for that "clean
slate" and close Gitmo. Miss Congeniality would do the same. But
don't stop there.
After all, reverence and respect, even surrender, only go so far.
More sensitivity is needed as well. In a recent meeting with Daniel
Sutherland, head of the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties division of
the Department of Homeland Security, American University's Akbar
Ahmed had some suggestions, beginning, according to an online report
in the Pakistani Daily Times, with pretty much eliminating Muslim
profiling at airports. This, of course, would do nothing to spare my
own white-haired mother and white-haired mother-in-law from the next
checkpoint body search, but the boost to world image would be
colossal. "You simply cannot humiliate Muslims like this," Akbar
said, describing a "peak level of anger" in "the young generation on
the edge." Just one more pat-down and they'll blow. He also
suggested "more social and cultural contacts" between government
officials and American Muslims, and an unspecified reading list on
Islam.
Maybe such a list would include one of his own books, "Islam Under
Siege" (Polity Press, 2003). There, he describes the kind of
gathering Homeland Security could really learn from roughly 60
Muslim-American professionals from Cleveland, Ohio, whom Ahmed
addressed in October 2001.
"When I stated that Islam had suffered a major setback after Sept.
11 (for a grossly un-Islamic act of violence), that every Muslim was
in the dock as a result ... I was challenged by some Arabs and
Pakistanis," he writes. "They" Muslims in Cleveland, Ohio
"called Sept. 11 a glorious event for Islam. The taking of innocent
lives was justified, they argued, as Sept. 11 was the continuation
of a full-scale Islamic war taking place against Israel, which is
backed by the United States. I heard a similar debate when the
Muslim Council of Britain hosted a dinner for me in London in July
2002."
Maybe this last bit helps explain why the Queen of England this
month bestowed a knighthood on Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of
the Muslim Council of Britain. "Sir" Iqbal Sacranie: a body blow in
the war on image. And also why, as Sutherland reportedly told Akbar,
Homeland Security "has undertaken many measures to eliminate racial
profiling." I think I see a strategy emerging. Little by little,
we'll win this war on image. So what if we no longer recognize
ourselves.
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 Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
Diana West Archives
© 2005, Diana West
|
|

Mitch Albom
Michael Barone
Dave Barry
Tony Blankley
Andy Borowitz
David Broder
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Rod Dreher
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
John Fund
Frank J. Gaffney
Lloyd Garver
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Lewis Grossberger
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Laura Ingraham
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Jonathan Last
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Dick Morris
Bill O'Reilly
Jim Mullen
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Jonathan Rauch
Celia Rivenbark
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Culture Shlock
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
Gary Brookins
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holber
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Ranan R. Lurie
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

How 2
Lori Borgman
The Savvy Consumer
Elder matters
Fixit
Dr. Peter Gott
Marybeth Hicks
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Tech Maven
Every Monday Matters
Nutrition Myths
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
How Stuff Works
|