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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 July 7, 2004 /18 Tamuz, 5764

Islam is a religion of WHAT?

By Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder

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http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Standing on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, looking west to Manhattan, the fires had turned the horizon a bright orange that rose to great heights painted against a perfect pitiless blue sky.


Observing this terrible beauty, the residents of the neighborhood danced in the streets, laughing, shouting to each other, shaking hands. These people were not what one would suppose to be fanatical or militant Muslims. They were people who had come to these shores from the Middle East, mostly shop keepers, bakers, purveyors of eastern spices, tradesmen, cab drivers and the usual diversity of people found in a New York ethnic neighborhood on a warm fall weekday. They were American citizens however, who were expressing their judgment — joy at the events of that horrible day that forever changed our world and America's place in that world. They were also the followers of Islam: religion of oppression, discrimination, violence, terror, war, superstition, intolerance and prejudice. They were the followers of a religion of hate who, at the very least, if not active participants in the events of that world-changing day, took unashamed pleasure in the violence visited upon those — including their fellow citizens and neighbors — who did not share their beliefs.


The President has said about Islam: ...Islam inspires countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity and morality (12/5/02). A...It's [Islam] a faith based on love, not hate. (9/10/02) "The Islam that we know...teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy and peace. (11/15/01).


Well, he is the President, and like Tony Blair, probably has to say these sorts of politically-correct things in the belief that they are necessary to be said, because to declare the truth would create a threat to the maintenance of order or, it might provoke an outraged citizenry to retaliate in a vengeful and illegal way, jeopardizing domestic tranquility. We have no such impediment and trust that the truth can only serve to enlighten and not to incite.


Islam exists as it is taught in the Koran and lived by Muhammad. Muhammad, by the way, was hardly an example that one would wish to emulate. He had affairs with maids and slave girls and was also a pedophile (and before we get outraged e-mails on the latter point, here is chapter and verse: the girl's name was Aisha, she was 9 he was 53. He was also involved in the slave trade, assassinations and genocide. But, what the heck, nobody is perfect.)


Let's, as the sportscasters say, go to the record, which, in this case is the Koran.

  • Kill the disbelievers wherever we find them. (2:191)


  • Fight and slay the pagans (translation: that's us) seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem. (9:5)


  • Slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers...(5:34)


  • ...strike off the heads of the disbelievers...[make a] wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives [for ransom] (947:4)


  • [treatment of disbelievers]...garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods (22:19).


  • The Koran also instructs Muslims to slay or crucify or cut the hands and the feet of the unbelievers (5:34), fight unbelievers until no other religion except Islam remains. (3:85)


Given these basic teachings of Islam there is little reason to be surprised at the beheading of Americans Nick Berg and Paul Johnson.

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Of course, not all Muslims participate in violence or even express joy at the perpetration of violence against the West in general, or Americans in particular, just as all Germans in the forties did not believe when they heard their anthem, Deutschland uber alles, that it meant literally that Germany must conquer all other nations. Some Germans embraced a passive longing for Germany to be victorious; some few actually despised fascism, and some, an almost non-existent few acted against it. So it is with Islam and the Muslims. About the best the civilized world can expect is a joyous but passive reaction to the mindless violence.


Empires have come and gone. Rome, Portugal, France, Holland, Germany and even in our time, Great Britain, have seen their moment of world dominance - have seen it flicker, and then, extinguish. And yet, they accepted it as part of the panorama of history, and have moved on. Not so with Islam.


It is not by accident that our enemies call the coalition forces in Iraq the Crusaders. To Islam the war, which they lost centuries ago, continues.


[It is of interest to note that the United States went to war with Muslim powers in 1801. Barbary pirates kidnapped and made slaves of our citizens, demanding tribute for their release. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson asked of the envoy of Tripoli by what right did he make his claim for payment. As reported to Congress by Jefferson, "The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners." ]


The enemy is not really the United States, nor even Israel. The enemy is modernity itself and the forces of change that have made them irrelevant. The West has persevered and they have lost. They are the have-nots, and to the degree that they have the economic power of oil, even this has been denied to them as a society by the corruption of their own despotic rulers. They are the past in a present and future that belongs to the West. There is a chord that joins them with other losers like Lee Harvey Oswald and Lee Boyd Malvo, devoid of any distinction or ability to even control their own lives, who strike out in spasms of hate-filled rage.


Muslims, married to a failed past, offer little hope for integration into modern society. Israel giving them land to which they are not entitled, or the United States not punishing them for criminal acts will not assuage their rage. America must learn it cannot negotiate or reason with people who consider us infidels. It must recognize that the enemy is often among us and all the exposure available to them in Western civilization with its tolerances and respect for individual rights will not affect their seething anger at imagined wrongs, injustices, and illogical sense of entitlement.


Historically, use of strength, swift and certain punishment, and resolve of purpose are all that is left us to effectively deal with their primitive madness. And until we recognize this, there will be many more beheadings and September elevenths.

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JWR contributors Jackie Mason and Raoul Felder need no introduction. Comment on this column by clicking here.

© 2004, Mason and Felder