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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 3, 2003 / 8 Mar-Cheshvan, 5764

Stop insulting Judaism and Christianity, Mr. President

By Diana West


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It's high time to tell the truth about the adherents — and, more importantly, leaders — of the "great religion"


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | I'd like to think that with Ramadan rolling around again, President Bush at least considered calling off his annual White House dinner with assorted Muslim luminaries to break their holiday fast. No other religious group — not Jews, Catholics, Protestants or even Druids — rates an official celebration like the Iftaar supper, a White House "tradition" since 2001. That was the year the United States first decided that "reaching out" to Muslims following Muslim terrorist attacks on the United States was a good idea. Three Ramadans later, a sense of dining entitlement has no doubt kicked in that's harder to buck than not.


So,the president hosted his Ramadan dinner. Believing (and having written) that this man is all that separates us from the abyss, I'm pulling for Mr. Bush to succeed. At the same time, I'm also hoping he choked a little on his official remarks, at least on the part where he called on people of all faiths to reflect on "the values we hold common — love of family, gratitude to G-d, and" — insert Heimlich Maneuver here — "a commitment to religious freedom."


Islam may have a lot of things — love of family and gratitude to G-d, as the president said, along with jihad (holy war), dhimmitude (inferior status of non-Muslims) and a corner on the suicide bombing market — but it does not have "a commitment to religious freedom." And, that goes even after excluding al Qaeda, the Taliban and the entire royal family of Saudi Arabia. Take Egypt. According to a report I first saw posted at www.robertspencer.org, a new Web site devoted to both jihad and dhimmitude, a slew of Christian converts from Islam have been arrested since Oct. 21 in Egypt — our modern (moderate?) friend and recipient of billions in U.S. aid — in a crackdown on "apostates."

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As reported by the Barnabas Fund, a British watchdog group, as many as 22 Christian converts "have been taken from Alexandria to police stations in Cairo and are being beaten, interrogated and tortured." The charge? Falsifying identity papers. While it's not technically against the law in Egypt for Muslims to convert to Christianity — as it is under the sharia law of, say, Iran, Sudan and Saudi Arabia — it is illegal for any Egyptian to drop his Muslim name for a Christian name. "Thus," as the Barnabas Fund explains, Christian converts in Egypt are always "regarded as Muslims in the eyes of the law."


The repercussions never end. Muslim women who convert to Christianity are prohibited from marrying Christian men, while children of converts are regarded as Muslims and educated as Muslims. Even in death, converts must be buried as Muslims. As a result, the Barnabas Fund explains, some Christian converts apply for official papers under assumed names the Egyptian state considers illegal. If their unofficially adopted Christian names are detected, converts are open to charges of falsifying official documents — "which can be used as a way of punishing them for their apostasy."


What was that the president was saying about Judaism, Christianity and Islam being equally committed to freedom of religion? It sounds like the voice of diplomatic politesse — as it does every time Mr. Bush insists the Muslim terrorists waging jihad on Western civilization "are evil people who have hijacked a great religion." It may seem nice and neighborly, but such a formulation categorically denies the fact that there is something inherent to that "great religion" — jihad and dhimmitude, for starters — that inspires the supposed "hijacking," shaping a theology that has always been part terrorist manifesto. This same soft-soap routine also obscures the desperate need for Islamic reformation, an accommodation with modernity that would allow other religions to coexist with Islam without fear.


The impulse to hide the truth about Islam — about its connection to terrorism and its disconnection from Western civilization — is a shocking fact of the "war on terrorism." Addressing reporters on the day of his Ramadan dinner, Mr. Bush said Muslim leaders have asked him: "Why do Americans think Muslims are terrorists?" Instead of answering, "Because an unending pattern of catastrophic terrorism against the United States has been perpetrated by Muslims, that's why," Mr. Bush replied: "That's not what Americans think. Americans think terrorists are evil people who have hijacked a great religion."


Preaching on Saudi state television from the holy mosque in Medina, Shaykh Salah Bin-Muhammad al-Budayr recently hailed Ramadan, concluding his sermon (according to a translation at www.imra.org.il): "O G-d, support Islam and Muslims and destroy the enemies of Islam, including Jews, Christians and atheists. . . . O G-d, deal with the Jews for they are within your power. . . O G-d, shake the land under their feet, instill fear in their hearts and make them a booty for Muslims and a lesson to others."


Such sermonizing — quite common in the Muslim world — may show a commitment to something, but religious freedom isn't it.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media 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.

© 2003, Diana West