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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

Oct. 8, 2008

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!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 11, 2003 /16 Mar-Cheshvan, 5764

The ‘Arab Street's’ concept of freedom

By Cal Thomas

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http://www.jewishworldreview.com | President Bush delivered a speech last week to the National Endowment for Democracy. Quoting Ronald Reagan's 1982 address at Westminster Palace in which Reagan spoke of a turning point in history, Bush noted Reagan had argued that Soviet communism had failed "precisely because it did not respect its own people — their creativity, their genius and their rights."


The Bush address understandably came from a Western perspective. But, as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher noted at a U.N. disarmament conference more than two decades ago, we in the West make a mistake when we "transpose" our morality on those who don't share it.


President Bush asked, "Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty?" It depends on the meaning of liberty. What if the Islamic nations of the region define liberty differently from us? Suppose they see our liberty as something corrupting to faith and morals and our culture as something they do not wish to import, but oppose as inimical to a healthy life on Earth and an impediment to an afterlife?


The president asserted that Islam "is consistent with democratic rule," and he listed as examples several states where non-radical Muslims live (Turkey, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Indonesia and Niger). These states are not a threat to the United States. The threat comes from states dominated by extremist Muslim militants, especially the Wahhabi brand. To draw a comparison between atheistic communism and radical Islam and to suggest that what happened to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe can be replicated in the Middle East is dangerous. The New York Times reported last Friday (Nov. 7) that commentators across the Middle East dismissed the president's speech as primarily for domestic consumption.

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Secular societies, even those presided over by an openly Christian leader like President Bush, risk lulling their people into complacency when they offer bromides instead of calls to civil defense and appropriate responses during war. As Giuseppe De Rosa, S.I. writes in the Italian publication La Civilta Cattolica (http://213.92.16.98/ESW_articolo/0,2393,41931,00.html): "all of Islamic history is dominated by the idea of the conquest of the Christian lands of Western E urope and of the Eastern Roman Empire, whose capital was Constantinople. Thus, through many centuries, Islam and Christianity faced each other in terrible battles, which led on one side to the conquest of Constantinople (1453), Bulgaria and Greece, and on the other, to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the naval battle of Lepanto (1571)."


That warrior spirit, or jihad, continues today. The president said there is "democratic progress in many predominately Muslim countries," such as Niger. He also said Muslim men and women are "good citizens" of a number of other nations, including South Africa, Western Europe and the United States. Would it be indelicate to note that Muslims do not (yet) direct the political destiny in those nations?


The president left out Nigeria, which borders Niger. Many regions in Nigeria have introduced Sharia as state law, which has been used to persecute thousands of Christians. Major attacks against Christians have occurred in the Philippines, Pakistan, Indonesia, Java, East Timor and the Moluccas. In the northern Arab and Muslim portion of Sudan, genocidal war continues against the black and mostly Christian south.


To fundamentalist Muslims, liberty is not found in democracy. It is found in Allah and actions they believe please their god. The most extreme of them, who seem to be growing in number and influence, plant the idea in the minds of children (see a number of Palestinian videos and textbooks) that this life is nothing and that they should "seek Shahada" (martyrdom) and "ask for death," which they teach is true liberty.


In his speech, the president said that securing democracy in Iraq is "a massive and difficult undertaking." He is right. It will be made even more difficult if Westerners think that Islamic nations want what we have. In their sermons, in editorials in their state-owned newspapers and on television and in the actions of the most radical among them, their objective is clear — to defeat and subjugate all nations and all thinking to their religion and their way. To them, it is we who live in bondage and they who are ultimately free. It will take more than speeches to convert them to America's point of view.

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