 |
|
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
January 6, 2012
January 5, 2012
Tom A. Peter: Taliban talks: In administration's push to negotiate with terrorists, was a key hurdle overlooked?
Pete Spotts: Time cloaking: How scientists opened a hidden gap in time
Karen Kaplan: Teens aren't too old to boost their IQ, study finds
January 4, 2012
Scott Baldauf: Islamist terror group giving Christians living in north Nigeria days to flee
Howard LaFranchi : An accelerating covert war with Iran: Could it spiral into military action?
January 3, 2012
Tom A. Peter: Release several Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay; give them headquarters as confidence-building measure?
Elaine Woo: Thomas T. Johnson, L.A. judge who ruled that Holocaust was a fact, dies at 88
|
| |
Jewish World Review
April 26, 2006
/ 28 Nissan, 5766
In Birmingham, the benevolent face of jihad
By
Julia Gorin
What is the world coming to when rabbis in Birmingham are inviting muftis from Bosnia?
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Earlier this month, Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Birmingham's Temple Emanu-El hosted Bosnia's Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric to address
an interfaith audience at his synagogue so that we Jews and Christians might "make room in our hearts and souls for others who
believe differently from us," as his op-ed in The Birmingham News read. According to one attendee, the mufti packed a big house and the
evening was replete with Martin Luther King tie-ins and civil rights-era imagery.
The rabbi should have done some research first. Ceric recently called on the world to stand by
Syria, a state that sponsors terrorism against Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq, among other targets. During the March, 2004 pogroms
in Kosovo against Orthodox Christian Serbs by Albanian Muslims — in which 19 people were killed, dozens of churches and
cemeteries destroyed, and close to 4,000 of Kosovo's minority Serbs displaced — BBC.com reported that Ceric "expressed concern
about the rise of anti-Islamic hysteria in the West." He added that there was "no such thing as Islamic terrorism," and assured
reporters that there were no charities linked to al-Qaeda operating in Bosnia.
In fact, a CNSNews.com article titled "Jihadists Find Convenient Base in Bosnia" reported that "terrorists who previously targeted the
U.S. are now in Bosnia, where they have access to a 'one-stop shop' of jihad training camps, weapons and illegal Islamic
'charities' — all at the doorstep of Europe."
One charity that was funding millions of dollars to al Qaeda — the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation — closed in 2002 and then reopened
under the name Vazir — an "association for sport, culture and education."
"More ominously," reported
the Washington Times in 2003, "the greatest threat to peace and stability stems from the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism in
Bosnia, which seeks to either wipe out or convert all Christians in the region. The country now serves as a base for al Qaeda
operatives, where numerous terrorist cells are active and plotting attacks on targets throughout Europe. In the past, Saudi Arabia
has sent millions of dollars in aid to "humanitarian" agencies that encourage Bosnian Muslims to promote the doctrines of
Wahhabism…. Mosques have been established throughout the Muslim-Croat federation, many of whom preach the need for 'jihad'
against the country's Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs."
Further, "Osama bin Laden is actively directing terrorist cells in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia," read an October 2004 AFP
dispatch. According to terror expert
and author Yossef Bodansky, Bosnia's Zenica region provided the training ground for the terrorists who conducted a series of
suicide attacks in Baghdad in August 2003, including the UN bombing there that killed 22 people.
More damning still, at least two of the 9/11 hijackers — Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — trained and fought in Bosnia, and
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "also honed his jihadist skills in Bosnia and financed some of the mujahedin operations there," Brendan
O'Neill wrote for The New Statesman in
2004.
Last October, a raid on a Sarajevo apartment turned up suicide vests, 65 pounds of exploding bullets, rifles and a machine
gun, to be used in an imminent attack on the British embassy in Sarajevo. What's more, reported the International Herald Tribune,
"Bosnia gave passports to more than 800 former fighters and aid workers from the Middle East," including to known terrorists and
sometimes under aliases.
Even more disturbing, the Islamists have been creating cells of "White al Qaeda" — Caucasian Bosnian Muslims who can evade ethnic profiling. The rabbi might also be
interested to know that the suicide attack in Netanya in December, which killed five and wounded 95, was organized by a Bosnian-based group called
Al-Asifa. There are Balkans ties as well to the London and Madrid attacks, as well as New York on 9/11.
That a rabbi would invite a terror enabler to ingratiate himself and his religion to a Judeo-Christian audience is a disgrace. Miller isn't
doing Americans any favors by helping the Islamic PR campaign.
Yet he is not alone in his misguided efforts. Last year, the American Jewish Committee launched the Chicago Coalition for
Interreligious Learning to "produce changes in how differing religions were presented in textbooks and classrooms in an effort to
promote respect among communities."
But the organization's own counter-terrorism division warned about Islamist groups using interfaith to gain legitimacy, noting that
most mainstream Muslim organizations are "pro-Saudi and pro-Muslim Brotherhood" and have learned that "interfaith dialogue is a
good way to spread the ideology" since it "gives such organizations a public legitimacy that their ideology would deny them if they
expressed it outright." Further, "these organizations come to the Jewish community to talk about 'interfaith,' while they still teach
anti-Western and anti-Christian doctrines to their followers."
The dangers of inculcating fair-minded American masses aside, the vision of a Muslim cleric lecturing a Western audience on
"making room in our hearts and souls for others who believe differently from us" borders on the obscene. "If we can do it here in
Birmingham," instructs the rabbi, "who knows, but that we might spread this message to all the corners of the world. And then
wouldn't G-d be pleased with us?"
The glaring flaw in this pre-school-level thinking is that the Western world has done it, but the Muslim world isn't taking an
example — its religious foundations running precisely counter to openness. Nor would G-d be pleased with us, as he surely has little
respect for those who are unwilling to defend their way of life — which is already perilously over-tolerant toward ideologies that abhor
its very tolerance.
The rabbi and some Christian friends came together to bring the mufti to the Birmingham synagogue to "speak for a tradition of the
one true living G-d" — a reference to the false but endlessly repeated cliché that Muslims believe in the same G-d as Christians and
Jews. In fact, Islam teaches that only it knows "the true nature of G-d that Judaism and Christianity tell lies about," as Balkans
expert Dr. Serge Trifkovic has written.
If Jews continue public relations efforts for movements that wish them ill, they'll find themselves in a position similar to what they
were in during WWII. At that time, the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, met with Hitler to offer support. Thousands of Bosnian Muslims answered the mufti's call to
volunteer for service in the Waffen SS. Al-Husseini is photographed proudly inspecting his Bosnian Muslim Nazi troops.
When we finally arrive at the logical conclusion of the current state of affairs, in which Jews are fleeing Europe once again and six
million in Israel are threatened with "erasure" from the map, it won't be because "the world" looked the other way. It'll be because of
my fellow Jews' own fatal ignorance.
Never again? What a joke. Shame on this so-called rabbi, and shame on every Jew and Christian in the audience who applauded
the speaker on cue.
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 Julia Gorin is a widely published op-ed writer and comedian who blogs at www.JuliaGorin.com. Comment on by clicking here.
Julia Gorin Archives
© 2006, Julia Gorin
|
