Robert Spencer recently published The Palestinian Delusion, which depicts the modern struggle between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs (and the Arab world). This incredibly well researched and readable volume reveals the lack of historical truth in the Arab narrative. It also depicts the weakness of American presidents from Jimmy Carter through Barack Obama, the inherent contradictions and deceptions of all proposed "two-state solutions," and the importance of the Qur'anic notion of jihad that is driving Arab politics. The book is a tour de force of historical knowledge, of understanding of modern negotiations, and of the failure of American leadership to appreciate the importance of Qur'anic theology in the Arab mindset.
Of all the presidents since Carter, Spencer is most pleased with Pres. Donald Trump. He considers Trump's policies to be reflective of diplomatic wisdom insofar as he has stopped funding being used by the PLO to support jihadists' families; he has shut down the PLO mission in Washington, D.C.; he has called for an end to the PLO extolling of terrorists as martyrs; and he has moved our embassy to Jerusalem.
While the right to erect our embassy in Jerusalem was authorized by Congress in 1995, the legislation gave the president authority to waive the move, which was done by presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Perhaps these presidents thought they were being even-handed, or perhaps they feared a tremendous backlash from the Middle Eastern Islamic world. But Spencer rightly points out that this "restraint" is perceived as weakness by the Arabs, not as a "righteous balance." The Arab theme is that of victimology. Arabs falsely claim that Israel has victimized them in many ways. Thus, actions siding with Israel are promoted by the Arabs as though the U.S. is adding to their victimization. We are "fair" only when we are fair on their terms.
Spencer tells us that the Bush peace plan did include some harsh criticism of Arab terrorism against Israel. Yet while Bush did not turn words into action, Spencer tells us that Bush's plan stated that "a Palestinian state will never be created by terror — it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo" (p. 171). However, unlike Pres. Trump, Bush did not go so far as to suggest "that there could be no Palestinian state until jihad terrorism against Israel was completely ended; Bush was signaling that he would be satisfied with gestures and half measures, as long as he was satisfied that progress was being made."
Bush's stern reprimand of Arab terrorism reminds this writer, who spent many years teaching in some of the roughest secondary school environments in New York City, of many weak deans who reprimanded criminal students that they had to shape up yet gave those students only in-house, one-week suspensions for offenses worthy of jail time. The deans knew full well that the most misbehaved students would keep committing worse and worse acts until finally they did something so egregious that they would be arrested and disappear into the Rikers Island jail for an extended time. More serious punishments to negatively reinforce against bad behavior and prevent worse acts of theft, assault, or destruction of property were deemed not worth the effort.
Thus, for Spencer, Pres. Trump has taken some giant steps in the right direction, but whatever happens, the underlying ideology of the Arabs — which is their true motive for opposing Israel — will remain. First, they have complete contempt for Jews based on Qur'anic verses that say, "Allah transforms disobedient Jews into apes and pigs" (Qur'an 2:63–66, 5:59–60, 7:166) and the Jews "strive to do mischief on Earth" (Qur'an 5:33). He lists a whole range of faults of the Jews that are described in the Islamic holiest book, the Qur'an. Spencer summarizes the negative depiction of the Jews in the Qur'an by stating, "The Qur'an demonizes Jews in all manner of ways, and envisions their living in subservience and submission to the Muslims, not governing their own state. In light of these teachings, the Jewish state of Israel constitutes a perpetual affront to Muslims and Islam on Qur'anic grounds" (p. 39).
Second, the most important stumbling block to any lasting peace between Israel and the Arab world, especially the Arabs led by the PLO and Hamas, is based on Qur'an 2:191, which states, "[D]rive them out from where they drove you out." He writes, "Rule of Muslims by infidels, especially by those whose enmity towards the Muslims is strongest (Qur'an 5:82) is unacceptable under any circumstances and can never be tolerated" (p. 41). The fundamental principle of driving out those who drove you out is the motivation behind the Islamic jihad against Israel. Expedience over the past 100 years sometimes has led the Arabs to seem to back away from their militancy, but the militancy is their true and only motive.
At the beginning of this century, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat 92% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a capital, but Arafat would not accept even this incredibly generous offer. This writer watched Pres. Clinton's chief Mideast negotiator, the brilliant Dennis B. Ross, being interviewed by Charlie Rose and saying that the night before the agreement was to have been signed between Arafat and Barak, the PLO called him and said that "they 'only' had 39 articles they wished to change." At that point, Mr. Ross understood that the negotiations were over, and he reported on this to our outraged Pres. Clinton.
For the Arabs, the principle of "drive them out from where they drove you out" is absolute, and all other negotiations are just biding time or trying to appear balanced and normal. In short, Arab negotiation is inherently a manipulation, never sincere.
Yet, despite its strengths, the volume does not detail a breakthrough, but ends on a note that was disappointing to this writer. Spencer calls for greater realism when dealing with Hamas and Fatah. Because of the Arab jihadist commitment, Spencer believes that Israel will have to accept being even more of a pariah than it has been. He also believes that Israel must continue to stress that there is no such thing as a Palestinian Arab identity; rather, the so-called Palestinian Arab identity is not at all different from the Arabs living in Syria, Jordan, or Lebanon. Further, Israel should state unapologetically its right to what are now called the "Palestinian territories" (sic). He calls this posture "sober realism" and "standing firm."
For those like myself, the real hope for Israel and for a world that seems to be perennially blackmailed and/or intimidated by Arab and Muslim aggression and intransigence in the Middle East and elsewhere is one other option not presented by Mr. Spencer's brilliant survey and analysis. Revealed religion as presented in the New Testament reminds us that we live in a world under judgment. There is a providential destiny to all of history. At a date and time that no human knows, Almighty God, the King of the Universe, will descend to Mt. Megiddo ("Armageddon") in Israel to win a decisive battle against our ultimate enemies: the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet (Rev. 15:13–16).
THE HISTORY OF JIHAD FROM MUHAMMAD TO
ISIS
Robert Spencer's new must-read book.
July 20, 2018
Friend, this is what you need to do. Go to your favorite
brick-and-mortar store, or your favorite online site, and purchase a copy of
Robert Spencer's, "The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS." Producing this book was a tremendous act of courage by
Spencer and Bombardier Books. The same opponents of Western Civilization who
rioted over the Danish Muhammad cartoons, who slaughtered the team at French
humor magazine Charlie Hebdo, who murdered 37 innocent Turks at the Sivas
Massacre, and who stabbed and shot
the Japanese and Italian translators, and the Norwegian publisher, of Salman
Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" – those same dark forces want to riot and
stab and bomb and slaughter over the words on these pages. Spencer and
Bombardier deserve at the very least your investment in its full purchase
price.
Jihad is a sword over your head. You may have been lulled into thinking
that your odds are good. After all, there are seven billion people on earth.
Compared to that number, the victims of terror attacks make up a negligible
fraction. That calculation provides a false sense of security. Dr. Graham Allison, the
Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard Kennedy School writes that,
"on the current path, nuclear terrorism is inevitable … we would likely see
terrorists succeed in their aspirations for an 'American Hiroshima.'"
Even if we are lucky enough to avoid nuclear war, jihad remains as
a cultural, not merely a military, struggle. Jihad's victories are won not just
on the battlefield, but in American textbooks. Indeed, as the South Park controversy demonstrated,
jihad is victorious in deciding when Americans are allowed to laugh. Jihad is
aimed even at your right to say the word "jihad," and, accurately, to
define it. "While serving as Assistant to the President for Homeland
Security and Counterterrorism, John Brennan declared, '…jihad
is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or
one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about
murdering men, women and children." Brennan's definition is BS. You
deserve, you need, to know the truth. Jihad is a weapon aimed at you – at your
freedoms, your sense of beauty, your relationships, your understanding of your
own history and your intellectual honesty. "You" includes everybody.
Yes, Muslims, I am talking to you. Jihad has been used, and is being used, as a
tool for some Muslims to decide that other Muslims are not Muslim enough. Iran
characterized the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war as a jihad. That war killed and injured
hundreds of thousands of Muslims. More recently, ISIS justified its genocide of Shia Muslims as
jihad.
The book's contents are grim, repugnant, and terrifying. I want
you to finish, as well as begin this book, so I will be so bold as to offer
advice. Read quickly. Power through. Don't pause. You won't remember the name
of every killer, torturer, rapist and thief. That's okay. Get the general idea.
Here's the general idea. Islam emerged approximately 1,400 years
ago. Its origins are obscure and disputed. One thing is certain. Arab
conquerors, exploiting weaknesses in the aging and warring Roman and Persian
Empires, burst out of the Arabian peninsula and, with unprecedented speed,
conquered territories from Spain to India. They eventually claimed that their
sacred texts, the Koran, hadith, and example of Muhammad, informed and
sanctified their warfare. Their sacred texts told these warriors, in explicit
terms, to brutalize non-Muslims. Brutalizing methods included decapitation, dismemberment, and the placement of decapitated heads between the corpse's feet. These are all traditional methods of dehumanization and
desecration. Sanctioned and modeled tactics also included rape, sex slavery, torture, totalitarian rule, crucifixion, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Muslims were ordered
to make war in perpetuity until
everyone on earth was a Muslim. Non-Muslims' rights were rigidly curtailed. Fighting
and dying in battle was the very best thing that
any Muslim could do, and it guaranteed the warrior bliss in paradise. Every
good thing in life owed its existence to warfare. "Paradise lies under the
shade of swords."
For the past 1,400 years, continuously, without pause, in every
century and, eventually, reaching every inhabited continent, Muslims have
obeyed these verses. Any given jihad might look something like this. Invaders
arrived. They identified themselves as jihadis. They identified their victims,
Muslims or not, as infidels. The invaders massacred civilians. They erected
mountains of decapitated heads, or they used heads to terrorize their
opponents, shooting them from catapults, for example. They took sex slaves.
Slaves were so plentiful that slave prices plummeted. Christian, Jewish,
Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Hindu, houses of worship were ransacked of their jewels
and precious metals. Booty was divided up lavishly among the suddenly enriched
jihadis. The wrecked remains of the house of worship were pulverized and the
rubble and dust was spread on the road leading to the mosque, so that Muslims
could feel, with their every step, their superiority over the highest
aspirations of those they humiliated.
Jews and Christians were taxed and forced to wear a distinguishing
mark on their clothing, perhaps in the shape of a monkey or pig. They were
denied the right to repair their houses of worship, or to ring bells, or to
speak of their faith in public. Pagans, including Hindus, were simply
massacred. Those who did not massacre enough Pagans were threatened and
reminded that to live by their scripture and their prophet's example, they must
kill as many as possible, as ruthlessly as possible. Conquerors insisted on sexual
access to the prettiest princess, even if only to humiliate her, by, for
example, forcing her to work as a household servant while naked. In other
cases, the most handsome boy might be demanded for the conqueror's pleasure.
If there was a library, no matter how ancient and revered, it was
despoiled. Legend depicts Caliph Omar justified his burning of the books, to
heat bathwater, of the library of Alexandria. "The books will either
contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with
it, so they are superfluous." No one knows if Omar said this, but we do
know that both Muslims and non-Muslims believed it, which suggests that enough
jihadis behaved like this that it was plausible. Indeed, the same story is
told, about the same caliph, regarding the destruction of Persian libraries. It
is true that Saladin's son attempted to bring down Egypt's pyramids, because
they are un-Islamic. And Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr did order the removal of the
nose of the Sphynx. The remains of the Colossus of Rhodes, that had survived
hundreds of years of Christianity, succumbed to Islamic invaders, who sold them
as scrap metal. A Muslim ordered that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, site of
Jesus' entombment, be razed to bedrock. Hagia Sophia, a millennia-old Christian
church, was desecrated and used as a mosque. Countless Hindu temples faced the
same fate. Ctesiphon, one of the largest cities in the world, with a mixed
population of Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, became a ghost town all but
overnight. Muslim conquerors used its bricks to construct their edifices.
Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan provided
unimaginable booty to divinely sanctioned plunderers. The territory, as of the
21st century, has never come close to its former glory. Formerly wealthy
Afghanistan and Pakistan are today among the countries whose own citizens most
long to escape.
This process, or something very like this process, didn't happen
once or twice. It didn't just happen during Islam's first hundred or two
hundred years. Jihads like this happened over and over. Indeed, biographies of
Muhammad describe him as a warrior and raider of caravans who massacred and
tortured captives, took sex slaves, and ordered his men to rape captives even
in front of their still-living husbands. Across the globe, in a multitude of
tongues, jihadis cite the same Koran verses and hadith to sanctify their
behavior. Tamerlane, "The Sword of Islam," who is estimated to have
killed five percent of the world's population, cited jihad verses. As did the
Barbary Pirates who enslaved Americans, and as did Osama bin Laden.
The cultural, as well as the biological, genocide aspect of jihad
is also not of the distant past. In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini's right hand man,
Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali, wanted to bulldoze the tomb of Persian emperor
Cyrus the Great, the tomb of Iran's national poet, Ferdowsi, and Persepolis,
the 2,500 year old royal Persian city. In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the
Bamiyan Buddhas, the largest standing Buddha carvings in the world. In 2012 and
2013, jihadis from the Ansar Dine destroyed ancient Muslim shrines and library manuscripts in Timbuktu, Mali. In 2016, ISIS took time out from the murder, torture, and sexual
enslavement of human beings to destroy culture, including two-millennia-old
Roman structures at Palmyra. Again, these Pagan structures survived hundreds of
years of a Christian Middle East. It took devout Muslims to bring them down.
Spencer's book will dispel pernicious, politically motivated
canards, including the following: that there was a Golden Age when Islam was
peaceful and tolerant and Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, and
Hindus lived happy, productive, free lives under its protection; that Islamic
terror is a relatively recent innovation, born, in various versions, with the
state of Israel, or with Western colonial incursion; that the primary
translation of "jihad" should be "peaceful struggle for noble,
personal goals;" that the Crusades were an offensive action, or that they
started the conflict between Islam and the West, or that their goal was forced
conversion of Muslims; that jihad can be "fixed" through actions by
non-Muslims. "If only we had a Palestinian state … If only those Hindus
were not so fanatical and nationalistic … If only American films did not depict
terrorists as Muslims … If only American school children were forced to recite the shahada … If only Americans were not so xenophobic, white
supremacist, Christian fascist … If only we keep Tommy Robinson in solitary
confinement a bit longer." None of these will ever end jihad.
Critics will bash this necessary book, if they pay any attention
to it at all, by insisting that Robert Spencer is an unreliable narrator. It's
not Spencer's words that inevitably paint jihad as one of the most lurid,
destructive, and grotesque forces in human history. It is Muslim chroniclers
and conquerors themselves. Spencer quotes contemporaneous, canonical sources.
Muslim chroniclers boast with pride of their string of unprecedented
atrocities. "I bring you slaughter," Muhammad said. "I have been
made victorious through terror … the treasures of the world were put in my
hand," Muhammad bragged, distinguishing
himself from previous Jewish and Christian prophets and saints who were, in
Muhammad's estimation, longwinded, but not booty-rich warlords like him.
Spencer also quotes non-Muslim eyewitnesses, and books published by the
university presses of Princeton, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Georgetown,
Fairleigh Dickinson, NYU, Crete, the Universities of Pennsylvania and
California, and the State University of New York. Indeed, Spencer does not
pretend that he is saying anything new or innovative. Rather, he is merely
performing the excellent service of providing a reader-friendly outline of
1,400 years of jihad.
Another possible detraction. "Yes, but, if someone published
a history of the colonization of the Americas, that would make for very tough
reading." No doubt.
First, committing atrocities is a violation of, not obedience to,
Biblical mandates. Conversion by force is almost unknown in Judaism, and there
is no Old Testament verse that commands Jews to conquer the world or to force
Gentiles to become Jews. As early as the fourth century, when, after three
centuries of Pagan Roman persecution, Christianity was beginning to gain
worldly power, Saint Augustine wrestled with the concept of "just
war." Augustine asked, and attempted to answer, when and how is it consistent
with Christian belief to take up arms.
When Christians do take up arms wrongly, they violate the example
of Christianity's founder, Jesus Christ. Jesus did not make war; he practiced
peace. Jesus did not rape captives; he uplifted women, including the most stigmatized:
the ritually unclean woman with a hemorrhage, a woman who had been possessed,
and the sinful woman taken in adultery. Jesus did not raid caravans and steal
their contents; he said "Render unto Cesar what is Cesar's." Jesus
did not torture anyone; Jesus healed. Jesus did not practice ethnic cleansing;
he and his followers interacted respectfully with their fellow Jews, Roman Pagans, and Africans. Christian scriptures
do not recommend murder, rape, theft, or war.
Indeed, Christianity, with lightning speed, with its emphasis on a
loving God's relationship to each human, whom he made in his image, became a
support for oppressed peoples. Our Lady of Guadalupe was one such support. She
is said to have appeared to an Aztec and to have reassured him that Christ's
love and promises extended to all people, not just conquistadors. Just so, the
Abolitionist Movement was informed by the Biblical narrative of "let my
people go."
Second, accounts of Western Christians' misdeeds are plentiful and
well-known. These accounts first appear, invariably, at the same time as
Western Christians' misdeeds. This is the case because the Judeo-Christian
tradition demands self-examination and public confession when one has failed to
live up to Biblical ideals. Witness Psalms 32 and 51. King David engineered the
death of his rival, Uriah. David begs for forgiveness, and vows to change. God
forgives David, but David suffers horribly as the result of his crime. Witness
Bartolome de las Casas, a Dominican friar, who recorded, and acted on, crimes
committed by conquistadors.
When Christians engage in destructive behaviors, they critique
themselves or they are critiqued by others. Indeed, in "The History of
Jihad," Robert Spencer himself is quite open about, and critical of,
atrocities committed by Crusaders. There are Western scholars whose careers
were founded on, or advanced by, their muckraking, exposing the dark side of
Western Civilization. Adam Hochschild, the white, male son of a Jewish father
and a Christian mother, won numerous awards for "King Leopold's Ghost: A
Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa" about a previously
little-discussed atrocity. Taylor Branch, a white man from Atlanta in the
American South, won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Humanities Medal, and a
MacArthur Genius Award. He wrote a massive, three-volume biography of Dr.
Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Struggle. John Cornwell, a former
Catholic seminarian, won fame with his controversial book, "Hitler's
Pope." When Cornwell's many critics found inaccuracies in his work, they
did not riot or kill; they wrote and published.
Where are the analogous practitioners of confession, redemption,
and repair in the Muslim world? Where were they a thousand years ago? Bartolome
de las Casas did not have a voice only. He also had ears willing to hear his
words. Inspired by this one friar, Pope Paul III issued a papal bull, Sublimis
Dei, insisting on the full humanity of the newly discovered Indians. Can anyone imagine a Muslim de las Casas having a chat with
Muhammad, arguing for the full humanity of the kuffar?
Where are the contemporary Muslim historians exposing the brutal
history of jihad? Where are their prestigious prizes, university chairs and
awards? Where are the passionate Muslim authors dedicating their lives to
robbed, enslaved, raped, and murdered kuffars' long-since-evaporated tears?
Where are the affirmative action programs for descendants of the Muslim slave
trade? Where are the reparations for the Christians Slavs whose Muslims
overlords kidnapped their daughters for sex slave markets, their sons for slave
armies? Eastern Europe, historians say, is poorer than Western Europe to this
day at least partly because Eastern Europe had to devote so much energy to
fighting off jihad. Eastern Europeans provided a bulwark that allowed Western
Europe to flourish. Where is Eastern Europe's apology? All of these acts of
contrition on the part of Muslims exist in the same imaginary dimension where
"jihad" means "befriending Christians."
Consider what happens even to the most circumspect of social
critics in the Muslim world. Bassem Yousef is
often dubbed "the Egyptian Jon Stewart." Youssef's audience and
influence dwarfed Stewart's. Youssef's TV program made gentle fun of
anti-democratic trends in the Middle East. The powers-that-be, with the
participation of average Egyptians, destroyed him. He lives in exile in the US.
Consider Orhan Pamuk, a Nobel-Prize-winning novelist in "modern,
secular" Turkey. Pamuk merely mentioned the Armenian genocide. Pamuk was
criminally charged. His countrymen burned his books. Consider the stabbings,
hacking to death with machetes, and other murders of proponents of secular
government in contemporary Bangladesh. Consider
the fate of Raif Badawi, a Saudi man sentenced to ten years in prison and a
thousand lashes because, in his blog, he dared to say things like this,
"What increases my pain is the Islamist chauvinist arrogance which claims
that innocent blood, shed by barbarian, brutal minds under the slogan 'Allahu
Akbar,' means nothing."
In place of the self-examination and self-correction typical of
Judeo-Christian cultures, too many apologists have tried not to confront jihad,
but merely to redefine it. CAIR has money and power. It could put those
resources to use exposing and rejecting violent jihad. Instead, CAIR made a tawdry attempt to
pimp "jihad" as a synonym for "calisthenics" and
"making friends with Christians." CAIR was topped by the BBC, who
dubbed their TV show "My
Jihad," "a tender and funny love
story." I'm sure viewers can't wait to see the BBC romantic comedy,
"My Holocaust."
One must remind those relativists who wish to relative-ize away
1,400 years of jihad, that, yes, all humans, regardless of ethnicity or
religion, do destructive things. Motivations include mental illness, fear, and
greed for resources, power, or glory. We can't eliminate greed, fear, or
psychopathology, but we can tame them with civilized advances like the Geneva
Convention, diplomacy, and forensic psychiatry. The concept of jihad adds to an
already overburdened humanity another, completely unnecessary, and diabolically
seductive reason to kill and destroy. Shahids, or those who die in jihad, are
promised the highest paradise, multiple heavenly virgins, and the opportunity
to intercede on behalf of, and be granted divine favors for, seventy relatives.
The final nail in the relativist coffin on jihad: the chroniclers
Spencer quotes were themselves not sheltered innocents. These people had seen
conflict. The Roman and Persian Empires waged war for seven hundred years, on
the same territory jihadis first invaded. Both non-Muslim victims and Muslim
chroniclers announce that jihadis fought ruthlessly, destroyed totally, and
obeyed no previous military convention.
Thought police censors will claim, with zero evidence, that
Spencer's book is anti-Muslim. Repeat this as many times as necessary: Muslims
are themselves victims of jihad. Muslims are killed. Muslim culture is
destroyed. This Muslim-on-Muslim death and destruction is not new. Spencer's
book begins with the bloodbath that was proto-Islam. One Arab warlord after
another decided that he had a monopoly on Islam, and decided that his
neighboring tribe was deviant. Slaughter ensued, all in the name of jihad. The
killing was shockingly intimate. Muawiyah, founder of the Umayyad dynasty,
Muhammad's brother-in-law and distant cousin, murdered Aisha, Muhammad's widow.
One of the oldest copies of the Koran is said to be stained with the blood of
Uthman, the very caliph who first called for the Koran to be compiled. His
blood was shed by his fellow Muslims.
Immediately upon Muhammad's death, Khalid ibn Al Walid waged war
on anyone in Arabia who wasn't in line with emergent Islamic orthodoxy. He was
called "the drawn sword of Allah," "the friend of death,"
and his motto was, "We love death more than you love life." Khalid
betrayed and killed his fellow Muslim Malik, put his head in a cooking pot, and
raped his wife Layla "like a donkey." "I love the battlefield
more than I love my wedding night with a beautiful woman," he said. Khalid
had had many "wives." Normal people love life more than they love
death, and normal people enjoy making love more than they enjoy killing other
human beings. Indeed, the Koran itself, in verse 2:216 says that though
Islam "prescribes" fighting" "fighting is hateful" to
Muslims. A book exposing jihad is a gift to Muslims as much as it is a gift to
the rest of us.
Understanding the World's Greatest Source of Jew-Hatred
A sober examination of Islam's historical treatment of Jews.
January 30, 2020
Allon Friedman
[To order Andrew Bostom's new paperback edition of The
Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, CLICK HERE.]
During a public U.S. Congressional hearing held in April 2019,
data was presented from a worldwide survey performed between 2014 and 2017
by the Anti-Defamation League that found the 16 nations with the highest
prevalence of extreme antisemitism to all be Muslim countries in the Middle
East. In response to the presentation of these data, the ADL's Senior
Vice President for Policy Eileen Hershenov had this to say:
"vulnerable, marginalized communities have bigotry within
them."
If explaining away Muslim Jew-hatred as somehow a result of
vulnerability and marginalization in societies that are overwhelmingly Muslim
strikes one as troubling, well it should; especially if the person doing the
explaining represents an organization that claims "its timeless mission is
to protect the Jewish people." Any person with a healthy sense of
self-preservation might ponder other questions that arise from this case. Like,
for instance: Why is extreme antisemitism so ubiquitous in the Arab Muslim
world? Or: Why is a prominent Jewish advocacy organization so intent on
apologizing for Islamic Jew hatred?
Unfortunately, anyone searching for answers to these timely
questions is not going to find them anywhere in the public arena. In fact, a
conspiracy of sorts has prevailed on college campuses, in Hollywood, in the
establishment media, in think tanks, and in other cultural institutions, both
Left and Right, where honest and open discussion of Islamic anti-Semitism is
taboo because of the fear of social ostracism and professional suicide.
Shamefully, many Jews too often aid and abet this ugly and
dangerous conspiracy.
Enter Andrew Bostom, M.D., an Associate Professor of Family
Medicine at Brown University, who has just released a second (paperback)
edition of his magnum opus The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From
Sacred Texts to Solemn History. It is a desperately needed corrective to
the amnesia, ignorance, and self-destructive denial of reality that currently
plagues much of Western Civilization and its Jewish community when it comes to
Islam's historical treatment of Jews.
Full disclosure: I worked with Andrew as a research collaborator
and have remained friends since. Bostom drew on his professional
skills as a physician, medical researcher and epidemiologist to carefully
construct an understanding of the underpinnings of Jew-hatred within Islamic
theology and civilization. The empirical evidence Bostom provides is
so comprehensive and powerful that it hits the reader like a tsunami.
Bostom is very careful to let Islam’s core texts and its most renowned and
influential theologians, scholars, jurists, and leaders--from Islam’s inception
to the 21st century--speak for themselves on this matter, which makes the
overall argument even more persuasive. Perhaps inspired by his medical
training, the author also offers the reader dozens of "case studies"
culled from primary sources as well as third-party observers over disparate
eras and lands (some translated for the first time) that encapsulate how Jews,
identified in the Koran as the worst enemies of the Muslims, have suffered
immeasurably as dhimmis, or subjugated people, under Islamic rule up to
the present time.
The new edition also features an updated preface
that elegantly demonstrates how ancient antisemitic doctrines within
Islam have reverberated through the centuries to explain contemporary Muslim
antagonism and violence directed towards Jews. If there is any downside to this
book, it is that becoming so thoroughly informed about the predations suffered
by Jews throughout the ages can weigh heavily on the soul.
The author does, however, provide the blueprint for a constructive
way forward by highlighting the immediate post-World War II efforts of Jules
Isaac, a French historian and Holocaust survivor. Isaac, working with willing
Christian colleagues and directly appealing to two popes, helped catalyze a
movement that culminated in the Second Vatican Council and
the Nostra Aetate (1965) declaration, which was an unprecedented
and brutally honest document detailing the failings of the Church when it came
to the treatment of Jews. This movement ultimately reformed Christian teaching
about the Jews and greatly advanced Christian-Jewish relations.
Who should buy this book? Anyone who wants to understand the world
as it is today in an unvarnished presentation, free of the distortions of
political correctness; anyone who wants to understand the fundamental
underpinnings of the genocidal war against Israel; anyone who wants to
understand why Jews in Europe today are under siege. And anyone who wants
to save American Jewry as it stands at a precipice while Islamic Jew-hatred in
the world escalates frighteningly unchecked.
Allon Friedman, M.D., is a practicing physician and vice
president of the Jewish American Affairs Committee of
Indiana. JAACI is a leading advocate for Jews and Israel in Indiana
was instrumental in passing Indiana’s anti-BDS law, the second in the
nation. Dr. Friedman’s essays and editorials have been published locally as
well as in various media outlets across North America and Israel.
THE KORAN
BIBLE OF THE MUSLIM TERRORIST:
“The Wahhabis finance thousands of madrassahs
throughout the world where young boys are brainwashed into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers
for the petrodollar-flush Saudis and other emirs of the Persian Gulf.” AMIL IMANI
Koran 2:191
"s lay the unbelievers wherever you find them"
Koran 3:21 "Muslims must not take the infidels as friends"
Koran 5:33 "Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam"
Koran 8:12 "Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other
than the Koran"
Koran 8:60 " Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the
infidels"
Koran 8:65 "The unbelievers are stupid, urge all Muslims to fight
them"
Koran 9:5 "When the opportunity arises, k ill the infidels wherever you
find them"
Koran 9:123 "Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood"
Koran 22:19 "Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron
rods, boiling water, melt their skin and bellies"
Koran 47:4 "Do not hanker for peace with the infidels, behead them when
you catch them".
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