Religious beliefs take a beating in today’s politically correct world

Issues of religious freedom have been in the news a good bit lately. Primarily, these news events occur when someone finds their religious beliefs in conflict with another person’s secular desire. A baker or a florist who regularly sells their wares to gay/lesbian customers declines to bake a cake or make floral arrangements for their wedding because their religious beliefs do not approve homosexual marriage. Despite the fact that there are many, or if not many, at least some alternatives to those bakers or florists, those who refused to provide services were persecuted and some driven out of business by the uproar the offended gay/lesbian couples instigated because these people held to their religious beliefs.

More recently, a county clerk in Kentucky refused to sign marriage licenses of gay/lesbian couples after a court ruled that treating gay/lesbian couples differently than heterosexual couples is discrimination, and therefore illegal. A judge jailed the clerk for refusing to act, despite the commonly observed practice by judges of using the least radical punishment for such problems first, and then proceeding to more stringent punishment and ultimately jail as the last resort.

This last episode is a much different situation than those previously mentioned, as it involves a government employee refusing to do her sworn duty. But the attention it received and the way the judge handled the clerk does illustrate the size of the schism between people following their religious beliefs and social preferences or legal mandates.

If there were options other than punishing these Americans for following their religious beliefs, why were bakers, florists, and others who have had similar misfortunes singled out for what may rightly be termed persecution. This point is particularly relevant in a nation in which the first right among four specifically enumerated rights in the first of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights is the free exercise of religion?

It is also relevant to note the degree to which these events attract media coverage, which highlights how unpopular traditional religious practices have become to the media and many Americans in the 21^st century.

Combine a media mindset apparently hostile to religious practices with a tendency to try to tear down Republican presidential candidates and you find Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson being given rough treatment after saying that a Muslim shouldn’t be President of the United States. "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that," he said a while back on NBC's "Meet the Press."

A bit later in the interview, he said, when asked about a Muslim running for Congress, that it would depend upon the individual in question. "Congress is a different story, but it depends on who that Muslim is and what their policies are, just like it depends on what anybody else is," Dr. Carson said. "If there's somebody who is of any faith but they say things and their life has been consistent with things that will elevate this nation and make it possible for everybody to succeed and bring peace and harmony, then I'm with them."

Host Chuck Todd also asked him whether a president's faith should matter to voters. "I guess it depends on what that faith is," he said. "If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the Constitution, no problem." Asked whether he thinks Islam is consistent with the Constitution, Carson said: "No, I don't – I do not."

Clearly, Dr. Carson believes that anyone subjugating their religious beliefs, whatever religious beliefs they may hold, to the requirements of our Constitution is the key element.

He appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” last Sunday where reporter Martha Raddatz grilled him on that same statement, either ignorant of his other comments further defining his view on the issue, or unwilling to acknowledge them. Here is part of that interview:

Raddatz: “I want to go back to your controversial comments on the possibility of a Muslim president. The question seemed quite clear. The question was: Should a president’s faith matter? You said, I guess it depends on what that faith is. The question was: So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the Constitution, and you said no, I do not. I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that. 

Do you stand by that now?”

Carson: “Well, first of all, you know, what I said is on a transcript and it’s there for anybody.”

Raddatz: “I’m reading the transcript, Dr. Carson, that’s exactly what you said.”

Carson: “No – read the paragraph before that where I said anybody, doesn’t matter what their religious background, if they accept American values and principles and are willing to subjugate their religious beliefs to our Constitution. I have no problem with them.

Why do you guys always leave that part out, I wonder?”

Political correctness – or opposing unpopular things in favor of popular things – is the order of the day, in life and in the media.

Democrats have never done what 47 Republican senators did to Obama

Dissatisfied with President Barack Obama’s approach to Iran’s continued march toward acquiring nuclear weapons, 47 Republican Senators signed an open letter that was sent to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Arkansas freshman Sen. Tom Cotton authored the letter, which was signed by all but seven Senate Republicans.

This action has been termed “unprecedented,” and has brought forth the wrath of Democrats in Congress and the administration. Vice President Joe Biden, for example, declared that "In 36 years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which senators wrote directly to advise another country … that the President does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them.”

Secretary of State John Kerry expressed similar sentiments: “This letter ignores more than two centuries of precedent in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy,” and went a step further by saying that in his 29 years in the Senate he had “never heard of or even heard of being proposed anything comparable to this.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, “Republicans are undermining our commander-in-chief while empowering the ayatollahs. We should always have robust debate about foreign policy, but it's unprecedented for one political party to directly intervene in an international negotiation with the sole goal of embarrassing the president of the United States.”

Other criticisms charged Republicans with trying to undercut the president by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without first consulting the White House, and then by sending this letter to subvert an agreement that would avoid war, as MSNBC’s Mika Brzenzinski charged on the Morning Joe program. And the pièce de résistance: the New York Daily News cover calling the Republican letter signers “traitors.”

Some law professors, pundits and news media charge that the Republican senators have committed treason by violating the Logan Act of 1799, which states: "Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

And now for the rest of the story.

Predictably, there is far more heat than warranted here, Treason? No. Traitors? No. Gross amounts of hyperbole? Absolutely! Deliberate deception! Of course.

The Logan Act is not a factor here because, first, many legal authorities believe the Act is constitutional, as it infringes on the free speech guaranteed citizens by the U.S. Constitution, but also because the senators represent one of two houses of a co-equal branch of government, and therefore acted with the authority of their position, which also allows them to take a part in agreements with other nations.

Most important, however, is that despite the breathless overstatements by critics of the letter-writers, this action is not at all unprecedented, and in fact some of the loudest critics have themselves indulged in similar acts.

Take Secretary of State John Kerry, for instance. In 1971 during negotiations by President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger trying to reach an end to the Vietnam War, then-Sen. Kerry, D-Mass., as leader of the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, travelled to Paris to meet face-to-face with the North Vietnamese delegation, which was at the time an enemy combatant nation.

In 2007 then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., met fact-to-face with Bashar al-Assad while President George W. Bush was in negotiations with the Syrian leader.

Another Speaker, Jim Wright, D-Tex., talked face-to-face with Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega in 1987.

Senator James Abourezk, D-S.D., secretly met with Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat in 1973.

In 2006 Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Arlen Spector R-Pa., (who soon after became a Democrat) traveled to Damascus when the policy of the Bush administration was to isolate the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The Left has a problem remembering these inconvenient facts, which are probably contained in emails at the State Department or the IRS.

Furthermore, the letter was an open letter, not a private communication and presented facts about our constitutional system the Iranians likely did not know, not a negotiation.

The letter explained that any agreement between President Obama and the Iranian leaders binds only President Obama; future presidents will not be bound by it. Only treaties ratified by the Senate bind the U.S. That is a significant point.

Further, the negotiations may well involve the president unilaterally undoing sanctions against Iran passed by the Congress. That is a no-no; he does not have authority to do that.

It is certainly fair to criticize the fact that the message was presented in a letter addressed to Iranian leaders, instead of, say, being run as an op-ed in one or more national newspapers. However, that is about the worst aspect of this molehill called Mount Treason.

Paris attacks again call attention to the problem of radical Islam

Because they ridiculed the Islamic prophet, 12 employees of the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed in an organized military-style attack on its office in Paris by three terrorists with military weapons. In another event, a gunman entered a kosher grocery in the city and took several people hostage. In all, 17 innocent persons were murdered in the violence.

The AP reported the following item on January 9 that was not widely published: “Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested Friday is the ‘deadliest massacre’ in the history of Boko Haram.” One official said most of the victims were children, women and the elderly, who were unable to run fast enough to escape the savage attack.

The U.S. is quite familiar with Islamic terrorism, but over the years since September 11, 2001 the level of violence of subsequent episodes of has blessedly not been on the same large scale as the 9-11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 innocents. Which is not to say it has been a level that we can, or will, accept.

Radical Islamic terrorism is a subject many prefer not to address. To some, it is like whistling past the graveyard; if we ignore it, maybe it will go away. Still others refuse to confront it for the reality that it is. But Islamic terrorism is a growing problem in our world, perhaps the most serious thing we have to face. Certainly, it is an urgent problem.

Muslim terrorists finally have done something that produced a substantial response. A huge group gathered in Paris to commemorate the victims of last week’s terrorist activity at the hands of Islamic radicals and to show solidarity against terrorism. Reports put the total number of participants between 1.5 million and 3 million. Among those attending were 40 world leaders, among whom were French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Italy's Matteo Renzi, Mariano Rajoy of Spain, Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, and Jordan's King Abdullah II and Queen Rania. Notably, both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were there.

Conspicuously absent was the leader of the free world, President Barack Obama. Instead of joining the other world leaders who were able to make the trip, Mr. Obama stayed home. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris, not for the march, but was meeting with Bernard Cazeneuve, the French Minister of the Interior. U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley did participate in the march. Where were senior cabinet members, like Secretary of State John Kerry, the most senior cabinet officer?

Mr. Obama did find the time to visit the French Embassy in Washington, sign a book of condolences, and speak with diplomats last Thursday, and at a Friday appearance in Knoxville, TN he expressed solidarity with the people of France, and offered assistance.

This behavior is in keeping with Mr. Obama’s proclivity for avoiding any connection to the term “Islamic terrorism,” in either word or deed. While nearly everyone else notes that the terrorists are “radical” Muslims, and that the radical element is only a fraction of the more than 1 billion Muslims wordwide, Mr. Obama refuses to connect these terrorist acts to Islam at all, saying that Islam does not allow such brutality.

It cannot be ignored, however, that those who carry out these savage, cowardly attacks believe themselves to be Muslims, and frequently shout “Allahu Akbar” (God [Allah] is the Greatest) when murdering innocent people, and the terrorists attacking Charlie Hebdo added, “We have avenged the prophet.”

Whatever the basis of Mr. Obama’s reluctance to adequately identify these acts as those of radical Muslims – he called the killing of 13 U.S. military personnel at Ft Hood by a Muslim psychiatrist praising Allah “workplace violence” – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, himself a Muslim, has no such reluctance.

As reported by CNN, President el-Sisi has called for a "religious revolution," asking Muslim leaders to help in the fight against extremism when addressing the group during the celebration of the birthday of the Prophet Muḥammad. "I say and repeat, again, that we are in need of a religious revolution. You imams are responsible before Allah. The entire world is waiting on you. The entire world is waiting for your word ... because the Islamic world is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost. And it is being lost by our own hands," he said.

If Islam is a religion of peace, if Islam does not endorse the sort of barbarism demonstrated in these and other terrorist attacks perpetrated by people claiming to be Muslims, then Islam has to take the lead in putting an end to it.

The United States must insure that Muslims are treated like everyone else in the U.S., and not give them special treatment, good or bad. We have to take a much more proactive role in wiping this scourge from the face of the Earth by rooting out the terror cells in America and focusing on the hotbeds of Islamist extremism around the world.

Muslim Persecution Of Christians, November 2014

Both in the Islamic world and the Western world, Muslims continued to attack and slaughter Christians.
In Pakistan, "A mob accused of burning alive a Christian couple in an industrial kiln in Pakistan allegedly wrapped a pregnant mother in cotton so she would catch fire more easily, according to family members who witnessed the attack," reported NBC News:

Sajjad Maseeh, 27, and his wife Shama Bibi, 24, were set upon by at least 1,200 people after rumors circulated that they had burned verses from the Quran, family spokesman Javed Maseeh told NBC News via telephone late Thursday. Their legs were also broken so they couldn't run away.
"They picked them up by their arms and legs and held them over the brick furnace until their clothes caught fire," he said. "And then they threw them inside the furnace."
Bibi, a mother of four who was four months pregnant, was wearing an outfit that initially didn't burn, according to Javed Maseeh. The mob removed her from over the kiln and wrapped her up in cotton to make sure the garments would be set alight.

Shama Bibi (left) and Sajjad Maseeh, a Christian couple and parents of four children, were burned to death by a Muslim lynch mob in Pakistan because of a false blasphemy accusation.

Discussing this latest atrocity against Pakistan's Christian minorities, an AFP report states:

Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in the majority Muslim country, with even unproven allegations often prompting mob violence.
Anyone convicted, or even just accused, of insulting Islam, risks a violent and bloody death at the hands of vigilantes.
A Christian woman [Asia Bibi] has been on death row since November 2010 after she was found guilty of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed during an argument with a Muslim woman.
An elderly British man with severe mental illness, sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan in January, was shot by a prison guard last month.

Two days after the Christian couple were burned alive, a policeman in Pakistan hacked a man to death for allegedly making blasphemous remarks against Islam.
About the Christian couple, Dr. Nazir S. Bhatti, President of the Pakistan Christian Congress, wrote a letter to U.S. President Obama expressing surprise that the U.S. did not even bother to condemn this crime:

It is surprising that neither US Administration under your honor nor US State Department even bothered to condemn this horrific crime of burning live of Christian couple by a mob living in country named Islamic Republic of Pakistan which is receiving billions of aid of US taxpayers.
I would appeal your honor to put pressure on government of Pakistan to end misuse of blasphemy laws against Christian, Ahamadiyyia and other religious minorities and condition US Aid to Pakistan on human rights and repeal of blasphemy laws.

Meanwhile, in America itself, in Oklahoma, Jimmy Stepney, a Muslim, stabbed Jerome Bullock, a Christian, after Stepney had said that Muslims need to "step up" beheadings. According to Koco5 News:

The [police] report went on to say Stepney had been making comments about beheading people.
"We were watching the news," said Bullock. "He said he felt like more Muslims need to step up to the plate and do certain thing. He was talking about beheading people."

The severity of the plight of Christians in the Middle East was further underscored by Dr. Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, who wrote:

Russia is currently considering the possibility of initiating a draft decision of the UN Human Rights Council on the protection of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa. Russian experts are now working on this document.[…]
The scale of the problems demands the coordination of international efforts to protect Christians in the Middle East.
Further initiatives, new measures and relevant discussions aimed at finding durable solutions in this regard are strongly needed. Of course, we believe that Europe, including the UK, should make its contribution to these efforts, taking into account the Christian roots of the European civilization, which are now often forgotten for the sake of political correctness.[…]
The fate of the region's religious minorities is of the greatest concern. The mass exodus of Christians, who have been an integral part of the Middle Eastern mosaic for centuries, is particularly troubling.

The rest of November's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity:

Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches

Bangladesh: Two Christian pastors from the Faith Bible Church of God were arrested for preaching the Gospel to Muslims. They could face two years in prison if convicted for "hurting religious sentiments" and luring Muslims to convert by offering them money. The pastors deny both charges. Police arrested the pastors and 41 other people, including Muslims, after a throng of Muslims disrupted a house meeting. According to a witness: "More than 100 Muslims headed by local Jamaat-e-Islami party members and Muslim clerics gathered at the house and started barking questions at the pastors—why did they propagate Christianity in the locality and convert some of them," and who gave them permission to preach to Muslims. "The pastors replied that it did not take any permission from any authority to propagate any religion and convert people to any religion. Suddenly the Muslims became apoplectic with rage, tried to pick a fight and started jabbing the pastors' faces."

Egypt: Father Timothy Shakar, priest of St. Mina Church in Port Said, confirmed that two homemade bombs were planted near the St. Mina Church but caused no injuries, or losses of life or property. Police searched other churches in the region for more bombs.

Germany: Nine men who had earlier broken into, vandalized, and robbed several Christian churches in the Cologne area—including by stealing money from the collection boxes and liturgical vessels—were caught during a massive raid. Apparently, all of the arrested are German by nationality, but Muslim by background and heritage. Some were also identified as "Salafis"—especially fundamentalist Muslims—connected to international terrorist organizations. Some had even raised hundreds of thousands of Euros from native Germans to support overseas "charities," the proceeds of which actually went to terrorist groups such as ISIS.

Iraq: As cries of "Allahu Akbar" emanated from surrounding mosques, Islamic State militants blew up yet another Christian church -- St. George's Church and its associated nunnery in the city of Mosul -- along with other non-Sunni sites. Separately, after breaking the cross from off the dome of the St. Ephrem Church dome (before and after pictures here) and selling its pews and other furnishings, the IS transformed the church into a mosque and council seat for the jihadis.

East Jerusalem: Despite constant and ever bolder attacks on a church, police refuse to respond to pleas for help from the Christian congregation. According to Morning Star News, "The attacks, driven by both intent to seize property and opposition to Christianity, have been mounted by young men with ties to Palestinian militants who for more than three months have been trying to force Living Bread Church from its rented building. Church pastor Karen Dunham and others have filed at least eight police reports about the assaults." The most recent incident took place on November 5, when the gas tank of a car owned by a church volunteer was filled with sugar. On November 2, a car owned by one of the pastor's relatives was stolen. And on October 16, three American Christians were injured while trying to repair a metal security door: A crowd of Palestinian men attacked them with box cutters, sticks, clubs and pepper spray. According to the church's attorney, authorities "have their [the assailants'] pictures, they have their names, they even have their national ID numbers, and still they do nothing.... The level of brute force compared to the level of lack of response of the police force there is pretty shocking.... It almost seems like if someone is going to go in and murder her [Dunham], that no one is going to lift a finger."

Malaysia: Approximately 70 local residents in Petaling Jaya protested the construction of a church. They claimed the growing number of Christian places of worship in the area is part of an attempt to evangelize and convert Muslims to Christianity. An NGO, the local branch of Pertubuhan Sahabat, supported the claims of the Muslims. They argued that there are three churches in the vicinity, although close to 70 percent of the residents in the area are Muslims. According to a spokesman, "Even before the church is built, flyers on Christianity have been distributed to our homes, and this could confuse our children and divert them from the path of Islam." The vacant plot was previously occupied by squatters, a car park and several food stalls. Another local Muslim added "None of our neighbours are Christians, we can vouch for that... it is an insult to Muslims to allow a church to be built here, but none of our representatives seem to have the time to listen to us." One demonstrator hurled large rocks at the temporary steel fence around the vacant plot.

Jihadi Slaughter of Christians

Kenya: Members of neighboring Somalia's Islamic group Al Shabaab—"the Youth"—hijacked a bus carrying 60 passengers in the town of Mandera, near Kenya's border with Somalia. They singled out and massacred 28 non-Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom were Christian. According to an eyewitness, "When we got down, passengers were separated according to Somali and non-Somalis. The non-Somalis were ordered to read some verses of the holy Koran, and those who failed to read were ordered to lie down. One by one they were shot in the head at point blank range."

Nigeria: On November 10, a suicide bomb attack on a Christian secondary school as students gathered for morning assembly killed at least 47 people. The Islamic group Boko Haram— meaning: "Western education is forbidden"—is believed to be behind the blast. In a separate incident, Christians from the predominantly Christian city of Mubi in Adamawa state were tortured and killed after Boko Haram took control of the town. Churches and homes were torched throughout the city, which was renamed Madinat al-Islam, or "the City of Islam." In yet another separate incident, Boko Haram militants raided the mostly Christian town of Shani. According to a resident speaking to Reuters, "They rode on motorcycles and were more than 30 men. They started throwing bombs into houses... then the Boko Haram fired shots at people fleeing. They set ablaze the police station, houses and a telecom mast... I saw people fleeing, some bodies on the ground." Reuters continues: "The Sunni jihadist movement is fighting to revive a medieval Islamic caliphate in Nigeria's north."

Pakistani Persecution

A few days after the Christian couple, mentioned earlier, was burned alive, a 35-year-old Christian father of five known as "Mithu" was arrested on false charges by police and tortured to death in prison. According to the deceased's brother-in-law: "It was a fake allegation, because the raiding party failed to recover any contraband from Mithu's person and his house... On the morning of Nov. 22, we were informed by Ilyas Gill, a local councilor, that Mithu had died in police custody because of heart failure.... Young Christian men are made scapegoats to show police performance while the real culprits are carrying out their illegal activities right under the police's nose." Morning Star News adds: "Area police routinely round up young, impoverished Christians on false charges of drug peddling and bootlegging, and then force their families to pay heavy bribes in return for their release... family elders had seen signs of torture on the body..."
Christian families in a Punjabi village were forced to flee after a Christian man married a Muslim woman—an act forbidden by Islamic law. According to the Pakistani report, "The Muslims in this village became enraged when this occurred and began threatening them.... When the news of the marriage was learned, the Muslims in Sahiwal attacked Shahab's [the Christian husband's] family as well as other Christian families in the village. The Muslims demanded that Ruksana [the Muslim wife] be returned immediately, according to Sharia which prohibits Muslim women from marrying a man from another religion…. the entire Muslim community was threatening to kill Shahab's father and all of the village's Christians.... The Christians' pleas for help from the local police were all in vain."
And Qaiser Ayub, a 40-year-old professor of Christian background, was arrested and charged with insulting Islam's prophet Muhammad. The computer science professor had been a fugitive avoiding the police since 2011, when he was first accused of having written blasphemous comments on his blog.

Dhimmitude: Generic Contempt and Hostility

Denmark: In an apparent replication of the Islamic world's modus operandi, Muslim refugees in the European nation are persecuting Christian refugees. According to 10news.dk, "Christian asylum seekers are repeatedly exposed to everything from harassment to threats and physical abuse by other refugees in the asylum centers, simply because they have converted from Islam to Christianity." According to Niels Eriksen Nyman, who led the study, "There are certainly many more cases around the country than the ones we hear about in the church. I hate to say it, but I'm afraid that on some of the asylum centers there are some very unhealthy control mechanisms when the staff turns their back... I refuse to support Islamophobia, but we have a serious problem here." Two recent examples: "An eight year old Christian at the Center Sandholm was bullied and beaten by the larger Arab boys on their way to school. Now the boy nolonger [sic] dares to go to school. On the island Bornholm, somebody had tampered with a Christian asylum seeker's bike so that he crashed and broke both hands."

Egypt: The Islamic State called on its followers to take the jihad to Egypt. Abu Mus'ab al-Maqdisi, a leader in the Islamic State, said in a statement titled "Advice to Egypt's Mujahidin" that "It is necessary to take the battle to Cairo, until the Sinai is safeguarded from the apostates [reference to Egyptian government] and becomes a rear base [qaeda] from which to expand the jihad." He also called on the jihadis in Egypt to "target the Copts," the nation's indigenous, Christian minority: "For targeting them, following them, and killing them is one of the main ways to serve the cause of our virtuous male and female hostages of the tyrants."

Iraq: Christian homes in Tel Isqof were looted by Kurds who, after fighting the Islamic State, took control of the area on August 17. According to Agenzia Fides, "The city of Tel Isqof was occupied on August 7 by jihadist militias who already in June had conquered Mosul. Faced with the advancing of jihadists, the civilian population, mainly Christians, had fled to the autonomous Region of Iraqi Kurdistan, leaving the city deserted. Ten days later [on August 17], with a counter-offensive the Kurdish Peshmerga had regained control of the city. But it is precisely since then that [Christian] residents periodically return to the city to check the status of their homes, and acknowledge that the doors of a growing number of homes and businesses have been forced and property looted: money and jewelry, technical equipment and electronic instruments." As in the Islamic State, most Kurds are Sunni Muslims.

Islamic State: IS issued a document breaking down the purchase prices of Christian and Yazidi women being sold as sex-slaves. Apparently these enslaved unfortunates are priced based on age— the youngest being the most expensive. The breakdown is as follows (with USD equivalency in brackets): 40-50 years old: 50,000 dinars [$43]; 30-40 years old: 75,000 dinars [$64]; 20-30 years old: 100,000 dinars [$86]; 10-20 years old: 150,000 dinars [$129]; 9 years old: 200,000 dinars [$172].

Spain: Real Madrid, a professional football (soccer) team, stripped the traditional Christian cross from its club crest as part of a deal with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi. "It is believed the European champions' new crest, minus the Christian cross, was created so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities in the United Arab Emirates, where a marketing drive will take place," wrote the Telegraph. Club president Florentino Perez said, "This agreement will help the club to keep conquering the hearts of followers in the United Arab Emirates."

Syria: As of November, Raqqa, which once had approximately 1,500 Christian families, had only 23 Christian families remaining in it—the others were driven out or killed by the Islamic State. Those few remaining were unable to leave the city for lack of resources or for reasons of age and health. On November 16 they were told that they must pay $535, an exorbitant sum (human sex-slaves are being sold for as little as $43). "In all likelihood Christian families, impoverished by the war, will not be able to pay the tax and will have to leave their homes" or convert to Islam, as many elderly, debilitated Christians unable to flee have already done.

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.

It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.

Beheadings Of Infidels, Halal Sex Products And "Muslims Don't Like Dogs"

A Month of Islam in Europe: June 2014

Austria accused Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of stirring up trouble on June 19, when he urged thousands of cheering supporters in Vienna to reject "assimilation."

Erdogan was rallying support for his candidacy ahead of Turkish presidential elections in August, and expatriate Turks have become a significant bloc of voters after changes to the electoral system now allow them to cast votes abroad.
Around 268,000 people of Turkish origin live in Austria, according to government figures, of whom nearly 115,000 are Turkish citizens.
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, who had expressly warned Erdogan not to undermine efforts to integrate Turks into Austrian society, criticized the latest comments:

"These show very clearly that the Turkish premier has brought the election campaign to our country and created unrest with this. We reject this. And I can only say that respect for a host country looks clearly different."

In Graz, the second-largest city in Austria, police on June 5 arrested a 41-year-old Islamic preacher from Chechnya who is believed to be involved in efforts to send Austrians to war in the Middle East.
State prosecutor Hansjoerg Bacher said that the imam is thought to be behind the radicalization and recruitment of eight Chechens resident in Austria, four of whom have died in fighting in Syria.

In Bulgaria, the Kardjali District Court on June 16 rejected a property claim lodged by the office of the Chief Mufti, the spiritual leader of Bulgaria's Muslims, to be awarded ownership of the building housing the Regional Historical Museum. The court found that there was no basis for the claim, and ordered the representatives of the Muslim community to pay 91,062 leva ($63,000) in costs to the state.
This case was the latest in a series of lawsuits by the Chief Mufti's office, filed under the Religious Denominations Act, which allows applications by recognized religious denominations to be awarded property believed to be historically theirs.
The building was originally intended to serve as a Muslim religious school, and it was funded in part by donations from the local Muslim community in 1920s and 1930s. However, the building was never used as a madrassa. Instead, it was nationalized during Bulgaria's communist era and became a museum.
Lawyers for the Kardjali district administration argued that the Chief Mufti's office is not the heir to the local Muslim community because at the time there was no such registered legal entity.
In the southern Bulgarian town of Peshtera, residents are angry over the local mosque's powerful loudspeakers, which are blasting the Islamic call to prayer, the adhan, several times a day.
According to Radio FOCUS, the town is a model of multicultural tolerance, but residents are increasingly irritated by the adhan; the "silent discontent may escalate to petitions and protests," the radio said.

In Britain, a new television channel aimed exclusively at British Muslims, British Muslim TV (BMTV), was launched in early June. The channel, operating under the slogan "Confidently Muslim, Comfortably British," is airing on the British Sky digital platform; the programming content is being exclusively funded and made in the UK.
BMTV will compete with other channels, such as Islam Channel, one of the UK's most prominent and popular English language Muslim satellite channels; Noor TV, Peace TV and Iqra TV, all of which have a South Asian focus and are usually broadcast in Urdu or Bangladeshi; and to Shia Muslim focused channels such as Hidayat TV and Ahlebait TV.
Speaking to Al Arabiya news, the marketing director for BMTV, Wasim Akhtar, said that BMTV aims to be different from the other Muslim channels by being "inclusive of all different views and open to all different types of Muslims. So the channel isn't just about issues of faith, it's about practical Muslim life here in Britain."
In a trial at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales [Old Bailey], a jury heard how police found 38-year-old Tahira Ahmed after she was decapitated in her west London home, allegedly by her husband, 41-year-old Naveed Ahmed. Tahira had been stabbed, had both her arms broken, and her head cut off. The couple, who have two children aged six and 12, had been married for 14 years.
Also in London, police launched an investigation into the origins of a sign telling dog owners to stay out of a park because it is "an Islamic area now" and "Muslims don't like dogs."
Meanwhile, it emerged that taxpayer money could be used to help fund a new mosque for the Muslim community in Belfast, according to Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. The move came after a local pastor named James McConnell denounced Islam as "Satanic" and a "doctrine spawned in hell."
McGuinness said he and First Minister Peter Robinson, who visited the Islamic Centre in south Belfast in June, "absolutely accepted" that the 4,000-strong Muslim community "is entitled to a mosque, if a proper site can be found which is suitable for them."
McGuinness said McConnell's remarks were "shameful" and could affect investments in Belfast. "This will impact, if not handled correctly by us, on our prospects of attracting foreign direct investment," McGuinness said. "The story travelled all round the world, and I think that it was very damaging."
In a bid to reverse negative stereotypes of Muslims in the UK, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in Devon and Cornwall in southwestern England launched an advertising campaign in June to promote "positive awareness of Islam."
The campaign involved banners displaying Muslim messages of peace on a fleet of more than 100 city buses. Under the slogan of "loyalty, freedom, equality, respect, peace" the community also launched a website: LoveForAllHatredForNone.org.
A regional president of the group, Muhammad Noman, said: "A true Muslim can never raise his voice in hatred against his fellow citizens, nor against the ruling authority or government of the time. He should remain loyal and fully abide by the laws of the land of which he is a subject."
More news about Islam in Britain during June 2014 can be found here.

In Cyprus on June 3, Turkish Cypriot mufti Talip Atalay recited a prayer at the reopening ceremony of the Taht-el kale mosque in Nicosia, which had been closed for more than 50 years. Atalay visited the mosque after an invitation from the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos II as part of the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process promoted by the Swedish government.

In the Czech Republic, President Miloš Zeman refused to apologize for comments he made during a speech at the Israeli Embassy in Prague on May 26 at a reception to celebrate Israel's Independence Day.
Quoting several verses from the Koran that call on Muslims to kill Jews, Zeman said that Islam was to blame for the attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels that killed four people. He also said:

"There is a term, political correctness. This term I consider to be a euphemism for political cowardice. Therefore, let me not be cowardly."

The new Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC], Iyad Ameen Madani, condemned Zeman's speech, saying, "It is only appropriate that President Miloš Zeman apologizes to the millions of Muslims worldwide for his deeply offensive and hateful anti-Islam statements."
An OIC statement said:

"The Secretary General reiterated that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance and that terrorism should not be equated to any race or religion; a stance upheld by all major UN texts on the subject of countering terrorism. He added that the OIC countries share a profound respect for all religions and condemn any message of hatred and intolerance."

On June 10, a spokesman for the Czech government said Zeman would not be apologizing for his statements. "President Zeman definitely does not intend to apologize. For the president would consider it blasphemy to apologize for the quotation of a sacred Islamic text."
The Gates of Vienna blog summed it up this way: "As far as I am aware, Miloš Zeman is the first Western head of state ever to tell the OIC to go jump in a lake. So this is an historic occasion."

In Denmark, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) revealed that at least 100 Danish jihadists (both male and female) have left Denmark to fight in Syria, and that at least 15 of them have been killed.
The information was made public during a June 23 seminar entitled, "Syria and the Danish Prevention Model," organized by the PET's Center for Terror Analysis (CTA). Some 100 representatives from the Danish police, civil society and the media attended the event.
According to the CTA, the majority of Danish jihadists are young Sunni Muslims (aged 16-25), including Danish converts to Islam. The CTA said most of the jihadists have links to Islamic communities in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense.

"Those returning from the conflict have been trained in military skills that can be used to carry out a terrorist attack in Denmark or against Danish interests abroad," CTA said. "They can also use their status to recruit new members to the group and new warriors to the conflict."

On June 14, Danish police raided a mosque in the Vibevej district of Copenhagen after a passerby allegedly saw weapons being carried into the complex. Four men were arrested during the operation.
On June 5, Denmark issued an international arrest warrant for four jihadists who were filmed shooting at effigies of six prominent Danish critics of Islam.
In the video, which was recorded in Syria and first surfaced in August 2013, the men fired their guns at effigies of former PET secret agent Morten Storm, free speech advocate Lars Hedegaard, former MP Naser Khader, the imam Ahmed Akkari, former prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
Danish authorities said that under Danish anti-terror laws the shootings are illegal; they also conceded that some of the jihadists may already be dead.
Meanwhile, Denmark's largest mosque opened on June 19 in the Rovsingsgade district of Copenhagen after receiving a 150 million kroner (€20.1 million, $27.2 million) endowment from Qatar.
Not a single Danish politician of note attended the inauguration ceremony of the 6,700-square-meter (72,000-square-foot) complex, which houses a mosque, a cultural center, a television studio and a fitness center.

In Finland, the Security Intelligence Service (SUPO) on June 19 said it was investigating a suspected Finnish female jihadist who posed with weapons and published threats against Shia Muslims on Facebook.
The photo uploaded to Facebook shows a burqa-clad figure posing with an assault rifle, and brandishing what is claimed to be a suicide bomb. A comment on the page—written in Finnish—says the woman has come to Syria because "there are lots of Shias to kill."
On June 12, a spokesman for SUPO revealed that around 40 people have travelled from Finland to Syria to join Islamist groups there. He also said that around 200 individuals in Finland are believed to be at risk of radicalization.
On June 9, Finnish media reported the death of a 23-year-old jihadist from Espoo, the second-largest city in Finland, who had been fighting in Syria since December 2012. The man, of Somali background, had moved to Finland at the age of two. If the death is confirmed, he would be the third Finnish citizen to die in the fighting in Syria.

In France, Prime Minister Manuel Valls on June 3 increased the government's estimate of the number of French nationals fighting in Syria to 800, including about 30 who have died in the conflict.
Valls told BFMTV that these jihadists pose an unprecedented threat to France. "We have never before faced a challenge of this kind," Valls said. "It is without any doubt the most serious threat we face. We have to ensure the surveillance of hundreds and hundreds of French or European individuals who are today fighting in Syria."

In Iceland, the head of the Muslim Association of Iceland, Ibrahim Sverrir Agnarsson, on June 2 said that final preparations are being made for the design of the country's first mosque, set to be built on a plot of land in the Sogamýri district of Reykjavík.
The future of mosque has been in doubt since May 23, when the leader of the Progressive Party in Reykjavík, Sveinbjörg Birna Sveinbjörnsdóttir, said she wanted to reverse the city council's controversial decision to grant the plot of land to the Muslims free of charge. She now says the issue should be voted on in a public referendum. After her remarks, support for the Progressive Party in Reykjavík increased and the party secured two seats in municipal elections that were held on May 31.
The founder of the Muslim Association, Salman Tamimi, said he would file a lawsuit against individuals who left anti-mosque comments on an online article about the mosque controversy published by the newspaper Visir on June 1. Tamimi's lawyer, Helga Vala Helgadóttir, said it was important to take a stand against hate speech.

In Italy, authorities on June 17 said the Italian Navy had rescued almost 600 migrants from boats in the Strait of Sicily between Italy and Africa as part of the Mare Nostrum ["Our Sea"] search and rescue operation, launched in October 2013.
On June 9, roughly 1,300 migrants were ushered to safety at the merchant port of Taranto after being rescued at sea off the coast of Sicily.
More than 50,000 migrants crossed to Italy during the first six months of 2014, more than the total for the whole of 2013.

A jihadist from Luxembourg who died in Syria in December 2013 was claimed as a martyr for ISIS on June 17. A tweet from ISIS described a man identified as "Luxembourg national Abu Huthaifa" as the "first martyr for ISIS from the second richest country in the world."
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn confirmed in May 2014 that two people from the Grand Duchy had joined militants in Syria. One of them was originally from Kosovo, and another was of North African origin. Both were killed, including Abu Huthaifa. Why ISIS was just now claiming his martyrdom remains unclear.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch intelligence service AIVD on June 30 released a new report entitled, "Transformation of Jihadism in the Netherlands," which states that about 130 Dutch jihadists have travelled to Syria, and that nearly 30 have since returned. Approximately 14 Dutch jihadists have died on the battlefield. Most of the Dutch jihadists have joined up with ISIS.

The Dutch-Turkish jihadist known as Yilmaz is one of about 130 Dutch jihadists who have traveled to Syria.

On June 21, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, accused the government of being "asleep" and "naïve" for failing to understand the size of the threat posed by Muslim radicals in the Netherlands. "The threat to the Netherlands is now greater than ever, even more than ten years ago with the Hofstad Group [an Islamist terrorist organization of mostly young Dutch Muslims of mainly North African ancestry], Wilders said. "We now have hundreds of jihadists and thousands of sympathizers. This naïve Cabinet's inaction is inviting an attack in the Netherlands."
Foreign Affairs Minister Frans Timmermans on June 16 told the Dutch Parliament that the government was taking "various measures," both in terms of criminal law and administrative law, to prevent Dutch nationals joining up with groups such as ISIS.
Also on June 16, the newspaper Volkskrant reported that AIVD had given the Turkish government the names of more than 100 young men and women who Dutch authorities believe may be planning on going to Syria. The paper said Turkey has agreed to detain and deport them if they attempt to cross the Turkish border en route to Syria.
On June 19, Abdoe Khoulani, a member of the Party of Unity (PvdE), a fundamentalist Muslim political party based in The Hague, expressed support for ISIS on his Facebook page. He wrote: "Long Live ISIS. And insha'Allah [Allah willing] on to Baghdad to fight the riff-raff there."
Khoulani's message was spread on Twitter by Arnoud van Doorn, a former member of the Dutch Freedom Party who converted to Islam and is now a member of the PvdE. Van Doorn said Khoulani was—like John the Baptist quoting the words of Isaiah—a "voice of one crying out in the wilderness" [to prepare the way for the Messiah].
In response to the backlash, Khoulani said his words were simply a call to justice. He added that ISIS is not a terrorist group, but a resistance organization.
Meanwhile, a Dutch company selling halal sex products on June 4 announced an alliance with Europe's largest erotic retailer in an effort to tap into the lucrative Muslim market, potentially worth billions of euros.
The founder of Amsterdam-based El Asira, Abdelaziz Aouragh, said the deal with Frankfurt-listed Beate Uhse came four years after his company first launched a range of erotic products that do not contravene Sharia law.
El Asira, which means "Society" in Arabic, launched its range of products in 2010 to massive acclaim from the local Muslim community. Beate Uhse, based in Flensburg, Germany, approached El Asira in 2012 with a business proposal to sell products jointly in Muslim markets.
"We will take 18 of our Islamic branded products to the market through Beate Uhse," Aouragh told Agence France-Presse. "Considering we're targeting a global market of around 1.8 billion people, the potential is huge."
The two companies are also looking into the possibility of opening a store for halal sex products in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, the holiest place in Islam, Aouragh said.

In Norway, the country's first-ever Shia Muslim mosque was inaugurated in Oslo on June 1. One of the main purposes of the Tauheed Islamic Center is "to provide an opportunity to non-Muslims to learn about the universal teachings of Islam." The first official event held at the mosque was a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the death of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution.
Separately, Nemat Ali Shah, the Pakistani imam of the Central Jamaat Ahle-Sunnat mosque, the main Sunni Muslim mosque in Oslo, was recuperating in the hospital after a masked assailant repeatedly hacked him with a small axe or knife in the center of the Norwegian capital on the evening of June 16. Muslims were quick to condemn the attack as an Islamophobic hate crime, but on June 30, Oslo police arrested a fellow Pakistani who allegedly attacked the imam due to a power struggle within the mosque, which has more than 5,000 members mainly of Pakistani origin.
In Slovenia, the local Islamic Community on June 4 announced that construction work on the first Slovenian mosque was about to begin in the capital of city of Ljubljana, nearly ten months after the symbolic ground-breaking ceremony took place in September 2013.
Mufti Nedžad Grabus confirmed that Qatar would cover 70% of the cost of the project. "Without Qatar, the Islamic community [of Slovenia] would not be able to continue with the project," Grabus said.
The mosque and Muslim cultural center, 44 years in the making, will be built north of the city center, on a plot of land that the Muslim community bought from the City of Ljubljana, at a projected cost of €21 million ($28.5 million).

In Spain, the Union of Islamic Communities in Spain (UCIE), a Madrid-based Muslim umbrella group, and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Education (ISESCO), a Morocco-based arm of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), held a four-day conference in Madrid aimed at promoting the development of Koran institutes in non-Muslim countries. The event, which was held from June 18-21, was attended by Muslim leaders from Europe and North Africa.
On June 17, the Halal Institute of the Junta Islámica de España, a competing Muslim umbrella group based in Córdoba, held a conference aimed at promoting the "normalization of halal" in European countries. The official conference title was: "Possible Similarities and Differences between European Standards Compared with Halal Standards Demanded by the Arab Countries."
Conference attendees called on the Spanish government to sponsor an official study aimed at finding ways to bring European food standards into compliance with Islamic Sharia law.
Meanwhile, municipal officials in Barcelona denied reports that Qatar had offered to pay €2.2 billion ($3 billion) to convert the city's La Monumental bullring into a forty thousand capacity mosque. The building would include a 300-meter (985-foot) minaret. The mosque would be the third largest in the world, after those in Mecca and Medina.
On June 16, Spanish police in Madrid arrested ten individuals (eight Moroccans, one Argentine and one Bulgarian) on allegations that they were members of an international network that recruited jihadists for ISIS.
The ringleader was a 47-year-old Moroccan national named Lahcen Ikassrien, who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 and released after three-and-a-half years in Guantánamo. In July 2005, the U.S. government handed him over to Spain, where he faced charges of cooperating with al-Qaeda. In October 2006, the Spanish High Court acquitted him on the grounds that no firm evidence existed of his ties to the terrorist group.
Ikassrien, who lives in Madrid, was part of a cell led by Abu Dahdah, a Syrian-born Spaniard who was sentenced to a 27-year prison term in Spain for his part in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and for being one of the founders of al-Qaeda in Spain. In February 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced the Abu Dahdah's penalty to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the 9/11 conspiracy was not proven. He was released in May 2013.

In Sweden, government health inspectors said they found some 60 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Norrköping in eastern Sweden since March, with all 30 girls in one school class found to have undergone the procedure.
FGM has been illegal in Sweden since 1982 and can be punished with up to ten years in prison. Since 1999 it is also a criminal offense under Swedish law if the procedure is performed in a different country.
Most girls who undergo the procedure are between the ages of 4-14 years, but the operation is also carried out on infants. There are no official statistics detailing the extent of FGM in Sweden, or of how many girls are taken to have the procedure conducted abroad.
Meanwhile, the Swedish Parliament on June 17 approved changes to the country's immigration law to "facilitate moving to and from Sweden." The changes reduce the requirements for obtaining permanent residence for students and workers. In addition, individuals whose application for asylum has been rejected now need to wait only four months to become eligible for a work permit. Moreover, immigrants who have already obtained permanent residence in Sweden can retain that status for up to two years after they leave the country.
The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD) rejected the proposal. "We should have mobility, but these suggestions give evidence that the government has dropped all reason when it comes to immigration policy," David Lång (SD) wrote in the party's motion.

In Switzerland, the Islamic Cultural Center in Lausanne received a $140,000 donation from the Government of Kuwait to fund the construction of a center for raising awareness about Islam. On June 20, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported that the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Switzerland, Bader Al-Tunaib, presented the donation to head of the Complex Culturel des Musulmans de Lausanne (CCML), Dr. Mohammad Karmous. A Tunisian with a French passport, Karmous has multiple ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Vatican failed in an attempt to cover up the contents of a prayer by a Muslim cleric at an interfaith "Prayer for Peace" service held in the Vatican garden on June 8. Departing from a pre-approved script, the imam recited verses 284-286 of Sura 2 from the Koran, the latter part of which calls on Allah to grant Muslims victory over non-Muslims.
Most non-Muslims non-Arabic speakers did not understand what the imam had said, but that changed when a former Muslim who speaks Arabic translated the full prayer on the indispensable blog, Gates of Vienna. The Vatican initially denied that the imam had said what he said, but then it doctored the video to edit out last part of Verse 2:286.
Gates of Vienna posted a complete video of the imam's prayer, which does indeed (3m54s into the video) ask Allah to "make us victorious over the tribe of the unbelievers." In an interview with Radio Vatican, a German-speaking Jesuit priest named Felix Körner remained unbowed.
Körner defended the imam, saying Verse 2:286 fully accords with Roman Catholic doctrine and is wholly peaceful in intent. "If one hears something in a skewed manner, one is going to have a mistaken understanding of it," he said.
Meanwhile, the Vatican partnered with the Emir of Sharjah (one of the emirates of the United Arab Emirates) to present an "unprecedented" art exhibition entitled, "So That You Might Know Each Other," a verse from the Koran. The four month exhibit, which ended on June 14, was designed to serve as a "sign of openness and cooperation between religions."
The 70 exhibits on display at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization included textiles, musical instruments, jewelry, rudimentary weapons, books and manuscripts, many of which were on loan from the Ethnological Museum of the Vatican.
The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle summed it up this way: "The fact that Rome is lending its works for the first time is an act of diplomacy in line with Pope Francis's current policies. While Pope Benedict XVI had distanced himself from other religions, his successor is pursuing a different policy."

How To Be A Racist

The latest rant by Pat Condell




Click here if the video fails to load.

As if you didn't know.

Islamic law is adopted by British legal chiefs
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/relig...

Government intervenes at school taken over by Muslim radicals
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/relig...

Woman did not show her face at Heathrow airport
http://www.asianimage.co.uk/news/1104...

British schools where girls must wear the Islamic veil
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/...

Sharia courts "as consensual as rape"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/relig...

Israel And The Rest of the World

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

By Dennis MacEoin

Everybody hates Israel. That is not just accepted wisdom, it is a reality that chokes all rational debate on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. There are exceptions, of course, such as Canada, but most of Western Europe has slipped from support for Israel to support for the Palestinian cause, as if both sides might not have valid claims to the disputed land.

Most Americans are enthusiastic about Israel, but the U.S. government under Barack Obama, has, in recent years, shown increasing antagonism. Unsurprisingly, not a single Muslim nation likes Israel at all.

Many hate the Jewish state precisely because it is a Jewish state -- there seems no other reason why they might hate it. Many, in a display of true prejudice, have never even visited it.

In the world in general, and Europe in particular, anti-Semitism is growing at a rate not unlike the 1930s. It does not take much mental grip to see the link between that escalation of the "oldest hatred" and the refined political and religious rejection of Israel as the one and only state in the world that deserves to be abolished. Or, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once put it in Farsi, "exterminated" (Umam-e Eslami bayad Isra'il-ra qal' o qam' kard: The nations of Islam must exterminate Israel.)

In a Friday sermon, former Iranian President Rafsanjani also made the statement, "If one day, a very important day of course, the Islamic world will also be equipped with the weapons available to Israel now, the imperialist strategy will reach an impasse, because the employment of even one atomic bomb inside Israel will wipe it off the face of the earth, but would only do damage to the Islamic world."[1]

While the world focuses on Israel's flaws (often imaginary), in Saudi Arabia there are special roads for non-Muslims to ensure they cannot enter Mecca or Medina.

But then, one might surely ask, if everyone hates Israel, will it make the slightest difference if it actually is wiped off the face of the earth? Will it matter if another six million Jews are gassed or driven into the Mediterranean? If most of the people on the planet hate Israel and want to see a massive Palestinian state take its place, then who will weep if the Jews go and the Arabs come and take over, as so many people now say they have every right to do? Would it not be a blow for humanity, justice and people everywhere if the oppressive, violent, and apartheid Jewish state were to be removed from the earth?

Are you starting to feel a bit uneasy about this?

Some might hold back from wishing death on the Jews, but would not hesitate if someone else were to kill them. Or force them to pack their bags and leave their homes to make room for an army of Palestinian "refugees." If you hate Jews enough, nothing may seem too bad for them, and no history of pogroms and the Holocaust will be enough to dissuade you and your friends from doing it all over again, or rejoicing that someone else is doing it for you.

The treatment—or rather, mistreatment—of the Jews stands out in the modern era as the single greatest emblem of man's inhumanity to man. From the Christian (and post-Christian) West to the Islamic East, hatred of Jews has led to unfettered cruelty, and a continuing refusal to accept any form of moral or ethical constraint. However much Jews suffer, anti-Semites want them to suffer more. However far Jews might try to run, their self-appointed overlords will try to hunt them down and start the process of hate and persecution all over again. However much Jews contribute to human civilization, win Nobel prizes, develop cures for illness, create remarkable films, set up hospital units worldwide to treat the sick, irrigate the fields of the poorest farmers and change our lives for the better — the haters sneer and lie and kill Jews with the same knives; and every time a Jew is killed or wounded, dance on the same floors.

And what have the Jews ever done to deserve any of this? Are the Jews really the masterminds behind every war, every revolution, every economic disaster, every plot, even the Holocaust itself? Yes, according to anti-Semites, either the Holocaust never happened and was made up to secure Israel as a country for the Jews; or else the Jews instigated it to force other Jews to flee Europe to Mandatory Palestine, to take it over. Just read a few comments on YouTube as a measuring stick for this mental illness.

Of course, I know the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion says all this (apart from the Holocaust slurs), but the Protocols is a forgery;[2] and not just a forgery, but a cheap and shoddy product of the Tsarist secret police before World War I. Even though it is now more than a century later, some people still treat this libel as Gospel, and write comments on YouTube to prove that the Jews are the worst of mankind.

In Arab countries, after many years, the Protocols is still a bestseller. And Hitler's Mein Kampf, tagged in 2011 by Waterstone's in the UK as the "perfect Christmas present", in its electronic form is selling hand-over-fist. How hurtful -- and deeply unjust -- that is to Jews who have just made critical advances in medicine or saved a Palestinian child's life when operating in an Israeli hospital, or journeyed to Africa to teach better methods of farming, or traveled with an Israeli aid team to Haiti or the Philippines to save yet more lives.

The Jews are not the worst of mankind; they are like the rest of us, some bad, some good, and some so talented they have left indelible marks on every field of human endeavor. They have always been an underappreciated force, above all in the realm of ethics. No religion has developed in so well-structured a fashion as Judaism; its impact on Christian and Islamic ethics is well attested. Without the Jews, a major force for good and a barometer for moral concern would be taken from civilization entirely -- or is moral concern something the world would secretly rather do without?

The irony is that it is precisely these prejudiced, conniving, and racist haters of Jews -- including those who envisage the destruction of the one and only Jewish state and those who conjure up a realistic threat of a second Holocaust -- who have the arrogance to treat the Jews, including the Israelis, as if they are the most prejudiced, the most conniving, the most racist of all mankind -- and the most immoral -- and, of course, deeply inferior to Christians or Muslims.

The false piety of much Christian condemnation of Israel is matched only by the cheap moralizing of the followers of Islam in their attacks, both physical and verbal, on the Jewish state; or their failure to recognize that Jerusalem was always a Jewish city; that there were two Jewish temples there; and especially in the obsessive Palestinian refusal to recognize any part of Israel as a Jewish entity, or to make peace with Israel, or even to acknowledge that there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land for three thousand years.

The loss of Israel -- engineered as it would be by a coalition of "progressive" Muslims and Western secularists, along with anti-Semitic Christians and hard-line Islamists -- would not be a victory for any of the values we hold dear. On the contrary, it would be one of the greatest disasters to befall mankind. The values we consider highest – such as peacemaking, neighborliness, cooperation, caring for the less fortunate, for those of different religions, ethnicity, and mutual defence against aggression – would start to crumble, and our sense of human progress would weaken and lose its hold on our minds and hearts. If we could do that to the Jews, a people of great deserving, who have done so much for us, what might we then do to others? For even if the Jews were gone, there would still be other, weaker people for us to persecute and eliminate.

Does such a prognosis seem inflated, even barely respectable? Israel, however, did not emerge in the way most other countries have done, as an expression of traditional boundaries, a containment of one or more specific languages, a repository of a single culture, a place determined by one king, one dominant holy man, or one parliament, or one body of laws. Of course, Israel has had several of those things, beginning with the establishment, on that same plot of land, of the oldest set of laws after Hammurabi: the Ten Commandments and the earliest set of social welfare laws.

Modern Israel had the original acclamation of much of the international community; it set up a democratic parliament, established a set of basic laws, and, when other nations let boatloads of refugees sink at sea, served the Jews as the only sanctuary, free from a persecution which still exists to this day, and, sadly, which is once again being orchestrated by people supposedly educated enough to know better.

For civilization — any civilization — to work, there must be a core set of values that crosses from one culture to another, acquiring on the way a sort of universal validity. Small differences may exist between one country and another, one language and another, and even one religion and another. With few exceptions, people who belong to Western civilization believe that it is absolutely wrong to take a human life (except in life-or-death cases or self-defense). We strongly believe in human rights even if we are not always observant of them. In general, Western countries advocate and legislate for equality between men and women, equal justice under law, an independent judiciary, and freedom of and from belief. We attempt to expunge racism in its various forms from our streets and businesses. We defend minorities, religious, political or gender-based. And free speech, we defend that too, even when it hurts us to do so.

Islamic civilization holds often starkly different values. A man's or woman's life may be taken, often by beheading or stoning, for a wide range of "sins," from heresy (really, free thinking; there, called blasphemy) to adultery to apostasy (more free thinking). A Muslim also may not be punished for killing a non-Muslim, or even another Muslim if his intent is to further the cause of Islam. Although not Islamic in any true sense, female genital mutilation and honor killings are far from uncommon. They happen in the UK and the US, mainly within Muslim communities – as well as in Muslim countries.

Perhaps Islamic civilization would find the disappearance of the Jewish state a satisfactory gift. But Western civilization might not wear this too well, except for that part occupied by those who consider themselves as members of the far left -- Stalinists, Trotskyites, anarchists and anti-Semitic Christians who believe they do the will of God, and even Quisling Jews -- when they curse Jews and boycott Israel.

When the Nazis took power, Germany seemed to be one of the most civilized countries in the world, with a rich culture, a deep grasp of academic achievement, and a growing mastery of science and technology. Within a few years, the country had been reduced to the status of the most barbaric of countries, the most abusive of human rights, perhaps the most savage political entity in history. And not many years later, Germany was in ruins, destroyed by the very totalitarianism it had used to impose itself on the rest of Europe.

Across the world, people came to condemn the great wrongs Germans had done to mankind. Germans rebuilt their nation only by rigorously excluding that tendency to totalitarianism. Yet today, young Germans march against Israel and, in fighting Israel, fight the Jews. What conceivable right do the scions of that black period and the years of wiedergutmachen [compensation] have to treat Jews as untermenschen [subhuman] once again, to march in the streets where the SS marched, to bellow as their grandfathers bellowed, Juden Raus, "Jews out" -- out of "Palestine," out of the Middle East, out of everyplace.

Whatever its detractors may say, Israel declares loudly that it is a country where the best Western values are honored, where democracy, the rule of law, the creation of new laws through an elected parliament, the fair treatment of all minorities, rights for women, for gays, for all citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike, are demanded. But say it is also a Jewish country based on Jewish ethics, and someone of limited intellect will come along clutching a copy of the Torah, the Talmud, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or anything else they can lay their hands on, and declaiming that they can prove Judaism is a bloodthirsty religion that has always worked to defeat and mistreat non-Jews. In the past years, I have only known a violent and angry Islam; yet the world is silent. The world excuses Islamic murder, but focuses on flaws, often imaginary, on the part of Israel.

The very establishment of a Jewish state stood for more than even its founders guessed. It was open defiance of the universal impulse to persecute and kill Jews.

Only in their Holy Land could the Jews weave their own destinies at last -- and do. Israel thrives. They have won Nobel prizes and made some of the greatest advances in science, technology, and medicine. Israelis create world-class hospitals and universities. They have written more scientific papers per capita than any other nation, and have saved children's lives – Palestinian children's lives – in a dozen operating theaters, and sent aid teams around the world to save yet more lives. Israeli "apartheid"? Far from it. All facilities and opportunities are equally open to all Israelis: Black, White, Arab, Christian, Jew -- everyone. Far more than in say, Saudi Arabia, where there are special roads for non-Muslims to ensure they cannot enter Mecca or Medina, or where a Bible is not even allowed in the country. Or all the mosques where every Friday congregants are told that Jews are the sons of pigs and apes. It would seem that is racism; that is apartheid.

What the destroyers of Israel would do is negate every one of Israel's achievements and more, and leave a hole in the world, in their own world. What, after all, would take the place of Israel? Another failed state, riven by strife, characterized by failure, poverty-stricken, dependent, just another victim of the authoritarian Arab way of governing? Is that something that will set civilization towards new horizons? It is up to us to keep the lights on, to place civilization against barbarism, to put our minds and bodies between Israel and all who mean her ill.

[1] "Iran Calls for the Destruction of Israel," Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Center for Special Studies, Special Information Bulletin, November 2003, citing Khabar TV, December 14, 2000. Cited in Joshua Teitelbaum, What Iranian Leaders Really Say About Doing Away with Israel, Jerusalem Center for Pubic Affairs.
[2] See David Aaronovitch, Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, London, Jonathan Cape, 2009, pp. 22-48.