The Spiritual Source of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Allah vs. God

Bat Ye'or and Sam Solomon, two prominent scholars and chroniclers of Islam, were the speakers at yesterday's event organized by the International Free Press Society- Canada, and the Free Thinking Film Society. When I went to the venue, which was at a synagogue in the northern limits of Toronto, my only concern was that I wouldn't be able to get there on time due to the heavy traffic exacerbated by road construction. I made it in ample time. But the synagogue became more significant than just a venue. Bat Ye'or started her presentation by saying that this is the first time she has given a speech in a synagogue. Sam Solomon's speech was titled, "Islam and its eternal enmity towards the Jews." So, a synagogue was infinitely appropriate for this very important conference, where both Bat Ye'or and Solomon repeatedly reminded the predominantly Jewish audience that Muslim enmity towards them is very real, and growing daily.

Sam Solomon spoke first. I dutifully took my notebook and pen at hand, to jot down his words. But, after his first sentence, it was clear that we were in front of a formidable orator, and it was better just to listen. Solomon, a former Muslim, is now a Christian. He was a Muslim scholar and sharia law expert. His introduction to the majority Jewish audience was to plead forgiveness for having condemned and maligned them in his former days while a devout Muslim. Then he plunged  right into Muslim hatred of Jews and Israel, which he says is inaccurately attributed to the creation of modern-day Israel. He explains that this deep-seated hatred goes to the origins of Islam, when the Jews rejected Muhammad's newly-created religion, and he condemned them for it. Solomon has a new book out, which bears the same title as his presentation: Al-Yahud: Eternal Islamic Enmity and the Jews.

The extraordinary effect of a former Muslim, who cites chapter and verse of the Koran in Arabic in order to gets his message across, is mesmerizing. Solomon has an incredible oratory voice despite his slight build; a voice which could have easily traveled across the large room without a microphone. His citations in Arabic conjure up images of a Muhammad throwing out these phrases in fits of fury (or Allah's fury, to acknowledge Muhammad's source). The harsh guttural sounds of Arabic almost need no translation into English; we know that these words are not said in love or compassion, but in hatred and destruction. Jew hatred, in Islam, is not an incidental affair resulting from border skirmishes. It is deep-seated in the psyche of Muslims who read (or listen to) Muhammad's words, words which are set in stone in the Koran. Muslims are mandated to hate Jews (and Christians).

This spiritual connection between Muslims' hatred of Jews and Christians is further elaborated by Bat Ye'or. Despite her quieter demeanor, this small lady is no less extraordinary, if nothing for her meticulous description of Islam's infiltration into European society, and now the world at large. She too has a new book coming out which is titled, Toward the Universal Caliphate: How Europe Became an Accomplice of Muslim Expansionism. She explains that her new book will delineate the global network that bodies like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are building in order to finally construct their worldwide Ummah.

One of the most significant insights I got from her presentation was her explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in spiritual terms. Informed people understand that the conflict has been manufactured by Muslims and Muslim apologists in order to find a basis for the destruction of Israel. But, Bat Ye'or says that the efforts behind the Palestinian concept is to separate Christianity from its Judaic roots to facilitate the Islamizaton of Christianity, and to render the whole region Islamic. Israel and the Jews can then be destroyed through a united Muslim front, as the Jews' natural allies, the Christians, become Islamicized. The end goal is to replace Israel with Palestine, rendering the whole region Islamic, and where Jerusalem takes its seat as the center of Islam.

For Christians, Israel and Jerusalem culminate with Christianity (through God's final design of bringing all His people under His wing through His Son Jesus Christ). Muslims have their alternate "Jesus," whom they call Isa, and to whom attribute prophetic rather than Messianic characteristics. This alternate Jesus is inscribed into the Muslim and Palestinian "narrative." Israel has occupied a land that rightfully belongs to Muslims, who have both spiritual and historical claims to this land. Thus, those "disputed" territories are neither Jewish, nor a Holy Land for Christians, but belong to Muslims and Isa. This Isa came to Jerusalem not to promote the Judeo-Christian God, but the Islamic Allah. Palestine is where Muslims fight their ultimate spiritual battle against Christians and Jews, the land which their Isa has proclaimed for them and their people.

Not many people describe the Palestinian and Jewish/Christian conflict in these spiritual terms. Even devout Muslims explain it in terms of territorial claims. But, Bat Ye'or, by peeling away at the layers has, I think, come up with a strong spiritual argument for why the Palestinian question consumes the whole world at such a visceral level. It is a matter of Isa vs. Jesus, Allah against God. Truth battling falsehood.

Token Canadian Moderate Muslim Says Up Is Down

In a post a few weeks ago, I wrote about Salim Mansur, an Ismaili Muslim, who has a new book out called Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim. I titled my post: "Salim Mansur Writes a Book on Islam and Ignores Parts of the Koran He Just Doesn't Like."

Mansur was on the Michael Coren Show recently, where he spent around twenty minutes talking to Coren about his book. He doesn't budge from his National Post excerpt where he says that the true Islam was sabotaged by a violent, murdering faction of Muslims at the onset of Islam. This faction set the stage by murdering Mohammed’s family after his death. Mansur unabashedly says with that historical moment, Islam opted for violence, rather than the peaceful religion which Mohammed advocated.

Coren is once again tongue-tied. It is fantastic. He should have simply quoted passages from the Koran which advocate violence and specific killings (if really interested in the violence embedded in Islam, he would have come prepared with these quotes) and asked Mansur to interpret them for him.

Mansur may be bitter toward the Islam which has relegated his version of Islam to the side-lines, but it boggles the mind that he categorically ignores what is written in the Koran to provide his own nostalgic and bitter version.

I have called Mansur dangerous in my previous post. At this time of seething jihadi activities, where Muslims are simply answering the call of the Koran, having a respected scholar come up with such a book does unimaginable damage to ordinary Canadians who will try to find any excuse to like this alien and violence-infused religion.

Salim Mansur Writes a Book on Islam and Ignores Parts of the Koran He Just Doesn't Like

Salim Mansur, associate professor at the University of Western Ontario and columnists for several national papers, has just published a book on Islam titled: Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim. His book is excerpted in two articles at the National Post, here and here.

Mansur makes an incredible statement in this quote below excerpted from his book. It is absurd because it is coming from someone who professes to be a Muslim, and who must have at some point read the Koran.

The Koran's command about there being no coercion in religion was cast aside [during the skirmishes between Muslims soon after Mohammed’s death], and Islam in its Arabian environment came to be inseparable from the power and sweep of the sword.

This clearly defies explicit verses by the Koran where, according to Robert Spencer’s latest book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran "Muslims have the responsibility to fight the Infidels (4:89, 2:191, 9:5) and subjugate the People of the Book under the rule of Islamic law (9:29)."

Not only are Muslims mandated by Koranic verses to subjugate (Spencer doesn’t say coercion but subjugation, but isn’t that just splitting hairs?) the infidels, but the message in the Koran is clear; it is a book of subjugation, of bringing everyone into the religion of Mohammed. Such totalitarianism is surely a precursor to violence, since if everyone has to be Muslim, then those that have no desire to be Muslim can only be forced to do so.

I don’t know what version of the Koran Mansur reads - his version could be lost in translation - and what type of Islam he practices (he calls himself Ismaili, who profess to be the "peaceful" Muslims, which then means they don’t agree with the Koran, which means they are not Muslims – that circular argument we have with "moderate" Muslims).

But the danger here is that his book will be widely read by the Canadian public eager to call Islam a religion of peace, and who now have it on record, by a "Muslim" no less, that it is indeed so.

Another dangerous book that shouldn’t be on the shelves in our bookstores.

Spencer's Absurdities, Again

Robert Spencer was recently interviewed on Frontpage Magazine, where he talks about his new book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran. As usual, Spencer is adept at quoting Koranic verses and explaining them to some extent, and I believe he has made tremendous contributions in that regard. But there’s always a catch to Spencer’s interpretations, despite his diligent scholarship.

Spencer talks about the Arabic nature of Islam, and how the Koran needs to be read and understood in Arabic only – the language of Mohammed. All Muslims, irrelevant of their native tongues, have to recite the Koran in Arabic. Spencer mentions a funny (and poignant) quote from a Pakistani Muslim in his interview who says "I am very proud of my religion, and have memorized almost all of the Koran. And one day I plan to get one of those translations and find out what it means."

Now this gives Spencer license to say absurd things. It is as though Spencer is unable to believe his original – factually sound – findings, but has to make up his own interpretations instead. Perhaps that is why Mohammed wanted his Koran read in Arabic only, as "lost in translation" is a phrase that comes to mind, and of which Spencer is frequently guilty.

This is what Spencer says about the dangers of "peaceful" Muslims not understanding the Koran:

[W]hen the Koran is not immediately understood – and its seventh-century Arabic can be difficult even for native Arabic speakers – those who believe in it understand it by means of how it is preached and presented in the local mosque. If the imams there do not preach hatred of Infidels and the necessity to fight and subjugate them, then these probably won’t be live ideas in the minds of the devout – and such has long been the case in many areas of the world.

At the same time, however, the Koran says what it says, and so jihadist movements do point to chapter and verse to attempt to recruit peaceful Muslims to their cause, and to justify their actions within the Islamic community.

I suppose the biggest mystery about Islam could be how it has remained latent for so long, mostly stuck in Middle Eastern and South Asian countries, and parts of Africa. There is no mention of outright jihad in the past several centuries, until it suddenly came to full force in our era. In Spencer’s view, this could be because imams "there" - as Spencer ambiguously refers to non-Western Muslim lands - had decided in previous centuries not to emphasize the jihadist verses to their non-Western followers.

First, Spencer needs to provide concrete evidence that imams never preached jihad in non-Western Islamic countries until contemporary political issues, which he calls terrorism, started to occur. But, second, and more likely, surely they didn’t need to put that aspect of Islam front and center, since jihad had been accomplished successfully with the Islamization of these countries.

My interpretation of this resurgence of jihadist preaching – non-peaceful preaching, as Spencer would call it - is that Islam has reached a new phase, where it has now entered the West filled with infidels, including Christians and Jews. The jihadist component of Islam has to click in naturally to Islamize, or at least fight and subjugate, the infidels in these countries, as it is written in the Koran. Peaceful preaching is no longer sufficient, and the jihadist mode is necessary for the great task at hand.

This is why I wonder about Spencer’s true understanding of Islam, despite his many years studying it. He can read the words, but misses the meanings, it seems to me. I wonder if Spencer reads the Koran in the original Arabic, and if not, perhaps that is why he cannot understand Mohammed’s glorious message as presented in the Arabic (true) Koran. Or maybe some infidels just don't get it, which is perhaps why so many countries fell so swiftly and quickly to the mighty sword of Allah.

There is a warning here, somewhere.

The HRCs and Immigration: A Dual Problem

I just read Ezra Levant’s Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights. It is a clear, concise and very readable book, which any layman can pick up and learn from. It has a mixture of HRC case studies, factual and statistical information about the HRCs, and Levant’s suggestion for how to deal with this problem, which in his assessment is the complete dismantling of the Commissions.

Levant sees Canada as a society which has evolved from its racist past to what is now a tolerant, multicultural society, with many safeguards against racism, and which consequently doesn’t need the HRCs any longer.

These points deserve more attention, but suffice to say that the Canada of yonder years wasn’t nearly as racist as Levant paints it to be, and the Canada of recent years is far less harmoniously multicultural than he makes out. The recent Tamil protestors (by the thousands), the Lebanese dual citizens who are being shipped to Lebanon to vote in their elections, and Muslims filing HRC cases against MacLeans and Levant himself, expose the reality behind the harmonious multicultural Canada.

There is also a March 31, 2009 Globe and Mail article, where second generation visible minority immigrants feel less Canadian than even their parents, all this despite the country’s overwhelming attempt to accommodate them and their parents.

And a recent report by Ryerson University’s Diversity Institute showed the lack of leadership positions held by visible minority immigrants both in public and private institutions, implicitly indicating systemic discrimination in these institutions.

In the first one hundred pages of Shakedown, the majority of cases Levant gave as examples were filed by visible minorities, who felt they were not getting equal treatment because of their ethnic, racial or religious background.

In my preliminarily calculations of HRC cases filed, I’ve pointed out that the largest number came from visible minorities, not homosexuals, or women or even the disabled (except in Alberta). I’ve also shown that there is a correlation between the cases filed at the provincial HRCs by visible minorities, and the number of immigrants in that particular province.

This has led me to conclude that with increases in immigration, there is an increase in visible minorities, and a consequent increase in HRC cases filed by visible minorities.

Part of the problem of the HRCs is thus immigration.

So, what happens if Levant is successful in dismantling the HRCs? Will that reduce perceived discrimination against visible minorities? How will these minorities resolve these cases of (perceived) discrimination? How much will the government be involved in resolving these cases?

As long as there are large numbers of visible minorities, and as long as their largest source – a high immigration rate – is in place, I predict (although it is not hard to do because it has been happening for decades now) there will be endless governmental attempts, backed by special interest immigrant and visible minority groups, to make everyone "equal", and to remove "discrimination." One such example is the one I cited above, where visible minority groups are demanding that more visible minorities be placed in leadership position in both the public and corporate realms. How will this be achieved except through governmental coercion of a type of affirmative action?

Therefore, dismantling the HRCs without doing something about the biggest replenishing source of HRC applicants – immigrants - won't make the problem go away.

Levant's short-term goal of dismantling the HRCs should also include long-term solutions of immigration reform.

This will not be a popular position to take. But, to get a better understanding of the problem (and solutions), I strongly recommend that Levant read Lawrence Auster’s The Path to National Suicide: An Essay on Immigration and Multiculturalism.

To give Levant a glimpse of what this book contains, here is an excerpt:

Radical pluralism raises to a new level this threat to our liberty, since now the state will be called upon to overcome, not just the inequality of individuals, but the inequality of cultures. The inherent vastness and endlessness of such an enterprise matches the intrusiveness of the state power that must be exercised to achieve it. The signs of this new despotism are all around us:

• the de jure and de facto repression of speech dealing with racially sensitive subjects;

• the official classification and extension of privileges to people according to ethnic affiliation;

• the expansion of judicial and bureaucratic power to enforce racial quotas in more and more areas of society;

• the subjection of the American people to an unceasing barrage of propaganda telling us we are all brothers, that we must “respect all cultures,” etc., even while government policies are unleashing a wave of cultural diversity and ethnic chauvinism that is making spontaneous brotherly feeling a receding dream. In other words, the “family” that Governor Mario Cuomo keeps telling us we all belong to is really—the state.

In the Canadian context, Levant may dismantle the thoroughly disqualified, fraudulent, state-controlled HRCs, but as long as there is this “radical pluralism” of peoples maintained through immigration, we are still at the mercy of a coercive government to right the wrongs of inequality.

Now Magazine's Unreliable Allies

Now's "Think Free" sign in the parking
lot across from Starbucks.
This was an unusual photo op.
Now's main office is just a few blocks up.

Ezra Levant's book, "Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights" is now fourth on the Globe and Mail hardcover best seller's list.

He writes about his first negative review, from Toronto's Now magazine entertainment writer Susan Cole. Her review admonishes him for publishing those infamous Mohammed cartoons, taking of course the standard "he hurt the feelings of Muslims" position which is what Human Rights Commissions were made for.

Now readers would have none of this, attacking Cole for attacking free speech. But, despite Now's slogan "Think Free", I still don't trust its readers (or its writers). If the HRC and the cartoon episode weren't such a blatant breach of journalistic integrity, Now readers would be as leftist as they come. "Think Free" really means, "Think Like Us Lefties".

Levant shouldn't be so pleased with their reaction. I doubt that in other issues, they would be on his side.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Knopf Canada

Hirsi Ali speaking at a private club in
Montreal on February 25, 2009.

Knopf Canada recently announced that it has signed a new book with Ayaan Hirsi Ali due out in Spring 2010, although it doesn't have a title yet. Its executive publisher says that the book:

will be a blend of personal narrative and reportage, weaving together Ayaan Hirsi Ali's ongoing story, including her reconciliation with her father who disowned her, addressing the situation of girls and women in the world today, and speaking openly about her own efforts to reconcile Islamic and Western values. She explores why Muslim women agree to submit to a world ruled by men, and Islam's obsession with virginity, excision, and the honor code, as well as her own relationship with sex and 'dishonor'.

Hirsi Ali has previously published two books, Infidel and The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam. The first is an autobiography, and the second, as the title describes it, is a critique of Islam's treatment of women.

Her third book seems like a combination of the two - a critique of Islam, its place in the West, and how Muslim women in the West can be protected from, as she describes it, militant Islam.

There was news for a while that she was in the middle of writing a more philosophical book, Short Cuts to Enlightenment, where Mohamed is interrogated by several Enlightenment-era thinkers. But there is no information about the progress of the book. I encountered a similar dead-end when researching her proposed sequel to Submissions. It seems that autobiographical, feminist books are more her line, and perhaps it is an expedient way for her to acquire the funds she obviously still needs for her upkeep and tight security.

It is not clear where she is living now, but it looks like she's temporarily back in the Netherlands while still working for the American Enterprise Institute.

She has spear-headed a foundation whose aim is to "to help protect and defend the rights of women in the West against militant Islam" called the AHA Foundation.

A security trust was initiated by Sam Harris (and supported by the other infamous atheist Richard Dawkins) to help her meet her large costs for maintaining her safety.

I had predicted a while ago that her leftist, feminist stance, coupled with her atheism, would diminish her importance in the public debate against Islam. In fact, unless one makes an effort to find her, she is keeping a very low profile and seems to have left the world of politics. Perhaps her role now will be a restricted one as a representative of Muslim women in the West who are suffering under Islam.

Her ambitious goals to reform Islam, or to reconcile Islam with Western values and philosophies, have been curtailed, if not abandoned.