Wolf in Cleric Clothing

B"H

The whole "tiff" about the Mosque at Ground Zero comes down to one basic thing: Is this a religious freedom issue?

The people who support building the Mosque think that this will be a nice little place for people to "hang" like a cross between a Church or Synagogue and a community center. This is just not the case!!!!

Nancy Pelosi told San Francisco-based radio station KCBS, "There is no question that there's a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some [sic]. I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded."

Funded??? I'm not quite sure what funding she's talking about. I know I open up my facebook page every day and see something else about this issue. There is no funding that I can see, that's for sure. All I see is people who don't want a symbol of the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center right there at the graveyard of the twin towers and the three thousand people who died that day.

And as for "making this a political issue", I'm sorry, but those of us who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque didn't make it a political issue. It IS a political issue. It's the developers of the Mosque who are trying to obscure the politics of this issue by crying "religious persecution" which is absurd.

Islamists in general and the developers of the "Ground Zero Mosque" in particular have created a bastard child of religion. They have created a political entity that masquerades as a religion. They use our freedoms, our democracy, to erode our liberty and security.

What makes it most clear that this is a political statement is that the Governor offered state (financial) support if they would just move the mosque anywhere that wouldn't offend the sensibilities of the people who, like me, are opposed to this project.

The name "Cordoba House" and "The Cordoba Initiative" are known code for conquest of peaceful people. The terrorists are "marking their space", showing the world what they intend for the future of the planet. Read this article by an Iraqi born American Muslim writer for more about the name "Cordoba" and its historical significance. (Read here for more on this.)

But there is another story I think New Yorkers in specific and Americans in general need to read or remind themselves of. It's a cute little story told by Vergil over 2000 years ago. It's the story of the Trojan Horse.

I am beginning to feel like Cassandra, the prophetess who no one believed. It is clear that, besides being a way of marking their victory over New York, this Mosque (and mosques across America teaching hatred and radical Islamist theology) are truly a 21st Century "Trojan Horse", a "gift" with conquerors inside, a place to teach the people who will overthrow our government and our way of life.

I understand it's hard to get your head around the idea that not everyone in the world sees our lifestyle as good, that not everyone in the world has the same basic ideals of good and evil that we Americans have, but we have to be vigilant, we can't allow the enemy to get strong enough to defeat us right in our own backyard. But if we allow them an anchor in the place that they destroyed in 2001 we are giving them another victory. And we're putting another nail in the coffin of Democracy, Freedom and Western values.

Check out this cartoon by Steve Kelly

Check out my other blogs:

Jewish Sandwich
Everything Goes
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women
Bayit and Garden

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington

Some thoughts from Israel

B"H

Note: I wrote most of this entry back in November 2009, when I was visiting family in Israel. I finished it on August 22, 2010.

I have been visiting my sister in Israel for a few weeks right now. I notice around me all sorts of things. I notice the children going to school (many very young children walk or bike to school on their own). I notice the adults driving to their destinations. I notice the construction work around me (including two young Ethiopian men with kippot working on electrical wires from under the concrete of the sidewalk).

But most of all what I notice is life, mostly, thank G-d, peaceful life, the sort of life everyone wants to be living.

What I don't understand is why so many people have a problem with this. Why do so many people worldwide think that there is something wrong with Jews living in Israel? Why do so many people pass a twisted moral judgment on the husbands and wives, mothers and children, grandparents and teens just living their lives day to day just like most of us do in the United States?

Many Jews came to Israel after World War II. Many had survived the Holocaust, that genocidal war within WWII whose goal was the utter eradication of the Jewish people. These people came, with nothing, to a land that was largely desolate. And they created, through their own sweat and tears (and not just a bit of blood) a thriving nation, a bastion of democracy in the largely despot-led Middle East, a haven of modern living in a politically and socially backwards region. And those people who weren't Holocaust survivors or children of survivors who came to live in Israel along with the Halutzim (the pre-WWII pioneers who came with their idealistic zeal) and the survivors contributed to the growth of the nation-state.

The Jews in Israel have created a modern country, a technological innovator in the Afro-Asian desert. Israel is a country that third world countries should emulate. It is a country that was built through hard physical work, dedication and brainpower. Israel has managed to collect Jews (and Gentiles) from all over the world, from world leading nations like the US, Canada, France and Britain, from third world countries like Ethiopia, from Arab lands like Yemen, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, from East Asian lands like India, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Malaysia. And in Israel they all come together, in not so much as a melting pot as a stew pot, each person contributing to the flavor of the whole while retaining the flavor of his/her culture.

So why do so many people in the world spend so much of their time and effort trying to stop this? Why do so many people feel the need to criticize Israel for non-existent transgressions when her amoral neighbors are spreading hatred, keeping their citizens in squalor while the leaders live in opulence, suppressing every freedom their citizens have a G-d given right to?

I know the tendency to root for the underdog. But in this case, the leadership of the Arab/Muslim countries in the Middle Eastern region is keeping the people as underdogs to get sympathy. To be honest, I can't for the life of me understand how the world is so caught up with the comings and goings of a country that makes up such a tiny percentage of both the world's land mass and the world's population (Jews on a whole make up 2% of the US population and .2% -- that's 2/10 of a percent, as in 2/1000 of the world population). And, to be honest, even for those people who feel the need to "root for the underdog", isn't a country that was founded and started by a tiny group of people, who raised it up from desolation, who resisted the urge to allow despotism in their government offices, where women, gays and people of all races and religions are treated with respect, that is surrounded by its enemies (who outnumber them somewhere between 50 and 100 to 1, depending on whose estimate you use) the eternal Underdog?

Check out my other blogs:

Jewish Sandwich
Everything Goes
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women
Bayit and Garden

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2

"Moderate" Relativism

B"H

I'm lately very upset with what has been going on with the whole "Ground Zero Mosque" thing. I don't think people totally comprehend what it means. So I'll give you a small idea:

Imagine you are living in a house. You and your family have lived in this house for generations. You live in the community and you know most of the people in your community. You often house guests who are in need of a bed for the night and the guests have always been polite and respectful. One night, you house a family. The family comes in, they treat you like a servant. They stay longer than the night and they just never leave. They destroy the room you have allowed them to sleep in, and redecorate it in their style and tell you that you owe it to them because you have had so many people staying in your house. Little by little, they start to edge you into a smaller and smaller place in your own house until one day, you come home and the locks have been changed and, when you attempt to enter your own home, they call the police and have you arrested. (Thanks to my friend Michelle Nevada for suggesting part of this analogy)

At this point, with the "request" to build a Mosque at Ground Zero, the Muslims have only gotten to the point in the analogy where they are redecorating the house. But Lebanon suffered the entire analogy and Europe is well on its way to being "Eurabia" -- just another province in the world wide Sharia empire.

The US is well on its way to being part of that global empire. By allowing a mosque at "Ground Zero" Michael Bloomberg is falling for the English language propaganda and not listening to what the leaders of the Islamist "movement" are saying in Arabic.

I was reading a wonderful article recently Our 'Moderate Muslim' Problem by Bret Stephens. He says that part of the reason we are in a quandary is that "Moderate Muslim" is a relative term. It's sort of like the difference between a NJ Republican and a Utah Democrat -- the Utah Democrat is probably more "right wing" than the NJ Republican. Stephens quotes one of my favorite writers, Irshad Manji

"[M]oderate Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam but they deny that religion has anything to do with it." By contrast, she noted, "reform-minded Muslims denounce terror that's committed in the name of Islam and acknowledge that our religion is used to inspire it."

In addition, the "Moderate Muslims" are really just the nicer of the two faces of Islamism. "Moderate Islam" is just terrorism in a suit."Moderate Muslims" give us platitudes and feed on our need to think that all people can be reasoned with, that all people want peace deep inside, that we can resolve our differences at a table rather than on the field of battle.

In addition to their terrorism and murder, Islamists feel the need to deny the historical connection of any other people to any land (but they are quick to create a history for themselves) and the suffering of others. They act like spoiled rich children who have an air of entitlement (and, with Islamist as well as spoiled rich children, people often feed into this feeling of entitlement). Only their "history" (real or imagined) matters. Only their "suffering" (again, real or imagined) matters. This is why they want to "mark their territory" by placing a Mosque at the place they destroyed two heavily populated buildings in one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Unfortunately,  people like Mr. Bloomberg (and other Jewish apologists, Jews who worry about the "poor Palestinians" but not their own people or their own land) think that by going to all the Holocaust memorial programs they have done what they need to in the universal fight for justice. I have noticed that people who focus on the Holocaust quote the platitude of  "Never Again". But that's just lip service.They don't understand (or don't want to admit) that by allowing (nay, encouraging) the Mosque at Ground Zero they are part of the problem, part of the group of people who are still allowing injustice to prevail. In this sense, they are no better than the Holocaust deniers, using the Holocaust to promote their own agenda. Thomas Mann said, "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." Saying "Never Again" is just too easy -- go to a lecture/program, condemn something that happened 65 years ago but don't concern yourself with what's happening today. (For comparison, it's sort of like saying Slavery in the US was a terrible institution, but still using the "N" word or not wanting "them" to move next door to you.) The problem with saying "Never Again" is that it is still happening. Between the demonization of Israel and Jews (prejudice is a no-no unless you're an anti-Semite or anti-Israel), the imbalance of "concern" (people are SOOOOO concerned about the poor, downtrodden "Palestinians" -- who, mind you, are only being suppressed by their own leaders, NOT by Israel -- but couldn't care less about the Afghani women, non-Muslims in Darfur, Tibetans under Chinese rule, the Basques who DO deserve their own country, I could go on and on....), etc., the people who allow the Islamists, despite their history, to use our laws against us (as they did in Lebanon), the Holocaust is still, unfortunately, with us though wearing a different costume. "Never Again" may make us feel better, but truth is truth and suffering and genocide are alive and well and living all over the world. It's a hard fight, but we all need to fight it.

Check out my other blogs:

Jewish Sandwich
Everything Goes
Jewish Singles
Strong Jewish Women
Bayit and Garden

Check out some of my squidoo lenses (articles):

Strong Biblical Women
Strong Biblical Women 2
Why Be Vegetarian
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 1
Vegetarianism: Getting Started 2
Why be Vegetarian?
Rosh Hashana
Quick Vegan Cooking
Creating new recipes from old
Hanuka
About the Jewish Calendar
Witches and Morality
Math Hints 1 -- Adding Fractions
Presidents1: George Washington