Blessed Be the Ties that Bind the Left to Islam

The LEFT here in America loves Islam

(By the LEFT, I mean folks like President Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, the entire Democrat Party, your mainstream media including: NBC (Comcast), ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, USA Today, etc. The LEFT even includes most of our State Department along with increasing representation from the Pentegon, U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force. Fortunately, for the time being, the Marines have not succumbed to Leftist politics.)   

The ties that bind the Left to Islam are many and include the LEFT's disdain for individual liberty, freedom, self-reliance and private property. One of the Left's great writers who had profound influence on Karl Marx is Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He has been an inspiration to many totalitarian regimes. Rousseau equated "freedom" with total submission to authority. Can you see why Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, FDR and Obama would love this guy? Rousseau believed in "democratic centralism." In other words, centralized control in the hands of the government which has the final word. This is nearly indistinguishable from Islam's "free choice" to surrender oneself totally to Allah.

From Obama's writings and many speeches, we learn that he is virulently anti-capitalist, anti-western, and anti-American. For Obama and his Islamist allies, capitalist democracy is an abject failure, full of racism and materialism. Obama as well as Islam deride the very thing that makes American society exceptional: Individual liberty and freedom.

Obama and the LEFT subscribe to "Alinsky's Rules." He was a committed Leftist revolutionary who wrote
the "Rules for Radicals." Obama was trained in this ideology, which influenced Malcolm X's clarion call: "By any means necessary." You can see that Islamic radicals also believe in the clarion call, "by any means necessary" including strapping bombs to themselves and blowing up buses with passengers, airplanes, even runners at the Boston Marathon.

On Jan. 26, 2009, Obama gave his first interview as America's new president to the Muslims on Arabic television where he pronounced: "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy." Presidents of the United States do not have a "job to the Muslim world." Their job, actually, is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution against all enemies, including Muslims if they happen to want to destroy our society.

On the heels of this interview to the Muslim world, Obama ordered the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed within one year. His reasoning is that this would prohibit torture and make the world think nice happy thoughts about America. This is the same President who has no problem with killing unknown individuals, including civilians with drone attacks, but let the record show that he's opposed to any kind of torture. I guess being vaporized by a drone attack does not constitute torture since it happens so fast--where's the pain???

President Obama also charged NASA with a new mandate, not to go to Mars or to make another trip to the Moon--no this new charge was to reach out to the Muslim world to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science. Can you tell me how any Muslim contributions to science have helped us in our space endeavors? When this outrageous, idiotic pronouncement was made, not a peep was heard from the LEFT. Why? Because they hate NASA and anything that smacks of the military. That money could be better spent on government schools, or public housing, or green energy like Solyndra.

In Leftist ideology, there can only be equal protection under the law only if those laws produce equal outcomes. We can only have laws protecting us from terror provided that those who terrorize us (radical Muslims) are also protected. That's why Maj. Nidal Hassan, who while serving in the U.S. Army verbalized

Lt. Colonel, Nidal Hassan, U.S. Army terrorist

his support for radical Islam and jihad again and again, and this only served to get him promoted through theranks in the U.S. Army. On Nov. 5, 2009, he shot and killed 13 people and injured over 30. While doing this, he shouted out, "All praise to Allah!!" This terrorist act has been classified by our President and the Dept. of (in)Justice not as an act of terrorism but as "workplace violence."

It has been almost 4 years and Hassan has not been tried for his act of terrorism. But here is something worth noting. While he has been incarcerated at Leavenworth, awaiting trial, Army officials have promoted him to Lt. Colonel. Isn't it good to know that in today's Army, you can kill 13 of your fellow soldiers in the name of Allah, as an act of Jihad, and you can still receive a promotion. In our politically-correct, leftist Army, not even terrorism can keep you from moving up through the ranks!

Historical Revisionism Favors Islam and Treats Israel as the Bad Guy

Today's post is a long one. I violate all the rules for writing a post and for that I am sorry. But, I hope you will persevere and take the time to read this post because it will inform you with the facts needed to think critically and accurately about the Arab-Israel crisis, as well as the history of antisemitism, especially from the
Muslims.

One of the greatest attempts to rewrite history to conform to a political ideology (often anti-semitic) centers around the Jews and their subjugation by Islam throughout Europe, as well as the history of Israel.

Another common method of history revisionism that is commonly employed is:

1) Islamic Tolerance:

Perhaps the most serious flaws in most books are distortions resulting from a combination of omission and commission. This is particularly true of the coverage of Islamic history and Muslims' treatment of Jews in the world history texts. The increased attention given to Islam is one change made to recent editions. Its prominence is now at least equal to that of Judaism and Christianity and, in some books, surpasses them. The significance of Islam to world history is not in doubt. What is historically inaccurate, however, is the portrayal of Muslims as paragons of tolerance, particularly regarding Jews.

Several textbooks, including the Middle East (Houghton Mifflin 1990) write that the Muslims offered the Jews religious toleration, and the Jews were generally treated with leniency by Muslims. Some texts even have the audacity to write that the Jews flourished under Islam.
In World History-Patterns of Civilization (Prentice Hall, 1990) by Benton Beers, we have one of the few books that hints that life was not so ideal, noting that Islam protected Jews "in theory if not always in practice." 

Farah and Karls put it differently, writes" Jews did not have all the advantages Muslims did. While Jewish communities in Islamic countries fared better overall than those in Christian lands in Europe, Jews were no strangers to persecution and humiliation among the Arabs. 

As historian Bernard Lewis has written: "The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy with Islam" ("The Pro-Islamic Jews," Judaism, Fall 1968, p. 401). Jews were generally viewed with contempt by their Muslim neighbors; peaceful coexistence between the two groups involved the subordination and degradation of the Jews. Jews did thrive culturally and economically at certain times, but their position was never secure and changes in the political and social climate would often lead to harassment, violence and death

2. Omission

American history texts often skip the period of Nazi persecution prior to the war. In American Journey (Prentice Hall, 1992), for example, James West Davidson et al. have a single line stating that Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I. Usually, the critical aspects of the Nazi terror are ignored.

In The Human Experience—A World History, Farah and Karls define concentration camps as "large prisons" and the Holocaust as "widespread destruction." 

3. Apologists for Authoritarianism

The distortion that is commonly employed is to describe Arab regimes in benign and often positive terms. Conflict among Arab nations is rarely mentioned. 

In The Human Experience--World Regions and Cultures, Welty and Greenblatt go so far as to excuse Arab governments for adopting authoritarian forms of government. They assert that military takeovers are common because army officers are better educated, the army is the most effective power base other than religion and historical tradition favors military rule in the Arab world. These are the same authors who write that one of Faisal's first acts as King of Saudi Arabia in 1964 was to abolish slavery, as if nothing was unusual about the practice of slavery a century after the Emancipation Proclamation. They also ignore the evidence that slavery continues to be practiced in parts of the Arab world to this day.

4. Lies about Israel

The coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict is particularly abysmal. Much of the crucial history of Palestine before 1948 is omitted, particularly from the U.S. history books. Those texts that discuss the mandatory period present the Arab version of history; that is, an unrestrained flood of Jewish immigrants invaded a land already inhabited by another people, who were subsequently forced out. The historical Jewish presence in the country is usually ignored.

Beers, for example, implies in World History--Patterns of Civilization that no Jews lived in Palestine until Eastern Europeans came in the 1920's and 30's (nearly 40 years after the First Aliyah) and found more than 650,000 Arabs already living there. (A patent lie).

Farah and Karls write in The Human Experience-A World History that only 50,000 Jews, most from Eastern Europe, lived in Palestine at the time of the First World War, comprising only 10 percent of the population. The actual number was more than 80,000, closer to 15 percent of the total population. 

Welty and Greenblatt say in The Human Experience--World Regions and Cultures that Jews only migrated to Palestine from the 1920's on and give the impression the British did not impose restrictions until right before WWII. These authors totally ignore Israel's 3000 yr. existence in Israel.

 5. Lies and Revisionism about the Palestinian Refugees

The history of the Palestinians is replete with factual errors, omissions and distortions. Most books give the same explanation for the Palestinian refugee problem, that they "fled or were expelled." No one refers to the thousands who left before the fighting began or before the war was over. Nor do they point out that the number expelled was a fraction of the total that left to avoid the war, or in response to Arab leaders' exhortations to leave. 

Farah and Karls, for example, say in The Human xperience--A World History that the Palestinians "decided-or were forced-to leave what had been their homeland." This comes after a discussion of the 1949 armistice, which insinuates the Palestinians fled after the war. In their 1992 edition, they adopted a more neutral position, reporting that as a result of war 700,000 Arabs became homeless. It is unclear where Farah and Karls and the other authors who use the same statistic came up with the number of refugees. The 700,000 figure is lower than the exaggerated Arab estimates, but still nearly one-third higher than that of the U.N. Mediator on Palestine.

In World History-For A Global Age, Abramowitz is the only author who alludes to the fact that 500,000 Jews fled Arab countries in what was, in effect, an exchange of populations. No mention is made of the mistreatment of Jews that provoked many to emigrate from the otherwise tolerant Islamic societies to Israel.
Also, little is said about the treatment the Palestinian refugees received from their brethren. A couple of books do point out the refugees were not welcomed by the Arab states. 

Schwartz and O'Connor observe in Exploring A Changing World that Arab nations have not given the Palestinians a home (one of the ONLY texts to point out this truth), but Wallbank and Schrier's Living World History is the only book to note that only Jordan gave them citizenship. The text also points out that refugee camps became bases for "violent attacks" against Israel. Hantula et al's.
The number and condition of the refugees are distorted in every book that discusses them. Wallbank and Schrier say most refugee camps became "permanent settlements" without jobs, farms or services. 

Hantula et al., Stearns et al. and Beers all have nearly identical versions. According to these authors, one-third of the 3.5 million Palestinians live in exile, as many as two million confined to squalid refugee camps. These descriptions give the impression that millions of Palestinian refugees are suffering in camps, but this has not been the case for decades. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, two-thirds of the approximately 2.2 million Palestinian refugees are not in camps. "They live and work like everyone else in the towns and villages of the Middle East," UNRWA reports. Moreover, of the five million Palestinians, nearly three-quarters now live in historic "Palestine," either as Israeli or Jordanian citizens or in the West Bank and Gaza. 

The truth is that Arabs in Israel have equal voting rights. In fact, Israel is one of the few places in the Middle East where Arab women can vote. Arabs hold 8 seats in the 120-seat Knesset (Israel's governing body), as well as various government posts. The sole legal distinction between the Arabs and Jews in Israel is that Arabs do not have to serve in the military. Industries like trucking and construction have come to be dominated by Israeli Arabs. 

In the Garden of Beasts: Do we learn anything from history? Regarding Iran, apparently not.

This is a fascinating portrayal of Germany's slow descent into terror and atrocity. The story begins in 1933 and is told through two lives: William Dodd, America's first ambassador to Nazi Germany, and Martha, his daughter. Dodd is an unusual pick for ambassador since he's not a member of the wealthy, good-old-boys ambassadorial club, and has great difficulty getting everyone except Roosevelt to see what is developing in Nazi Germany (unfortunately Roosevelt can't act because of political pressures). 

Martha, on the other hand, is blinded for almost a year by the glitz, glamour, and power of the Nazi regime, and fails to see the evil lurking in its heart. She throws herself into multiple affairs, including one with the head of the Gestapo and one with a Russian spy, and indulges in the society of the wealthy and well-known in Nazi Germany. The contrast between the two main characters is a powerful testament as to how so many people could fail to see the danger Nazi Germany posed to the whole world.

They witness the Night of the Long Knives and see a lot of their friends killed or gone into hiding or exile.

When the Dodd's first arrived in Germany, Hitler's power was not yet complete, the major obstacles being President Hindenburg and the army. In addition, there were rivalries and overlap among the SA (Storm Troopers under Ernst Rohm), the SS (security forces), and the Gestapo (the secret police). Any delusions of the world community that Hitler would follow rules of law and be confined to his duties as chancellor came to an abrupt end on the night of June 30, 1934, when he rounded up several hundred officials and others who he deemed to be a threat, including Rohm, and had them summarily executed. Even then, Hitler was able to convince the vast majority of Germans that his actions were in their best interests.

There are striking similarities between Hitler's rise to power in Germany and current day Iran led by the mad man, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Hitler pretended to be a man of peace so he could buy time to rearm and prepare for war. That's exactly what Ahmadinejad is doing in Iran. He puts up with our stupid, toothless, ineffective economic sanctions and the sanctimonious talk from Sec. of State Hillary Clinton just so he can buy time to pursue his nuclear capability. He has succeeded and we have failed. As of this week, he proudly displayed for the world, Iran's first nuclear rod and the ability to now make nuclear weapons.

On May 12, 1934, Hitler's  propaganda minister, Goebbels, delivers a speech where he called Jews “the syphilis of all European peoples.” Last week, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted that Israel and all of its citizens be annihilated and offered assistance to anyone who would do the job. 

Hitler ranted, but the world scoffed. Few imagined that Hitler could be serious about his plans, even as the Third Reich increasingly institutionalized Jew hatred in law; later, few believed the reports emanating from Germany in the1940s that Hitler was systematically slaughtering the Jews.

Today, Iran’s leaders are pursuing nuclear weapons while threatening to wipe out Israel, referring to the Jewish state in the vilest terms. Most recently, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, endorsed a doctrine that explains why it’s “legally and morally justified” to eliminate Israel.

“Israel is a cancerous tumor in the Middle East…” says a recent article by one of Khamenei’s top advisors, which he has endorsed and which has now appeared on many Iranian government and military websites. “The first step should be the absolute destruction of Israel. To this end, Iran could make use of long-range missiles. The distance between us is only 2,600 [kilometers]. It can be done in minutes.”

It has been observed that for evil to win all that needs happen is for good men to do nothing. That was what the United States government did, at least officially, for much of the lead-up to World War II. Too often chances to speak out and try to stop the madness that was engulfing Germany were ignored. Too frequently the atrocities were overlooked. Too many times our response to the crisis over there was nothing, nothing, nothing... and that's exactly what we are doing today: NOTHING! And, when Israel makes overtures towards self-defense, our esteemed president and secretary of defense throw Israel under the bus, or go so far as to reveal Israel's time-table for attacking Iran. 

Obama has been so conciliatory toward Iran, trying to "make nice" and win them over with his sweet talk  and supernatural ability to pick the winning team for March Madness. Yet, all the while behaving in a hard-nosed, disinterested and arrogant manner towards the one democracy in the U.S., the one authentic U.S. ally in the Middle East, Israel. With friends like Obama, Leon Pannetta and Hillary Clinton, Israel really doesn't need any enemies. 

Bonhoeffer: The man who stood up to Hitler.

Maybe somewhere along the way, you've heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He gave us several great books including "The Cost of Discipleship." It's ironic that I should read a book about Bonhoeffer after reading David Platt's Radical, because Bonhoeffer was a radical in the truest sense of the word.

As I read Eric Metaxas new biography: "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" I became acquanted with a complex Christian who was an academic, teacher, son, brother, friend, pastor and a man who lived his faith. Throughout the book Metaxas shows how Bonhoeffer's decisions were guided by his faith. Bonhoeffer lived out his faith in his daily life. 


Here in the 21st century, we live as Christians in America without much opposition. We are not forced to make hard choices or life and death decisions. We are not really persecuted, really and truly, we aren't. 


How would you or I handle some of the decisions that confronted Bonhoeffer on a daily basis? Do we lie to the Nazis, or do we give them information that leads to the deaths of innocents? Do we obey our nation's laws, or do we defy them by leading Jews into safety? Do we fight in Hitler's army, or do we refuse, knowing that we will be beheaded and leave our family destitute? These are some of the questions that Bonhoeffer and other believers in Nazi Germany had to answer, and their response doesn't fit our nice little Christian stereotype. The Christianity depicted in this book is hard-core, rubber meets the road kind of faith and trust in Almighty God.

Metaxas has clearly done his homework and given us as much information about Bonhoeffer as is possible through personal letters, essays and the recollections of others.

Bonhoeffer was raised in an affluent family of German intellectuals where success was assumed. He was afforded the opportunity to travel and advance his education. Dietrich chose the nonintellectual pursuit of theological study. Bonhoeffer became one of the leading voices of the German Confessing Church in the 1930s challenging the state authorized and often anti-God church of the Third Reich. 

Bonhoeffer refused to accept the German position regarding the Jews which would eventually lead to the extermination of over six million Jews by Hitler's Third Reich. He took a stand early on when many Germany's were acquiescing to Hitler and even turning their backs and a deaf ear to the cries of their Jewish neighbors. Bonhoeffer took no thought for his own well-being. In fact, on four different occasions, Dietrich could have escaped from Germany and settled in the U.S. or England as an esteemed professor-theologian. But, as Bonhoeffer felt that he had a destiny and even if it ended in his premature death, he could not shrink or run from it. 

Bonhoeffer's resistance eventually led to his participation in a conspiracy to assassinate Adolph Hitler leading to the failed Stauffenberg plot of July 1944. In the aftermath of this attempt of the Fuhrer's life, Bonhoeffer and other conspirators were arrested with Bonhoeffer. He was executed by Hitler during the last days of the war in April 1945.

Let me close by saying that I am attracted to these kinds of books because they hold up a mirror to my own life and I am forced to ask myself, "What would I have done?" "Would I have stood up for my Jewish neighbors, at the risk of my own life?"  I am afraid that at times, I think I may not have behaved as nobly as Bonhoeffer. For that, I ask God's forgiveness and seek to be strengthened in my faith so as not to love my life and to be willing to stand for righteousness regardless of the cost. 


I believe in my lifetime that we as believers may be forced to take a stand against evil that could cost us our lives. 


Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy introduced me to Bonhoeffer whom I grew to know as well as any friend of mine. He is my brother in the faith and I am thankful for his courage, conviction and faithfulness. His legacy is one that will inspire and challenge me in the days to come. I look forward to embracing Bonhoeffer in heaven.