Are Muslims Infidels?

Paul Eidelberg

It’s always a pleasure reading the lucid and logical Phillip E. Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial. The title of his latest book , Against All Gods: What’s Right and Wrong About the New Atheism (2010), is co-authored with John Mark Reynolds. Johnson writes in the Introduction:

Our position in this book is that the arguments for atheism should be taken seriously and considered both respectfully and critically. One of the healthy aspects of the current atheist movement is that the atheists who are selling so many books say that they want everything to be put on the table for criticism, with nothing held back as too sensitive for such examination. They say that they deplore the fact that in some circles it is considered unacceptable to criticize a religion because somebody might be offended.

Contrast this statement with the attitude of Muslims to any criticism of their religion. Notice the “political correctness” or lack of intellectual integrity or courage on the party of so many pundits, professors, and politicians on the subject of Islam. Despite the awesome threat of Islam to the United States (and to Western civilization as a whole), hardly a word was said about Islam during the 2008 US presidential campaign—and we all know about the religious integrity of Barack. Obama, a Muslim as well as professed Christian who sonorously attended the irreverent sermons of Jeremiah Wright.

We also know about the Danish Cartoons, and how they aroused the wrath and violence of Muslims hither and yon. Contrast Jews who, century after century, have been burned at the stake, whose Torah scrolls and sacred books have been cast into the flames; Jews who, down through ages, have been the victims of vilification and pogroms. And yet, have you ever heard of their taking revenge on their tormentors? Have you noticed Jewish self-restraint against Arab terrorists despite the overwhelming power of the Israel Defense Forces? Nothing like this in history.

So what is there in his psyche that indices the Muslim to wreak the cruelest slaughter of “infidels”— mutilating men, women, and children and even exult in such barbarism?

It’s not enough to say, as the gallant scholar Bat Ye’or has said, that Islam is a “culture of hate.” It’s not enough to say, as the marvelous Brigitte Gabriel has written, Because They Hate—the title of one of her books. Nor is it enough to attribute Muslim hatred to A God Who Hates—the title of a book by the courageous Syrian-born psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan.

Of course, Muslims, having lost their erstwhile imperial glory, are now animated by envy of the Christian West, which has excelled Islam in so many ways. We know of their undying hatred of Western colonialism in the Islamic Middle East. We know how the Jews rejected Muhammad’s pretensions as the prophet of a new religion. Oh, how Muslims hate the Children of Israel—and with an overwhelmingly theological hatred! Which means they hate the God of Israel! That’s why Muslims compulsively intone the words “Allahu Akbar,” to convince themselves that Allah is the “greatest god”!

So let me offer a new and provocative hypothesis. Perhaps what animates the Muslim’s murderous hatred of “infidels” is that he himself is an infidel, meaning, he does not harbor in his soul unwavering belief in Allah and Islam? Perhaps he is tormented by a vague suspicion that all his beliefs or professions about Allah and Islam are a self-delusion. Perhaps this is the most fundamental reason why he loves death and exults in martyrdom.

There is only one way to deal with a mass delusion.

Martin Indyk: A Commentary on Post-Modern Education*

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

To avoid misunderstanding, I must say at the outset that I am not interested in Martin Indyk per se, if only because I do not regard him as worthy of my attention. But since pundits take Indyk seriously, perhaps they may be enlightened if I use him to reveal the basic cause of Israel’s and America’s malaise. Hence, a brief bio of Indyk is necessary, for which Wikipedia will suffice.

Indyk was born in 1951 to a Jewish family in England, but grew up and was educated in Australia. He graduated from the University of Sydney in 1972 and received a PhD in international relations from the Australian National University in 1977. He immigrated to the United States and later gained American citizenship in 1993.

He has taught at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University and at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. He also served as special assistant to U.S. President Bill Clinton (whose administration, according to military theorist and former U.S. Army Colonel Ralph Peters, was “the most cowardly administration in history,” having failed to react vigorously to terrorist attacks on U.S. forces abroad, a failure leading to 9/11.)

Returning to Clinton adviser Martin Indyk, he also served as senior director of Near East and South Asian Affairs at the United States National Security Council. While at the NSC, he served as principal adviser to the President and the National Security Advisor on Arab-Israeli issues, Iraq, Iran, and South Asia. He served two stints as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, from April 1995 to September 1997 and from January 2000 to July 2001.

Writing in the New York Times, and interviewed by Israel Army Radio on April 22, Indyk blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the rift with the Obama administration. He went so far as to say “Israel has to adjust its policy to the interests of the United States.” Since I am anything but a fan of Netanyahu, this report should not be deemed a defense of Bibi.

Notwithstanding Indyk’s education and his experience in the American executive department, he appears abysmally ignorant of facts documented in American sources and confirmed by U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye and former Chief of U.S Air Force Intelligence George Keegan that dollar for dollar, Israel gives more to the U.S. than the U.S. gives to Israel—to say nothing of the overt and covert U.S. military aid to Israel’s enemies, including the Palestinian Authority.

Like his Washington handlers, Indyk has long advocated a Palestinian state, even though one does not require military expertise to arrive at a former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff conclusion that such a state would endanger Israel’s existence. This is why Netanyahu insists that an Arab Palestinian state must be demilitarized and barred from forming alliances with any Arab regime.

Never mind that no Palestinian leader would survive a day if he accepted such terms. Consider only the fact that Indyk wants Israel to negotiate with the PA, whose mentality and behavior have been shaped by Islamic scriptures permeated by murderous hatred of “infidels,” especially Jews. Hence, I am not impressed by Indyk’s academic credentials and experience in the Clinton government, no more than George Orwell was impressed by the British intelligentsia of the 1930s which held posts in the Chamberlain government.

When Indyk served as Clinton’s ambassador to Israel, Israeli conservatives called him a “court Jew.” Such labels are not helpful. We know court Jews in America bend over backwards to avoid the canard of “dual loyalty.” Israel pays a price for this “political correctness.”

For a Democrat like Clinton, whose presidential campaign funding depended very much on Jewish donations, his appointment of Indyk was “religiously” as well as “politically” correct. And since Yasser Arafat was reportedly the most frequent foreign guest at the Clinton White House, Indyk’s endorsement of a Palestinian state made him a virtual ally of Arafat.

But what is “political correctness” if not a label descriptive of someone who willfully avoids taking a candid position on controversial political issues? To put it plainly, “political correctness” is a euphemism to describe a person lacking intellectual integrity or moral courage. But this label short-circuits serious thought about the factors that have shaped Indyk’s mentality.

Would it be proper to regard him simply as ignorant of the bellicose and mendacious nature of Arab-Islamic culture? But how is this possible given his fields of study at various universities? Can it be that his mentors were dominated by moral or multicultural relativism—the same doctrine that has influenced Barack Obama?

Like other “politically correct” democrats, Indyk tends to “mirror image”—sees Arabs as he sees him own peace-loving face in a mirror. This may explain his inability to take the bellicose nature of Arab-Islamic culture seriously. Perhaps he imbibed the academic doctrine of “conflict resolution,” which reinforces the natural bent of diplomats—a doctrine that ignores the enormity of evil in the world? There are legions of such people in academia—especially at Columbia and Tel Aviv universities, where moral relativism and pacifism flourish.

This might explain why Indyk ignored Arafat’s remark that “peace for us means the destruction of Israel.” It might also explain why a person tainted by multicultural relativism cannot factor into his evaluation of Islam the significance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vow to “wipe Israel off the map,” even though that Muslim leader sent tens of thousands of Iranian children to walk across and thereby explode Iraqi minefields in the Iraqi-Iranian war. (By the way, Ahmadinejad he was a recent guest of Columbia University!)

Hence, it is reckless folly to dismiss Ahmadinejad’s maledictions as mere rhetoric, as smug academics teach their students. The genocidal imprecations of Arabs and Muslims vis-a-vis Israel and America underlie what Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington have called the “clash of civilizations"—which means, to any person unaffected by academic obscurantism: It’s either them or us.” Does Indyk deem these renowned scholars ignoramuses or “extremists”?

Even more important on a practical level than Lewis and Huntington is Ralph Peters mentioned earlier. In two books, Fighting for the Future and Beyond Terror, Peters cautions us not to negotiate with terrorists—and the Palestinian Authority is nothing if it not a terrorist organization bent on Israel’s annihilation. I assume the learned Mr. Indyk has read the PA’s genocidal charter. If so, he seems to construe it as mere rhetoric for the masses.

Let me therefore urge him to study the extraordinary erudition and worldwide experience of Michael Radu, especially Radu’s recent book Europe's Ghost: Tolerance, Jihadism, and the Crisis of the West. What’s left of Europe is a “ghost”—nations disembodied by the multicultural relativism of their ruling elites (academics and politicians, judges and journalists). No wonder Barack Obama has been called an “empty suit.”

Of course, my remarks will have no impact on those who take civilization for granted. Like overindulged children, our decision makers and diplomats do not really understand—because they have not been taught to understand—how much hard work and stamina, how much self-sacrifice and heroism, are required in each generation to defend civilization against its enemies. Read Lee Harris to learn why. Or think of how much it cost in blood and treasure to save Europe from barbarism in the wars of the last century—a barbarism no less monstrous than that promised by totalitarian Islam.

Perhaps Ralph Peters, Michael Radu, and Lee Harris are beyond Mr. Indyk’s limited comprehension. I doubt men of their “politically incorrect” views are required reading at Columbia and Tel Aviv universities. I wonder if any academic today—despite all the drivel about academic freedom—can remain at his post if he were to explain, in scholarly terms, using Islamic documents, why it is futile and fatal to negotiate with the self-professed enemies of Israel and America, be they Fatah Palestinians or Iranian mullahs.

Since Martin Indyk surely does not want America and Israel to become mere “ghosts,” I wonder what he would say after reading Raymond Ibraham’s essay on the Islamic art of dissimulation, “taqiyya,” a military doctrine best revealed by Ibrahim in the Winter 2010 edition of the Middle East Quarterly (http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war).

Some readers may accuse me of arrogance by criticizing a man of Indyk’s academic and governmental background. But I feel obliged to do so not because I am a former officer in the U.S. Air Force who studied under Leo Strauss, a classical political scientist without equal in the twentieth century. No: you don’t need to be a soldier or a scholar to discern the enormity of evil confronting America and Israel. So I am not impressed by America’s erstwhile ambassador to Israel. Indeed, he reminds me of Nietzsche’s remark about German intellectuals: “great learning and great stupidity often go well together under the same hat.”

____________________
*Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, 26 April 2010,

A WEAK PRESIDENT . . .

Iran begins war games in Persian Gulf, taunts U.S.

from Jihad Watch:

Saber-rattling and thumbing their noses at a weak president whom they know will not act. "Iran begins war games in Persian Gulf oil route," by Nasser Karimi and Lee Keath for Associated Press, April 22 (thanks to Choi):

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard held war games Thursday in the strategic Persian Gulf oil route, the Hormuz Strait, a show of its military strength at a time when the country's leaders are depicting President Barack Obama's new nuclear policy as a threat.
Ahead of the military maneuvers, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Washington of trying to dominate the world through its nuclear arsenal and vowed that Iran would not bend before what he called "implicit atomic threats."...

Iran has been holding military maneuvers, dubbed as The Great Prophet, in the strategic waters of the Persian Gulf annually since 2006 to show off its military capabilities -- and serve as an implicit warning of the consequences if the United States or Israel attack Iran's nuclear facilities....

On Thursday, the military unveiled a new attack speedboat, describing it as an "ultra-speed and smart" vessel called "Ya Mahdi." Iran also said 313 smaller speedboats with the capability of firing rockets and missiles would participate....

On Wednesday, ahead of the exercises, Khamenei spoke to a conference of nurses and denounced Obama's new nuclear guidelines. U.S. officials have said the changes aim to push Iran into cooperating with the U.N. on its nuclear program, but the supreme leader depicted them as dangling the threat of nuclear attack over his country.

"Implicit atomic threats against Iran will have no effect," he said. "The Iranian people will not submit to such threats and will bring those who make them to their knees." He repeated that Iran is not seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

"The nuclear powers, particularly the United States, are using their nuclear might to try to impose their authority over the world," he said....

Be sure to read the Comments

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/iran-begins-war-games-in-persian-gulf-taunts-us.html


AND from Israel Commentary, April 21, 2010:

Nuclear posturing, Obama-style - A slump in an insane direction
By Charles Krauthammer

Palm Beach Post, April 14, 2010

Nuclear doctrine consists of thinking the unthinkable. It involves making threats and promising retaliation that is cruel and destructive beyond imagining. But it has its purpose: to prevent war in the first place. During the Cold War, we let the Russians know that if they dared use their huge conventional military advantage and invaded Western Europe, they risked massive U.S. nuclear retaliation. Goodbye, Moscow.

Was this credible? Would we have done it? Who knows? No one’s ever been there. A nuclear posture is just that — a declaratory policy designed to make the other guy think twice. Our policies did. The result was called deterrence. For half a century it held. The Soviets never invaded. We never used nukes. That is why nuclear doctrine is important.

The Obama administration has just issued a new one that “includes significant changes to the U.S. nuclear posture,” said Defense Secretary Bob Gates. First among these involves the US response to being attacked with biological or chemical weapons. Under the old doctrine, supported by every president of both parties for decades, any aggressor ran the risk of a cataclysmic U.S. nuclear response that would leave the attacking nation a cinder and a memory.

Under President Obama’s new policy however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),” explained Mr. Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten, to use nuclear weapons against it.”

Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is up-to-date with its latest IAEA inspections. (Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs and other conventional munitions.) However, if the lawyers tell the president that the attacking state is NPT non-compliant, we are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come. This is quite insane. Ws like saying that if a terrorist uses his car to mow down a hundred people waiting at a bus stop, the decision as to whether he gets (a) hanged or (b) 100 hours of community service hinges entirely on whether his car had passed emissions inspections.

Apart from being morally bizarre, the policy is strategically loopy. Does anyone believe that North Korea or Iran will be more persuaded to abjure nukes because they could then carry out a biological or chemical attack on the U.S. without fear of nuclear retaliation? The naiveté is stunning. Similarly, is the Obama pledge to forswear development of any new warheads and even to permit no replacement of aging components without the authorization of the president himself. This action is perpetrated under the theory that our moral example will move other countries to eschew nukes. To the contrary, the last quarter-century — the time of greatest superpower nuclear arms reduction— is precisely when Iran and North Korea went hell bent into the development of nuclear weapons.

It gets worse. The administration’s Nuclear Posture Review declares U.S. determination to “continue to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks.” The ultimate aim is to get to a blanket doctrine of no first use. This is deeply worrying to many small nations who, for half a century relied on the extended US nuclear umbrella. When smaller allies see the United States determined to move inexorably away from that posture — and for them it is not posture, but existential protection — what are they to think? Fend for yourself. Get your own WMDs. Do you imagine they are not thinking that in the Persian Gulf?

This administration seems to believe that by restricting retaliatory threats and by downplaying our reliance on nuclear weapons, it is discouraging proliferation. But the opposite is true. Seeing America retreat, they will rethink. And some will arm. There is no greater spur to hyper-proliferation than the furling of the American nuclear umbrella.

Charles Krauthammer’s e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com


(Some believe Mr. Krauthammer is being extremely kind to Obama. Rather than calling his “posturing in an insane direction” a “slump” some consider it a deliberate move to weaken the US militarily, weaken our position as the predominant world power and hasten our descent into the level of third world, despotic, dependent nations that Obama embraces with such warmth. Whatever mentality drives Obama in this direction is beyond rational thought. Evidently, analysis will have to be left to the musings of the psychiatrists of the world - just as they have had to muse and disastrously too late, on the mentality of other destructive individuals that have cursed this Earth).

Jsk

Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman
http://www.israel-commentary.org/archives/2010_04.html#001375

What to do about Obama‏

A Message of National Importance

1) First, listen to Barack Obama here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28

2) Second, learn about the Islamic art of dissimulation called “taqiyya” by reading an essay by Raymond Ibrahim which appeared in the Winter 2010 edition of the Middle East Quarterly here:

(http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war.)

3) Start a local community education program on the founding principles of American Government as articulated in the American Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and The Federalist Papers. (I can recommend some illuminating books for this education program.)

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Also see http://apathetic-usa.com/articles.htm

Commander: Iran Ready to Demolish US Forces

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian military commander downplayed recent speculations about a possible US attack on Iran, and said that Iranian forces have long been waiting to destroy the US forces and equipments in the region.

"First we should wait and see whether they (enemies) are able to take such a move (attack on Iran) or not since we have been prepared to destroy the US forces and equipments in the region for the last 10 years," Iran's Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Hassan Firouzabadi told reporters on the sidelines of an international conference on nuclear disarmament here in Tehran on Saturday.

"As I have already announced, if the US attacks Iran, none of its soldiers will go back home alive," the commander went on saying.

Firouzabadi also said that such war rhetoric by the US indicates that Washington is unable to confront the nations' vigilance and their movement towards restoration of their rights and spread of justice throughout the world.

The remarks by the Iranian General followed a US nuclear threat against Iran. The United States pledged never to use nuclear weapons against the states that comply with the Non-Proliferation Treaties (NPT) as part of a much-anticipated review of nuclear arms strategy released last week.

But the new pledge leaves open a nuclear strike against countries that have signed on to a global NPT but stand accused of violating its terms.

Obama, in an interview with the New York Times, said outright that the loophole would apply to "outliers like Iran and North Korea" that the US believes are developing nuclear weapons.

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8901281093

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Via: IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

What A Teleprompter May Conceal

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

It is well known that countless college graduates require remedial reading and writing to qualify for higher degrees. This phenomenon, for non-genetic reasons, occurs more frequently among black than among white students. I have had such students. Some may be fairly articulate in ordinary conversation, but their writing and reading comprehension is awful! So how did they graduate college?

If they are black, then, unlike an Alan Keyes or a Thomas Sowell and other black students I know of, their teachers used lower academics standards to grade and advance them in high school and college. This is one consequence of the “affirmative action” policy of the late 1960s. Many professors were (and still are) reluctant and even afraid to flunk black students. This helps to explain why such students graduated college and went on to graduate school. But more is involved here than lowering of academic standards to accommodate disadvantaged students.

It should also be noted that cheating on exams and plagiarism are common among students of all races. One of my students wrote her doctoral dissertation on cheating in colleges and universities. Much to her dismay, she discovered that cheating was not only widespread in democracies, but that many people did not deem it reprehensible!

Cheating aside, legions of inferior students are quite capable of regurgitating the lectures of their professors who feel gratified by such mimicry. But this means that many students who receive good grades are incapable of independent or critical thought, or of relating general principles to facts not discussed by their teachers. Evident here is diminished ability to engage in deductive and inductive reasoning. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. William Bennett, after visiting some yeshivas, said that American schools should adopt the pedagogical methods of these Jewish schools where the logical skills of students barely entering their teens surpass those of American college seniors!

Especially subversive of serious as well as logical thinking is the doctrine of moral and cultural relativism that permeates American “higher” education. Multicultural relativism undermines the incentive of students to take contradictory ideas seriously, having been taught by professors that a person’s opinions or beliefs about the good, the true, and the beautiful are purely subjective or culturally determined. Professors who propagate relativism dominate the social sciences and humanities. They foster the complacent and egalitarian notion that one person’s moral or aesthetic values are no more valid than another’s.

Relativists are agnostics. They deny the possibility of apprehending truths that transcend time and place. They would reject the “Higher Law” doctrine of the American Declaration of Independence, which affirms the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” the touchstone of individual liberty and human dignity.

By the way, what would former black slaves such as Frederick Douglass or Booker T. Washington say of Muslim rulers who utter the malediction “Death to America”—or of a black preacher that says “God damn America”? They would probably call such people evil or depraved. But this assertion would be deemed subjective or a “value-judgment” by the academic relativists that have corrupted black and white students at Harvard, Columbia and other elite universities during the past five decades.

We should also remember that the labeling of people as “racists” or “right-wingers” or “left-wingers” has long been a commonplace in journalism and public discourse. Such labels stultify the intellect. They enable mediocre minds to dismiss political ideas merely by using political labels. Entering college students, regardless of race, soon become addicted to abbreviated and smug thinking. It’s “cool,” it’s convenient—yes, and it short-circuits serious controversy.

No less significant is the dismal state of historical knowledge among university graduates. This means that students lack the ability to relate current political issues to past experience or to the wisdom of great men. Ignorance of history fosters arrogance, especially among modernists who think the living have a monopoly of wisdom. College students are attracted to “progressive” politicians who disparage the past and exalt Change. Such demagogues use or misuse the instinctive desire of youth for novelty. They also exploit the young person’s natural feeling of justice and revulsion for the many instances of injustice that punctuate history and real life. What is more, if injustice is perpetrated on the scale of colonialism, students can become alienated from their Western heritage.

Also noteworthy is that despite the inferior academic accomplishments of disadvantaged college students, many are quite glib. They can play the “race card” to attract influential sponsors and win scholarships to prestigious universities. They are quite capable of ingratiating themselves with their mentors to facilitate their academic escape from serious work and responsibility. They do not pursue knowledge for its own sake but as a means of self-aggrandizement. Their learning is inevitably superficial—enough to get by—another commonplace known to every teacher.

In such an environment, “successful” students become more arrogant, more cunning, more superficial, and more indifferent to the ideas, dedication, and heroic efforts of the people who have made America a great nation. But what can one expect when so many historians and political scientists inflate their own egos and advance their own careers by belittling the past. These cynics and Lilliputians bring great statesmen such as Washington and Hamilton, Jefferson and Lincoln, down to their own level. I’ve seen and more than enough academics that make a career of debunkmanship. What can one expect from their students even at Harvard? The burgeoning anti-Americanism among academics is indicative of relativists and other half-educated people who take civilization for granted. An adolescent mentality is rampant among anti-American professors.

Thoughtful Europeans, whose economies and social fabrics are being ruined by the influx of indigent, arrogant, ungrateful, prolific, anti-Western immigrants, nostalgically say “God bless America”—the America that saved Europe from Nazi and Communist tyranny and which alone can save the Old World from a new tyranny. Anyone who apologizes for America to nations abroad, especially to Islamic despotisms, is an ignoramus or morally retarded—a despicable wretch that must have been corrupted by anti-American professors ventilating at decadent universities. Alternatively, this wretch, financed by a billionaire, may be a Machiavellian skilled in the Islamic art of dissimulation or “taqiyya.”

We all know of prominent people who, having been educated in America and having prospered in this country, hate America, hate Western Civilization, and identify with the Third World, a world that hunted slaves and sold them to black men a well as white men; but let’s not discuss this in universities, especially with blacks in the classroom. The canard of “racism” is the weapon of choice in the domain of academia as well as in the domain of politics. It might be enlightening as well as embarrassing to investigate the extent to which the “race card” has contributed to the success of various actors in these two domains.