Tilting toward Mecca.
"Thou doth protest too much." That's my reaction to President Barack Obama's visit to a mosque yesterday.
There is no national attack on Muslims that requires Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and major Democrats in Congress and in state legislatures, and Democrat governors and mayors, universities, mainstream media, to dignify a problem that doesn't exist. They are projecting Obama's enthusiasm for Islam.
Let's stop demonizing Donald Trump as an excuse in order to accelerate the Islamization of America. One friend, a former Soviet dissident living in the United States, just wrote me: "All Obama's doing is just an imitation of Europeans. I lived in Europe when it started. America is just ten to twenty years behind and catching up very rapidly." Trump deserves credit for his blunt denunciation of political correctness, for example, where a San Bernardino County resident did not report suspicious activity among the terrorists because of Obama's chilling environment of political correctness.
Nearly a decade ago, a high-ranking German military officer predicted to me, when I was speaking with him at German's OCS school, that there would be more Muslims coming into Germany because, he said, Germans felt guilt and remorse about the Holocaust, so the government would go overboard with Muslims to show religious tolerance. He spoke to me about a specific case where three Muslim brothers killed their sister for losing her virginity, and a prosecutor was in negotiation to plea-bargain the case for the sake of harmony. It is not an accident that one of the 9/11 terror cell was in Hamburg Germany.
Now Angela Merkel. who presided over a preposterous massive open-borders policy, is trying to save face. She is walking the policy back a bit, but she won't repudiate her misguided fiasco of mass importation of Muslims. No doubt she must privately regret the disruption of Germany. The ultimate hypocrisy of the so-called women's movement (in Germany and here) is its refusal to confront, for example, the attacks on women in Cologne, indicating that in Germany and (sadly) here in the U.S., "multiculturalism" takes precedence over women's rights.
Why don't we have a president who says that today's Muslim immigrants are not generally the same as past Muslim immigrants, instead of his inaccurate portrayal of Muslim immigration as entirely benign and wonderfully beneficial? Many Muslims came here -- and to Europe -- a generation or two ago for a better life, not for welfare. Many who came to the U.S. were pro-American, not anti-American. They knew they wanted to assimilate, and they did assimilate. Many were educated and skilled and family oriented and came here to work hard. Some have left their faith, others practice it in varying degree.
The immigrant demographics are different today. In Michigan, for example, welfare forms are also printed in Arabic. We have people coming to this country not for freedom or opportunity but for government aid -- that's certainly what we see in Germany, a magnet for many seeking the highest welfare benefits within the European Union. Unlike the many Jewish immigrants who came with enthusiasm and gratitude to the U.S.three quarters of a century ago or longer, many of the Muslims coming to Europe have a sense of entitlement. They want immediate benefits. They complain, they have hunger strikes. They demonstrate.
They don't want to blend in. They expect change to accommodate them. This certainly is true of many of the many single men who would make Bill Cosby look docile. I must add there are many needy and grateful Muslim families who feel disgraced and hurt by the predatory sexual behavior of the young, aggressive males. But does anyone believe that respect toward women in the Muslim world is remotely on a par with respect toward women in the West?
Just like Obama wants to make African Americans or women or homosexuals or Native Americans or Latinos into victims, his strategy of division is to make Muslims into victims. Newborn Muslim immigrants are treated more favorably than needy Americans -- white, African-American or others -- who have been left impoverished over time, for sure, but especially by the failed Obama economic policies. In Europe many Muslims are put up in hotels, in a few cases, even luxury hotels when others are full.
Already Muslims are a privileged group. Just as the Obama administration interprets freedom of religion selectively as it wants to force a Christian baker who finds a gay wedding immoral to bake a wedding cake for a gay wedding, or a Christian florist to provide the wedding flowers, the same Obama lawyers favor Muslims. The government seems to believe that a Muslim truck driver must be "accommodated" if he doesn't want to transport alcohol, or a Muslim airline steward must be "accommodated" if he doesn't want to serve alcohol. Abercrombie and Fitch, a clothing chain that was selling clothes via sexual appeal, was told it had to hire a Muslim who didn't fit the A-F image. We are seeing government financial settlements for aggrieved Muslims. If you can't do the job or don't want to, don't apply or quit. Will be next have a Burka for a waitress at Hooters?
Now Muslim employees at American factories are suing to get five breaks for prayer. This is not a Muslim country. If Muslim immigrants want to be called to prayer five times a day, perhaps they would be happier in an Arab nation. There are many Arab countries. In fact, each one has a vote at the United Nations, one reason why U.N. votes are so skewed. Most of them reject Arab and Muslim refugees for two reasons: (1) they are selfish and uncaring, even for their brothers and sisters, and (2) they want to spread Muslims into the West. Both reasons are unacceptable. President Obama should be confronting those two reasons.
America used to be a country where the main religion, though not an official state religion, was Christianity. As a Jew, I appreciated our nation's Judeo-Christian heritage, and I never felt threatened that the overwhelming share of the population here was Christian. Often at public functions a Protestant, Catholic or Jew made a prayer, all three -- for example, at past presidential swearing-ins. Will we now add a Muslim? A Buddhist? A Scientologist? A humanist? How many other religions or movements for political correctness? Now, the Christmas season is a farce, and it's politically incorrect to say Merry Christmas. We project not fairness or tolerance but a sense of shame and embarrassment at who we are. is celebrating Christmas immoral?
Can't these Muslims pray in the morning coffee break, lunchtime, and the afternoon break, and pray at home in the morning and in the evening? Or if that doesn't work for the five prayers, perhaps they should find a different job. I respect that praying five times is part of their religion; but as an employer, I don't have to "accommodate" it; and as a consumer, I don't want to, however indirectly, pay for it because the business incurs extra cost.
Muslims observe the formal prayers as follows: Fajr (pre-dawn), Dhuhr (noon), 'Asr (afternoon) In the late afternoon. Maghrib (sunset). 'Isha (evening): Before retiring for the night. Why can't these Muslim employees follow their religion without hassling their employers and without litigation? Why are they into suing their employer? Or getting the Federal government involved? We already have too much intrusion into the employer-employee relationship. Do we need this, too? All this is part of an entitlement ideology, enabled by President Obama's spreading victimhood gospel. Could you imagine a Christian or Jew suing in a Muslim country, and for what reason? Of course, those countries in many cases don't allow a church or a synagogue. And a non-Muslim may not even have standing to sue.
In this country, each company is not an agent of the government And each company certainly ought not to be an enforcer of President Obama's vision of political correctness. It is remarkable how much he has changed this nation in seven years. Somehow our whole country is mobilized to prove to the world that we want more Muslims here, as soon as possible, and we want to change our ethos and our culture. Why this hysteria that has turned reality on its head?
My orthodox Jewish grandparents prayed three times a day, but not on their employer's time. And they did not work on Saturday. If that didn't mesh with their job, they found another job. All this was not the employer's concern or problem, nor a matter for the government. My grandparents and parents came to the United States because the government here was not run by Jew-haters. That did not mean that people here were not entitled to all sorts of views, even religious prejudice. Obama's comparison of the current wave of Muslim refugees to those Jews is full of historical accuracies and offensive.
My Jewish immigrant ancestors did not want to impose their religious faith on others, and certainly not through government. Indeed, when I went to Jewish services as a boy, there was -- in every synagogue in the United States -- an explicit prayer for our government, for the United States of America. It wasn't equivocal, it wasn't conditional. We didn't have all the contemporary Muslim "ifs" - if the U.S. provides Muslims with prayers five times a day, movies or television don't offend Muslims, if American foreign policy is changed. It was patriotism, pure and simple. And there was a belief in majority rule, within constitutional parameters and safeguards. It was considered presumptuous that others should change to accommodate the Jewish immigrants. The historical record is quite clear.
In many mosques, perhaps most mosques, there is no preaching to subvert the United States. But we know that some mosques are centers for agitation and, in effect, safe houses for potential terrorists. We know there are mosques where hate is taught. This is not unique to the United States, but a problem throughout the world, including London, Paris, Berlin. How many churches or synagogues are under F.B.I. surveillance?
We know what it's like in Muslim nations. There are no "accommodations" there for Christians or Jews. There are no Jews there, and now the few Christians there are being driven out. Instead of backing Congressman Dana Rohrabacher's legislation to prioritize asylum for persecuted Christians feeling Muslim persecution, President Obama's priority is mass Muslim migration into the United States. Obama relies for refugee flow on the United Nations camps that discriminate against Christians.
What is President Obama most noted for, in his comments about Christianity? Instead of taking a bold and persistent stand against the persecution of Christians, the violent attacks, the killing -- President Obama made a fool of himself by talking about the Crusades, in an effort to establish moral equivalency between Christian violence and Muslim violence. Yeah, sure, we have Presbyterians waging war against Episcopalians. It's all over the news. The evangelical Christians are kidnapping mainstream Christians. When is the last time Reform Jews launched a holy war against Orthodox Jews and killed tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands?
We live in a world where Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims continue to massacre each other. Why pretend otherwise? Muslim-on-Muslim violence and warfare is so common, it is not even news. If Israel ever disappeared, the internecine Muslim warfare would grow. it is hatred of Israel that holds some of the disparate Muslims together in a tenuous truce, to the extent there is one, sometimes, somewhere.
Our Founders did not want the kind of society where the government imposes a state religion. They did not want the government to interfere in the free exercise of religion. They never envisioned government telling employers who to hire or fire, in general, especially relating to any sort of religious practice, or how to go about their business, to "accommodate" the religious beliefs of employees. Moreover, Obama is selective, government can make Christians can go against their beliefs, but government must force businesses to "accommodate" the religious beliefs of Muslims.
Make no mistake. Obama has many like-thinking allies among progressives, women's groups, the LGBT leaders from central casting, and secular Christians, and secular Jews like Bernie Sanders who is not remotely a practicing or observant Jew. Sander's "spirituality" justifies not personal charity but stealing (i.e. socialism). Bernie was born Jewish but feels more comfortable with Palestinian victimhood than Zionist destiny. It's part of the whole anti-colonialist shtick. No wonder Bernie keeps harping on the need to bring more MOOSE-LUM refugees here.
Ask yourself whether their pro-Muslim approach is simple political correctness or moral depravity. Obama and his groupies charge the Republicans with a "War on Women" and an assault on "gay rights." But the Muslim nations continue aggression against women and homosexuals, ranging from sexual mutilation, assault, and rape, to stoning and death. Contrary to the mainstream media, these practices are not confined to ISIS, but prevail in varying degree throughout the Muslim world, including countries that gave the Clinton Foundation big money and speaking fees to the Clintons.
If you're truly pro-women and pro-gay, stop admitting as immigrants a demographic group in which many of the immigrants, according to polls, believe in violence against women and gays and even believe someone who leaves the Muslim faith deserves the punishment of death. Is this just a different culture, or a threat to Western civilization and what this country is about?
Hollywood is all for "Syrian refugees." Many Syrians are wonderful people. I have friends here from Syria who are intelligent professionals working hard. I don't know their religion. If they are Muslim, they surely are not extreme. But to bring in tens of thousands of Syrians -- rather than have them absorbed by nearby Arab countries -- is utterly preposterous. Show compassion for these people, even offer humanitarian aid -- but not for them to come across the ocean to the United States, when so many Arab nations can host them. Offer help if you want, so they can resettle in Arab countries "close to home."
Some of these people sided with the tyrant Assad who gassed his own men, women and children. Others sided with the ISIS barbarians. Still others were caught in the crossfire, but many of these are old-school Muslims, meaning traditional. So gay-rights- and-womens rights Hollywood is endorsing a policy of bringing in tens of thousands -- even more if Barack Obama and John Kerry have their way -- hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees, many of whom are against the most basic rights of women and homosexuals that the liberal Hollywood elites patronize.
Under President Obama, there is this irrational annual allocation of slots for Muslims, as if there is an affirmative action diversity program to change the demographics of the U.S. as quickly as possible. In all my life, I never heard Americans say, "We need to find a way to persuade more Muslims to come to the United States. We need diversity!"
Yes, President Obama, there is strength in diversity, but it depends on the diversity. The Left has this problem: diversity is an end in itself. Do you believe that an honor killing of a young girl by her father, or uncles or brothers, is simply diversity? Is there anything to be said for Western values, or do we buy into the progressive nonsense that diversity is wonderful and all cultures are unique and equal? That's B.S.
Coming into the United States is not a right, but a privilege. This country is under no obligation to move at an accelerated rate toward where Europe is, subject to literally an invasion of Muslims. These folks are not escaping religious persecution, the Christian are! And if it's a war the Muslims are escaping, it is an internecine war among Muslims. President Obama may have made mistakes in his Syrian policy, but whatever he has done pales in comparison to the years, decades, centuries of Muslims killing Muslims. But don't go back in history, as Obama has done to condemn Christians. Just look at recent years -- Muslims are killing other Muslims, big time. Why don't we help them with counsel and negotiations, perhaps some assistance, and form a coalition with Arab countries to help their brothers and sisters? We don't need to change what America is all about, because President Obama is having an identity crisis, linked to his troubled non-relationship with his Muslim father. Psychiatrists deal with that sort of thing.
Let the Saudis and others who spend their money subsidizing foreign mosques to spread their Islamist iextremism -- let them use this money to help Muslim refugees, to resettle them in Arab nations, at least until those who are from Syria can down the line return to Syria.
Obama and the Democrats are obsessed about "Islamophobia" and "homophobia." News bulletin: Muslims are not concerned about homophobia. The big phobia in American today is Christianphobia, part of a secular movement to marginalize Christianity in America. Evangelical Christians are politically incorrect; they are ridiculed and marginalized -- right here in the United States. If they are anti-abortion, they are depicted as anti-women. If they oppose same sex marriage, they are anti-gay.
Hillary Clinton cannot be fighting against the supposed "War on Women" and fighting to defend "LGBT rights" and still endorse massive Muslim immigration. This is more than inconsistency. It is intellectual fraud. Many of these folks coming in are virulently opposed to basic rights for women and basic rights for gays.
Obama's mosque visit is a gratuitous affront to the tens of thousands of Americans who have been maimed, and the memory of those killed, in confronting an Islamist revolution launched by President Jimmy Carter a generation ago when Carter maneuvered to overthrow the pro-Western, pro-reform Shah of Iran, and replace him with the Ayatollah. The religious fundamentalists were in Iran, but Carter fostered them and enabled them to take power. More than a generation later, Obama is providing a nuclear weapons scenario for Iran.. Wahhabi extremists have thrived in Saudi Arabia; our task was to inhibit them by discouraging the Saudi royal family from supporting Wahhabis. The Bush presidents failed at this, and so did Obama, though things are finally improving a bit, not because of, but in spite of, Obama's support for, say, the radical Muslim brotherhood. Even this mosque that Obama picked -- it is not a mosque known as a center of moderation.
Everyone knows that America has patriotic and decent Muslims, including many who loyally serve in the military and law enforcement. And surely we need Muslim allies throughout the world to help against radical Muslim, Islamists, Jihadists, or whatever term you use, that Obama will not. You don't reach these good Muslims by patronizing them.
The Muslim leadership around the world and in this country is reluctant, at best, to take on the Islamist thugs that they say "hijacked their religion." Surely many Muslims left the keys in the pickup truck for the Islamist hijackers, or the house door unlocked for the Islamist home invasion. Why can't we allow some "good" (as Donald Trump might say) Muslims to come here and reject those who reject us? Why doesn't Obama and his Administration insist that moderate Muslims assert leadership and enable and incentivize moderation, rather than ally with CAIR?
On a good day, we are told by the Council on American Relations (CAIR) that Israel is the reason that Muslim terrorists, in the name of their religion, are attacking innocents in countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America. Or we are told the United States is at fault because of something we did, like supporting the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia. Can you imagine Christians or Jews justifying Christian or Jewish terrorism by citing some sort of grievance?
Ours is a country where people can peacefully pursue their religious faith. It is not a laboratory or staging area for people of one religion to come with the expectation of making this a theocracy in their favor. Generally, no Christian preacher, no Catholic priest, no Jewish rabbi --tells the congregation to disobey civil law in favor of a heavy-handed religious law. Even the most orthodox Jews who follow Jewish courts on, say, divorce, still pursue a civil divorce in a secular court. This is the same, for example, with my Catholic friends. We would never accept religion as a justification for, let's say, wife beating or child abuse. That's what is happening now, in Europe. Why doesn't President Obama speak out about these issues, instead of trying to make us like Europe, sooner than later?
Yesterday at the mosque President Obama did not send a message of religious pluralism, but of religious preference. Pluralism is what we had in this country before the Islamic invasion that is part of Obama's legacy. If he wants to stop the alleged American bigotry against Muslims, perhaps it's time for a moratorium until, as the politically incorrect Donald Trump said, "...until we can figure out what the hell is going on." But are we not permitted to inquire of prospective Muslim immigrants their views on the West and Western values, America and the U.S. Constitution, Sharia and radical Islam? Why not?
Obama lectures Americans on how they should respect and revere Islam. Would it be appropriate to inquire of prospective Muslim immigrants their opinion of Jews and Judaism and of Christians and Christianity? Can we ask if they believe they would be bound by laws here, rather than by Sharia? Why doesn't Obama talk about any of this?
My mother came to this country in 1929, the beginning of the Great Depression. She worked as a maid and in the garment district. After work, she took the subway to go to night school to get a high school degree and also to study to become a citizen. She took U.S. history. She learned about the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and the Bill of RIghts. This is the stuff of coming into the United States and becoming a citizen, not being a prop for "diversity."
You, Mr. President, are comparing refugees, some of whom have contempt for the West and for our freedom of religion, and who have no innate love for America, with my mother?
Advocates of increased Muslim immigration raise the straw man of a religious test. But religion is already written into immigration law. And we know that religion is a legitimate proxy at this time, because a significant percentage of Muslims, according to assorted polls, believe in Sharia law, not Western law, and want to impose their religion on everyone else. Japan does not accept Muslim immigrants. Why not? Are they bigoted? Are they under some obligation to do so? Are we?
Perhaps it is inelegant to mention religion rather than some proxy criterion. But for years we've seen the incredibly costly Transportation Security Administration (TSA) body search bible-carrying Christian grandmothers rather than profile (what a terrible word) young men from the Middle East. No doubt we can elegantly move beyond religion, but we must disown this toxic goal of maximizing the influx of Muslims.
The mistake of Trump and the other Republican candidates and even Republican leaders in Congress is their myopic focus on national security, rather than being candid about the cultural disintegration of the West and the U.S. We keep hearing "if only one" Syrian refugee were a terrorist. We might have a white European tourist here who is a terrorist. We already have homegrown Muslim terrorists. We have people here who overstay visas who are a threat.
The real issue is importing Muslims with no commitment to America or no goal of assimilation, and they want to transform (a word favored by Obama, and now Bernie Sanders) America, into a Muslim-tolerant and then Muslim-dominated nation. And Jew haters and self-hating secular Jews are delighted at this influx because if we keep importing Muslims at Obama's rate, they will outnumber the Jewish population and become a potent lobby against Israel.
We need a positive approach. If there is a massive Syrian refugee problem, then for the short term let Arab nations help them. They will be more at home, from a religious and cultural standpoint. And if peace is restored in Syria, let them return. Certainly some of the men should be fighting for their beliefs in their own country. Obama's policy to transport these people across the ocean and make these people permanent residents and then citizens of the United States is absurd and reflects what he wants, and what he wants us to think are American values of "democracy" and "compassion."
President Obama has, one expert on Europe and Islam told me, a messianic complex. As for Jews, Obama called himself an "honorary member of the tribe." Further, he has said, "I am the closest thing to a Jew" to sit in the Oval Office. What an insult to those Jews who recognize Obama's hostility toward Israel. Among Christians, he is somehow one of them. But recall that his spiritual mentor was America-hating, Jew-hating Rev. Jeremiah Wright, with whom he spent two decades. And that brings us to Islam, within which Obama has a comfort level. His father was a Muslim. He says "the sweetest sound I know is the Muslim call to prayer... one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset." Well, I've heard the Muslim call to prayer, when I was in Riyadh Saudi Arabia. I didn't find it sweet or pretty. But who cares about my opinion? What's important is that Muslims deserve to hear this sound, but not here. In most cities in this country, it would probably violate zoning laws and noise abatement. But maybe Obama's attorney general will file suit against cities that limit noise.
Historians can find ample evidence of the Judeo-Christian roots of America. Several of our founders knew Hebrew and studied the Bible in Hebrew. None of them knew Arabic or studied the Koran. That's not a criticism of Islam, it's just a fact. There are plenty of countries in the world in which Jews had no significant role. That's not a criticism of Judaism, it's just a fact. But Obama keeps talking about Muslim roots and Muslim traditions in America. Why patronize Muslims and spread historical revisionism, unless Obama has another agenda of increasing the number of Muslims in America and the Muslim impact on our nation? To say that Obama is a Muslim seems overdrawn. The bulk of Americans give him the benefit of the doubt and accept his self-description as a Christian, though his theological godfather Jeremiah Wright's black liberation theology seems curious, at best. To say that Obama wants to increase the number of Muslims here dramatically, and the stature and standing of Islam in the U.S. is, if anything, an understated observation. We are entitled to inquire why?
Europe is already pursuing Islamization. Imagine if Mitt Romney were elected in 2012. Would he, as Barack Obama did, have made his first trip abroad to a Muslim nation and have done a mea culpa speech about American guilt? Would he have encouraged and accelerated the Islamization of America? All this is part of Obama's transformation of America into a secular, socialist Europe. But what the secular progressives and agnostic-atheist liberals don't get is this: after the Islamists deal with the Jews, and then deal with the Christians, they will go after the ultimate non-believers, the secular-progressives, especially liberated women and identified homosexuals. Do the leaders of the "womens movement" and "gay rights movement" believe they will get some special dispensation for their stupidity in admitting staggering numbers of people who militantly oppose rights for women and gays? People who believe as they do are imprisoned in many Arab countries, or worse. Remember when Stalin came to power in the Soviet Union, it wasn't enough to be a socialist; Stalin liquidated even freethinking and independent socialists.
After 9-11, we saw an understandable movement in public schools and colleges to teach more about Islam and the Mideast. But we have now moved effectively to advocacy. There is a politically correct force-feeding of Islamic values and beliefs, without critical evaluation or thinking. School curriculums pretend there is no conflict between Islam, as practiced by the vast majority of Muslims around the world, and Western values, American culture, and U.S. laws.
Ever since the late 1960s, Muslim terrorism has been a growing part of the international mosaic. Remember all the airplane hijacks four decades ago that spawned the intrusive international airport security and screening? What about Munich? The bombing of Pan Am flight 103? The Achille Lauro? The first World Trade Center attack? 9-11? Indonesian bombings in Bali and Jakarta?? Boston? San Bernardino? These are only the more prominent of thousands of terrorist attacks mounted not, as liberal Bill Maher has reminded us, by blond Swedish women, but by Muslims.
Ever since he became president Obama has been quite literally obsessed with Islam. To a certain extent, a Muslim outreach makes sense. We need Muslims aboard to ally with us, against ISIS, but also against radical Islam, words that Obama will not speak. We have in the United States many patriotic Muslims who are assimilated into Western values and America. But these Muslims generally are not recent immigrants but have been here for a while. In some cases, we're talking about a generation ago or even two generations.
In contrast, Barack Obama has increased immigration of a variety of Muslims who are far different from Muslims who came here years ago to be part of America, they did not question its very foundations and seek to change it into their own image. Many of the recent immigrants are not as educated and open-minded as the Muslims from years or decades ago. Back then, Muslims were more likely to accept the United States as it is, rather than change it to their image. Ours is not a country "up for grabs"; we are, as Ronald Reagan said, that "shining city on the hill" to which freedom-loving people should aspire. Those are the people we want here.
I've met and known Muslims for decades. Not many, to be sure. But I don't recall their talk of Sharia law. In all this time, through my considerable professional work and substantial professional travel throughout the United States, I don't recall seeing Muslim women in hijabs. This is just in the last decade, especially the last few years.
President Obama and his administration have made it a matter of U.S. policy to import as many Muslims as he can, as if there is some urgency to increase the Muslim share of the U.S. population. It's a sort of affirmative action for Muslims. At the same time, we know that the persecution and killing of Christians within the Mideast has increased geometrically. Under Obama, the immigration ratio into the U.S. of Syrian Muslims to Syrian Christians is 97%/3%.
Obama and his allies in Congress and the media have compared the plight of Muslim refugees in general, and Syrian refugees in particular, to the suffering of Jewish refugees in the 1930s and early 1940s who had nowhere to go. Jews who came to the U.S. then had Jewish sponsors here, and they went to work and resisted government help. They were pro-American and wanted to assimilate. They had no desire for special privilege or to impose their religious values on others. But Muslims are not being persecuted for their religion; the Jews were then, and the Christians are now. Christians are the "new" Jews, and they have nowhere to go.
Let's remember that anyone reading this, regardless of your religion, or even if you are an agnostic or atheist, could go into any Protestant church, Catholic parish or Jewish synagogue in any city or community in the United States. That's not true about your typical mosque. That's the way it goes, it's their prerogative. President Obama gets through the door. Can you?
Is there a serious need for the FBI to monitor incitement to violence in synagogues and churches in the United States? I've never been to a church or synagogue and heard words of hate, and I've walked in to houses of worship entirely unannounced and sponteaneously. I've seen hateful excerpts from sermons by Obama's spiritual mentor who claims to be a Christian. President Obama keeps talking about "hate crimes" directed against Muslims. A so-called hate crime is an Orwellian expression. Remember George Orwell's 1984, where the state orchestrates "two minutes of hate" against an enemy of the state. We need to prosecute people who initiate violence against others, and not get into "thought crimes."
Obama said yesterday "an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths." Go on American campuses. Muslims are not under siege. Jews are. And look through the Mideast: Muslims are ridding their countries of the few remaining Christians, and are persecuting, assaulting, and killing Christians. That's what Obama should be addressing, instead of visiting a mosque. I was in Saudi Arabia a generation ago. My gracious hosts made it clear they did not respect the Jewish religion or the Christian religion, and they favored an entirely Islamic world, and that was their goal Obama urges Americans to respect, even admire Islam. I don't expect Muslims to admire Judaism or Christianity. But our religious pluralism and religious freedom are based on a respect for the religious rights of others. Many Muslims I know here do respect the faith of others. They are peaceful. But that simply is not true among many more recent Muslim arrivals; more recently, they want -- ultimately through force -- to create an Islamic nation here, as part of an Islamic world.
The Arab world must wonder what kind of jerk our president is -- he projects a lack of concern for Christians. He telegraphs, at best, apathy; at worst, he sides with Islam. Is it a war against the Muslim world for this nation to prioritize helping Christians who are being persecuted solely because of the faith -- and persecuted by Muslims? Why are we instead taking in Muslim refugees when most Arab nations will not? Where is Obama's leadership to express our concern for these refugees and to encourage Arab nations (other than mainly Jordan) to step up to the plate for the Muslim refugees? That would be presidential leadership.
Meanwhile Obama at the mosque injected partisan politics with an attack on Donald Trump: "We have to reject a politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias, and targets people because of religion." In reporting on Obama's mosque visit, the New York Times noted that a poll just a few months ago showed that 29 percent of Americans think he is a Muslim. All things considered, that's pretty low. I guess the others think he's a Jeremiah Wright Christian.
Obama insists Islam is a religion of peace. But even if we forget about the Muslim focus on destroying Israel, or radical Islam's celebration of terrorism: How is it that through centuries, up until right now, Muslims are killing each other on a grand scale, in the name of Islam? Are there any current wars of Jews killing Jews, or Christians killing Christians?"
Years ago I worked with Soviet dissenters. They said in their darkest hours the U.S. Voice of America and Radio Liberty let them know, they were not alone. There was support for them in the U.S., in other nations, and there were dissenters just like them in other parts of the Soviet Union. For years, Muslims in some Arab nations in the name of Islam have been persecuting Christians, exiling them, taxing them an extra amount, assaulting them, raping them, maiming them, putting them in prison, killing them. And we're not just talking about ISIS.
These Christians look for a voice of moral clarity, and "moral clarity" is what President Obama said he brought to the mosque. But instead of a consistent Administration policy of supporting these Christians, Obama has effectively sided with their Muslim oppressors. What must these desperate Christians think when they read that Barack Obama went to a mosque. He spoke but a few words about their plight. What message has he sent to the world?
In his talk yesterday Obama added, almost parenthetically, that persecution of Christians in the Mideast and anti-Semitism are not good things. The applause among the Muslims was muted.
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