Who's Looking To Convert Whom?

Muslims in Europe are a force to be reckoned with--but it works both ways.

For the first time, perhaps, since the time of Mohammed, large parts of the Islamic world are vulnerable to Christian efforts to convert them, for tens of millions of Muslims now dwell as minorities in predominantly Christian countries. The Muslim migration to Europe is a double-edged sword. Eventually this migration may lead to a Muslim Europe, but it also puts large numbers of Muslims within reach of Christian missionaries for the first time in history.

That is the hope of Magdi Allam, the highest-profile Catholic convert from Islam in living memory (see The mustard seed in global strategy Asia Times Online, March 26, 2008).

... Islamic leaders already have noted that months before Allam's baptism, the Vatican published a "doctrinal note" on evangelization that specifically repudiates the notion that Catholics should refrain from attempting to convert people of other faiths. Church-watcher Sandro Magister notes [2] that one of the 138 Muslim scholars scheduled to meet with the pope in November already has filed a protest in the Vatican monthly Mondo e Missione.

...As Father Dall'Oglio warns darkly, Muslims are in dialogue with a pope who evidently does not merely want to exchange pleasantries about coexistence, but to convert them. This no doubt will offend Muslim sensibilities, but Muslim leaders are well-advised to remain on good terms with Benedict XVI. Worse things await them. There are 100 million new Chinese Christians, and some of them speak of marching to Jerusalem - from the East. A website entitled Back to Jerusalem proclaims, "From the Great Wall of China through Central Asia along the silk roads, the Chinese house churches are called to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ all the way back to Jerusalem."

Islam is in danger for the first time since its founding. The evangelical Christianity to which George W Bush adheres and the emerging Asian church are competitors with whom it never had to reckon in the past. The European Church may be weak, but no weaker, perhaps, than in the 8th century after the depopulation of Europe and the fall of Rome. An evangelizing European Church might yet repopulate Europe with new Christians as it did more than a millennium ago.

2. See Dialogue among the Religions. The Vatican Prepares the Guidelines.
3. See Doctrinal note on some aspects of evangelization

Something for the Islamists to think about.

[Hat tip: Instapundit]

Technorati Tag: Islam and Pope Benedict.

Sarkozy To Knesset: Jerusalem Must Be Divided

Unlike Obama, Sarkozy knows the meaning of the word "undivided":

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy told Israel today to share sovereignty over Jerusalem with the Palestinians and to stop building settlements in the occupied territories.

In an address to the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, Sarkozy also promised France's support in helping to halt Iran's nuclear programme and he praised Israel's democracy, comments for which he won applause.

However, he also spoke strongly about what he expected of Israel as part of the peace process with the Palestinians. "There cannot be peace without an immediate and complete halt to settlement," he said. "There cannot be peace without recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of two states and the guarantee of free access to the holy places for all religions."

Although his comments do not mark a change in French policy towards the Middle East, they were nonetheless unusually frank for a Knesset address and went a long way further than a similar speech at the Israeli parliament last month by the US president, George Bush.

No surprise, really. Since Olmert is eager to divide Jerusalem, what 'friend' of Jerusalem to going to say anything different.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Sarkozy.

Enderlin's Appeal of Al-Dura Verdict May Have Started A Backlash

Nidra Poller reports that France2 should have left bad enough alone:

Citizen-readers, overwhelmingly critical of this appeal, have greater mastery of the issues than the know-it-all press corps.

THE APPEAL set off an unexpected chain reaction. The Al-Dura affair, which had been kept under wraps by French media, was out in the open and out of control. The Al-Dura myth-keepers are being countered by rational, unemotional arguments from prestigious personalities and a host of voices that have kept silent over the years.

Spurred by the Nouvel Observateur manifesto, Radio Communauté Juive director Shlomo Malka, who had been avoiding the Al-Dura controversy, invited Alain Finkielkraut, a brilliant philosopher who always does his homework, to comment on the case (http://www.radiorcj.info/). The obsessively anti-Sarkozy weekly Marianne published an op-ed by Eli Barnavi, former Israeli ambassador to France and a darling of highbrow leftists, who spoke out against the appeal. The tide is turning.

In dragging the case on to France's highest court, as France 2 and Charles Enderlin have now done, they demonstrate disrespect for the public service they represent. There is good reason to expect that President Sarkozy will step in and ask them to clean house.

Read the whole thing.

Poller concludes:

The Al-Dura affair teaches us that it takes something stronger than hasbara - information - to put a stop to this perverse, murderous game.

Which is Israel's weakness. Information requires marketing as well--and not the kind that features swimsuit models.

Technorati Tag: Al-Dura and Philippe Karsenty.

And You Thought Israel Was Blind To The Danger...

Not all ancient military strategy is purely academic:

...while one can argue that learning how Alexander maneuvered his cavalry at the Battle of Guagamela in 331 BC is both academic and anachronistic, the same cannot be said of Islam, particularly the exploits and stratagems of its prophet Muhammad—his “war sunna”—which still serve as an example to modern day jihadists.

For instance, based on the words and deeds of Muhammad, most schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the following are all legitimate during war against the infidel: the indiscriminate use of missile weaponry, even if women and children are present (catapults in Muhammad’s 7th century, hijacked planes or WMD by analogy today); the need to always deceive the enemy and even break formal treaties whenever possible (see Sahih Muslim 15: 4057); and that the only function of the peace treaty, or hudna, is to give the Islamic armies time to regroup for a renewed offensive, and should, in theory, last no more than ten years.

Quranic verses 3:28 and 16:106, as well as Muhammad’s famous assertion, “War is deceit,” have all led to the formulation of a number of doctrines of dissimulation—the most notorious among them being the doctrine of taqiyya, which permits Muslims to lie and dissemble whenever they are under the authority of the infidel. Deception has such a prominent role that renowned Muslim scholar Ibn al-Arabi declares: “[I]n the Hadith, practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than [the need for] courage” (The Al Qaeda Reader, 142).

Aside from ignoring these well documented Islamist strategies, more troubling is the fact that the Defense Department does not seem to appreciate Islam’s more “eternal” doctrines—such as the Abode of War versus the Abode of Islam dichotomy, which in essence maintains that Islam must always be in a state of animosity vis-à-vis the infidel world and, whenever possible, must wage wars until all infidel territory has been brought under Islamic rule. In fact, this dichotomy of hostility is unambiguously codified under Islam’s worldview and is deemed a fard kifaya—that is, an obligation on the entire Muslim body that can only be fulfilled as long as some Muslims, say, “jihadists,” actively uphold it.

Yet despite all these problematic—but revealing—doctrines, despite the fact that a quick perusal of Islamist websites and books demonstrate time and time again that current and would-be jihadists constantly quote, and thus take seriously, these doctrinal aspects of war, apparently the senior governmental leaders charged with defending America do not.

And it's long past time that they should.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Israel.

US-Funded Arab TV Supports Terrorism And Denies Holocaust (Updated)

This is a project that taxpayers have so far paid half a billion dollars to support:

U.S.-Funded Arab TV's Credibility Crisis

America has been struggling with its image in the Middle East for decades but, after Iraq, Arab opinion plummeted. The Bush administration felt it had to act fast to explain America to the Arab world. So it began spending about $100 million a year on a U.S. government news channel in Arabic. It's called "Al Hurra," meaning "The Free One."

As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, Al Hurra's symbol is a herd of unbridled horses, and for American taxpayers it's been a wild ride.

60 Minutes has been looking into Al Hurra in a project with ProPublica, a new, non-profit news organization dedicated to investigative journalism. With so much at stake at Al Hurra, we were surprised to find what it's putting on the air. Some of it has supported terrorism and denied the Holocaust; insiders say Al Hurra has been undermined by loose financial and editorial controls, while its executives try to manage 24-hour news in a language most of them don't understand.

But that excuse only goes so far:

Weeks later [channel head Larry] Register, okayed coverage of something more controversial, the so-called Holocaust deniers' conference in Iran. In that moment, the American Al Hurra sounded more like Al Jazeera.

According to the translation, the Al Hurra reporter said, "Despite the assurances of some of the participants that millions of Jews had in fact died during a German Holocaust, the group did not reinforce their statements with scientific evidence, but instead they were content to tell stories passed on to them by their ancestors."

"How does a reporter like that get on the air in an American newsroom?" Pelley asks.

"The quality of reporting when I got there was weak and poor. And that's how it happened," Register admits. "The person would do the story, send a script, send the piece, it would go to air. There weren't checks and balances to stop it from happening."

When it did happen, The Wall Street Journal's op-ed page called for Register's head; members of Congress said they would cut funding for the channel if Register remained.

Turned out "The Free One" had a bridle after all. Register resigned.

In the very last line of the article, we find out in an update:

Remember the reporter at the Holocaust deniers' conference? He was supposed to be fired after that report and the Broadcasting Board of Governors told Congress that he was fired. But we've learned he remained on the government payroll 18 months later. In fact, he was just fired last week when we inquired about him.

Read the whole thing.

Radio Free Europe this ain't.

UPDATE: Joel Mowbray is not impressed:

What aired last night, however, hardly lived up to the advance billing. While this report could have been timely last year -- back when I first broke the story that the network had been turned into a platform for Islamic terrorists and Holocaust deniers -- it is simply not the case today. Worse, the hero in the 60 Minutes segment is the very person responsible for most of the broadcasts cited as problematic.

This appears on Powerline--at the end of the post is this update:

Middle East Quarterly editor Michael Rubin directs us to MEQ's interview with Al-Hurra director Daniel Nassif. Michael adds: "In the forthcoming (Autumn 2008) issue, we have several letters responding to the interview, both critical and positive."

Meanwhile, from The Washington Times:

Report on Alhurra said to skew facts

CBS News and Pro Publica "distorted facts" in a collaborative investigative story that aired Sunday about Alhurra TV, according to officials from an independent federal agency that supervises all U.S. government-supported, non-military international broadcasting.

The incompetence is apparently not limited to the station that was being covered.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Media.

Israel's Maneuvers May Have Iran Worried

It may be that Iran has finally got the message--and believes it:

The news that the Israeli Air Force staged a long range aerial exercise, similar to a possible attack on Iran has not been well received in Tehran. Ahmadinejad’s close allies, such as government spokesman Ghomreza Elham, called it “impossible.” This statement is pretty much in line with the president’s belief that Israel would ever dare to attack Iran, thus refusing to even consider it as a remote possibility.

However, other more pragmatic figures among the conservatives, such as Majles Spokeman Ali Larijani are becoming more concerned, about the increasing talk from Israel regarding the possibility of an attack. While warning that Israel could suffer more from the consequences of such an attack against Iran; Larijani and others have a right to be worried.

...Ahmadinejad may not care, but many pragmatists in Iran have taken notice of such a gesture, and an unnecessary war with Israel because of Ahmadinejad’s reckless talk is something they want to avoid. Ahmadinejad has already ruined Iran’s economy. They don’t want Iran’s nuclear program in ashes as well.

Read the whole thing.

Now if only Israel would take the threat from Hamas as seriously and act accordingly.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Iran.

Wall Street Journal: Obama Walks a Fine Line With Muslims

By going to such lengths to prove to everyone that he is not a Muslim, Obama may have caused himself something of a problem:

It is inaccurate to call Barack Obama a Muslim. Is it a slur?

The Obama campaign suggests it is. A new campaign Web site designed to air and rebut potentially damaging Internet rumors reads in one part: "Smear: Barack Obama is a Muslim... Truth: Sen. Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim and is a committed Christian."

The characterization highlights a tricky balance the campaign is trying to strike: to tamp down false rumors -- intended by some to link the Democratic presidential candidate to radical Islam -- without offending Muslims and harming his image of inclusiveness.

Muslim-Americans have made up one of Sen. Obama's most loyal bases of support since he announced his candidacy last year. But lately some Muslims, concentrated in several battleground states, say they are having second thoughts over his campaign's ardent defense of his religious background.

While reluctance to vote for a Muslim for president is real, it is not clear that all that many believe the rumor that he Obama is a Muslim--and those who are inclined to believe it are not likely to vote for him in any case:

A Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll conducted in March shows the rumors have only stuck with a small portion of mostly conservative, noncollege-educated voters: 79% of respondents said they had heard the rumor that Sen. Obama is a Muslim, but only one in 10 said they believe it. A separate poll from the Pew Forum last September showed the liability of the perception. In the survey, 45% of respondents said they would have reservations about voting for a presidential candidate who is Muslim, compared with 25% for a Mormon candidate and 11% for a Jewish candidate.

Till now, it seemed that the Jewish vote was Obama's larger concern, and that he could take Muslim support for granted. That was then.

But recently some Muslim voters interviewed in swing states say they have noticed the disparity between his outreach to them and to other religions. The Obama campaign has embarked on a national effort to win support from devout Christian voters and make known the candidate's Christian faith. He visited a Boca Raton, Fla., synagogue, and he made a pro-Israel group his first stop after claiming enough delegates to secure the nomination earlier this month.

Read the whole thing.

Obama is taking some heat for his flip-flop on funding--how he handles this new situation and the response to it should be interesting.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Obama and Muslims.

Israeli Arabs Prefer Israel To Living In Any Other Country In The World

That sentiment was expressed by 77% of those surveyed in a poll done by Harvard University.

David Hazony responds:

This is a shockingly high number: One wonders whether so many Israeli Jews would answer the same way if asked. This, combined with another poll showing that over 70 percent support Arab participation in Israeli national service, seems to make the point fairly incontrovertible. But still the question remains: When will their own leaders reflect their feelings?

It's not clear how Israeli Jews would respond to living in Israel, but it the Harvard poll does reveal how they feel about Arab Israelis:

The findings also revealed that a great majority of Israel's citizens (73% of the Jews and 94% of the Arabs) want to live in a society in which Arab and Jewish citizens have mutual respect and equal opportunities.

The study went on to show that 68% of Jewish citizens support teaching conversational Arabic in Jewish schools to help bring Arab and Jewish citizens together, and 69% believe contributing to coexistence is a personal responsibility.

Sixty-six percent of Jewish citizens and 84% of Arab citizens believe the Israeli government investments should begin now, and not wait until the end of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Apparently, this study should not only be read by Arab leaders. Critiques of Israel whose knee-jerk response is to act as apologists for Palestinian terrorism and issue boilerplate condemnations should take a look at how Israelis actually feel.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Israeli Arabs.

Thinking Outside of the Barrel

A friend recommended this article, written by a person he knows personally and recommends as an expert:

Thinking Outside of the Barrel

by Anne Korin

Today's vehicles have an average lifespan of 17 years and, for the most part, can run only on petroleum. Every year, 17 million new cars roll onto America's roads. For a cost of less than $100 extra per car, automakers can make virtually any gasoline-powered car a flex fuel vehicle, capable of running on any combination of gasoline and a variety of alcohols such as ethanol and methanol, made from a variety of feed stocks including agricultural material, waste, and coal. Indeed, alcohol does not just mean ethanol, and ethanol does not just mean corn.

Flex fuel vehicles provide a platform on which fuels can compete and let consumers and the market choose the winning fuels and feed stocks based on economics. For example, China is rapidly expanding production of the alcohol fuel methanol from coal, and its vehicle industry is ramping up to fuel flexibility.

In Brazil, where ethanol is widely used, the share of flex fuel vehicles in new car sales is estimated to be 90 percent this year. These cars are manufactured by the same automakers that sell to the U.S. market and entail no size, power, or safety compromise by consumers. The proliferation of flex fuel vehicles in Brazil has driven fuel competition at the pump such that the Brazilian oil industry has been forced to keep gasoline prices sufficiently low to compete with ethanol in order not to lose more market share.

She concludes:

A nationwide deployment of flex-fuel cars, flex fuel plug-in hybrids, and alternative fuels could take place within two decades. But this transformation will not occur by itself. In a perfect world, government would not need to intervene in the energy market. In a time of war, however, Washington is taking a great risk in leaving the problem to be solved by the free markets alone.

Every year that passes without congressional action to ensure that new cars sold in America are flex fuel vehicles is another year in which 17 million gasoline-only cars start their 17-year life on U.S. roads, further shackling us to foreign oil.

On the grounds of national security and in the interest of stemming the hemorrhaging of our economy, Congress should take swift action to require that new vehicles sold in the United States are flex fuel vehicles. Legislating an Open Fuel Standard would level the playing field and promote free competition among diverse energy suppliers. Failure to do so will ensure that we continue to finance our enemies, and allow OPEC to tighten its stranglehold on the global economy.

Anne Korin is chair of the Set America Free Coalition and co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS).

Read the whole thing.

The message is not really new.
But the growing urgency is.

Technorati Tag: Gasoline Prices.

US Opinion On Israel Shifts--And May Shift Some More

My Right Word writes:

U.S. opinion on the Middle East is not monolithic, nor is it frozen in time. Since 1967, it has undergone significant shifts, with some groups becoming more favorable toward Israel and others less so. Considerably fewer African Americans stand with the Likud Party today than stood with the Jewish army in World War II. More changes may come. A Palestinian and Arab leadership more sensitive to the values and political priorities of the American political culture could develop new and more effective tactics designed to weaken, rather than strengthen, American support for the Jewish state. An end to terrorist attacks, for example, coupled with well-organized and disciplined nonviolent civil resistance, might alter Jacksonian perceptions of the Palestinian struggle.

Read the whole thing--and check out "The New Israel and the Old: Why Gentile Americans Back the Jewish State" by Walter Russell Mead, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, who gives a detailed overview of the development of US opinion about Israel.

Technorati Tag: Israel.