Don't trust Islamists with Political Power

Barry Rubin writes in JPost about what Islamists will do if elected to office and what to do about it.

Two key points to keep in mind. First, the factor most likely to moderate larger Islamist groups is their knowing power is beyond their reach. Hamas never challenged the Palestinian leadership because it knew it would be crushed in a civil war. In Jordan and Egypt, Islamist parties take the quota of parliamentary seats permitted them and cause no trouble because they know beating the regime is impossible.

Once they conclude they can win, however, the result will be instability and more militancy.

Finally, the most likely result of any Western belief that power will moderate radical Islamists will be unilateral Western concessions to such groups. They will be given immunity for past terrorist acts, diplomatic backing against the local regimes, money and other benefits in exchange for promises to be good. They will then break these promises, most likely without cost.

Let's not be naive about radical Islamism and make even more problems for the Middle East.

Exactly. And after they break the promises, we will try again to demand promises. They will break these, then we will try again. And so on...

Interesting Approach to Exercise

Dr James Levine on work treadmill 


The New York Times covers an interesting approach to getting enough exercise in our busy days from Dr. James Levine at the Mayo Clinic.

In his office he has a treadmill in place of a desk. He got it last year when he saw the data from the study comparing lean people and obese ones.

"My computer is stationed over the treadmill," he said. "I work at 0.7 miles an hour."

A stand-up desk might seem simpler, but he prefers the treadmill.

"Standing still is quite difficult," he said. "You have a natural tendency to want to move your legs. Zero point seven is the key. You don't get sweaty, you can't jiggle too much. It's about one step a second. It's very comfortable. Most people seem to like it around 0.7."

He has installed a second treadmill alongside his own, and he encourages visitors to hop on and stroll while they talk to him. It takes some getting used to, but, he says, envious colleagues at Mayo have been clamoring for treadmill desks.

Kill the Jews -- What a Surprise

Palestinian Media Watch carries the translation of this speech by imam Ibrahim Mudayris on national Palestinian TV on May 13. (Pebble to Honest Reporting.) [Emphasis mine.]

With the establishment of the State of Israel, the entire Muslim nation was lost because Israel is a cancer that spread in the body of the Islamic nation; because the Jews are a virus similar to AIDS, from which the entire world is suffering... The day will come and we shall rule America, Britain, we shall rule the entire world, except the Jews. The Jews will not live under our rule agreeably and permanently, since they have been treacherous in nature throughout history... Listen to your Beloved [Muhammad], who tells you about the most dire end awaiting the Jews. The stones and trees will want Muslims to finish off every Jew.

I don't find it shocking in the sense that most of the people in the countries that surround Israel and those in its disputed territories want to slaughter all the Jews there. They say it loudly; they say it every day. Just like in Mein Kampf and in other writings from the '30s.

Just because the wolf has changed from wearing a sheet to a suit does not mean that one single thing has changed other than the means and timeframe by which they mean to obtain this goal.

This is not a secret. Israel knows this, the US knows this, the Palestinians know this. The Israeli Army has already told the people of Ashkelon to prepare for missile bombardments from Gaza as soon as it is turned over to the Palestinians.

It's mass self-delusion and double-think to think any other way at this time. The Palestinians can be divided into 4 groups: Those that want to kill the Jews now (Hamas, etc.). Those that want to kill the Jews now but see the direct approach as not tactically effective (Mahmoud Abbas, etc.). Those that oppose the killing of Jews but don't say anything because they agree with the overall Islamic/Arab goal to conquer Israel. And those that would live in peace with the Jews.

This last group is very small in my view.

Why No Protest from "Moderate" Muslims?!

QOTD: Kamal Nawash of the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism

Muslim American leaders hesitate to come down hard on terrorism, he says, not because they support the violence, but because they share with terrorists the dream of a theocratic Islamic state.

A Correct View of the Terrorist Attitude

JPost carries an interesting interview with Bibi. (The quote below is a summary from The Daily Alert newsletter of The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)

The question for the Israeli voter is whether or not Bibi would actually stick to the obvious consequences of such philosophical beliefs if he were ever to be elected to Prime Minister again.

The greatest impetus to terror is the terrorists' sense of impending victory. The greatest discouragement to terror is the sense of failure and hopelessness. It is very important that we do everything in our power even with this disengagement decision to minimize the sense of victory.

Anything that persuades the Palestinians that we are being pushed by their superior will and their acts of terror to vacate one position after another emboldens terror and pushes peace further away.

The terrorists are controlling themselves. They are rationing their acts of murder with the hope that once we leave they can then proceed, and the intelligence people are saying that they will probably proceed from Judea and Samaria.

The Palestinians have moderate and sensible people but they are weak and they do not stand before the combined force of the radicals who are pushing toward a gradual elimination of Israel.

We should keep the Philadelphi corridor [on the Gaza-Egypt border] in our hands. I don't expect the Egyptians to fight and die for us. I think it would be a mistake to ask them. The entry into the Sinai and right up to our border of a large Egyptian contingent could actually endanger the peace.

We should create a counterbalance to our withdrawals by including the main settlement blocs in the main fence - that is, they should be part of the territorial contiguity of Israel. in addition to the main settlement blocs, there are vast unpopulated areas in the Jordan Valley and the Judean Desert which...are replete with security, strategic, and historical significance for us. So it would be possible to also fence around them.

Liberal indoctrination

BOTW

The Washington Post reports that a federal judge has issued an injunction against a public-school sex education program on the ground that it improperly brings religion into the classroom. What makes this interesting is that the school district in question is in ultraliberal Montgomery County, Md., and the religious views it seeks to inculcate are liberal ones.

Eugene Volokh points to Judge Alexander Williams's opinion in Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum v. Montgomery County Public Schools (PDF), which quotes from a handout that is part of the curriculum:

Myth: Homosexuality is a sin.

Facts: The Bible contains six passages which condemn homosexual behavior. The Bible also contains numerous passages condemning heterosexual behavior. Theologians and Biblical scholars continue to differ on many Biblical interpretations. They agree on one thing, however. Jesus said absolutely nothing at all about homosexuality. Among the many things deemed an abomination are adultery, incest, wearing clothing made from more than one kind of fiber, and earing [sic] shellfish, like shrimp and lobster.

Religion has often been misused to justify hatred and oppression. Less than a half a century ago, Baptist churches (among others) in this country defended racial segregation on the basis that it was condoned by the Bible. Early Christians were not hostile to homosexuals. Intolerance became the dominant attitude only after the Twelfth Century. Today, many people no longer tolerate generalizations about homosexuality as pathology or sin. Few would condemn heterosexuality as immoral--despite the high incidence of rape, incest, child abuse, adultery, family violence, promiscuity, and venereal disease among heterosexuals. Fortunately, many within organized religions are beginning to address the homophobia of the church. The Nation Council of Churches of Christ, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Society of Friends (Quakers), and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches support full civil rights for gay men and lesbians, as they do for everyone else.

As Volokh notes, "this material, which the school would apparently be conveying as its own views":

1. Describes one interpretation of the Bible as "myth."


2. Suggests that the most important question in interpreting the Bible is what Jesus said, and that the Bible's use of "abomination" in different contexts should lead us to think that the items thus labeled are morally equivalent--not implausible claims about Scriptural interpretation, but nonetheless claims about Scriptural interpretation.


3. Implicitly--but I think quite strongly--suggests a particular reading of the Bible is theologically correct.


4. Condemns particular religious groups by name, not just as part of a discussion of history, but in an attempt to discredit the present religious teachings of at least some religious groups (quite possibly the same ones).


5. Specifically praises by name certain denominations--again, not just in a context which seems to be describing the facts, but one which suggests that their theology is more sound.

Volokh notes that the Supreme Court "has repeatedly held that the Establishment Clause bars public schools from endorsing and disapproving of theological beliefs. . . . Schools are not free to express views on how the Bible should be interpreted, what is or is not sin from the Biblical perspective, and which religious groups have good interpretations of the Bible and which have bad ones."

That is as it should be. Kudos to Judge Williams, who has struck a blow for religious pluralism.