RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Secretary of State of the United States traveled to the Muslim country of Jordan to assure its Foreign Minister that Jews would not be praying any more at the holiest site in Judaism.

As Kerry put it, “It is Muslims who pray on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif and non-Muslims who visit.”

Israel is often accused of apartheid and segregation, but here was the Secretary of State championing both, as long as it was Muslim segregation aimed at Jews. The Temple Mount “Status Quo” worriedly talked about by Kerry and the media as the answer to the recent Muslim stabbing spree is no different than the Muslim ban on Jews entering the Cave of the Patriarchs, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried, past the seventh step. It rewards Muslim violence by upholding Muslim segregationist racism.

Fantasy Islam: A game in which an audience of non-Muslims wish with all their hearts that Islam was a “Religion of Peace,” and a Muslim strives to fulfill that wish by presenting a personal version of Islam that has little foundation in Islamic Doctrine.

As I have mentioned before, “Fantasy Islam” is a popular game among many non-Muslims and so-called “moderate” or “reformist” Muslims. Reza Aslan appears to be such a Muslim.

Reza Aslan was born in Iran. In 1979, at the age of seven, he and his family fled the Iranian Revolution and came to the United States. At the age of 15 he converted to evangelical Christianity, but later returned to Islam. His website states that he is “an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions.” He is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.

In 2005 Aslan wrote a book titled No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. The updated edition came out in 2011. This article addresses that updated edition.

It should be noted that in his book Aslan listed The Life of Muhammad and the multi-volume work The History of al-Tabari, as among the books he “consulted.” These are classical works by Muslim scholars and major sources for information about Muhammad and Islam. Aslan even specifically mentions them as among those that have “catalogued” the story of Islam (p. xxiv). Unfortunately, although Aslan claims that he “consulted” them, we will see that he apparently overlooked conflicting information in these works in favor of playing Fantasy Islam.

Death Penalty for Apostasy is “Un-Quranic”

On p. 121 Aslan stated that the death penalty for apostasy was “un-Quranic,” and he stated that nowhere in the Koran “is any earthly punishment prescribed for apostasy.”

MARTHA GELLHORN, novelist, journalist, and former war correspondent, has recently returned from a journey to the Middle East, where she went to see the “Palestinian Refugee Problem” in terms of real life, real people. Here she reports how the Arab refugees and the Arab Israelis live, and what they say about themselves, their past and their future.

“ACCORDING to Arab politicians and apologists, this is what happened, this is the authentic view, these are the facts. Doubt is treasonous. There can be only one truth, according to Arab politicians and apologists, and it belongs to them:

In 1948, war took place between five Arab nations of the Middle East and the Jews in Palestine. This war was caused by the United Nations, whose General Assembly resolved to partition Palestine into two states, one for the Palestinian Arabs, the other for the Jews. The Arab nations and the Palestinian Arabs would not accept this monstrous decision. They were obliged to protect themselves against it, with force. The United Nations operated as the tool of the Western Imperialists, notably Great Britain and the United States. The United Nations wanted the Jews to proclaim the upstart state of Israel. Because of the Western Imperialists, who favored Israel, the Arabs lost the war. By massacre, threatening broadcasts, pointed bayonets, and the murderous siege of cities, the Jews drove hundreds of thousands of Arabs out of their homeland. For thirteen years, these Arab refugees have languished in misery around the borders of Israel. The United Nations (Western branch) bears the blame for these events and must repair the damage. The condition of the refugees is a sore on the conscience of honorable men. The Israeli government refuses to welcome back to their homeland the refugees, now swollen to more than a million in number. This refusal demonstrates the brutality and dishonesty of Israel, an abnormal nation of aliens who not only forced innocent people into exile but also stole their property. There is no solution to this injustice, the greatest the world has ever seen, except to repatriate all Palestinian refugees in Palestine. Palestine is an Arab country, now infamously called Israel. Israel has no right to exist, and the Arab nations will not sign peace treaties with it but will, by every means possible, maintain the state of war.

The details of the Arab case vary, depending on the political climate of the moment and the audience. However, the Palestinian refugees always remain the invaluable, central theme. The case is painted the color of blood in the Arab countries: Revenge and Return. For the Western public, tears replace blood; the Arab case rests on the plight of the refugees and is a call to conscience rather than to arms. But no Arab statesman has ever promised final peace with Israel if only the million Palestinian refugees may return to their former homes.

The best way to consider this case is close up, by looking at the Palestinian refugees themselves, not as a “problem,” not as statistics, but as people. The Palestinian refugees, battered by thirteen years in the arena of international politics, have lost their shape; they appear as a lump and are spoken of as one object. They are individuals, like everyone else.

This week, a gigantic, 3,300-year-old religious complex was discovered in central Israel. It’s not clear whom the complex was aimed at, god-wise; possibly “Ba’al,” a Levantine pagan deity whose cult waned as Judaism grew.

Last month, a gigantic, 5,000-year-old stone crescent was uncovered in the Galilee, in northern Israel. It’s 150 yards long, 32 yards wide, and seven yards tall. It’s older than Stonehenge. According to an archaeologist at the Hebrew University, it’s probably an ancient shrine to the moon or a moon god.

It’s been a good autumn for human artifacts in the civilized world. It’s been a very bad autumn for human artifacts in the uncivilized world. (Oh what a fall was there . . .) As the New York Times reports, the Islamic State, and friends, “are deliberately wrecking shrines, statues, mosques, tombs and churches — anything they regard as idolatry.” Shrines, etc., which range in age from very old to ancient.

In the Near East, ancient history is thick on the ground. But wanton destruction of ancient history hasn’t been confined to Iraq or Syria. In 2001, two 2,500-year-old monumental Buddhas in Afghanistan were blown to bits by the Taliban. Last year, a 3,000-year-old Philistine harbor was bulldozed by Hamas to expand a training ground for its al-Qassam terror brigade. As of last year, according to the U.K. Independent, “Islam’s most holy relics are being demolished in Mecca,” in order to transform the “dusty desert pilgrimage town into a gleaming metropolis of skyscrapers.” This a theme in the wild wild east, and not a new one.

A good magician hones his craft by spending countless hours mastering sleight-of-hand techniques. The audience is distracted by one hand while the other hand is executing the illusion.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) pulled off an amazing sleight-of-hand trick this month by erasing Jewish ties to the Land of Israel.

Last week, the PA, with the backing of six Arab countries, successfully shepherded a resolution through the U.N. Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) listing the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem as Muslim sites, and condemning Israel for archeological excavations near the Temple Mount.

The resolution followed weeks of violent encounters, which started as a series of riots at the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, where Palestinians had stockpiled rocks, firebombs, and other weaponry. After the riots, Palestinians alleged that the status quo over the Temple Mount, where Jews are allowed to visit but not pray, was being threatened by Israel. These allegations were repeated, and exacerbated, by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who accused Jews of contaminating Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem with their “filthy feet.”

The Kansas University student senate has voted to banish gender-specific pronouns such as “his/her” from its Rules and Regulations document because they’re “microaggressions” against the students who don’t use them.

To, you know, work toward stamping out oppression or something, the group will replace all of those hurtful “him/his”-es and “his/hers”-es with the much more sensitive and modern “they/them/their,” according to an article in the Lawrence Journal-World.

In case anyone might think (know) that “they/them/their” are often considered (are) plural and not singular pronouns, the group will add a disclaimer at the bottom explaining that they’re using them this way “to increase the inclusivity of Student Senate and prevent microaggressions gender pronouns pose to individuals who don’t use them.”

(So, basically, they’re doing it for social justice — a motive that, once declared, automatically makes the necessity of any initiative indisputable.)