A New Year of hope or disappointment?

“We can only hope or pray or work for peace and truth and justice for everyone in the region. An Israel at peace could give so much to the region if only they were willing to accept it. If Israel’s enemies would embrace peace and not war, life not death, the world could be transformed.“

Faint hope, Mr. Cook, faint hope. Of all the many versions of Islam around the world, there may be only one that expresses its desires and intentions in terms of ‘hope’. Every word, every deed of the vast majority is expressed in terms of implacable hatred, death and destruction. And that mantra applies not just to Jews and other infidels; it applies as well to Muslim women and other ‘different’ Muslim sects and cultures. The worst are steeped in violence and they wallow in it; the rest are embedded and enmeshed in Islam and just go with the flow.

Islam is essentially parasitic in nature. Because so many of its peoples are steeped in the Koran and not much else, Islam is unable to produce much wealth on its own; it gains its sustenance from places that do produce wealth, i.e. the West. In this respect, Islam has changed very little since the seventh century. Any entity that can maintain its fundamental structure for 14 centuries has something unique supporting it; that unique thing is its ability to convey exactly the same message from one generation to the next. Such constant and exquisitely exact tutoring ensures that each generation is enclosed in the same bubble. That bubble was hermetically sealed in the 12th century (or thereabouts – it was a prolonged process), when the Sunnis declared an end to all studies that were not in accordance with the Koran. Well, since virtually every human enterprise is not in accordance with the Koran, all studies in astronomy, mathematics, medicine, engineering, and philosophy were banned absolutely. Although there are many educated Muslims around – Yasser Arafat was a civil engineer, there are remarkably few who escape the cage manufactured by their childhood and early adulthood inculcation. My first exposure to this bubble was a movie with Sally Field called Not Without My Daughter. The story piqued my curiosity and I eventually came to understand the power of inculcation.

I have also come to understand that the notion of ‘Moderate Muslims’ is a fantasy. We Westerners are putting all our hopes on the slippery shoulders of moderate Muslims; if we can get the moderates ones on our side, we won’t have to fight the demented ones. Faint hope.

The man fronting for Islam in the Cordoba mosque matter is Faisal Rauf, a ‘moderate’ Muslim the US State Department hires to spread the word to ‘moderate’ Islam that America is not a threat to Islam and that we can all live in peace as one big happy family. Perhaps you heard him on Larry King Live and Anderson Cooper the other night. A few sentences after he stressed that Islam is indeed a religion of peace, he quite literally threatened America with serious repercussions if Islam is denied the right to build this ‘Islamic Cultural Centre’. Within a time frame of about two to three minutes, Rauf contradicted himself without recognizing that he had done so. He saw nothing peculiar by conjoining these two incompatible ideas (incompatible in our ‘rational’ mind): Islam is both peace and violence, i.e. death to all who oppose it. Only two panelists – two ordinary folks – pointed out the contradiction. The other panelists – professional commentators and Islamic apologists – tried to spin the contradiction as not a contradiction but rather just another path the moderate Muslim must take to demonstrate that Islam is a religion of peace. If that sounds odd Mr. Cook, it’s because it is. We desperately want to be cast as multicultural folks and not as racists. Golly Gee.

Islam has oozed into our world and has established roots that we cannot destroy. Half the American population, the Left, sees Islam as their road to utopia; a place of serenity and equality. Talk about a pact with the Devil. In the 20th century, the Left made pacts with other devils; Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Castro, and Mao. When communism died (even Castro has, of late, admitted – to Jeffrey Goldberg – that the Cuban model is flawed and could never work), the Left switched its allegiance to Islam. With that many people in favour of whatever Islam has in mind, I can only conclude that the West is in serious trouble.

So Netanyahu and Abbas will talk but nothing can happen – publicly – to change the status quo; Islam must and will stand implacably against the Jews. However, underneath the radar of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria, Palestinians and Jews will conduct their joint ventures – quietly. The Palestinians are about as welcome in the Middle East as Jews; they are viewed as vermin. So when they see an opportunity to get ahead just a little bit without having to have their sons and daughters blow themselves to smithereens, they will take it. Palestinians are not moderate Muslims, they are desperate Muslims. They want to work, eat and smoke a little hash now and then.

If anyone is capable of making something good come of this current Middle East discourse, it is Benjamin Netanyahu. He is smart, intelligent, shrewd, and highly motivated. In other words, he is a Jew and he has to satisfy his father’s wishes.

You might have noted in passing that I never mentioned Obama. That is because I do not believe he is worth mentioning.

Mr. Cook I have enjoyed this little visit. I may return some day and to it again. In the meantime, ta ta.
Gerry