Muslim Blood and Al-Aqsa - Bassam Tawil

by Bassam Tawil

• We all know perfectly well that Al-Aqsa mosque is in no danger. Ironically -- I am ashamed to admit it -- thanks to the Israel Police, Al-Aqsa is the safest mosque in the Middle East.
• Today we sacrifice both our sons and daughters on the altar of empty slogan -- lies such as "Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger," in the vain, blasphemous notion that omnipotent, omniscient Allah needs us to die as martyrs for his sake.
• Muhammad's hadith says one drop of Muslim blood is more valuable than the Kaaba in Mecca, so the same must be true for the stones of Al-Aqsa, which is less holy to Islam than the Kaaba.
• The hypocrisy and politicization of Islam has led our sheikhs deliberately to misinterpret verses in the Qur'an, and in that way we disrespect the words of Allah. There are clerics present Islam as a hideous religion bent on murder and paganism, and on sanctifying the stones of Al-Aqsa mosque more than the lives of faithful Muslims.
• The Qur'an promises the Children of Israel that they will return to the land of Israel from the four corners of the earth... so we should have greeted their return as living proof of the words of Allah and the realization of the prophecies of Muhammad. Instead, we fight the Jews, which means we fight the wishes of Allah.
• The Qur'an tells us that the Jews are the chosen people and the inheritors of the land, so why do our religious leaders deny it and refuse to admit that the Qur'an does not name or even hint at "Palestine" or "Palestinians?"
• If the Jews had come without divine intervention, they would not have been able to overcome the Arab armies that attacked them during the wars after that. Their victory was proof that Allah was on their side.
• When the Second Caliph, Omar bin al-Khatab, conquered Jerusalem, he and his advisor Caab al-Akhbar (a Jew who converted to Islam) both affirmed that the location of the Temple of the Jews had been on the Temple Mount, next to today's Al-Aqsa mosque.
• When we claim that Jesus was a Palestinian, we make ourselves an international laughing stock.
  

According to a hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.A.S), "One drop of faithful Muslim blood is more valuable than the entire Kaaba." However, as far as the Palestinian national religious leadership is concerned, the words are meaningless. In their unclean hands and with their perverted agenda, Muslim blood has become a political pawn in the game of "attack the Jews."

The recent bloodshed in the Palestinian territory and inside Israel, particularly Jerusalem, based on the claim that "Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger" -- and the fatal stabbings of Jews by knife-wielding Palestinians -- are cruel examples of how Hamas and the Islamic Movement's clerics distort the words of Allah (S.W.A.T.) and the Prophet, and present Islam as a hideous religion bent on murder and paganism. They seem to care more about the stones of Al-Aqsa mosque than about the lives of faithful Muslims.

Under cover of the slogan "Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger," the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas and PLO leaders, as well as Israeli Arab Knesset members and the Islamic Movement in Israel, send innocent young Palestinians to murder Jews at a time when we all know perfectly well that Al-Aqsa mosque is not danger. Ironically -- I am ashamed to admit it -- thanks to the Israel Police, Al-Aqsa is the safest mosque in the Middle East.

We all remember how, during the war last summer, the Hamas leadership gave the order to fire rockets at Jerusalem. They might easily have hit Al-Aqsa mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Hamas nevertheless ordered the rockets to be fired. And we all see how our brother Arabs and Muslims blow up mosques and churches full of worshipers throughout the Middle East, while the Israel security forces safeguard Al-Aqsa and the churches in Jerusalem. Not only that, but, unlike the rule of Jordan before 1967, the Israelis allow freedom of worship for followers of all religions at all the holy sites throughout the country, especially in Jerusalem.

The hypocrisy and politicization of Islam has led our sheikhs deliberately to misinterpret verses in the Qur'an, and in that way we disrespect the words of Allah. There are clerics who present Islam as a hideous religion bent on murder and paganism, and who care more about the stones of Al-Aqsa mosque than about the lives of faithful Muslims.

The Qur'an tells us the Jews are the chosen people and the inheritors of the land, so why do our religious leaders deny it and refuse to admit that the Qur'an does not name or even hint at "Palestine" or "Palestinians?"

The Qur'an promises the Children of Israel that they will return to the land of Israel from the four corners of the earth, so we should have greeted their return, especially during the first half of the last century, as living proof of the words of Allah and the realization of the prophecies of Muhammad. Instead, we fight the Jews, which means we fight the wishes of Allah while killing our own children and denying the miracle of the return of the Jews to their country. Our feeble claim is that they are not the Children of Israel because those spoken of in the Qur'an do not exist. How can we expect any intelligent person to believe that?

If the Jews had come after the ravages of the Second World War -- starving refugees, weak, alone, frightened -- without divine intervention, they would not have been able to overcome the Arab armies that attacked them after the declaration of the State of Israel and during the wars after that. Their victory was proof that Allah was on their side. By denying it, we turn Muhammad into a liar (Allah forbid!) and say he was not a true prophet, and that the Qur'an's prediction of the return of the Jews was not the word of Allah.

Denial of the existence of the Temple of the Jews on the Temple Mount is the height of Muslim hypocrisy and a distortion of both Jewish and Muslim history. We forget that, according to our historians, when the Second Caliph, Omar bin al-Khatab, conquered Jerusalem, he and his advisor Caab al-Akhbar (a Jew who converted to Islam) both affirmed that the location of the Temple of the Jews had been on the Temple Mount, next to today's Al-Aqsa mosque.

When we Palestinians deny that the Jews are the descendants of the Children of Israel in order to deny Allah's promise to give them the blessed land, we turn ourselves into the descendants of the Canaanite and Jebusite who lived in the land of Israel at the time of Moses, may he rest in peace. He and Joshua bin Nun conquered the land and killed them, down to the last one. They were infidels whose deaths were ordered by Allah. Our attempt to claim them as our forefathers, and therefore as assets, is shamefully nothing but stupidity.

We know that some of those who live in our villages are Jews who converted to Islam after the Muslim conquests beginning in the 7^th century, and most of us are the descendants of foreign workers who came to British Mandate of Palestine from the various Arab countries in the wake of the Zionist enterprise. By trying to trace our "ancestry" to the Canaanites, we lie to ourselves and demonstrate our silliness and self-deception to the world. And when we try to claim that Jesus was a Palestinian, we make ourselves an international laughing stock.

In that way we return to the days of the jahiliyya, the time before Islam, when we buried our female babies alive in the sand lest they become whores. Today we sacrifice both our sons and daughters on the altar of empty slogan -- lies such as "Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger," in the vain, blasphemous notion that omnipotent, omniscient Allah needs us to die as shaheeds [martyrs] for his sake. Muhammad's hadith says one drop of Muslim blood is more valuable than the Kaaba in Mecca, so the same must be true for the stones of Al-Aqsa, which is less holy to Islam than the Kaaba.

The attempt by Hamas and the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel to incite another intifada based on the nonsense that "Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger" has two objectives: one is to fire up a religious war of Muslim against Jew, like ISIS; the other is the Qatar-funded Muslim Brotherhood's desire to create public unrest that will lead to the overthrow of the Palestinian Authority.

The Islamists have also been stupid in their timing, creating an unnecessary and unreal crisis at a time when the entire Arab world is engaged in destroying itself, as Shi'ites kill Sunnis and Sunnis kill Shi'ites, creating millions upon millions of refugees to top off the hundreds of thousands of Arabs killed during the so-called Arab Spring. The people of the Middle East do not have the time to deal with the useless fabrications of Sheikh Ra'ed Salah, leader of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian Authority's upper echelons have been blind to Hamas's cunning plots to end Fatah's hold on the West Bank. What happened to the PA in Gaza when Hamas took over in 2006-2007 will happen again in the West Bank; Mahmoud Abbas and his crew will be thrown off the highest buildings in Ramallah or executed with a bullet to the back of the head.

If in fact Hamas does take over the West Bank, our lives will become nightmares because like the Gazans, we will have to obey the orders of the Hamas Islamic Emirate. Then the dream of a Palestinian state will evaporate forever -- because a terrorist Islamic emirate, a twin to the one in the Gaza Strip, will be universally unacceptable.

As for the Jews, once again we have played into their hands. They again destroy the houses of killers who are too stupid to understand anything beyond the incitement and hatred they absorb from the mosques, the Palestinian media and the social networks. By following ISIS, all they are doing with their knives is cutting the future Palestinian state to shreds. The time has come for us to realize that using knives (shibrie) against the Jews will not yield us even a sliver of land (shiber), and we have to change our strategy. We need to talk to the Israelis and get our Palestinian state by peaceful means. They will give it to us: they have offered to do so many times already -- otherwise we will not get it at all.

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6756/muslim-blood-aqsa

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Rabin's true legacy - Caroline Glick

by Caroline Glick

Time to do justice to the late Israeli PM and end the Oslo process once and for all.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 
It is notable that the same week that Israel marked the 20th anniversary of the assassination of prime minister and defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, Palestinian Authority President and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas went before the UN Human Rights Commission and asked the UN to establish “a special regime of international protection” for the Palestinians against Israel.
“It is no longer useful to waste time in negotiations just for the sake of negotiations. What is required is the ending of the occupation in accordance with international legitimacy,” said the man who has never held good-faith negotiations with Israel in his life and has refused to even pretend to hold them for the past seven years.
It is ironic that Abbas issued this latest salvo in his diplomatic war against Israel the week that Israel marked Rabin’s assassination. As our putative peace partner was slandering us on yet another international stage, yet again our introspection around the anniversary of the murder showed that we have learned very little over the past 20 years.
As is the case every year, the Left used the anniversary of Rabin’s murder to accuse the Right of responsibility both for Rabin’s assassination and for the failure of the peace process with the PLO.
For their part, nationalist commentators restated the obvious fact they repeat every year: There is a world of difference between solicitation of murder and a policy dispute.
Israel’s annual national self-flagellation around the anniversary of Rabin’s murder is a twofold travesty. It is a travesty first because it prevents us from coming to terms with the true reason that Oslo has failed. And it is a travesty because it distorts to the point of nonrecognition Rabin’s record as a leader and his lifelong dedication to Israel’s national security.
The Left’s claim that Yigal Amir killed not only Rabin but the chance of peace rests on the assumption that unlike the five men who have served as prime minister since Rabin was killed, Rabin would have reached a final accord with Yasser Arafat if he had lived to finish his term in office.
This claim ignores the nature of the Oslo process and distorts Rabin’s position on it.
Contrary to what Oslo’s architects and supporters claim, the Oslo process never could have brought peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It never could have brought peace because the PLO was never interested in peace.
Right after Yasser Arafat concluded the initial deal with Israel in September 1993, he flew from Washington to South Africa. There he told a Muslim audience that the peace process was a fraud. Arafat explained that the Oslo process would weaken Israel while strengthening the Palestinians. They would use this improved position to achieve their goal of Israel’s destruction through jihad.
This wasn’t a one-time fall from grace on Arafat’s part. It was his consistent message to both the Muslim world writ large and to the Palestinians.
After Israel embarked what it viewed as the peace process with the PLO, the Education Ministry began changing the school curriculum.
Beginning in 1994, Israeli children were taught that the PLO was a moderate force and a peace partner.
On the other hand, following the formation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, the Palestinians changed their school curriculum to indoctrinate their children to view Israelis as subhuman and to view the murder of Israelis as the highest moral calling. The suicide bombers of 2000-2005 were the products of this school curriculum.
So, too, while the Rabin government embraced the Israeli peace movement, the PLO hunted down and murdered Palestinians who peacefully coexisted with Israel, by among other things, helping Israel to catch terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks on its citizens. The PA glorified murderers in every possible way, down to printing baseball-type cards with terrorists rather than sports stars pictured as national heroes.
The situation has only grown worse under Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas. Under Abbas, Palestinians who merely engage in commerce with Israelis or buy Israeli products have been arrested and discredited by name.
In other words, Oslo didn’t fail because Rabin was killed. Oslo failed – and continues to fail – because it was based on false assumptions about the Palestinians and the nature of their conflict with Israel.
Aside from the faith it placed in Arafat as a peacemaker, Oslo assumed that the absence of peace owed to the absence of a Palestinian state and was therefore Israel’s fault. If Israel would just give the PLO sufficient lands to make it happy, then there would be peace.
But as Shlomo Ben-Ami, who served as foreign minister when the Oslo process ended with the Palestinian terrorist war at Camp David in July 2000, said, that assumption was also wrong. The Palestinians were never interested in settling their dispute with Israel on any terms.
As Ben-Ami explained to Haaretz in September 2000, “Arafat’s concession vis-à-vis Israel [at Oslo] was a formal concession. Morally and conceptually, he didn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist. He doesn’t accept the idea of two states for two peoples. Neither he nor the Palestinian national movement accept us... More than they want a state of their own, they want to spit out our state.”
In other words, Oslo was never a peace process, because the Palestinians saw it not as a means to build their own national homeland but as a means to destroy Israel. The notion that the peace process died with Rabin is absurd because the peace process never existed outside of the Left’s imagination.
This brings us to the second travesty at the heart of Israel’s annual self-hate fest. Not only does it distort the nature of the Oslo process, it distorts Rabin’s life and legacy.
Rabin was not a peacenik. He was not a starry- eyed ideologue. Rabin was a security hawk who dedicated his life to Israel’s defense and security. True, Rabin believed that the absence of peace with the Palestinians was the root of the larger Arab world’s rejection of Israel. But he also believed that there was a limit to what Israel could offer the Palestinians.
Rabin foresaw the outlines of a final deal with the Palestinians as laying more or less along the lines set out by Yigal Allon in his peace plan in 1967. Rabin believed that the end-state of the peace process would involve an autonomous Palestinian governing authority rather than a state presiding over around half of Judea and Samaria and a large part of Gaza.
Jerusalem, in his view, would remain united under sole Israeli sovereignty. The Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza would remain in place. Israel would maintain its control over the areas not ceded to the Palestinians, including the international borders with Egypt and Jordan, in perpetuity.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Rabin’s vision of a final deal looked much more like Bayit Yehudi’s diplomatic plan than the Labor Party’s position.
Rabin was also not enamored of Arafat or the PLO.
Rabin was not the architect of the Oslo process.
Shimon Peres and his associates negotiated the initial deal at Oslo behind Rabin’s back.
Rabin felt compelled to adopt their deal after the fact because he had promised voters in the 1992 election campaign that he would pursue peace with the Palestinians. Once Peres and his associates pressed ahead with the PLO in Oslo, the peace process Rabin oversaw (and knew about) in Washington had no chance of succeeding. He would have broken faith with his constituents if he had rejected Peres’s Oslo accord.
But even as he adopted it, he maintained a healthy skepticism of its chances of success.
And as the terrorist attacks mounted in the months that followed the signing ceremony on the White House lawn, Rabin began considering canceling the process.
As left-wing commentator Amnon Abramovich explained in an interview shortly after Rabin’s assassination, Rabin “liked the fact that the Oslo agreement was not a done deal, unlike a deal with Syria which would be irreversible.
Rabin emphasized the fact that Oslo was a process that could be reversed at every point.”
By the eve of his murder, due to mounting Palestinian terrorism, Rabin was seriously considering abrogating the Oslo process entirely.
In an interview on the 15th anniversary of her father’s murder, Dalia Rabin explained that her father was on the verge of canceling the deal and turning back the clock.
In her words, “People who were close to my father told me that on the eve of his assassination he considered ending the Oslo process.
He wasn’t a blind man who sprinted forward.”
Abbas’s actions at the UN this week, where he called for the world to protect the Palestinians from Israel while back at home he simultaneously continued his calls for Palestinians to take up knives and take to the wheel of their cars to murder Israelis, cannot come as a surprise.
They are of a piece with the PLO’s previous diplomatic machinations from 2000 to 2003 in the wake of its terrorist war against Israel.
Those machinations led the US to form the so-called Quartet with the UN, Russia and the EU and embrace the road map for peace, the most anti-Israel diplomatic document to have ever seen the light of day, in 2003.
Today Abbas uses terrorism at home to convince the UN to dictate the terms of Israeli surrender in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to the PLO.
Abbas and Arafat succeeded 12 years ago and may succeed today for a number of reasons beyond Israel’s control, but also for one reason that Israel does control.
Abbas is able to succeed at the UN in part because Israel refuses to acknowledge that there never was a peace process. Arafat lied to us, and to the world, about his intentions, and we lied to ourselves about the nature of the Palestinian war against us. So long as we continue to play along with this tired charade, we will be unable to conceive and implement a diplomatic defense that is coherent and effective against the mountains of lies and murder on which the PLO has based its war against Israel for the past 55 years.
Israel contributes to the PLO’s diplomatic success at the UN because it refuses to do what Rabin recognized was necessary 20 years ago.
Rather than learn from his record, Israel has spent the past 20 years distorting his record.
The time has come to do justice to Rabin and end the Oslo process once and for all.


Caroline Glick is the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project and the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260632/rabins-true-legacy-caroline-glick

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Fighting the Islamist enemy in the courtroom - Carol Brown

by Carol Brown

Heroic lawyers fighting against Islamic tyranny go on the offensive.

The Center for Security Policy (CSP) has just released an important new book called Offensive and Defensive Lawfare.  Here is an excerpt of the overview:

In Offensive and Defensive Lawfare: Fighting Civilization Jihad in America’s Courts, David Yerushalmi, Esq., Director of the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) and General Counsel for the Center for Security Policy, and AFLC co-founder Robert J. Muise, Esq. describe the use by our Islamic supremacist enemies of U.S. jurisprudence to compel submission to the doctrine they call shariah. As with so many other facets of the Muslim Brotherhood’s stealthy, pre-violent jihad against this country, most of us are unaware that such lawfare is taking place, let alone with such deleterious effects.
Even more importantly, Messrs. Yerushalmi and Muise lay out their recommendations for an offensive strategy to defend the U.S. Constitution and the rights it guarantees our countrymen and women from any further encroachment by Islamic law. In stark contrast to the longstanding use of such techniques to intimidate or suppress freedom-loving peoples, offensive lawfare against the Brotherhood and its ilk is a relatively nascent area of the law, in which the authors are true pioneers and formidable innovators.

Through their non-profit law center (where they offer services pro bono), Yerushalmi and Muise are leading this critical battle in the courtroom.  More lawyers would do well to follow their example.

The overarching value of the American Freedom Law Center is “fighting for faith and freedom.”  The “About” section reads:

Having collaborated for over four years on many high-profile cases, in January 2012, attorneys David Yerushalmi and Robert J. Muise decided to formalize their working relationship by together launching the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC).  Yerushalmi, an orthodox Jew, and Muise, an orthodox Catholic, describe AFLC as the Nation’s first truly authentic Judeo-Christian, public interest law firm.”
The strength of our Nation lies in its commitment to a Judeo-Christian heritage and moral foundation and to an enduring faith and trust in God and His Providence.  AFLC seeks a return to America’s founding commitment to receive God’s continued blessing to preserve the soul of this great Nation.
AFLC is first and foremost a public interest litigation firm.  It aggressively seeks to advance and defend our Nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage in courts all across our Nation.
AFLC’s aggressive and innovative litigation team has forged new battle lines against our Nation’s enemies in both federal and state courts.  To that end, AFLC prosecutes cases to advance and defend religious liberty, freedom of speech, the sanctity of human life, and the traditional family. It crafts litigation to promote limited government, a renewed federalism, and a strong national defense, which includes the right of private citizens to bear arms.
AFLC’s litigation team is experienced, committed to the mission, and fearless.  They have over four decades of litigation experience in state and federal trial and appellate courts all across the country.  And they are specialists in constitutional law with an emphasis on the First Amendment.  First and foremost, the AFLC attorneys are deeply committed to their faith, their families, and this great Nation.

Some AT readers may recognize these lawyers’ names, as Yerushalmi has written for us, and they have defended Pamela Geller against relentless attacks to silence her speech.  They are now petitioning for one of the cases to be heard by the Supreme Court.  Yerushalmi and Muise have also sued Obama.

These men are giants.  But they are just two men.  We need an army to battle lawfare being waged by leftists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood via their myriad front groups.

The short book (just a little over 100 pages) they’ve written is for everyone, not just lawyers, as it explains the nature of lawfare and the multiple ways in which it stifles speech, intimidates people, and ultimately asserts sharia law.

To watch a short 5-minute video of Yerushalmi talking about lawfare, see here.  For a PDF of the book, see here.  The book is also available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon, here.  To learn more about the American Freedom Law Center, see here.

Carol Brown

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/fighting_the_islamist_enemy_in_the_courtroom.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

A brief history of the status quo - Nadav Shragai

by Nadav Shragai

Then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan shaped the much talked about status quo on the Temple Mount in 1967 • Prime Minister Menachem Begin put his own touches on it • Since then, it has changed immensely, mainly in favor of Muslims who wave Hamas flags there.

 

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan (center left) walks with Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin (center) after taking the Old City in 1967 | Photo credit: Ilan Bruner

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who this week shepherded Israel and Jordan toward the first-ever formal written agreement on the status quo on the Temple Mount, doesn't know it, but the first seeds of the much talked about Temple Mount status quo were sown about 48 years ago on another hilltop, Mount Scopus. 

It was the second day of the 1967 Six-Day War. For the first time in 19 years, an Israeli convoy reached Mount Scopus unaccompanied by Jordanian legionnaires. Standing on the roof of the national library, looking out over the Temple Mount and its shining domes, then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan rested his hand on the shoulder of GOC Central Command Col. Uzi Narkis, sighed deeply, and whispered a key sentence that would later shed light on the manner of conduct surrounding the Temple Mount: "What do we need this Vatican for?" 

Years later, Narkis explained to this writer that "in Dayan's eyes, the Old City within the walls looked like a threatening mosaic of mosques and churches and the potential for countless religious problems. Dayan was very reluctant to occupy and liberate the Old City." 

Indeed, the decision to enter the Old City and liberate the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, which Dayan tried to delay, was forced upon him after ministers in the national unity government Menachem Begin and Yigal Allon took the matter directly to then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. The next day, the Israel Defense Forces liberated the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and the Old City. General Motta Gur's excited announcement over the radio -- "The Temple Mount is in our hands!" -- has become part of the national pantheon, but the euphoria and excitement Gur gave voice to were in total contrast to reality and the status quo arrangements Dayan had made. Gur expressed excitement. Dayan, characteristically, showed pragmatism. 

Acting on the advice of Meir Shamgar, who was then the chief IDF prosecutor, Dayan removed the Israeli flag that IDF paratroopers had planted on the Dome of the Rock. He later ordered Narkis to withdraw a paratroopers company that had been prepared to be stationed permanently on the northern part of the mount. Over the next few days, Dayan consulted a reserve officer named David Farhi, a lecturer on Islamic countries at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who influenced Dayan's thinking greatly, about the future of the Temple Mount. 

The defense minister sat with Farhi for hours and listened to him carefully. He heard that for hundreds of years, the Jews had been tolerated in the Muslim world as a subservient people, without any rights to a nation, after rejecting the Prophet Muhammad's teachings, and "therefore turned into the symbol of an accursed people that twists the word of God." 

That, Farhi told Dayan, was what had led to the inevitable clash between the appearance of the Jewish state and the Muslim world. "The Arabs opposed the establishment of a Jewish state not only for practical reasons, but also on principle. For the exact same reasons, the Muslims will now reject any significant changes to the status of the mosques and the compound that is holy to them when they are made by any non-Muslim power." 

Dayan believed, and years later even wrote, that since the Temple Mount was for Muslims a "place of worship" whereas for Jews it was an "historical site of the past," the Muslims shouldn't be kept from treating it as such and their right to keep control over the place should be recognized. 

Farhi had got his foot in the door. He backed the direction Dayan was already taking with Narkis. On June 17, 1967, Dayan invited himself to meet with the members of the Supreme Muslim Council and informed them of the steps that were to be taken: IDF soldiers would leave the Temple Mount; the management of the mosques and the compound plaza would be put into the hands of the Muslim Waqf, a branch of the Jordanian Ministry of Holy Places; Muslims would decide the rules for inside [the compound] but the limitations and prohibitions placed on Jews in the time of the British Mandate and the Jordanian rule would be removed; Jews would be allowed to visit the mount but not pray there; and Israel would be responsible for the security of the holy site and its surroundings. 

A few weeks later, the Knesset passed a law applying Israeli legal jurisdiction over all parts of united Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount. 

Begin asked that the status quo Dayan put together be adjusted, and Israeli police officers were stationed at the Mughrabi Gate entrance. The move was intended to stop the custom of demanding entry fees from Israelis who wanted to visit the Temple Mount compound, while Muslims were exempt from paying. The government accepted Begin's view that the existing situation went against the principle of free access to the site. However, oversight of entrance via the other gates remained in the hands of the Waqf. 

This is how the status quo, the subject of so much discussion today, came into being. The reasoning behind it, Dayan and others were to explain, sought to separate the national-territorial aspect of the Israeli-Arab conflict from its religious component. Dayan believed that he had the power to divide the two, but reality proved far more complicated. For both the Arabs and the Jews, separating nationality from religion was nearly impossible. 

The bottom line was that the state of Israel, the state of the Jewish people, cast off its most holy place and left it in the hands of a competing religion, Islam, for which the Temple Mount was only the third-holiest site, after Mecca and Medina. It was a decision without precedent in relations between peoples and religions. The Muslims were surprised at Dayan's generosity. Sheikh Saad a-Din al-Alami, the mufti of Jerusalem in the days immediately after the Six-Day War, admitted as much in a conversation with him. With a few exceptions, the Jews responded to Dayan's status quo with indifference. Most of them were satisfied with the Western Wall. 

No to a foreign flag

Only a few former members of the Stern Gang and members of the El Har Hashem Society, an advocacy group for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount, mainly then-IDF Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, tried to change Dayan's decision. Goren threw up his hands after a few weeks; the rest repeatedly petitioned the High Court of Justice, which rejected each petition in turn. The justices ruled that the Jews' right to pray on the mount was superseded by the concern over public disorder, disputes, and religious friction, and accepted the government's position. 

The third factor, in addition to the government and the High Court, that served to ingrain the status quo was the rabbis. In those days, nearly all the rabbis from all streams of Judaism -- ultra-Orthodox and national religious -- said that Jews were forbidden from entering the Temple Mount regardless of whether they did so to visit or to pray. The explanation was based on Jewish law and related to the fear that Jews would enter the place where the Temple and the Holiest of Holies once stood without having ritually cleansed themselves. Even rabbis who thought that the additions that Herod made to the Temple Mount could be identified and defined and therefore permissible to visit, as they were less holy, did not change their minds. They were afraid that the public would not be able to tell the difference between the areas that they were allowed to visit and those they were not. 

Begin suggested to his fellow ministers that they not make any formal decisions forbidding Jews from praying on the mount. They listened. Then-Postal Services Minister Yisrael Yeshayahu asked in a ministerial meeting on holy sites: "Who are we to stop Jews from praying on the Temple Mount?" At the end of the meeting, the decision was worded as Begin had wanted -- in positive rather than negative language -- and it was decided that when Jews arrived at the Temple Mount to pray, they would be directed to the Western Wall.

Begin and Dayan addressed the future status quo on the mount as well. Dayan was willing to serve as foreign minister in Begin's first government on the condition that the government adhere to his status quo and uphold the prohibition against Jews praying on the mount. Begin agreed. When he was approached by El Har Hashem activists, including Rabbi Yoel Ben Nun, and asked to allow Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, Begin empathized with them, but sent them to the chief rabbis, who opposed Jews visiting the mount at all. 

But at the first Camp David summit in September 1978, Begin brought all his power to bear against the initiative to fly flags of Arab nations on the Temple Mount. He clashed with then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter on the issue, and even warned the Americans that "flying a religious flag on the Temple Mount would be a recognition that it belongs to the Muslims." Begin also had aggressive words for then-Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and presidential adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski: "Thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem are the basis of our refusal to fly an Arab flag on the Temple Mount. ... I'm sickened at the sign of the maneuvers the great superpower is making to convince us to fly a foreign flag over Jerusalem." 

A threat to hegemony

Nearly 50 years have passed since Dayan established the status quo on the mount, and not much remains of it. The Muslims continue to increase their religious and administrative autonomy on the mount, and the prohibition against Jewish prayer is still in place and going strong. Other than these two points, the mount has undergone many changes, and the status quo and about 10 of its components have changed -- mostly to the benefit of the Muslim side. The changes were and are the result of profound changes on both on the Muslim and the Jewish sides. 

The most blatant change is to the Muslim prayer areas, which have expanded significantly. In 1967, only Al-Aqsa mosque served as a place of prayer, but today the Dome of the Rock, which wasn't originally a mosque, is used for women's prayer on Fridays. Two other underground mosques have been built on the Temple Mount: the al-Marwani mosque in King Solomon's Stables, and the underground "first Al-Aqsa mosque" below the above-ground one. In contrast to the past, Muslims today apply the term "Al-Aqsa" and its holy connotations not only to the mosque itself, but to all parts of the compound, including its streets and walls -- even the Western Wall. 

Over the years, the Muslims have done serious damage to the antiquities on the mount. They also launched a campaign to win public opinion that denies any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount -- they refer to the Temple as "al-Mazoom" (the imaginary or false.) 

Meanwhile, Muslim politicians and religious figures have adopted the "Al-Aqsa is in danger" narrative and are wielding it like an axe. The made-up story, which is accepted as the literal truth by many in the Muslim world, has sparked more than one cycle of extreme violence, terrorist attacks, and murders of Jews.

In addition, visits by Jews to the mount, which in the past were subject to only a few restrictions, have been reduced to a large degree, and often made impossible. Today, unlike in the past, it is forbidden to visit the mosques; it is forbidden to visit the mount on the Sabbath, and the police limit the tour route and the length of the visits. Two gates once used to admit visitors are now closed to non-Muslims.

The flipside is that the number of Jews who want to visit the Temple Mount, as they are allowed to do under the status quo agreement, has grown considerably. The process began about 20 years ago when many religious Zionist rabbis changed their stance and decided to permit, even encourage, Jews to visit the Temple Mount. The Muslims saw this change as a threat to their hegemony on the Temple Mount, but the Israeli government's unequivocal declarations that it has no intention of dividing the mount or allowing Jews to pray there were and are mistrusted. 

Jordan upgraded 

Muslim suspicions were raised by a series of attempts by Jewish zealots in the 1970s and 1980s to attack the mosques and even blow them up -- Yoel Lerner's Gal underground movement, the Lifta gang, the Jewish Underground, and an Australian Christian tourist named Denis Michael Rohan, who set fire to Al-Aqsa mosque in 1969. All of these incidents, as well as a few other lesser-known cases, caused the Muslims to point a finger at the Israeli government and claim that it was part of or even behind the attempts to damage the mosques.

The accusation was baseless. Israel has repeatedly thwarted potential attacks on the mosques by Jewish extremists and arrested the masterminds of such deranged plans. But blaming Israel and Zionism for the attempts to bring down the mosques became an Arab Muslim propaganda tool.

At the same time, Israel was blocking attempts by Palestinian terrorist cells, mainly Hamas, to launch weapons from the Temple Mount. Cells that used the mount as a meeting place to plan terrorist attack were also arrested. One of these was the cell that planned to execute an attack on the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University and even shoot down former U.S. President George W. Bush's plane.

Another major change involves Jordan. In 1967, the Hashemite Kingdom was nothing more than the employer of the Waqf, but today it has become Israel's partner in managing the Temple Mount, as evidenced by Jordan's renovation the compound's eastern and southern walls when they started cracking. Jordan vetoed the idea of replacing the temporary Mughrabi Bridge that is still an eyesore of the Western Wall plaza. Jordan demanded that Israel limit the number of Jews who visit the Temple Mount, and Israel agreed. The Knesset even postponed a debate on the Temple Mount issue at Jordan's request. 

There are two reasons for Jordan's growing influence. First is Israel's desire to weaken the Islamic Movement's stature on the Temple Mount. The Islamic Movement has consistently taken care to stir things up, and stood behind the construction of the two new mosques. Second, Israel wants to strengthen the Jordanian regime by preserving its status as guardian of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. Israeli policy is also informed by a host of security and economic interests it shares with the Jordanians. 

However, Jordan's growing influence on the mount stems not only from these interests but also from two written agreements. The first was the peace contract between Jordan and Israel, signed in July 1994. The agreement says, among other things, that "Israel honors the special existing role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem," and that when negotiations for a permanent deal take place, Israel will give a "high priority" to Jordan's historic role in those sites. In effect, Israel has already skipped ahead and upgraded Jordan's status on the Temple Mount. 

The second agreement was signed in January 2013 between King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. This agreement stipulates that Jordan, as the "guardian of Islamic holy places in Jerusalem," will represent Muslim interests in the city in general and the interests of the PA in particular regarding the Temple Mount, until a Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem is established. The deal also features an apparatus for coordination between Jordan and the PA about the Temple Mount, but even though it was signed, there is tension between the two entities. 

Other notable changes to the status quo: A total prohibition against flying flags on the mount, which used to be strictly enforced, has melted away. Palestinian and PA flags, Hamas flag, and even Islamic State flags fly on the mount, whereas Israeli flags are hustled away immediately. Laws pertaining to antiquities, planning, and construction, which were once relatively seriously enforced, have become almost virtual. Israel's state comptrollers have criticized the phenomenon, and it was also documented in the book "Under the Surface" by none other than former Israel Antiquities Authority Director General Shuka Dorfmann, who passed away about a year ago. 

In his book, Dorfmann quotes statements by former Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami during a discussion of the status quo on the Temple Mount. "In [no] period and under [no] government, has there ever been any binding framework for preserving the status quo, and the Palestinians and the Waqf have never been notified of the government's official position on what is allowed and what is forbidden on the Temple Mount. It has also never been made clear what steps Israel will take should the status quo be violated." 

Seen in that light, the understandings reached by Kerry comprise a far-reaching innovation, for better or worse. Dayan's status quo was verbal and vague; it allowed Jews to continue to believe that they had not given up the Temple Mount, since it wasn't a long-term agreement. The rules set by Dayan allowed the Muslims to reject claims about so-called cooperation with Israel and argue that it was a deal that had been forced on them. 

The great advantage of the status quo was also its great disadvantage. The Jews would never have formally agreed to forgo prayer on the mount. The Muslims would never formally agree to give up the Western Wall, which they call "al-Buraq." From that perspective, the Kerry understandings are an historic precedent. 

There is nothing significantly new in the understandings, but nevertheless, this is the first time that Israel has officially declared to the world that Jews shall not pray on the Temple Mount, and that only Muslims are allowed to do so. On the other hand, it's also the first time that either the U.S. or Jordan has put out an official announcement stating that Jews may visit the mount, if not pray there. 

In recent years the prohibition against Jewish prayer on the mount has been stringently enforced, whereas permission to visit has been only partially guaranteed, and in practice it has become difficult or impossible for Jews to visit the mount. This will be a test of the Kerry understandings on the Temple Mount. 

The Temple Mount activist groups are saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought up the prohibition against Jewish prayer on the mount out of concern for law and order and note that the Kerry declaration is devoid of any mention of the very right to pray, even if it is not exercised. Sources close to the prime minister have explained that Israel is not giving up that right, but for now is opting not to exercise it. They also pointed out that the demand that the Waqf decide who and how many Jews would enter the compound had been rejected, and clarified that for now MKs and ministers would still be banned from visiting the site. Security cameras will be installed in an orderly manner in coordination with Jordan, not haphazardly the way the Waqf tried to do this week.

Either way, it's clear that the Kerry understandings that Netanyahu and Abdullah approved have effectively killed the campaign to change the status quo and allow Jews to exercise their right to pray there. The campaign to allow Jewish prayer has been led for the past two years by public figures such as Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan (acting in his former capacity as Deputy Religious Services Minister), Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, and Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev when she was chair of the Knesset House Committee. But the understandings might provide an opening for the Temple Mount activists to turn to the courts for assistance in forcing the government to allow freer visits.

Nadav Shragai

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=29339

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MI5 chief: Islamic State planning massive attack in UK - David Baron, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

by David Baron, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

"The current threat level is the highest I have witnessed in the course of my 32-year career," says British security service head Andrew Parker • He says West should collaborate with Russian President Vladimir Putin to defeat Islamic State.

 

MI5 Director General Andrew Parker | Photo credit: AP

The director general of British domestic security service MI5 warned Thursday that the Islamic State group is planning a massive attack in Britain. 

Andrew Parker said there is no indication that British-born Islamists are toning down their aim to launch a jihad on British soil. 

"The current threat level is the highest I have witnessed in the course of my 32-year career," Parker said in a speech he gave in London. 

His remarks come just days before the British Parliament is due to debate the controversial Investigatory Powers Bill, known as the "Snoopers' Charter," which would allow security services to monitor online communications. 

Parker said his intelligence service would not be able to protect Britain unless it had permission to intercept communication data. He said that in the past year MI5 had thwarted six terror attacks in the U.K. and seven outside its borders. 

Today, 80% of MI5's resources are allocated to the war on terror, most of which stems from Islamic State. Parker said he believes the West should collaborate with Russian President Vladimir Putin to defeat the group.

David Baron, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=29329

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The Left's Ugly Hatred of Ben Carson - Peter Heck

by Peter Heck

Progressives are furious that an accomplished black man would dare to leave their liberal thought plantation, because doing so threatens to undo the carefully constructed engine of exploitation that fuels Democrat political power.

It’s a small man who delights in the misfortune of others, but I can’t help myself.  As much as I regret that he is being forced to deal with the vile underbelly of hatred emanating from the bowels of the Party of Slavery and Segregation, I am having a blast watching the left try to deal with Dr. Ben Carson.

After months of attempting to marginalize him as a mere fringe candidate who would fade quickly in the crowded Republican presidential field, liberals are having to come to grips with the reality that Carson is a legitimate contender.  And it isn’t going over well. 

Why?  First, it proves that the annoying habit liberals have exhibited the last seven years of shoving their fingers in their ears and screaming “racist” at any person who opposed the presidency of Barack Obama has been as wrong as it was despicable. It turns out the Party of Emancipation and Civil Rights doesn’t mind electing a black president at all -– they just haven’t enjoyed a socialist one.

But the rise of Carson stirs a more primal reaction on the left that shouldn’t be ignored given that it reveals much about the true origin of current racial discord in our country. Progressives are furious that an accomplished black man would dare to leave their liberal thought plantation, because doing so threatens to undo the carefully constructed engine of exploitation that fuels Democrat political power.

As the party of big government social welfare spending, liberals have enacted policies that have locked blacks in failing inner city schools, ended scholarship programs designed specifically to help black children excel, facilitated a dangerous dependency that has led directly to an epidemic of fatherless black homes, encouraged an influx of illegal immigrants that have disproportionately deprived young black men of jobs, and funded a genocidal ‘family planning’ strategy to suspiciously target black communities.

If you are tempted to excuse those offenses as unintentional or coincidental, note that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are disciples of leftist icon Saul Alinsky. It was Alinsky who articulated the strategy that in order to control a group of people they, “must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.” While gutting the black community with their policies, Democrats have managed to successfully portray themselves as that group’s only hope. 

Alinsky continued, “The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change. We'll give them a way to participate in the democratic process, a way to exercise their rights as citizens and strike back at the establishment that oppresses them.” If this doesn’t perfectly describe the race-baiting behavior of Democrat political activists, I don’t know what does. 

The only thing that upends such a diabolical electoral scheme is the emergence of a self-made member of the oppressed group –- one who rose to prominence without the crutch of liberal social programs, and who articulates the inherent danger and destructive nature of their bloated existence.  Meet Ben Carson, a man born into the crucible of inner-city strife, but who escaped the cycle of poverty intended for him to become a brilliant neurosurgeon.

Carson’s message of a smaller government, self-reliance and Christian faith offer a stark contrast to the grievance mongering, victim mentality that’s been force fed to blacks for decades by Democrats desperate to perpetuate a reliable voting bloc. The good doctor praises the existence of government safety nets but deplores the use of dependency programs for political ends. Consequently, the same people that have claimed for years to be the champions of minorities are doing all they can to stop one from succeeding.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has decided they don’t really want all “colored people” to advance –- just the ones with liberal politics. They’ve even declined to condemn racist slurs hurled at Carson. Meanwhile, lily-white journalists like Politico’s Michael Grunwald and GQ’s Drew Magary don’t even attempt to hide their racist contempt for Carson’s message, using the vilest of playground taunts to deride the candidate.

When you come to believe that a person must think a certain way simply because of their skin color, and you despise them when they don’t, you are the one with the race problem. That is the uncomfortable truth Ben Carson’s candidacy is revealing, and it’s why the left will stop at nothing to destroy him.


Peter Heck is a speaker, author and teacher. Follow him @peterheck, email peter@peterheck.com  or visit www.peterheck.com.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/10/the_lefts_ugly_hatred_of_ben_carson.html

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The Russian Bear has joined the cardgame in the Middle East - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Russia has joined the came and it remains to see which way the cards will fall.

Arab media reported on something this week that I did not see any mention of in the Israeli media: the Kremlin announced that by the end of this year - that is, within the next few months – Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud will pay a visit to Moscow. It doesn't seem like a terribly important bit of information at first glance, just a blurb about one leader paying another a state visit, but this is not just a visit. This is a political gesture that signals Saudi Arabia's move towards forging an alliance with Russia.

There are four reasons that lie behind this step. The most important is America's weak standing in the region, obvious to all and exacerbated by Obama's announcing his retirement from the position of world policeman and the beginning of the American electoral campaign. There is no one to talk to anymore in Washington, especially now that it has become clear that the Iran Agreement is a "done deal." The Saudis are furious that the agreement was allowed to pass and see it as no less than a breach of trust towards their country on the part of the United States. In contrast to Israel, however, they are keeping their feelings to themselves and playing the international scene coolly with a clearheaded assessment of the new and future realities.

The second reason is the decisiveness Russia displayed in its Syrian involvement, all the more glaring in comparison with the ineffectual US and NATO responses. The Saudis fear that Assad, whom they consider a heretic Allawite whose blasphemous regime must not and can not be allowed to rule over Muslims, will remain in power. They are also furious at the "Butcher of Damascus" bloodbath that cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives, many of them Sunnis. King Salman wants to get Putin's ear in order to influence him on this issue.

The third reason is Saudi fear of an Iranian-Russian alliance outside the range of Saudi influence. Without the backing of America and Europe, the Saudis prefer to act along the lines of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." The king feels that he will have more influence on the Iranians with regard to Yemen, Iraq and Syria if he joins the club instead of remaining outside it.

The fourth reason is Saudi Arabia's desire to be sure that Russia does not put "boots on the ground" in the war against ISIS. The Saudis do not like Caliph Abu Bakr's Jihadists, mainly because they have given Islam a bad name, but the Saudi king does not want to see Russia – the land of the unbelievers who drink vodka and eat pork – eliminating large numbers of Sunni Muslims and conquering a Sunni-Islamic state. Remember, there were times when the Saudis supported Islamic State.

The sum total of these reasons has propelled the Saudi king right into Putin's muscular arms.

But it is also important to note the meeting's framework: the Saudi king will leave his palace and travel to visit Putin in Putin's home. In the past, presidents and prime ministers would gather at the entrance to the Saudi King's throne room, and today it is he who is going to visit Putin, the new kid on the block. And the block is that decaying slum known as the Middle East.

Israel, too, has discovered Russia and its growing sphere of influence in the region – and that realization is what sent Netanyahu to Putin a month ago and brought about the visits of high ranking Russian army officers to Israel. It looks as though Israel does not want to be left outside the equation now that Russia is becoming increasingly involved in Syria, especially since Iran is solidly placed on the other side of the equation.

Recently, there has been a noticeable and interesting change in the tone of Russian spokesmen appearing on the Arab media. Up to as little as a week ago, they spoke about Russia's limited goals in Syria, including ensuring the continuation of the Assad regime even if it is limited to a small part of the country – the Allawite region on the coast near the ports of Latakia, Tartus and Banias. It did not sound as if Russia is planning a massive campaign against Islamic State, which wields control over 60% of Syria.

Now, the tone of Russian broadcasters has changed. They have begun expressing worry about the slow trickle of Islamic State into countries that were once considered Southern Soviet Russia: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tagikistan, as well as its infiltration into those Muslim minority groups who live within the Russian Federation: Chechins, Tatars, Pamiris, to name a few.

The Tatars have good reason to rise against Russia after masses of their people were expelled from the Crimean Peninsula, taken from Ukraine and annexed to Russia. The Chechens still have not avenged the destruction of their capital Grozny or the thousands the Russians murdered there in the nineties.

It is important to recall that there are large numbers of Muslims among the low- ranking soldiers in the Russian Army, making it quite possible for ISIS to try to enlist army men to do what Nidal Hassan did in Fort Hood – that is, kill 13 of his friends and wound 31. This is not far off the mark, because there are 200 Muslim rebel volunteers who come from Russia - and one of them, a redhead of Chechen origin – is the commander of the rebel forces near Aleppo. At least one film shows him butchering three regime supporters with his own hands.

He and those like him, can speak Russian or Chechen to their Russian soldier friends, and if just one soldier in a thousand becomes secretly loyal to ISIS, he could then sow death and destruction among his friends.

ISIS knows no mercy and imposes no limits on its behavior. Anyone who enlists in the Russian Army and identifies with ISIS thought processes and activities could bring catastrophe on Russian forces. Imagine what kind of disaster could be wreaked by a soldier on an armed battleship bringing  weapons to Syria, if he were willing to die as a shaheed while performing a terror act that sinks the ship.

In addition to all the above considerations, it seems that the Russian air force bombings do have the ability to change the situation on the ground. Over the last few days, Assad forces, Hezbollah and the Iranians, launched an unprecedented ground attack against the rebels and ISIS, succeeding in retaking certain areas and villages for the Assad regime. It is quite possible that Putin's appetite will increase as he gets a taste of victory – and that, as long as the Russian coalition forces are ringing up successes, he will try to extend the framework of the fighting against ISIS before it gets a foothold in Russia and changes the war against extremism to a war within that country.

Two months ago, a US Army officer said that ISIS will be around for at least a decade. Russia's actions over the last few days point to the possibility that Russia does not intend to wait for NATO or the US, and will do what everyone else is afraid to do, that is, wage an all-out battle against the Islamic extremists, destroying ISIS before ISIS destroys Russia.

There are situations that boil down to "either them or us". Putin seems to think he is facing one of them now. Only time will tell.

Written for Arutz Sheva and translated from Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky, Arutz Sheva Op-ed and Judaism Editor.


Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/17792

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College Campuses: Intellectual Diversity-Free Zones - Jack Kerwick

by Jack Kerwick

The telling case of a conservative journalist being thrown out of Cornell.

I still believe in the ideal of a liberal arts education—even if, in practice, I’ve become more than a bit disenchanted.

As an undergraduate some 20 years ago majoring in religion and philosophy at Wingate University—a small, Southern Baptist institution in North Carolina—I was fortunate to have been taught by genuinely dedicated teachers who saw to it that their students received the classical education in the liberal arts for which they signed up. 

To put this point another way, my professors resisted the temptation—a temptation that’s all too common among the professoriate in the contemporary academy—to abuse their vocational privileges by preaching to, rather than teaching, their students. The classroom, my instructors seemed to realize, was not the proper venue in which to air their political and ideological predilections.

In pursuing my master’s degree in philosophy from Baylor University, I became increasingly aware of some of my instructors’ political views, but there existed a reasonable degree of intellectual diversity in the department.  This latter fact, coupled with my professors’ unquestionable commitment to the welfare of their students, made my time at Baylor one of the most enjoyable periods of my life.  

Sadly, however, I can’t say the same about the sentence I served at Temple University while working on my Ph.D.

To a man and woman, Temple’s philosophy department consisted of hard left ideologues. As hard leftists are wont to do, they wore their ideologies on their sleeves. For example, not long after I began my course work, during my second semester, I had a conversation with one of my professors that stopped before it began. Given that my area of specialization is political philosophy, this experience of mine was tremendously disheartening, for the person with whom I had this falling out was my political philosophy professor.  

I was in her office, we were talking, and the topic of “inequality” arose.  Once I suggested that perhaps some of these “inequalities” were due to bad decisions on the part of “the disadvantaged,” she quickly responded—and I remember this like it occurred yesterday—that if I insisted upon suggesting that people must assume responsibility for their poverty, that she wouldn’t be able to discuss this issue with me further.

Even as I recount this, all of these years later, I am almost as struck now as I was then by the scandalous degree of unprofessionalism and hyper-emotionality that my professor revealed. Her seminar will go down for me as perhaps the single worst course of my years as a college student, for it amounted to little more than an opportunity for her to promote her ideology—an ideology that she shared in common with virtually of all her students.
So why am I bringing all of this up?  There are two reasons.

First, my experience at Temple marked a turning point for me.  I had always heard of the phenomenon of “indoctrination” to which “conservative” critics of higher education were constantly referring, but I had never actually experienced it.  Now I had experienced it. Consequently, having become painfully aware of just how severely a professor’s abuse of power can stunt a student’s intellectual growth, I’ve learned to empathize with students to an extent that wouldn’t have been possible prior to this momentous event.

Second, Jesse Watters, of Fox News, was recently thrown off of the campus of Cornell University.  Watters randomly selected Cornell students and asked them whether they were aware that a whopping 96% of the university’s faculty political contributions went to Democrats.  

A recent report in The Washington Times reveals what many of us have long known: Cornell, like Temple, isn’t at all atypical when it comes to academia.

The Times states that, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report, at the nation’s 50 top liberal arts colleges, 47 professors have been recorded by the Federal Election Commission as having made political donations to 2016 presidential candidates during the third quarter of this year.

Of those 47 professors, only one of them—only one of them—gave to a Republican.

The facts render the verdict obvious: Academia is, by and large, a monolith, a bastion of leftist orthodoxy.  That there exists far more intellectual homogeneity among academics—i.e. ostensibly intelligent human beings—than is likely to be found anywhere else; and that there exists this degree of homogeneity with respect to topics like politics, morality, and religion, topics over which there is perennial debate, proves that academics don’t just happen to agree.

Academics conform.

This is bad, for in acquiescing in the mentality of the herd, academics betray their vocation, a calling to…think.  Academics are expected to think beyond the clichés and stock phrases of the day, to challenge conventionalities. In not only promoting the PC Zeitgeist, but transforming it into a creed, an unassailable body of dogmata, the academic conformist in effect repudiates this calling.

So academics harm themselves.  Yet they also undermine the university. The latter is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas, a center of intellectual diversity.  But insofar as they divest themselves of their own individuality, and discourage the cultivation of individuality in their peers, academic conformists preclude diversity.

Academic conformists, however, as well discourage the development of individuality, and, thus, the development of the ability to think, in students.    

A recent survey—The 2015 Buckley Free Speech Survey—of 800 undergraduate students showed the following:

“By a nearly two-to-one margin, students said their school is generally more tolerant of liberal ideas and beliefs than conservative ideas and beliefs.”  Only 36% of students polled held that their school was “equally tolerant of both.”

Over 60% of students think that “political correctness” is a problem on campus.

Fifty-three percent of students complained that their professors use class time to promulgate their own views.

Half of the students surveyed said that “they have often felt intimidated to share beliefs that differ” from their peers, and nearly half remarked that “they have often felt intimidated to share beliefs that differ” from those of their professors.

Seventy percent of students think that their school “should be doing more to promote diversity of opinion.”

This survey merely reinforces what has long been common knowledge to many of us.
And it should dispel any questions as to why Jesse Watters was thrown off of Cornell University’s campus.

Jack Kerwick

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260613/college-campuses-intellectual-diversity-free-zones-jack-kerwick

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.