Why can’t Muslims laugh at Mohammed?

David P. Goldman May 5, 2015

In Mel Brooks’ comedy “History of the World Part I,” Moses is shown descending from Mount Sinai with three stone tablets in hand. As he declares, “I give you the Fifteen Commandments,” one falls and breaks, and Moses corrects himself, “er, Ten Commandments.” Jews, including the observant, find this funny rather than offensive. As we learned once again in Garland, Texas, Muslims do not laugh at jokes about Mohammed, the purported author of the Koran (as Moses is the author of the Torah). Two wannabe Jihadists with assault rifles and body armor were no match for an off-duty Texas traffic cop with a sidearm, but the incident might have turned into a massacre worse than the murder of the Charlie Hebdo staff in January.

Why do Jews as well as Christians–but not Muslims–laugh at jokes about the founders of their faiths?

The answer is that radically different deities are in question. Judaism begins with a covenant between God and human beings–Abraham and his descendants–that is a partnership in which God is normally, but not always, the senior partner. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks observes, the Jewish sages of antiquity envisioned Moses acting as a judge for God, permitting God to annul his earlier vow to destroy the Jewish people after the sin of the Golden Calf. This is unimaginable in Islam, just as unimaginable as the Christian God who humbles himself on the cross.

(more…)

Continue ReadingWhy can’t Muslims laugh at Mohammed?

Hate preachers and terrorists could be stripped of citizenship under anti-terrorism proposal

Ellen Whinnett – Herald Sun – May 15, 2015

HATE preachers and terrorists face being stripped of their Australian citizenship and sent back to their original countries under tough anti-terrorism measures being examined by the Abbott Government.

The proposal would see immigrants who became Australian citizens but then preached hate or carried out terrorist attacks given a one-way ticket back to their birth countries, or a third nation.

The move could for the first time encompass Australian citizens who were not dual nationals, meaning the terrorists and hate preachers would have to be accepted by another country.

DAN TEHAN: AUSSIE CITIZENSHIP IS A GIFT THAT TERRORISTS SEEK TO DESTROY

That would mean people such as Melbourne hate preacher Harun Mehicevic, who migrated from Bosnia but became an Australian citizen in 1996, are on notice they could be stripped of their citizenship if found to be acting against the interests of Australia.

A Cabinet source said the plan would not affect Australian-born citizens who do not have or have not held another nationality.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has indicated support for stripping dual nationals of their citizenship: “We cannot allow bad people to use our good nature against us.”

(more…)

Continue ReadingHate preachers and terrorists could be stripped of citizenship under anti-terrorism proposal

Parents have vowed to continue protests and boycotts until Islamic College of SA board resigns

TIM WILLIAMS EDUCATION REPORTER The Advertiser May 10, 2015

FOR years it was the pride of the Muslim community, a school that reached out to its neighbours and helped promote cultural understanding across Adelaide.

Migrant students from across the globe were taught to be proudly Australian, regularly singing the national anthem and their own school song. But they don’t sing any more.

A deep rift between parents and management threatens the future of the Islamic College of South Australia.

Relations have soured to the point where hundreds of parents kept their children at home on Friday in protest against the school’s board and they say they will organise more boycott days until the board resigns.

The warning signs began three years ago when principal Julia Abdelale was sacked, beginning a revolving door of school leaders who, parents say, are at the mercy of the board.

(more…)

Continue ReadingParents have vowed to continue protests and boycotts until Islamic College of SA board resigns

A Century Later, Turkey Still Won’t Come to Terms with the Armenian Genocide

April 27, 2015 – The National Review – By David Pryce-Jones  

The Turks in 1915 destroyed the minority of Armenians in their midst, killing probably as many as a million and a half, and driving hundreds of thousands into exile. Such a nation-wide exhibition of human brutality takes its lasting place in the collective memory. Yet Turkish officials and spokesmen for the past hundred years have refused to accept responsibility for this great crime, much less apologize for it.

They contest the numbers of victims. A world war had opened, and bad things happen in war everywhere. Armenians, they like to say, were making common cause with the Russian enemy, and ethnic cleansing was therefore a security measure. Turks as Muslims were waging jihad, but Armenians as Christian infidels had brought it all on themselves. In “Minorities,” one of his most judicious essays, Elie Kedourie ascribes much of the blame to the handful of Armenians who had let nationalist ideology take possession of them, a malady or infection “eating up the fabric of settled society.” In his summary of their fate, “the Armenians were forced to be free.”

(more…)

Continue ReadingA Century Later, Turkey Still Won’t Come to Terms with the Armenian Genocide

The End Times According to Islam

The End Times According to Islam3/4/15 – by Robin Schumacher – The Confident Christian

Nine years ago, then president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated in an interview that he experienced a supernatural experience during a speech he gave at the United Nations the previous year. Ahmadinejad claimed that he was bathed in a light from heaven at the outset of his talk, with the light remaining on him for the full length of the speech.

Ahmadinejad made a number of references during that U.N. speech to the “mighty Lord” who will hasten the emergence of “the promised one,” the one who “will fill this world with justice and peace.”[1] Exactly who was Ahmadinejad referring to? According to another speech he gave that same year, he saw his main mission to “pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi, may Allah hasten his reappearance.”[2]

CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen points out that ISIS has similar hopes based on their belief in Islamic prophecy. Believing that their actions hasten a supposed final battle at a small, obscure Syrian town named Dabiq between “Rome” and Islam (where the forces of true Islam triumph), Bergan notes: “ISIS members devoutly believe that they are fighting in a cosmic war in which they are on the side of good, which allows them to kill anyone they perceive to be standing in their way with no compunction. This is, of course, a serious delusion, but serious it is.”[3]

(more…)

Continue ReadingThe End Times According to Islam

RUAP Media Release – Would Andrew Chan & Mayuran Sukumaran had been killed if they had converted to Islam?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -  THURSDAY 30th APRIL 2015 Would Andrew Chan & Mayuran Sukumaran had been killed if they had converted to Islam is a question everyone has failed to…

Continue ReadingRUAP Media Release – Would Andrew Chan & Mayuran Sukumaran had been killed if they had converted to Islam?

Was the Mosque fire in Toowoomba an inside job?

Dear friends & family in Christ, You may click the link below to watch a 3 minute video from RUAP National President Daniel Nalliah on the recent Mosque fire in…

Continue ReadingWas the Mosque fire in Toowoomba an inside job?

Videos of Christians forgiving Islamic State spread through Middle East

Stories of forgiveness from people affected by Islamist extremism have now been watched by more than a million people, according to the SAT-7 satellite broadcasting organisation.

Most of those who have watched the videos of a 10-year-old Iraqi girl displaced by Islamic State and of the brother of two Egyptian labourers beheaded in Libya live in the Middle East.

SAT-7’s Egypt director Farid Samir said that the massive interest in the clips shows the impact of “resisting violence through forgiveness”.

The video of 10-year-old Myriam saying she “will ask God to forgive IS” was watched by more than 200,000 people within 42 hours of appearing on the SAT-7 ARABIC Facebook page.

An earlier clip in which an Egyptian Christian called in to a SAT-7 worship programme within days of his two brothers’ deaths at the hands of IS was watched by at least half a million people in the first week and shared on news sites around the world. The videos have also been uploaded by other sites not linked to SAT-7 pages, so that the total viewership is higher still.

(more…)

Continue ReadingVideos of Christians forgiving Islamic State spread through Middle East

‘Britain’s white jihadi’ a teen from Australia – report

2015-03-09- News 24

Sydney – A westerner pictured alongside Islamic State group fighters and dubbed “Britain’s white jihadi” is in fact an Australian teenager who converted to Islam, a report said on Monday.

A photo of the meek-looking youth, holding a rifle and sitting in between two jihadists with a black ISIS flag in the background, emerged on Twitter in late December.

At the time the militant group, which has run rampant through swathes of Iraq and Syria, hailed his recruitment as “a major coup” with the British media dubbing him “Britain’s white jihadi”.

Doubts about the authenticity of the picture subsequently emerged after a blogger claimed he had fabricated the image to hoax the British press.

But Australia’s Fairfax Media said the photograph had now been positively identified by friends of the teenager and members of two mosques in Melbourne.

(more…)

Continue Reading‘Britain’s white jihadi’ a teen from Australia – report