RUTHFULLY YOURS

How does Islam understand the concept of non-Muslims or “different” Muslims? Do Sunnis believe non-Sunni Muslims have rights equal to Sunnis? Is there one central authority that can decide today who speaks for all Muslims?

Sadly, the Muslim world is in total turmoil. We could discuss the traditional Muslim legal code regarding non-Muslims, but, given the political upheaval now going on in the Muslim world, none of the historic answers seem relevant.

Why is this so? Though we in the West tend to view Islam as a religion and understand it in that context, Islam has always had another side—the political side—that throughout Islamic history has often been the dominant factor in Islamic politics. This is true both when the Muslim world is stable, and most definitely so when that Muslim world is filled with instability, as it is today.

Those who know their place

The notion of an Islamic economy or of “Islamic economics,” is rife with fallacies. An Islamic economy is a contradiction in terms. Why?

As the term economy is understood to be a system of trade – a barter system, or laissez-faire, or a mixed economy with the freedom to trade and produce hampered, saddled and skewed by government controls and regulations – on the other hand, the notion of an Islamic economy or of “Islamic economics,” is rife with fallacies.

An Islamic economy is a contradiction in terms. Why?

Islam is a looter’s system of wealth seizure and expropriation. It produces nothing, it does not encourage the production of values to trade, and it is essentially anti-capitalist and anti-life. Overall, it is a system for the maintenance by force of a class of parasites. Islamic “economics” prescribes, as its essential and inherent goals, the sustained activity of wealth, social, and – need we remind anyone – sexual plunder. Its Economics in One Lesson is the Koran. Instead of a genuine economist such as Henry Hazlitt, Islam has as its primary “economist” the delusional, “voice-hearing” cave-dweller Mohammad.

Islam has been a looters’ system from the very beginning of the Islamic calendar, when Mohammad left Medina in 630 A.D. with his 10,000 converts/warriors and marched on Mecca, which he had fled eight years before because his “peaceful” proselytizing for his own moon-worshipping religion netted him few converts but many enemies. Or so the legend goes. Robert Spencer casts serious and well documented doubts on whether or not the Prophet of Plunder even existed in his excellent, eye-opening book, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure Origins.

Campus groups press anti-Israel message with seemingly little money, but gain leverage with allies.

The arts district along Mamaroneck Avenue in downtown White Plains is something of a cultural hub in Westchester County. Special blue street signs — Arts Ave., they read — and colorful flags give the area the feel of a historic district, anchored by ArtsWestchester’s handsome brick headquarters.

There, on the fourth floor of 31 Mamaroneck Ave., is the office of a group that is far more interested in politics than arts. And controversial politics, at that.

Suite 403 houses the nonprofit group WESPAC Foundation, and its location in an arts-rich area belies its role as one of the key conduits in a mysterious network that helps to fuel the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement.

In recent days I suggested that things might have unfolded in a very different manner in Europe had the Jewish people been armed and better able to defend themselves.

Sometimes it is hard to find the right words to talk about the kind of evil that defies reason and destroys lives. We saw that evil on full display during the Holocaust perpetuated by the fanatical and tyrannical Nazi regime under Adolph Hitler. The lessons to be drawn from those darkest of days in world history are plentiful, and as relevant today as they were nearly 80 years ago.

In recent days I suggested that things might have unfolded in a very different manner in Europe had the Jewish people been armed and better able to defend themselves. What would have been the impact on Hitler’s war machine if his victims had had more access to guns? It is something that we will never know for sure.

What I do know however, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that I never intended for my words to diminish the enormity of the tragedy or in any way to cause any pain for Holocaust survivors or their families.

Both those who perished and those who survived the Nazi camps deserve our deepest reverence, as do the partisan fighters who rose in armed opposition.