Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West

Sunday’s Oregonian found inserted in the pages, the DVD "Obsession," sponsored by the non-profit Clarion Fund of New York.

I had a chance to see this film at our Temple in Portland, but missed it as it involved a long drive. I was very sorry I hadn’t had a chance to see it. I knew it was exposing radical Islam and its practices. I had already seen a program at Portland State University along the same lines which also involved a question and answer period. The large room was packed. I have a blog article about it.

Having lived in Israel from 1980 to 1985, I had had many experiences with radical Islam, far more than my friends in Oregon. In my book, ‘Letters From Israel," I wrote on November 23, 1983 the following from page 310 to my mother. "First, I know about the television program about the Syrians eating snake’s blood, puppies, etc. It’s terrible. It was shown on Israeli television news and I missed it that night, but read about it here. It really made the papers. You might call here and ask about it. I’m glad it finally came out in your newspaper. It shows what the Syrians are like. I didn’t send you the article because I didn’t want you to be upset."

After writing that, I did catch the incident on the news that came from Jordan. It was done by the soldiers standing at attention in a field, showing how brave and scary they were. They took turns doing these vile acts. It was meant to bolster their courage and also to scare us, and it did. To my Portland shaped mind, these people needed to be locked up in an institution. It was unreal!

These people were getting ready for fanaticism.

As San Francisco inhabitants differ from New York City inhabitants, so must New York’s Ranya Idliby of "The Faith Club" differ from radical Islamists.. I loved Ranya and her religious outlook and hope she hasn’t changed, but has only added to her knowledge. I’m finding that most Portlanders are in complete denial of what’s happening to our world.

It is my opinion that we are now in a bloody clash of cultures between the Muslims and the rest of the world. In order to educate the public, the Clarion Fund produced the DVD called Obsession with Sir Martin Gilbert, Professors Robert Wistrich, Dr. Khaleel Mohammed, Daniel Pipes, Alan Dershowitz, a former PLO terrorist and a former Hitler Youth Commander along with others.

It was an excellent presentation, and how could it not be with such prominent names behind it?
However, the people who subscribed to the Oregonian and had it delivered to their door did not find joy in receiving it. They reacted with alarm. Many threw it away quickly. Even many Jews reacted this way. They took it as some kind of propaganda against the "nice" Arabs. I’d say they hadn’t reached a readiness level to want such an education. It was the wrong way to expose the public to such findings. Now these people have gone the other way, more protecting of radical Islam. The Letters to the Editor page was filled with their hostile reactions. After distributing the paper on Sunday, there were television ads from the newspaper saying they were just offering freedom of speech, and they were innocent. Today saw an article about it in the paper. Evidently there were protesters outside the Oregonian building complaining about the distribution of this hour long DVD. They said, probably without viewing, that it was Muslim-bashing propaganda promoting fear, hate and division. At least 500 people called the paper complaining. A few even dropped their subscription to the paper.

The world contains about 6.6 billion people. Christians and Muslims are almost equal in number.
Out of those, about 2.1 billion, or 33% of the population are Christian.
The 2nd largest world religion are Muslims with 1,902,095,000, or 1 billion, 902 million, 95 thousand.or about 20% of the world population.
Jews are 13,296,100 or about 13 million plus in the world. This is about 0.3% of the world. Sadly, some of these Muslims have become radical and are bent on doing harm to others. We saw the beginnings of it on 9/11.
No, in this rainy much to the left city, people are not mentally prepared for what could lie ahead. Then again, how could such terrorists dare to harm anyone in our rose gardened Portland?

Reference: Oregonian newspaper Tuesday, Sept 30, 2008 page C2 Protesters denounce DVD in newspaper
DVD Obsession from Clarion Fund, New York
Letters From Israel by Nadene Goldfoot
This blog: jewishfactsfromportland: November 15, 2007 Muslim Palestinians Expectations with Itamar Marcus