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Friday, December 9, 2011

Freedom of Speech in Peril in USA?

Nadene Goldfoot
One thing that sets the United States of America apart from many other nations is our freedom of speech.  Slander is another thing.  One can be sued for that.  Our country is for some reason or other concerned about Sharia law, which states that slander is anything concerning a Muslim that he would dislike. 

That brings to mind many years ago in American Jewish communities where holocaust survivors has settled, and Nazis were marching through their neighborhoods, like Skokie, Illinois.  It brought terror to these people, but the ACLU said that it was freedom of speech and they had a right. "The challengers argued that the injunction violated the First Amendment rights of the marchers to express themselves freely".  I wasn't happy with their decision, but that's the way it was decided. 

 I was shocked at this display of speech, being Nazis were outlawed in Germany after the 2nd world war.  All of a sudden Islam has a lot of power here.

Possibly that's because 56 (and I thought there were only 48 Muslim majority countries counted by Wikipedia) Muslim countries plus the Palestinians are organized in a group larger than the UN, called the OIC.  They speak with authority and have the Cairo Declaration, exempting all Muslim countries from compliance with the UN declaration on Human rights and replacing it with their Islamic Shariah law. 

But this is America, right?  The OIC has met to counter Islamophobia and even want this to go through the UN.  Now, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is going to host the OIC Secretary Genral Elmeleddin Ihsanoglu in Washington DC very soon this month and talk about how the US can implement their agenda to criminalize criticism of Islam.

Does that mean that I cannot warn my friends that the Muslim Brotherhood's top leader in Qatar, Qaradawi, has put out a fatwa on all Jews everywhere to be killed?  Or should we be able to separate Muslim politics from the Muslim religion where Qaradawi, a religious Muslim leader in the Muslim Brotherhood has been calling for the Muslim world to damage the US economy by boycotting American products, and who has appeared on Arab TV channels inciting Muslims by calling for Islam's conquest of Rome, warning the US to change their policies or face "collapse," and calling for another Holocaust against the Jews but this time at the hands of the Muslims.  In 2009 he told his Al-Jazeera audience "Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them (Jews).  Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one."  The Koran has other sections also telling readers to look under rocks or behind bushes to kill Jews.  That actually happened when Islam was first created as there were Jewish tribes living in Saudi Arabia who were massacred unless they converted to Islam.  Jews felt that Islam was converting by the sword.  That's one reason why Jews do not try to go out to convert people.  We ourselves have had  terrible experiences  with people trying to convert us.  They don't call us stiff-necked for nothing.  We're not ready subjects.  So now Islam's religion is just ready to kill us all and skip the conversion part.

Iran has joined the bandwagon and has gone from "Destroy Israel!" to "Destroy all the Jews!"  They wish to annihilate Jews worldwide instead of their previous goal of wiping Israel off the map.  These people read the ever-popular book, Elders of Zion and base their philosophy on that.  They've come out with their own book "How Israel should be destroyed", basing a lot on the Elders book.

This thought of attacking our freedom of speech is coming at a bad time.  In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood wants to re-evaluate their peace treaty with Israel now that they are creating a new parliament.  They think it's been a long time since the Camp David accord was signed and needs the review, reported Mahmoud Hussein, the new secretary-general.  He added that "Generally, Israel does not honor the agreement."  So you know where he is going with his re-evaluations.  The Brotherhood has a political wing, "The Freedom and Justice Party", which got 36.5% of the vote.  After reading their declarations concerning Israel and Jews, I doubt strongly if this new group will follow in Mubarak's footsteps in wanting peace with Israel. 

To top it off, Hillary is getting women of Israel and the Muslim countries mixed up in her mind.  Rabbi Shlomo Amar, a chief rabbi in Israel, said her knowledge on the subject was incomplete.  Separate gender seating on buses is not required by Jewish law.  Israel is a country where the IDF couldn't do without their female sergeants who help train young soldiers.  They're tough, I've been told.  Israe's rabbis and women are most vocal and will take care of any misunderstandings themselves.  Don't worry.  The fact that in Mea She'arim there were women sitting apart was their choice, not Judaism's.  If she wants to help women, she should look into what's going on with Muslim women in other countries. 

When we returned from Israel the tail end of 1985, we found an upstairs apartment in SW Portland.  Below us, to my great surprise, was a Muslim fellow.  At Passover I opened the door for Elijiah and wondered if he could hear us.  We got along fine.  Up the street from the pre-school I was working at was a Mosque.  Gosh, I was beginning to feel like I was back in Israel again.  To be sure, there are hopefully many Muslims who do not follow the Muslim Brotherhood's dictums that are living here in the USA.  But that does not mean that there aren't some that do, or that such a belief is not growing throughout the world. 

Little things happen, like bringing DAM, a hip-hop 3 man Palestinian Israeli group to Lincoln High and the next thing heard was a student saying how she hated Israel.  Israeli Jews live here as well in this city.  None of us want to hear lies about ourselves, our religion or Israel.  We also love freedom of speech, so certainly are not looking forward to losing that one special right in the United States. 

When Israel is picked on and attacked by Muslim countries, one winds up feeling that there is something wrong between Jews and Muslims, and that this is a religious war.  That's confirmed by putting out a fatwa against all Jews everywhere.  Yet people aren't going to be able to say anything about Muslims?  This outrageous thought of passing such an idea hasn't got a leg to stand on.  I hope Hillary has the gumption to tell Elmeleddin Ihsanoglu a thing or two about what America is all about.  What a great teaching moment she has in her hands. 

Reference: Sheikh Al-Qaradawi & Qatar's Education City Hosting American University Branches, from Memri
Family Security Matters by Clare M. Lopez
AIPAC Update: update@aipac.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie
http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/59853/hillary-clinton-enters-israel-gender-dispute

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