Islam and Israel

Obama, the Muslim Thing, And Why It Matters

by Pamela Geller (September 2008)

He knows the stakes involved.

The thing is, you can't be a leader and not know what Islam means. The average Joe pumping gas on Route 66 - okay, not on top of the issue. But there is no way you can be running for President and not know the hell being wreaked on the free and not-so-free world by Islamic jihad.

 

That said, Barack Obama went to a madrassa in Jakarta. A madrassa in a Muslim country. Whether he was devout or secular, he knows what was taught. He knows what is in the Koran. Even if he is ambiguous, he knows the stakes involved. His father was a 
 
Muslim who took three wives (without divorcing). His stepfather and close members of his family are devout Muslims. Not an unimportant influence.

Every Muslim who left Islam is very definitive about leaving and why. They are quite vocal. If he left Islam, Obama must have very definite thoughts about it. He has to, he practiced Islam. That is not benign; it's big. And even if, as inferred by big media, it was not big to him, then he can still appreciate how important it is knowing what he knows about Islam and apostasy.

Obama would have had to make a decision to reject Islam. When did he make that decision? How? Why the silence? Why the reluctance to talk about it?

Apostasy is punishable by death in Islam. Have there been calls for Obama's death? If not, why not? Islam gives no free passes.

Obama's posture on this is hard to define or understand, because it is a critical issue.

Transitional issues facing this nation and the world at large - the world at war, creeping sharia, the perversion of the rights of free men, individuals, women, etc., hang in the balance on the make up of the next president of the United States. The stakes could not be higher domestically.

On foreign policy, Europe has laid down. The political elites have capitulated to Islamists and to multiculturalists. Suicide. It seems unclear that they could hold up their end even if America did the heavy lifting.

As far as Israel is concerned, if Obama makes it to the big house, Israel is screwed. Finished.  Israel will be on its own.

Perhaps that is necessary, though, because it seems they have relinquished their sovereignty to the US and they expect the US to guarantee their security. Ain't never


gonna' happen. No country, ever, should abdicate its role in protecting and defending itself. Ehud Olmert is on a one-way trip to nowhere. So maybe tough love is necessary, because this relationship is hurting Israel.

The recent revelations of Obama's ties to Raila Odinga in Kenya are disconcerting as well, because Odinga is behind the terrible violence in his country. It was he who instigated bloody riots and killing after he lost the election. Obama's bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenyan government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila's "stooge." And while there are few angels in Kenya, Odinga is the source of great unrest and turmoil; and the MOU he signed with the Muslim Council to institute shariais a foreshadowing of a dark fate for Kenya.  Just how quickly will Kenya go Islamic?

We must be allowed to ask these questions. I do not embrace change for the sake of change - the impossible new buzzword on the campaign trail. Jimmy Carter was the dark horse, the new unknown, and he was an unmitigated disaster. The worst, most damaging president in US history, in my opinion.

This could be even worse. And so, I implore my fellow Americans to question, question, question. The potential damage to this country is incalculable. These are dangerous times, my friends; reckless and capricious intellectual laziness will have disastrous consequences.

Counter offensive (August 2001)

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama launched an online viral counteroffensive Tuesday against persistent e-mail chain letters that lie about his religious and political background. But history suggests that the effort might backfire, according to experts in urban myths and folklore.

"The principle is that a very strong denial makes some people think: 'Uh huh, we knew it. If he's taken the trouble to make such a strong denial, there must be some truth to it,'" says Bill Ellis, a professor at Pennsylvania State University who studies contemporary folklore and popular cultural responses to societal events like the 9/11 attacks.

There are various versions of the e-mails, but they generally insinuate that Obama is secretly a Muslim who attended a radical Islamic school in Indonesia. One of the e-mails charges that he's a radical Muslim who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Another e-mail claims that he was sworn into the Senate using a copy of the Quran. All of the allegations are false.