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.

Is Islam a threat?

Pope's aide warns of 'threat by Islam'

The Pope's private secretary has given warning of the Islamisation of Europe and stressed the need for the continent's Christian roots not to be ignored, in comments released yesterday.

"Attempts to Islamise the West cannot be denied," Monsignor Georg Gaenswein was quoted as saying in an advance copy of the weekly Sueddeutsche Magazin to be published today.

"The danger for the identity of Europe that is connected with it should not be ignored out of a wrongly understood respectfulness," the magazine quoted him as saying.

He also defended a speech that the Pope gave last year that linked Islam and violence, saying it had been an attempt by the pontiff to "act against a certain naivety".

In the speech during a visit to Germany in September, the Pope appeared to endorse a view, contested by most Muslims, that Islam's followers spread their religion in its early days by violence.

The Pope quoted Manuel II Paleologus, the 14th-century Byzantine emperor, who said: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Muslims around the world protested against the speech. Churches were set ablaze in the West Bank and a hard-line Iranian cleric said that the Pope was united with President George W Bush to "repeat the Crusades".

When an Italian nun was shot in a Somali hospital where she worked, the Vatican expressed concern that the attack was a reaction to the Pope's remarks.

Recently, Joachim Meisner, the influential archbishop of Cologne, said in a radio interview that the "immigration of Muslims has created a breach in our German, European culture".

Someone to watch over him

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO TURKEY
(NOVEMBER 28 - DECEMBER 1, 2006)

Yesterday at least 20,000 muslim demonstrators protested against the Pope's arrival tomorrow at a rally in Istanbul.

His Holiness will defy death threats and security fears on his four day visit.

Muslim anger arises from misunderstandings over the Pope's quotation from a 14th century Byzantine emperor claiming muslims are "evil and inhumane", his attitude towards Turkey's application to join the European Community, and a recent visit to the vatican by the Greek Cypriot President.

From all this you could be forgiven for not realising that the main intention of the visit is closer relations between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. There are annual exchange visits from Istanbul to Rome for the Feast of SS Peter and Paul and from Rome to Istanbul for the Feast of St Andrew.

Saint Andrew (Greek: Ανδρέας Andreas, "manly"), called in the Orthodox tradition Protocletos, or the First-called, is a Christian Apostle, brother of Saint Peter.

Traditionally, he became the first bishop of Byzantium in 38, a position which would later become Patriarch of Constantinople.
He is said to have suffered crucifixion at Patras (Patrae) in Achaea, on a cross of the form called Crux decussata (X-shaped cross) and commonly known as "St. Andrew's cross." St. Andrew is the patron of Patras. According to tradition his relics were removed from Patras to Constantinople, and thence to St. Andrews .

Acknowledging the trip's danger, the Pope has invoked the "celestial protection2 of John xxiii, who was the apostolic delegate in Turkey for 10 years. He added: "I ask you all to accompany me in prayer that this pilgrimage can bring about all the fruits which God desires." We can say "Amen" to that whilst thanking God for a Pope willing to confront Islam with the Gospel of Christ. Janet Daley, in today's Telegraph, is more blunt: "We are in a war to the death - craven concessions won't win it" is her opinion. The global ambitions of Islam must be confronted by the world mission of Christianity. "The truth shall make you free".