Sunday, August 8, 2010

Waking up to the Shari’a threat?

Jerusalem Post

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich sought to reframe the American foreign policy debate last week. The central issue, Gingrich told the American Enterprise Institute, is whether policymakers recognize the existence of a civilizational struggle between the West and those who seek to expand the domain of Shari'a, or Islamic law, across the globe. He located the beginning of the struggle as the takeover of the American embassy in Teheran by radical students, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Gingrich pointedly refrained from painting the issue as one of terrorism. Terrorism and military conquest, jihad, is only one of the tools of political or radical Islam. Dawa, or proselytization, is jihad by other means. A fifteen-page 1991 document produced by the Muslim Brotherhood of North America, and subsequently revealed by the FBI, proclaims, for instance, its goal of "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within." The document includes a list of "our organizations and the organizations of our friends," including some of the best known Muslim "defense" organizations in the United States.[...]

See the following link which gives an example of the above.

Advocates of Anti-Shariah Measures Alarmed by Judge's Ruling

4 comments :

  1. Recipients and PublicityAugust 8, 2010 at 8:12 PM

    How is this different to the Israeli chiloni (secular) public's fears about the imposition of Halacha as the absolute law of the land, and that everyone will be forced to obey it by kefia datit (religious coercion)?

    Not in the sense of the arrival of Moshiach times when such a situation will come about by the Divine Will and true Justice will prevail!

    But, the concern is that in the pre-Messianic era, as in our present time, the Charedi/Dati/Orthodox sectors unfortunately display arrogance, corruption, cynicism, brutality, an uncivil and undemocratic and dictatorial view of the world and insensitivity to their secular fellow-Jews who are tinokos shenishbu, to achieve their goals that is objectively totally off-putting to the secular sector.

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  2. There is no difference between Sharia and Halacha. And while it is easy for Muslims to misunderstand
    Islam to permit things that are not permitted, it is just as easy to misunderstand Judaism in the same way.

    According to Halacha:

    A woman does not have absolute discretion to withhold relations from her husband. A woman may not withhold sex from her husband as a form of punishment, and if she does, the husband may divorce her without paying the substantial divorce settlement provided for in the ketubah.

    The Rambam wrote:

    "A man’s wife is permitted to him. Therefore a man may do whatever he wishes with his wife. He may have intercourse with her at any time he wishes and kiss her on whatever limb of her body he wants.(Mishnah Torah Issurei Biah 21:9)

    Please note, I am not saying that Judaism permits marital rape. I am saying that the same misread of Judaism as the above misread of Islam can lead to erroneously permitting marital rape.

    Furthermore, it behooves us as Jews to consider any protest against Islam to also be a protest against Judaism.

    The imam did say (which is the same as according to Halacha):

    "However, a husband was forbidden to approach his wife 'like any animal.' ... he acknowledged that New Jersey law considered coerced sex between married people to be rape."

    I have heard Orthodox Rabbis testifying similarly in divorce cases between a Jewish man and a woman who no longer wants to be observant.

    We, as Jews need to protest the Christian Crusade against Islam which history has shown has always evolved into a Crusade against Jews as well.

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  3. I liked the "Burka Ban" article the same author wrote this week better. It alludes to the same issues.
    http://www.jewishmediaresources.com/1388/the-burka-ban-and-us

    Highlights that there are no easy lemaaseh answers. If a Muslim population quietly settles an area, what can you do, under secular or Torah law? Answer would seem to be: not much, if anything.

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  4. Before we jump to any conclusions, can someone define for me legally what "like any animal" actually means? It's easy to point to this term and make it mean whatever you want it to mean, but how is it actually translated according to Muslim legal principles?

    "There is no difference between Sharia and Halacha."

    You meant on this particular case, right? Or do you mean in general? I really hope not. Even if you meant on this particular case, I haven't been convinced of that yet, but that's at least within rational possibility.

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