Future Promises Playing Out on American Campuses

 

There is a truthism spoken by Vladimir Lenin which goes, “Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world.” We would like to make a slight alteration which will be just as valid a statement but ours goes, ‘Look to the colleges and you will see your future ruling elites.’ This should frighten anyone familiar with what passes for normal on today’s college campuses. There are forces who have been making inroads to indoctrinate the youth and many have gotten into position as professors at some of the most prestigious universities in America as well as across Europe. They are assisted in selling their new view and plans for the future by instigators and NGOs which hate Israel and America looking to overthrow the elective systems of governance and replace it with totalitarian socialistic governance. Their initial protests were against Israel, as blaming the Jewish State and claiming the Jews stole Arab lands was an easier sell than attempting to vilify the United States. But with the election of President Donald Trump and the media storm which has ensued ever since, selling that the United States is an oppressive regime which denies equal rights to minorities has become an easier sell. Additionally, they can equate the Trump Border Wall with the Israeli anti-terror wall/fence and the border fence around Gaza. Additionally, they paint President Trump and with it the Congress, which had a Republican majority until the last election, as serving the upper one-percent and denying even a decent living to the other ninety-nine-percent, as ludicrous a statement as the claim that Israel is attempting genocide against the Arabs. First thing is if Israel was attempting genocidal practices against just the Palestinian Arabs, then how can one explain that their numbers since 1950 have gone from approximately seven-hundred-fifty-thousand to presumably over five-million. Further, the expanded version of that slanderous trope has been that the Jews wish to destroy the Arab and Muslim worlds, as if the around fifteen-million Jews on the planet today would even consider making such a war against the approaching two-billion Arabs and Muslim worldwide. But such claims against the Jews and Israel are often fed to college age youths who have little knowledge of Israel and at best neutral feelings with no real basis for understanding Judaism or Jews take such information, especially when it is presented as fact by professors, specifically those hired in departments of Middle East studies which are very often funded by Saudi Arabia and other wealthy oil producing Arab nations and even Iran through intermediaries such as Qatar. The latest, which is explained far more eloquently by Lee Kaplan who heads Defending America for Knowledge and Action (DAFKA) and has links to places backing up and also further expounding on his article and can be read here.

 

The root of the program to co-opt the minds of students in universities and colleges is not a new idea on how to plan a takeover of a nation. This was part and parcel of the Communists recruiting in Russia which led eventually to combining student revolutionaries and labor union leaders and their members to man the ramparts of the revolution. Thus, it should not be surprising to find the same approach being used today by the Islamists as they are slowly infiltrating the United States and were swarming into Europe until many nations froze their immigration and closed their borders. The first target of these groups is the Jews; of course as some things seldom if ever change. The Jews were the initial target of the Nazis claiming the Jews were all Bolsheviks and Communists while in Russia the Communists also were targeting the Jews claiming they supported the Nazis and were a danger to Russia and the revolution. Now, it was true that there were Jews who were Bolsheviks and Communists just as there were Jews who initially supported the Nazis, as they were, in both cases, useful idiots. Today, the Jews are being used as the threat and the controllers of the halls of power where they are abusing their influence to threaten numerous minorities, the integrity of the nation and numerous other nefarious activities. These are not new derogatory claims against the Jews as these are old blood libels which go all the way back to Haman and King Ahasuerus (Xerxes I) in Persia around 500 BCE. Even the Pharaoh who enslaved the Jews because he did not know Joseph, as explained in Torah, was convinced by his advisors that the Jews were too numerous and powerful and might join an invading foreign power against the Pharaoh and thus needed to be brought low. This was closer to 1800 BCE. This threat that the Jews are going to destroy the nation if they are not prevented from exercising their influences to the detriment of every other group, this is often made group sensitive depending on the audience being addressed. The saddest thing about this is there are Jews who willfully assist such tropes sometimes going so far as to echo them with some being professors who repeat such deceits and teach them as fact. Think about it carefully, as the Jews make up a mere two-percent of the population of the United States and despite being prominent in numerous fields, they simply do not have the numbers to accomplish those threats they are so often accused of perpetrating. When it comes to the United Nations, where Israel is constantly under assault and the Jews are often grouped as attempting to make the world subservient to Israel through their influence around the world; the Jews, less than zero-point-two-percent of the world’s population are going to do exactly what? But the Jews are and always have been a juicy and opportunistic target to funnel hate towards.

 

The main starting point is almost always Israel in these attacks, but as has now been witnessed on too many campuses, Jews are being targeted for violence, hatred and exclusion from college student government positions, positions on school newspapers as well as numerous other problems at numerous universities. These problems on American campuses are a recent development of the past quarter century and are a direct result of the moves by the Arab world to demonize and isolate Israel, and if they need to demonize Jews in general, that is just fine with them and possibly a bonus. Some of the accusations leveled against Israel include that it is a racist nation ruled by white European men who exclude people of color and women from power; Israeli Arabs are not permitted to live, work, join groups, be in the government and a host of other claims; Israel is working towards establishing a Greater Israel on all Arab lands, Jews are genocidally murdering Palestinian Arabs; the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is killing Arabs for body parts to transplant and various other regurgitations of old canard and blood libels including stealing money, causing illnesses, poisoning the water, candy, food etc. and many, many more. Just to poke a small gaping hole, let us kill two accusations, possibly more, with one example; Haneen Zoabi is currently in the Israeli Knesset (parliament), though she is retiring and not running again, as an Arab, woman, pro-Palestinian who desired the destruction of Israel and has called for exactly that numerous times, so, any questions? The problem is the vast majority of Americans, and even more so amongst the youth, even those of college age, know little or nothing about Israel, know just barely more about Jews or Judaism, many have never knowingly met anybody who was a Jew or especially a religious Jew and are willing to believe what they are fed, especially when it comes from one who appears to be or is in a position of an authoritarian, which professors are especially believed and there are hosts of them, especially at some of the more prestigious institutions as they have been targeted by the Arabs and Islamists so as to indoctrinate the leaders of the future (if you skipped a link above, allow us to repeat it as it lists universities where Jewish students are prone to find difficulties, more so if they support Israel, and the list is frightening as many of those listed are prestigious halls of learning) and this is exactly where they hope to take the United States and are taking Europe, at least western and northern (Scandinavian) Europe. This is also evidenced by votes taken in the United Nations General Assembly and votes in the Security Council condemning Israel, disproportionally condemns Israel.

 

Conspiracy Theory of a Greater Israel

 

These events are troubling if one believes in a free world with mostly democratic governance and believes that people should be free to worship as they please and that religion, gender, race, national origin, sexual preference and all other human rights remain protected for all peoples. Unfortunately, there are forces at work which are diametrically opposed to these concepts but they are hiding often behind, of all things, human rights. Most of such organizations use Israel as their first and foremost punching bag because they can use latent or outright anti-Semitism to camouflage their true identities and purpose. These groups have targeting youth, especially those in universities, as their prime focus and are seeking to change the world to bring it under the sway of Islam. Many even disguise their Islamist roots while others are being exploited by those whose goals are an Islamic World Caliphate as described in the Quran. The Islamic world through these groups will often claim that Israel oppresses their Christians but they will never tell you that of all the nations within MENA (Middle East and North Africa) which is also called the Arab world plus Iran, only in Israel are the numbers of Christians increasing. They will claim that the Israeli occupation has forced the Christians out of Bethlehem. The problem here is that Bethlehem is currently ruled by the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas and the Christians fled Bethlehem due to their stores being stolen or destroyed and then their homes and many left after death threats, all beyond anything Israel did or could do. They claim that Israel refuses to allow the Arab Palestinian from voting. Arab Palestinians are not permitted to vote in Israeli elections for a very simple and basic reason, they are not Israeli and live either under the virtual dictatorship of Mahmoud Abbas who refuses elections as he knows he would lose or they live under Hamas dictatorial regime in Gaza. Would the United States allow Mexicans or Canadians or Chinese to vote in their elections and is this denial the reason for a complaint that they deny these people a vote? Of course not, that would be ludicrous. Another reason these accusation succeed is simple, those spreading these largely false accusation are backed by nations with vast wealth as well as the numerous anti-Semitic forces and far-left and far-right political groups, neo-Nazis, and slowly but surely the left-wing political groups across the globe. The next potential and even likely Prime Minister of Britain, Jeremy Corbyn, the man who befriended Hamas and Hezballah but did not hate Jews, but cracks have appeared in those explanations which he swore by. Jeremy Corbyn is far from alone on the left, as some of the new members to the United States Congress have been proving. These are either Muslims (Ilhan Omar), Palestinians (Rashida Tlaib), or wide-eyed youths full of exuberance and short on knowledge (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). Whatever their reasons, hatred of Israel and demands that it be erased from history, again, have been perched on their lips and we can expect many new faces with similar attitudes as time progresses. If screaming for people to wake-up, read-up, learn-up and if necessary, act-up before such things are no longer permitted is insufficient, then likely all is lost. Political correctness is not a polite way of speaking, it is controlling the language to control all debates and silence all who are opposed to those things which are inclusive and contained within intersectionality, which is designed to exclude Israel and her friends as Israel, and eventually this will be broadened to include all Jews, is considered beyond the pale and to be quashed. “The hate that begins with Jews (or the Jewish State) never ends with Jews,” former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Perhaps the Time is Here to Identify All of Islamic State

 

President Trump has claimed that the Islamic State has been defeated simply because they have been successfully pushed from Syria and Iraq. Pushing something to relocate to a different hot-spot is not eliminating it. To eliminate the Islamic State, President Trump is going to have to go to places he prefers to ignore or it will come back to bite him in the future. The Islamic State is exactly what one might think about their losses in Syria and Iraq, madder than all get up, we thought better than saying the wording which first came to mind. But they have not been defeated and just like other terror groups which were claimed to be defeated but simply relocated, Islamic State is still a viable threat. The bad news for President Trump is that the Islamic State he claims to have defeated has relocated many of their resources and leading people to the Sinai Peninsula where they are a threat to the Egyptian government as well as to Israel. The good news for Israel is that having the Islamic State in the Sinai threatening Egypt has caused Egypt to close their border with Gaza making arming Hamas more difficult for those wishing to press that front against Israel. Egyptian President Sisi would be wise to ask President Trump to aid Egypt in ridding the Sinai of the Islamic State menace along with numerous other criminal and terrorist entities.

 

But we want to talk about the forgotten from which belongs to the Islamic State but has been conveniently dismissed as unimportant by the developed world including President Trump. The loss of four Americans in Niger, four Green Berets Special Forces, in an ambush by Islamist terrorists, Boko Haram terrorists, is sad and some have asked why United States forces are in Niger. We ask the opposite question posing why there are but eight-hundred troops stationed there largely as advisors and training officers. All told, six-thousand United States military personnel are deployed in Africa where the majority works on construction projects and in supporting the aerial drone surveillance operations. Why is there not a more substantial support in Niger as the United States had in Syria and Iraq against Islamic State? Perhaps we need refresh memories with two small items. First, Boko Haram swore their allegiance to Islamic State over two year ago in early 2015. President Trump promised to defeat the Islamic State wherever they existed and did not claim only in Syria and Iraq. But maybe President Trump meant he only wanted to destroy the Islamic State where the media was covering the fight as he wished for glory, not results. Islamic State terror must be fought wherever it takes root and everywhere it takes root or that weed has not been pulled. Islamic State is Boko Haram and Boko Haram is Islamic State, the two are wed in ideology and their desire to take their destructive ideology and spread it over the entirety of our planet. This is the reason that they must be eradicated from every corner they have infested, and that includes across the entirety of the continent of Africa.

 

African Transition Zone

 

To make things easier for President Trump, please allow us to present the above map of the region known as the African Transition Zone where Africa is divided between the areas controlled by Islam and the Christian, Animist and other religious beliefs. North of the zone is Islamic and south is not and the terrorists operating along the entire region intend to push the dotted boundary of Islam ever southward until stopped. Maybe Africa does not have the attention of the Middle East, but it is no less important in this battle for world dominance between Islam and everybody else. This is not the great battle between Communism and Democratic freedom, this is the great battle between Islam and freedom of religion or even freedom from religion if you happen to be a post-modernist European leftist who believes that religion is the opiate of the masses. Trust that Islam will devour your socialist religion free society and force everyone to bow to Allah just as fast as they would a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto or other religious nations. The Islamists do not care what religion or lack of religion you worship or refuse to worship, they only care that you do not believe the religion that they hold to and they are willing to kill everybody who refuses to follow Islam if that is what it takes to make the world follow Islam and only Islam. Don’t even think for a moment that you have nothing to fear about the message Islam presents just because you are an Atheist, because the reality is you have the most to fear as they consider Atheists to be idolaters. And yes the continent of Africa is worth saving just as Europe is worth fighting to keep free, Asia is worth retaining as free, and the Americas are worth fighting to keep free and Israel is worth defending despite or because it is in the center of the maelstrom. The fight against Islam, or at least to reform Islam, is the most imperative and important struggle the world faces and the entire world faces this whether they wish to admit such or not.

 

Currently there are forces who believe they can bait the tiger and come away unscathed because the tiger is devouring others. This is foolish thinking and will only serve to allow the tiger to feast unmolested for so long. Eventually the tiger will desire feasting on something new and that might be when the tiger turns on those befriending it today, as that is what tigers do, they eat by preying on others. Perhaps the tiger is not the best animal to use in the analogy for Islam. Islam is more like locusts or army ants devouring everything in their path and when they finish one area then continue on to the next area. Then, from time to time they cease, and appear to go into hibernation until the wind picks up in just the right direction or the urge to move the next strikes and they fly or march on to new grazing grounds and eat everything in their path along the way. They marched across the Middle East into India and across Northern Africa and into eastern and western Europe between 622A.D. and 750A.D. (see map below) before resting. They then resumed their expansion as the Ottoman Empire before being pushed back and then presumably defeated during World War I. This was a very temporary defeat as we are witnessing today.

 

Expansion of Islam Across MENA and into Europe before Ottoman Rule

 

The victors in World War I colonized the areas where the Arabs and Muslims had conquered with the exception of Iran, Turkey, Albania and a few other places. The only places where Islam has been pushed from largely are Spain (Andalusia) and India though Muslims still live in both nations. Israel is the other place where Islam lost their control but that has been fraught with continuous attempts to rectify the situation; one might say, with the Israelis proving quite a bit stubborn about holding on to their lands, something they had been thousands of years prior as well. Islam slept for close to a thousand years and is once again waking and becoming resurgent. Should this be permitted to continue without some modifications allowing other religions and even no religion to coexist with Islam, then people had best ready their prayer rugs and be prepared to pray facing Mecca five times every day. There currently is no compromise once Islam takes control of an area. There are records of places where Islam permitted non-Muslims to reside as Dhimmi, a form of second-class personage, for as long as they served Islam and remembered their inferiority. Even with good behavior, eventually the Muslims reach a point where they demand everyone convert to Islam or be put to the sword, or of late a knife. This is a reality which the entire world could face should the non-Islamic powers not wake and realize the peril they are actually facing. History is a brutal teacher but as in the West history is not a subject much studied any longer, perhaps those who have studied history might refresh everybody’s memory and grab a few leaders’ attentions. For our American friends, allow us to give them two wars they might wish to study, the First and Second Barbary Wars. The Barbary Pirates were Islamic terrorists of their day and that is the most revealing way to describe them. You see, the United States has been fighting Islamic terrorism since day one. That is a truth and the American people would be well advised to realize what they are facing before it becomes too late.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The West has One Vital Choice to Make Now

 

The so-called Clash of Civilizations is upon us if you ask the alarmists who have been banging the warning gong at the center of town for, some of us, decades now since the founding of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) June 2, 1964, and the assassination of Robert Kennedy on June 05, 1968 or as the latecomers claim was the start, September 11, 2001 despite the earlier attempt to bring down the World Trade Center Towers on February 26, 1993 using a truck bomb weighing 1,200 pounds that detonated around 12:17 PM knocking out the World Trade Center’s incoming high-voltage lines which feed much of the electrical energy to the complex. Making matters worse was that the explosion also knocked-out the generators, elevators, sprinklers, emergency command center disabling everything necessary for an emergency situation, which may have been a blessing in disguise as it exposed numerous weaknesses. The truth is that the problems the world is currently facing began and have continued at varying levels since the Seventh Century, yes, that’s right, approaching fourteen hundred years ago when the Arabs first poured out of the Arabian Peninsula and began their age of conquest. What is very difficult for people in Western civilizations to grasp and get their arms around is that people were capable of conquering much of the known world starting with a few bands of tribes and reach within two decades from India and the Ganges River to Andalusia, Spain and Portugal for the Eurocentric, and all of Northern Africa and on across Turkey and into the Balkans eventually reaching Vienna. What makes their incredulous reaction to the Arab conquests would be even further challenged if they were to also realize that these Arabs and their Empire fell to a single tribe from northeastern Turkey known as the Ottomans. The Ottoman Turks began their conquest and establishing the last caliphate in the mid-1300s. The entirety of the Pan-Arab Empire known as the Ottoman Empire at the start of World War I chose the wrong side to ally with and thus was amongst those who lost and were placed under the whims of the allies, Britain, Russia, France, Italy and Japan as the United States hemmed and hawed as they sat on the sidelines thus not needing to take on any supervision or ties beyond the final peace treaty. The Sykes Picot Agreement and the San Remo Conference set up the Middle East as it was in 1944 at the end of World War II which miraculously changed nothing outside of Europe which means the Middle East remained as it was divided at the conclusion of World War I even at the end of World War II.

 

Ottoman Empire Thrusts into Eastern Europe

 

Islam had been in remission of a sort after World War I as the Ottomans discovered that the battle plans and formation used by Islam during World War I only proved favorable when defending or holding a stronghold, and even then it was questionable. The Middle East had slowly grown angrier and less stable as the divisions made in the Sykes Picot agreement had drawn the borders of the states seemingly at random and with little concern. That concealed the reality which was the centerpiece of the European plans at the end of World War I and also a large part of the reason the United States desired absolutely no part of the settlements made at the conclusion of World War I.

 

Let us start with the part mostly ignored other than the predicament faced by Germany. The Austria-Hungarian Empire which was demolished and defeated was basically sliced and diced to produce a number of smaller nations which were largely drawn along ethnic lines. The main exceptions were Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Germany. The former two were combined nations having at least two separate and rival tribes and were strategically placed so as to foil any plans for rebuilding the Empire. Germany lost some prime lands to France and Poland as a punishment along with being saddled with heavy debts which crippled the German economy. These vindictive arrangements and disposition after World War I all but guaranteed a World War II or at least a pan-European War. The other half of Sykes Picot rearranged the Ottoman Empire lands into independent countries which were almost drawn randomly, the question being was there actual animus driving the actual drawing of the borders. Common understanding believes that there was actual animus and that the problems currently and previously were by the intentional design of the countries and their borders. What came next?

 

Ottoman Empire Ascending includes Golden Age of Islam

 

Ottoman Empire in Decline 1800 through 1914 and Start of World War I

 

As the borders of these new nations were apparently random but actually did have one major consequence, the tribal allegiances were ignored. An example would be the Kurds who were promised a nation for their people which never was formed largely due to Oil found on their lands so their lands were incorporated with those whom the Europeans had agreements for their oil, always favorable arrangements. The Kurdish lands ended up split between Iraq, Turkey and Syria while the Kurdish communities in Iran remained untouched as Iran was not part of the Ottoman Empire. With the different tribes and even forms of Islam there would always be problems in these new nations keeping the peace. This lent the situation to needing a strong and unrelenting leader such as Saddam Hussein, Hafez al-Assad, Mubarak, Kaddafi and too many others. These problems was the one idea where the Islamic State actually had a legitimate complaint against Europe but they long since squandered any hope that they would be trusted to make necessary changes. Their ploy to use the Sykes Picot to dictate the new borders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) was destroyed by the Islamic State with their slaughter of the Yazidis and the raping of women, Christian or Islamic with little difference shown to either religious background. The atrocities committed by the Islamic State should have been sufficient to galvanize an alliance set on the singular task of the destruction and dismemberment of the Islamic State. What is strange is that the Russians are willing, the European Union is indifferent and unwilling to commit, while some European nations such as Britain and Italy are willing to take a stand against the Islamic State but lack the gravitas to destroy this manifestation of evil. The main source remains on the sidelines as President Obama refuses to see any threats which originate from Islam.

 

All of this will be the past, what we will call the ‘then’ and now we will look ahead after the United States has had their fall elections and the next President has just taken the oath of office and returned to the White House. The two major party candidates are Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. We can predict what the main differences will be between the two. Hillary Clinton will pretty much continue the Obama politics domestically allowing the economy to be largely stagnant but slowly gaining some momentum where growth may actually approach the one and a half to two percent growth with measured unemployment remaining around five to six percent. A Trump White House would probably also freeze the economy in place with everything waiting anxiously to see what path he will decide to take. The most important figures will be one that has remained pretty much out of the public eye as it is a true and horrifying indicator of the sad state of the economy since sometime in late 2002 and just accelerated downward to levels not witnessed even during the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930s and ended by World War II. We had best hope that the seemingly unavoidable events, which would change the economic picture as such resets do their magic through destructive employment accelerators, as when half of the cities are bombed to rubble and employment accelerates, is not what will be the path of economic repair in our future. While the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) will level out at long last as the economy and the long term unemployed settle into a brief equilibrium and the next step will depend on the policies put in place in the first few months of the new administration. We really have little to judge what Donald Trump might do and we have a fair idea what Hillary Clinton will do, but this article is not about the economy though below is a graph of the LFPR.

 

 

The real challenge before the next President, whether it is Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, one of the minor party candidates or some knight in shining armor come to save either of the major parties from their less than wonderful choices will be setting a course and then have the faith and fortitude to keep to that path. Now while the choice may fall entirely upon the United States, a scary thought at best knowing the probable choices for their coming elections, but there is also a channel where the Europeans may save the day and the future which currently is charging headlong to a dark-age which may last for the foreseeable future. The first test has already been passed by France but only if their recent actions are the beginning of a new path forward. Another test is coming up tomorrow with Brexit. Should the British decide to pull out from the European Union and make a determined exit in less than six months, not the two to ten years different predictions claim it will take, they can then take immediate control over their borders and refuse any undocumented refugees and only allow documented individuals in after an application has been accepted and a full background investigation all the way back to their first school or madrasah they attended. Should anybody have mostly unreliable or complete lengths of no references and that is made a disqualifier and the backgrounds are fully validated to assure honesty and an actual verified history before allowing emigration, and a similar qualification system even for visitors on vacation, then the British Isles will be far more protected than is currently the case. A checkpoint on the exit into Britain side of the Chunnel would also be a great idea. The future in Europe needs to be all about security and keeping the freedoms that Western Civilization has worked centuries developing and realizing that human individual freedoms and free expression are conducive to an advanced and productive society and limited freedoms and closed government intrusions leads to economic collapse as people have less to live for thus less to work for. The United States and Europe over the past two centuries plus have proven that more freedom equals a stronger economy and higher productivity. The unfortunate item is despite this knowledge the politicians are still hankering for greater control and less freedom. There have been politicians who have expressed ideas such as requiring travel permits if one desires to cross arbitrary lines going from one zone to the next. This could lead to people who live away from the major cities not being able to go to the store or visit the neighboring farm without a permit. These are the people who have no voice in their governance as the cities now control governments and this will lead to less and less freedom as people prefer dependence on government over self-reliance. The reason behind this trend is directly tied to the increased city dwelling. When one lives in a rural area many times you actually have to repair items with what you have or can borrow from a neighbor just to get through the day or week. In the city you call a repair person, a handyman or an expert. City life is conducive to dependence while rural life requires independent thinking and often ingenuity. Add the terror threats and the willingness of many to sacrifice certain freedoms for additional appearances of safety and you end up with a vicious cycle which eventually leads to totalitarian governance, even if the government is elected. People will end up electing those who promise to keep them safe while regimenting their lives further in order to be capable of detecting something amiss. Amiss will define people like many of us because we value liberty and freedom.

 

There have been polls conducted at numerous colleges and universities in the United States and the students actually desire to make certain types of speech illegal and people caught using such language fined and if they persist then they would need to be sent to a school to learn why their speech is dangerous and injurious. So much for what we learned as children, ‘sticks and stone may break my bones but words will never harm me.’ These word police are playing into the hands of the Islamists who desire Sharia be imposed where any language which denigrates or demeans or insults Islam would be severely punishable. The results of surveys and research can be found starting on this First Amendment site with numerous links to further information and a wealth of eye-opening information. Free and open speech is necessary for a free society and there is no guarantee against being offended. This is necessary because if only speech which offended nobody were allowed there would be very little ever spoken. Going out of ones way to offend a person by following them shouting or even whispering words that one knows would be upsetting, that comes under harassment laws and is preventable or bringing such activity to a halt legally. What is a far greater danger is allowing for one group of people to dictate what is permitted and what is forbidden in a society by dictation completely separate from the governance. Allowing such is dangerous especially in mixed neighborhoods or areas where disparate groups have access and reason to visit the locations. Areas which have been purchased by a group such as a compound or fenced neighborhood where those residing decide whether other people may enter can have their own cultural system but that system must never be permitted to become a general system covering others. Freedom of religion includes freedom from having a religion. People must be free to believe or not and those who choose to believe must be free to choose what to believe. The limitations come at some blatantly obvious points such as no human sacrifice, even if the subject for sacrifice volunteers as by definition in Western society such a person is not rational and thus needs help, not their beating heart removed in an ancient ritual worshipping Ba’al. The limits on religion need be similar to general laws governing interaction between individuals. Your religion is absolutely wonderful as long as it stops between you and other adherents.

 

Proselytizing is another area which can be sensitive. That too needs to be limited in that ‘no’ or ‘please leave me alone’ means exactly that and ‘tell me more’ is a license to inform to your heart’s content. No religion can be allowed to dictate laws. That is one guarantee that freedom demands. No religion is superior or should be permitted to dominate by force or threat especially. Those who believe their religion has the right to dictate the law and force others to live by their religious laws, they need to be returned to whatever place they came from as in a free and open society such must never be permitted. Even in Israel which identifies itself as the Jewish State there is no restriction on other religions. If there are any restrictions on religion in Israel, it is on Judaism and its practice at certain holy sites where religious purity is required by Jewish law. But even such rules do not apply to a non-Jew. An example would be that there are certain locations upon the Temple Mount where a Jew is forbidden from treading as it may be too close to the location where the Holy of Holies was located when the First Temple and Second Temple existed. A non-Jew can walk freely as can be seen in many videos where Arab youths are playing soccer in central areas near the Dome of the Rock, an area where Jews are restricted from walking as this was close to where the Holy of the Holies was located (video below).

 

Temple Mount Visit Sunday, March 6th 2016- Arabs playing Soccer

 

Islam has spread over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and in much of these lands Islam is almost the only faith and Jews are so rare that the Christians and other native religions from Africa are now being victimized and persecuted. We look at the nations where fifteen-hundred years ago over 90% of the people were Christians and Jews and now the area has changed and is predominantly Islamic. Below is a basic representation of the current religious breakdown. Where Muslim is only figure given we assumed that the vast, if not all, were Sunni, the predominant form of Islam (map of Islam by percentage of population below).

 

Algeria 98% Islam 1% Christian 1% other
Bahrain 70% Muslim 15% Christian 10% Hindu 3% Buddhist 2% Other
Egypt 90% Muslim 9% Coptic Christian 1% other
Iran 99.4% Muslim (89% Shiite 9% Sunni) 1.2% Christian 0.4% other
Iraq 99% Muslim (65% Shiite 35% Sunni) 1% Christian
Jordan 92% Muslim 6% Christian 1% Druze
Kuwait 100% Muslim 0.02% Christian
Lebanon 54% Muslim 40% Christian 6% Druze
Yemen 99% Muslim 1% other
United Arab Emirates 77% Muslim 12% Christian 4% Hindu 2% Buddhist 2% other
Libya 97% Muslim 0.7% Christian 0.3 Buddhist 2% other
Morocco 98.9% Muslim 0.9% Christian 0.2% Jewish
Oman 95% Muslim 5% Christian or Hindu
Israel 80% Jewish 16% Muslim 2% Christian 1.5% Druze 0.5% other
Qatar 67.7% Muslim 13.8% Hindu 13.8% Christian 3.1% Buddhist 1.4% other
Saudi Arabia 100% Muslim
Syria 87% Muslim 10% Christian 3% Druze (est. in 2006)
Tunisia 98% Muslim 1% Christian 1% other

 

Muslim Population by Percentage of Total Population

 

France has taken steps that may mean they are pointing themselves in the right direction to resist their otherwise certain submission to Islam. It has been reported and confirmed that France raided three Mosques and discovered over three-hundred fully automatic rifles and other weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. In an article from Al Jazeera claiming that France intends to raid and shut down more than one-hundred and as many as one-hundred-sixty Mosques over their either being suspected of weapons, preaching hate, are run illegally without proper licenses, or use takfiri speech. Takfiri is preaching Muslim on Muslim violence due to apostasy. It is estimated that there are 2,600 Mosques in France. These raids and the decision to take these actions is believed to be due to the November 13 attacks on the capital by well-armed Muslims striking multiple locations using military tactics and murdering over one hundred innocents. Time will tell if France has decided to clamp down on instigating violence from the pulpit and is ready to take a serious look at what is happening inside the Mosques and other places where intolerance may be taught or used to instigate violence. Europe has a choice as do the rest of the western nations of protecting their freedoms and liberty or slowly sinking under Islamic pressures until they have bowed away their constitutions and after that their lives. There had to be blowback and it may be starting in France and about to strike again in Britain starting with Brexit.

 

Beyond the Cusp