So much for freedom of speech at NPR

NPR's Juan Williams says in an interview that when he gets on to an airplane and sees Muslims in "Muslim garb," he "get[s] nervous."  Then he gets fired for these comments.

Imagine if Mr. Williams had said the same thing about Jews or Christians.  Would he have been fired?  Of course not; far from being offended, people would think he was delusional.  When was the last time Jews murdered others in the name of Judaism, or Christians in the name of Christianity?  Stumped?  You're not alone.  For Muslims, however, one need only go back a few weeks (no matter when you are reading this).  Is this tragic?  Certainly.  Is it true, though?  To deny this is to deny the earth is round.   But NPR is much more concerned with being politically correct (read denying reality) than with transmitting truth.  As I have said to many friends, the issue is not whether or not Muslim terrorists are misrepresenting their faith; that is for Islamic scholars to decide.  It is an undeniable fact, however, that for the majority of Muslim terrorists, they think that they are faithfully performing their god's will.  Are they all idiots, or is there something else going on here?

So Juan Williams says what is on millions of Americans' minds.  Are millions of Americans anti-Muslim bigots?  (To the media elite, that is a rhetorical question; it is a given.)  Or, in fact, are they just not oblivious to the events unfolding before their eyes, and do they just want to protect their families?

Are the majority of Muslims terrorists?  The notion is absurd.  But even according to the most conservative estimates, 10% of the Muslim world supports violent jihad to impose shariah.  Friends, that's 130 million people.  That's nearly one-third the population of the United States, and more than four times the population of Canada.  The majority of Muslims are not Arabs.  But the majority of Arabs are Muslims.  Why is this obvious truth any less legitimate than pointing out that the majority of terrorists are Muslims?

Considering there have been exactly zero protests by American Muslims against religious violence committed in the name of their faith, cut us all some slack if we are a bit more suspicious of someone dressed in Muslim garb than we would be of a Hasid from Brooklyn, an Evangelical from San Antonio, or a nun from Seattle.

Justice is served; IDF kills Hamas terrorists

At the end of August, four Israelis were murdered in a drive-by shooting near Hebron.   Yitzhak and Talya Ames, Kochava Even-Haim, and Avishai Shindler were shot as they drove to their home in the town of Beit Haggai.  At the time, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak promised that the perpetrators would be found, and they would be made to pay for their crimes.

It did not take long for justice to be served.

A month and a half after the murders, the Israel Defense Forces eliminated the murderers, at their hideout in Hebron.

While this does not, of course, bring back their innocent victims, it does bring justice to the world.  For murderers of innocents to continue to breathe free air is an affront to the God Who created all human beings in His image.

May God grant the IDF the safety and strength to hunt down and eliminate the other murderers of innocents.  If they can bring the terrorists to justice, fine.  If justice must be brought to them, so be it.

But justice will be served.

(By the way, before beginning their assault on the hideout, the IDF called on the occupants to leave the house, thereby eliminating the element of surprise.  Another example of the high ethical standards by which Israel holds it soldiers.)

Why doesn't anyone get it? Settlements have NEVER been the issue!

• Listening to leaders around the world, one would think that if only those darn Jewish settlements would disappear once and for all, or at least stop having the nerve to expand their homes to accomodate more family members, peace would immediately descend on the Middle East.  Palestinians would no longer have an excuse to target innocent Israelis, Yemen and Saudi Arabia would end their border dispute, and Iran would change its mind about wanting to anihilate Israel with a nuclear weapon.  Only someone who is completely ignorant of the history of this region could believe such foolishness.  And foolishness it is.  Consider:

• 1920 - Arabs riot in Palestine, murdering Jews, before a single settlement was built.  They opposed any Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.  Were settlements preventing peace then?
• 1929 - Arabs riot in Palestine, murdering Jews, before a single settlement was built.  They opposed any Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.  Were settlements preventing peace then?
• 1936-1939 - Arabs riot in Palestine, murdering Jews, before a single settlement was built.  They opposed any Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.  Were settlements preventing peace then?
• 1947 - Arabs riot in Palestine, murdering Jews, before a single settlement was built.  They opposed any Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.  (They rejected the UN Partition Plan (having rejected a number of previous partition plans, which would have established a Palestinian Arab state on much more of the land than they are asking for now.)  Were settlements preventing peace then?
• 1948 - Arabs attack the newly-founded State of Israel, in hopes of destroying it at birth, before a single settlement was built.  They opposed any Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.  Were settlements preventing peace then?
• 1948-1967 - Arabs launch terrorist attacks within the internationally-recognized borders of Israel, before a single settlement was built.  They opposed any Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.  Were settlements preventing peace then?
• 1964 - PLO is founded, three years before a single settlement was built.  The Palestine (not Palestinian; a major distinction) Liberation Organization opposed any Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.  Were settlements preventing peace then?
• 1967 - Arabs mass their armies on Israel's borders, openly proclaiming, "Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map" (Iraqi president Abdul Rahman Arif).  As of the start of the Six Day War, not one settlement had been built.  Yet the Arabs still wanted to destroy Israel.  Why?  They opposed any Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.  Were settlements preventing peace then?

How many more examples need be given?  The obstacle to peace in the Middle East/Israel/Palestine has never been "the settlements."  It has always been the Arab refusal to accept any sovereign Jewish presence anywhere in the Land of Israel.

Was any attempt made to establish a Palestinian state in the lands now claimed for one, when the Arabs controlled those lands?  Did the Palestinians even clamor for a state on those lands then?  No, they did not, because they felt that eventually, they would liberate the rest of Israel, turning it into a cohesive Palestine.  Yet in attempt after attempt, they have failed.  Israel stubbornly survived.  And continues to survive.

So they changed their tactics.  We do not want all of Israel, they say.  We just want the "Occupied Territories," nothing more.  Sorry, but that ship has sailed.  You Palestinians had chance after chance to have those territories, plus much more, a number of times in history, and you rejected each offer, and squandered each opportunity.

Before there were settlements, you attacked us.  When there are settlements, you attack us.  We will be damned if we will give you another chance to attack us, after there are no more settlements.  Because we both know, dear Palestinian, that if there would be no settlements, you'd just come up with a new excuse to attack us.  So we'll keep those "peace-process-impeding" settlements, thank you very much.

We have come home.  And we are staying.