Friday, February 12, 2016

WHAT DID OBAMA SAY AT THE MOSQUE?

In his speech last week at a mosque in Baltimore. In addition to reassuring Muslim Americans that they are as American as Americans of every other faith — – a point that any president, Republican or Democrat, would and should make – President Obama spoke a lot of nonsense, some of it dangerous.

President Obama: “So let’s start with this fact: For more than a thousand years, people have been drawn to Islam’s message of peace. And the very word itself, Islam, comes from salam — peace.”

Why did Obama say this? Even Muslim websites acknowledge that “Islam” means “submission” [to Allah], that it comes from the Arabic root “aslama” meaning submission, and that “Islam” is in the command form of that verb.

That’s why “Muslim” means “One who submits,” not “One who is peaceful.”

Obama: “Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Quran.”

The reason Jefferson had a copy of the Quran was to try to understand it in light of what the Muslim ambassador from Tripoli had told him and John Adams. When asked why Tripoli pirates were attacking American ships and enslaving Americans, the Muslim ambassador explained that Muslims are commanded to do so by the Quran: “It was written in their Quran that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman [Muslim] who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to Paradise.”

That’s why Jefferson and Adams had Qurans.

Obama: “And how do we move forward together? … It can’t be just a burden on the Muslim community — although the Muslim community has to play a role.”

Most Americans would say that the American Muslim community has to play “the” role, not “a” role in preventing violent Islam from capturing the minds of American Muslims, and in helping authorities identify extremist Muslims.

Obama: “Second, as Americans, we have to stay true to our core values, and that includes freedom of religion for all faiths.”

This is so obviously true that one wonders why the president felt it necessary to mention it.

Obama: “There are Christians who are targeted now in the Middle East, despite having been there for centuries, and there are Jews who’ve lived in places like France for centuries who now feel obliged to leave because they feel themselves under assault – sometimes by Muslims.”

One would have expected that after mentioning “Christians targeted now in the Middle East,” he would have mentioned “Jews targeted now in the Middle East.” That, however, would presumably have been too controversial to say. So, the president mentioned the many Jews in France “who now feel obliged to leave” their country because “they feel themselves under assault” — and then came the corker: “sometimes by Muslims.”

Sometimes? French Jews have recently been murdered, tortured and harassed more than at any time since the Holocaust. And virtually every one of those attacks has been perpetrated by Muslims.