Why We Should Fear Zionism More Than Islam

By Rev. Ted Pike

Once, as I was speaking to an appreciative audience, a fly turned his undivided attention to me. Round and round he flew, landing on my nose, forehead, even lips. I sputtered and tried to ignore him. I couldn’t. I tried to swat him. You know it’s futile. The audience grew both embarrassed and amused as my speech was brought to a standstill by the power of the fly. 

This tiny creature controlled the auditorium with his power to disrupt. He harmed my presentation, maybe my public image. But I wasn’t physically hurt, nor was my audience. The fly’s power was disproportionate to his size but was only the power to annoy, not destroy. Afterwards, life went on as usual for the dispersed audience, the institution where I spoke, and me. 

My metaphor of the fly serves my premise: Powers of disruption do not necessarily equal lasting, substantive power – power that belongs to great nations and compelling systems of thought. In the six years since September 11, Islamic militancy (outside of Iraq) remains, not unlike my pesky fly, more of an irritant to the west than a force capable of truly overcoming our civilization.

Terrorists, apparently Islamic, recently struck in Scotland and England. Their attempts were bungled, but they reinforced the media-heightened conviction that Islamofascism is the western world’s greatest threat today. But is it?

9/11, carried out by Muslim hijackers, was an unprecedented outrage and tragedy. Yet it happened, like Pearl Harbor, to a nation whose guard was down. Today, relatively speaking, the guard of the world is raised. Could something like 9/11 happen again? Yes. But it is not necessary to agree that Islam is the west’s greatest threat in order to keep it from happening.

As a result of Israel’s oppression and expulsion of the Palestinians over the past 75 years, the Arab world has been driven to frenzy. The largest percentage of terrorist crimes committed by a single ethnic/religious group is committed by Islamic radicals. Yet, despite the impression given by mainstream news media, these terrorist attacks against Israel and the West since 9/11 constitute no more than 25 percent of such violence worldwide. Most terrorist acts are committed by nationalist and Marxist insurgents, from Peru to Uzbekistan. (See, List of Terrorist Incidents)  The feared “power” of Islamic militancy to actually create disasters like 9/11 has not materialized. But there is a power that can destroy the freedoms and moral values of the west, corrupting us from within.

(more…)

Back Behind Bars The Unbreakable Mordechai Vanunu

By Rannie Amiri

“I said to the Shabak, the Mossad, ‘you didn’t succeed to break me, you didn’t succeed to make me crazy.’”

Mordechai Vanunu, former Israeli nuclear technician, upon being released from Ashkelon’s Shikma prison on April 21st, 2004, where he served 18 years.

They were words of courage and defiance, uttered by a man who embodied both. Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in jail, a full 11 of them in solitary confinement, for revealing Israel’s yet undeclared nuclear capability to the world. He had emerged from Shikma with arms outstretched, repeatedly flashing the victory sign ­ or was it peace? ­ and refused to answer questions posed to him in Hebrew from the awaiting media. “I am proud and happy to do what I did,” he unabashedly stated.

And what he has done since will now land him back behind bars.

An Israeli court has just sentenced Vanunu to six months in jail for violating the terms of his parole, which prohibit him from having any contact with foreigners or visiting the West Bank. As in all matters, he was fearless in doing both.

It thus behooves us to retell this man’s remarkable story, lest we forget what a person of conscience can achieve.

For More