WORDPRESS TOTAL HYPOCRITES - BANS FREE SPEECH

http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/bare-naked-islam-is-back-sort-of/

IN GOD WE TRUST

Really interesting, and I never knew this little bit of history, however it makes sense: (The three mistakes start around the 6th paragraph, the first five give the history.)

Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes.. I went into a small gift shop to kill time. In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, "Reflections on Pearl Harbor " by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.

Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked.

As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America . Which do you think it was?"

Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?" Nimitz explained:

Mistake number one : the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two : when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America . And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three : every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America .

I've never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredricksburg , Texas --he was a born optimist. But anyway you look at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.

President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.

There is a reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST

A Season of Miracles - Holy Land Moments

A Season of Miracles

December 19, 2011

“Your ways, God, are holy.
What god is as great as our God?
You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples.” — Psalm 77:13-14

This is a season of miracles and celebrations. My Christian friends celebrate the miracle of a birth at Christmas, and my Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate the miracle of a spiritual and military victory during the celebration of Hanukkah. And at the center of both these celebrations is our God of miracles.

As the psalm writer noted, “What god is as great as our God?” It’s certainly a theme echoed throughout the Scriptures. After the miraculous escape from Egypt and the daring dash across the Red Sea, Moses and the people of Israel erupt in song and praise God: “Who among the gods is like you, LORD? Who is like you — majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? You stretch out your right hand, and the earth swallows your enemies" (Exodus 15:11-12). In Psalm 86:8, David writes “Among the gods there is none like you, LORD; no deeds can compare with yours.”

Christmas and Hanukkah are a time to remember that we worship and serve a God who is totally unique. He alone is able to perform mighty deeds for those who love Him. He alone is powerful and worthy of our love and adoration. God alone is able to intervene in human history and work miracles on behalf of His people.

Remembering God’s miracles and faithfulness sustained the people of Israel through their many difficulties and enabled them to act when all avenues seemed closed to them. Hanukkah reminds us of the importance of bitachon, or “trust in God.” It was the Jews’ trust in a loving and caring God that prompted them, the few and weak, to rise up against the many and mighty. It was their faith in the God of miracles to light the temple menorah with the last remaining flask of pure oil. They acted because they knew that God was capable and trustworthy.

When we are faced with obstacles and overwhelming difficulties, we need to remember how God has acted on our behalf in the past and how good He has been to us. Then, we can step out and act in faith, knowing He will care for us.

During this season, in addition to our traditional greetings of “Merry Christmas,” or “Happy Hanukkah,” we should add this greeting as well: “May the God of Miracles bless you and keep you this season and throughout the year.”

With prayers for shalom, peace,


Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
President

A Speech Every American High School Principal Should Give - By Dennis Prager

If every school principal gave this speech at the beginning of the next school year, America would be a better place.

To the students and faculty of our high school:

I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people.

I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers and against our country.

First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships.

The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity -- your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American. This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans.

If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity-, race- and non-American nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America, one of its three central values -- e pluribus unum, "from many, one." And this school will be guided by America's values.

This includes all after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes race, language, religion, sexual orientation or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness.

Your clubs will be based on interests and passions, not blood, ethnic, racial or other physically defined ties. Those clubs just cultivate narcissism -- an unhealthy preoccupation with the self -- while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. So we will have clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, carpentry and more. If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interesting in are those based on ethnic, racial or sexual identity, that means that little outside of yourself really interests you.

Second, I am uninterested in whether English is your native language. My only interest in terms of language is that you leave this school speaking and writing English as fluently as possible. The English language has united America's citizens for over 200 years, and it will unite us at this school. It is one of the indispensable reasons this country of immigrants has always come to be one country. And if you leave this school without excellent English language skills, I would be remiss in my duty to ensure that you will be prepared to successfully compete in the American job market. We will learn other languages here -- it is deplorable that most Americans only speak English -- but if you want classes taught in your native language rather than in English, this is not your school.

Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavor, everything in this school will reflect learning's elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. Many people in our society dress more formally for Hollywood events than for church or school. These people have their priorities backward. Therefore, there will be a formal dress code at this school.

Fourth, no obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school's property -- whether in class, in the hallways or at athletic events. If you can't speak without using the f-word, you can't speak. By obscene language I mean the words banned by the Federal Communications Commission, plus epithets such as "Nigger," even when used by one black student to address another black, or "bitch," even when addressed by a girl to a girlfriend. It is my intent that by the time you leave this school, you will be among the few your age to instinctively distinguish between the elevated and the degraded, the holy and the obscene.

Fifth, we will end all self-esteem programs. In this school, self-esteem will be attained in only one way -- the way people attained it until decided otherwise a generation ago -- by earning it. One immediate consequence is that there will be one valedictorian, not eight.

Sixth, and last, I am reorienting the school toward academics and away from politics and propaganda. No more time will devoted to scaring you about smoking and caffeine, or terrifying you about sexual harassment or global warming. No more semesters will be devoted to condom wearing and teaching you to regard sexual relations as only or primarily a health issue. There will be no more attempts to convince you that you are a victim because you are not white, or not male, or not heterosexual or not Christian. We will have failed if any one of you graduates this school and does not consider him or herself inordinately lucky -- to be alive and to be an American.

Now, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of our country. As many of you do not know the words, your teachers will hand them out to you.

The Beginning of Wisdom - Days of Praise - Institute for Creation Research

The Beginning of Wisdom
December 17, 2011

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever." (Psalm 111:10)

This age has rightly been called the "age of information." With multitudes of books and periodicals in every field of study and practice, with billions of dollars devoted to all kinds of research, and now even the "information superhighway" of the Internet. It seems everyone and every organization is posting information of some sort on its own website and email. The world is almost drowning in information.

"But where shall wisdom be found and where is the place of understanding?" (Job 28:12). Job's urgent question can never be answered "online," but only in an ancient book. "Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding" (Job 28:28).

This spiritual truism is found often in that Book. King Solomon, to whom God had granted special wisdom (1 Kings 3:11-12), penned divinely inspired words when he wrote: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge," and then "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding" (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).

If anything is missing in our information age, it is surely the fear of God, at least among most people--even most religious people. But, as our text says: "A good understanding have all they that do his commandments."

From our New Testament perspective, we now know that "in |Christ| are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). "And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment" (1 John 3:23). Herein is true knowledge and understanding and wisdom. HMM

The New York Times hates Israel

The brouhaha over a recent New York Times column by Thomas Friedman highlights the newspaper’s increasing hostility toward Israel. Today, it would not be an exaggeration to state that the editorial policy of the NYT toward the Jewish state is virtually indistinguishable from the blatant anti-Israeli hostility promoted by the U.K.-based Guardian or the BBC.

Fortunately, the broader American public opinion has never been more supportive of the Jewish state than today. The only exceptions are the liberals, some of whom have become increasingly disenchanted with Israel and now tend to identify with their European counterparts and their excessive bias against Israel. This manifests itself on U.S. campuses and to some extent in far-left sectors of the Democratic Party. It represents the source of the tensions that have evolved between Israel and the U.S. following the election of Barack Obama.

One of the principal long-term contributing factors to the erosion of liberal support can be attributed to increasing vitriolic hostility against Israel displayed in the pages of The New York Times. This trend climaxed with the election of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been subjected to a constant and unprecedented barrage of fierce personal and political condemnations from its editorials and leading columnists.

Despite Jewish ownership, throughout its history, The New York Times has rarely displayed affection or sensitivity toward Jewish issues. As far back as 1929, during the Arab riots in Palestine, the local Times correspondent, Joseph Levy, boasted that he was a committed anti-Zionist.

There is ample evidence that during the Holocaust, news of the slaughter of the Jews was relegated to the back pages allegedly out of cowardly concern that undue clamor about the plight of the Jews might reinforce the anti-Semitic claim that the war against the Nazis was a Jewish war.

Since the creation of Israel, the NYT could be said to be "fairly objective." But from 1967 onward, this evolved into sharp criticism. However, it seems to me that since the election of Netanyahu, the editors have embarked on a determined all-out campaign to undermine and demonize the Israeli government whilst invariably providing the Palestinians with a free pass.

A constant stream of unbalanced editorials have blasted Israel for the impasse and mercilessly attacked the government. It continuously "put the greater onus” for the failure of peace negotiations on Netanyahu "who is using any excuse to thwart peace efforts" and "refuses to make any serious compromises for peace."

Its columnists and Op-Ed contributors have done likewise. For a newspaper purporting to provide diverse opinions, I believe it rarely publishes dissenting viewpoints from its editorials and in-house columns, which only find fault with the Israeli government. One notable exception was Likud MK Danny Danon, to whom the NYT provided a column in which he expressed a viewpoint far to the Right of the government which simply amounted to a cheap effort to discredit the government by conveying a far more hardline position than the reality.

Its principal columnists Thomas Friedman, Roger Cohen (both Jews) and Nicolas Kristof have been leading the charge in castigating Israel and unabashedly praising the Arab Spring.

In a recent column, Kristof described a dinner with a PR savvy group of Muslim Brotherhood activists. Kristof approvingly quoted them, claiming that their support was strong "for the same reason the Germans support Christian Democrats or Southerners favor conservative Christians.” He also postulated that "conservative Muslims insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood is non-discriminatory and the perfect home for pious Christians – and a terrific partner for the West." Kristof concluded, "It's reasonable to worry. But let's not overdo it … Our fears often reflect our own mental hobgoblins.”

Kristof did not meet the Muslim Brotherhood chief cleric, Sheikh Yusuf al Kardawi, the organization’s most powerful religious leader, an evil anti-Semite who supports the murder of Jews.

Roger Cohen is another regular columnist whose undisguised hostility toward Israel has led him to condemn the Jewish state's "obsession with the [Iranian] nuclear bogeyman" and praise Turkey's anti-Semitic Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan while condemning Israel for not apologizing to the Turks over the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident.

Virtually every recent Op-Ed published on Israel has been hostile. Last month, the NYT published a piece which went to the lengths of challenging Israel’s position on gay rights. In May, PA President Mahmoud Abbas published an Op-Ed falsely accusing Israel of initiating the war in 1948 by expelling Palestinian Arabs and obligating Arab armies to intervene. Initially, the NYT refused to publish Goldstone’s withdrawal of apartheid and war crimes charges against Israel, only doing so some months later after it had appeared in the Washington Post.

But it is Thomas Friedman's most recent column that is the most outrageous.

In his uniquely arrogant manner, over the past few years Friedman has been consistently mirroring NYT editorials castigating Netanyahu, whom, in my opinion, he loathes, and alleging that Israel has become "the most diplomatically inept and outrageously incompetent government in Israel's history." He accused Netanyahu of choosing to protect the Pharaoh rather than support Obama who aided the “democratization” of Egypt. He went so far as to say that Netanyahu was "on the way to becoming the Hosni Mubarak of the peace process."

Last February, after being in Tahrir Square, Friedman exulted that the “people” had achieved "freedom" and were heading towards democracy. He dismissed concerns that the Muslim Brotherhood would become a dominant party.

In his latest column he broadly condemned all aspects of Israeli society, even quoting Gideon Levy, the Ha'aretz correspondent, whom many Israelis regard as being more aligned with the Palestinian campaign against Israel than his own country. He described Levy as "a powerful liberal voice" and quoted him alleging that Israel is becoming a failed democratic state.

What provoked the greatest indignation was his remark. "I sure hope that Israel's Prime Minister understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israeli lobby."

For a Jew, purporting to be a friend of Israel, to effectively endorse the distorted thesis relating to the Israeli lobby promoted by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer is unconscionable. Friedman is effectively parroting a hoary anti-Semitic libel asserting that Congress has been "bought" by American Jews who represent 2 percent of the population and that the vast majority of the American public supporting Israel and Congress are simply stooges, manipulated or bribed by the Israeli lobby.

It places him on a par with the anti-Semitic attitudes promoted by Pat Buchanan and one may rest assured that Israel’s enemies will fully exploit his remarks as a means of discrediting American support for the Jewish state.

Friedman continued, suggesting that Netanyahu should test genuine American public opinion by speaking at a liberal campus like the University of Wisconsin, absurdly implying that far Left liberal campuses are more representative of American attitudes than the democratically elected Congress.

The New York Times editorials and columns like that of Thomas Friedman should not be treated lightly. They must be viewed in the context of the recent condemnations of Israel emanating from higher echelons of the Obama administration. Unless vigorously repudiated, these critiques will have a ripple effect with the potential of undermining the, up until now, prevailing bipartisan consensus over Israel.

ileibler@netvision.net.il

The writer’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com

Santa Claus and Grandma

Thank you Vincie for this wonderful story!!!

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid.

I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big
sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even
dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day
because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told
the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier
when swallowed with one of her "world-famous" cinnamon buns. I knew they
were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her
everything. She was ready for me." No Santa Claus?" she snorted.
"Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years,
and it makes me mad, plain mad!! Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second
world-famous cinnamon bun. "Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store,
the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we
walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle
in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone
who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out
of Kerby's.

I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but
never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and
crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping.

For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar
bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought of
everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school,
the people who went to my church.

I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He
was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in
Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew
that because he never went out to recess during the winter. His mother
always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we
kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he didn't have a good
coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy
Bobby Decker a coat!

I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm,
and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter
asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down." Yes, ma'am," I replied shyly.
"It's for Bobby."

The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a
good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag,
smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat (a little tag fell out of the
coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) in Christmas paper and ribbons
and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it.

Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over
to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever
officially, one of Santa's helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept
noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a
nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on
his step, pounded his door and flew back to the safety of the bushes and
Grandma.

Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open.
Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering
beside my Grandma in Bobby Decker's bushes. That night, I realized that
those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they ere
-- ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95.

May you always have LOVE to share, HEALTH to spare, and FRIENDS that care.

And may you always believe in the magic of Santa Claus!

RubinReports: Europe and the Palestinians: What's the Difference Between Ordinary insanity and Middle East Policy Insanity?

RubinReports: Europe and the Palestinians: What's the Difference Between Ordinary insanity and Middle East Policy Insanity?

You Gotta Be...

Have you ever wondered who first uttered the phrase "You Gotta Be Shittin Me?"

Well, it just so happens to have originated through the Father of Our country, way back when George Washington was crossing the Delaware river with his troops.

There were 33 (remember this number) in Washington 's boat. It was extremely dark and storming furiously and the water was tossing them about.

Finally, Washington grabbed Corporal Peters (remember this name) and stationed him at the front of the boat with a lantern. He ordered him to keep swinging it, so they could see where they were heading.

Corporal Peters, through driving rain and cold, continued swinging the lantern back and forth, back and forth.

Then a big gust of wind and a wave hit and threw Corporal Peters and his lantern into the Delaware . Washington and his troops searched for nearly an hour trying to find Corporal Peters, but to no avail. All of them felt terrible, for the Corporal had been one of their favorites.

Sometime later, Washington and his troops landed on the other side, wet and totally exhausted. He rallied the troops and told them that they must go on.

Another hour later, one of his men said, 'General, I see lights ahead.' They trudged toward the lights and came upon a huge house.

What they didn't know was that this was a house of ill repute, hidden in the forest to serve all who came.

General Washington pounded on the door, his men crowding around him.

The door swung open, and much to his surprise stood a beautiful woman.
A huge smile came across her face, to see so many men standing there.
Washington was the first to speak, 'Madam, I am General George Washington and these are my men. We are tired, wet, exhausted, and desperately need warmth and comfort.'

Again, the Madam looked at all the men standing there, and with a broad smile on her face, said, 'Well, General, you have come to the right place. We can surely give you warmth and comfort. How many men do you have?'

Washington replied, 'Well, Madam, there are 32 of us without Peters .'

And the Madam said, "You gotta be shittin me."

Obama Should Tell Us How He Killed Bin Laden

Obama Should Tell Us How He Killed Bin Laden
John Ransom


As Barack Obama resurrects his Osama-Bin-Laden-is-Still-Dead reelection tour, he might want to sit down and tell the American people exactly how he got Bin Laden.

Seriously: I’d love to hear the story of how he put together the operation that killed the world’s most dangerous man.

He must have trained for a long time to pull it off.

Because one of the reasons Obama is using to argue for his reelection to the post of president of these here United 57 States of America is that he killed Bin Laden.

Yeah. That’s right. And all this time you thought he was golfing?

Forget about the economy and jobs.

According to Obama, the economy is the fault of George Bush and the Republicans who won’t raise taxes.

The budget?

Oh, that’s the fault of the greedy economy that won’t allow him to raise taxes.

The debt?

That’s the fault of greedy bankers and investors who expect to get paid back by the United States of America- and thus won’t allow, him, Barack Obama, president of the United 57 States of America, to raise taxes.

See the pattern here?

But Bin Laden: That’s all, one-hundred percent Barack Obama.

Buy that man a Dos Equis…and another one.

This is verging on a reality that could put Obama up there with The Most Interesting Man in the World. Or at least make a great story for the J. Peterman catalogue.

Never mind that Afghanistan is coming apart. Never mind that Obama’s strategy to fire off missiles in Pakistan has damaged the relationship with our most important ally in fighting terrorists.

Never mind that Obama’s unilateral decision to get American troops out of Iraq has ceded the area to Iran. Never mind that we have a better idea what we are doing on the budget than we do on foreign policy.

Blah, blah, blah.

Forget too about the breakup of Europe. Or that on Obama’s watch we have entered a dangerous new age with weakened allies, the US isolated from the community of nations in a way incomprehensible to any president since the Great Depression.

Forget all this, because we are going to hear tell how he, Barack Obama, president of the United 57 States of America, made like Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans and took Bin Laden off the field.

And you know, now that Osama bin Laden is dead by the hand of Barack Obama, my life just keeps getting better and better.

For a long time it was really messing with my mojo having Bin Laden hiding out in that mud-walled house, with the crooked roof lines and the broken toys outside. Who did he think he was living there with all those women and that little, portable color TV, menacing the United States like that?

Sure, yeah, I liked it when people could buy houses in the US, and I wasn’t solely dependent on a Social Security Ponzi scheme to retire in 25 years. I admit that I loved getting 401K statements where the value of my investments kept going up.

But maybe Obama and Occupy Wall Street have a point.

Maybe living in a house and being self-sufficient money-wise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

It certainly didn’t work out for Osama.

Thanks, Obama.

John Ransom

John Ransom is the Finance Editor for Townhall Finance. You can follow him on twitter @bamransom and on Facebook: bamransom.

Whitewashing History, Obama Style

Whitewashing History, Obama Style

If U.S. history is a painting on giant canvas, President Barack Obama's speech this week in Osawatomie,Kansas, is a thick coat of whitewash layered all over it, and the failure of the last three years lies underneath. The President's pretense is that,no, it's not Obamanomics that has caused persistent unemployment, stunted growth and record deficits--it's supply side economics!

Talk about audacity.

The President's speech was a naked portrayal of his vision of America--one where inequality runs rampant, where the American dream is nearly dead,where the rich oppress the poor, where education is undervalued. As Charles Krauthammer observes this morning in The Washington Post, "That's the kind of damning observationthe opposition brings up when you’ve been in office three years."

Indeed, what was glaringly absent from the President's portrait was the fact that his economic policies have failed to put Americans back to work andhis absolute inability to lead Washington toward combating rampant government spending. His solution, moreover, was more of the same stuff that hasfailed spectacularly for him: government as the great savior.

But in President Obama's mind, it is others who offer ideas that don't work, not him. He points to "a certain crowd in Washington" that argues for taxcuts and reduced regulations, calling it "a simple theory" that "fits well on a bumper sticker" but "has never worked."

Correction, Mr. President. It has worked--time and time again throughout history. The trouble is, Mr. Obama has never tried it, and the Keynesianeconomic policies he enacted fell flat on their face, just as they havethroughout history.

It started with a massive $787 billion stimulus bill that White House economists predicted would create (not merely save) 3.3 million net jobs by2010. It was Keynesian economics at its finest, based on the premise that government spending would spark demand and put Americans back to work.

It didn't. Some 13.3 million Americans remain out of work, the unemployment rate has hovered between 8 and 10 percent throughout Obama's presidency,and economic growth has been stuck on slow. In fact, today America is witnessing the longest stretch of such high unemployment in the postwar era.Meanwhile, job creation has hit a record low, as Heritage's James Sherk explains:

Fewer existing businesses are expanding, while fewer entrepreneurs are starting new businesses. In the first quarter of 2011, the numberof workers hired in new business establishments fell to just 660,000, 27 percent fewer than when the recession began. This is the lowest number ofworkers hired at new businesses that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has ever recorded--lower even than the worst points of therecession.

Yet despite these numbers -- and the fact that President Obama had near-free rein to enact the Keynesian economic policies he saw fit -- the Presidentis now demagoguing the one economic policy he hasn't tried -- supply-side economics -- while calling for more government spending all as America'sdebt is deepening. He would do better to study history and get a grasp of how cutting taxes and freeing the market has worked when employed by bothDemocrats and Republicans.

Lowering tax rates, thereby allowing people to keep and invest more of the money that is rightfully theirs, has proven good for the economy time andtime again. In the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980s, tax rate reductions resulted in faster growth, rising incomes, and more job creation. And despite thePresident's claim that cutting taxes only helps the rich, when tax rates were lowered in those decades, higher-income Americans paid an even greatershare of the tax burden because they had fewer reasons to hide, shelter, and under-report income. But if taxes are increased -- as President Obamacontinues to threaten -- the price of working, saving, investing, and taking risks goes up, too.

History bears this out. Daniel Mitchell writes that in the 1920s,under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, the top tax rate was reduced from 73 percent to 25 percent. The result? The economy expanded,growing by 59 percent between 1921 and 1929, with annual economic growth averaging more than 6 percent. Under President Kennedy, the top rate droppedfrom 91 percent in 1963 to 70 percent by 1965. The result? Between 1961 and 1968, the economy expanded by more than 42 percent, with average annualgrowth of more than 5 percent. Under President Reagan, the top tax rate fell from 70 percent in 1980 to 28 percent by 1988, leading to incredibleeconomic expansion and average growth of nearly 4 percent. Finally, in the six quarters following the 2003 tax cuts, the GDP's growth rate shot up to 4.1 percent from 1.7 percent before.

But the President doesn't have to take The Heritage Foundation's word for it. He can heed the words of President Kennedy in his 1962 speech to theEconomic Club of New York:

Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It isincreasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive taxrates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.

Unfortunately, President Obama does not appear open to advice, nor does he seem cognizant of history--be it that of 10, 20, 40, or 90 years ago, oreven his experience of the last three years. Instead, he is damning the torpedoes and continuing to pursue a liberal, progressive agenda that hasproven to be a failure. As they have for the past three years, Americans will pay the price.

Naming Names - Days of Praise - Institute for Creation Research

Naming Names

December 8, 2011

"Their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some." (2 Timothy 2:17-18)

Many Christians decry the citing of actual names of those Christian leaders who teach heretical doctrines, saying that such an act is "unloving." Paul, however, considered it an important evidence of true love to warn against those who would "overthrow the faith of some," realizing that generalities would be useless.

Not only did Hymenaeus and Philetus make Paul's list, but so did Demas (2 Timothy 4:10), Alexander the coppersmith (2 Timothy 4:14), the Cretians (Titus 1:12), another Alexander (1 Timothy 1:20), and even Peter (Galatians 2:11-14) when he began to teach legalism. Likewise, the apostle John warned against Diotrephes (3 John 9) and the Nicolaitans (Revelation 2:6).

On the other hand, Paul was much more generous with name recognition when he was giving out commendations (e.g., Romans 16:1-15; Colossians 4:7-17). We undoubtedly need to follow his example in appreciating by name those who are faithful in teaching and living the truth.

Likewise, we need to be ready and willing to name those individuals, churches, schools, and other organizations that are denying biblical inerrant authority, compromising the doctrine of special creation, requiring humanistic works for salvation, or bringing in other heretical doctrines. We obviously need to be sure of our facts when we do this and also to bring such charges only if motivated by genuine concern for those apt to be led astray if we don't speak out. But then we must, indeed, "mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them" (Romans 16:17). HMM


Institute for Creation Research | 1806 Royal Lane | Dallas | TX | 75229

We Cannot Blame the White People any Longer - By Dr. William Henry 'Bill' Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.

We Cannot Blame the White People any Longer

By Dr. William Henry 'Bill' Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.

They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English.

I can't even talk the way these people talk:

"Why you ain't,
Where you is,
What he drive,
Where he stay,
Where he work,
Who you be...".
And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk.

And then I heard the father talk.

Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.

In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.

People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an Education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around.

The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.

These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids.

$500 sneakers for what?

And they won't spend $200 for "Hooked on Phonics."

I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.

Where were you when he was 2?

Where were you when he was 12?

Where were you when he was 18, and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol?

And where is the father? Or who is his father?

People putting their clothes on backward. Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?

People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something?

Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles (piercings) going through her body?

What part of Africa did this come from?

We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa.

I say this all of the time — it would be like white people saying they are European-American — that is totally stupid.

I was born here, and so were my parents and grand parents and, very likely my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa, no more than white Americans have to Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, or the Netherlands.

The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa — so stop, already!

With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap...and all of them are in jail.

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.

We have got to take the neighborhood back.

People used to be ashamed.

Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' — or men or whatever you call them now.

We have millionaire football players who cannot read.

We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks, have to do a better job.

Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.

We have to start holding each other to a higher standard....

+++++++

WELL SAID, BILL!
It's NOT about color...It's about behavior!

ISLAM IN A NUTSHELL

Islam in a Nutshell

Please read every word of this. It will open your eyes to what might be ahead. Take it seriously as it's growing by leaps and bounds. And don't think it can't happen here 'cause it already is!!!
IN GOD WE TRUST!
This, not the Chinese or the Russians, represent the greatest threat to the world.

Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat...

Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life.

Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.

Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.

When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well.

Here's how it works:

As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be, for the most part, regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:
United States -- Muslim 0.6%
Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
China -- Muslim 1.8%
Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
Norway -- Muslim 1.8%
At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. This is happening in:
Denmark -- Muslim 2%
Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
Spain -- Muslim 4%
Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%
From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:

France -- Muslim 8%
Philippines -- 5%
Sweden -- Muslim 5%
Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections in:

Guyana -- Muslim 10%
India -- Muslim 13.4%
Israel -- Muslim 16%
Kenya -- Muslim 10%
Russia -- Muslim 15%

After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:

Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
Chad -- Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of
all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:

Albania -- Muslim 70%
Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:

Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
Egypt -- Muslim 90%
Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
Iran -- Muslim 98%
Iraq -- Muslim 97%
Jordan -- Muslim 92%
Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
Palestine -- Muslim 99%
Syria -- Muslim 90%
Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
Turkey -- Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%
100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:

Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
Somalia -- Muslim 100%
Yemen -- Muslim 100%

Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

'Before I was nine, I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidel. -- Leon Uris, 'The Haj'

It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia Law. The national police do not even enter these ghettos. There are no national courts, nor schools, nor non-Muslim religious facilities. In such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. The children attend madrasses. They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death. Therefore, in some areas of certain nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the national average would indicate.

Today's 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world's population. But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and all other believers. Muslims will exceed 50% of the world's population by the end of this century.

Well, boys and girls, today we are letting the fox guard the henhouse. The wolves will be herding the sheep!

Obama appoints two devout Muslims to Homeland Security posts. Doesn't this make you feel safer already?

Obama and Janet Napolitano appoint Arif Alikhan, a devout Muslim, as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development.

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano swore in Kareem Shora, a devout Muslim who was born in Damascus , Syria , as ADC National Executive Director as a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC).

NOTE: Has anyone ever heard a new government official being identified as a devout Catholic, a devout Jew or a devout Protestant...? Just wondering.

Devout Muslims being appointed to critical Homeland Security positions?
Doesn't this make you feel safer already??

That should make the US homeland much safer, huh!!
Was it not "Devout Muslim men" that flew planes into U.S. buildings 10 years ago?

Was it not a Devout Muslim who killed 13 at Fort Hood ?

Also: This is very interesting and we all need to read it from start to finish. Maybe this is why our American Muslims are so quiet and not speaking out about any atrocities. Can a good Muslim be a good American? This question was forwarded to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. The following is his reply:

Theologically - no . . .. Because his allegiance is to Allah, The moon God of Arabia

Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by His Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)(Koran)

Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the five Pillars of Islam and the Quran.

Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca , to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially - no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews..

Politically - no. Because he must submit to the mullahs (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America , the great Satan.

Domestically - no. Because he is instructed to marry four Women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34)

Intellectually - no. Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically - no. Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression... Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic .

Spiritually - no. Because when we declare 'one nation under God,' the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as Heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in The Quran's 99 excellent names.

Therefore, after much study and deliberation. ... Perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. - - - They obviously cannot be both 'good' Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish, it's still the truth. You had better believe it. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country and our future. The religious war is bigger than we know or understand.

Can a Muslim be a good soldier???

Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire at Ft. Hood and Killed 13. He is a good Muslim!!!
Footnote: The Muslims have said they will destroy us from within.
SO FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

THE MARINES WANT THIS TO ROLL ALL OVER THE U.S.

Hillsdale College - Imprimis Issue

Hillsdale College - Imprimis Issue

Muhammad’s atrocity against the Qurayza Jews

Muhammad’s atrocity against the Qurayza Jews




How Sad made him glad

James M. Arlandson

In AD 627, Muhammad committed an atrocity against the last remaining major tribe of Jews in Medina: the Qurayza.

He beheaded the men and the pubescent boys and enslaved the women and children. In doing this, he wiped an entire tribe "off the map" to use the language of the President of Iran, recently.

The purpose of this article is full disclosure and straightforward analysis about early Islam. How and why did this atrocity unfold?

Background

The immediate background of this mass extermination and enslavement is the Battle of the Trench (or Ditch), in February-March-April (the exact calculations vary), AD 627. This battle—though it ended up being a siege—pitted a coalition of Quraysh (a large tribe in and around Mecca) against Muslims and some Medinan non-Muslims. The Quraysh also had allies: the Ghatafan (northern Arab tribes to the east of Medina and Mecca) and an assortment of smaller tribes. As for the Muslims, prominent Islamologist W. M. Watt says that on the eve of battle, Muhammad’s army consisted of "practically all the inhabitants of Medina with the exception of the Jewish tribe of Qurayzah, who seem to have tried to remain neutral. There were some Medinans in league with the Meccans, but they were presumably . . . exiled from Medina for the time being" (Muhammad at Medina, p. 36).

For the size of the two armies, the standard figure for the Meccans and their allies is 10,000, but one Muslim scholar says that the coalition of pagans may have reached 12,000 (Maududi vol. 3, p. 63). However, Watt says of the coalition: "The numbers given for the various contingents [the coalition was divided into three corps], however, do not add up to more than about 7,500. The Meccans themselves had about 300 horses and the nomadic tribes a similar number" (Statesman, pp. 166-67). On the Muslim side, the standard figure that is widely accepted is 3,000. They had no cavalry to speak of.

The larger background of this atrocity against the Jews reveals that Muhammad had already expelled two tribes of Jews: the Qaynuqa in AD 624 and the Nadir in AD 625.

It is unclear why the prophet expelled the first tribe, the Qaynuqa. One source says that these Jews waged war on Muhammad, but this is unlikely since he was flushed with victory over the Meccans at the Battle of Badr, only a month before. But perhaps this exaggeration reflects at least some level of conflict between the two sides. Another source says that some Jews played a trick on a Muslim woman, but this too is unlikely, since the trick is found in Arabic literature. These Jews controlled the market of crafts and trade, and the new Muslim immigrants to Medina were craftsmen, so maybe this is the reason. Regardless, the results worked out the same. After being besieged in their fortress for fifteen days, they were expelled, and the Muslims took over the crafts. "The Banu [tribe] Qaynuqa did not have any land, as they were goldsmiths [and armor-makers]. The Messenger of God took many weapons belonging to them and the tools of their trade" (Tabari, vol. 7, p. 87).

About the Nadir tribe, an early Muslim source says that Muhammad suspected an assassination attempt, while he was collecting some blood-wit money (compensation for bloodshed) from the tribe. Muhammad called on his followers to wage war on them, besieging them in their strongholds for fifteen days in August. Muhammad set about destroying their palm trees. Their livelihood undergoing destruction, they surrendered and departed for the north. Muhammad confiscated their property, just as he took the tools of the Nadir tribe.

The upshot of all of this is clear. The conflict between Muslims and Jews is escalating, and the prophet for all of humanity is about to impose the ultimate penalty on the last remaining major tribe of Jews in Medina. And he will take their property, as well.

Sources: W. M. Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, Oxford UP, 1961, pp. 130-31; 148-51; 166-67; Muhammad at Medina, Oxfored UP, 1956; Sayyid Abul A’La Maududi, The Meaning of the Qur’an, vol. 3; Ibn Ishaq, Life of Muhammad, trans. A. Guillaume, Oxford UP, 1955, pp. 363-64; 437-45. Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) valuable and reliable source by modern scholars, except for some chronology and the miraculous elements. Tabari, The Foundation of the Community, trans. M.V. McDonald and annotated by W. M. Watt (SUNYP, 1987), pp. 85-87; 156-61. Tabari (d. 923) is also considered a reliable source, except for some chronology and the miraculous elements.

What started the Battle of the Trench?

Many causes feed into any conflict, but one stands out. Muslim raiders harassed Meccan trade. Modern Saudi biographer Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri expresses the right idea: . . . "[I]t was wise for the Muslims to bring the commercial routes leading to Makkah [Mecca] under their control" (p. 201). Then he lists eight raids between 623 and the Battle of Badr in AD 624. In each one, Muslims were the aggressors, to accomplish the big objective of strangling Mecca’s trade. These raids that sometimes involved hundreds of men continued steadily from that time to the Battle of the Trench. The Meccans had had enough. So they wanted to finish off Islam, once and for all.

From Muhammad’s point of view, he wanted the Kabah shrine in Mecca, and if this goal involved hindering Meccan trade, then so be it. Two early Medinan suras or chapters (2 and 8) reveal his outlook. Sura 2:189-196 and 216-218 command Muslims to fight the Quraysh because this tribe wanted to control their own shrine, even if this entailed prohibiting the Muslims, who were hampering the large tribe’s trade, from visiting it. Next, Sura 2:125-129 asserts without a shred of evidence that Abraham built and purified the shrine, and now Muhammad the monotheist is the best representative of this patriarch. He claimed this while he lived in Mecca, too (Sura 14:35-41). So in effect the shrine belonged to him by revelation, before it actually did by conquest (in early AD 630). Finally, in Sura 8:30-40, the prophet recounts his persecution back in Mecca and why the Quraysh are not the rightful guardians of the shrine. They barred people from it—never mind that about eight years later the prophet will bar pagans from the shrine. All Arab polytheists will be forced to convert or die.

It is impossible (for me at least) to escape the impression that if Muhammad had put aside this desire to control the Kabah, then much of the conflict between him and the Quraysh would never have erupted in the first place. But the shrine was a popular place of religious pilgrimage, so how could he allow religious freedom for polytheists?

Were the Jews involved in the start of the Battle of the Trench? The Islamic sources say that they stirred up the Meccans against the Muslims.

Early biographer Ibn Ishaq says:

A number of Jews who had formed a party against the apostle, among whom were Sallam b. Abu’l-Huqayq al-Nadir [he had been assassinated so the chronology or his placement here is off], and Huyayy b. Aktab al-Nadri, and Kinana b. Abu’l-Huaqayq al-Nadri, and Hauda b. Qays al-Wa’ili, and Abu Ammar al-Wa’ili with a number of B. [Bani or tribe or clan] Nadir and B. Wa’il, went to the Quraysh at Mecca and invited them to join them in an attack on the apostle so that they might get rid of him altogether. (p. 450).

How much did the Jews instigate the battle, and how much were the Meccans fed up with Muslim harassment on their own without Jewish provocation? This is unclear. But let us assume only for the sake of argument that the Islamic sources are right. These specific Jews were the principal instigators. In the end, this does not matter, for the following reason.

It is important to cite these (complex) names, above, because today’s Muslim polemicists who defend Muhammad’s extermination and enslavement of the Qurayza Jews overlook the fact that early Islam knew specifically who the enemy Jewish leaders were—by name. So did all the men and adolescent boys have to be executed and all the women and children enslaved? Could only the leaders not have been executed?

Sources: Ibn Ishaq; Tabari, The Victory of Islam, trans. M. Fishbein, vol. 8, (1997), pp. 6-7. Safi-ur-Rahman Mubarakpuri, The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet, Darrusalam, 1996, p. 201. This biography was awarded first prize by the Muslim World League, but it is an encomium more than an objective biography.

The Battle of the Trench

The Muslims dug trenches to the north of Medina, linking them to or near various high grounds (e.g. Mt. Sal, a hill in the central area of Medina) and other difficult spots (e.g. a marshy ground), in order to neutralize the Meccan cavalry and to avoid hand-to-hand pitched battles. The strategy of trenches was new to Arabia, and the early Islamic sources make much of it. The Muslim army bivouacked south of the trench with Medina at their backs, while the coalition camped north of the trench, facing Medina, with Mt. Uhud at their backs. The Jews retreated south of Medina, facing the back of the Muslim army.

Though the Muslims were under siege, which pressed them hard, the trenches indeed worked well. The coalition’s cavalry was stymied, except a foray that came to nothing. The Meccans tried to assault the trench, but they were easily repulsed. The Muslim sources say that Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, fought in a duel, which he won. Some arrows were shot, but that achieved nothing.

This must be emphasized: No real battles or warfare occurred, and this favored the outnumbered Muslims. Early biographer Ibn Ishaq says—and modern historians are in complete agreement—that "[t]he siege continued without any actual fighting" (p. 454). Early historian Tabari agrees: "The Messenger of God and the polytheists stayed in their positions for over twenty nights—nearly a month—with no warfare between the troops, except for the shooting of arrows and the siege" (vol. 8, p. 17). Again, modern western scholars agree on this point.

Even Allah in the Quran confirms this absence of pitched battle: 25 Allah turned back the unbelievers [Meccans and their allies] in a state of rage, having not won any good, and Allah spared the believers battle [q-t-l]. (Sura 33:25; for more analysis, see the section "the Quran," below)

It is important to realize this fact because Muslim polemicists assert or imply that the Jews actually fought the Muslims, so if the Jews were exterminated and enslaved, then it was their fault. But no full-scale battles ever took place, and the early sources say that the Jews remained in their houses and fortresses near Medina—that is, the sources do not depict them forcefully sallying out and attacking Muslims from behind.

Finally, the early sources say that a storm battered the coalition, and the Quran confirms this, implying also that supernatural forces joined in the fight: "You who believe, remember God’s goodness to you when mighty armies massed against you: We sent a violent wind and invisible forces against them. God sees all that you do" (Sura 33:9; Haleem, The Qur’an, Oxford UP, 2004).

In short, the coalition that had amassed against the Muslims in Medina was losing heart.

Besides Ibn Ishaq and Tabari, see the reliable hadith collector and editor Bukhari here and here. The hadith is the traditions about Muhammad outside of the Quran.

The aftermath of the siege

The Meccans and their allies had to withdraw, for at least four reasons.

(1) As we just observed in the previous section, the Muslims had adopted an effective strategy: trenches.

No full-scale battle or warfare could take place, so the coalition was becoming discouraged. It is highly likely that the average soldiers saw that they would not be dividing up any spoils, and this added to their disheartenment.

(2) Early sources say that Muhammad was about to offer the Ghatafan tribe (a major part of the coalition) one-third of the date harvest, if they withdrew.

But before this offer, he consulted two of his own leaders, and they said that he should not make the deal. They would prefer to meet the coalition with the sword. This account may or may not be authentic. However, the prophet was, after all, under siege for nearly a month, and he wanted to relieve the pressure off of his Muslims. Though the offer may not have been made (and perhaps not even conceived), the narrative may reveal a weakening in the coalition, which Muhammad had observed.

(3) This weakening was indeed the case, which comes up in a tradition that scholars seem to accept, if only tentatively.

A recent convert to Islam, Nuaym, of the Ghatafan tribe, volunteered himself in any way that would help. Muhammad set out on a plan, using Nuaym’s affiliations with the Quraysh and the Jews as a ruse: "The apostle said: ‘You are only one man among us. Go and awake mistrust among the enemy to draw them off us if you can, for war is deceit’" (Ibn Ishaq, p. 458; see also Bukhari, and view the two hadiths below this linked one).

First, Nuaym goes to the Jews who were his drinking companions in the "Time of Ignorance." Deceitfully reminding the Jews of his special ties and affection for them, he tells them that the invaders are foreigners, so if the coalition leaves after a fight but wins no spoils and the Jews join them in battle, then the Jews will remain in their homes here in Medina, without any help, leaving them exposed and powerless. Thus, they should not fight with the coalition unless they take some hostages from some leaders of the Quraysh and Ghatafan to ensure that the pagan tribes would fight to the bitter end.

Nuaym then goes to the Quraysh polytheists. Deceitfully reminding them of his affection for them and how he has separated from Muhammad, he informs them that word has reached him that the Jews regretted how the relations between them and Muhammad had devolved. So they told the prophet that they would take some Quraysh leaders hostage, under the subterfuge that ensures that the Quraysh would fight hard. But in reality, the Jews would turn the hostages over to Muhammad. Nuaym said that the Quraysh should not take the deal because of this subterfuge. This would end the siege.

Finally, the Quraysh and the Jews communicated with each other, and they were on the verge of a full onslaught against the Muslims, but negotiations broke down. The Jews indeed asked for hostages to ensure that the Quraysh would fight to the very end, and the (forewarned) Quraysh turned the Jews down, fearing that the Jews would betray the noblemen to Muhammad.

(4) The coalition’s animals were dying.

This practical reason for the coalition’s withdrawal is beyond dispute. Generally, the Arabs did not feed their animals, in this case horses and camels, but allowed them to graze. However, Muhammad had ordered the Medinans to harvest early, so this took away the animals’ food. And even if he had not ordered this, then the pasture lands were gone after nearly a month. Indeed, the source documents say through the mouths of the Quraysh and Ghatafan to the Jews that "[t]hey had no permanent camp, that the horses and camels were dying."

To sum up this section, it may be said fairly that Muhammad won a great victory with little fighting. He had three thousand troops at this disposal. The only opposing tribe left in the region was the Jews. Nuaym the deceitful go-between was right up to a point. When the coalition left, the Jews were left powerless, outnumbered, and alone, without allies. This spells trouble for them.

Sources: Ibn Ishaq, p. 458-59; Tabari vol. 8, p. 23-24.

The aftermath of the withdrawal for the Qurayza Jews

After the withdrawal of the coalition, the Jews were isolated, whereas Muhammad had 3,000 jihadists, signaling disaster for the Jews. The tragic drama unfolds in five stages.

(1) Traditions state that as the prophet was taking a bath, the (non-Biblical) angel Gabriel appeared to him.

Gabriel tells him the battle is not finished. Muhammad is ordered to fight the Qurayza Jews.

When Allah’s Apostle returned on the day (of the battle) of Al-Khandaq (i.e. Trench), he put down his arms and took a bath. Then Gabriel, whose head was covered with dust, came to him saying, "You have put down your arms! By Allah, I have not put down my arms yet." Allah’s Apostle said, "Where (to go now)?" Gabriel said, "This way," pointing towards the tribe of Bani [tribe] Quraiza. So Allah’s Apostle went out towards them. (Bukhari; see a parallel hadith here.)

This next hadith shows a regiment of Gabriel (Muslim warriors) marching towards the fortresses of the Jews.

Narrated Anas: As if I am just now looking at the dust rising in the street of Banu Ghanm (in Medina) because of the marching of Gabriel's regiment when Allah's Apostle set out to Banu Quraiza (to attack them). (Bukhari; see this parallel hadith: Muslim no. 4370 and see no. 4371)

These traditions about Gabriel’s leadership are designed to give divine support for the atrocity that is about to be unleashed. Today, we may see this as fanciful, but to millions of Muslims this is real. Be that as it may, one thing is clear. Muhammad had taken off his armor and was enjoying a bath, so he did not feel immediately threatened by these Jews. They had not lined up in battle array to wage war.

But even if Muhammad had felt threatened, why not expel the Jews? Soon Islam will be so powerful that it will expel all Jews (and Christians) from the Arabian Peninsula (see also these hadiths here and here). Muhammad had expelled two tribes of Jews a few years earlier. In fact, he conquers the mainly Jewish city of Khaybar in AD 628. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to assert that if Muhammad had simply expelled the Jews, they would constitute a later substantial and serious threat. He is on the rise militarily.

(2) It is odd that during Muhammad’s twenty-five-day siege of the Jews, he employed a poet to abuse them.

The Prophet said to Hassan, "Abuse them (with your poems), and Gabriel is with you (i.e. supports you)." (Through another group of sub-narrators) Al-Bara bin Azib said, "On the day of Quraiza’s (besiege), Allah's Apostle said to Hassan bin Thabit, ‘Abuse them (with your poems), and Gabriel is with you (i.e. supports you).’" (Bukhari)

This shows how valued poetry was in seventh-century Arabia. In some instances, it could resemble a smear campaign, to use the language of today. However, Muhammad assassinated poets who mocked him. But now that he has the power, he gets to employ a satirical poet without fear of reprisal. In fact, he refers to the Jews as brothers of monkeys, citing a legend that he believed, namely, that God turned some disobedient Jews into apes. (Ibn Ishaq, pp. 461-62).

(3) The Jews did not mount a strong resistance.

How could they do this, when Muhammad had just withstood such a large coalition and still had at his command 3,000 jihadists?

Then something strange happened while the Jews were negotiating the terms of surrender. They called for a man named Abu Lubabah, a nominal or half-committed Muslim who may have opposed Muhammad on several occasions. They asked him, "Abu Lubabah, do you think we should submit to Muhammad’s judgment?" He said yes, but then he gestured with his hand to his throat to indicate slaughter. Immediately afterwards, he felt that he had betrayed Muhammad. But why? Scholars are not sure. Maybe Abu Lubabah believed that he had signaled imminent death to the Jews, although Muhammad wanted to keep this brutality a secret. The Jews would have resisted submission on these gruesome terms. Watt speculates that the Muslim go-between may have been standing firm in his own clan’s alliance with the Jews and gave away too much information. Regardless, this must be emphasized: It is not whether he gestured that is in dispute, but the dispute is over why he felt that he betrayed Muhammad. Be that as it may, this means that the outcome was not in doubt—as the hand to the throat indicated.

Source: Ibn Ishaq, p. 462; Watt, Muhammad at Medina, pp. 188-89; 214-17

(4) Muhammad proposed that the Jews submit to the judgment of Sad bin Muadh.

He was the leader of a large Medinan tribe, the Aws (or Aus), some of whom favored old alliances with the Jews. The leader was an elderly man who was wounded during the siege. His verdict was short and simple—but bloody and cruel.

When the tribe of . . . Quraiza was ready to accept Sad’s judgment, Allah’s Apostle sent for Sad who was near to him. Sad came, riding a donkey and when he came near, Allah’s Apostle said (to the Ansar) [or Helpers], "Stand up for your leader." Then Sad came and sat beside Allah’s Apostle who said to him. "These people are ready to accept your judgment." Sad said, "I give the judgment that their warriors should be killed and their children and women should be taken as prisoners." The Prophet then remarked, "O Sad! You have judged amongst them with (or similar to) the judgment of the King Allah." (Bukhari; see parallel hadiths here, here, and here)

It should be noted from this passage that Sad bin Muadh sat next to Muhammad. Was there undue influence from Muhammad on the wounded old man who was about to die and meet Allah? Muhammad had often preached hell fire in the mosque. That is, Sad knew that he was dying, so he wanted to demonstrate his allegiance to the prophet and Islam. The best way, as the circumstances presented themselves, was to decide on death and enslavement, the ultimate penalty signaling the ultimate commitment. Sad made the prophet glad. Shortly after this verdict the elder in fact died from his wound.

Sources: Ibn Ishaq, pp. 463-64; Tabari vol. 8, p. 34.

(5) The sentence: Death by decapitation for around 300-600 men and pubescent boys, and enslavement for the women and children. Ibn Ishaq says that the number may have been as high as 800-900 (p. 464).

Muhammad was wise enough to have six clans execute two Jews each in order to stop any blood-feuds. The rest of the executions were probably carried out by Muhammad’s fellow Emigrants from Mecca, as the heads and bodies were dragged into trenches in the business district of Medina.

Source: Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, p. 174

How did the executioners decide on which boy to slaughter or leave alive? This hadith gives the obvious answer.

Narrated Atiyyah al-Qurazi: I was among the captives of Banu [tribe] Qurayzah. They (the Companions) examined us, and those who had begun to grow hair (pubes) were killed, and those who had not were not killed. I was among those who had not grown hair. (Abu Dawud; see Ibn Ishaq, p. 466)

This next hadith indicates that a woman was delirious. She was killed.

Narrated Aisha . . . No woman of Banu [tribe] Qurayzah was killed except one. She was with me, talking and laughing on her back and belly (extremely), while the Apostle of Allah . . . was killing her people with the swords. Suddenly a man called her name: Where is so-and-so? . . . I asked: What is the matter with you? She said: I did a new act. [Aisha] said: The man took her and beheaded her. [Aisha] said: I will not forget that she was laughing extremely although she knew that she would be killed. (Abu Dawud)

The following narrative says that Muhammad took one woman for himself.

The apostle had chosen one of their women for himself, Rayhana bint Amr . . . one of the women of . . . Qurayza, and she remained with him until she died, in his power. The apostle had proposed to marry and put a veil on her, but she said: "Nay, leave me in your power, for that will be easier for me and for you." So he left her. She had shown repugnance towards Islam when she was captured and clung to Judaism. (Ibn Ishaq, p. 466)

Shortly afterwards, though, she converted to Islam and a messenger informed Muhammad of this, and he reacts to the good news: "This gave him pleasure." It is wrong to believe that this was Muhammad’s motive to execute so many Jews, but this woman does provide an unforeseen, extra benefit.

This hadith gives a hint on how the wealth was distributed.

People used to give some of their date palms to the Prophet (as a gift), till he conquered Bani [tribe] Quraiza and Bani An-Nadir, whereupon he started returning their favors. (Bukhari; see a parallel hadith here)

More specifically, Ibn Ishaq says the spoils were divided among the Muslims thus:

Then the apostle divided the property, wives, and children . . . among the Muslims, and he made known on that day the shares of horse and men, and took out the fifth. A horseman got three shares, two for the horse and one for the rider. A man without a horse got one share (p. 466).

A jihadist horseman was generally wealthier than a horseless jihadist, so this reveals elitism in "egalitarian" Islam. Also, Muhammad was unable to collect any spoils from the departed Meccans and their allies, so how was he supposed to reward his jihadist? The wealth of the Jews. Apart from the details of how the prophet distributed the spoils here, the division of twenty percent for him and eighty percent for his warriors conforms to a "revelation" just after the Battle of Badr in AD 624. In Sura (Chapter) 8:1 and 41, which deals with this battle, Allah grants him and his fighters these percentages.

Allah also allows jihadists to have sex with female slaves. Do we need to discuss this topic any further in the context of these Jewish women and girls?

Sources: Ibn Ishaq, pp. 464-66; Tabari, vol. 8, pp. 27-41.

Summary of the aftermath for the Jews

Since all the names and politics can be confusing, here is a quick overview of the facts found in the previous section "the aftermath for the Qurayza Jews."

1. After the Meccans and their allies depart, the Jews are left powerless and outnumbered before 3,000 Muslim jihadists.

2. While the Jews were negotiating the terms of surrender with Abu Lubabah, he gestures to his throat, which indicates slaughter. This means that the flow of the events headed in one direction.

3. Sad bin Muadh is the leader of the Aws tribe.

4. This tribe had old alliances, whatever they were, with the Qurayzah tribe of Jews.

5. However, the Aws fought alongside Muhammad.

6. The Jews sided with the coalition (though the Jews did not actually fight).

7. Thus, the old alliances between the Aws and Jews are weakening.

8. After Muhammad’s attack on the Jews, some of the Aws plead with Muhammad to be lenient, such as expulsion.

9. Muhammad turns down this request for mercy—a key point, which supports no. 2. The outcome is never in doubt.

10. Instead, Muhammad appoints Sad bin Muadh to decide, and everyone agrees to abide by his decision.

11. Sad decrees slaughter and enslavement, wanting to firm up his allegiance to Islam before he dies. He dies shortly thereafter from his wound.

12. Muhammad says that Sad’s verdict is the judgment of "King Allah." It is right and just. Sad makes him glad.

13. Even though everyone agrees to abide by the verdict, Muhammad still does not show mercy, as the men and boys are handcuffed behind their backs and beheaded, and the women and children are enslaved. He takes one of the beautiful, recently "widowed" Jewish women for himself instead of taking the path of mercy.

14. Muhammad gets twenty percent of the Jewish property (movable, immovable and human), and the jihadists get eighty percent, to be distributed as he sees fit.

In any steps leading up to an atrocity, something wrong is bound to be revealed, and this appears to be no. 9. As noted, Muhammad could have exiled the Jews, as he had done to the Jewish tribes of Qaynuqa and Nadir a few years earlier. Or he could have executed only the leaders, if he believed that they stirred up his enemies—assuming that they really did this, as the Islamic sources allege.

Something is also wrong with step no. 13. Even though everyone agreed to abide by the verdict, who could have complained—justly complained—if Muhammad had announced this? "We agreed to abide by the tribal chief’s verdict, but as I watch the men and boys being handcuffed and observe all the tears from the women and children, I’m sure no one would object if we showed mercy and exiled them and executed only the few trouble-makers. After all, I often say that Allah is most merciful. I set the example for my community and the world!" But this is wishful thinking. He took one of the beauties (now a widow) for himself, instead.

Why does he not show mercy? The answer is found in no. 14. Muhammad needs to reward his jihadists, since they collected no spoils from the departed coalition—Allah gives him permission in Sura 33:27 (see the next section, "the Quran"). And what makes this entire episode doubly heinous is that Muhammad and his jihadists could have had all of the wealth of the Jews after their banishment, but he still did not take this merciful option. But if he had taken it, would he have earned all the money (and a new "bride") coming from the enslavement of Jewish women and children?

The Quran

Allah seems to celebrate this slaughter and enslavement in Sura 33:25-27:

25 Allah turned back the unbelievers [Meccans and their allies] in a state of rage, having not won any good, and Allah spared the believers battle [q-t-l]. Allah is, indeed, Strong and Mighty. 26 And He brought those of the People of the Book [Qurayza] who supported them from their fortresses and cast terror into their hearts, some of them you slew [q-t-l] and some you took captive. 27 And he bequeathed to you their lands, their homes and their possessions, together with land you have never trodden. Allah has power over everything. (Majid Fakhry, An Interpretation of the Qur’an, NYUP, 2004; insertions are mine)

These verses reveal three unpleasant truths.

First, Allah helps the Muslims in warfare or battle (three-letter Arabic root is q-t-l in v. 25) against a much-larger foe, so Allah endorses Islam in battle. Also, verse 25 confirms that Muhammad had nothing substantial to fear from the Jews. "Allah turned back the unbelievers . . . and Allah spared the believers battle." In down-to-earth terms, Muhammad still had at his disposal a large, weather-beaten army. The prophet had expelled two other tribes (Qaynuqa and Nadir), so he could have done the same to the Qurayza—as indeed they requested. But the prophet for humanity declined this merciful and humane option.

Second, Allah permits the enslavement and beheading of Jews, so any Muslim familiar with the background of this verse knows that beheading as such has been assimilated into the Quran. The word q-t-l in verse 26 means slaughter. What is so troubling about the verse is that it seems to celebrate the "terror" that Allah threw into the Jews’ hearts. Indeed, when Abu Lubabah the mediator approached the Jews during negotiations, the women and children were crying. Allah gladly terrorized them.

Finally, Allah permits Muhammad to take the Jewish clan’s property on the basis of conquest and his possession of all things. This is a dubious revelation and reasoning. Allah speaks, and this benefits Muhammad materially. This happens too often in Muhammad’s life.

If anyone is looking for a down-to-earth reason for Muhammad’s attack on the Qurayza Jews (instead of "Gabriel’s leadership"), then he does not need to look any further than verse 27. The prophet confiscated wealth. After all, the Meccans and their allies withdrew without allowing Muslims to take their wealth. So how was Muhammad going to reward his jihadists? He was following a bad custom of winner-take-all in seventh-century Arabia. It is a pity that he could not rise above this, as the prophet for all of the world, the last and the best of all the prophets.

For more translations of these verses, the readers may go to three sites: this one has multiple translations; this one has three; and this conservative translation is subsidized by the Saudi royal family.

Defenses of this atrocity

(1) Muhammad was following his culture.

W. M. Watt follows this tact. He writes:

So far were the Muslims who killed them [the Qurayza Jews] from feeling any qualms that one of them, describing the return from the deed, wrote that they returned with the head of their victim "five honorable men, steady and true, and God was with the sixth of us." This is so much in keeping with the spirit of pre-Islamic times that it is almost certainly authentic; but, even if not, it shows the attitude of the early Muslims. (Muhammad at Medina, p. 328)

This is a remarkable statement from Watt. Five Muslims (plus a sixth) returned after the executions, carrying the head of one of the slaughtered victims, and "God was with the sixth of us" (or the sixth Muslim). This represents the attitude of the early Muslims? God was with all of them during the slaughter? The problem with the "he’s only following his culture" defense is that Muhammad is no ordinary tribal leader; if he were, specialists in Arab culture might read about this atrocity and move on, concluding that, though a difficulty, it has no lasting impact. However, Muhammad claims universality for his religion. He and his followers after his death waged wars of worldwide conquest to prove this universality. Thus, the stakes are too high to retreat to this "culture" defense today.

(2) Muhammad was following the Law in the Old Testament.

This line of defense seems to say that the Qurayza Jews got what they deserved from their own Scriptures. If so, then this is a completely misguided comment on this atrocity against the Jews. This sectarian polemicist even quotes Deuteronomy 20:12-14 (see his note 26a. See this article at a Muslim website that quotes this passage in Deuteronomy and one in Numbers.)

In reply, however, this defense turns everything on its head and misapplies the true Scriptures. This severe command was given to Moses for a specific purpose and for a specific time (c. 1,400 BC) and for a specific place (the holy land). It was never intended to be followed outside of the holy land at a later, vaguer time and for self-serving purposes. Were the Qurayza Jews carrying out this ancient command of Moses in the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century AD so that Muhammad had to take revenge? The corollary opposite is true. Even if we grant the non-Biblical prophet Muhammad credit for understanding the Torah (and that is giving him way too much credit because the Quran is filled with confusion about the Bible), then he was misinterpreting the Law of Moses by waging war at the wrong time, the wrong place, and for self-serving reasons. He is the one who forced Arab polytheists to convert or die; he is the one who said that all Jews and Christians should be forced out of the Peninsula.

However, to imply that Muhammad was carefully following the Old Law is to assume too much. Here are some areas in the Old Testament that Muhammad disobeys: adultery, and divorce; this article is a quick overview of other areas. So why should we take seriously this line of defense that says Muhammad was following the Old Testament?

Hence, this defense is yet another example of tribalism at its worst. Because the ancient Hebrews did this 2,000 years before Muhammad lived, he is justified in doing this to the Jews in his day in Medina. All the Jews of all times meld into one species—the same tribe. But this yanks a Biblical text way out of context and anachronistically misapplies it to another era and context. It is best to analyze Muhammad in his own context and set of circumstances. Did the Qurayza Jews really fight against him? No fighting took place, not even between the coalition and the Muslims.

Finally, Muhammad suffers from the distinct disadvantage of living six hundred years after Jesus, who showed us a better way. We compare—implicitly or explicitly—the two founders, and then the two diverge widely from each other. Thus, all reasonable people sense that this wholesale slaughter and enslavement is an unjustifiable atrocity.

For Christians, Jesus fulfills the aspect of warfare in the Old Testament. See this article on fulfillment and this one on how Christians benefit from the Old Testament. The geographically limited and time-specific wars in the Old Testament have been explained and contrasted with Islamic wars of world conquest in this article and this one. This article replies to Muslim polemics on the topic.

(3) The Jews broke (in this link find Sura 33) the treaty and fought against Muhammad.

Let’s take the two aspects (breaking the treaty and fighting) one at a time.

The Islamic sources say that the Jews broke the treaty, so let’s assume this, only for the sake of argument. Yet the early sources also reveal the specific names of the Jewish leaders who instigated the rupture in the treaty. Why did not Muhammad put only them on trial? Why did he have to exterminate every man and adolescent boy and enslave the women and children? This is tribalism at its worst—and greed for Jewish wealth (Sura 33:27).

As for fighting against Muslims, modern historians, using simple logic and the early sources, agree that the Jews did not march out in battle formation; they never sallied out of their fortresses and killed Muslims en masse or even one of them, so the Jews did not actually fight. In fact, no substantive fighting during the month-long siege took place even between the Quraysh and Ghatafan on the one hand and the Muslims on the other. Moreover, after these allies withdrew from Medina, Muhammad was too strong militarily, for he still had at his disposal 3,000 hardened veterans. This is why the Jews never mounted a vigorous resistance when they were besieged. Finally, the Quran says that the Muslims were spared a battle. Allah says in Sura 33:25 that he turned away the huge coalition. So how was Muhammad really threatened by a Jewish sub-group that was much smaller than the Quraysh and Ghatafan?

Also, as noted briefly, the numbers do not add up for an attack by the Jews after the coalition left. Recall that Ibn Ishaq says that possibly 900 Jewish men and pubescent boys were butchered. Let’s grant that number for a moment. On the other side, the sources say that Muhammad had 3,000 men in his army. How could 900 men and boys fight against 3,000 jihadists? Even if we double the number to 1,800 Jewish men and boys, how could they fight against a large Muslim army that had just withstood a huge coalition of non-Muslim tribes? What about the Medinan Arab tribe, the Aws, who still had alliances, such that they were, with the Jews? The Aws fought for Muhammad; would they now fight against him? No evidence suggests even a hint that the Aws were on the verge of switching sides. The alliances quickly dissolved into thin air. To repeat, Muhammad was never seriously threatened or in real jeopardy from the Jews. If he imagined Gabriel commanding him to fight, then Muhammad was actually adding up these numbers. He correctly concluded that the Jews were isolated and outnumbered and that he could do what he wanted with them.

But Muslim polemicists do not allow this high number for the Jews, for it makes Muhammad’s atrocity seem worse, if that is possible. Sectarian Maulana Muhammad Ali says that the number of Jews was 300 (see note 26a). Paradoxically, and perhaps unwittingly, this commentator makes the prophet of humanity seem worse with this low number. In no way were 300 Jewish men and boys ever a real threat against 3,000 Muslim jihadists. Clearly, expulsion of the Jewish community was the better option, not butchery and enslavement. But Muhammad was unable to collect any spoils from the departed Meccans and their allies, so he looked to the Jews. The women and children became human spoils.

This inconsistency happens too often in Muslim polemics. For example, Muhammad assassinated individual critics and opponents. To justify this, polemicists argue that he was defending a fragile and fledgling community. On the other hand, other polemicists argue that Islam was a strong and full-fledged State, so it was allowed to protect its "dignity. The key is to choose the contradictory argument that fits the need at the moment.

Finally, to the victor goes the writing of the history books. Muhammad is the one who gets to call the actions of the Jews a break in the treaty. But are they the only ones to blame? When Muhammad moved to Medina in AD 622, three major tribes of Jews thrived in Yathrib (pre-Islamic name of Medina). When he dies of a fever in AD 632, no major group was left, and the number of individual Jews is in dispute. In these ten years Muslim polemicists would have us believe that all conflicts were everyone else’s fault. When Muhammad either sent out or went out on seventy-four raids, small assassination hit squads, or full scale wars, he was always acting defensively and hence justly. However, this is absurd on its face, as anyone who knows human nature must conclude. In the complicated give-and-take of many wars and conflicts, it is rarely only one side that is blameless entirely. More to the point, when did the Jews ever slaughter Muslim men and boys and enslave women and children, so that Muhammad would be justified in taking like-for-like revenge on them after the allies left?

Thus, even if we assume that the Jews broke the treaty, and even if we assume—contrary to fact—that the Jews forcefully fought against Muhammad before and after the coalition left, he still did not have to kill every man and every pubescent boy and enslave all the women and children, did he? Could he not have set the example for the world and punish them in a more lenient and humane way?

(4) Sad bin Muadh, the leader of the Aws, made the decision, so Muhammad is blameless.

As already noted, this line of defense is wrong. Muhammad could have called off the trial. Some of the Aws begged him to show mercy, but he turned down this request. Next, he could have told imaginary Gabriel (read: the prophet’s calculations) to get lost. Further, passing off the verdict to Sad bin Muadh reveals not only extra-sly political acumen in Muhammad, but also cowardice. He did not want to make this hard decision. Maybe he feared the old alliances between the Aws and the Jews, but the alliances did not last. The Aws fought for Muhammad, whereas the Jews opposed him. Would the Aws flip-flop so easily? This did not happen in point of fact. Be that as it may, Sad sat next to Muhammad, and when Sad issued the verdict, he made the prophet glad. "O Sad! You have judged amongst them with (or similar to) the judgment of the King Allah." Was there undue influence from Muhammad on Sad who was dying and about to meet Allah?

(5) Put in perspective, the atrocity is no big deal.

Reza Aslan, a young intellectual Iranian, in his book No god but God (Random House, 2005), says that the Qurayza tribe amounted to a tiny fraction of Jews in Medina and its environs (p. 94). Therefore, Muhammad’s execution of them is not a "genocide" (Aslan’s word). His implication is that this act against one tiny tribe of Jews is minor and therefore not extreme, but proportional.

In reply, however, the number of the Jews who remained in Medina is under dispute, but the evidence suggests that there was not one dominant group, though individuals may have been left (Watt, Muhammad at Medina, pp. 216-17). Next, tribalism ruled in Arab culture (and still does in many places), and Muhammad eliminates an entire tribe. Though not a genocide, it is excessive even for the Jews’ "brazen" (Aslan's word) crime. It is simply underhanded to throw in the word "genocide" as if it is supposed to make Muhammad’s excessive punishment seem acceptable. Eliminating a tribe? That’s no big deal when we compare it to a genocide, so Aslan implies. This kind of confused defense of Muhammad’s indefensible actions permeates Muslim literature today.

(6) The West has committed atrocities, so who are Christians to complain?

The answer to this is simple. First, the West and Biblical Christianity are not identical. Second, it is always better to compare a founder (Jesus) of a religion with another founder (Muhammad). And this is where the similarities break down completely. Third, the Medieval Crusaders are not foundational for Christianity. Only Jesus and the New Testament authors are. Fourth, the "West" does not claim divine inspiration, but Muhammad did.

Despite these six defenses, anyone whose mind has not been steeped in a lifetime of devotion to Islam knows that Muhammad’s action was factually and objectively excessive, regardless of his culture that he lived in. And excess is never just, as even Allah himself states when he rebukes his favorite prophet for another of his acts of cruelty (see this hadith, Abu Dawud 4357, and this article). Sadly, though, Allah does not reprimand his favorite prophet, but celebrates the atrocity in Sura 33:25-27.

Conclusion

Muslim polemical and outreach websites often assert that Islam promotes human rights. It is impossible to see how they can say this honestly and at the same time appeal to the origins of their religion.

This whitewash is deceitful at best and dangerous at worst, if or when Islam gets a foothold in a region on the pretence of "peace and love." Maybe sleepy Westerners and others will accept this benign version of Islam—in fact too many are, right now. But what happens later when hard-line Muslims (not to mention nonviolent and violent fanatics) cite the numerous brutal verses in the Quran and passages in the hadith to inflict barbarity on people, especially on Jews?

The evidence in this article alone demonstrates that violence is embedded in original Islam. Even a reliable hadith shows Allah reprimanding Muhammad for another of his cruelties.

It is time for Muslim leaders to renounce violence clearly and specifically, not vaguely: "Yes, we denounce all forms of violence" . . . . They must go deeper than this. They must stop denying the dark past, found in the Quran itself and in the example of their prophet. They must, instead, be clear. "We denounce these specific verses and passages in the Quran and hadith that are violent. These specific acts and words happened in the seventh century (and later centuries), and we have moved beyond all of them. We now want peace."

A peaceful presentation of Islam is not full disclosure. It is time to be honest. Only then can interfaith dialogue even begin.

Supplemental Material

See this series of articles for more information on Muhammad’s atrocity against the Qurayza Jews.

This article is an overview of Muhammad’s relations with the Jews.

My own article, Muhammad and the Jews, provides background information on the other tribes of Jews.

This webpage has many fine articles on Muhammad’s other questionable policies and practices.

Copyright by James Malcolm Arlandson.
Articles by James Arlandson
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