SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL: President Barack Obama mentioned reciprocity: mutual respect between the Muslim world and America. Not much reciprocity in Europe, where some governments are already putting up white flags as clever Islamists attack their basic institutions. Diana West townhall.com worries that French schools no longer teach authors deemed offensive to Muslims Voltaire, Diderot, Darwin, and, of course, history of the Holocaust.
She notes that the British government "cravenly elevated five Sharia courts to the level of tribunal hearings, making their rulings legally binding." The first verdicts upheld male supremacy -- inheritance that gives girls half of the inheritance of boys -- and they dismissed several domestic violence charges. Sharia permits wife beating.
The French city of Tours was the historic capital of the French king Charles Martel, who in the 7th century turned back the Muslim invasion that had overrun Spain. Because of this, Europe did not become Muslim.
Now Tours is the recipient of money from the French government -- as well as Algeria and Saudi Arabia -- to construct one of the largest mosques in France. While this is very generous, and politically correct, of France, Algeria is shutting down Christian churches because they might try to convert Algerians, and in Saudi Arabia Christianity is illegal. In almost all Muslim countries, Judaism may not be practiced either.
The French Ministry of the Interior lists 1,500 places of worship, including 400 mosques. Here "mosques" mean any places of worship. Prisons are another locus for active Islamist conversion. According to Walid Phares, who has been talking with French counterterrorism people, a terrorist cell from Central Asia was picked up in France, where they were getting military training.
French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said 90 Islamic activists were arrested in France in 2007. She notes that French and American prisons are incubators for Islamist recruitment and conversions, as are French suburban ghettos. >>> Laina Farhat-Holzman | Saturday, January 31, 2009
*Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and author. Contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.net.
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