Dennis Prager
August 29, 2006

Last year at UCLA, I debated a professor who argued that Israel and the Palestinians were moral equivalents. He is not alone (especially on college campuses) in his lack of understanding of the immoral nature of the Islamic enemies of America and Israel.

Thus it is important to remind people once again about the moral world inhabited by the people we are fighting, whom President George W. Bush calls the Islamic Fascists.

Societal examples:

-- The Islamic Republic of Sudan, in its attempt to force Arab/Muslim rule on the largely non-Arab and non-Muslim population of southern Sudan, has led to the killing of well above 1 million Christians and animists and black (i.e., non-Arab) Muslims, in addition to the widespread enslavement, rape and torture of those people.

-- No major international Arab or Muslim organization has condemned the Sudanese government's mass murders that border on genocide.

-- The leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and repeatedly called for the annihilation of Israel. As the 6 million Jews of Israel do not plan a mass exodus from their ancient and modern homeland, such annihilation would in fact mean another Holocaust.

-- The holy center of Islam, the Muslim country where the holiest Muslim sites are situated, is Saudi Arabia. That country bans the practice of any religion other than Islam, amputates hands of thieves, does not allow women to drive a car, mandates what women wear outside of their homes and is the only country in the world to feature a weapon on its national flag. Women were treated considerably better and had more civil rights in ancient Rome, not to mention ancient Israel, than women living in the holiest cities of Islam today.

-- Virtually every Islam-based country decrees the death penalty for any Muslim who converts to another religion.

In other words, every country that calls itself "Islamic" is morally inferior to just about every country in North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, almost every Asian country and many African countries.

No Muslim country treats non-Muslims and their religions anywhere nearly as decently as any Western non-Muslim country (including Israel) treats Muslims. That is why tens of millions of Muslims immigrate to non-Muslim societies and virtually no non-Muslim immigrates to any Muslim society. In every Muslim country, non-Muslims are either systematically persecuted at worst or treated as inferiors at best.

Individual examples (in just the last five months):

-- "A German court sentenced a Turkish man to more than nine years in jail yesterday for the 'honour killing' of his sister. . . . The murder of Hatun Surucu, 23, who was shot several times at a bus stop in a Berlin suburb last year, shocked Germany. . . . Forced to marry a cousin in Turkey as a young girl, Ms. Surucu later broke with her Turkish-Kurdish family in Berlin and was living independently with her 5-year-old son, to the intense disapproval of her relatives. . . . Public outrage at the murder was exacerbated when some teenage boys at a school with many pupils from immigrant families . . . reportedly openly applauded the killing, condemning the victim for having lived 'like a German.'" (The Guardian, UK, April 14, 2006)

-- "Men using machetes attacked worshipers in three Coptic [Christian] churches in the port city of Alexandria [Egypt] on Friday morning, killing an 80-year-old man and wounding at least six other people, the police there said." (International Herald Tribune, April 15, 2006)

-- "An Egyptian state-controlled newspaper praised Monday's suicide attack in Tel Aviv, which killed nine people and wounded dozens, calling it an act of sacrifice and martyrdom." (Jerusalem Post, April 18, 2006)

-- In Britain, Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his wife Cossor, 23, were arrested in connection with the plot to blow up airplanes flying across the Atlantic. According to Scotland Yard, the Muslim couple planned to take their 6-month-old baby on the suicide mission, using their baby's bottle to hide a liquid bomb. (Daily Telegraph, UK, Aug. 14, 2006)

-- "We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the [Israelis]." -- words of a Canadian UN observer written days before he was killed by Israeli bombs (Ottawa Citizen, July 27, 2006)

-- "Canadian authorities rounded up a group of 17 Muslim men and boys suspected of plotting to bomb major buildings in the Toronto area . . . " (CNN, June 5, 2006)

-- In Australia, "[Islamist] propaganda has convinced many residents their suburbs are being overrun by Islamic extremists. . . .The Saturday Daily Telegraph revealed an escalation of anti-Semitic behaviour. . . . Jewish university students were targeted and forced to hide their traditional skullcaps beneath baseball caps to avoid abuse, while attacks on synagogues have increased." (Daily Telegraph, Australia, Aug. 26, 2006)

-- "A third suspect detained in a failed attempt to blow up two German trains is a Syrian national . . . German and Lebanese authorities are each holding one of two young Lebanese men accused of carrying the suitcase bombs onto trains in Cologne station on July 31. . . . Officials say they could have caused many casualties and set the trains on fire." (Newsday, Aug. 26, 2006)

Does all this suggest that we are fighting a billion Muslims? Of course not.

Does all this suggest that all or even most Muslims are bad people? Of course not.

It does suggest, however, that the dominant forces within Islam are bad at this time; that Muslims who see this evil in their midst have not mobilized any counterforce either out of fear for their lives or for some other reason; and that decent men and women around the world -- Hindu, Christian, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist and Muslim -- are threatened by this powerful, death-loving force.

Muslims who do not acknowledge the threat to civilization from within the Muslim world at least have two excuses -- fear for their lives or group solidarity. What excuses do non-Muslims have who deny this threat?