Islam: What We Are Really Up Against

 

The following letter, written in Hebrew, has been widely disseminated through social media in Israel. I have taken the liberty of translating it below.

Shalom,

My name is Professor Aryeh Eldad.

Years ago, I established a skin bank (for burn victims) in Israel that is the largest of its kind in the world. The skin bank is set up in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem where I am head of the plastic surgery department.

The skin bank is in constant use, but even more so in times of war.

Once, I was asked to provide skin for a Moslem woman from Gaza who was hospitalized in critical condition in Soroka Hospital in Beersheba (in southern Israel) after family members had set her on fire.

Such horrors are common among Moslem families when they suspect a woman of an improper romantic relationship.

We supplied all the skin cells needed for her treatment. She was treated successfully by my colleague, Professor Lior Rosenberg, and released to her home in Gaza.

For follow-up treatment, she made regular visits to the hospital’s outpatient clinic.

One day, while crossing the border from Gaza into Israel, she was caught wearing an explosive belt.

Her mission was to blow herself up in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where her life had been saved.

Upon interviewing the woman, it was revealed that her family had promised her that she would be forgiven if she succeeded in this mission.

This is only one example of what’s really at stake in the war between Moslems and Jews in the Land of Israel.

This is not a territorial dispute.

This is a confrontation between cultures or, more precisely, a war between civilization and barbarity.

I have never written a letter before requesting that it be copied and forwarded.

But this time I am asking that you pass this letter along — to everyone you know — in order that the world should understand what radical Islam is all about and, should it not be stopped, what awaits us all.

Thank you for listening,
Professor Aryeh Eldad, Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem

Note: My only reservation about this letter is the use of “radical Islam” — which I see as a nod to the PC tyrants — instead of just plain “Islam.” As Robert Spencer has demonstrated time and again, there is ultimately no difference between the two.

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  1. dnewlander Inactive
    dnewlander
    @dnewlander

    Savages.

    • #1
  2. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Snopes says true. 

    The interview

    • #2
  3. Podkayne of Israel Inactive
    Podkayne of Israel
    @PodkayneofIsrael

    Prof. Eldad is a hero of mine. I was priviledged to work with him in Ped. Surg. He gave absolutely equal and top-quality treatment to both Arabs and Jews.

    In addition to being the head of the Department of Plastic Surgery, he had also been the head of the IDF Medical Corps until he resigned after the Madhat Yusef affair. 

    Madhat Yusef, an Israeli Druze soldier, was shot while Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus was under seige by Palestinian rioters. Eldad believed that then PM Ehud Barak did not take the steps necessary to evacuate Yusef for proper medical care, and he died. Arye Eldad resigned his commission in protest.

    • #3
  4. dnewlander Inactive
    dnewlander
    @dnewlander

    dnewlander (View Comment):

    Savages.

     A good friend of mine since the first day of middle school is the rare, non-insane liberal. (Every now and then I try to convince him of the insanity of that stance.)

    He joined the Army Reserve in 2005, and after serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghan, he has absolutely no love for Muslims or Islam. I won’t repeat what he’s referred to them as, but I’m sure y’all can imagine.

    • #4
  5. She Member
    She
    @She

    This reminds me of what’s now viewed as an unsourced “quote” from Golda Meir.  If she didn’t say it, she certainly should have:  “Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews.”  

    I really dislike fanatics, of just about any stripe.  But particularly this stripe.

     

     

    • #5
  6. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Yehoshua (and others who care to comment), what is your response to the fellow who started a group in Israel  that goes to road emergencies on bicycles to provide medical aid? His group comprises all kinds of people, including Muslims. Don’t get me wrong: I have major issues with radical Islam. Do you see this group as a good thing, bad thing?

    • #6
  7. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Indeed. This is the definitive description … “a war between civilization and barbarity.”

    • #7
  8. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Yehoshua (and others who care to comment), what is your response to the fellow who started a group in Israel that goes to road emergencies on bicycles to provide medical aid? His group comprises all kinds of people, including Muslims. Don’t get me wrong: I have major issues with radical Islam. Do you see this group as a good thing, bad thing?

    This is an incredible service.  The medics don’t ride bicycles, but their motorcycles are everywhere.  It’s a phenomenal thing, a life saving service that we have come to take for granted.

    • #8
  9. iWe Coolidge
    iWe
    @iWe

    I hate to be a squish, but there ARE forms of Islam that have no radicals, and while they may be quieter, it stops me from condemning all practitioners.

    Indeed, the whole “guilt cultures vs shame cultures” has quite a lot to do with this as well – which means that Islamic Supremacy is part – but not all – of the problem.

    • #9
  10. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    I’m ready for the West to stop pretending Islam is just another religion. These aren’t “radical” Muslims. They’re adherent ones.

    • #10
  11. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    iWe (View Comment):
    hate to be a squish, but there ARE forms of Islam that have no radicals, and while they may be quieter, it stops me from condemning all practitioners.

    I would say that the quiet practitioners of Islam are not true Moslems.  A core belief of Islam is that infidels must die.

    In a similar vein, there were Germans who wore the Nazi uniform yet did not engage in violence and even displayed kindheartedness.  But these were not true Nazis.

    • #11
  12. iWe Coolidge
    iWe
    @iWe

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):
    I would say that the quiet practitioners of Islam are not true Moslems. The core belief of Islam is that infidels must die.

    I would say that it is not for US to tell THEM who is a true muslim.

    After all we would both bridle at anyone who defines Judaism for us. And rightly so.

    • #12
  13. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):
    I would say that the quiet practitioners of Islam are not true Moslems. A core belief of Islam is that infidels must die.

    So in my earlier comment, when I mentioned there were Muslims who were providing emergency services in Israel, you didn’t say whether you thought their participation was a good thing or not. So?

    • #13
  14. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    So in my earlier comment, when I mentioned there were Muslims who were providing emergency services in Israel, you didn’t say whether you thought their participation was a good thing or not. So?

    I think it’s fine, it shows they accept the Jewish state. It has always been the position of even the most radical right — including Meir Kahane — that any Arab/Moslem who accepts the existence of Israel is more than welcome here.

    • #14
  15. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Then why does the world keep calling Islam a religion of peace? Whose peace? Certainly not the Muslim woman who was burned.  Is Islam a religion, or a structural system that religion is a part of?   Let anyone ask this woman is there good and is there evil?  Someone showed her both.

    • #15
  16. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    Thank you so much.  So incredibly sad.

    • #16
  17. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    Front Seat Cat (View Comment):
    Then why does the world keep calling Islam a religion of peace?

    Because the world is afraid to call something evil and so goes in the other direction and calls it good.   Remember 1984?

    “War is peace.  Slavery is freedom.  Ignorance is strength.”  Every bad thing is whitewashed, gets turned upside down in the PC world.

    If we called Islam evil, it would mean we would have to go to war against it in a big way, maybe even nuclear, and no one wants to contemplate that option.  It would mean we would have to acknowledge that this is a zero sum conflict since there is no room for compromise between good and evil.   Either we win or they win.

    Here is Solzhenitzyn in a 1983 speech:

    “The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short-lived value. It has become embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system.”   This is an apt description of the Sharia state to which Islamists aspire — “evil in their hearts turned into a political system” — and to which the West has offered little resistance.

    • #17
  18. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    Front Seat Cat (View Comment):
    Then why does the world keep calling Islam a religion of peace?

    Because the world is afraid to call something evil and so goes in the other direction and calls it good. Remember 1984?

    “War is peace. Slavery is freedom. Ignorance is strength.” Every bad thing is whitewashed, gets turned upside down in the PC world.

    If we called Islam evil, it would mean we would have to go to war against it in a big way, maybe even nuclear, and no one wants to contemplate that option. It would mean we would have to acknowledge that this is a zero sum conflict since there is no room for compromise between good and evil. Either we win or they win.

    Here is Solzhenitzyn in a 1983 speech:

    “The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short-lived value. It has become embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system.” This is an apt description of the Sharia state to which Islamists aspire — “evil in their hearts turned into a political system” — and to which the West has offered little resistance.

    And here we are!

    • #18
  19. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    I have maintained there is something satanic embedded in Islam and it rises right out of their holy texts.  The key thing to remember is that in establishing Islam, Mohammed, their ideal man, the man they are to emulate, killed.  He killed.  It’s there in the Koran, it’s there in the Hadith.  They pray over this.  He killed.  Once you have established a sacred precedent for killing to achieve your ends, it is very hard to over turn it.  It is part of your culture.  That is why I say Satan is embedded in their sacred texts.

    • #19
  20. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Yehoshua,

    This is a very timely piece you’ve posted. There is a resurgence of what I would call sympathy for the Jihadists afloat. The same people who supported the Arab Spring, took for granted Obama calling ISIS the junior varsity, and made the rules of engagement so strict that all of the bombings were useless are now crying about the poor Jihadists.

    Here is a real report about the poor Jihadists.

    ISIS RETURN: Islamic State kill 700 in terror horror – 5000 jihadists holed up in Syria

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that Islamic State militants had executed nearly 700 prisoners in nearly two months in eastern Syria. The UK-based war monitoring group said the prisoners were among 1,350 civilians and fighters that Islamic State had been holding in territory near the Iraqi border.

    …Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate has crumbled after different offensives across Iraq and Syria, though its fighters still operate in the desert border region and mount attacks.

    It comes as more than 200 mass graves containing the remains of thousands of people have been discovered in Iraq in areas formerly under the control of Islamic State (ISIS) militants according to the United Nations.

    Meanwhile, the The New Yorker Magazine and others are sending mixed messages.

    Iraq’s Post-ISIS Campaign of Revenge

    The Iraqi judiciary has also exposed the willingness of Western liberal democracies to quietly regard due process as a strategic disadvantage. During the battle for Mosul, France deployed élite soldiers to track and kill its own citizens. Some five thousand Europeans joined isis, and, of the thousand or more who have returned to their home countries, very few have been charged with crimes, owing to the near-impossibility of collecting court-level evidence in a foreign war zone. European intelligence agencies are overwhelmed; to carry out comprehensive surveillance on a single target requires a team of around thirty people. And so countries that have outlawed capital punishment are tacitly encouraging Iraq to eliminate their jihadi citizens. “If the Iraqi government were just rounding up and killing Iraqis in this way, we could be more vocal” in criticizing it, the European diplomat said. “But we don’t have any idea what to do about our own citizens. There is no policy.”

    So while Europeans still make their hyper-tolerant claims and blame the Iraqi government for their brutal methods, they are secretly happy to have their own Jihadist former citizens ‘taken care of’ by the Iraqi government. BTW the paragraph I’ve quoted is a few thousand words deep in the article. First, you are made sure to hate the Iraqi government for their tyrannical court system. Normally, I would feel strong revulsion for the Iraqi courts but considering what it is to be under attack by Jihadists it is hard to imagine that it would be otherwise.

    Everyone in the west needs to know just what the black flag of Jihad is about. It guarantees that those who follow it are genocidal megalomaniacal madmen.

    Regards,

    Jim

     

    • #20
  21. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Front Seat Cat (View Comment):

    Then why does the world keep calling Islam a religion of peace? Whose peace? Certainly not the Muslim woman who was burned. Is Islam a religion, or a structural system that religion is a part of? Let anyone ask this woman is there good and is there evil? Someone showed her both.

    it’s absolutely mind boggling that anyone would believe Islam is a religion of peace.  Perhaps not all devout Muslims are Jihadis.  But all Jihadis are devout Muslims.  Islam advocates violence to achieve superiority.  It’s there in their sacred texts; it’s there in the life of Mohammed.

    • #21
  22. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    James Gawron (View Comment):

    Yehoshua,

    This is a very timely piece you’ve posted. There is a resurgence of what I would call sympathy for the Jihadists afloat. The same people who supported the Arab Spring, took for granted Obama calling ISIS the junior varsity, and made the rules of engagement so strict that all of the bombings were useless are now crying about the poor Jihadists.

    Here is a real report about the poor Jihadists.

    ISIS RETURN: Islamic State kill 700 in terror horror – 5000 jihadists holed up in Syria

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that Islamic State militants had executed nearly 700 prisoners in nearly two months in eastern Syria. The UK-based war monitoring group said the prisoners were among 1,350 civilians and fighters that Islamic State had been holding in territory near the Iraqi border.

    …Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate has crumbled after different offensives across Iraq and Syria, though its fighters still operate in the desert border region and mount attacks.

    It comes as more than 200 mass graves containing the remains of thousands of people have been discovered in Iraq in areas formerly under the control of Islamic State (ISIS) militants according to the United Nations.

    So while Europeans still make their hyper-tolerant claims and blame the Iraqi government for their brutal methods, they are secretly happy to have their own Jihadist former citizens ‘taken care of’ by the Iraqi government. BTW the paragraph I’ve quoted is a few thousand words deep in the article. First, you are made sure to hate the Iraqi government for their tyrannical court system. Normally, I would feel strong revulsion for the Iraqi courts but considering what it is to be under attack by Jihadists it is hard to imagine that it would be otherwise.

    Everyone in the west needs to know just what the black flag of Jihad is about. It guarantees that those who follow it are genocidal megalomaniacal madmen.

    Regards,

    Jim

     

    • #22
  23. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Manny (View Comment):

    Front Seat Cat (View Comment):

    Then why does the world keep calling Islam a religion of peace? Whose peace? Certainly not the Muslim woman who was burned. Is Islam a religion, or a structural system that religion is a part of? Let anyone ask this woman is there good and is there evil? Someone showed her both.

    it’s absolutely mind boggling that anyone would believe Islam is a religion of peace. Perhaps not all devout Muslims are Jihadis. But all Jihadis are devout Muslims. Islam advocates violence to achieve superiority. It’s their in their sacred texts; it’s there in the life of Mohammed.

    “Islam” means submission, not peace. Submission to the (cruel and capricious) will of Allah (not God). Allah is the god who hates (ask Wafa Sultan, who wrote the book of that title, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali). 

    C’mon, westerners! Wake up!! Cut the Kumbaya chorus. 

    • #23
  24. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Front Seat Cat (View Comment):

    Then why does the world keep calling Islam a religion of peace? Whose peace? Certainly not the Muslim woman who was burned. Is Islam a religion, or a structural system that religion is a part of? Let anyone ask this woman is there good and is there evil? Someone showed her both.

    it’s absolutely mind boggling that anyone would believe Islam is a religion of peace. Perhaps not all devout Muslims are Jihadis. But all Jihadis are devout Muslims. Islam advocates violence to achieve superiority. It’s their in their sacred texts; it’s there in the life of Mohammed.

    “Islam” means submission, not peace. Submission to the (cruel and capricious) will of Allah (not God). Allah is the god who hates (ask Wafa Sultan, who wrote the book of that title, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali).

    C’mon, westerners! Wake up!! Cut the Kumbaya chorus.

    Your words of wisdom are too late for these two young blonde Scandinavian women …

    • #24
  25. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Columbo (View Comment):

    James Gawron (View Comment):

    Yehoshua,

    This is a very timely piece you’ve posted. There is a resurgence of what I would call sympathy for the Jihadists afloat. The same people who supported the Arab Spring, took for granted Obama calling ISIS the junior varsity, and made the rules of engagement so strict that all of the bombings were useless are now crying about the poor Jihadists.

    Here is a real report about the poor Jihadists.

    ISIS RETURN: Islamic State kill 700 in terror horror – 5000 jihadists holed up in Syria

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that Islamic State militants had executed nearly 700 prisoners in nearly two months in eastern Syria. The UK-based war monitoring group said the prisoners were among 1,350 civilians and fighters that Islamic State had been holding in territory near the Iraqi border.

    …Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate has crumbled after different offensives across Iraq and Syria, though its fighters still operate in the desert border region and mount attacks.

    It comes as more than 200 mass graves containing the remains of thousands of people have been discovered in Iraq in areas formerly under the control of Islamic State (ISIS) militants according to the United Nations.

    So while Europeans still make their hyper-tolerant claims and blame the Iraqi government for their brutal methods, they are secretly happy to have their own Jihadist former citizens ‘taken care of’ by the Iraqi government. BTW the paragraph I’ve quoted is a few thousand words deep in the article. First, you are made sure to hate the Iraqi government for their tyrannical court system. Normally, I would feel strong revulsion for the Iraqi courts but considering what it is to be under attack by Jihadists it is hard to imagine that it would be otherwise.

    Everyone in the west needs to know just what the black flag of Jihad is about. It guarantees that those who follow it are genocidal megalomaniacal madmen.

    Regards,

    Jim

    Columbo,

    Just like old times.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #25
  26. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    iWe (View Comment):

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):
    I would say that the quiet practitioners of Islam are not true Moslems. The core belief of Islam is that infidels must die.

    I would say that it is not for US to tell THEM who is a true muslim.

    After all we would both bridle at anyone who defines Judaism for us. And rightly so.

    Why must we make such a distinction when the written works of the Prophet tell all what Islam is? Why not act on that since that is what they say they go by?

    • #26
  27. dnewlander Inactive
    dnewlander
    @dnewlander

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    iWe (View Comment):

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):
    I would say that the quiet practitioners of Islam are not true Moslems. The core belief of Islam is that infidels must die.

    I would say that it is not for US to tell THEM who is a true muslim.

    After all we would both bridle at anyone who defines Judaism for us. And rightly so.

    Why must we make such a distinction when the written works of the Prophet tell all what Islam is? Why not act on that since that is what they say they go by?

    Well, for one, because those works are both contradictory and say that it’s okay to lie.

    Second, because according to Islam, any translation of the Koran or the Hadith from Arabic is, ipso facto, incorrect. So we basically have to take them at their word, or learn Arabic.

    • #27
  28. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    dnewlander (View Comment):
    Second, because according to Islam, any translation of the Koran or the Hadith from Arabic is, ipso facto, incorrect.

    Uh, how is it then that someone can read it in Arabic and then tell me what it says in English and expect that to be acceptable? Isn’t that a translation? They set this up, I don’t have to accommodate that. I don’t see how what you stated can help resolve this.

    • #28
  29. dnewlander Inactive
    dnewlander
    @dnewlander

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    dnewlander (View Comment):
    Second, because according to Islam, any translation of the Koran or the Hadith from Arabic is, ipso facto, incorrect.

    Uh, how is it then that someone can read it in Arabic and then tell me what it says in English and expect that to be acceptable? Isn’t that a translation? They set this up, I don’t have to accommodate that. I don’t see how what you stated can help resolve this.

    Well, that’s the thing. Unless you speak Arabic and have read the Koran and all the Hadith (and figured out which parts of which supersede the other), you have to depend on someone else’s translation. And since they’ve already admitted it’s not only “okay” but required to lie to “infidels”, there’s no way you should ever consider the word of a Mohammedan to be “acceptable”.

    • #29
  30. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    iWe (View Comment):

    I hate to be a squish, but there ARE forms of Islam that have no radicals, and while they may be quieter, it stops me from condemning all practitioners.

    Indeed, the whole “guilt cultures vs shame cultures” has quite a lot to do with this as well – which means that Islamic Supremacy is part – but not all – of the problem.

    As I mentioned before, the post-poners, the Ahmadiyya and some variants of Sufism are peaceful versions of Islam. Those sects are hated and discriminated against in Islamic societies. Mainstream Islam, even if it isn’t violent, is supremacist. 

    • #30
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