Palestinian leader acknowledges the Holocaust in deeply anti-Semitic remarks.

Check out the story at this link: Abbas says Jews' behavior, not anti-Semitism, caused the Holocaust

I want to subject this incident to a bit of analysis. It is very interesting for a number of reasons.

1.     On the most superficial level his remarks are a window into what he and his collaborators in the PA and the PLO and related organizations really believe, or are prepared to say they believe in order to foster the basest resentment against Israel (=Israelis). The religious animus toward Jews runs deep in Islam and inevitably manifests in modern semi-secular pan-Arabism as well. It strikes a chord of resentment whenever desperate Arab politicians need to whip some up.

2.     Additionally, he wants to drive a wedge between Jews and the land of Israel by suggesting that Askenazim have no cultural ties to the land - one supposes in contrast to the Sephardim who have lived in the vicinity and in the Arab world forever. So, it is a an attempt to inject racism into the discussion - to make a distinction between Arab Jews and European (Caucasian) Jews. It is the European Jews who were persecuted and there are (good?) reasons for that.

If you are part of the common folk living in the middle east this could make sense to you. You see the social world primarily in tribal terms overlaid with race, religion and culture - us versus them. So identifying the Ashkenazim as alien Europeans may have some populist traction. (The attempt to deny any connection between Ashkenazi Jews and the land of Israel - a common feature of the Palestinian narrative, supported by the likes of UNESCO - is repeated in his remarks. Given the cultural components of 2,000 years of Jewish history the patent absurdity of this is obvious to people in the west, or familiar with that history. But it is totally lost on his intended audience, for whom it is just one more reason to hate.)

Ironically, there are internal contradictions in this narrative. It undermines the claim that the Ashenazi settlers (pre-1948) were instruments of European colonization. Were they both victims of the Europeans and their nefarious colonial allies? But this is a point for the western analysts and carries absolutely no weight in diluting the poison Abbas is hoping to brew. Populism is full of contradictory ideas.

3.     The remarks are interesting insofar as they seem to confirm the Holocaust. Absurdly this is used against the Jews in the sense that it can be explained by the resentment caused by their 'social functions' as greedy usurious bankers and financiers (talk about obnoxious stereotypes). So, it is not because of their religion that they were targeted, but because of their social function. Abbas apparently thinks, or wants other to think that he thinks, that this is a distinction with a moral difference. What an ingenious twist this is. The Holocaust is used as evidence of the obnoxiousness of the Jews who were responsible for colonizing Arab lands.

4.     Finally, what is left of the argument that it is possible to be anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian without being anti-Jewish? Well, yes, of course it is, in theory. By which I mean, there is a logic that distinguishes criticism of the aims and actions of the Zionists (focusing on the effects it had on the local residents) that is not anti-Jewish in substance or intent. Close examination suggests, that while this is true, it is wrong, or contradictory. I say this because such arguments focus on the allegation that the pre-1948 Zionist settlers coercively displaced the rightful owners of their land where they settled, and this is simply just not true. There were instances of ambiguous ownership. But there was no concerted and coercive effort to displace the local Arab population, which in any case was sparsely settled and very small in numbers. In fact, large number of Arabs migrated into the area as a result of the Jewish settlements and the economic opportunities that they created. The East European Jewish settlers had no government behind them to carry out any kind of ethnic cleansing. In fact, it was the Arab Islamist/pan-Arab movements who had the support of the British, pandering for the sake of oil, who tried to keep out Jewish immigrants and drive settlers from the land. So, yes, it is possible to separate anti-Zionist from anti-Jewish, but one needs first to get the facts right, and then one needs to push the argument in universal terms and not apply double standards to the alleged Zionist colonists. The fact that, in practice, such arguments are both based on gross ignorance and employ double standards, invites the perception of bias of one sort or another.

But in the case of Abbas, there is no ambiguity. For him and his friends there is no difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish. So much is clear from these recent remarks. One need only inquire of him whether Jews will be able to live in the Palestinian state that is the object of the two-state solution he claims to support.

In short, given the scrutiny they deserve, these remarks should put paid to any doubt about the chances of such a solution and where the obstacles to it really lie. That they will not be given such scrutiny in the western media or by the vocal leftist critics of Israel is clear. But some people may notice and begin to wonder.

Jonathan Sacks selling the belief in God

On my Facebook recently I linked to this important and inspiring address to the parliament of the EU by Jonathan Sacks – former chief rabbi of the UK, now a prominent, highly respected international commentator. I agree with pretty much every word of that address. It exposes the lie of those who claim to be anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic – the polite hypocrisy of Europe’s leftist intellectuals. I very much admire Sacks’s intelligence, courage and communication skills. But this blog is about something else – a criticism that I have of another aspect of his work, a mild criticism, but one I feel compelled to register.

Johnathan Sacks was educated as a philosopher in the world’s most prestigious universities. He obtained his Ph.D. at Cambridge studying under the eminent philosopher Bernard Williams. He also studied philosophy at Oxford and Kings College, London. One may certainly expect that he have a deep understanding of the logical rigors of philosophical discourse. This is part of the reason I found a recent book of his so disturbing. I refer to his The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning, published in 2011, and widely admired. I think the book is deeply flawed.

Originally I intended to critically review the book, examining its contents in detail in the review. But, I now think that this is unnecessary and, in any case, might strike the wrong tone. The problem with the book, and with related work and pronouncements by Sacks, can be summed up by clarifying and exposing just one basic logical flaw, and that is the purpose of this blog.

As I interpret him, Sacks’s position (in this book and in many other places) can be summed up in two separate propositions. The propositions are not actually related, but he makes it seem as if they are.

1. There is no contradiction between religion and science– hence no contradiction between religion and modernity.
2. We need religion to keep modern societies from imploding.

Both might be valid propositions, and I believe they are if, but only if, the second is interpreted in a very different way from the way that Sacks intends it.However, he then proceeds, mostly implicitly, to a third proposition

      3. Therefore we should embrace religion – we should embrace its beliefs and its rituals.

Number 3 is already clear from the Introduction in his book, where he attacks the “new atheists’. “It makes sense to believe in God” (11). And chapter 14 (entitled "Why God?"), to which this refers, is an extended argument for believing in God.

My point in this blog is simply that proposition number 3 is nonsense. Or, more accurately, it is arguing in a nonsensical circle. So now I explain.

Consider proposition 1. Indeed, there is no contradiction between science and religion, as long as religion is understood to be about one’s values, about what one believes is right and wrong, good and bad. A religious person believes that these values come from that entity we call God. It is one of a set of deontological belief systems, systems that are grounded in fundamental beliefs taken to be revealed to us somehow and that are not open to question – they are treated as self-evidently true, whether we feel able to explain them in terms of some other values or not. They are the values we appeal to when considering what ought to be done, or how we ought to act in any given situation. But, and this is important, being fundamental, we believe them because we believe them, not because we can justify them in terms of some other value we believe. If we believe they are God’s words that is enough for us.

Science has essentially nothing to do with this, unless we are talking about the facts of revelation and affirming or disputing these facts. It is clear that beliefs about revelation by the faithful are pretty much insulated from critical scientific examination. There are foolproof methods for reconciling these beliefs with any scientific finding. God could have put the fossils there to make us think they were millions of years old being one example. So, these matters aside, science is about how the world works, about what the consequences of any action will be. Religion is about what we ought to do. Science is about how things are. Religion is about how they ought to be. These are entirely separate matters. They operate in different realms. As David Hume pointed out a long time ago, you cannot get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. Ought statements are normative statements. Is statements are positive statements. To know what to do, we need both. We need the empirical discoveries of science to inform us about the consequences of our actions and we need some way of deciding which consequences are good, bad or ugly; that is, we need some way of evaluating consequences.

In that sense, Sacks may be right, religion and science are partners. But, being right, he is not original. As a philosopher he certainly knows that Hume made this abundantly clear. And Sacks’s treatment is definitely inferior and more obscure than Hume’s. But that is not the real problem. The real problem is that he proceeds to confuse matters more with propositions number 2 and 3.

Proposition 2 is a positive statement. That is, it is a statement about how the world works, not about how it should work. It is an assertion about reality. What is this assertion? Sacks sees Europe and many other parts of the world caught in moral decline. He sees the miraculous European civilization, the result of centuries of painful social evolution, as slowly decaying, the reemergence of anti-Semitism being a prominent, but only one, manifestation of this. And he diagnoses this as the result of a “loss of religion”. Religious belief provides secure moral boundaries, a framework for moral action that guards against excess and profligacy. It is well known that modern Europeans are often openly hostile to religion, to its practice and to its influence in any form. They revere the anti-religious secular state. Sacks sees this as the key problem.

As I intimated above, I think, in one sense, he is right. I think he is right in thinking that belief in the secular state is the problem. This belief is responsible for the erection of the European welfare-state with punitive taxes, ubiquitous regulation, and high levels of dependence on state-sponsored services. It has, as Sacks notes, encouraged the erosion of individual accountability and responsibility for the consequences of individual actions. It has blunted incentives for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Where one might differ with Sacks of course is in diagnosing why this has happened. Certainly it is a kind of idolatry – a belief in the supernatural powers of the state government fueled by the good intentions of powerful individuals, and a loss of belief in spontaneous (external) supra-individual processes. It is a fatal conceit to think that powerful individuals can achieve a social utopia. And, certainly, a belief in God as usually understood, might have prevented this conceit (though, judging by liberation theology, it might not have). But, more fundamentally surely, the problem is a loss of belief in the sanctity of individual property rights under a universal rule of law. If you want to call that belief a “religion” then we can agree with proposition 2. We certainly need renewed faith in the values of classical liberalism (and these include the separation of religion and state, the right of individuals to practice their religions peacefully) if we are to arrest the economic and social decline of European civilization. He seems to come close to this when he realizes that Christianity is a force for freedom, but only when it is not an instrument of a powerful state (witness the Inquisition and the Crusades).

It is proposition 3, as I suggested, that is the real problem. This is a normative statement, but a complex one. It is a recommendation, a prescription for “action”. But, it is complicated by the fact that it is predicated on a prior positive statement. It is what we call an “if … then” statement – to wit – if proposition 2 is true, then proposition 3 follows. So, if it is true that a loss of “religion” is what  explains the European decay, says Sacks, then to reverse this we need to reintroduce religion – reestablish religious beliefs and the enervating discipline that comes with them.

There are multiple problems with this. The least is the meaning of “religion” as already explained. We can leave that aside – although clearly Sacks would probably not agree that secular classical liberal convictions are the necessary and sufficient elements we seek.

More important is the structure of this proposition. It is a call to believe, because belief is good. You see the problem? How do we know belief in God is good? What is the standard by which we judge here? If we know what is good because of what God tells us, then we are saying nothing more than we ought to believe in God because God says so, which makes no sense. It assumes you already believe in God.

But that is not what Sacks means. He means we should believe in God because then we are more likely to get the kind of society we want. In other words he is justifying this belief on consequentialist grounds. He is saying belief in God is good because it brings good consequences (will prevent the moral decay of society). But hang on, how do we know what “moral decay” is? Don’t we already need to believe in God for that so that we can consult his revealed word to determine that? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim that belief in God is the basis of all other moral beliefs and argue that we ought to belief in God because it is more likely to give us what we already believe is desirable.

Let me put it another way. I am an agnostic on matters of cosmology. There are things that appear to me to be beyond our knowledge and comprehension. But I do not believe in revelation – there is nothing in any revelation story that is even remotely persuasive to me. Certainly I do believe in certain values as self-evidently true. I do believe in the values of classical liberalism, in the autonomy of all individuals, and equality before the law, etc. This belief is a combination of simple intuition (deontological) and consequential (it brings the kind of society I prefer – which also has an empirical (positive) component to it). Sacks is saying to me, if you want to stem the moral decay of Europe then believe in God and support others embracing that belief. How ridiculous is this? How does one suddenly decide to believe something that one doesn’t believe? Of course, one can pretend to believe and act as if one believes, perform the rituals, etc. Is this what he wants? What exactly does he mean by “Why God?”?

Belief is not the direct result of a choice, of an action. One cannot choose at any moment to consciously believe what one does not believe. One can choose to keep an open mind, to resolve to examine rival claims and assertions no matter how unlikely they may seem. But, surely one should do this anyway, as a result of belief in productive scholarly discourse.

In the final analysis Sacks’s arguments on this are sadly, and surely unforgivably, given his impeccable qualifications, incoherent.

What does the wicked son really say?

According to the traditional Passover text, the Hagada (the telling), there are four sons who ask questions about the Passover seder (order, the traditional ritual meal at which the Hagada is read), as follows:

The Torah refers to four sons: One wise, one wicked, one simple and one who does not know how to ask a question. What does the wise son say? "What are the testimonials, statutes and laws Hashem [the name] our God commanded you?" You should tell him about the laws of Pesach, that one may eat no dessert after eating the Pesach offering.

What does the wicked son say? "What does this drudgery mean to you?" To you and not to him. Since he excludes himself from the community, he has denied a basic principle of Judaism. You should blunt his teeth by saying to him: "It is for the sake of this that Hashem (God) did for me when I left Egypt. For me and not for him. If he was there he would not have been redeemed."

What does the simple son say? "What's this?" You should say to him "With a strong hand Hashem took me out of Egypt, from the house of servitude."

And the one who does not know how to ask, you start for him, as the Torah says: "And you should tell your son on that day, saying 'It is for the sake of this that Hashem did for me when I left Egypt.'"

There are many creative commentaries on this within the tradition. The sons are, of course, meant to refer to four different temperaments or attitudes.  The wicked son is seen as a threat. He has a really bad attitude, his skepticism is dangerous. He needs to be brought to heel or banished. Here is an example.

"The wicked son's 'question' is merely rhetorical - it deserves no response at all. Yet, the one who does not know how to ask is sitting at the table listening to the wicked son's remarks. He's in danger of being influenced. Therefore, our response to the wicked son is to say to the one who doesn't even know how to ask: "Don't be influenced by his smug cynicism. Had he been in Egypt, he would not have been redeemed. He is cutting himself off from the eternity of the Jewish people."(http://ohr.edu/805).

But actually, I have it on good authority, that the wicked son was not so wicked at all and was really trying to open up a searching dialogue based on some very deep-seated reservations and doubts which troubled him. What appears above as his question is actually just a very short extract of the end of his true question (or series of related questions). This text, hitherto suppressed, has been discovered and I can present it to you in its entirety. His so-called question has to be understood in the context of the whole text. [Of course I cannot reveal my source].

_________________________________________________________________________________

So, the Jews are enslaved in Egypt. They face an evil Pharoh. Moses shakes him up, but God “hardens  his heart“ so that time and again he refuses to let the Israelites go in spite of the increasing severity of the plagues. Why does God harden Pharoh’s heart? Does this mean it is not Pharoh’s fault? After all, he has no choice – God controls his heart. So why is he the bad one? And what about the collateral damage? How are the poor Egyptian first born sons to blame? Why are they punished, they are just kids? Come to think of it, since it is God who is pulling all the strings, why did God allow the Israelites to become slaves in the first place?

Of course, this brings up the whole question of free-will and how to reconcile it with God’s all-embracing power and goodness. You will say to me that these are unanswerable questions not relevant when talking about God. God is outside of human time and morality and has his own grand plan that we mere mortals cannot possibly understand. Ok, but why then are we encouraged to ask questions, especially during the seder. Does God want us to be curious, and to have our curiosity satisfied or not? Seems to me you can’t have it both ways.

If one believes in a good and merciful God, it makes more sense to me to conclude that he cannot be all-powerful (HT: Rabbi Harold Kushner). Some things are beyond his control and he empathizes with those who suffer. In which case why go through the all those parts in the Hagada that seem to deny this. After all, what does this drudgery mean to you?

Addendum to "Rosh Hashana and the Jewish Atheist"

See Rosh Hashana and the Jewish Atheist.

You cannot replace God with Science - don't try.

Sam Harris is at it again. For those who don't know him, Harris is an American neuroscientist best known for his critical work on religion. In his books The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation he provides devastating critiques of traditional religious beliefs. Though not new, his arguments are candid and compelling - at least to me. Reading his work (like the work of his fellow "New Atheists," Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett) leaves me wondering about two "mysteries" of life.

Mystery number 1 is how on earth reasonable people can believe the types of things claimed by the teachings of the traditional religions. I am talking factual things, not moral truths, like the stories of creation, revelation, miracles, etc. when the evidence and common sense is so compellingly against such things. I suppose I don't really expect to get a satisfying answer to this question. The explanation probably lies in the cognitive-emotional makeup of human beings. Which begs the question, why do some believe so fervently and others think that it is all nonsense and superstition? Leave that aside.

Mystery number 2 arises out of the realization that while the "answers" given by traditional religion may be patently unsatisfactory, or, actually, not really answers at all, no good answers to the "big" questions exist. There are many things in heaven and on earth that remain unknown, and perhaps unknowable. The ratio of what we know to what we don't know about what there is to know, might be pathetically low. This would not be surprising to me. And about the really "big" questions I imagine there can never be an answer. "How was the universe created?" or more accurately, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" or more mundanely, "From where does matter come?" are questions that tease us but whose coherence may be in doubt. They suggest some sort of transcendent infinite regress. I am content to say "I don't know, nobody knows, we will probably never know."

So much for the New Atheism. But Harris is not content to confine his argument to a penetrating critique of pretended knowledge. He also wants to attack the morality of religion. On some of this I find his arguments quite reasonable. Some religious teachings strike us "reasonable" folks as simply medieval. However, as I have explained before, here, what Harris fails to realize is that this kind of criticism, criticism of moral values, is of a whole different category from criticism of factual beliefs. Morals belong to the world of tastes and values informing us about how the world ought to be; factual beliefs belong to the world of facts informing us about how the world is. These are categorically different. As the British philosopher David Hume taught us, you cannot get an "ought" from an "is." You cannot decide how things ought to be simply by looking at how they are. Matters of value are different from matters of fact. "Harry is a thief" may be a fact. "Harry ought to be punished" is not. And the second sentence does not follow from the first without the insertion of some personal judgment.

Roughly the last third of The End of Faith is devoted to the futile exercise of trying to deduce morals from "scientific" facts. And now Harris has written a whole new book on this: The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. Notice the subtitle. It is a straight-out denial of Hume's distinction between facts and values. How does he do it? With a very clumsy slight of hand, that is how.

He begins by equating morality to that which fosters "well-being" - since deep down everyone believes that we should be concerned about well-being. Hence if you find the scientific determinants of well-being you can find a scientific basis for morality! QED. One can use the objective filter of science to determine what is moral and what is not on the basis of the effect of various behaviors on well-being. Simply examine the states of people's brains under different conditions to find out what makes them "happy" and you can write the book on a scientific morality - as he perceives himself to have done.

It is clear from his references and sources, that in addition to work on neuroscience, Harris relies on work in what has been called Behavioral Economics. This includes recent work on so-called "happiness research" and the "new paternalism." Using laboratory methods (simulated realities with volunteers) these researchers claim to be able to discern enduring truths about human perception and decision-making. Maybe they can. Its what follows that is often problematic in the extreme. For example, from the observation that people often seem to make what the experimenter knows to be irrational decisions - because they are inconsistent (dependent on the way the decision problem is framed) or because they are clearly against the subjects' self interest, these behavioral economists would like to make paternalistic laws to guide people in their own interests to make "better" decisions. Science has become God and he wants to put Big Brother in charge. (see for example here.)

Harris's project is flawed before it gets started - it has two major flaws. 1. "well-being" is an amorphous, non-scientific concept. It is a futile attempt to objectify the subjective. We don't know and cannot know what it is that people "really want." To presume we do is to court extreme dangers of moral coercion; depriving people of moral autonomy. 2. Even if we could somehow determine what well-being is for each and every human being, we cannot assume that what enhances well-being is automatically moral. This is to illegitimately ignore the fact-value distinction. I mean one can make this assertion - that morality is simply the enhancement of well-being - but it is a lame assertion based simply on itself and nothing else but the belief that everyone would agree with it. I don't.

What supreme irony! To start a project aimed at dethroning dogmatic belief systems only to end up peddling another - one just as dangerous.

Can Israel be Jewish and a Liberal Democracy?

The article linked below is not a very good defense of Israel as a Jewish state. I think it can be stated much more simply.

Is the idea of an official religion for a nation-state consistent with pure liberal democracy (libertarian values)?

I think the answer is definitely "no." (Of course, the whole idea of a nation-state may not be consistent with this ideal anyway. Libertarians don't like the idea of any collectives, like "nation." But they exist nevertheless.) Hence America, and some other liberal democracies, strive mightily to strike a neutral position on religion - making it a matter of private choice and practice as long as their adherents do not act coercively.

But this option is simply not on the table in the Middle East. Without exception every nation-state in the Middle East has an official religion, and except for Israel it is Islam. And, in every respect, without exception, Israel is closer to the liberal democratic ideal than any of its neighbors and enemies - the gap is enormous. To push a "peace-process" that results in a single, secular Israel-Palestinian state, is, as a practical matter, to place all of the Jews in Israel, (and many around the world) in grave danger.

There is ample evidence to indicate that this is no mere pretext. It is an essential part of Israel's character (as a nation, a set of institutional and cultural practices) that it has been, and continues to be, a safe-haven and a guardian for Jews everywhere. The vast majority of Jews now living in Israel came there, or descend from relatives who came there, from places where they were persecuted, often fleeing for their very lives. This is not a mere donning of the posture of victimhood, so common among other minorities, for political reasons. Israel asks for nothing except to be left alone in its tiny piece of real estate. It can fend for itself. It needs no "affirmative action."

Before we self-righteously push for a "peace-process" that results in a secular, Israel-Palestine, or even a secular Israel, we should demand the secularization and democratization of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the rest of them.

Douglas J. Feith: Can Israel Be Jewish and Democratic? - WSJ.com

In The Wall Street Journal, Douglas J. Feith of the Hudson Institute writes that many nations have laws and practices that recognize their majority group's history, language or religion while also protecting the rights of minorities.

Israel-Palestine - the key is economic, the barrier is religious.

The Israeli-Palestinian talks seem destined to collapse. The ostensible reason for the collapse is Israel's refusal to block the resumption of construction of "settlements" on the West Bank and in east Jerusalem. But I seriously doubt that this is the case. This is not the essence of the differences between Israel and the Palestinians.

As I have stated many times, Israel did not create the Palestinian problem and Israel cannot solve it. The essence of the problem is the existence of a Jewish state in the heart of the Middle East. Israel is an affront, an unacceptable insult, to both Arab national aspirations/self esteem and religious precepts (it is a Muslim imperative that no infidel may rule land once ruled by a Muslim governmental authority). In the last few decades it is the latter that has become much more important. But both are really smokescreens in the service of realpolitik. The Arab dictators of the area, and Arab and Muslim dictators further afield, use the "Palestinian cause" to deflect attention away from their own corruption and despotic rule - for their failure to modernize and liberalize their economies. The Palestinians are pawns in the hands of outside rulers who are dictators, religious fanatics, or both. The Saudis top the list. A true peace with Israel would deprive them of this.

Of course, it does not help matters that Israel is so monumentally successful and a democracy to boot. For those convinced that Israel is the problem, this simply multiplies the insults by widening the economic and cultural-political gap. By a curious stretch of logic, if Israelis are doing so well it must be because the Palestinians are suffering so much.

But, not all Palestinians are so bitter or so naive. Many see in Israel a mirror of their own possibilities, and the West Bank economy is now growing rapidly, in part owing to employment supplied by the expanding settlements.

For the record: I condemn the use of public money for the construction of any private buildings or settlements wherever they may be - in Palestine or in New Jersey. And I condemn the religious fanaticism that claims land on the basis of a biblical promise and uses political power to divert funds to its cause. There should be no doubt where I stand on this. But, as I understand it, these are not the central objections to the settlements by those who blame Israel. Rather they see any Jewish settlement as a form of "occupation" and seem to think that if only the "occupation" could be ended, peace could be achieved. This view is as dangerous as it is wrong.

The settlements are a mixed bag. I don't know how much state funding lies behind them, but all-in-all the settlers constitute a population of about 300,000 - a tiny minority among the 2.5 million Palestinians. By all accounts they are industrious and productive. If they are financed by the Israeli taxpayer (or international Jewish donations) they are a gift to both the settlers and the Palestinians. In any future Palestinian state, a peaceful neighbor with Israel, the status of Jewish people living there will have to be determined. Will Jews be able to live as peacefully in Palestine as the million Arab Israelis do in Israel. If not, why not? And if not, then that is no real peace. Assuming they are, and depending where the borders are drawn, the settlements would indeed be valuable economic models for the new state. A rational approach to real peace would not be to walk out of peace talks on this account.

If there is any hope for real peace, I believe it will have to be based on shared economic interests. The Palestinians constitute a huge labor force and a huge potential local market for both Israel and future Palestinian industry. Israeli ingenuity and technology could prove invaluable. There is an unlimited potential for mutual advantage - a substantial "peace dividend." But for this to even have a chance, religious fanaticism on both sides will have to be controlled.

Economic prosperity depends largely on economic freedom. As China and the thriving economies of the UAE illustrate, a large measure of economic freedom can exist within a politically restrictive state. Private property, honoring of contracts, the absence of price controls and oppressive economic regulation, a stable financial system, etc. are all necessary for economic growth. Political freedom, though not necessary, is also helpful in this regard. Of course, freedom is an overriding end in itself. Economic growth is of little use if the options available to consumers are severely limited, if what they can read and say are restricted. And that is why oppressive states that experience economic growth also experience tremendous pressure for political liberalization. The prime example of this is Chile.

In fact economic growth does best in liberal democracies - economies that are "democratic" in the broader sense of that word - not just politically in the sense of being able to elect representatives, but democratic in the sense of being open, free societies whose citizens possess what we understand as civil liberties, among which the most important is freedom of speech. And these liberal democracies are also secular societies, where religion is a private matter and everyone is free to practice her/his religion as long as s/he does not attempt to forcibly impose it on anyone else. There is no official religion and religious precepts ideally do not govern public life - have no expression in law.

All of the states in the Middle East have official religions. The case of Israel is ambiguous. It is the freest society in the region (and one of the freest in the world) and it affords its citizens many civil liberties. But on the matter of religion, there are violations of basic individual freedoms. The law-of-return discriminates in favor of Jews in matters of citizenship, and certain civil functions are monopolized by religious authorities - owing to the power of the orthodox Jewish political parties in the proportional representation system of election. So, marriage and funeral ceremonies must be performed by the recognized religious authorities - in the case of Jews this is the orthodox Jewish establishment; and intermarriage is effectively ruled out - interfaith couples have to leave Israel to marry!

On its face this is unacceptable to anyone who believes in civil liberties - which includes most Jews worldwide. But the politics of the situation has proven to be an immovable barrier to its reform. Breaking the monopoly of the religious right-wing to make room for more liberal denominations and, importantly, to allow for civil marriages, has been impossible. This disturbs me, but I am even more worried about another trend and what it may portend.

Israeli demographics tracks world trends. The piously religious families are the ones having lots of babies, while the secular liberals have very few. This trend will, not so gradually, erode the secular liberal component of Israeli society. In addition the worldwide renaissance in fundamentalism has affected Israeli youth as well. Religious identification in Israel is at an all time high. And because of the right-wing religious monopoly this means right-wing religious affiliation. Israelis living abroad in North America often affiliate Conservative of Reform, but no such alternative exists in Israel (these movements are tiny in Israel).

The religious population in Israel has posed numerous challenges, most of which have been successfully met by palatable compromises. Most mundanely, the religious communities receive huge subsidies so that their young men may study in Yeshivot. They also receive exemption from army service - though it is true that more and more soldiers are in fact religiously observant - it is only the anti-Zionist branches of the religious right to whom this exemption mostly applies. Jewish religious holidays are national holidays - but for most Israelis this means a day at the beach or out with the family. There have been political initiatives to try to ban such activities, most especially the driving of cars during holy days, but to date Israeli law has has upheld the principle of individual civil liberty in this regard. With increasing political power going to the religious establishments who knows how this will play out in the future?

So, projecting both the demographic and cultural trends one sees an increasing right-wing religious influence that could prove inimical to both Israel's own economic development and to the prospects of a spontaneously developing peace. Leaving it to the religious fanatics on both sides, it is easy to see, would mean continual hostility as the conflicting claims of each in matters of belief and land are simply irreconcilable. The religious constituent in Israel is the most belligerent when it comes to foreign policy.

True, a Jewish theocracy is likely to be more tolerant than a Muslim one - but were I a Muslim I would prefer neither, and moderate Muslims clearly will not and should not accept either. Both Jews and Muslims have rich histories of pragmatic commercial achievement and it is this, rather than their respective religions, that holds the greatest hope for a spontaneous evolution of peaceful coexistence. Once substantial trade and economic interaction exists the official recognition will follow. But for that to happen religious fervor on both sides must be constrained.

I don't know how strong the current momentum for mutually advantageous economic development is, but this clearly should be a conscious component of any intelligent understanding of the situation and any sensible foreign policy toward it.

Thinking about the belief in God.

Most people I know, in my rather special little community, believe in God - the supernatural variety, "old man in the sky" type god.

People who are otherwise arch-skeptics believe that the scriptures were "revealed" at Sinai in front of millions of witnesses by a supernatural god who expects us to sing his praises every day, at appointed times, and cares what we eat, or what we do between the sheets. Not to mention that since he created us, and knows all things large and small, and moreover knows what will happen in time to come, therefore also knows exactly what we will choose to eat and everything else; suggesting that it is not really our choice - we have been created to make the very choices we do. Yet we are judged by him for doing so? And if he created everything that exists, he also created evil. So how does this square with his being the perfect, "all-good" creator of the universe; implying that evil is either imagined or God is not all-good and/or all-powerful. It all seems very silly.

Of course, these are familiar well-rehearsed arguments for which no answer exists - the problems of free-will and of evil (theodicy). What surprises me is how they are so routinely ignored by so many including our media commentators of varying degrees of intelligence and erudition. An example: Dennis Praeger, arguing with Sam Harris, when challenged to justify his beliefs (in creation and revelation) answers, in effect, that he believes because he sees no viable alternative explanation for the world as we know it (a variant of the argument from order), and that, in any case, religious people are generally more moral than non-believers. I think this may take the record for the number of implicitly false syllogisms, and circular arguments, contained in a short space. Most of this stuff is just noise. But people eat it up.

Sam Harris, for his part, making the atheist's argument, makes some errors as well, that unnecessarily polarize the discussion. While his analysis of, and denunciation of, most of organized religion is compelling (at least to me), he then comes to the alternative - which is some sort of scientifically designed morality and this collapses quickly under its own weight. Let me try and explain.

I am not a philosopher, nor a theologian, but it seems to me that both those arguing for and those arguing against the belief in God make two crucial errors, namely, the pretense of knowledge and the violation of Hume's fork.

On the matter of the pretense of knowledge it seems to me foolish to deny that there are many things in this universe that we do not know, and may never know. With the science we have we can speculate about the beginning of the universe, and come up with a more or less satisfying explanation, but in the end we cannot answer the question "how was matter created?" Similar questions come to mind: "What was there before the Big Bang?" "What was there before time?" Indeed these questions do not even appear self-evidently coherent. Physics becomes metaphysics. Why should it be surprising to find out that we human-beings, even being the marvelous creatures we are, are probably very limited in what we can perceive? After all, we have only five physical senses. How many other dimensions of perception might there be? Likewise we cannot simply rule out what appears to us to be in the realm of the supernatural, or the extra-sensory. In many respects we are bound to respond simply "we do not know." (This is probably the only thing on which Bill Maher and I agree.)

The religious think they provide an answer when they say "God created the universe." A superior, indeed perfect intelligence, created these things beyond our perception and understanding. Well, what does this mean? Why do they think this is an answer? It merely provides a story with no explanation of its own. Who created God? I might as well say "its all magic." What I am actually saying when I say God created the universe is "I don't know how the universe came to be or even what that means." The religious person has no more knowledge than the pretentious scientist.

We should note in passing that belief in creation does not get us to revelation and acceptance of all the commandments allegedly revealed thereby. This requires another giant fantastical leap.

On the matter of the second crucial error, the violation of Hume's fork, David Hume argued, (for me decisively) that there are two unbridgeable realms of human discourse - the moral and the factual - the ethical and the scientific. The latter, the factual-scientific realm, concerns what is. The world is round. My weight has increased in recent years. Spain won the world cup in 2010. These are factual matters about which scientific investigation can be made. To be sure, subjective perception is still required on the way to a consensus - there is no escaping this. But, in the normal meaning of the word, these are matters of objective truth or falsity. They can be verified or (sometimes only) falsified.

The former type of discourse - the moral-ethical - is another matter completely. This concerns what ought to be (as opposed to what is) and, as Hume pithily put it, you cannot get an "ought" from an "is." "Ought" implies personal valuation and this is not a matter of verification. Good and bad, morally speaking, are not matters subject to scientific investigation. They are rather matters of personal valuation, matters of taste or moral belief. This is a type of "knowledge" completely different from factual knowledge.

To be sure, moral precepts, rules of conduct, etc. can and are influenced by facts, by circumstances. Some rules are judged good or bad in terms of their contribution to some other more ultimate good or bad. But the most ultimate, the most fundamental, values are good or bad in themselves - just because they are. It is a matter of "faith." I cannot prove that torture is bad by any scientific investigation (though I may prove that it is ineffective, which is another matter). I cannot prove that individual freedom is good, that slavery is bad. But I certainly believe they are with every fiber of my being.

Now both Harris and Praeger deny Hume's fork. Praeger believes good and bad are in the same realm as scientifically true and untrue. They are subject to God's rules in the same way that physical laws are. Its simple. If God wants it, it is good. If God does not want it, it is evil and we can investigate this in the scripture. (Problem: as Harris points out; how do you know which scripture is the valid one?).

Harris believes that we can use logic and fact to fashion a superior morality - that we can derive morals from science and logic.

Both are wrong.

The truth is more simple and less polarizing.

One: We don't know many things. We should loudly proclaim this.
How was the world created?
I don't know and nor do you?

Two: We all employ a type of "faith" to decide how to behave.
The religious seem to think that this is more arbitrary than asserting some kind of revelation - that a morality based on a revealed scripture is less subjective than resort to individual conscience.
Newsflash: Conscience is all we have in matters of morality. For some their conscience tells them to obey the revealed word, for others it tells them the revealed word is sometimes contrary to morality. You have to decide what you really believe. And, belief is not a matter of simple choice. Sometimes I wish I could believe in a system of revealed laws proclaimed by an infallible leader and savior. I can pretend that I do, but I cannot simply choose to. You can't believe what you don't believe. And what you do believe about morality, about good and bad, is always a matter of individual "faith."

Americans, being pragmatic, have sometimes unconsciously taken this realization and molded it into organized religion. The rules, rituals, festivals, and aesthetics of received religion have been retained, but their significance has morphed from the literal into the symbolic in the service of community coherence - the practice of compassion, charity, celebration, and comfort. Revelation itself is seen as a symbol for some sort of "inner revelation" - the conscience talking to us.

This approach creates a wide tent. Is it wide enough to accommodate the likes of both Harris and Praeger?

For similar musings see here and here.

Rosh Hashanah and the Jewish Atheist

In the immortal words of Joan Rivers, let's talk:

I must confess that I enjoy the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur shul services – and also Shabbat. I admit also that I love opera (well at least Italian and French opera). Apart from making me appear weird, what do these two things have in common?

Consider the Jewish religious texts, including the prayer books. It seems to me they comprise the most indigenous Jewish literature that we have. Though composed over many centuries, as we contemplate them today, they constitute an organic network of linked artistic achievement. Take the Machzor for example (Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur prayer book). This can be appreciated as an amazing work of art replete with poetry (including ingenious alphabetical acrostics and soaring metaphors), beautiful traditional prose verse and multiple allusions and connections to the Jewish experience throughout the ages. It is a carefully structured script, in numerous acts and sub-acts, for a yearly performance, a playing out of a hypothesized interaction between the Jews and their God, and between the Jews themselves. Every year the text is the same (save for minor insertions or omissions), yet every year we can approach it anew. No matter how many times I see La Boehme, or Madame Butterfly, I enjoy it every time – same music, same libretto, different arrangement, different tempo, different sets, different experience.

The Rosh-Hashanah-Yom-Kippur service is its own art-form. And it too can be enjoyed every time it is repeated. I appreciate the music, mostly in the form of East-European cantoral-choir music, if available, but also in the form of congregational communal singing. The music is evocative of shared memories, the harmonies are pleasing to the ear and the melodies provoke the closest thing to a religious experience I am capable of. Truth be told, it is the same feeling I have when listening to a sublime operatic performance. For me the parallel is exact.

But it is not only the music. The poetry and the text are fascinating and intricate. There are riches to be mined beyond the energy to do so – enough for a lifetime. One can appreciate the confluence of music and text when one listens to a chazzan singing the verses with complete understanding of the significance of each word in its context. But to do so one must have the background knowledge. Jewish education is as much about artistic appreciation as about theology.

I face multiple objections to this viewpoint. Both the Jewish fundamentalists (those who are literal believers) and the modern interpreters (who attach nuances to revelation) object to the "reduction" of a Jewish service to mere artistic expression. Many congregations have banished the art of the chazzan and the choir, feeling that a religious service should not be a "performance" – that, in admiring the virtuosity of the performers, one might be distracted from the overriding religious purpose of the service.

I have never found these objections persuasive – partly because I do not share their religious beliefs, but, also, partly because I believe that they involve a false dichotomy. One need not choose between the admiration of artistic virtuosity and religious fervor and sincerity. One can and should combine them. A very close lifelong friend of mine is a world-class chazzan, choir-master, arranger and song-writer – born to a Chasidic family. During his long and wonderful career as a chazzan, he would often introduce new melodies into the service, from the operatic and Broadway musical world, in addition to the wonderful, but now familiar, Carlebach fare. And he sometimes faced indignant protest and the suggestion that this bordered on blasphemy. His response was emphatic. If the music of the Phantom of the Opera could be used to display the grandeur of God, if it could provoke people to an appreciation of the wonders of this world, how could it be blasphemous to use it in that way? If it were not for him I would never have had much appreciation for the Jewish liturgy.

Still, I will not deny that art and religion are different things. The truly religious, if he appreciates the use of artistic expression in a religious context, sees it as being in the service of religion. I see it as art for its own sake. The appreciative experience of a thing of beauty is, for me, its own justification.

But not so fast! Consider this. Can we not see a connection between artistic expression and the human condition – between art and conscience? What makes us essentially human is our capacity for self-reflection. We do not merely observe. We observe and contemplate, we seek meaning in things. You can probably learn much about the nature of a person by observing what they enjoy, what they appreciate, what they find poignant in a poem, what kind of stories move them to tears. Morality and art are inextricably linked.

Which brings me to an old refrain of mine. We Jews like to claim all manor of morality from our tradition. So, for the fundamentalist Jew, looking to the vengeful and exacting God of Genesis, God is a right wing conservative. For the majority of the rest of the Jews, looking to the prophets and their preoccupation with "social justice," he is a modern "liberal" – the Democratic Party variety. (For me he would obviously be a classical liberal, a libertarian who understood the value of liberty and free markets). Did God create us or did we create him?

In any event, when Keats said, "Truth is beauty, beauty truth, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know" I think he was talking about more than aesthetics as simple sensual experience. When challenged on the inconsistency of my secular beliefs with my synagogue attendance, I am tempted to reply: "It's the aesthetics stupid." Yes, it is aesthetics, but its not just aesthetics, where aesthetics is understood as a limitation. I think aesthetics is a big deal. A work of art is something we can all appreciate and enjoy together.

This reminds me of a story that I am fond of repeating.

• Mr. Cohen's son: Dad, how come you go to shul?
• Mr. Cohen: What kind of a question is that?
• Mr. Cohen's son: I know you are a non-believer, an atheist, an agnostic, or whatever; so why would you go to shul?
• Mr. Cohen: Goldberg goes to shul.
• Mr. Cohen's Son: So what? What kind of an answer is that?
• Mr. Cohen: Goldberg goes to shul to talk to God, I go to shul to talk to Goldberg!

Some of my non-Jewish friends have misunderstood this story. They think it means that Cohen cynically talks to Goldberg about business (interesting interpretation!). Of course, what it really means is that Cohen likes to be among friends with whom he has centuries of tradition and much modern experience in common. He is far from cynical. He is affirming the value of friendship, of community and the enjoyment of beautiful things together.

Jews in South Africa - The Fundamentalist Turn

Having just returned from a short visit to South Africa, to celebrate a traditional Jewish wedding, I find myself thinking about the Jewish experience in South Africa, from the origins of the Jewish community until the present.

The last thirty years or so have been characterized by a fundamentalist turn in the South African Jewish community. What is this all about and how do we feel about it?

The extent of this shift is debatable. To me it seems very significant in scope, especially among the young. This mirrors developments in other parts of the world. Jewish communities in America, for example, have experienced a decline in the number affiliating Conservative and an increase in the numbers affiliated Reform and the various branches of Orthodoxy, especially Chabad and the Haredi outreach groups like Or-Sameach and Aish-Hatorah. But the latter movement, toward Orthodox affiliation, is dwarfed by the numbers in Reform and the numbers opting out of Jewish identification altogether through intermarriage or disinterest. Orthodoxy remains a small minority among American Jews (maybe around ten percent). In Europe, where these denominations do not really exist, the number of Orthodox has likewise increased, but not as fast as those assimilating. In Israel there has been a noticeable increase in Orthodox affiliators, and an increase in overall religiosity, allowing for the development of Conservadox alternatives, like the Shir-Chadash synagogue of the Shalom Institute of Rabbi David Hartman in Jerusalem.

In South Africa, where Reform has always been tiny, and Conservative Judaism non-existent, the shift has been from the unique variant of South African Orthodoxy, that developed in the generation after the first main Jewish immigration, to some variant of strict Orthodoxy, like Chabad or some other black-hat type. So the shift has been almost exclusively to the right, that is, out of the center toward more stringent Orthodoxy – in contrast to the U.S.

The reasons for this shift are also debatable. Most likely the uncertainties of the South African situation (high crime, rapidly changing demographics and technologies, economic fluctuations) have something to do with it. The revealed word provides a source of unchanging comfort for many. More specifically, the precipitous and ongoing decline in the size of the South African Jewish community (from a peak of about 120,000 to around 50,000!) may be a cause as well. Emigration tends to be selective, and perhaps the more secular are also more mobile. The matter awaits more scientific scrutiny.

Whatever the reasons, however, it is real and it has completely changed the character of the Jewish community.

The founding immigration to South Africa occurred from about 1890 – 1930, overwhelmingly from Lithuania. These were mainstream, non-Chassidic, Litvaks. Many of them were religious, like my grandfather. But, very soon their children faced hard choices and made predictable decisions. Similarly to America, this generation became rapidly secularized, choosing to work on Saturday and drive on Yomtov, eschewing kosher food, etc. but nevertheless holding fast to their Jewish identities. Unlike in America, there was no melting pot, no Conservative Jewish movement, very little intermarriage. In South Africa an affiliated Jew was affiliated Orthodox, even though the vast majority of the congregants were secular. This is not unlike the Conservative congregations of America, except that the religious leadership were Lithuanian (and sometimes other East European or British) orthodox Jews. Furthermore, the religious leadership was not theologically sophisticated, like the innovative Conservative rabbis of America. In fact theology, and religion as such, played very little role in the communal Jewish life of most South Africans. It was tradition more than religion. To be sure, the rabbis did their level best to increase the sorry state of awareness and observance among their congregants. But for the latter the rabbis were not very important. Mostly South African Jews of this generation, my and my parents' generation, went to shul to listen to the chazzan and the choir, rather than the rabbi – and to be with family and friends. Some rabbis attracted disproportionate attention with their oratorical eloquence (form rather than substance) and their charisma. But it was their personal magnetism, rather than their theology that was admired. And Jewish liturgical music was key – the choir and the chazzan were the center of the service, Friday night, Saturday morning and on Yomtov.

This mixture of loyal affiliation and secular pragmatism resulted in a vibrant, fiercely Zionistic, high-achieving Jewish community. Members of this community can be found all over the world today in successful businesses, leading professions, artistically prominent positions and community leadership. Their achievements were astounding for such a small proportion of the overall population. They are generally free-thinkers, modern in their approach, requiring reasonable evidence for any claim, not particularly troubled by the schism between the teachings of their religious leaders and their own critical beliefs. They are mostly secular and liberal (in the classical sense of upholding universal individual human rights). Many of their children in South Africa have succumbed to the temptations of the evangelical fundamentalists. Many have left. More will leave.

For me this is very sad. It is the final chapter of the losses I have experienced in the four-decade long emigration process. The country, the culture and the community I left no longer exists. In its place a narrower, more doctrinaire, superstitious, unthinking mixture of alternatives has arisen. To be sure, old-style South African Jews still live there, but they seem to be in the minority – just one of the many alternatives, and their numbers may be dwindling. South Africa may well be alright. It may overcome the multiple challenges it faces and remain the hope and salvation of Africa. But the golden age of South African Jewry has passed.

Barbarians are at the gate

I recently read Infidel by Aayan Hirsi Ali. This remarkable book has been widely read and reviewed. I will not try here to provide another critical review. Rather I would like to attempt some general appreciative observations.

The book operates on the reader's consciousness at a number of different levels - probably not all intended by the author and probably varying a lot with the background of each reader.

At its most simple level, it is a compelling autobiographical story. Ali is not a sophisticated writer – but she has a clarity of expression that reflects her clarity of thought. Her descriptions are graphic without being flowery or intrusive. One gets a good sense of the streets and houses of Mogadishu or Nairobi and the claustrophobia of Saudi Arabia. Some of her obviously traumatic experiences seem understated. But this is perhaps not surprising in an autobiography – at the time they occurred she was perhaps not completely aware of the trauma or of its significance. Also, Ali gives the impression that her overriding purpose is to provide a case-study of a general condition, that of girls growing up and of women living under the yoke of traditional Islam. For this a certain studied detachment was probably necessary. Her story is the story of the passage from infancy to adulthood and beyond and it is a common story. Ali was resourceful and fortunate enough to escape, at great cost, the oppressive world into which she was born, but the vast majority of Moslem women are not so fortunate. Ali's story is the story of untold millions, without the happy ending, without redemption.

So, first and foremost, it is her personal story – and the reader is spared few details. It is a courageous tale, told with grace and dignity. One senses a little egocentrism, probably necessary to achieve what she has achieved in such a short time, facing such overwhelming odds. This needs to be emphasized. Aayan Hirsi Ali's achievements are astounding. Coming from a small village in Somalia, through many trials and traumas, she obtained a graduate degree at a university in Holland and became a member of parliament, while still in her twenties. And now, in her thirties, she is an articulate spokesman for oppressed women around the world (as a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC). Her books have sold millions of copies and have been translated into many languages. She is an inspiration to many and an example of what can be achieved.

At another level this book is an expansive window into the worlds (plural) of Islam. For those of us hailing from South Africa (many years ago), it may come as a surprise to discover the nature and extent of African Muslim culture in Central Africa (not confined to North Africa). Speaking for myself, I admit that, prior to reading this book, Somalia was a place without content for me, a wilderness - scene of "Black Hawk Down" – location of a humiliating experience for America, a failed state, not worth bothering about. So it was revealing to learn a little about the history of Somalia, a region with an ancient and rich tribal culture, swallowed many centuries ago by the insatiable appetite of the expanding Islamic empire, into the modern colonial period to become a colony of Italy and Britain, and then in the post-colonial period a brutal communist dictatorship (sponsored by the Soviet Union). Colonialism left a power vacuum in its wake that was filled by the hopes and dreams of socialism. While the colonial governments seriously compromised tribal institutions, the communist regime forcefully tried to suppress them completely and the result was a complete breakdown of law and order, a horrible civil-war in which hundreds of thousands were killed, wounded and displaced. This is a tragic story of ethnic cleansing and genocide that occurred before these words acquired the widespread familiarity they now have and it deserves to be more widely known. Ali, brings us into this world of inter-tribal destruction and brutality. We are introduced to people who have names, families, loved ones, personal histories; people who have had their lives destroyed, who have been brought low-down to pitiful animalistic conditions, human skeletons without hope, grasping at survival – a picture familiar to us Jews. It is a picture of the collapse of civilization without recovery.

I was fascinated to learn about the nature of Somali Islam, which has its own idiosyncratic characteristics, quite distinct from the Arabic and other versions, and is intimately intertwined with tribal distinctions and traditions. Lineage is key in determining status and young children are indoctrinated in the details of their family tree up to many generations past – so that at a moment's notice they can recite it. And tribal identity is key as well, its importance can hardly be overstated. Reading this book one learns that "racism" is not necessarily about race – these tribal distinctions, as we have learned from Rwanda, can have life and death consequences. Witness Sudan as you read this. They are all Moslems, these Somalis, yet everything hangs on clan-membership. It is the extended family writ large. And, like all strong families, it can be an immensely caring and efficient social institution. There is a far-reaching Somali diaspora. The clan to which Ali belonged has vast international network connections – providing sustenance and resources to any member who shows up. It is powered by an unswerving commitment to the tenets of hospitality and charity to clansmen found in the teachings and traditions of Islam.

Ali spent time growing up in different worlds, in Kenya, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia – the first of which was her introduction to a non-Muslim society. This provided her, and the reader, with a new perspective. While Kenya was by no means a prosperous society, it was more prosperous than Somalia and palpably freer, especially for women – tribalism still played a very important role, but Islam was absent from the mix with notably liberating results.

Back in Somalia and in Kenya she encounters the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that ultimately spawned Al Qaida and other radical Islamist organizations. Radical Islam filled the moral vacuum left by the collapse of society in post colonial, post communist Africa. Radical Islam, like all fundamentalist creeds (meaning that its moral claims are based on revelation of the word of God), has a moral clarity about it. It has a clear structure and permanence about it that provides security in a terrifying world. The reality that is Al Qaida today began many decades ago – out of the ashes of a collapsed power base in Africa and the Middle East. When seen through the eyes of Aayan Hirsi Ali one gets a sense of the power and intransigence of this multi-faceted movement that transcends regional differences. It is a movement with deep fundamentalist roots that brooks no critical examination of its tenets whatsoever. All criticism is met with various degrees of violence. And the kicker is that, according to Islam, it is a sacred duty to convert non-Muslims to the faith, by force if necessary. Like all fundamentalist systems, Islam claims a monopoly of true belief. And their agenda is clear, announced for all to hear, they are out to get us!

This may be familiar, but it seems not be completely understood by those present-day intellectuals who, in the name of multiculturalism, advocate understanding and dialogue. There is no talking to these people and there is no way to accept their vision of society. For anyone who believes in freedom, in the sacred value of individual autonomy, in individual human rights; pure Islam is simply evil. The most glaring manifestation of this is the brutal repression and dehumanization of women, including the obsession with virginity and the widespread practice of clitoral and labial circumcision in order to ensure it. With Ali we wonder, where are the voices of condemnation? Why are the defenders of women's rights so mute when it comes to the teachings and practices of Islam? And why are thousands of Muslim women being killed in "honor" killings and thousands of young girls being violently circumcised on kitchen tables in Europe today?

This is the final and most general level at which this book operates. It speaks to the question of identity in this post-modern world. When she finally escapes to Holland, Ali is awed by the freedom and civility of European culture, but she ultimately comes to understand its awful, terrifying vulnerability in the face of Islam. She finds herself besieged and physically threatened by her former co-religionists while living in a welcoming society that is ill-equipped to deal with the threat. Coming ultimately and painfully to abandon her belief in Islam, she embraces European social democracy only to abandon it as well to finally arrive at a realization of the value of classical liberalism.

The essence of the asymmetry between Islam and the West (especially Western-Europe) lies in their different approaches to identity. This is well captured in Natan Sharansky's new book (Defending Identity), but Ali has it too. Islam provides its believers with secure identities that tell them how to live their lives and for which they are wiling to kill and to die. There is no similar cause animating the identities of Western Europeans. Pan-European identity does not have much traction by comparison. In fact, the prevailing worldview of Europe today is anti-identity, post-identity – an undifferentiated universalism. There is antagonism and self-consciousness about "being different." They think that by denying "essential" differences they will make them go away. They think that the Muslim immigrants to Europe, if treated with non-judgmental, non-demanding forbearance, will become good Europeans. They don't realize that unless they take a stand, the descendants of today's Europeans will be tomorrow's Muslims.

Ali, and Sharansky, recognize the unique strength of America. All Americans have un-self-conscious hyphenated identities, as in, Jewish-American, Irish-American, Italian-American, etc. To become an American does not entail the giving up of one's ethnic traditions, one's religion, one's customs; as long as they do not deny the freedom of others to maintain theirs. To become American means to become committed to American ideals, to liberty and democracy in the broadest sense - to a respect for the individual regardless of his or her multiple identities. In America we do not regard it as a threat for an American citizen to feel Irish or Jewish and to indentify with Ireland or Israel. In fact, we respect people with loyalty to their heritage and a commitment to preserving it. Freedom means being whoever you want to be as long as you do not deny others the same privilege. And many times Americans have been willing to defend these ideals and to die for them. This respect for individual differences and choices categorically does not imply the need to tolerate or ignore intolerance, as exhibited by Islam's orientation to non-Muslims or to women. Intolerance does not have to be respected or tolerated. The American ethos is well-positioned to respond vigorously to this behavior and to this threat – and indeed it is probably true that, in general, American Muslims are more comfortably assimilated than their counterparts in Europe.

Having said this however, there is nevertheless ample reason for grave concern. America, in many ways, at this juncture in its history seems to be in danger of abandoning these core essentials and of becoming more like a morally-relativistic Europe, unable and unwilling to defend itself against a very real threat to destroy its culture by violence or, perhaps more effectively, by exploiting and abusing the very freedoms that make it great. The lesson of Infidel (and of Sharansky's book and of the work of others like Brigitte Gabriel) is that we ignore these threats and tolerate them at our peril – peril to our bodies and our souls. As someone once said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

This book needs to be read.