Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish Articles at DanielGreenfield.org

On the surface of it they seem to have very little in common. The left claims to be progressive, embraces gay bars, abortions, feminism, worker's rights civil rights, multiculturalism and obscene slogans. The Islamists throw acid in women's faces, hang gays on every streetcorner and repress minorities and freedom of expression. This seeming contrast baffles many who demand to know how for example the left can champion Islamic regimes which mandate the death penalty for homosexuality. The answer is very simple. The people asking the question have mistaken the facade for the reality. The left is socially progressive only in its revolutionary phase. The Soviet Union, Castro's Cuba and Communist China all had much the same view of gay people-- that Iran does today. While gay writers in America campaigned for the USSR or Cuba, both those regimes imprisoned gay writers. Homosexuality was a criminal offense in the USSR until its actual fall. None of this bothered liberals in the...

Helen Thomas suggested that Jews should go back to Poland and Germany. The Turkish flotilla headed to Gaza was more specific, radioing, "Go back to Auschwitz." But both are only bubbles on the surface of the larger narrative in the Muslim world that is widely redistributed by the left and the far right, that Jews are foreign strangers to the land. On the surface this would seem to be plainly absurd. Israel is not some sort of obscure footnote in history or some forgotten fragment of the past that has to be looked up in an encyclopedia. Both of the world's two dominant religions derive their background from Israel. David and Solomon, the kings of Israel, are considered prophets in both Islam and Christianity. Jewish history is indivisible from the history of Christianity and Islam. No believer in either religion can deny the history of the Jewish people, without also denying their own scriptures and faith. Which means that the current state of affairs in which Muslims and ...

The definition of a socialist government is one that distrusts its citizens. It may distrust them in a "benevolent way", that is its leaders believe that the people are insufficiently competent to look after themselves, or it may distrust them in a "paranoid way", in that its leaders believe that the people are dangerous and must be rigidly controlled for the state and society to function along their guidelines. The practical difference between these two lies primarily in their viewpoints and attitudes, in how ruthless and undemocratic the advocates of socialism are willing to be when they don't get their way. To be a socialist is to assume that the people cannot care for themselves, that they cannot work or run businesses properly, that they cannot eat properly or shop for anything on their own, that they cannot care for their children or teach them, that they cannot choose their own beliefs in a marketplace of ideas or decide what their government should do....

Civilization is a code, and while we easily fall into the habit of assuming that civilized norms are universal, they are limited to the civilized. Kindness, humility and reaching out to the enemy are valid behaviors only when they are likely to be reciprocated. Practicing that code toward nations and cultures which markedly refuse to be civilized, is the same thing as painting a target on your own back. Because civilized codes of conduct only work when they are reciprocal. They allow us to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves and permit us to find common ground based on underlying principles. But to those who choose to be outside the code, such concessions are a weakness. Not a sign of moral strength, but physical cowardice. To the Muslim who has been raised on the tales of the Koranic conquests of Mohammed and his successors, only force represents moral truth. In the Koran, the infidels negotiate in good faith, while Muslims negotiate in bad faith. That is because I...

New York City's Mayor Bloomberg seems to have a new exit strategy. After trying to spread rumors that suggested he might run for President, in the hopes that one party or the other would give him the V.P. spot, failing and struggling through a third mayoral election that he promised would never happen against a candidate who never bothered to show up and still almost beat him, Bloomberg needs a way out. Sure he's done a fine job amusing himself by scattering modern art atrocities painted day glo colors on the city hall lawn. He's made Manhattan impassable for traffic, after Albany shot him down on his commuter tax. But waging a war on good taste and cars just isn't enough. Nor is enthusiastically backing the Ground Zero mosque, spending ridiculous amounts of money overhauling basic city infrastructure like bus stations and firehouses to meet with his idea of architectural standards (transparent and on an angle usually). Now it's immigration reform. Bloomberg has...

This was the week of the big McChrystal story, in which the Obama Administration's answer to McArthur proved to have some of the same problems. The irony is that McChrystal had barred access to Michael Yon , and banned FOX News from playing. He namedropped voting for Obama. All of this should have bought him enough liberal cover, except he forgot that liberals still hate the military. And a Rolling Stone piece on him by the author of I Lost My Love in Baghdad, was never going to go swimmingly. To be fair, the actual impact of the Rolling Stone piece is overblown. The most damning remarks in the piece that were quoted over and over again came from aides, sometimes unattributed. There were only two problematic quotes directly from McChrystal, and one of could be read as non-derogatory. The other about Jones would fall under the category of flattering, considering that James L Jones is a good deal worse than just a clown. The quotes were gathered in Hasting's words, ...

When you're in a competition and you're losing, one of the first thing to do is to study what your opponent is doing and copy him. In this case Israel is competing for good media coverage with the terrorists. And the terrorists are winning. And if the media likes them so much, maybe it's time to start doing what they do. 1. Get Good Media Coverage By Excluding Bad Media Coverage Say that two movies will be coming out next week. One of those movies has studio which bans all critics who have spoken unfavorably about it from seeing it. The other movie welcomes all reviewers. When the final numbers are tallied, which movie do you think will have the best reviews? The one that didn't screen the movie for any critics who were not favorably disposed toward it. Sure the other movie might claim that its favorable reviews were honest. And that and a dime will buy you a cup of coffee. Now say that these two studios keep doing this for 10 years, and that they're the only...

This week Turkish forces invaded Iraq and its warplanes bombed 7 Kurdish villages killing a teenage girl and wounding her mother and 3 year old sister. A week ago Iran had done the same things, killing a 14 year old girl and a 45 year old woman. There are no shouts of protest. No worldwide demonstrations. The Obama administration and the media did not deliver any lectures on disproportionate force. Not even when Erdogan vowed to drown the Kurdish rebels "in their own blood". Instead Ambassador James J. Jeffrey slavishly rushed to assure Turkey's Thug in Chief Erdogan that the PKK  was also America's enemy and promised to "urgently" review any request for help against them. No such help was offered to the Kurds, whose villages were being bombed from the sky using planes sold to Turkey by the United States. Despite the fact that Iraqi Kurds, unlike Turkey, supported the US liberation of Iraq. Because that's what friends of the United States get from th...