Entrenched Epidemic: Wife-Beatings in Africa
In few places is the abuse of women by a male partner more entrenched, and accepted, than in sub-Saharan Africa....
There is a connection between the moral level of a society and its economic prosperity, which is obviously abysmal in Africa and which
I discussed yesterday from one angle. Historically the greatest expression of a society's level of morality is how it has treated the Jews. An interesting footnote in history is how the Japanese leadership during the 1930's
planned to import a million European Jews in order to achieve world domination, based on their study of how empires rose when Jews immigrated and collapsed when they were expelled.
From a secular perspective, the Japanese reversed cause and effect. Societies that oppress the "other" are also economically unfree which inexorably leads to immiseration. Treatment of the Jews was simply a moral barometer. Of course many have argued that openness to the influence of Jewish ideas was a prerequisite to progress. The book that has argued this point with the most chutzpa was Thomas Cahill's best-selling Gifts of the Jews, but I recommend skipping it and reading
this excellent review by my mentor, Dennis Prager, instead.
For an extraordinary article describing how one man caused a turnaround in the moral level and therefore the economic prosperity of a community, see:
How Dagger John Saved New York?s Irish.
From a religious perspective, this is expressed in God's promise to Abraham: "Those who bless you I will bless and those who curse you I will curse." The main reason America supports Israel is the support of millions of evangelical Christians. And
54% of them cite verses similar to this one as the main reason for their support.
Of course, "those who curse the Jews" would today most aptly apply to Arab Muslim leaders, particularly the Palestinians. In the early years of Oslo, I was unique, I believe, in my talk radio commentary emphasizing the destruction of the Palestinians that would result from handing them over to Arafat.
Today, of course, the news is the same, according to
Ehud Ya'ari:
In the Gaza Strip, the de facto independence that the Palestinians will achieve without paying any price will not be used to construct a model of successful sovereignty, but rather will become a base for the struggle for the West Bank and Jerusalem....
Update:
Debka is confirming this analysis, reporting that the the PA has quietly reopened the banned Orient House (the symbol of its claim to Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital).
There was a Golden Age of Islam, when Islamic scholars were highly influenced by their Jewish counterparts. One can only dream for a return to such a state now.
