Entirely Reason-Based: The reader of Dennis Prager's Rational Bible Series is never asked to accept anything on faith alone (Highly Recommended)

As someone who was never particularly religious — although I was a big New Age fan in my teens and twenties (so much that I eventually minored in Religious Studies of comparative religions) — I have started reading the first book in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series. To say the very least, Dennis Prager's Genesis — subtitled God, Creation, and Destruction — is eye-opening.

Why do so many people think the Bible, the most influential book in world history, is outdated? Why do our friends and neighbors – and sometimes we ourselves – dismiss the Bible as irrelevant, irrational, immoral, or all of these things? This explanation of the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, will demonstrate that the Bible is not only powerfully relevant to today’s issues, but completely consistent with rational thought.

 … The title of this commentary is “The Rational Bible” because its approach is entirely reason-based. The reader is never asked to accept anything on faith alone. In Dennis Prager’s words, “If something I write is not rational, I have not done my job.”

I am awestruck especially by the explanations of the founder of Prager University on the subject of ingratitude — the most overrated trend in modern thought. To the detriment of Wisdom — perhaps the Bible's central tenet. You can download a free sample from Amazon.

Many people today think the Bible, the most influential book in world history, is not only outdated but irrelevant, irrational, and even immoral.

This explanation of the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, demonstrates clearly and powerfully that the opposite is true. The Bible remains profoundly relevant—both to the great issues of our day and to each individual life. It is the greatest moral guide and source of wisdom ever written.

Do you doubt the existence of God because you think believing in God is irrational? This book will give you many reasons to rethink your doubts. Do you think faith and science are in conflict? You won’t after reading this commentary on Genesis. Do you come from a dysfunctional family? It may comfort you to know that every family discussed in Genesis was highly dysfunctional!

The title of this commentary is “The Rational Bible” because its approach is entirely reason-based. The reader is never asked to accept anything on faith alone. In Dennis Prager’s words, “If something I write is not rational, I have not done my job.”

The Rational Bible is the fruit of Dennis Prager’s forty years of teaching the Bible—whose Hebrew grammar and vocabulary he has mastered—to people of every faith and no faith at all. On virtually every page, you will discover how the text relates to the contemporary world in general and to you personally. His goal: to change your mind—and, as a result, to change your life.

By September, the first three books of Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series will have been published: Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy…

The Rational Bible Series (Highly Recommended): Dennis Prager Examines Each Moral and Every Story in the Bible with an Open Mind

The third book in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series won't be due until September. The subtitle of Prager's Deuteronomy is either God, War, and Peace or God, Blessings, and Curses.

Is the Bible, the most influential book in world history, still relevant?

Why do people dismiss it as being irrelevant, irrational, immoral, or all of these things?

This explanation of the Book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, will demonstrate how it remains profoundly relevant—both to the great issues of our day and to each individual life.

Do you doubt the existence of God because you think believing in God is irrational? This book will cause you to reexamine your doubts.

The title of this commentary is The Rational Bible because its approach is entirely reason-based. The reader is never asked to accept anything on faith alone. In Dennis Prager’s words, “If something I write is not rational, I have not done my job.”

The Rational Bible is the fruit of Prager’s forty years of teaching to people of every faith and no faith at all. On virtually every page, you will discover how the text relates to the contemporary world in general and to you on a personal level.

His goal: to change your mind—and, as a result, to change your life.

Deuteronomy will be the third book in the Rational Bible series by the founder of Prager University, in the wake of Genesis and Exodus. In the meantime (i.e., while waiting for September), you can purchase a copy of Dennis's The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code. Alternatively, or in addition, you can head over to Prager University's free video commentaries on each of the Ten Commandments — 1 to 5 and 6 to 10 — with six minutes or less per Commandment.

God, Slavery, and Freedom: Is the Bible—powerfully—relevant to today’s issues? (Highly Recommended)

As someone who was never particularly religious, I have been amazed to discover the first books in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series. The subtitle of Prager's Exodus is God, Slavery, and Freedom.

Why do so many people think the Bible, the most influential book in world history, is outdated? Why do our friends and neighbors – and sometimes we ourselves – dismiss the Bible as irrelevant, irrational, immoral, or all of these things? This explanation of the Book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible, will demonstrate that the Bible is not only powerfully relevant to today’s issues, but completely consistent with rational thought.

Do you think the Bible permitted the trans-Atlantic slave trade? You won’t after reading this book.

Do you struggle to love your parents? If you do, you need this book.

Do you doubt the existence of God because belief in God is “irrational?” This book will give you reason after reason to rethink your doubts.

The title of this commentary is, “The Rational Bible” because its approach is entirely reason-based. The reader is never asked to accept anything on faith alone. As Prager says, “If something I write does not make rational sense, I have not done my job.”

The Rational Bible is the fruit of Dennis Prager’s forty years of teaching the Bible to people of every faith, and no faith. On virtually every page, you will discover how the text relates to the contemporary world and to your life.

His goal: to change your mind – and then change your life.

Besides a free sample from Amazon, you can purchase a copy of Dennis's The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code. Alternatively, or in addition, you can head over to Prager University's free video commentaries on each of the Ten Commandments — 1 to 5 and 6 to 10 — with six minutes or less per Commandment.

By September, the first three books of Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series will have been published: Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy… 

With regards to the significance of the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt, Bookworm treats us to his or her annual Passover post:

For roughly 3,500 years, Jews have been telling and retelling the story of Passover — which is also the story of the world’s first revolt against a totalitarian dictatorship … 

 … the thing to remember is that those atop the tyranny pyramid care about only one thing, which is that their tyranny remains stable and protected

 … I was re-reading Dennis Prager’s superb The Rational Bible: Exodus and was reminded that each one of the plagues essentially attacked one of the Egyptian’s many gods. Only in this way could God demonstrate that they were false idols and that he had the power to control the symbols with which they were associated. 

 … There is … a much more profound purpose behind the ten plagues, and that is to remind us of the tyrant’s capacity for tolerating others’ suffering, as long as his power remains in place.

What Pharaoh discovered with the first nine plagues is that life can go on, at least for the ruler, no matter the burdens he places upon his people. A blood-filled Nile River may, at first, seem appalling, but the red recedes and life goes on. Pharaoh still holds power. The same is true for each subsequent plague, whether lice, boils, frogs, darkness, or anything else. As long as Pharaoh realizes, after the first panic, that he is still powerful, he will always reconcile himself to his people’s incremental destruction.

Sheltered in his lavish palace, Pharaoh might have a theoretical concern that a starving and frightened populace could turn on him. However, provided that he is assured that his people will continue to fear and worship him, their suffering is irrelevant. It is only when the price becomes too high — when the plague struck Pharaoh in his own palace, killing his firstborn — that Pharaoh is convinced, even temporarily, to alter his evil ways.

Human nature hasn’t changed in 3,500 years. Think, for example, of both the Nazis and the Japanese at the end of WWII. … Hitler and his commanders were Pharaoh. Only when they, personally, faced a humiliating death would they stop fighting.

The same held true for the Japanese. … The Japanese high command was Pharaoh. No amount of smaller plagues could stop the command from its chosen path. Only a large plague would swiftly lead to the inevitable conclusion.

The only way to destroy an evil institution is to decapitate it. That’s what God did with the 10th plague. That’s what Truman did when he dropped atom bombs on Japan. That’s what the Allies did when they engaged in total war against the Nazis. In each case, the only way to end a tyrant’s rampage of murder, torture, and enslavement was directly hurting the tyrant’s person.

Those who prefer the stability of tyranny to the risks of freedom are the same people who refuse to accept that, under tyranny, the innocents are always going to die, with the only question being whether they will die quickly or slowly. That’s the problem with an evil regime. If you’re unlucky enough to live under that regime, you’re going to end as cannon fodder. 

Pharaoh will let you die of plagues, and the Nazi and Japanese leadership will let you be bombed and burned, and Biden will open America’s southern border while ramping up the welfare system and pushing Critical Race Theory, a pernicious racial theory every bit as bad as the Nazi’s racial theories. Ensconced in the White House, and surrounded by unelected fanatics, nothing will stop them. The American economy can collapse and whites can become the subjects of actual purges and the Biden administration will continue on its path — as long as the tyrants in charge can retain their power.

People of goodwill must sometimes recognize that the generation raised under tyranny is a lost generation that cannot be saved, whether because it will die under the tyrant’s lash, in the tyrant’s war, or in a war against the tyrant. Sometimes, when slaves finally taste freedom, they fear it. The Bible recognizes this problem, banning the Promised Land to those who were slaves in Egypt. They were a lost generation.

For this reason, when one sees a people groaning under tyranny the most humane thing to do is to destroy the tyranny quickly and decisively even if that process causes people to suffer. Most of them were always going to be lost. Our actions are for the benefit of subsequent generations and, if we are lucky, for those who survived both the tyranny and the liberation.

Protecting freedom for the greatest number of people sometimes demands proactive behavior. And there is nothing more proactive than an overwhelming response when a tyrant starts putting out feelers to see how far he can go. …

 … The only way to stop tyranny is to fight tyranny. For liberty-loving people in America, that’s a challenge, because, for the first time in my lifetime, the tyrant is their unfettered government. Still, we have weapons. For one thing, every last one of us needs to stop bowing down before cancel culture. Even non-conservatives need to realize that there is no end to cancel culture. Its practitioners must constantly strive to prove their purity and they can do this only by attacking others.

 … We have to stop playing this fear game. When they call us racists, when they subject us to the appalling racist Critical Race Theory, when they use race to justify overthrowing our southern border, we need to speak out even more loudly. We need to fight their ideology at every turn. We need to boycott the woke companies. We need to fund organizations that will handle lawfare for people fired because they exercised their constitutional rights.

Do anything and everything you can think of to push back against this administration. That does not mean violating the laws; it does not mean impoverishing yourself; it does not mean violence. However, it does mean speaking up constantly, withholding what money you can from complicit organizations, and backing down only when your safety is at risk …

In the Original Hebrew, the 4th Book of the Bible has a Far More Exciting Title — "In the Wilderness"

Hence the Subtitle of Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series volume on Numbers: "God and Man in the Wilderness."

It is the fourth book in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series on the first five books of the Torah, following those on Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy… 

As someone who was never particularly religious — although I was a big New Age fan in my teens and twenties (so much that I eventually minored in Religious Studies of comparative religions) — I started reading the first books in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series five years ago. To say the very least, Dennis Prager's Genesis — subtitled God, Creation, and Destruction — is eye-opening.

The Book of Numbers—“In the Wilderness” in the original Hebrew—is the fourth book of the Bible. Among the many compelling issues addressed in this volume are the following: 

• Doubting God. 
• What produces faith—miracles or effort? And if effort, what efforts work? 
• Arguing with God. 
• Ingratitude as a source of evil. 
• Why only men could be priests. 
• Why the conscience is not morally reliable. 
• Is fanaticism ever justified? 
• Is there luck in life, or is everything determined by God’s will?

In the Original Hebrew, the 4th Book of the Bible has a Far More Exciting Title — "In the Wilderness"

Hence the Subtitle of Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series volume on Numbers: "God and Man in the Wilderness."

It is the fourth book in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series on the first five books of the Torah, following those on Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy… 

As someone who was never particularly religious — although I was a big New Age fan in my teens and twenties (so much that I eventually minored in Religious Studies of comparative religions) — I started reading the first books in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series five years ago. To say the very least, Dennis Prager's Genesis — subtitled God, Creation, and Destruction — is eye-opening.

The Book of Numbers—“In the Wilderness” in the original Hebrew—is the fourth book of the Bible. Among the many compelling issues addressed in this volume are the following: 

• Doubting God. 
• What produces faith—miracles or effort? And if effort, what efforts work? 
• Arguing with God. 
• Ingratitude as a source of evil. 
• Why only men could be priests. 
• Why the conscience is not morally reliable. 
• Is fanaticism ever justified? 
• Is there luck in life, or is everything determined by God’s will?

More TV Wokeness: The Big Bang Theory's Spin-Off Series Ruin Sheldon's Mother

Over at Instapundit, Ed Driscoll and Glenn Reynolds report on Doctor Who, a British science-fiction series with a 60-year+ run which ended up becoming so insufferably woke that it may not return to the small screen for five years and, frankly, it seems slated to disappear once and for all. 

This brings up the subject of another TV sitcom, one many conservatives don't particularly seem to care about, but as far as I am concerned, I confess that — even when faced with obvious leftist leanings (say, Penny aka Kaley Cuoco wearing a Vote Hillary T-shirt in 2016) — I have enjoyed The Big Bang Theory, along with its characters, and that I have been enjoying re-connecting with old scenes on various phone apps. 

Some episodes that I was particularly impressed with were those dealing with Sheldon's brother (Jerry O'Connell) back in Texas, showing that conservative characters could get a fair deal.

More to the point: In the original series, it was pretty clear that the religious mother of Sheldon "sweet Sam Houston" Cooper was not the character the creators of the CBS TV series, Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, were prone to identify with.

And yet… 

And yet, the writers gave Mary Cooper (Laurie Metcalf) some excellent lines, they did not show her losing the debate any time a leftist (not excluding her own son) opened his (or her) mouth (usually to disparage her Christian religion), and especially her main antagonist — Leonard's mother, Dr. Beverly Hofstadter (Christine Baranski) — was so cold and unlikable that Mary came out on top many a time.

 
However, since the series ended in 2019, it has given rise to several spin-offs. They are the prequel series Young Sheldon and a second prequel series, Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage (with a fourth series promised this summer, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe). FYI: Full disclosure — I haven't seen any episodes on the telly of the second prequel series, mainly short-ish outtakes on various iPhone apps…

These spin-offs have also descended into wokeness. Young Sheldon Cooper seems to — decisively — win every argument he has with either his mother or Pastor Jeff (Matt Hobby), either in private or in front of the entire congregation inside the latter's Baptist church. 

As I wrote in an in-depth post regarding another TV series, The Talking Points of The Newsroom's Opening Scene, Examined—Dispassionately—One By One (the longest post ever written in the history of this blog), 

The first thing to notice [about the tirade in the opening scene of The Newsroom's Episode 1, sometimes referred to as "The Most Honest Three Minutes In Television History"] is that (exactly like Aaron Sorkin's other TV series, The West Wing) HBO's TV show is fiction, with the entire story and every scene set up, with a central character (a Democratic idealist) giving a brilliant speech with unimpeachable arguments that manages to bring out the truth (sorry, to bring out the Truth with a capital T, nay, more — to bring out nothing less than thuh Reh-ve-lay-tion), shaming his clueless opponents (and everyone else) in the process — indeed, silencing the whole room — and, in typical Hollywood fashion, leaving everyone on a higher plane of truth.

Isn't this a mainstay of the Hollywood dream factory: the wise man (no matter how young, as it is as often as not a teenager or even a child) engaging in theatrics and bringing mind-boggling revelations to his (clueless and uneducated) peers?

 … This works exceptionally well, provided everybody with a differing opinion (or better yet, with facts) agrees to refrain from responding. In the real world, of course, real people have to put up with differing arguments, with give'n'take, and with opponents providing replies and counter-arguments 

It seems clear that Mary Cooper (played in the prequels by Zoe Perry, who happens to be the daughter in real life of Laurie Metcalf) is little more than a hypocrite (consciously or otherwise), as are the various men at the church (one of whom the married Bible-thumper — almost? — had a liaison with), and after the death of Sheldon's father, she seems to be utterly naïve regarding men with ulterior motives. 

In contrast to the original series, little that the character says is ever helpful or insightful. Unless she manages to break away from her Baptist beliefs. Worst of all, every time Mary Cooper mentions the Bible, everybody has the same reaction. When everybody sighs and/or rolls their eyes whenever this alleged killjoy brings up the subject of religion or going to church — her husband, her daughter, her sons, her mother, her in-laws; indeed, every single one of the other characters — it ends up becoming tedious in the extreme… 

Maybe it might not be a bad idea for the writers to consider reading a volume or two in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series…

 … The title of this commentary is “The Rational Bible” because its approach is entirely reason-based. The reader is never asked to accept anything on faith alone. In Dennis Prager’s words, “If something I write is not rational, I have not done my job.” 

The Real Reason for Secularism: For the Left, the Golden Rule and the 10 Commandments turn out to be a major problem

Over at Instapundit, Sarah Hoyt links to a trifecta of posts on secularism — as well as to her own outstanding In Praise of Populism — to wit, they are Keith Lowery's The Myth of Secular Neutrality, Holly MathNerd's The Disappearance of Secularism, and Francis Turner's Faith and Ritual.

Before we get to the gist of this post (the point here is not to quote all of these remarkable posts, although I would love to), I will do a quick quote from Keith Lowery's article:

The point is to psychologically condition Americans until they believe that they cannot afford to exercise their civil rights. From Jack Phillips to Donald Trump, the law-fare being run by progressives is less about winning those cases than about publicizing the cases so that other non-progressives will think twice before exercising their own civil rights, or doing anything that has a practical political impact that is negative for progressives. 

 … So the cost of exercising any actual civil rights, those which run afoul of progressive goals, is being intentionally inflated beyond all affordability. Progressives know exactly what they are doing.

The radical partisanship of the government bureaucracy, brazenly on display in 2020, unmasked the ideal of secular neutrality to reveal only a delusion.

The point of the present post is one part of my January article on the 2020 Election, and below I have expanded upon that passage.

But first, Sarah Hoyt (and thanks for the Instalink): Nancy Pelosi's

opponent is an idiot — and not an American — by saying that Trump should have “Accepted” the election results. I’ll assume he doesn’t understand mathematics or didn’t watch the results come in. NO ONE should accept impossible results that almost guarantee an election was tampered with. That’s known as disenfranchising the people, and any American should be revolted at the idea. There’s nothing sacred against election results. If there’s sufficient reason to SUSPECT let alone prove tampering, they should be examined, investigated and dissected. Which always happened till 2020. In 2020 the results were untouchable because they couldn’t stand examination. In the same way her opponent seems to only know the “made for TV” bs about January 6th. Taking a guided tour of the capitol is no insurrection, and no one should feel they have to bow to little Nancy’s insanity on that.

• Expanded from American Thinker's Let's Stop Using the Words "Trump Tried to Overturn the 2020 Election":

When describing the 2020 election, all the left is doing is repeat incessantly — they don't even bother using their usual weasel tactic of referring to (unnamed) experts, although that is implicit — that Trump's claim are "baseless" or "unfounded", if not an outright lie (or "the big lie"), all the while calling us skeptics "conspiracy theorists", without ever giving, at least once in a while, some evidence thereof.

Just presenting one in-depth single article or news story in which every one of Trump's claims is meticulously picked apart and debunked might be enough, and the New York Times and the Washington Post could refer to it by linking the word "baseless" or "lie" in every every other subsequent news story to it.  But that "ur-article" does not seem to exist in any editorial office. 

As Dennis Prager puts it, in today's America (and world),

all you have to say to people who went to college is "Experts say" … As I've said for years, for the secular college graduate, "Experts say" is what "Thus sayeth the Lord" has been to religious people for thousands of years.  They have just exchanged authority from the Lord to "the experts"…

In this case, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN don't even use "experts say", knowing that that would sound ridiculous (who on Earth — what individual — can be called an unassailable expert on the matter of election results if there have been shenanigans which by definition are stealthy and which the so-called expert cannot possibly know anything about) while betting — incredibly, with no lack of success — on nobody challenging their basic gaslighting about Trump's "baseless" claims and his desire to "overturn" an election and, indeed, democracy itself.

I'm not very religious myself, but if you read the books in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series ("The title of [these five commentaries] is “The Rational Bible” because its approach is entirely reason-based … The reader is never asked to accept anything on faith alone"), you will get an idea of the real reason why religion has such a bad reputation. What does it mean to be religious? Does it mean believing in (alleged) fairy tales or going to Church/Synagogue with foolish believers with silly smiles on their faces?

It means nothing but this, says Dennis Prager: live and work (and… govern) while trying to integrate the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments into your life. Now, before you protest that you don't want, or need, a religious lesson: think of "do not steal" and "do not kill" (do not murder in the original Hebrew); isn't that pretty good governance for a society that even an atheist can, without renouncing his atheism or agnosticism and without joining any religion, subscribe to?!

Ah, but there's the rub: to the leftist, actually, the 10 Commandments turn out to be one heck of a major problem.

Leftists at the head of a nanny government obviously don't think you are their equals, socialists do not believe in "do not covet" (taxes), communists do not believe in "do not kill", nanny governments do not believe in "honoring your father and mother" (your family) — certainly not above Big Brother — and above all, all of the above do not believe in "Do not bear false witness."

(If you protest, "Let's not get carried away, Erik, surely you cannot deny that some amount of taxes are necessary in life?!", Harry Jaffa provides the answer: "Those who live under the law have an equal right in the making of the law, [while] those who make the law have a corresponding duty to live under the law." Incidentally, this also pertains to the January 6 kerfuffle…)

Bearing false witness: leftists allow themselves to lie to others, and they allow themselves to lie to themselves — all to bask in their own valor and glory, as these knights in shining armor turn everything upside down.

Because they are Drama Queens, leftists allow themselves to wield double standards and to lie about global warming, about the rise of the oceans, about Republicans being Hitler, about leftist riots versus right-wing protests, about illegal immigrants and how they have no papers, about racism, about COVID, about 1776 replaced with 1619, about American culture (structural racism), about sexism, about rape culture, about men identifying as girls participating in women's sports, about suicide being a benevolent thing ("Do not kill" applies also to yourself), about the horrendous (Bible-based) Western civilization, about the ghastly sins of despicable Republicans like Donald Trump, George W Bush, and Ronald Reagan vs the "ho-hum" at-best-insignificant lapses of valorous Democrats like Joe Biden, Barack Obama and the Clintons, about how the MAGA movement is traitorous, about how the January 6 protesters deserve up to two dozen years in prison while releasing true criminals onto the streets, about how the communists were honorable ("sure they killed millions of people, but, hey, they had good intentions"), and about wokeness uncovering a true picture of society.

In short, they can lie about how despicable their neighbors are and how valorous they themselves are to attack said neighbors, aka their (non-threatening) adversaries.

Speaking of the Bible, incidentally, does it not mention false pride as the cardinal sin? Wouldn't that cover yourself self-describing as valorous for "saving the planet" and "saving democracy"?

No wonder leftists praise l'état laïc and want the Judeo-Christian religion to have nothing to do with politics…

It also explains the antisemitism and anti-Americanism through the centuries and the millennia, Israel and the United States being the two nations that have most followed the precepts of the Judeo-Christian Bible, not least the Golden Rule (and have prospered as a consequence) — and thus at least tried to prevent politicians and citizens alike from lying to others as well as to themselves. This brings us, full circle, back to Dennis Prager, writing (in Whites Aren't Hated for Slavery but for Making America and the West),

the left … hates America, which it regards as the paragon of capitalism. By becoming the most successful country in history, America, the quintessential capitalist country, remains a living rebuke to everything the left stands for. If America can be brought down, every left-wing egalitarian dream can be realized. … What the left does very much seek is to destroy America as we have known it -- the capitalist and Judeo-Christian enclave of personal freedom.

Mark Levin's latest book is called The Democrat Party Hates America.  The truth, as we have seen with the Woke movement, is that leftist scholars and activists hate American institutions, the Left hates American values, leftists hate American history, leftists hate American liberty, leftists abhor the Judeo-Christian religion (because of its Golden Rule and its Ten Commandments), and Democrats have hated Republicans since the movement was born in 1854.

Gaza: The Left cares about dead black people, whether in America or in Africa, only when they are killed by whites

With The Genocide Libel Is the Blood Libel of Our Time, you can count on Dennis Prager to get to the bottom of the issue.

The author of the Rational Bible series even manages to explain why the original blood libel is necessarily false:

In medieval Europe, Christians who hated Jews spread the lie that Jews kidnap Christian children, slaughter them, and use their blood to bake matzos for Passover. This lie became known as "the Blood Libel," probably the greatest libel in history. Over the course of many centuries, Jews were tortured and murdered, often by being burned alive, because of the Blood Libel.

The Blood Libel was particularly odious in light of two facts: It was the Jews who, through their Bible, first outlawed human sacrifice; and one of the first laws in the Hebrew Bible is a ban on consuming blood.

Dennis Prager goes on to take on the current blood libel:

For centuries, Jews had to confront the fact that all around them, throughout Europe, a vast number of people believed an enormous lie about them. Jews have to confront the same thing today. We are now living through the Second Blood Libel: the claim that the Jewish state is committing genocide. But, unlike the Blood Libel, this libel is not the product of Christians; it is the product of Muslims and the Left. The very people against whom the greatest genocide in recorded history -- the Holocaust -- was directed are now accused of that crime.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 1948, there were 1,380,000 Palestinians in Israel and the greater Palestine area, and as of 2022, there were 7 million. In other words, there are now five times as many Palestinians in the Palestinian territories and in Israel as there were in 1948.

 … given these figures, even leftists would be forced to acknowledge that Israel has never had the slightest inclination to perpetrate genocide against the Palestinians. People targeted for genocide do not increase their numbers -- let alone by a factor of five.

What the Left and their Muslim allies claim is that since Oct. 7, Israel has presumably changed its mind and decided to commit genocide against Palestinians (though, apparently, only in Gaza, not in the West Bank).

Here are some facts that explain why the charge of "Israeli genocide" is as much a lie as was the Blood Libel:

First, as Israeli officials have repeatedly stated, if Hamas released the hostages and surrendered, Israel would cease its bombing of Gaza. That was precisely the condition that the United States and its allies offered Japan and Germany: Unconditionally surrender, and the bombing of Japanese and German cities will immediately cease.

Second, World War II brings us to more proof that the charge of Israeli genocide is a lie. No one ever accused America or Britain of committing genocide against Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. Even those who now maintain that the Allied bombing of Dresden and other German cities was morally wrong do not accuse the United States or Britain of having committed genocide. So why is Israel so charged?

Third, during World War II, it was almost universally understood that every German death by the Allies was caused by the Nazi regime, and every Japanese death was caused by the Japanese fascist regime. Had there been no Nazi invasions of European countries and no Japanese bombing of the United States and invasions of myriad Asian countries, there would have been no World War II and therefore no bombing of German and Japanese cities. Likewise, if there were no Hamas and no Oct. 7, there would be no Israeli bombing of Gaza. Every dead Palestinian in Gaza is the result of Hamas' actions.

Fourth, Hamas is responsible for every dead Gazan for another reason: Hamas uses Gazan civilians as human shields.

Fifth, despite far larger mass killings around the world, only Israel is widely charged with genocide.

Since the beginning of this century, the Islamic terror group Boko Haram has murdered more than 60,000 Christians in Nigeria. Not only have there been no left-wing protests, few people even know, let alone care, about it. The Left doesn't care because the perpetrators have been Islamists -- their allies in the fight against the West -- and blacks. The Left cares about dead black people, whether in America or in Africa, only when they are killed by whites.

Same thing with Arabs and/or Muslims: Arabs killed by other Arabs (often the citizens' own governments) or Muslims killed by other Muslims generates zero outrage (even among Arabs and Muslims) and, indeed, zero interest.

In that perspective, notice that Libs Want Dennis Prager's Townhall, along with PJ Media, among (numerous) other media outlets, Charged Under 'Genocide Convention' for daring to Report the Truth About Israel and Hamas.

… Sixth, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has just revised its child fatality figure in the Gaza war sharply downward. On May 6, it reported more than 14,500 deaths; two days later, it reported 7,797. OCHA also revised downward its figure for women fatalities from more than 9,500 to 4,959. In other words, all the mainstream Western media have reported as truth the lies Hamas announced about the numbers of Gazan women and children killed by Israeli bombs. (However, even the original false figures don't come close to substantiating the genocide charge.)

 … Even if the media give these new numbers the attention it has given the alleged "genocide," it will not end a single anti-Israel demonstration or cause one Israel-hater to cease accusing Israel of genocide. Since the accusation was never based on truth, truth will not end it.

The only genocide in the Israel-Palestinian war is the one Hamas and Iran seek to perpetrate against the Jews of Israel.

Related • To Peacenik Protesters Everywhere (Pro-Palestinian or Other):
The People that Hamas Slaughtered Mercilessly at Israel's Rave — They Are YOU! 

• The Genocide Charge Against Israel: What is
the Difference Between War and Genocide in the First Place?

• "You Have Wiped Israel Off the Map!" Clash on French TV As Pro-Palestine Speaker Tries to Gaslight the Fact that Her Palestine Logo Has Made Israel Vanish

• This war is like few others because the crucial theater is underground; Hamas is often underground, the Israelis are often aboveground, with Hamas seeking to position civilians directly between them 

 • A Gary Varvel cartoon on the current Middle East crisis and the truth about its roots

You can also listen to Dennis on this topic at his fireside chat.

Hundreds of French Charlie Kirk Fans Commemorate the TPUSA Founder's Death by the Seine River

Erik Svane, blogueur, et le chat Jixie en renfort du trumpisme français, 
Paris, 19 septembre 2025 © Wilson T

Will France end up getting a Turning Point Paris? asks Causeur's Lucien Rabouille hopefully as hundreds of right-leaning Frenchmen and Americans (plus one cat hailing from the Swiss Alps) flocked to the Lafayette statue on le Cours de la Reine by the Seine Friday to pay homage to Charlie Kirk (my photos at the bottom of this post; merci à Sarah pour le hyperlien).

In the words of a Frenchman, Causeur's Lucien Rabouille:

On Friday, September 19th, at 6 p.m., the statue of La Fayette, located a stone's throw from the Place de la Concorde and the Grand Palais, was feeling less isolated than usual. At its feet, around 500 participants had come to pay a Trumpian tribute to Charlie Kirk, the young star of American conservatism assassinated on September 10th in the middle of a speech. 

Halfway between a Trumpist liturgy and a Protestant revival, the atmosphere was decidedly American: star-spangled banners, a minute of silence, prayers, speeches punctuated with biblical references, quotes from Burke and Tocqueville… All punctuated by the American anthem, regularly performed by an Italian singer already in demand during the NBA tournament in Paris.

Organized in the urgency of emotion, the rally brought together the entire galaxy of French Trump supporters, familiar with Charlie Kirk's videos long before his assassination made him an icon of global conservatism. Philippe Karsenty, former deputy mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine and spokesman for the Comité Trump France, was among those who took turns at the microphone, followed by Kate Pesey, director of the Tocqueville Fellowship, which "perpetuates the intellectual legacy of Alexis de Tocqueville" by sending promising young people each year to discover the American political model. …/…

American Bible Culture and the Spirit of "I Am Charlie"

In France, politics and religion are readily separated. That evening, the right had tuned into American time and blurred the boundaries. Feminist activist Marguerite Stern, fist and rosary raised, spoke of Charlie Kirk's "martyrdom" and invoked his "mystical" presence, while drawing thunderous applause for Donald Trump's decision to classify Antifa as a terrorist organization. Randy Yaloz, for Republicans Overseas (an association that brings together expatriate members of the Republican Party), recalled Kirk's taste for tough debates—the young man had made confrontation in hostile academic terrain his trademark. One speaker recalled that Moses, who began his career as a stutterer, had to learn to speak well to convince Pharaoh: "One sharpens one's arguments better when ideas are confronted." 

 ... A singular syncretism: a touch of America's Bible culture mixed with France's Voltairian spirit. 

A Turning Point à la française ?

Franco-American Nicolas Conquer, master of ceremonies, actively disseminates the ideas of the American right in France. With his easily identifiable style and language, he has become the face and voice of French Trumpism since the 2024 elections. In his closing remarks, he called for Charlie Kirk's fight for freedom of expression and conservatism to be revived in France. Is there a need to consider a French-style Turning Point USA, named after the political platform founded by Kirk? From the podium, Conquer praised Kirk's ability to raise funds and disrupt traditional media. 

... Across the Channel, the project has already resonated with Turning Point UK. Why not here? "The sooner the better," confided one participant. "We need to organize ourselves," says Nicolas Conquer, who sees the GOP as a model of political organization capable of inspiring French and European right-wing parties, which are often too centralized and incapable of launching vast platforms for disseminating ideas.

"What if the best tribute to the deceased wasn't to extend his fight and his role model in France?" Lucien Rabouille ends by asking in Causeur. Among other media also present were Frontières and Europe 1. 

Just in case you think of this as an entirely positive event, understand that the ceremony was held outdoors precisely because, in spite of dozens of phone calls from Republicans Overseas France (whose members were instrumental in organizing the event), it was impossible to find a single church, protestant or catholic, which would accept to hold a ceremony inside their walls. ROF organizers were looking to approach a synagogue when word came that the Paris préfecture had agreed to allow the ceremony to be held near the Grand Palais.

Speaking of synagogues: Incidentally, Kirk — whose name means Church in Scottish and the Scandinavian languages (not in German, Don Trump Jr, where it is Kirche, although it obviously derives from the same root word origin) — vowed, after discussions with Dennis Prager (of The Rational Bible fame), to honor the Sabbath and its Jewish customs (no phones for 24 hours, etc…) every Saturday.

Florian et Laurent, Canadiens, familiers de l’Amérique du Nord ont sorti 
l’outfit trumpiste pour l’hommage à Kirk. Photo: Lucien Rabouille 
In the background, far left, sporting a MAGA cap: ROF's Paul Reen

Lucien Rabouille dans Causeur :

Vendredi 19 septembre, à 18 h, la statue de La Fayette, située à deux pas de la place de la Concorde et du Grand Palais, s’ennuyait moins que d’habitude. À ses pieds, environ cinq cents participants étaient venus rendre un hommage trumpiste à Charlie Kirk, la jeune star du conservatisme américain assassinée le 10 septembre en plein discours.

À mi-chemin entre liturgie trumpiste et revival protestant, l’ambiance était résolument américaine : banderoles étoilées, minute de silence, prières, discours ponctués de références bibliques, citations de Burke et de Tocqueville… Le tout rythmé par l’hymne américain, régulièrement interprété par une cantatrice italienne déjà sollicitée lors du tournoi de NBA à Paris.

Organisé dans l’urgence de l’émotion, le rassemblement a réuni toute la galaxie des trumpistes français, familiers des vidéos de Charlie Kirk bien avant que son assassinat n’en fasse une icône du conservatisme mondial. Au micro se sont succédé Philippe Karsenty, ancien adjoint à la mairie de Neuilly-sur-Seine et animateur du comité Trump France, puis Kate Pesey, directrice de la bourse Tocqueville, qui « perpétue l’héritage intellectuel d’Alexis de Tocqueville » en envoyant chaque année de jeunes gens prometteurs découvrir le modèle politique américain. …/… 

Biblisme américain et « Je suis Charlie »

En France, on sépare volontiers politique et religion. Ce soir-là, la droite s’était mise à l’heure américaine et brouillait les frontières. La militante féministe Marguerite Stern, poing et chapelet levés, évoqua le « martyre » de Charlie Kirk et invoqua sa présence « mystique », tout en faisant applaudir à tout rompre la décision de Donald Trump de classer les Antifa comme organisation terroriste. Randy Yaloz, pour Republicans Overseas (association qui regroupe les membres du Parti républicain expatriés), rappela le goût de Kirk pour les débats difficiles – le jeune homme avait fait de la confrontation en terrain universitaire hostile sa marque de fabrique. Un orateur rappela que Moïse, bègue à ses débuts, dut apprendre à bien parler pour convaincre Pharaon : « On affûte mieux ses arguments dans la confrontation d’idées. » 

… Singulier syncrétisme : un brin de biblisme américain mêlé à l’esprit voltairien français.

Nicolas Conquer, maître de cérémonie a eu l’occasion de 
rendre hommage à Kirk sur les médias ces derniers jours. 
Et si le meilleur hommage rendu au défunt n’était pas 
de prolonger son combat et son modèle en France ? 

Un Turning Point à la française ?

Le Franco-Américain Nicolas Conquer, maître de cérémonie, diffuse activement les idées de la droite américaine en France. Par son style et son verbe facilement identifiables, il est devenu depuis les élections de 2024 le visage et la voix du trumpisme hexagonal. Dans sa conclusion, il a appelé de ses vœux à reprendre en France le combat de Charlie Kirk pour la liberté d’expression et le conservatisme. De là à envisager un Turning Point USA à la française, du nom de la plate-forme politique fondée par Kirk ? À la tribune, Conquer a loué la capacité qu’avait Kirk à lever des fonds et à bousculer les médias traditionnels.

 … Outre-Manche, le projet a déjà trouvé un écho avec Turning Point UK. Pourquoi pas ici ? « Le plus tôt sera le mieux », confie une participante. « Il faut nous organiser », assure Nicolas Conquer, qui voit dans le GOP un modèle d’organisation politique capable d’inspirer les partis de droite français et européens, souvent trop centralisés et incapables de lancer de vastes plateformes de diffusion d’idées. 

In front of Paris's Lafayette statue

Along le Cours de la Reine on the right bank of la Seine in Paris

The Eiffel Tower on the horizon

 

As they walk by, two Eastern Europeans ignore 
the Fuck Kirk letters that some locofoco has 
printed beforehand on le Cours de la Reine

"Being right-wing kills" or, alternatively,
"Being right-wing is a deadly endeavour"

Two American ex-pats join the commemoration

A French woman has taken the Left's 2015
"I am Charlie" sign and added "Kirk" on the bottom

Echoing TPUSA itself, many attendees and speakers
hailed from youth organizations of French students
unhappy with the left's dominance of culture and institutions

The al-Durah affair is the greatest media manipulation of modern times: "There is nothing more dangerous for the Jewish people and Israel than left-wing Jews"

To a question by Valeurs Actuelles magazine's Pauline Darrieus, Philippe Karsenty answers why the al-Durah affair is so important. Valeurs Actuelles:

The al-Durah affair is the greatest media manipulation of modern times; it had a global impact and acquired historical significance. Since the broadcast of the France 2 report on September 30, 2000, a worldwide jihad has been launched against the Judeo-Christian West. 

The Second Intifada was ignited by these images; Bin Laden used Muhammad al-Durah to incite hatred before 9/11; Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl was murdered in Pakistan in 2002 in front of a screenshot of the France 2 report. The entire Arab and Muslim world commemorates the "martyrdom of little Muhammad" with streets, schools, monuments, and stamps bearing his image. 

Until France 2 admits to having staged the broadcast on September 30, 2000, this affair will have to be revisited to uncover the truth. This must be done for history, in the same way that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were demystified or the innocence of Captain Dreyfus was established; this is what Pierre-André Taguieff explains in the dossier of the magazine Causeur of February 2026. 

When asked by the Epoch Times newspaper's Etienne Fauchaire why so many famous Jews in France rallied to the defense of the state government television's hoaxers (merci à Sarah pour l'Instalien), Philippe Karsenty gives an answer that Dennis Prager has mentioned in the past about Jewish non-believers through the centuries and through the millennia: 

As for these Jewish figures, they are first and foremost left-wing before they are Jewish. And there is nothing more dangerous for the Jewish people and Israel than left-wing Jews. They are the ones who have led Israel to its worst defeats, to its worst compromises. They are the ones who got one of the worst American presidents toward Israel elected: Barack Obama. They are the ones who got the Islamist Zohran Mamdani elected mayor of New York… Left-wing Jews are narcissistic masochists, corrupt financially or intellectually.

 … This affair illustrates the profound bad faith of the left and its conspiracy-minded cronies who claim that the French press is serving "Zionist propaganda." In reality, from France Télévisions to Le Monde, including Libération and L'Humanité, the overwhelming majority of the media landscape adopts, on the contrary, an obsessively hateful stance towards Israel, as everyone could see after the massacre of October 7th. … Leftism is a mental illness!

Indeed, Pierre-André Taguieff goes on to say, in Il était une fois Pallywood in a special issue of Causeur, that the misleading images of "little Mohamed," with their antisemitic undertones, are akin to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and the Dreyfus Affair.  For the inventor of the concept of "Islamo-leftism," "the al-Dura lie has become a mythical banner of the media war against Israel and the Jews." As for the numerous journalists who chose to disseminate them without critical distance, they reveal the devastating corporatism of their profession.

In any case, Israel itself is lucky — as is the world — that over the decades, the country's inhabitants turned away from the leftist direction, and rediscovered its religious roots. See Dennis Prager's notes for Deuteronomy 4:28 (pages 57-58), where he mentions Jewish non-believers through the centuries and through the millennia in his Rational Bible books, Jews who were lured by other, secular, religions (among them Karl Marx): the founder of Prager University explains "What Happens When Jews Abandon God."

(This post ends here and now: the rest below is the original French version)

Reportage sur la mort supposée d’al-Durah : « C’est la plus grande manipulation médiatique des temps modernes », analyse Philippe Karsenty par Pauline Darrieus :

L’affaire al-Durah est la plus grande manipulation médiatique des temps modernes, elle a eu un impact planétaire et a acquis une dimension historique. Depuis la diffusion du reportage de France 2 le 30 septembre 2000, un djihad mondial a été lancé contre l’Occident judéo-chrétien.

La seconde intifada a été embrasée par ces images, Ben Laden a utilisé Mohamed al-Durah pour inciter à la haine avant le 11 septembre, le journaliste du Wall Street Journal Daniel Pearl a été égorgé au Pakistan en 2002 devant une capture d’écran du reportage de France 2. Tout le monde arabo-musulman commémore le « martyr du petit Mohamed » avec des rues, des écoles, des monuments et des timbres à son effigie.

Tant que France 2 n’aura pas admis avoir diffusé une mise en scène le 30 septembre 2000, il faudra revenir sur cette affaire pour obtenir la vérité. Cela doit être fait pour l’Histoire, de la même façon que les Protocoles des Sages de Sion ont été démystifiés ou l’innocence du capitaine Dreyfus a été établie ; c’est ce qu’explique Pierre-André Taguieff dans le dossier du magazine Causeur de février 2026.

« Le faux reportage de France 2 sur l’affaire d’Al-Durah témoigne de l’hostilité des médias contre Israël » : Philippe Karsenty interview de Etienne Fauchaire :

Quant à ces personnalités juives, elles sont avant tout de gauche avant d’être juives. Et il n’y a pas plus dangereux pour le peuple juif et Israël que les Juifs de gauche. Ce sont eux qui ont conduit Israël aux pires défaites, aux pires compromissions. Ce sont eux qui ont fait élire un des pires présidents américains vis-à-vis d’Israël aux Etats-Unis : Barack Obama. Ce sont eux qui ont fait élire l’islamiste Zohran Mamdani à la mairie de New York… Les Juifs de gauche sont des narcissiques masochistes, corrompus financièrement ou intellectuellement.

 … Cette affaire illustre la profonde mauvaise foi de la gauche et de ses affidés complotistes qui affirment que la presse française serait au service d’une « propagande sioniste ». Dans les faits, de France Télévisions à Le Monde, en passant par Libération et L’Humanité, l’écrasante majorité du paysage médiatique adopte au contraire une ligne obsessionnellement haineuse envers Israël, comme chacun a pu le constater après le massacre du 7 octobre. … Le gauchisme est une maladie mentale !