Free Republic

Review: How the Byzantines Saved Europe Posted by JOHN COURETAS on MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 2009 The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Edited by Elizabeth Jeffreys, John Haldon, Robin Cormack. Oxford University Press (2008)Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire by Judith Herrin. Princeton University Press (2008) Ask the average college student to identify the 1,100 year old empire that was, at various points in its history, the political, commercial, artistic and ecclesiastical center of Europe and, indeed, was responsible for the very survival and flourishing of what we know today as Europe and you’re not likely to get the...

While the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding was good cinema, it was also a big fat Hollywood fiction.  With Greece's fertility rate of 1.36 children per woman  -- well below the replacement level of 2.1 -- "big" is not a modifier demographers would associate with today's Greek families.  In fact, a more accurate film might be called My Big Fat Muslim Wedding.  Worse still, Greece is no anomaly.  Long ago the cradle of Western civilization and more recently one of its backwaters, it's now part of a phalanx of Western demographic failures.  In fact, while it may seem counterintuitive...

A student group that bills itself as "America's right wing youth movement" focused on countering radical multiculturism, socialism and mass immigration is causing a stir on a growing number of college campuses across the country. The ultra-conservative political group Youth for Western Civilization is currently organized on at least seven university campuses. According to its Web site, the group hopes to inspire Western youth on the "basis of pride in their American and Western heritage," counter and ultimately defeat "leftism on campus" and create a social movement in which a right-wing subculture is an alternative to what it calls a...

ritain is leading the way (and has been for quite some time as I point out here and here) for the rest of Europe in committing cultural suicide. This is but just the latest example of Britain’s rabid determination to break one of the most distinguishable and binding links to their former greatness and hegemony in the Western World. Of course, they are not alone. Several other countries in Europe seem just as eager to pass out the razor blades. I wonder what C.S. Lewis would think of his country today? Probably something along the lines of this, “A man...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Critics say the freedom to criticize Islam in Europe has been put in jeopardy after Dutch politician Geert Wilders was banned last week from entering Britain because of his attacks on Islam. But while the controversial politician may have failed to enter the United Kingdom, the Dutch public has rallied around Wilders, and support for his party has exploded.

So the inevitable has now come about in the teetering civilisation of Europe, and it has happened first in the Netherlands. One of the supposedly most liberal societies on the planet wants to criminalise someone for telling the truth. The BBC reports that Dutch Freedom Party MP Geert Wilders is to be put on trial ‘...for for inciting hatred and discrimination, based on comments by him in various media on Muslims and their beliefs’...In March 2008, Mr Wilders posted a film about the Koran on the internet, prompting angry protests across the Muslim World. The opening scenes of Fitna -...

From The Times January 22, 2009 President Obama's first call 'was to President Abbas' President Obama placed the Middle East at the forefront of his first hours in office yesterday as he sought to make good on his promise of “ushering in a new era of peace”. In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, he reached out to leaders in the region and vowed to engage immediately in pursuit of a permanent Arab-Israeli settlement. The spokesman for President Abbas revealed that Mr Obama had told the Palestinian leader that their conversation was his first with a foreign...

President Obama placed the Middle East at the forefront of his first hours in office yesterday as he sought to make good on his promise of “ushering in a new era of peace”. In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, he reached out to leaders in the region and vowed to engage immediately in pursuit of a permanent Arab-Israeli settlement. The spokesman for President Abbas revealed that Mr Obama had told the Palestinian leader that their conversation was his first with a foreign statesman since taking office. Mr Obama also spoke to President Mubarak of Egypt, Ehud...

You are a freshman university student on the first day of a philosophy course. Your professor poses this ethical dilemma: A devoutly religious man is shooting at you with an AK-47. He is determined to kill you and your family. Is it moral to shoot back? Before you answer; consider that he is shielded by his pregnant wife and three young children. Ordinary Israelis know what any undergraduate not suffering from a death-wish intuitively appreciates - namely, that human beings should not intentionally injure other human beings but may sometimes need to resort to violence to keep themselves and others...

The world must be wondering, 17 days into Operation Cast Lead, why it is taking so long for Jerusalem to cave into pressure for a cease-fire in Gaza. From the UN Security Council, that renowned bastion of international probity, and the constellation of Muslim, Arab and non-aligned states to our unwavering European allies, the international community - and much of the media - wants Israel to stop fighting. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Gabriela Shalev and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a Security Council meeting about the situation in Gaza, UN headquarters in New York, Tuesday. Photo:...

Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday. The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.

The war of aggression waged by Hamas, against which Israel has commenced a robust response, must not be seen in a vacuum. Hamas is an agent of radical Islam's revolutionary jihad. Israel, the "little Satan," is a proxy of Western modernity. The conflict in Gaza is merely the latest round: a continuation of the war which flared up during the summer of 2006 and which rages still in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and other theaters. So what can the big Satan do to help? Obviously, we are not going to contribute military force. We already subsidize Israel's defense, and,...

Israel’s Worst Fears Its U.S. ambassador says the big threat is that Iran has almost enough fuel for its first nuclear weapon. NEWSWEEK Jan 12, 2009 Sallai Meridor has been Israel's ambassador to the United States since 2006. During that time, his government's main strategic worry has been Iran, and that remains so today despite the fighting in Gaza. Israel warns that Iran is making rapid progress toward a nuclear bomb—Meridor calculates that Tehran should have enough fuel for its first bomb sometime in 2009—and that Israel will take military action unless the United States and other allies step in.

Good evening!We're down to the last few days of the Bush Presidency. Who among us doesn't have some concern about our nation's security in the months ahead? And will those who criticized the President so constantly on this front not come to recognize the margin of safety he gave us?Israel continues to destroy Hamas terrorist sites and agents in Gaza,sadly, much to the world's apparent dismay and loathing.

Israel's continued offensive in Gaza - now in its third week - is drawing many Palestinians in the West Bank to support Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. They accuse the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of not doing enough to defend the Palestinians of Gaza.

Prague - Twenty years following the fall of communism the Czech Republic is at EU's helm. But so far the EU member states have failed to agree on the form of the EU constitution. Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, the head of the Czech Roman Catholic Church, is adamant that behind the failure to adopt the euro-treaty is the absence of what Europe feels natural about - Christian values. "When the Irish said No to the Lisbon Treaty, they said it because the European Union and Lisbon Treaty have dropped the Christian roots," said Cardinal Vlk in an interview for Aktuálně.cz. Cardinal...

Mideast: Proponents of a French-Egyptian plan for a cease-fire in Gaza say it might stop the fighting. But for any chance at peace, Hamas must be defeated decisively.The idea behind French President Nicholas Sarkozy's plan was to call an immediate cease-fire to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza — which Israel did — then to hold urgent talks to stop the violence. Israel, with reservations, agreed; Hamas, however, rejected the idea. Don't worry. Israel will get blamed. Watching the world's reaction as a small nation surrounded by enemies defends itself from attack is a sickening thing. Along with celebrity Israel-haters such...

From The Times Israel acts because the world won't defend it The scenes from Gaza are heartbreaking. But the whole conflict could be avoided if the Palestinians said one small thingDaniel Finkelstein It was strictly forbidden to have a notebook in Belsen, but my Aunt Ruth had one anyway. Just a little pocket diary - an appointment book with one of those tiny pencils. And in it, in the autumn of 1944, she noted that Anne Frank and Anne's sister, Ruth's schoolfriend Margot, had arrived in the concentration camp. My mother and my aunt had been watching through the camp...

A Prophecy Fulfilled Fr. Stanislas de Lestapis, a French Jesuit, died in 1999 at the age of 94. He had been a member of the Papal Commission on Birth Control and was one of the signatories of its so-called Minority Report. He had published a book on Birth Control, of which the third edition appeared in 1962, long before Humanae Vitae (1968). In Chapter 7, on The Contraceptive Civilization, he made the following bold prophecies: 'We do not hesitate to say that the acceptance of contraception will produce profound changes in our civilization. These changes are already taking place in...

The Israeli war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza begs the question: what should a sovereign state do in response to terrorists? Well, we could listen to anti-Israel words. Or we could listen to deeds. For example, we could look at how Russia dealt with its Islamist threat in Grozny. In the mid-nineties, Russia basically shelled the city until it turned to rubble -- killing 27,000 Chechens. Oh -- and that was just one of three Russian attacks on the city. You can tool around on Google maps, satellite view, and still see flattened areas of the city. I'm sure the...