AND SO IT BEGINS? SHARIA LAW IN BRITAIN?

A beth din is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system in the Land of Israel. Today, it is invested with legal powers in a number of religious matters (din Torah, "matter of litigation," plural dinei Torah) both in Israel and in Jewish communities in the Diaspora, where its judgments hold varying degrees of authority (depending upon the jurisdiction and subject matter) in matters specifically germane to Jewish religious life.

Litigation

In Jewish Law, Jewish parties are forbidden to take their civil disputes to a secular court and are required to have those disputes adjudicated by a Beth Din. The London Beth Din sits as an arbitral tribunal in respect of civil disputes and the parties to any such dispute are required to sign an Arbitration Agreement prior to a hearing taking place. The effect of this is that the award given by the Beth Din has the full force of an Arbitration Award and may be enforced (with prior permission of the Beth Din) by the civil courts. At a hearing before the Dayanim, the parties do not require legal representation although they are allowed to have legal or other representation.

To commence a Din Torah, write to our Beth Din providing us with your name, address and daytime telephone contact numbers together with similar details for the proposed defendant(s). You should set out the facts of the case and the relief that you are seeking from the Beth Din. The application should be accompanied by a deposit cheque for the sum of £80 payable to USKB. On receipt of your application, provided that the facts as stated by you give rise to a prima facie case, the defendant(s) will be summoned to a hearing before the London Beth Din.

So here......red flags? Or no big deal?

I'm one of those old-fashioned immigrants to this country who feels passionately grateful, is proudly British (as well as Irish - having been born in Dublin), and believes that immigrants have more duties than rights.

And, further, that one of those is to adjust to British society rather than expecting it to adjust to them.

However, one aspect of contemporary British society which I refuse to adjust to is its weakness in the face of the enemy within.

In my many conversations with like-minded people about the threat that radical Islam poses to the British way of lifen - and, indeed, to European civilisation - we frequently end by despairingly agreeing that the West seems intent on committing political and cultural suicide.

When we look starkly at the demographic statistics, the wimpishness of our Establishment in the face of the threat, the perversions perpetrated by political correctness and our own passivity, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that within a couple of generations, Islam will be in control in Europe.

And before anyone says that there would be nothing wrong if this happened, since the vast majority of Muslims are tolerant people who would not dream of interfering with our way of life, it's necessary to point out that in Muslim countries, it's usually the radicals and extremist mullahs - who regard tolerance as a vice - who make the running.

This occurs too in microcosm in Muslim ghettoes around Europe: we saw the frightening fundamentalist fringe of Islam marching, threatening and perpetrating violence over the publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed in Denmark while the majority of Muslims - who, yes, of course, are tolerant and decent - kept their mouths shut and stayed at home.

Yes, Islam may be a great religion. But in its fundamentalist version, some of its values are antipathetic to ours, and if they triumph in Europe, they will threaten our values such as freedom of thought and speech and the spirit of intellectual inquiry that made European civilisation great and prosperous.

The danger of ending up like those poor, despotic and medieval Islamic states in which millions live miserably is a prospect that Christians, Hindus, moderate Muslims and non-believers should be uniting to prevent. But the truth is that we are doing little to stop it.

Consider first at a few chilling statistics. Europeans are failing to reproduce. Just to keep the population steady, you need 2.1 live births per woman.

However, in 2005, the European average was 1.38. In Ireland it was 1.9, France 1.89, Germany 1.35 and Italy 1.23. Britain scored in the middle of this range with 1.6, but that was because - like France - we have a large Muslim population with a high birth rate. Indeed, Muslims are outbreeding non-Muslims throughout Europe.

"Just look at the development within Europe," said a triumphant Norwegian imam a few months ago, "where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children. Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

WHOLE ESSAY HERE

It is not fair for you to lump all Christians together. The great majority of Christians are peace-loving and compassionate. The fact that there are some Christians that are violent and hateful doesn't mean we should defame everyone who is called Christian.

Christian fundamentalists (of the type I am talking about) are an American invention that started in the mid 1800s and are unlike any Christian group before them (although there are other extreme Christian groups in history, but these are not relevant to modern American Christianity).

These are the groups that fueled by a violent hatred of gays, blacks and immigrants... funded hate speech, subverted laws, infiltrated government institutions, stacked juries, acted as unjust judges, opposed civil rights and started lynch mobs.

I suppose there are a couple of lines here-- we need to completely reject and prosecute any use of violence, and as a society we should denounce as completely unacceptable any group, Christian or otherwise, that spouts hatred or incites violence.

But in a free society, I have to accept the rights of any flavor of Christian since they are citizens with equal rights to myself. This means that they have the same right as I do to be politically active and to engage in public debate.

Foofie, Of course I haven't forgotten about the Know-Nothings. They are a perfect example of the the people I am talking about.

They were Christian extremists who, in addition to mandating Bible readings in schools, preached hatred of immigrants and Catholics, subverted the justice system and advocated violence.

What's your point Foofie, are you saying that maybe the Know-Nothings weren't so wrong after all?

... and Quran teachings don't hurt non-Muslims.

What's the point?