Author: Dennis Prager

President Obama declared in his recent address to the nation that “ISIL is not Islamic.” But how does he know? On what basis did the president of the United States declare the a group of Muslims that calls itself “Islamic State” “not Islamic”? Has he studied Islam and Islamic history and concluded that ISIL, Boko […]

Last week, it was revealed that between 1997 and 2013, at least 1,400 girls — in just one relatively small English city (Rotherham, population 275,000) had been raped by gangs of men over the past decade. As summarized in a British government inquiry: “It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that […]

As a talk show host, I have no choice but to keep up with what’s happening in America and the world. I am therefore submerged in depressing and often angering fare. It is hard to read about and discuss the progressives who dominate American media and academia who morally equate Israel and Hamas; who describe […]

My father, Max Prager, died last week. Here are some thoughts on the death of a parent. 1. Longevity Parents who live long are very lucky. Not only for their longevity, and not only because they get to see their children grow into adulthood, and not only because they may see grandchildren, but for all […]

Two weeks ago, the British medical journal, Lancet, considered to be one of the world’s leading medical publications, published “An open letter for the people in Gaza.” Signed by four European doctors on behalf of 20 others (17 from Italy and three from the United Kingdom), the letter had virtually nothing to do with medicine. […]

In order to justify killing Jews, Jew-haters throughout history made up libels about the Jews that were so awful that they justified, at least for the Jew-hater, the mass murder of Jews. The charge that the Jews of every age — not just some Jews at one time — killed God Himself was used by […]

When I was a graduate student at Columbia University’s Russian Institute, there was a great debate: Was the communist Soviet Union an organic Russian development or was it largely a cancer imposed on it? Those who held the organic view argued that the change from czar to commissar was only one of degree. Both were […]

Let’s drop the names “Hamas” and “Israel” and make a list of the characteristics of two imaginary warring entities. We’ll call them Entity A and Entity B. Entity A: –Declares that its raison d’etre is to annihilate Entity B. –Sends missiles to explode in the most populated parts of Entity B in order to kill […]

On page 563 of his latest biography, “John Quincy Adams: American Visionary,” author Fred Kaplan (biographer of Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Gore Vidal among others) cites this insight of the sixth president: “Christianity had, all in all, he believed, been a civilizing force, ‘checking and controlling the anti-social passions of man.’” That […]

Given how much evil there is in the world; given how many signs of moral, intellectual and economic decline there are here in America; and given the increasing irrelevance of America to world events, it is fair to ask why the American Left is preoccupied with the name Washington “Redskins.” The Washington Redskins have been […]

Last week, during the official celebration of the Los Angeles Kings winning the Stanley Cup, the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, told a jammed Staples Center that “there are two long-standing rules for politicians . … They say never, ever be pictured with a drink in your hand and never swear. But this is […]

Pope Francis said something so important last week that it will either be widely ignored or widely disparaged. The pope criticized “these marriages, in which the spouses do not want children, in which the spouses want to remain without fertility. This culture of well-being … convinced us: It’s better not to have children! It’s better! […]

No day passes without a Democratic politician, a left-wing commentator, or, if I may be excused a redundancy, a left-wing academic labeling Republicans and conservatives racist. Given the power of repetition, one consequence is that many Americans, especially young ones, believe that one side of the political spectrum — the right — is racist. Having […]

Last week, on my radio talk show, I received a call from Jeff, a 21-year-old in North Carolina. I have abridged it and edited it stylistically. JEFF: I wanted to respond to your question about America being feared in the world. You brought up Syria. I think it’s a little naive, and maybe that’s not […]

Most conservatives, and just about all independents, have a huge misperception of the left. They think that the gulf between conservatism and leftism is primarily about means, not goals. This perception is wrong. It is their goals that are irreconcilable. And until conservatives, independents and the Republican Party understand this, it will not be possible […]

Last week, Oklahoma authorities botched the execution of a murderer named Clayton Lockett. The execution by lethal injection took more than 40 minutes. According to witnesses, he twitched and gasped and said, “oh, man” after officials had thought he was unconscious.  Opponents of the death penalty outdid one another in expressing their outrage. It was […]

A private recording of racist remarks by the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, in a telephone conversation was released last week. Among other comments, Sterling said to his former mistress, a black Mexican woman known as V. Stiviano: “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with […]

When Americans over the age of, let us say, 45, look at any of the iconic paintings of America’s Founders — the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the signing of the Constitution, George Washington crossing the Delaware, any of the individual portraits the Founders — what do they see? They see great men founding […]

In his column last week, Charles Krauthammer crossed a line. He declared the American left totalitarian. He is correct. Totalitarianism is written into the left’s DNA. Krauthammer wrote about a left-wing petition “bearing more than 110,000 signatures delivered to the [Washington] Post demanding a ban on any article questioning global warming.” He concluded: “I was […]

In 31 years of broadcasting, and 40 years of writing, I have never advocated a boycott of a product. Quite the opposite, in fact. During the 2012 presidential campaign, when the left attempted to destroy Chick-Fil-A for its owner’s views on same-sex marriage, I suggested on my radio show that the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, […]

As I have often noted, the most dynamic and influential religion of the past hundred years has not been Christianity, let alone Judaism, the two religions that created the Western world. Nor has it been Islam. It has been Leftism. Leftism has influenced the literary, academic, media, and, therefore, the political elite far more than […]

Last week, Pope Francis warned Italy’s Mafia leaders that if they continue their evil ways, they will go to hell. Hooray for the pope. More power to him for threatening evil people with hell. I had begun to despair that in my lifetime I would hear such talk from mainstream Christian or Jewish leaders. For […]

Next week, the film “Noah” opens. Having taught the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) from the Hebrew for more than 40 years (hundreds of hours are available by download through my website), I consider the biblical flood story one of the world’s most profound moral teachings. As I will show, it means that God […]

I am writing this column from Cameroon during my sixth trip to Africa. Having travelled to some 20 African countries, I find myself, like so many other visitors to Africa before me, intoxicated with the continent. And I am not referring to the animals, as much as I have been enthralled by them during safaris […]

If there were as many “fiscal conservatives” as there are people who claim to be, it is hard to see how Republicans would lose as many elections as they do. One frequently hears this political self-identification: “I’m socially liberal, but fiscally conservative.” Or, “If the Republicans weren’t conservative on so many social issues, I would […]

On March 31, 2011, the opening day of baseball at Dodger Stadium, four San Francisco Giants fans, all paramedics, were there to cheer on their team.   As they left the stadium, in the parking lot, one of them, Bryan Stow, was attacked by a Dodger fan, who hit him so suddenly and with such […]

In 2006, 57 percent of Virginia’s voters voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Last week, U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen ruled the amendment unconstitutional. In 2004, 76 percent of Oklahoma’s voters voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the […]

Federal prosecutors have announced they are seeking the death penalty for Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, murdered three people and wounded more than 260. In addition, they shot a Boston police officer to death. In keeping with what the citizens of progressive Massachusetts consider to be progressive values, the […]

In his State of the Union address, on four occasions, President Barack Obama mentioned the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq coming to an end: 1. “And in tight-knit communities across America, fathers and mothers will tuck in their kids, put an arm around their spouse, remember fallen comrades, and give thanks for being home from […]

In both personal and public life, you can know a great deal about a person or a group if you know what most bothers them — and what doesn’t bother them. A news item this past week made this point with glaring clarity. It reported a meeting that the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human […]